Overcoming Obstacles with Armando Hart

Life can be filled with uncertainties. Why did this happen? What does the future hold? Oftentimes it seems like we’re on a roller coaster where life takes us up and down, back and forth between positive and negative. Perhaps it’s all related. It’s like Frankie Beverly said in his 1980 song Joy & Pain with his band, Maze: “Joy and Pain are like Sunshine and Rain… they’re both one and the same”. What we sometimes see as “failures” in our life can actually be doors opening to new possibilities we never thought possible. Setbacks can serve a purpose if you have the right attitude. 

Whether it’s in his writing, running, coaching, teaching breathwork, or parenting, Armando Hart can always spin problems into possibilities, burdens into blessings, and tragedy into triumph. He’s an alchemist of sorts that can transform grief into gold to share with others.  In this conversation, we explore how a devastating injury that derailed his Olympic track dreams actually created an opportunity for him to fulfill different dreams - training with the legendary American Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis and writing a book. That experience was also the beginning of a new career as a coach. Now, he and his wife are turning a diagnosis into an opportunity to explore new ways of healing.

Asa: You’re from Long Beach. Were you born there? 

Armando: I was born in Torrance which isn’t too far from Long Beach. I was born in Torrance just for insurance purposes (laughs). My family migrated to Long Beach from Michoacán, México. My dad migrated first in 1970. My mom came over in 1972. They got married, and I was born in 1974. I was raised in Long Beach back in the days when it was really a beach. You could smell the beach. Once they put the breakwater in for the port to be able to receive shipments, the waves stopped. 

Asa: Oh wow I didn’t know that. 

Armando: Yeah. I actually used to be afraid to go to the beach. I was raised with a lot of fear. I guess I had a fear of the world. When we used to walk to the beach, and I could smell the ocean, I used to gasp and become afraid. I think it was a generational fear that I was embodying. I grew up with that fear. Fear of the world. Fear of people. Fear of the ocean. 

Asa: Your parents had only been here 3 or 4 years when you were born, so I’m sure many things were unknown to them too. And that’s what a lot of fear comes from. The fear of the unknown. 

Armando: Those are the challenges for anyone whose parents came here from somewhere else. They come here for a better life, but at the same time there’s a lot of fear in that because there’s uncertainty. There’s new people. It’s like a new world. Like where am I? What am I supposed to do? 

Asa: Where do I fit in?

Armando: Yeah! How do I make money? How do I raise children? My parents had me when they were in their early 20s. They were still young, so there’s a lot of challenges. 

Asa: Yeah I’m 23, and I’m still trying to figure out how to take care of myself, let alone another life. 

Armando: Exactly you see what I mean. Another challenge was the language. I grew up speaking Spanish, but then I went to an all white school. I was labeled as timid and shy because I didn’t speak much. I was insecure about speaking the language. I wasn’t insecure and shy. I had a very vivid imagination. I had a lot going on in my mind. I knew I was here for a purpose. I just didn’t know how to express myself. Nonetheless, being labeled as timid and shy became a part of my identity. 

Asa: You took it on? 

Armando: Yeah, you believe it - how others view you. I feel like that speaks to the importance of having conscious parenting. As a conscious adult, you can understand what your child is going through and communicate with them so they don’t embody whatever identity that they’re told they are. That’s what I kind of follow with my own son. I’m not perfect, but I do dedicate myself to being a conscious parent. That means working on myself, so I can raise my child to not take on all my baggage. He’s got stuff that he’s going to take on as it is. 

Asa: How old is your son? 

Armando: He’s 9. 

Asa: I’ve seen that you have been teaching breathwork to kids, specifically teens. That’s awesome! What got you interested in breathwork? 

Armando: It was a process that started 6 years ago. I was at the beach with my wife and her family. She had just gotten a mammogram, so they called us at the beach with the results. When she was on the phone I heard her say “are you kidding me?” She hung up the phone and told me what was going on. They told her that she had stage 4 breast cancer. Terminal. 6-7 months to live. 

Asa: Oh wow… and she’s still living to this day?

