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One month.

In 30 days I fly to Costa Rica for a 7-day ayahuasca retreat at Rythmia. I’ve written about why I’m going and how Rythmia found me. This post is different. This is the honest inventory of where my head is with 30 days left, and exactly what I’m doing between now and then.

I’m writing it as a before and after. Everything below is the before. After I get back, I’ll come into this same post and add what actually happened next to each fear, each prep step, each expectation. One page. The full arc. So if you’re reading this after November 15, scroll for the “after” sections. They’ll tell you what held up and what didn’t.

Let’s start with the part I’d rather skip.

Rythmia Before and After: 1 Month Out, My Fears and Full Prep (Review Coming)

My Fears, One Month Out

I’m not going to perform calm I don’t feel. Here’s the real list.

1] Snakes

I am terrified that I’m going to see snakes during a ceremony. I’ve read enough accounts to know this imagery shows up for people, and something about it unsettles me to my core. If you know, you know.

2] The unknown

It’s not any one thing — it’s everything I can’t predict. I don’t know what’s going to come up, and I don’t know how it’s going to affect me until I’m already in it. There’s no way to prepare for what you can’t see coming. And for someone who likes to be ready, and loves full control, that’s hard.

I’m a rule-follower to a T. The idea of handing my nervous system over to a plant for hours, with no steering wheel, is the thing I circle back to at night.

3] Dying

I’ll just say it plainly: I’m afraid of actually dying. Western culture has a way of telling us that this is a real thing that can happen with Ayahuasca. That it could be so intense my body won’t come back from it. This is the rawest one, and it’s the fear sitting underneath all the others.

Do make note, though [and I remind myself of this every time the thought comes into my mind]: I’m going to do this at Rythmia, which is the world’s first medically licensed facility for the journey. I KNOW I’ll be just fine. It’s hard to not have the thoughts pop up, though.

4] That nothing happens

The quieter fear underneath the loud ones. What if I do all of this and don’t get whatever it is I’m driving toward.

5] What comes up

I have things I want to release. I also know that “wanting to release” something and actually facing it in ceremony are not the same, and I don’t get to pick what surfaces.

I know there are more fears in me that I can’t even name yet. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe some of them won’t surface until I’m there — until the medicine shows me what I’ve been carrying all along. If that’s the case, I’ll come back and tell you.

By the way, MOST people are afraid of the purge. I’m not super concerned with that. I have come to just accept that I’ll probably throw up and/or have different ways of purging. Back in my yester-years I used to drink a ton and throw up, though, I never once re-thought the idea the next time I’d want to go out drinking. So to be extremely concerned with that now feels very LOL to me. But I guess I’ll find out.

What I was actually afraid of vs. what happened

Come back here to read my full update once I get back. Click HERE to save this post as a reminder to do so.

The Connection to A Gutsy Girl

If you’ve been here a while, you know my whole stance on gut healing: it’s not another diet or another supplement, it’s the lifestyle you commit to for the rest of your life. I healed in 2018 and never looked back, because I got serious about the whole picture, not the quick fix.

This is that same principle, taken somewhere I’ve never gone. I believe the nervous system and unprocessed emotion are foundational to real health. I’ve said that for years. Going to Rythmia is me finally doing the foundational work I’ve written about instead of writing around it.

Also, because I’m curious. I’m curious about how much my mind can endure when my body might play tricks on me.

Exactly what I’m doing from now until then

Here’s the full prep, month out to wheels up.

1. The RLife app

Rythmia gives every guest lifetime access to the RLife app. It’s best known for the 13-week integration program you do after you get home, but there’s a prep side too.

Through the app, here are all the things I’m actively doing:

A. Prepare modules

They have a ton of modules for preparation. Literally, the FIRST day I got access to the app, I watched them through in their entirety.

B. The Weekly Live Sessions

They do a weekly live session with Dr. Jeff McNairy. I already did the first one this past Monday.

C. The Dieta

This is the pre-ceremony diet, and it’s the most concrete part of my prep. Some of it is spiritual tradition carried down through Amazonian ayahuasca practice, and some of it is hard biological safety. Ayahuasca contains MAO inhibitors, so high-tyramine foods can actually spike blood pressure and cause real problems near ceremony. The food rules aren’t vibes. They’re the same category of caution as the medication rules.

Here’s Rythmia’s timeline, and what it means for a coffee-and-protein person like me.

👉 Two weeks out (starting Sunday, October 25): Cut red meat, pork, and heavily processed foods. Start pulling back on caffeine. Pork and alcohol are the two to drop completely and first.

I already cut the alcohol, and I rarely eat pork. Because of my gut health background, I barely ever eat processed foods either. So really, for me, this will be cutting all red meat, fully cut any processed foods, and slowly pull back on caffeine.

👉 One week out (starting Sunday, November 1): Simplify further. Lean proteins, mostly vegetables, whole grains. Minimize salt and spice. Water all day.

All of this I’ll need to do. I will also cut to 1/2 cup coffee per day. Dr. McNairy just said on the live this week that going cold turkey isn’t necessary.

