[00:00:06.650] - Nathan Maingard

Welcome back to we are already free the podcast inspiring DownToEarth seekers and free people to live their truth and be the change. Here you'll find vulnerable, informative and authentic conversations with epic humans who are leading by example. Have you noticed that fighting against what you don't want just creates more of it, while leaving you drained of the energy you need to give to the things you actually care about? Are you ready to grow a more beautiful world with the people you love? If so, welcome home. This podcast is for you. Today's episode will be of service to you if you ever feel like a victim of the things that happened to you, rather than the empowered master of your own awareness and choices. Our guest is Medicine Woman enthusiastic human and new friend Sarah Ladyfrog. She takes us on a deep dive into the warrior empowerment of the frog medicine called Kumbo. If you don't know what that is. Combo is a ritual named after the poisonous secretions of the giant monkey frog found in the Amazon jungle. The secretion is humanely gathered from living frogs, and when applying this medicine, burns are made on the person's skin and the Combo is applied directly to that.

[00:01:23.680] - Nathan Maingard

It's a very physical, very intense, deeply healing experience. I've worked with Combo five times since 2009 and every one of those experiences has been incredibly challenging, healing and ultimately empowering. Perhaps I'll tell you the story sometime about how it first arrived literally in the room I was living in and I had no idea what I was about to get into. Listen to this episode to learn more about this medicine and overall, more about what it takes to be an empowered, peaceful warrior, to meet life with grace, courage and the freedom of knowing that you always have a choice. We discuss Sara's journey from divorce, drug addiction and alcohol abuse to her path of healing herself and now supporting others in healing. She shares the story of Amazonian children, how they taught her to wash clothes while also watching out for crocodiles. We share and discuss why we could all do with more near death experiences. We ask the question and explore what is a real safe space. And near the end, we discuss how to be a healer and the answer might surprise you. And you guessed it, as always, there is so much more.

[00:02:34.320] - Nathan Maingard

And Sara really is open in sharing beautiful stories and amazing inspiration around her journeys with this powerful medicine of Combo. I'm your host, Nathan Maingard, and my name, Nathan, simply means gift. As a highly sensitive person in an insensitive society, I was nearly crushed trying to fit the mold that that society just calls being a good citizen. Now I help others like me to embody their true selves through this podcast inner life skills, coaching breathwork ice bars, creating empowering songs, stories and poems and basically just sharing and supporting in whatever ways feel most resonant with you and your own actual beautiful, unique self in a powerful medicine vision. Some years ago, I was shown that all I really need to do is shine the gift of my light into this world and ask for the support that I need to keep doing that. This podcast is a huge part of that offering, that gift that I'm here to bring and it takes many hours of loving labor each week. Please become a patreon member to energize my work directly, access bonus conversations with guests, connect with a global community of like minded people, enjoy unreleased poems and songs and much more.

[00:03:49.080] - Nathan Maingard

Previously I was thinking of and looking at how to create a full kind of online community and I've realized that for now, my energy feels so much better aligned with really just focusing on creating beautiful, powerful things like this podcast and my poetry for you to enjoy and then offering support and community through the Patreon. So please do check that out. You'll find a link to that in the show notes. As always, you can find the show Notes for this episode at alreadyfree. Dot me forward slash 23. That's already free. Dot me forward slash 23. And now please enjoy this community funded conversation with the wonderful Sarah Lady Frog. Beautiful. This is awesome. I'm very excited. So yeah. Welcome Sarah. Welcome onto the we are already free podcast. And as I said, just excited to enjoy this conversation with you, see where it takes us, see where it leads. And I guess starting off to say thank you so much for your medicine journey and for your holding space with the medicine, specifically with Combo in this case, because getting to sit with you was a week ago now. It was such a good medicine, I really, really needed that and I nearly didn't come, but I'm so glad that I did.

[00:05:11.490] - Nathan Maingard

So please just to open share with whoever's listening a little bit about yourself, who you are, what brings you to this moment and anything that feels important.

[00:05:20.380] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah. Thank you, Nathan. And to say that I also right now feeling really good because I experienced your medicine breath and ice bath and wouldn't want to be anywhere else on a Saturday here today with you. So thank you. And in regards to me, well, I come from Spain, but I've been a nomad traveling the world for seven years now. I actually chose to stay here in South Africa. So I always say like the frog and the toad and me are very happy here. So this is where I am going to root and I've been walking the path with Combo now for six years. It all started with my own healing, like it does with most of us, right? You have to make sure you can heal yourself and know what that medicine does with you. Or that technology I like to call them now more technologies, nature's technologies, what they do for you so you can really fully believe. Because for me it's really important, the inner wisdom and that you can only get it through experience. They can tell you you can read, but when you experience it within yourself, there's no doubt.

[00:06:34.790] - Sara LadyFrog

Nobody can make you doubt yourself or what it does. And that's been my journey with it. It's been experiencing a lot for myself and I continuously do it till today. But then, so I can hold space for others and really be in that full trust and to know what it does, what it's capable of. Right?

[00:06:57.940] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:59.990] - Sara LadyFrog

Please. Yeah. I started the journey with Combo in Spain and from a very big transformation with Combo that I had, the person that facilitated me said have you thought of facilitating Combo? And I was like, maybe yeah. I don't know. I really never thought I would be where I'm at right now. And the journey started when I was traveling. It really unfolded very naturally. Ended up in the Amazon jungle in Aquitos. And two days after, they said, the chief of the Matsus tribe is here. Would you like to come and have breakfast with him? I was like, sure, I would love to. When I was sitting there with him, he said Would you like to come and learn Combo? You just need to buy a few hooks and fishing hooks, machetes, some rice and you're welcome to stay with us. So I'm a woman that is open to opportunities. I mostly always will be like, why not? That's a model of life I have, is why not? So I got to live with them for a few weeks. And not only about Kamboy. It was way more than that. I feel that one of the things that impacted me a lot was when we were walking into the jungle and showing us all the herbs, the healing herbs.

