Lessons from the Amazon Jungle: Part 1
I thought I was going to the Amazon jungle to see what lessons I could pull out of it. After calling a small tambo (jungle hut) home for the last few weeks in Eastern Peru, it’s really more what lessons the jungle pulled out of me.
Off the grid with little running water, no power, no talking, one or no meals a day with no salt or seasoning and dry fasting (no water) for certain periods has a way of twisting your mind and bending your soul to pull out of you an ageless wisdom that the jungle has forever known but many of us who live in relative comfort have simply forgotten.
I was with an indigenous group called the Shipibo at a place called Shipibo Rao (different and more intense than last year) to learn from them and practice what they call a dieta — a diet. But not a diet in the Western sense of the word. A diet that strips all unnecessary substances from your being (and I mean all of them — not even water can touch your skin during certain periods) to focus on a few sips of a bitter tea made from a particular tree bark. With no distractions and the heat and humidity of the jungle descending upon you — they say the tree you’re “dieting” literally teaches you.
It’s been a massively meaningful experience and an incredibly hard one at that. Two things that naturally go hand in hand. It’d be selling the entire experience short to say I had a list of things I’ve learned. What I’m taking home with me can’t make any list and there aren’t words that do it justice. And yet, since we don’t have a few days to sit down together to share and discuss the whole experience, there are a few things that I found to be the most meaningful and important takeaways which I’ll share with you here over the coming weeks.
Words alone leave these ideas perilously insufficient — what I’m sharing with you here isn’t another arrow of information to put in your quiver of knowledge. They’re ideas to sit with. Question for yourself. And reflect deeply on what it means for you.
Do you accept (or surrender to) what is?
What is, is. Period. You can fight it, resent it, condemn it, judge it, avoid it, ignore it, resist it or survive it, but what is, is. And if we can find a way to accept it — surrender into it — what is still is, but we’re brought more present to deal with it in the world and inside ourselves.
10 days into my two weeks of the dieta, I had had enough. Finished. I was ready to throw in the #NoMatterWhat towel and leave. The weather must have been over 95 degrees with 100% humidity. I was 50 hours into one of the dry fast periods and every fiber of my being screamed stop. I can’t take it anymore. The precious few minutes of power I still had saved on my phone I spent looking at pictures of family and loved ones — wishing only to be with them (and for a cold drink).
And I started to formulate a plan in my head. How I could get out of the jungle early, find my way to the airport and catch an early flight home to Denver, Colorado (naturally, with the best excuses in the world for why I had left early).
The heat wore on. The thirst grew. And the wanting seemed to pull at every fiber of my being.
And then it happened.
I cracked.
The intense emotions of not having the comforts of home (or any real comforts to speak of) was too much for me to bear and the emotions came pouring out of me. Everything I wanted, wished for and arguably needed — was not to be.
And in letting go – totally – a dramatically renewed peace and acceptance filled my entire being. I realized that I did want to complete the mission and all the condemnation I had about the situation was holding me back. I would have been disappointed if I had bugged out early.
Before that moment I hadn’t realized that slowly wishing things to be different than they are had started to cloud my vision. I started to believe the thoughts, the reasons and the excuses. I was in a fight with “what was”. When I surrendered and gave into it — there was a new lease and renewed spirit to continue on. A contentment set in, if you will, in place of the resistance, frustration, condemnation etc. for me to instead embrace exactly “what is” .
That resistance, denial and even anger about how things are is a tricky one. And you don’t have to sweat it out starving in the Amazon jungle to see it. In many companies I’ve worked with they want their culture to be different. They want their team to be better. They want themselves to be better. All things there are things we can do something about. But what is, is. And unless we come to terms with what is, surrender to the present situation, it will cloud our thinking and judgment. And actions taken from clouded thinking of judgment just simply won’t give you the result you ultimately want.
So… Do you completely and totally accept what is?
It’s really something to think through, meditate on and reflect about.
I’m going to keep these lessons from the Amazon going for the next of couple weeks. If you haven’t yet followed me on Instagram and my new TikTok account (don’t expect to see me dancing on it, at least not yet, haha ). I’ll be posting pictures and stories of my time in Peru for you to check out. If you have questions about this blog, my trip in general, or if you’re crazy enough to want to look into doing something like this yourself (this isn’t a beginners hunting discomfort experience, I promise you), DM me on any of the socials.
There will always be things we can do to create change. Change ourselves, support others in changing and making an impact on the world around us. We need to do those things. But first, we must come to terms with what is. And from there, there’s no change you can’t make.