As human beings, we have the ability to dream our world into being; to consciously decide the future we wish to see for the next generation. In this episode of The Spiritual Game of Business Podcast, entrepreneur Jesse van der Velde intimately shares how his path with sacred plant medicine awakened him to the Sacred Dream and to fundamental changes in his identity and business.

• Who are you if you let go of your identity?
• What are you dreaming for your own life?
• What have I been dreaming of until today?
• What do I wish to dream into being?

Click here to listen to the episode on Spotify.

Dream

After being bullied for the first 20 years of my life, I framed the next 10 years around being seen as successful. My entire life and business reflected this because ultimately, business is a spiritual game. Our business is a reflection of what lives inside of us and of who we have become, and for me, what was inside for so long was the need to be seen and accepted in a certain way. It wasn’t until I had my first plant ceremony that I experienced a radical shift in my path of becoming. It was at this point that the nature of identity and the Sacred Dream was revealed to me. 

Path to Success

We haven’t talked about business so much – but business is a spiritual game. The business we are able to build is a reflection of who we have become. For many entrepreneurs, including myself for so many years, pursuing success and self-development are seemingly hallmark traits to building a successful business. Yet I have learned that if you want to build a bigger business, you yourself have to become more first. 

And actually, this isn’t really about becoming more; it’s more about letting go of something you are not. It is about dropping what isn’t serving you rather than learning and acquiring new skills.

This is a paradox because so many of us believe that we need to be more productive and develop our skills in order to become successful. And granted, this approach will serve you well – I spent years developing myself and my mindset and skillset: learning about marketing, finance, health, nutrition – all of these things. 

At one point, I even bought a business with my business mentor – a man who had built a 100-million-euro-a-year business. I bought it with him because I approached him: “I want to have a mentor; I want to learn from a man that has built a 100-million-euro-a-year business. I want to learn how you did that because I believe the fastest way of learning something is to surround myself with someone who has already mastered that skill.”

But what I came to realize is that learning and acquiring new skills is for the young men and women – this is for the young and restless. It is indeed necessary to advance professionally, but there is something much deeper at play that is not taught in business school.

Burn Your Identity 

If you truly want to know who you are and why you are here – if you truly want to understand the depths of your soul – you need to let go of the things that you have been desperately trying to hold on to. In order to become more, you have to burn what you are not. 

You have to burn your stories. 

You have to burn your beliefs.

You have to burn your roles.

You have to burn your identities.

I talked about this more in Episode 002 – Identity, which I’d love for you to check out. But essentially, we get so invested in the identities we build for ourselves that we never truly know who we are underneath that. 

These identities that we so desperately hold onto are actually standing in the way between ourselves and our TRUTH, which is a being of light. You and I – we are an expression of infinity; we are an expression of the universe. Just like the tree, the fire, the water, the wind – we are all an expression of Mother Earth.

Our True Mother and Father

Mother Earth is our true mother, and the Heavens above are our true Father. The Earth and the Sky – these are the two opposites from which we are born. Our physical mother is merely an expression of the universe – as we all are

This may sound abstract because of all the paradigms that have been created by Western civilization – paradigms that have likely served you well until today.

Because you wouldn’t be reading this and listening to this podcast if you weren’t yourself on a path to finding deeper meaning in life. Of all the things you could be doing, you’ve chosen to be here with me on your path of becoming. 

You know somewhere inside of you that there is so much more between Heaven and Earth. This podcast is a path of discovering that, as it is an invitation to let go of the stories and paradigms you’ve been attached to. 

My First Ceremony

If you’ve been following the podcast so far, you’d remember when I told you about the first time I went into the woods and had a mushroom ceremony with an old man who would later become my shaman mentor. That night, the medicine spoke to me and asked me very directly, “This is Part 2 of your life: what are you going to do with it?”

Because until that point, so much of my identity was built around how I needed others to see me, around needing to be seen as successful. And it was in this ceremony that my sense of identity dropped and I was suddenly left with what had been hidden with this identity.

What was I going to do with Part 2 of my life? It was in this ceremony when my values deeply shifted inside of me, giving me a new direction for Part 2. In fact, three new values instantly shifted in me:

1. When I die, I dream to see the world and humanity in harmony and peace. I dream of humanity holding hands across the nations – sitting hand-in-hand together on this planet; across the nations. No matter where we come from; no matter where we are born. Our ideas; our religion; the color of our skin; sexual preferences; languages that we speak; no matter what – one humanity holding hands.