[00:08:20.910] - Sara LadyFrog

He noticed that I was wearing sandals and he said to me that if I wanted to really learn to be like in commune with nature first one of the first things is to learn how to walk in the wild with your feet. Because he was saying you people that come from the west, you're very unbalanced. And when you go into such a dense nature it will attack you in a way, it says, but it means it's a rebalancing because it says that we are so unbalanced that things start happening. Like you get spider bites or snake bites or you fall or you scratch yourself. He says it's all that is like nature attacking you. So that made me really think about it. And that's when I started to practice as well to walk barefooted. So it was not only about come with about really realizing that, oh my goodness, we're so disconnected. And the mats is tried. The lineage I work with, they are very warrior hunters. They're very grounded and for them, Combo is part of their lives. It's always been there. So for them it's like, yeah, combo. Not talk too much, but just receive it.

[00:09:32.390] - Sara LadyFrog

And it's very also some people can think it's very romanticized to go and live with the tribe. It's actually a very harsh environment. And you can understand why they have combo. There's a lot of like a lot of I don't know what's the word right now in English, but it's very hostile. That's the word I was looking for. So Combo gives them strength. They understand that if they go hunting for a few days they serve themselves. Combo, they don't need to eat much, they don't need to sleep much. They get a lot of stamina, focus, fearless. And it's a great tool for them. But they even use it like for children. Children, they were the ones that taught me the most. They taught me the language. They taught me how to go and wash the dishes after lunch in the Amazon River and watch for crocodiles if they were coming. And three or four year olds would tell me like yeah, I asked for Combo. And they have a dot and they would explain how it goes. Wow. It blew my mind because I was like, okay, so children also can have combo. Wow. And they give it to children because if they see that they're very lazy or they're very whiny they sleep too much or they get sick too often, they get combo.

[00:10:49.150] - Sara LadyFrog

Even women as well for pregnancy. They can determine if it's a boy or girl with a Combo session to see if it's a strong test. They're so entrust that they don't fear losing the baby. So they will have a combo session. And if they do lose the baby, then that wasn't a strong baby or strong pregnancy. So it also helps them in that way. So it really widened my perspective of it because I just thought as adults or when you're sick, you can have it when you're really in a bad space. But it has so much more to Combo than just that. It's just a tool, a technology that can help you in various ways.

[00:11:32.350] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah, that's full power. So interesting you say around the whininess because I relate to that, I feel like and being sort of lazy and honoring my own journey of my own the traumas that I had and the nervous system state that I've lived in. But I definitely have spent a lot of my life avoiding discomfort and just being like and complaining and being like why is this all happened to me? And I just hope it was. I'm depressed. And all of that was true. It was all labels that were identities that were true in their way. But it didn't help me. And I think that's why this last experience with Combo was so different for me because I have been showing up in a whole different way. Dedicated even failing again and again but still stepping up again and again as well. Every time I fall down, when I can stand up again. And even in the journey, I was worried beforehand, I said to you, like, oh, I'm worried I might faint. I'm feeling quite dizzy today. And you said something to me then. You were like, Brother, you're a warrior. You've got this.

[00:12:26.930] - Nathan Maingard

And that was just so what I needed to hear, because that's the energy that I've been practicing now. And I've had this feeling of the warrior energy. What is the warrior one who takes action and who does courageous things and steps into the fire for the people in service? And so, like you said earlier, I've really experienced the difference from Combo when I first started with Combo, and I was, like, lying on the ground crying like, I'm dying. This is the end. I wish these people don't care about me. Why are they leaving me here? To now being able to sit and just be like, thank you, thank you. Let's go. I'm in, I'm here, I'm with it. So I really resonate with that.

[00:13:02.780] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah, I really appreciate you mentioning this, because that's what I feel that Kumble brings. I say it's a warrior medicine, but if you say warrior to fight? No, not to fight. To show up and to say, Bring it on, I can hold this, I can do this. And I feel also, Kumble does that. It's like there's two algorithms in the body that I feel it awakens, which is the warrior algorithm, the peaceful warrior, in a way, and the healing algorithm. It wakes up those algorithms in the body so they can function again fully.

[00:13:37.350] - Nathan Maingard

That's so beautiful. I've spoken with so many people who say that Combo is like, they're more scared of Combo than ayahuasca than many other big medicines. And I would have said exactly the same, and I'm obviously in deep respect to it. And since that journey, I've I'm sitting here, there's a big part of me that's like, wow, I can't wait to sit with Combo again. Like, what an honor that will be.

[00:13:58.780] - Sara LadyFrog

So, yeah, my journey has been a lot of that, like, finding my own practice, even though I was initiated with the Matsis tribes and in 2018 with the IKP, which is the International Association of Combo, practitioners from the US. Actually, a British lady funded this to protect the facilities. And so we had a space where we could just feel guided and protected. And it was more like Western approach, where they taught us contraindication safety psychology. So I felt very whole with that. But then from there, I also have been continuously applying myself to learn from the medicine. And I like what you said, because that is I feel like my purpose with Kamo is to really bring it in a way that people can be like, oh, I understand. It is a beautiful medicine. It's discomfort, like I always say, divine discomfort, but it brings so much goodness, and some people just stay with the memory of the uncomfortable that the suffering that they felt they were experiencing, and then they don't pay attention to what it brings. And then I'm never going back to Kambo, and my practice has been that advocate of, like, no, combo is beautiful medicine.

