From Business World to Inner Transformation
When we think of healing, most people picture doctors’ offices or prescription bottles. But for many, the journey begins in unexpected places. For plant-based facilitator Guy Borgford, the path to wellness started in corporate boardrooms before taking a dramatic turn toward meditation, Kundalini awakening, and plant medicine.
After decades in business development, Guy’s life changed when meditation opened him to a deeper awareness. This shift—later recognized as a Kundalini awakening—sparked his exploration of ayahuasca and other plant-based therapies. What began as personal healing grew into guiding others through safe, intentional plant medicine practices at Casa de Flujo.
📘 Explore how reconnecting to yourself supports long-term health in my book Deprogram Diet Culture.
Meditation as a Gateway to Wellness
Meditation wasn’t just a relaxation tool for Guy—it was a portal. Guided by Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Becoming Supernatural, Guy practiced energy-based meditation that activated his prana tube (the energy channel along the spine). This opened new levels of intuition, calm, and focus.
He describes being able to summon the same sensation as goosebumps at will—an inner signal guiding him toward what was aligned and meaningful. Over time, this practice reshaped his values, pulling him away from stress-driven corporate goals toward deeper purpose.
🎧 Hear more on the ANEW Insight Podcast, where we explore how meditation strengthens intuition and resilience.
The Science and Spirit of Energy
While chakras and prana can sound “woo-woo,” neuroscience is catching up. The spine functions as the body’s central nervous system, transmitting energy like a network of tree roots. Guy explains how clearing this channel through meditation enhances intuition—what many call a “gut feeling.”
As I shared in our conversation, years of meditation have sharpened my own therapeutic intuition. When I’m in session, I often sense insights before they’re spoken, helping clients unlock breakthroughs they couldn’t reach otherwise. This isn’t magic—it’s energy awareness blended with psychological science.
Plant Medicine as a Tool for Healing
Plant-based healing extends beyond food. From psilocybin mushrooms to ayahuasca, entheogens (literally meaning “manifesting the divine within”) are gaining recognition for their therapeutic potential. Used with intention, psilocybin supports those facing anxiety, depression, ADHD, and even end-of-life distress.
The difference between “recreational drugs” and plant medicine lies in the approach: intention, ceremony, and reverence. As Guy notes, mushrooms are universal—they grow in every culture. Building a relationship with these fungi can help individuals tap into their own inner healer.
🌿 Discover how natural practices transform lives on the ANEW Insight Podcast.
Casa de Flujo: A Safe Container for Transformation
At Casa de Flujo, Guy emphasizes safety and integration. This includes:
- Screenings and harm reduction protocols to ensure safe participation.
- Ceremonial spaces in nature that reconnect participants with the earth.
- Integration practices like meditation, mindfulness, and mindful eating.
- Education on food as medicine, including growing and foraging plants.
His philosophy is simple yet profound: our disconnection from nature is at the root of today’s mental health crisis. Reconnecting with plants, energy, and community isn’t an alternative it’s essential.
📺 Watch more inspiring stories of transformation on our YouTube channel.
Key Takeaways
- Meditation opens awareness: Energy practices like Kundalini breathing can strengthen intuition and emotional resilience.
- Energy is both science and spirit: Clearing the nervous system channel enhances intuition and wellbeing.
- Plant medicines are tools, not escapes: Intention and ceremony distinguish healing from recreation.
- Food and plants are medicine: From mushrooms to mindful eating, plants hold profound healing potential.
- Connection is the cure: Reconnecting with nature and our inner selves combats modern disconnection.
✨ Tune into the ANEW Insight Podcast for the second half of this conversation, where we explore real-life transformations from plant medicine practices.
📘 Start your own healing journey with the Deprogram Diet Culture book and online course—practical tools for reconnecting to your body, mind, and spirit.
View here full podcast Transcript here:
[00:00:00]
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Hello and welcome to the ANEW Insight podcast. I am Dr. Supatra Tovar and I am honored to have plant based facilitator Guy Borgford with us today. Guy, thank you so much for joining us.