2. When I die, I wish to see humanity in health; I wish to see no disease in this world. We can all live in full health.

3. When I die, I hope to see humanity living in complete harmony with Mother Earth. With our true Mother: the Earth below us.

The plant medicine did not instill these values in me, but it did open this truth in me for me to see clearly. We live in a universe of freewill and are free to choose our outlook. 

But the fact that I was feeling this so authentically showed me that this is something that had always been inside of me. The medicine opened that in me.

At that point, I was successfully running my business and, in a way, wasn’t too far from my values: I was in the business of health – writing books about nutrition and running my health food and supplement business Superfoodies, a company that I still own. 

What I didn’t see was that the values so deep within me were being overruled by my identity of needing to be successful. The mushrooms – the sacred plant medicine – opened this awareness in me and from that point onward, my life shifted immensely. It was at this point that I jumped in – fully surrendering, going with the flow, and letting go of everything.

A Calling

Months passed after that first ceremony and during that time I continued doing monthly ceremonies with that same medicine man, my first shamanic mentor.

My intuition had become better and stronger, as did my ability to read the lines of destiny. We all have the ability to connect with this intuition; to be connected to the great spirit; to have your luminous energy field open to receiving information from the other worlds – it’s an ability we all have, yet we are so disconnected from it. 

We aren’t taught about this in school. In fact, we often have limiting beliefs around this, dismissing it because we didn’t grow up learning this. But shamans have known this for thousands of years and they have been passing it on from generation to generation.

Months after the ceremony, I was home alone and sitting on my bed, meditating when I had an amazing, mystical experience. When I closed my eyes, I suddenly saw in front of me a very vivid and bright image of….a Google search bar. I kid you not. And in that search bar, I saw words being typed: “Light Body School”

I had never heard of the Light Body School, but I decided to follow my intuition and search for this. My search led me to Alberto Villoldo, the founder of the Four Winds School. I learned that The Four Winds School teaches the ways of the Q’ero shamans in a 30-day internship with the Q’ero shamans and teachers from Four Winds

I had no idea what this whole internship was about and had never considered shamanism beyond being a participant in the ceremonies I had been attending. And to be completely honest, I had quite a few limiting beliefs about shamanism. Despite this, I decided to take the course and see where life is taking me.

The Sacred Dream

During the course, Alberto and the Q’ero shamans talked about something called the Sacred Dream, the dream that shamans, medicine men and women, monks and Buddhists around the world have been holding in their hearts for hundreds of years. The Sacred Dream is seeing humanity in harmony and peace; seeing humanity holding hands across the nations; seeing the world in health – seeing humanity living in connection with Mother Earth. This is the Sacred Dream.

I was immediately struck by the poignancy of being taught the ancient dream that I myself had come to realize in my first mushroom ceremony. Of all the things the medicine of the mushrooms could have shown me – millions and millions of possibilities – billions – in that first ceremony – the mushrooms decided to show me the Sacred Dream.

Probably one of the most important things for us to do as human beings is to dream our world into being; to consciously decide the future we wish to see for our children and our children’s children. These times are, more than ever, asking us to hold a dream in our hearts. To find that harmony within ourselves; to find that peace within ourselves; to find that joy. To find that health; to bring it to the people around us. This is the Sacred Dream.

What Are You Dreaming?

So we come back to you and your life, and I invite you to ask yourself:

• What am I dreaming? 
• What have I been dreaming of until today?
• What do I wish to dream into being?

The dream in your heart doesn’t have to be the Sacred Dream; you should choose what your dream is – a dream that is bigger than the car or the house you wish to have, or knowing the exact amount of money you want to have in your bank account and building your “vision board” around this. 

You can do that – you’re free to do that. You are limitless in your creation: the universe will always respond. But knowing and understanding that the universe will always respond – I ask again: What are you truly dreaming? What are you dreaming of for your own life? What are you dreaming of for humanity?

Dreaming our world into being is our greatest and most subtle skills as humans. Alberto Villoldo of The Four Winds School said, “Knowledge is knowing how to make it rain…wisdom is actually making it rain.” 

There is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Let us practice this knowledge so that we turn it into wisdom; let us dream our world into being – let us dream the sacred dream that the shamans of old have been passing on from generation to generation.