[00:15:21.890] - Sara LadyFrog

Come experience it and understand it with me and through your own experience, really. But it's the way I practice it, the way I hold space, is to not cause more trauma, but to just be there holding and saying, it's okay, you can do this. No, I'm just that mirror of reflecting back, that warrior, like I said, you're a warrior because it's reminding. Oh, actually, yes, I have. And sometimes we forget many things, and we need that's why we need relations, right? Relations reflect us back what we either don't want to see or what we just forgot and we need to remember. That's how I feel about it. Yeah.

[00:16:03.970] - Nathan Maingard

I think was the part of the difference is also that you soften the entry where it's like you're not all the way in all at once, and you really are there with everyone so strongly. And I love that how I really resonated with that. When you said that, your teacher said to you, be with the people, like, you've got to be there 100% with whoever's in this process. And I really felt that, and I resonated because that's how I feel, doing this with breathwork and the ice baths, and it feels like the only thing to do. Why would I be doing something else? It would feel so wrong. So, as you said, the warrior energy of just that gentle, I'm here, you're safe. It's like, okay, I can let go. It's cool. So, yeah, thank you for that.

[00:16:43.970] - Sara LadyFrog

Yes. Because Kamal is a very physical experience, even though it works at a metaphysical level as well. But we have to be focused on what's happening there in the body. And sometimes people can lower very much their blood pressure, their color can change, the breathing can change. Sometimes people faint, and it's okay. It's a very powerful reset, actually. I've experienced it myself, and I understand what it's for. Some people need that on and off of the router that I call. So you have to be present observing the physical, even though it's really going to work as well. Like I said, the metaphysic goes into the cellular level and pulls out ancestral information or whatever is there that is ready to be released. It doesn't serve you anymore. And then when you purge, it comes out in the physical, which that's why I find it's a very safe medicine for people who are holding severe trauma that may be going too soon into psychedelics. Could be very overwhelming to return to those experiences in a visionary state. With combo, you can work through them physically. So it's through the purge. It sounds it's just like a big pull because literally, you see the contortion of people when they're purging.

[00:18:09.010] - Sara LadyFrog

You can literally see how it's it's pulling a root, a very deep root, and it needs push. And then you purge so the person doesn't have to really know what it's up to. Sometimes they can have a remembrance, sometimes memories come up, it's just the feeling, the emotion, or just the purge itself. And I find that it's a very good entry point to the medicine world as well. And then go to the rest, even to do Combo before any other ceremony, it just clears the path, clears the heart, the mind, resistances, fears, and you're way more open and positive and just relax into the other medicines.

[00:18:48.690] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah, that makes total sense. Obviously, you had a journey to come to Combo. Would you be open to sharing a little bit of, like, what were your challenges that you were facing that caused you to step into medicine work?

[00:19:03.440] - Sara LadyFrog

Well, my path was hitting rock bottom through very traumatic for me. It was traumatic in the heart, separation with my ex husband and heartbroken, and also severe, like drug addiction. I was addicted to all, like, designer drugs, chemical drugs, and then also alcohol, antidepressants, to go to sleep and just I hit rock bottom. And there was a point where a voice inside of me was like, this is because of you. You need to change. There's no other way. And I remember a friend mentioned about this plant that you vomit and you shit, I need to do that. So I searched and I ended up in Africa, about all places to do it, that removed the root cause of my drug addictions. And in two ceremonies, I did not go back ever again to them.

[00:20:00.130] - Nathan Maingard

Wow.

[00:20:01.070] - Sara LadyFrog

And then six months later, I did my third Ayahuasca, and I met a guy and he said, I'm going to do my combo session. And I just insulate. My whole body was like, what is that? I need to do that. So I did my first combo, my three combos, which I'm very grateful for at that time. Ape Chimbau is a soul brother I really love and respect. He told me, you should do your three sessions within the lunar cycle because it goes deeper and you're in a process. They were very powerful, very strong. I was like each process, I was an hour and a half purging, but I just bloomed. I felt the connection. I had a Kundalini awakening, everything transformed. And what I understood of that is that, yeah, Ayahuasca removed the root cause, but Kumble cleansed my vessel fully from the drugs were still there. The toxins were still there, the toxicity, they were still there. So Kumble pulled all that out. So there was a very complete healing that allowed me to become conscious and just reconnect with my spirit, in a way. And I just felt very comfortable with it. And then from there, two more sessions.

[00:21:19.440] - Sara LadyFrog

And then I was in Peru.

[00:21:21.770] - Nathan Maingard

It's like that.

[00:21:22.540] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah, your dharma. When it's your dharma, it opens up. And I never considered that. And then after the training with the Mud, since I was like, six months, just applying on myself, okay, to learn to sit with it on my own, to not have fear and to listen to it, because it speaks to me. It even speaks to me through my work. I say, Come teach me through my work, because I don't need to learn hard lessons through my practice if I listen right. So examples would be I remember there's a period of time where I was applying seven dots to men, five dots to women, and I was speaking with other practitioners who were in a more traditional way, and they were saying like, no, that's too much. You don't need to put so many. So at that time, I did have a bit of self doubt because it's the beginning. So I was like, maybe I'm doing it wrong. I said, Come and teach me. So the next women that were coming, I would apply three. And then it was never enough, I had to put two more, so it's five. And I was like, okay.