Guy Borgford: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Supatra. It’s a pleasure.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yay. I am so excited to pick your brain, but I’m going to read a little bit about Guy for our listeners. So, just hang on for a second while I read about you. Guy Borgford is a visionary leader and advocate for plant based healing and holistic wellness. As a key figure at Casa de Flujo, he dedicates his work to guiding individuals and communities in exploring the transformative power of plant medicines.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: With decades of experience in marketing, business development and creating impactful [00:01:00] partnerships, Guy seamlessly blends his professional expertise with a passion for promoting natural healing modalities. His work at Casa de Flujo focuses on providing safe. educational and inspiring environments for people to connect with the healing properties of nature.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Guy, thank you so much for joining us.
Guy Borgford: Thank you again, Supatra. It’s a pleasure.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: So I want to know a little bit about your background. You came from the business world. You came from marketing business development. What led you on the path to where you are right now if you could inform our listeners,
Guy Borgford: Sure, yeah, happy to. well, I mean, I first started working with psychedelics when I was quite young. I was in my teens, although it wasn’t intentional work. I used it more as an escape and as a means of fitting in with a peer [00:02:00] group of which I didn’t really feel like I belonged. It was kind of more of a survival mechanism a a means of personal development and growth. fast forward a few decades and I was in my very early fifties when I started meditating. After three months of meditation, I had a shift in awareness that I later learned was a classic Kundalini awakening. That shift led me into exploring plant medicine intentionally. And I started with ayahuasca. And ayahuasca led me to wanting to work with these tools in a way that I could help other people, as well as continue on my own journey of healing and growth and expansion and understanding. So that’s kind of where I’m at right now. I’ve been doing this for about five years now. And yeah, so there we go.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Can you go into a little bit more detail [00:03:00] about that meditation experience? You said the Kundalini awakening. For people who are unaware of what that might mean. Can you describe it a in a little bit more detail?
Guy Borgford: Sure, sure. Well, my path to meditation is kind of interesting. My sister is the one who got me into it, and it was on our deceased mother’s birthday she got a text message from a friend to attend a holotropic breath class, and she had never never done breath work before. And, she was feeling a little bummed out.
Guy Borgford: It was our mom’s birthday and she was gone for a number of years. She was murdered when I was 22 years old. So, you know, there was a lot of residual trauma and unresolved energy around her loss. So my sister goes to this breath class and through transformational or holotropic breath, you can get into these non ordinary states of [00:04:00] consciousness, unlike psychedelics. And she got into this non ordinary state. She was in then encountered a, what she described as a feminine divine energy of pure radiant love. And it was like our mother’s energy, but a million times more than that. So she has this telepathic conversation with this radiant, loving energy of light. And among the things communicated was your brother needs to wake up.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm.
Guy Borgford: up now. And she said it like this. So my sister tells me this the next day. And you know, our mother was pretty interesting. She was very curious about consciousness and dabbled in the occult, went to seances and things like that.
Guy Borgford: She channeled energies, did automatic typing. [00:05:00] heard her speak in tongues. So it was a pretty non ordinary upbringing. And so when my sister tells me this, I, I was like, yeah, okay. Well, I better do something about this. The next day I ordered a book. I looked, just looked up books on meditation. I figured meditation was a good place to start.
Guy Borgford: I found a book by Dr. Joe Dispenza called Becoming Supernatural
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes. Oh, I love that book.
Guy Borgford: Yeah, I know me too. And So I started reading that book and in that book there is a meditation practice. It’s a kundalini technique of using your muscular system to channel your prana energy while you’re meditating.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: Starting with your root chakra and channeling your prana up using the, your muscles in your, along your spine. I believe this was probably what contributed to this transformation, this first step in this transformation process. I. [00:06:00] within a week, I just started, you know, deleting apps on my phone. I, all of a sudden I didn’t care about the things that I used to really care about things like money partying you know, sex I, I was living a pretty fast, fun lifestyle. And all of a sudden I really started just going within more and less interested in these things that were just entertaining my monkey mind.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm.
Guy Borgford: So, after about three months is I had this just big shift where all of a sudden I just. I was, I always say I must have looked like, you know, he remember Moonies the, that cult where people,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes. Mhm. Mhm.
Guy Borgford: wore those robes and carried around the flowers with their eyes all glazed over. I bet I looked like that. You know, I remember walking down the street, walking my dogs and waving at all my neighbors. Hello. Good morning. Like, just like, I mean, just in love with everything. But with that. I didn’t care about my work [00:07:00] anymore and it was really challenging. I had a pretty high pressure job in consulting and I was in business development and I had numbers to hit and it was a real challenging time.