Armando: Yeah! I’ll get more into that later. But in that moment, I went numb. I can still go back to that moment. I couldn’t feel my heart. It was so weird. I had never experienced anything like that. It was a shock and a trauma. I tried to get up and go for a walk. When I did, I couldn’t feel the sand beneath my feet. I think in that moment, I lost connection to myself, but I didn’t realize it. I felt the effects of it in the moment, but as weeks and months went on I felt unmotivated. I found myself in this stagnant state. Nothing was happening. This lasted a year or two after that moment. I felt like I had communicated how I felt and we said “we’re gonna do our best”. All those things you say in times like that. But I didn’t want to accept it. I tried to cover it up by saying “I’m okay. We’re good.” I even talked to a therapist. But basically the therapist would just kind of sit there. I was like “this is all they do?” I experienced that with two different therapists. The first one would just kind of sit there, and I would catch them stealing glances at the clock. When you’re being vulnerable it gets to you. I hired another one, and it was the same thing. So I thought well maybe this isn’t working for me. It’s interesting because at the time we received the diagnosis, I had just finished writing my book. I had this plan in place for book signings and talks. I had this plan, then that hit. 

Asa: What a duality of experience and emotions.

Armando: I didn’t know I was missing the connection to myself. How do I reconnect with myself? It took me years. Up until a year ago, I didn’t realize that I had lost connection to my breath. The breath was the doorway back to myself. It was like an “Aha!” moment. How could I not have seen this? When I experienced the physical trauma with my injury before the Olympics, it was almost like it was related to how I experienced emotional trauma with my wife. There’s this really interesting connection. 

Asa: There’s a recurring theme there with your plans being disrupted. 

Armando: It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m aware now that the injury was a catalyst for me to reconnect with my essence and how to move my body. There was this big opening back to how I used to move. I used that as a launching pad to write my book and help others. So when I had this awareness that this is what I was experiencing with my breath, working on my breath reconnected me to myself. I feel like that’s what’s happening now. I can use breathwork not only to help others, but also to connect with physical movement. Breathwork can help connect one to their spiritual essence as well as their physical essence. 

Asa: It’s all one. 

Armando: Yes it’s about getting back to that inner child. We need to get back to breathing how we used to breathe when we came into this world. For me, the goal is to preserve that essence - to move how we used to when we came into the world, to breathe that way. I’m so blessed to be able to do that. I’m blessed even though my plans didn’t go exactly as I wanted. Moreso with the Olympics because with the book, I’m still an author. I can still do what I was planning to do with that. 

Asa: Yeah it’s just a different time table. 

Armando: Right. I’m blessed that I was able to have the courage and confidence to have those huge goals. Also I’m blessed to have the awareness to navigate through those failures. They’re not actually failures. They’re opportunities. To be able to navigate through those spaces where it didn’t go how I planned it, I was able to understand that those are just a launching pad to propel me to something greater. There’s no special formula. It’s already in us. 

 Throughout life, we can lose that connection. I feel losing that connection to breath is why we don’t feel ourselves. No matter what we accomplish in life. No matter where we go. No matter how much money we make, if you don’t feel like you are connected to yourself and that essence, you’re never going to feel fulfilled. I think breath is something that we take for granted. It’s with us every single day right? 

Asa: It’s amazing that it can happen without us consciously doing it. There aren’t many body functions like it where you can unconsciously and consciously do it. It’s amazing how it ties into all aspects of health - spiritual and physical. Speaking of physical wellness, can we take things back a bit to your injury? Well let’s start at the beginning. When did you first start running? 

Armando: I started running when I was in school. When I was labeled timid and shy, there was this part of me that wanted to connect with my classmates. If I can’t connect with them with my voice, what should I do? Well, I’m going to be the fastest runner in school. I would visualize myself running fast and jumping high. Visualization was the key. I feel like we have that great imaginative ability as children. I didn’t lose connection to that. Once I felt like I could do it in my mind, I was able to do it with my physical body. It was the thought, the feeling, then the action. Right? And it happened. I was the fastest kid in school. Once I became the fastest kid in school, everyone wanted to be my friend (laughs). That developed a bridge of connection to my classmates. I used my physical movement to do that. I took it in as part of my identity. I ran track in high school. At Cal State Long Beach, I walked on the track team. My first year I didn't participate in track because I didn’t have the grades. So what I did was go and practice before the team to stay in shape. I did that every single day, and I would bother the head coach, going into his office saying “I wanna be on the team. Just give me a chance.” I would point at the wall of fame and say “that’s gonna be me up there one day - just so you know”. I had that confidence because I developed the power to build my bridges through visualization in elementary school. 