[00:22:26.720] - Sara LadyFrog

Thank you. Like there's many stories I can tell you where it's just it's very easy to you just have to be aware, humble, and know that the medicine knows best and just be very attentive to all the subtleties because it's speaking to you continuously and also through my own experience. Because then I can be like, oh, I would really like this right now. I would really like somebody to do this for me right now. And just through my own vulnerability and extreme processes and initiations. Because with IKP was another level with Campbell, like, removing any type of fear of death with the medicine through a rite of passage, taking as much medicine, apply as much medicine as you can take, and that makes you really bond with it. You're one with it, so it speaks you very easily, even through feelings.

[00:23:19.640] - Nathan Maingard

Sure. That sounds like an amazing experience to go all the way to the edge. I think that's one of the things that's missing in modern society is the kind of initiatory practices that actually have the risk of death, or at least take us to the feeling of the risk of death. And I mean, I know traditionally there often would be initiatory practices where if you weren't strong enough or enough of a warrior, you couldn't surrender that death was an option. And I think that in a way, we missed something by hiding from that kind of stuff. And I know for sure with Cumber, the first time I was sure that I was dying, I was 100%. And that's when I got the release, was when I finally when I was lying on the ground, couldn't breathe, everything's closed. I'm like, this is it. They just left me here and I'm dying. And then I actually remember just saying, oh, I'm dying. And I just stopped fighting it and I just went okay. And I let go. And immediately I was up purging and at least and I felt so much better. So that's powerful to go through that.

[00:24:14.700] - Sara LadyFrog

And didn't that after that didn't allow you to live more fully.

[00:24:18.780] - Nathan Maingard

100%. Absolutely. Like we talked about earlier with Permaf where he says you have to die once a day to really live with the ice buds. But then I love what you're saying around like this last time. Again, only speaking from my own experience but with Combo where every time it got more intense, I would say yes, please and thank you, Combo. Thank you. Please come in, come in. Combo like, thank you. And it was such a different way as before. I was like no, that's enough.

[00:24:44.090] - Sara LadyFrog

Stop.

[00:24:44.590] - Nathan Maingard

No, I'm done, I'm done. Combo is not interested in that.

[00:24:50.730] - Sara LadyFrog

It's very interesting how you say because we just have to alchemize that attitude in everything in life, isn't it? But I also like to say when people no, I don't want to do come on anymore because it feels like you're dying. I'm like, yes, but you can also consider that your body is more alive than ever. When are you going to feel your heart pumping the blood that way and all the energy flushing through you and the tingling and the sweating and the heat and the cold? Like your body is so awake in that moment and it's just expanding and contracting and releasing. Wow, what an experience.

[00:25:29.430] - Nathan Maingard

So just on a sort of practical level, because one of the things I think about and I would love to hear your thoughts is obviously this medicine has become so popular and so many of these jungle medicines thank you jungle. Thank you mother for all these gifts. And one of the things I worry about a bit or have some concerns about is how much of this medicine is having to come out of the jungle to support us all in our healing. Obviously, Combo comes from the back of this frog and these pieces. So what do you think about that? How do we navigate responsible relationship with these medicines that are coming directly from life and that come from resource, from life itself? Yeah, I'm just curious about that.

[00:26:09.640] - Sara LadyFrog

So Combo, before the fires that happened in the Amazon jungle not that many years ago, it was very abundant because it lives high up in the trees and when they have their eggs are in like a sack that's hanging from the branches in the trees. So when they hatch, they fall directly in the water. So it was very abundant because it also doesn't have predators. Any animal that tries to eat the Combo frog has an experience spits it out. So they were very abundant. It was thousands upon thousands upon thousands of frogs and it was abundant. The issues here is the way that they're harvesting the kambo. Its money is trans, changing the tribes, and they are becoming greedy. So they don't respect maybe the timing that the frog has to fully secrete again the toxin. And also that's more that they don't respect it. And I would say that one, we know about it. You know the call, there's a call, you feel it, you know it. The second one is like people tend to it can become opposites, are the same. So the addictive pattern, it's very rare with combo, but the addiction is to feeling good afterwards or to not really sit and integrate, because then you integrate the medicine, it can serve you for a long time.

[00:27:45.510] - Sara LadyFrog

But I would say that now it is a bit more an issue because of the fire, so there's less but I would say it's also that consumerism, if you really know when it's your time and when it's your call, some people need to work with it long term because they have cancer, they're having health issues. But if not, you can say I'm going to have my yearly cleanse or I'm going to do my three sessions. And then you have come in, you camo speaks to you like any other medicine, then you know when it's the time. So I feel that that's the way it's like listening, listening and understanding. What has the medicine have you actually stopped in the thought like, oh, actually it has worked for me and I'm going to continue because it's also up to us, right? It shows you, it teaches you, but how long are you going to maintain that? So I think it's up to each and every individual to know that personally. This summer I had a dream. I served myself. Kama was in a pretty dark space and it just picked me up from the mud and shook me over like me straight.

[00:28:53.600] - Sara LadyFrog

And it was good. But I had a dream where there was this indigenous, big indigenous woman and she was sitting with a table in front of her and I was in the dream, I'm very just like procrastinating and I'm not even paying attention to what is happening there. And suddenly something catches my attention. I look at her and there are these frogs, like in a fairy tale, coming from the ethereal, floating, turning their bellies, how do you call it, looking up. And this indigenous lady pulls the medicine out and they float and turn into gold. And I woke up crying. And what I understood is it was teaching me we alchemize like this is the sacrifice, but we also alchemize that sacrifice. So my belief is that every time the human consciousness is ready for a breakthrough or a certain medicine, it is released in the consciousness to come to us. Of course, there is also that part of human nature where we just take and take and take and that's. A reality and we can only each one of us make it conscious to another if we can and also trust that everybody is in their own journey.