Guy Borgford: Ended up losing my job. I. e. getting fired because I really didn’t care about their quarterly numbers or anything else. I knew that there was something much more important that I need to, needed to address. that’s not to say that the work they were doing wasn’t important because everything’s important for some people.
Guy Borgford: It just wasn’t aligned with where I was at. So through that process, that’s where plant medicine came in and I started working with it and that’s where these kind of additional epiphanies and insights started coming through and then I continued with my meditation practice and really ramped that up to the point where, you know, meditation is my favorite thing in the world and it’s something I do every day. it’s something I do in all different environments and different types of meditation but it is a [00:08:00] very powerful tool of connecting with this kind of higher energy that we all are and that most of us have forgotten. We are, and that is that we are divine beings of light.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes.
Guy Borgford: So that’s kind of the story.
Guy Borgford: And, you know, there’s been many kind of different shifts along the way over the past five years. But, you know, that’s, that was kind of that process of this Kundalini awakening. I didn’t even know what it was until about a month later. And my sister sent me this article about what they were. And I, I just checked all the boxes. I was like, Oh God, this is what happened to me. Cause I didn’t know what had happened.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Wow.
Guy Borgford: I was having a lot of challenges integrating that experience. Cause it’s not unlike a psychedelic experience where you
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mhm.
Guy Borgford: have a shift in awareness and you’re trying to make sense of things between this consensus reality and the things you learn through these other states of consciousness.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: I love [00:09:00] it. I have devoured that book, Becoming Supernatural, and I’ve practiced that breathing technique, and I have found it to be quite transformative. If you could explain to our listeners, I mean, for me doing it, and I do it every day, I try to do it every night before I go to sleep it’s designed to help to clear your energy.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: And it is based upon chakras. And I know a lot of people are gonna be like, Oh God, what are we talking about? I don’t know if that’s real, but the way that Dr. Joe explains it, he actually explains it in scientific terms as well as more kind of metaphysical terms. And I, I believe it’s designed to kind of clear the body of past traumas and allow you to access your higher levels of chakras, like your heart, your throat, third eye, and then connection to the [00:10:00] divine.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Can you describe what it felt like? To do this meditation and why you think it shifted and caused this experience for you.
Guy Borgford: Yeah, that’s a great question, and I’m glad you’ve read the book so you kind of understand some of where it comes from, and the thing I do like about Dr. Joe is that he does combine the scientific with the metaphysical, and kind of, for those who are kind of like, yeah, that’s woo woo, it makes them better understand things from the physical perspective.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: And, and yes, I think it is like the, the term I use is it kind of bores out our prana tube
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: Our prana tube is this energetic pathway that runs up our spine,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: we all know the spine is the core to the central nervous system
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: that, you know, if you look at the, the nervous. system of the human body.
Guy Borgford: You [00:11:00] if you’ve probably seen it, it looks like tree roots. It’s
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: and it’s all spread throughout our body and just talking about it. I could feel mine dancing around
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm
Guy Borgford: and that and that is kind of what I got from it is I started to be able to physically feel my prana or my energy and I could could summon it at will.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: hmm. Mm
Guy Borgford: What that means is you, you know, when you get goosebumps, everyone has got goosebumps, right? And that feeling of woo goosebumps. So the ability to summon that at will various practices and not even just through meditation, but also just through the everyday, like you’re out in nature, you see something beautiful and you can just summon that energy and connects you to everything.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: hmm. Mm
Guy Borgford: So what I have found is that that practice just kind of bored out my prana boring being like a, you know, a [00:12:00] drill.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Hmm. Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: And now that energy flows really easily. Now, what does that mean? A lot of people go, well, big deal. You know, you can get goosebumps on command who cares. Right. But what it does is it taps into your intuition. So, this prana signals things and it will signal, for example, when something is very good. My prana will light up and, and, and it, and it, It’s a signifier for, okay, you’re on the right path, or this is very good, or this is you’ve got to pay attention to this. So it kind of taps into the things that are beyond this thinking mind and gives us another means of communicating with the world around us through our energetic being.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes, and I, I completely agree. And I think that when you meditate and I’ve been meditating since 2012, I do think that [00:13:00] your it’s almost like an antenna gets stronger and the signals get stronger and your intuition gets more attuned and you start to hear. I use it all of the time in therapy and I think it’s like it’s a you know we talk about it being woo woo yeah okay so it’s woo woo but I will hear something as I’m listening in therapy and it leads me to where I I need to go to help them release something or explore something and I just allow it.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: And I think that that’s really profound because I’ll see it on my client’s face. Like, Oh, you know that, yes, like you will see a light bulb going off and it’s because of this intuition, I really do believe that it is tapping into this, like greater level of consciousness.