 I walked on the team my second year, and I broke the school record in my second race which took place at USC. I didn’t know I had done that because it didn’t feel like I ran fast. I went back and the coach was like “you just broke the school record.” I was like “WHAT?!” It was a huge teaching moment because I didn’t try. I wasn’t going for a record. I was still closer to that natural essence of how I move my body. There’s no trying. No forcing. I remember going back to watch the videos and I was really bouncy. In my future races I wasn’t doing that because I started moving away from that and forcing the issue. 

 In my head I was thinking “if I can do that without trying. What will happen when I’m really trying?” I took that belief and trained hard. I thought I was making gains, but I really wasn’t. That for me was a huge teaching moment. 

There’s another part to my story. When I was 10 years old, I was watching the Los Angeles Olympics on TV with my father. That’s when I planted the seed that I wanted to be in the Olympics. There was a part that wanted to impress my father. He loved sports. I think we all have that as children. Boys especially want to impress their father. When I was about 9 years old, he took me to his town in Mexico. There was this huge festival happening. . A huge crowd of people were going to this dirt path. I was like “what’s going on?”. He said “there’s a race.” I asked “a horse race?”. He laughed and said “no, a human foot race”. My uncle happened to be running in the race. He was being challenged by someone from the city, Guadalajara. It was this huge thing. Everyone was betting on my uncle to win the race. They were betting their cows, their land, their car. It was serious business. My uncle won the race, and I remember watching on my father’s shoulders thinking “I feel like I could do this one day”. I came back to Long Beach and started running these races in East LA. One on one races, where people originally from that area of Mexico would gather at a park to watch and bet on the races. I ran in those races until I was in my 30s. 

Asa: How old were you when you started? 

Armando: I was 11. I lost my first race. I lost it, and I cried. The guy was older than me. He was 14 or so. They all have nicknames, and this guy’s nickname was “The Flea”. I was like “I lost against ‘The Flea’?!” 

It was interesting because I didn’t lose a race after that first loss. They would come with pictures of me and say “we’ll race against anyone. Just not this guy” and showed a picture of me. I didn’t care because I was running for Cal State Long Beach. I had other goals. Part of my family didn’t understand that. They didn’t understand why I was running for the college when they had those races for money. 

Asa: I’m sure that was tough.

Armando: It was because there was a part of me that understood that was a part of my family’s culture. 

Asa: But you were making your own legacy. 

Armando: Exactly. I see it as this. I had to find my own race. Who am I? Am I this person here that runs for Cal State Long Beach? Or this other person who runs unsanctioned, underground races for money? Finding my own race was a metaphor for finding my own self. My self-awareness and what I do with my work is due to my own experience. It’s due to my ability to have goals and set an intention. Yeah I might not have gotten there but because I had the courage to exit my comfort zone, I was able to do what I do now. To be able to exit my comfort zone and go for the Olympics, I was able to accomplish something way more fulfilling. To have the courage to get married to this beautiful woman and create a life together. We don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t know when lightning is going to strike. Lightning struck our family, but we’re doing amazing things. We were able to gain this experience and awareness to not only better our own life but to share that. 

Asa: You weren’t just a spectator. You lived your life. I think a lot of society today teaches children and adults to be spectators in their own lives. We have so much entertainment and so many distractions in today’s world that you can just sit in front of a screen all day instead of going out to live your life. So you’re at Cal State Long Beach. How does the Olympics come into play? 