[00:30:17.910] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah. You reminded me of a story I heard once which didn't make sense to me at the time. But it's starting to make more sense a little now is that people tell stories of seeing that the fish sometimes will jump out of the lake into the eagle's claws like as the eagles coming down. That there is this sense of sacrifice in life where if we can really be in it, there is a meeting that life meets death, and death meets life and everyone's involved in it together. It's not a victim or a persecutor status. That's the natural cycle that that being is in at that time. And I think that's very challenging to the Western mindset because we are always.

[00:30:58.040] - Sara LadyFrog

Right or wrong, good or bad. And nature itself is quite a thing like what you say where it teaches us. And also I believe the combo helps with this victim mentality to remove ourselves from being victim and say I can hold myself. And then I always say to people what you went through in this process, take it back to life. Because many I see they're going so scared but UN whining and complaining or crying and then in the middle of the process I already see that something wakes up in them and sometimes they come again to Combo and it's completely different. They're there like yeah, bring it on. And I try to remain it. You see how you're sitting today? Have you noticed? Because that's important is do we notice what comes out of whatever process we do in whatever medicine?

[00:31:54.690] - Nathan Maingard

Yes. I had a conversation with a friend recently that really stayed with me. I think it might have been even just before the Combo. It might have been the Sunday before. And she said something about how in a way our adult self can hold our child self and then I had this realization in a way and she might have even said this, I can't remember. But our back can hold our front. So like the back being of a spine, the straight, the warrior and the arms and then we can come energetically forward and hold the heart, hold the throat, hold the body. Like, I'm here. And then I very much felt that in the journey when I was sitting I felt the strength of my back. Yeah, your posture the posture was like Phew, I'm holding, I've got this. And then that allowed the other parts to soften and feel safe, the front, the delicate parts to be like oh, we've we've got the structures in place to hold us.

[00:32:48.550] - Sara LadyFrog

Boulderability is a big piece in Combo to allow us to be vulnerable. And sometimes I tell you even I've not been able to sit straight and be that warrior but I also allowed myself to say, actually, there's a part of me that's also crumbling right now and I'm just going to throw myself on the floor. So it's a dance as well because sometimes we can tend to be like, I'm a warrior, I'm strong enough. And actually what we need is to.

[00:33:16.430] - Nathan Maingard

Be like, oh no, I can't just gone.

[00:33:18.400] - Sara LadyFrog

But still, being that person is still showing up. I feel it's important. And you have vulnerability and you're in a state, in a physical state where it's overwhelming the sensations, but I don't feel they're like a suffering. It's just a discomfort, but it allows everything softened. And that's when the release is able to happen, like you say, the softening parts to stop pretending to be so strong.

[00:33:48.750] - Nathan Maingard

I really appreciate you saying that because that's been me as well, from the one side to the other. First, my experiences with actually meeting medicine or anything was, I don't want to do it, it's too hard, and collapse, collapse. And then the opposite of like, I am the master. Full. Amazing. I'm just going to hold this so tight. Actually, my last mushroom journey with the mushrooms, I was doing that so intensely, I was sitting literally cross legged on the bed. I had my hands in mudra and I was like, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And it was so intense. And then someone actually hit a gong, like louder than they intended in the ceremony and I didn't even hear the sound. All I felt was the energy break and the release and I just collapsed backwards and just suddenly I was, it's just me, the human little person like everyone else was human.

[00:34:35.060] - Sara LadyFrog

Oh, God. Thank God.

[00:34:36.060] - Nathan Maingard

A relief of that story. So I really appreciate that reminder that both sides are out of balance. Either, oh, I'm so wrong, or they're like, oh no, it's moving between them. With grace.

[00:34:51.630] - Sara LadyFrog

We can hide maybe from others or whatever, but we cannot hide from the energy, from the consciousness, from spirit or whatever. So they know when you're in these processes that just had to happen, you could let go. The same with Combo. Combo knows where everybody is at. And I always say, for me, people cannot hide in Kamo. You can see how they live their lives. So it will bring it up. It's a great revealer. And if he knows that you're very in ego, not people who are very in their ego, like tough, like tough. I'm going to do this. No, most, like, I would say 98% of the cases, it knocks them down, like knockout, like, you know, they're either they faint or something like that. Hectic happens, but it's just to crack a bit, the ego. So it's very interesting that Combo knows it's a very intelligent envy, but I always say it's tough love, but it's love. It really here for your own, for your good. It just wants to clear the path for you. And that means that purge because literally we are in the way. So if it's clouding you an emotion, if it's clouding you a trauma, it will show you clearly.

[00:36:12.320] - Sara LadyFrog

Then of course, some things will always be there and you have to work on them. Just breathe and just be aware because there's a point where I find it's cleansing. And then there's the part where it's like integrating, like being whole and saying, oh, this is me. Okay, well, I can't get rid of you. I just need to make you mine again. Fragmented parts of us. And that's when the real journey also starts. You know that it's going to be there. It's teaching you constantly. And that's what also those self sabotage things that we do. And it's just to really look at it and be like, I make you part of me again. I'll listen to you from now on. I'll see you, I'll hear you.

[00:37:00.630] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah, making space at the table for all the parts makes a lot of sense. I wanted to ask you, you mentioned it earlier before we started recording, but just around because this is one of the questions I had when I first sat with Cambro. The first two times I asked the beautiful man, Maura Santilli, who asked him about death, I was like, do people die from this? So I'd love to hear because I know that's a concern with something that's so intense that many people are worried about what is your experience around that and the safety, et cetera.