👉 Final 48 hours (starting Friday, November 6): Very light and easy to digest. Vegetable soup, steamed veg, simple grains, fresh fruit.

👉 Ceremony day: Light breakfast or lunch, then fast at least 4 hours before ceremony.

Foods and substances to avoid through the whole window:

• High-tyramine foods: aged cheeses, cured meats, fermented foods, soy sauce, red wine
• Alcohol and recreational drugs
• High caffeine
• Highly processed food and excess sugar
• Red meat and pork

What they want more of: fresh vegetables (steamed or light), quinoa, brown rice, oats, legumes, white fish or organic chicken, non-acidic fruit, and herbal teas like chamomile and peppermint.

I’ll be honest about my two caveats. Coffee is going to hurt, which is why I refuse to go to zero. And cutting most meat as someone who leans on protein is going to take real planning. I’m a rule-follower, so I’ll do all of it. I just reserve the right to be dramatic about the coffee.

Did the Dieta change the experience?

Come back here to read my full update once I get back. Click HERE to save this post as a reminder to do so.

D. My Daily Routine between now and then

Rythmia asks for more than food changes. The prep guidance is essentially a nervous-system down-regulation: less stimulation, more stillness. Here’s what I’m building in.

• Screen and social media reduction. This is the one I’ll feel. The guidance specifically calls out doom-scrolling as the thing that keeps cortisol high and makes it hard to drop into the quiet states the work requires. This one actually isn’t that hard for me because social media is hardly even “social” anymore, and truth-be-told it annoys me more than anything.
• Daily walk outside. Non-negotiable, even short. I have had this built in already for a long time.
• Meditation. Short and consistent beats long and sporadic.
• Journaling. I’m writing down what I hope to release, so I arrive with intention instead of scrambling for it in the maloca. By the way I bought myself the coolest journal for this process and experience. Check it out.
• Sleep. Protecting it like it’s part of the medicine, because it is. But also, I’ve been doing this already for years because….gut health and healing.

E. My packing list

I’m trying to reel this one in because I don’t want to bring too much. That said, I also want to be prepared.

Clothes

• Loose, comfortable layers for ceremony nights (it gets cool, and I want zero restriction). My best friend is going with me and she already got us both a pair of super comfortable white pants.
• A few sets of light daytime clothes for the heat
• Yoga and movement clothes
• Swimsuit for the saltwater pool and beach trips
• A sweater or wrap for evening. I’ll likely bring a few because I get cold easily.
• Sandals and one pair of closed shoes

Ceremony and comfort

• The journal I mentioned above
• An eye mask
• My LARQ water bottle
• A small blanket

Practical

• Headphones
• Sunglasses
• Bug spray (reef and body safe)
• Sunscreen
• Basic toiletries, kept simple
• Cash for the on-site ceremony payment and tips

Other Things I’ve Done

Here are some other things I’ve done to prepare:

1. Read books and listened to podcasts galore. I’m not saying this is good, bad, or otherwise. But I have done it. Because I want all the perspectives.
2. Talked to someone who’s been there. I met an incredible woman through my Instagram who has been there. She reached out to me. She has been to Rythmia 4 times. And in her words, “The most life changing week of my ENTIRE life.” She’s been super helpful!
3. Ordered Jack Canfield’s new book, “Ayahuasca for the Soul.” I don’t have this yet, but cannot wait to get it.
4. Put aside my personal list of intentions. When I first decided to go do this, I began thinking of all the intentions. But recently, I’ve decided to go in with just the intentions Rythmia puts in place:
   1. Show Me Who I’ve Become: Designed to provide self-realization, helping you see the stories, defense mechanisms, and patterns you have adopted over time, while reframing internal contradictions and personal growth hurdles.
   2. Heal My Heart: Focused on emotional release, forgiving past traumas, and letting go of resentment or grief that may be blocking your capacity to love and connect.
   3. Merge Me Back with My Soul at All Costs: Aimed at spiritual reintegration, helping you reconnect with your authentic self and sense of purpose, often described as a feeling of coming home to who you truly are.

What I expect vs. what I’ll find out

I’m setting my expectations down now, in writing, before I go. So that when I come back I can’t quietly rewrite them.

I expect to be terrified on night one. I expect at least one ceremony to be physically hard. And I expect to cry. Finally, I expect, maybe naively, to come home with an understanding of the three intentions from above.

What I Actually Found Out

Come back here to read my full update once I get back. Click HERE to save this post as a reminder to do so.

In case you feel the pull, too

I’m going November 8 to 15, 2026. I checked the calendar, and 11.11 lands on a ceremony day, which for me is not a small thing.

I would highly doubt there is any room left for that week, but in case you’re feeling the same pull I felt since 2019, you can pick your own date here. If you want to understand it before you commit, watch The Reality of Truth first.

Check back after November 15. I’ll be adding the after to this exact post. The real version, including the parts that don’t make a clean caption.

Xox,
SKH

Disclosure: I’m attending Rythmia on a media trade, and the links above are affiliate links. If you book through them, I earn a referral fee. Telling you up front, because that’s how I do things here.