Armando: After breaking the records at Cal State Long Beach, there was this meet in New Mexico in 1994. After the race a scout came up to me and asked if I spoke Spanish. I responded in Spanish so that was obvious. He asked if I ever wanted to run in the Olympics. I said “Yes! That’s been my goal since I was 10”. He asked where I was born and I said “here”, so he asked where my parents were born and I said “Mexico”. He said “Perfect! I’m not making any promises but if you make the qualifying time, we can get you to run for Mexico. But there are steps. You have to qualify at the national meet with a club. I run a club. That’s why I’m here. You can run with my team.” So I moved to Juárez, Chihuahua in the Summer of 1994. He said “you don’t have to do that. You can just run the race and go back home”. I said “no I want to make friends with the guys that I’m going to beat, so when I beat them they’re not mad at me”, (laughs). I wanted them to get to know me. That’s exactly what happened. I moved to Juárez and lived with them for a few months before the national meet. When I won, they all knew me and were happy for me. The plan worked. Not only that but I wanted to put myself in a new environment to make new friends. It was amazing! I won the national meet in 1994. I went on to compete for them internationally. There was a meet in Argentina where I got second place. The Pan-American Games were in 1995, and then came Olympic year in 1996. I was on the path. It was right there. All I had to do was make the qualifying time. I had to hit 10.34. In May I hit 10.31 in Fresno. I called the federation saying “I made it!”. I faxed them the official results, and I was ready to go. They were asking me my sizes and everything. 

There was a meet in Arizona a month after that, and something felt off. It was a night meet, which I had never done, so maybe it was that. But that’s when I tore my hamstring about 20 meters into the race and fell to the ground. I didn’t want to accept the fact that happened. I fell into a depression right there. That was a trauma. At that time I didn’t know I had the tools to process that. I didn’t know where to go. So I just focused on getting it better physically. I still had this dream, so I didn’t tell the Mexican federation. They called me and said “we’re ready to go. There’s going to be a track meet here in Guadalajara 3 weeks before the games just to show where you’re at. No big deal. It’s just to show us you’re good”.  I was like “okay… great I’ll be there” (laughs). But there was no way. It was a major injury. I called the best massage therapist and worked it back to about 60% strength, but as a sprinter you have to be 100%. I didn’t want to accept the fact that my dream was not looking good, so I still went. I got in the race and it happened again but even worse this time. 

After that I didn’t go to the games and watched them at home. I went into a depression. I had a girlfriend at the time, and I wasn’t the best boyfriend. I didn’t know how to process my traumas. I still had this ability to understand that I was here for a reason. I still had that light inside me, but that trauma took over how I lived my daily life. The following year, through a connection I made in the track and field world, I had the opportunity to train with one of the best coaches and an idol of mine. 

Asa: Where was that?

Armando: Houston, Texas. I got in my ‘65 Mustang and drove to Texas in the middle of winter. It was a crazy experience just getting there. The reason why I went was that little light of hope I still had. I thought back. What made me able to have friendships back in school? Going out of my comfort zone. How did I make the track team in college? Going out of my comfort zone. So now I have this opportunity. What do I do? I’m not in my best physical shape. I’m not in the best emotional state. What can I do? Just show up. A lot of our work in the world is just showing up, because when you’re there, you’re going to immerse yourself in that experience. You’re not going to show up and hide. You’re going to show up and go “well I’m already here. Let’s make the best of it”. So I showed up even though I wasn’t completely healthy or in shape. I even had a little belly. You don’t realize the toll depression can take on your body. I went to train with my idol. The guy I watched at the Olympics on TV as a 10 year old - Carl Lewis. 

Asa: Wait what? I didn’t know it was him!

Armando: Yeah, I went from watching Carl Lewis dominate on TV to training alongside him. The reason why I was his running partner was because he was a little bit older at that point and I was young but recovering, so we kind of met in the middle. Looking back, I know I was not there to be an Olympic medalist. Instead, I was meant to train with my idol because he opened the doorway for me to reconnect back with myself. He told me “you have great potential but you just gotta put your foot down”. I didn’t know what he meant. He said “all those drills you do are nonsense. Look at those kids run. Look at how they bounce. They’re just putting their foot down”. It just so happened that at the time I was reading a book on personal development, and one of the segments was about the power of putting your foot down. 

Asa: Wow that’s serendipitous.