[00:37:31.230] - Sara LadyFrog

So, yeah, there is combo is a very intense physical experience, especially for the heart. It can pound really powerfully combo, as I've been taught. The literal words of my teachers were, if you apply Kambo and work with Kambo the way that we have taught you, with humbleness and always listening and listening to the person you have in front of you and listening to the medicine, no one will die in your hands. And with that meaning, one of the rules is like, be very present, be here. Because this is physical. It's in the physical. Don't be meditating trying to bring somebody's soul back or something. No, think through the physical and the safety. There's tools first AIDS. If, for example, somebody would have like a fit, some kind of attack, panic attack, or you have THC oil that you can put rub under their feet to absorb the water is quite of a thing. There's been some deaths of hyponutremia, which is giving too much water. And two liters seems to be like the safe and best quantity. More than that, just before taking Combo, some people have delicate kidneys or the body can't hold it as much.

[00:39:02.690] - Sara LadyFrog

We're all different. That's why I even have not been so rigid. And some people, I say I would say between 1.82 liters or some people at 1.5, I already can see. Like, I see people's faces, see that they can't speak anymore. Their belly is really, I say, okay, it's finished. I try to treat everybody as individual. You can see they can hold it or not. And they're also like, not applying too many dots. First time is you're not going to apply on the heart. Like five dots on the heart. I think there is just being careful in what, you know, that is right and then you can build up from there. I feel that Combo is totally you don't die from Combo just like that. It's either malpractice or the person has had a severe addiction to maybe heroin and they lied or some condition that they hid from the facilitator in Combo. Other than that, I've had, say, 39 dots in less than an hour and a half. And I really like I had a breakthrough and I was like, oh my God, I could take Cambo all day. It's like, you don't die from gamble.

[00:40:23.180] - Sara LadyFrog

It's just beware in your practice. Take care, study the person, ask questions. People have to be honest. That's another thing. We try to be the most transparent and integrity. So you can trust us, but we also have the element of trust in the person that's coming to us. Are you really telling me the truth? That's where we have to develop our intuition and our feeling like, oh, this just doesn't feel right. And don't doubt that.

[00:40:55.890] - Nathan Maingard

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It's a powerful space to be stepping into. I'm not, I think, very different to Combo and ice bars, but there is a certain intensity in ice bars and there are contraindications. And I am starting to see and even with breathwork, there are big contrary indications for certain people. And so it's just what you say is around that intuition of like sometimes I think, go slow, be gentle, it's okay. There's no rush to achieve or reach some place of whatever it is. But I think pretty much everyone I've ever met could do with like, more near death experiences in their lives.

[00:41:34.670] - Sara LadyFrog

We lack a rite of passage and initiation and then we try to find it ourselves, either through drugs or, I don't know, any type of addictions. And what we're looking for is actually that inner self discipline that comes from overcoming these right of passages that make you go more into adulthood each time. I think it's something like that. And what are the contrary indications for ice bath? I'm actually curious.

[00:42:01.040] - Nathan Maingard

It's heart conditions. Okay. Yeah. Height is a big one. There's also one called Ray Nods type two, which is a circulatory condition. Although I've also read people who cure themselves with eyespots so often. I think these contraindications are based on our modern medical system, which is very limited in many ways. So I think sometimes the difference between medicine and poison is the quantity right or the context. And so far the experience that I've had with people is that it's always been positive. And I'm also very clear that when you want to get out, you get out. It's up to you. You're in control. And it's again, like you said, the trust of me, trusting the space. And I loved what you said earlier, to have the experience so that we know, because I actually watched a video by this sort of sex and relationship coach, I think, or something. Anyway, Kylie, my sweetheart, sent it to me. She's like, It's a free video, but I think you'd enjoy this. And the woman was talking about being a coach, and she said, the reality, if you really want transformation for your clients, as a coach, you have to have gone where you want them to go.

[00:43:08.810] - Nathan Maingard

Because then when you're sitting with them, you can watch them and you go, I know you can do this. I know because I've been there. I've done the thing. I've had the expansion. I know what it feels like. And then just that energy of holding is the thing that helps people to feel it's the mirror that they can look into and see, oh, my gosh, that's available for me. That's the big magic I think of that's. What is a real safe space is one that's held in a way that people realize my expansion is way more available. Nathan I was aware of actually.

[00:43:44.070] - Sara LadyFrog

Two weekends ago, a woman, she was saying, I'm curious of working with plant medicine, and I would one day want to hold space and heal people. She asked me, how do you do it? And I was like, well, to be honest, first I don't heal people, I just heal myself. And then I'm that mirror that is possible, and they do it themselves. And I find that that's what's important, really.

[00:44:12.190] - Nathan Maingard

There's a piece there because it can also easily become another ego game around, oh, I'm the healer, so I'm going to go out there and I'm going to heal people. But the reality is, I know it for myself. I was out of my practice earlier this year and things started falling apart. Things got really messy in my life, and it was only when I really recommitted, get onto this deck in the morning, get into my breathwork, and then I started doing the ice bath again. And next thing, within weeks, I was like, whoa, there it is. Now, someone said it recently, which I thought was beautiful. Maybe it was. I think it was you. Anyway, someone was saying that anything that fills the cup is for me, is for the self. Anything that overflows is for the other. So in a way, it's that same thing I've often tried to pour from an empty cup, as they say.

