You’ve got the business, the car, the boat, the house. You’re blessed with a great family, friends, access to more than your wildest dreams. But something is missing. Something is gnawing at you. If this sounds familiar, you may be in need of “soul fulfillment,” which is what Host Chris Schembra’s guest on this episode of Gratitude Through Hard Times has provided thousands of people. At his Rythmia Life Advancement Center in Costa Rica, Founder & CEO Gerry Powell offers comprehensive plant-based medicine retreats. The modalities work at a deep level to help remove shame, fear, trauma and the anger that fuels – and is a downfall for – so many hyper-successful people. You’ll learn about Gerry’s transformational journey and how he stepped away from the multimillion-dollar serial IPO lifestyle he thought would bring him happiness – but that instead left him profoundly empty and suicidal. Working with plant-based shamanic techniques opens up new pathways to self-acceptance and compassion. It’s a journey that 97% of Rythmia participants describe as nothing short of a “miracle,” a source of relief and revelation that transcends our ingratitude, confusion and old, unhealed wounding. Most of all, says Gerry, people leave his one-week retreats with an entirely new regard for life: “I made it out of sheer perseverance and brutality, but there are so many other ways to do it and feel different.” You’re invited to explore and see your soul’s fulfillment in a completely new way!

More information about the medically licensed plant medicine and transformational retreat experience offered at Rythmia is available at this link, along with a video about Gerry’s very personal journey to wellness (here).

If you’d like to learn more about Chris and his 7:47 Virtual Gratitude Experience or subscribe to our newsletter, please visit this link.

Click hereto hear more fascinating conversations with Fortune 500 CEOs, professional athletes and entertainerswho have shared their human stories on Gratitude Through Hard Times.

KEY TOPICS:

• When the Bucket Doesn’t Feel Full: Why Gerry wants to reach out to successful entrepreneurs who very often feel something missing and don’t understand what or why.
• If you could give credit or thanks to one person in your life that you don’t give enough credit or thanks to – or that you’ve never thought to thank – who would that be? So many people, but Shaman Gina was pivotal.
• The Gift of Perspective: How plant medicine can help reveal to us the ways in which even those who hurt us are of help in our lives – even when we don’t see it.
• Sections in Chris’s book that are relevant to plant medicine:
  • Connect the Dots Backwards: About gratitude as a link to our past.
  • Struggles into Benefits: About the science behind “grateful processing.”
• Feeling the Feelings: How a lifetime of numbing and other corrosive emotional coping mechanisms turned around only after Gerry was able to embrace a shamanic experience with plant-based medicine.
• Repairing the Fraction: Gerry turned his life over to healing, creating a unique retreat space at @Rythmia in Costa Rica, changing the lives of more than 14,000 seekers.
• Coming from Ingratitude: How a hypervigilant “brute” approach to the pursuit of goals yields only more anger, shame, guilt, regret.
• Plant Medicine: It’s a conduit to compassion, self-love, wisdom and generosity that enables us to be collaborative, empathetic, curious leaders.
• Knowing When You’re Ready: Plant medicine comes into focus when we are ready to put the pieces together and open ourselves to transformation.
• The Comeback Story: Rythmia is about taking people out of their hole, to the brink and back from despair to a “miracle.”
• Joining the Tribe: Why plant medicine work of the type Gerry practices offers hyper-achievers a place to reconnect, work through shame and guilt and find wholeness in a safe community environment.

QUOTABLE

• “It’s the perfect time to be in this work as the world is waking up that there is a greater human potential out there.” (Chris)

• “There are people who help pull you towards your higher self and people who hurt you who keep pushing you towards your higher self.” (Gerry)

• “Gratitude is about looking into the past and being grateful for all the steps that took you to where you are today – the good and the bad.” (Chris)

• “Once you die you can actually live life without the fear of death, which makes you really want to be more than anything a beneficial presence here on earth.” (Gerry)

• “The secret to success and happiness is not necessarily a new go-to-market strategy, not a higher intellect or new network … It’s actually to look inside yourself and be at peace with who you are.” (Chris)

• “Very few of us who are hyper-successful were raised in the right way. There’s a reason those folks are in the one-tenth of one percent. And it’s not because everything was nice and tidy.” (Gerry)

• “Guilt and shame and regret are extremely lonely emotions and the thing you think you should do is not talk about it. But it’s actually the opposite: Confront it, talk about it and forgive yourself. Plant medicine really helps you do that.” (Chris)

• “The obstacles you’ve overcome – the shame, guilt and trauma you feel right now – are the best parts about you because true human connection and belonging do not occur when our lives appear to be perfect.” (Chris)

LINKS/FURTHER RESOURCES:

• More about the global leadership community YPO at this link.
• About "Grateful Processing," a concept developed by Prof. Phillip Watkins of Eastern Washington University.
• "The Magic of Thinking Big," by David J. Schwartz, PhD.
• About Michael Beckwith’s Agape Spiritual Center.
• More about author Kurt Vonnegut’s "Six Emotional Arcs of Storytelling."

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Gerry is Founder and CEO of Rythmia, an all-inclusive, luxury, medically licensed plant medicine center in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. His singular goal is to serve guests and help each individual get their Miracle.

FOLLOW GERRY:

WEBSITE | LINKEDIN | TWITTER|INSTAGRAM

ABOUT OUR HOST:

Chris Schembra is a philosopher, question asker and facilitator. He's a columnist at Rolling Stone magazine, USA Today calls him their "Gratitude Guru" and he's spent the last six years traveling around the world helping people connect in meaningful ways. As the offshoot of his #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling book, "Gratitude Through Hard Times: Finding Positive Benefits Through Our Darkest Hours,"he uses this podcast to blend ancient stoic philosophy and modern-day science to teach how the principles of gratitude can be used to help people get through their hard times.

FOLLOW CHRIS:

WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | LINKEDIN | BOOKS