Armando: So I’m reading this book and my coach was telling me to do the same thing with my body. That’s when I started to connect the dots. I knew this was part of my purpose. I started taking notes, and I started to conceptualize this idea in my head. It’s like bouncing a ball. When you bounce a ball, why does it rise? We don’t understand that a ball bounces up because it hits the ground first. Why does it go toward the ground? It was thrown there. Throwing the ball is a metaphor for our intentions and plans. Our intention is to go up, but sometimes you have to go down first. There was a part of me that understood that I was down at that time in my life. 

Asa: You were making your impact with the ground. 

Armando: I was making my impact, but I was also seeding. We have to understand that going down is a way to plant seeds for the future. It might be dark and lonely, but you’re eventually going to rise. I feel like there was a part of me that only cared about going up from the ground and was solely focused on results. Not just with how I moved my body but also with my breath. We breathe very superficially from the chest. A lot of us are in fight or flight mode. The sympathetic nervous system is activated because of the traumas, because we went down to the ground in our bouncing lives. We end up cutting the breath short of its full potential. That affects how we move also. Trauma affects how we breathe and in turn how we move. That then affects how we express ourselves. It’s all connected. There’s this part of me that understands I’m here for a bigger purpose. My purpose in going to Houston was for him to tell me that and to complete the arch that started when I was watching him on TV at 10 years old. Here I was training alongside my idol. 

Asa: It was bigger than a medal. 

Armando: Eventually I left Houston, and that is when I started organizing these notes I took while I was there. That eventually became my book: The Hart Method. I feel like part of my journey is to connect the dots and help people come back to the fundamentals and to be that ball we talked about. Yes, rise as high as you can and understand that you might have to go out of your comfort zone. We aren’t taught to appreciate this. We are not taught the importance of doing this. We are grounding ourselves. We are also connecting with the Earth. It’s so symbolic right? It’s not just failing. It’s not just going out of your comfort zone. It’s also about reconnecting with this ground. That is about reconnecting with ourselves. Yes, see where you wanna go and know that you may get there. But you may also get somewhere higher. 

Asa: It is uncomfortable being the ball in this scenario. You’re soaring and then the supernatural forces, gravity in this instance, take over. It can be scary, but I love that you’re reframing that as a positive thing. This reminds me a lot of the phenomenon gaining steam recently: earthing/grounding where you stand barefoot in the grass or sand to help connect with the Earth. 

Armando: Yes, I do that.

Asa: It’s amazing! Regardless of whether it's a placebo effect or not, it helps my mind and body feel better. Everything you’re saying is hitting home with me in my personal life.

Armando: You know why? It’s familiar. Your spirit already knows this. 

Asa: It’s a universal truth. 

Armando: When I train athletes, I’m not coaching them. I’m just helping them remember. Once they remember, they don’t forget. It’s not me making something up. It’s already there. It’s like muscle memory. 

Asa: What came first: being a trainer or a writer?

Armando: Writer. It started with me just taking a lot of notes and journaling. I never saw myself as an author. I was in ESL (English Second Language) classes until like 6th grade. I couldn’t participate in track my freshman year of college because of grades. But those notes eventually became my book. 

Asa: That’s symbolic as well because when you’re working on yourself, that’s when you can help other people. 

Armando: Yes, I consider myself an individualist but within the collective. I see myself as someone that cares about others. I love helping people. I want to be the best version of myself so I can be in my role. My role is a part of the collective. To allow others to be in their role, I must be in mine. It’s one body. I learned that from how the body moves. It moves in that same way.

Asa: Can you explain that?

Armando: Freedom is one of the principles in my work. There’s ground, gravity, integrity, joy, freedom, harmony, now, and action. Freedom is about going through full range of motion. When you want to run as fast as you can, you have to go through the full range of motion. After you pump your arm forward, it has to come back to your hip. When your arm goes through the full range of motion, that gives permission for your leg to go through the full range of motion. As soon as you cut your arm movement short, you cut your leg movement short and won’t produce the energy necessary to increase the stride of the opposite leg. The amount of power that you generate down determines the length of the stride. I call that arm moving back negative energy. It’s very hard to do. A lot of runners cut it short because their goal is to go forward. They think “why would I go back to go forward?”. Runners are passing them, and they go into fear mode. But if one part of the body is doing its job, it gives permission to the other parts to do theirs. That’s harmony. If one part isn’t doing its job, it compromises the whole system as one. I see humanity in that way as well. I consider myself an individualist because I understand that I have to do my part for the good of the whole. Doing my role, gives you the ability to do your role. I’m in my role as a husband and a father. My wife is going to be affected if I’m not doing what I need to do in my role. 