[00:44:58.180] - Sara LadyFrog

I think we've all been through that.

[00:44:59.550] - Nathan Maingard

Though, and it just doesn't because we end up broken. And then now everyone else needs to anyway.

[00:45:07.330] - Sara LadyFrog

And again, we had to learn through experience to really know. And then, you know, okay, I don't need to go back there because I already experienced that. What did I learn from that? Well, then take that into your life.

[00:45:17.960] - Nathan Maingard

Exactly. Yeah. And then it's the word we've been saying a lot. We said at your combo ceremony. And then today, with me, holding the word is an honor. That is actually the key piece, is that when people are saying thank you to me, I'm just like, thank you. It's an honor. I get to sit with you in this beautiful transformation. Hallelujah.

[00:45:42.760] - Sara LadyFrog

I always say there's no chocolate, no man, no party. They can give me what holding space for people gives. Yeah. It's just an honor. I say the same. And it's not easy, you know, it brother.

[00:45:56.860] - Nathan Maingard

It's not easy.

[00:45:57.600] - Sara LadyFrog

But we wouldn't change it. We wouldn't have it any other way. Like I say, I've also been through, like, hectic commas, and sometimes I was like, what the fuck am I doing? But the understanding of what it does, it's my best tool. I mean, cleansing as well. I do have tried to have a daily practice when I can I mean, I move a lot, but when I can have that discipline, it comes every time more and more natural. But at the end of the day, come over for me, I just know how it works, and it clears me. And I'm like you. This experience you had when you were saying that things breath work, it just helps you to understand what it does. And when the intensity was coming like that, you were like, Whoa. But you were kind of witnessing that, and you were just observing it and like, well, I feel the same. I don't feel that discomfort so much. It's just like, it's the power I feel. It's the power of gamble. And always the word I use, and I motivate many people to use it when the mind is like, Why am I doing this?

[00:47:01.910] - Nathan Maingard

I want this to end.

[00:47:02.780] - Sara LadyFrog

Oh, my God. I'm like, thank you. That changes everything because you're doing something good for your body. When do you have time? Or when can you allow the body to just let it all out? Like, that not many. And it's that word of thank you changes everything.

[00:47:24.110] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah. Thank you. It's like when the honey coin in the ceremony, they often say, So allegria, so allegria, only joy. And at first, I was a bit like, I don't understand. I'm here. I always scared. My I'm deep in a bucket and I feel terrible, and all these things are coming up, and then they saw allegria, they're so happy. And then I realized that helped me in those moments of feeling like a victim, to be like, I choose this. I choose this life, literally. So, yeah. So allegria. Only joy. In the depths of all the things, I still get to say thank you. I still get to choose that if I want to.

[00:48:02.430] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah, let joy. He say, yeah. Sometimes we forget, just like now, in the eyes that I had the choice to take out my hand and I forgot. Yeah, sometimes when you're in the intensity, you forget that you have a choice. That's why we have all these tools, I think, to equip us and to strengthen that muscle of remembering. Remember, you have a choice. You are the owner of your reality, of your experience. And each time we can remember quicker and sooner in every moment, not just in ceremony, but in the real ceremony, which is life.

[00:48:38.410] - Nathan Maingard

Exactly.

[00:48:38.900] - Sara LadyFrog

Because sometimes I can also see it in my own journey where I can hold myself really well in processes. But then when out in life, then it's like, oh, I'm very good at medicine, but then relationships or whatever, that's where taking all what's in ceremony to the real ceremony, that's life. And remember that we have to keep open as well. Open and thankful.

[00:49:07.310] - Nathan Maingard

I love that. I'm grateful you said that as well. Because there's that saying how I think ramdas or I'm sure it's been said by many people, but first you sit and you meditate and you meditate, you meditate and you meditate. And then eventually you carry that meditation into the next five minutes of your life after your meditation. And then eventually everything you do is a meditation. That's the process of becoming is that the whole of the life is exactly as you've just said. It is the ceremony.

[00:49:34.390] - Sara LadyFrog

I see it in my life. That the way I can communicate now, or even just breathe, regulate myself breath. And I've been somebody who's been very impatient in my life. I'm very fiery woman, but I can see it's just refinement and I can see it more now. I can hold myself with patience. One thing I see with Kamo is that because we sit with this discomfort, which we all try to avoid, I feel that our nervous system expands. So not only towards the pleasure, but to the uncomfort. And I can feel that in moments of uncomfortable conversation, even though I'm like with you tighten up, I can sit with that. I don't just go and run, don't leave. So it's like you say also do we see that getting not five minutes or ten minutes? Do you see that in your life? And then you're like, okay, then I'm doing it's working. And I'm putting my part because I always say there's percentages of medicine, but then it's us. I mean, I had very few cases, but I've had some cases where they wanted to quit smoking or cocaine. And after the third combo and seeing a pattern, I was like, okay, you're not learning anything here.

[00:50:49.070] - Sara LadyFrog

I've had two people who had to say I'm not going to do combo anymore. Because it was just receive combo and lit a cigarette just immediately after. And I'm like, okay, there's no will. The will is important. So even powerful medicines can do nothing because the person is really not willing to. So it's a big percentage. Both of them are very needed.