Guy Borgford: Absolutely.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: I think if more people were to be able to understand that on a [00:14:00] scientific level, they would be able to
Dr. Supatra Tovar: adapt it and understand it and even incorporate it. Everybody knows that they’ve got the little voice. Everybody knows. And people know when they don’t listen to that voice, you know, usually something not pleasant will happen. But when they do listen to that voice, things seem to flow for them. And so that’s, you know, very mystical or strange to people, but when it’s
Dr. Supatra Tovar: it’s couched in the term of energy and an energy, you know, like field, people can understand that better. And when it’s explained that we all have this energy coursing through us, especially coming up through our spinal cord, also known as the prana tube, that helps people understand on an energetic level, why
Dr. Supatra Tovar: we are all connected. And especially if you delve even into some quantum physics, which is [00:15:00] still like, like, like, I don’t even have like a firm grasp on that, but you really realize that we exist as particles, but we also exist as energy. And that is really important to, to grasp and understand how we’re connected to people energetically.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: So I am really curious if you can, and I think when people hear psychedelics, they’re like, Oh, woo woo too. Or they, they hearken back to the seventies, you know, when people are on these acid trips and things like that, I really want to explore plant based medicine. We’re talking about medicine. We’re not talking about recreational party drugs.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: And I am a huge proponent of plants as medicine in general. The food that we eat, it is vital for us to understand that it is directly you know, is [00:16:00] directly influencing our health for the poorer or for the better. And our choices determine our health when it comes to plants. So plants have incredible healing properties just in general for our health.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Explain how plant based medicine in your realm, ayahuasca, I believe there’s what, what, what are the other
Guy Borgford: psilocybin The fungi. Also DMT,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: to a lesser degree cannabis tobacco believe it or not is a very powerful medicine when used intentionally and ceremonially.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Hmm.
Guy Borgford: like changa, which are add mixtures that include DMT, and then some of the cacti that contain mescaline,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: peyote, San Pedro. And then I iboga and ibogaine, which I have no experience with, but are incredibly beneficial and effective in treating you know. serious conditions like [00:17:00] opioid use disorders.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: They all have you know, different different effects and different ways of working with us.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: But so it’s all over the map and where do you want to start?
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Well, start with what you know best. How about that?
Guy Borgford: Okay. Yeah. So, probably my I, I know psilocybin best. I’ve got about 300 hours plus of training working with sacred mushrooms. I’m a minister in a mushroom church and also called Psanctuary Psanctuary with a P in front of the S. And I also have specialized training in end of life working with mushrooms and helping people with end of life anxiety and depression using psilocybin. So, you know, psilocybin is a pretty gentle medicine. It’s a good starter in working with entheogens. Entheogens, by the way, is another term for psychedelics. psychedelics, meaning mind manifesting
Dr. Supatra Tovar: [00:18:00] Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: Entheogens, meaning kind of more God manifesting and connecting with the divine. I prefer the latter term cause that’s kind of how I look at these tools. They are tools of consciousness that help us better understand our truth.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: uh, working with mushrooms, there’s a lots of different ways to get started. A lot of people start with micro dosing, which has become incredibly popular. People using micro dosing for various conditions or just improving their focus helping them with things like depression, anxiety substance use disorders,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: things like ADD, ADHD,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mushrooms
Guy Borgford: are
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: in small doses are very good focus medicine. So there’s all different ways to work with mushrooms in a medicinal context. What makes it medicine versus just doing shrooms is your intention,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: Like setting that intention. [00:19:00] Well, why am I eating these mushrooms?
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: And then having reverence for the consciousness of the fungi and, and bringing that reverence into your consumption experience.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: And what that looks like is up to you. I’m
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm.
Guy Borgford: big believer in people creating their own ceremony and working with these medicines, especially in the case of fungi, which are, you know, they are ubiquitous around the world. Psychedelic mushrooms. They’re available everywhere in all cultures,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: something like ayahuasca is very specific to the Amazon and, and the, and the area inside areas in South America, mushrooms are everywhere.