Asa: That makes so much sense.

Armando: Running is such a metaphor for life. You’re basically falling, but you’re catching yourself with every step. The ground is always there to support you. We take it for granted. Just like the breath, it’s always there. We can’t go forward if we don’t fall.

Asa: You’re so full of wisdom, man.

Armando: Thank you for acknowledging that. It’s just my experience. I’ve lived it. It’s there for all of us. The ground is there to support you. It does even more than that, it can seed your dream. When you close your eyes and meditate, breathe, reconnect with your belly and expand your ribs. At the same time, visualize your goals. Be that child again with your breath and your imagination. Also, be that child that fails. As children, we don’t have that fear of failing. That’s taught to us. We’re told that failing is bad, so we avoid making mistakes. We avoid having big goals. 

Asa: It doesn’t even have to be said directly. Emotional energy can be felt based on body language or lack of attention after a failure. Children are quick learners.

Armando: As parents or even just adults that work with youth, we have the responsibility to work on ourselves. If we don’t, we have those unprocessed traumas in our soul and spirit which affects how we raise children. If you’re not connecting to that essence of who you truly are, who is raising the child? Your traumas. It’s not you. It’s our job as adults to reconnect with ourselves. The younger you are, the closer you are because you have less baggage weighing on your spirit. We pick up stuff as we get older. 

Asa: I saw that you just did a breathwork class series for teens recently, right? How’d that go?

Armando: It went well. I did a 4 week class on Saturdays. It was so interesting because I feel like the youth is hungry for it. They really connected with it. They also really connected with the sound bath I do with the session. Sound is the first sense we develop in the womb, so the youth really connect with that. They know how powerful these fundamentals are. I loved doing those classes, and that is something I want to do more of. 

Asa: What format does your class teach for breathwork?

Armando: We inhale breath to the belly, then the chest, and up to the brain. Our exhales are a calming release after the three part inhale. I set that structure for 3 minutes, but what I love about breathwork is that you have autonomy. You’re in complete control. If people feel it's too intense, they can take a break or come back to their natural breathing rhythm. You can’t go wrong. It’s so safe. You’re just breathing. It gives you an opportunity to connect with the voice in your head and analyze what you tell yourself. You’re actively breathing the whole time and engaged with the breath. Then I set some time (about a minute) for pausing after the 3 minutes of intense 3 part breathing. 

Asa: My favorite part of breathwork is the pause where you hold your breath. It allows me to use the breath to realign my body and in turn my spirit. It’s interesting because Paramhansa Yogananda, the Indian yogi who opened up self-realization temples across Southern California, talks about yogis finding bliss between breaths in the Kriya yoga he teaches. 

Armando: Absolutely. So we inhale and hold it at the top for about a minute after three minutes of intense breathing. I play really powerful music during all this. The music actually calls me. I’ll hear a song and it just wants to be part of the breath mix. I already have two songs for the next class, because I called for it. We do that exercise structure for 4-5 rounds to break the rhythm of your normal breathing. At the end, when we go back to normal breathing, there's gratitude for that effortless breathing. You appreciate what you have. 

Asa: Absolutely. You need that discomfort to bounce back up. The teenage years are such a big time period in one’s life as they start to think about their place in this world. What they’re surrounded by has a profound impact on them because they’re starting to explore a bit more and become more aware of their surroundings. 

Armando: You’re right. You know teens don’t really like to talk. 

Asa: Especially about weighty topics like purpose and healing. 

Armando: Breathwork is nice because they don’t have to talk if they don’t want to. Breathing helps to open people up so they start talking without even trying. Sound does the same thing. I think we’re moving away from the conventional way of healing. We were told you need to go through the medical model. Nothing against those types of therapy. They very well may help many people, but it didn’t work for me. We need options. We’re moving into a different era, and I think it will take us back to those fundamentals. The breath, sound, and movement. 