[00:51:11.750] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah. The choice is always there. It's growing that will muscle. But as you say, it's the consistency of showing up for those uncomfortable places. There's actually a name for, well, one name for what you've been talking about, which is the zone of capacity. So that our nervous system has that. It's actually called the ventral, part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where we spend most. We should spend most of our time as humans. That's the social connection. It's the height, it's the throat, it's the face. So when we're in this space, we want to connect with other people. We want to be part of something. We feel open, we feel connected. And that, for many of us, has been very small. So I'm safe here. But as soon as something happens, it's outside. It's either full sympathetic activation, I want to get the hell out of here. I want to fight this foot. I want to fight for a run. Or it drops into what's called the dorsal, which is then the give up, surrender. I'm going to die anyway. It doesn't matter. Adam as well, that's more of the depressed, like, depressive kind of states.

[00:52:08.510] - Nathan Maingard

And so through choosing, and this is the thing for each person, it's like, keep going back, basically, and find where your edge is and go just enough beyond the edge every time. Keep doing that, keep doing that. And then over time, what you're doing is growing that middle state of actually just being human, just that comfortable place of like, oh, it's nice to be connecting with you. What a blessing. Here we are, we're safe. I feel good. And that takes time. It takes consistency over time. It's not the big, well, I'm going to go do this very hard thing and then it's all going to be different. The will is a muscle. Grow the muscle.

[00:52:46.830] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah. And one of the things we've come with that I've noticed in myself, many people, is the choices. I've noticed that choices become healthier, become better. And I was like, why is this happening? And I dug deep into the liver. That is where you purge the bile. It comes from the liver. And the liver is one of the most powerful organs. It filters the blood and we don't realize how overloaded it is. And then it can't filter properly. So then you are clouded. The filter is dirty. So when the filter is clean, people tell me, like, they're able to choose more clearly, less doubting, and it's just very clear. Your body becomes even more clear, like, yes, no, and the boundaries, so it's all interlinked. But I feel that that's why it gives so much clarity, because you clean the inner filter and then you think clearly, you see clearly. And it helps a lot in that way. And to just not overthink too much. It's in that warrior kind of algorithm as well.

[00:53:54.890] - Nathan Maingard

I love that. That makes immediate sense to me.

[00:53:57.930] - Sara LadyFrog

It is organ of the action in Chinese medicine. Take action.

[00:54:03.610] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Clean the filter and everything will run clearer. Makes total sense. Sure. Well, thank you so much. Sorry. It's been such a pleasure. So good.

[00:54:19.970] - Sara LadyFrog

Life connected us to many more moments like this.

[00:54:24.780] - Nathan Maingard

I was so close to saying no. I said yes because I was feeling a bit weird and unwell and things, but blocked like energy and maybe the filter needed a bit of a rinse, but whatever. It was like I would like something. And the next day, my friend messages me like, hi, we've got this lady Sara coming and come by. And I was like, oh no, you need not what you want. So I said yes immediately. And then I had such a busy day that day and all these stories of all these things. And I did, I had to change a lot of appointments. But the day before, I went to this little photo shoot at this yoga studio and that friend was there and she was part of the photo shoot and she was talking about every time she would say it, I just felt this like, come on. And eventually I was like, okay, I'm canceling my appointments. I got to be there. And I'm so grateful because how good.

[00:55:12.710] - Sara LadyFrog

You feel that way, brother. Thank you so much, Nathan.

[00:55:18.780] - Nathan Maingard

Thank you so much. I have one more question for you. So I ask this of all the guests on the podcast and you can just really take a moment and feel into whatever comes up for you. The question is, when you hear we are already free, what comes up for you?

[00:55:39.390] - Sara LadyFrog

Free to choose. Free to choose. My experience to feel free is do what makes you alive. And you can choose that. And sometimes it's difficult choices to get to the easy part. But you're free. You're free to choose. Do you want to be free?

[00:56:02.200] - Nathan Maingard

Yeah.

[00:56:02.600] - Sara LadyFrog

Or not.

[00:56:03.730] - Nathan Maingard

Thank you so much. And then also just where people can find you if they want to learn more about your work, which I highly recommend. They do.

[00:56:10.120] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah.

[00:56:10.840] - Nathan Maingard

Where would they find you?

[00:56:11.820] - Sara LadyFrog

So well, I don't currently have a website just because I always work. Like I trust that the combo and the boof will bring me the people to me and it works very well. But I do have an Instagram account, which is Sara. Sara underscore lady frog.

[00:56:29.800] - Nathan Maingard

Beautiful.

[00:56:30.300] - Sara LadyFrog

Yeah.

[00:56:31.100] - Nathan Maingard

Thanks again, Sarah. Thank you. Same. Thank you again to Sarah Lady Frog for your delightful presence on the we are already free podcast. I forgot to mention at the beginning that this is actually the first ever in person podcast recording for this podcast. So there is a full video in person video of this on the patreon right now. And it's beautiful. Basically, we recorded it and then I carried on with all the other episodes, and it was in the backlog for the new year. And so opening that video up again to edit, I was like, wow, this is so pretty. We're sitting on our caravan deck, which I think people call a trailer in America. We're on the deck and we're sitting together. She's just shared, obviously, the ice bath and the breathwork, and it's really a good vibe. So I so appreciate that we could do this in person. And I hope to have more in person guests soon. And, yes, as always, you can find the links to Sara's Instagram, plus many of the things we talk about at the Show Notes, which is alreadyfree me 23. That's the numbers 23, alreadyfree me 23.

[00:57:41.240] - Nathan Maingard

And it rhymes today. That's great. That's also where you'll find the link to the patreon, where you can access bonus conversations with guests. In this case, the full video of Sara and myself together. You can also get a personal shoutout on this very podcast when you pledge, plus a whole bunch of other lovely perks. So, yeah, just really, thank you for valuing this podcast as much as I do. Means the world. Thank you for being here with me, dear listener. Together, we are remembering that we are already free. See you next week.