Guy Borgford: And so for us to own our ceremony and own how we connect with this mushroom is like, what’s something I always coach people on to make it their own and develop a relationship with the fungus and [00:20:00] use it in ways with that, where they tap into their own healer and tap.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: into their hearts and really kind of connect with the fungus that way.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: And, you know, you’ve probably seen it in your practice where, and I’m sure, you know, you and I have had some good conversation to date and,
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: your, your ideal state is where your, your clients are often, they’re, they’re doing their own thing and they don’t need you anymore.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm.
Guy Borgford: It’s kind of a paradox, but it’s it’s, it’s always, my goal is where people go off and they. their own practice and, and they take their health and their wellness and their spirituality and everything in their own hands.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes.
Guy Borgford: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: So I want to get into how these plant based medicines actually work, but I think we’re going to have to save that for the second half of this podcast. I want you to tell us how Casa de [00:21:00] Flujo came to life. Like, what was the mission behind this organization and how do your programs help people connect?
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Thanks so much. with plant-based healing in a safe and supportive environment.
Guy Borgford: Yes. Well, I mean, it all starts with harm reduction and education helping people understand what they’re getting into making sure that they’re going to be safe with the medicine. Doing all the necessary screenings and protocols to ensure that safety and then creating the container. And the container is we have side by side cabins up here in the mountains next doors where we have group ceremonies.
Guy Borgford: Usually I hold individual space here in my cabin. It is, it’s working with these different medicines, but also working with the tools of integration, meditation, conscious awareness or mindfulness. Mindful eating. I know you’re a big fan of that.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: Food is [00:22:00] medicine.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm
Guy Borgford: Connecting with plants in other ways than just psychoactive plants. Learning to grow your own food. Learning how to harvest and how to forage. And finding wild things that you can eat. Connecting to the wild and the beauty of nature through edible plants and fungi.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm.
Guy Borgford: So, you know, this it’s, is it an organization? Not really. I, I, you know, it’s, it’s a practice
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm-hmm.
Guy Borgford: and, and the practice is one of introducing people to really a better way of living. Through
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Mm hmm.
Guy Borgford: connecting, reconnecting the natural world, in our modern society, we become very disconnected as a whole and that disconnection from nature, disconnection from our truth that we are nature is I think a big source of a lot of modern ailments and [00:23:00] mental health crisis and the, the, the global pandemic of mental health and wellness..
Dr. Supatra Tovar: I would say physical health as well. I think, you know, the whole purpose for this podcast is to help people find as many ways that they can achieve their optimal health. And I do think when we really kind of look at it systemically, we’re in an obesogenic environment. We’re also in, an environment that is not supportive of our mental health.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: And I think we’re surrounded by systems that are not interested in that they’re more interested in their bottom line. And I think we suffer as a result. And so helping people return to themselves naturally is I think one of my greatest missions, because I think the answer doesn’t lie outside except for outside [00:24:00] connecting to nature.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: The answer lies in really truly connecting with yourself and having your, your spirit guide you toward your own path to healing. So it sounds like this is something that you do. And when we get into the second half of this podcast, I want you to, as much as you can, without revealing anybody’s personal story, tell us, take us through how this is changing people’s lives.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: What are you seeing them come in with? What are you seeing them leave with? Well, we’re going to wait for the second half of the podcast to really delve into that.
Guy Borgford: Yeah, I can certainly share some of my own experiences, which are, in my opinion, pretty profound.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes.
Guy Borgford: I’m a completely different person than I was five years ago.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes. And I will say for me, meditation, I, I haven’t really delved into psychedelics at all. Dabbled, well, you know, younger years and all of that stuff. But meditation I think has [00:25:00] been absolutely transformative for me and in, in really kind of, shedding away I think external social conditioning and really helping me to learn how to truly tune into myself and listen to myself.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: So we’re going to get into that more Everyone you got to come back for the second half of this amazing episode. We’re really delving into I think areas that are not as widely covered as I think should be because I think our own paths to healing can involve many different modalities. So tune in next time for the second half of this amazing episode with wonderful plant based facilitator, Guy Borgford.
Dr. Supatra Tovar: Thanks, Guy.
Guy Borgford: Thank you so much.
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