Asa: That’s truly the traditional model for healing. Let’s circle back to your wife’s diagnosis and coming into breathwork.

Armando: I consider myself someone that is conscious and aware of my own mental state, but I didn’t see that I was in a funk. Others could see it. My wife could see it. They would say “it seems like you’re not really here” and I would just say “I’m fine”. It would come out in different ways. My creativity wasn’t there. My motivation wasn’t there. I wasn’t connecting to people. Connecting with my breath brought me back to myself. I see what I was going through in other people now, and I see it especially now that we are emerging from Covid. A lot of people have moved further and further away from themselves. 

Asa: Using your ball analogy from earlier, I think most people went to the ground during the shutdown. Many people were in a dark place by themselves, and people wanted to run from that discomfort. 

Armando: Dude, that’s where we’re at. We’re on the ground right now, but it’s an opportunity. That’s what my experience shows. Being at a low point in your life can be an opportunity for something greater. 

Asa: It can be exciting. 

Armando: It is exciting. We all have a role to play in this new world we’re creating. A big part, in my opinion, is reconnecting with our plant medicine. Talking about growing out of a dark place reminded me of a mushroom. I’m a big believer in that. I microdose on psilocybin mushrooms. It grows for us naturally. It’s there to use. The reason why I feel that my book was able to actually become a book was because of that medicine. I was able to write the 5 pages that I needed. Before I might have been like “oh I’ll do it next week”. I was able to become more myself. It’s not about gaining something more. It just helps you to reconnect with yourself. It kind of cleans away some of the trauma. For me, it’s real medicine. 

Asa: I agree. It’s not something that pharmaceutical companies are making millions of dollars on and are pushing it on people.

Armando: Right and when they do finally legalize it, I’m worried they will take away from its natural essence. That’s what pharmaceutical companies do. My wife and I are big advocates of plant medicine. During this fight with breast cancer, my wife has been doing a lot of kambo frog resin. 

Asa: What’s that? 

Armando: There’s two. There’s the bufo frog whose resin contains DMT (dimethyltryptamine). People smoke it for a psychoactive experience for 15 minutes. Then there's the kambo. They take the resin and dry it on a pallet. Then they open your lymphatic system with a little poke and apply the medicine. It’s not psychoactive. It’s very physical. I compare it to one of the worst feelings I’ve had after a hard workout where I’m questioning life (laughs). There’s a lot of purging. You drink a lot of water beforehand so all of the toxins go to your belly and then you purge it out. 

Asa: All of the things you and your wife are doing are amazing. 

Armando: Yeah, and she’s still around. They gave her 6 months to live 6 years ago. We showed up to her conventional oncologist prepared with a stack of research on plant medicine. We were prepared to fight. Upon seeing it, her oncologist recoiled and wouldn’t even touch our research. We just agreed to go separate ways. She was concerned about liability and licensing. I don’t trust that system because the people setting the parameters doctors follow for treatment and diagnosis have never met the individual patient. I personally don’t trust the system. Neither does my wife, and we believe that’s why she’s alive today. We’re still doing events to help people heal. We created this organization called Drum for Love. Drumming and reconnecting to healing sounds has been instrumental for me to overcome this trauma. It all started when I was taking a West African drum class around my wife’s birthday. I said “we should do this drumming on the beach to celebrate my wife’s birthday.” A couple people didn’t feel like it was our place to do this drumming in a ceremony, but 4-5 were willing to join me. We called it Drum for Love because I call my wife Love. It went well so we decided to do it the next week. All of a sudden more people started coming and it became a weekly thing. One week the cops came. They said we didn’t have a permit and that we were disturbing the peace. This guy who was drumming with us said “Sir, how are they disturbing the peace? You’ve got it all wrong. This is the peace. I would have never met these people without this drumming.” For me that was all I needed to hear to know we were on to something. It became bigger and bigger, so we started to incorporate live art installations and vendors. There was a businessman down there that offered us space outside of his shop to have our events. He had this vision for a big event sort of similar to Burning Man, and he wanted us to lead it. He ended up passing away from a heart attack before it came to fruition. However, some of his people carried out his mission and the first Love Long Beach festival happened last week.