Cacao is often thought of as a culinary aid or an occasional sweet treat. However, the chocolates we eat today – oftentimes loaded with sugar – are a completely different experience from raw cacao, which Nalinee Diosara, the founder of Thai-based, Mama Cacao Love, uses as a tool for healing.
“Cacao helps us remember our hearts and activates our spirits. Cacao is the love of Mother Earth,” said Nalinee. “Cacao contains many nutrients that support healing; molecules such as anandamide which is recognized as a love molecule, theobromine to aid focus, magnesium to relax the body, and flavonoids that support cardiovascular health.”
Cacao ceremonies, which have been used for centuries by past civilizations, are still currently being practiced today. It is a form of shamanic practice, wherein a person – the shaman – interacts with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness (in this case, achieved by cacao).
For believers, cacao is a potent tool for opening the heart, stimulating creativity, and releasing negative emotions. “Cacao has taught me a lot and teaches me to overcome many illusions such as abandonment,” shared Nalinee of her experience.
Those who would like to experience a cacao ceremony can expect a few things: aside from consuming raw cacao – which is different from most chocolates we know – participants are also likely to take part in mindful rituals such as breathwork, meditation, or intention-setting. Though fairly straightforward, Nalinee attested that cacao ceremonies can be deeply profound.
[Trigger Warning: Mental Health, Eating Disorder, Suicidal Ideation]
Her experience in learning about cacao has brought Nalinee and her husband to the jungles of the Amazon, where they spent time learning about indigenous medicine. While often associated with Mayan history, cacao is believed to have originated in the Amazon. “Cacao is…a sacred offering that we can give to ourselves and one another. To the Mayans, Cacao connects us with the most important processes: birth, life, and death,” Nalinee said.
Before discovering cacao, Nalinee admitted that she had been depressed and suicidal for over a decade. She had struggled with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders on top of suicidal ideation. “One day, I realized I was doing this to myself and slowly tried to cut old habits that fed into my illnesses,” she recounted. She used art as a lifeline, but also began to try meditation. “One by one, guidance came,” Nalinee said. “I started to open up to my sensitivities and soon after, my husband and I discovered the calling to explore the Amazon.”
After returning from their sojourn, Nalinee and her partner settled back in Thailand and felt compelled to share what they had learned. “It was a calling of home as well as the next step of my service,” she said. Since then, Nalinee has immersed herself further in the shamanic practices of cacao healing.
“The code of conduct of a shaman is responsibility. It is to bring balance into their own life as well as into their community. My shamanic work holds space for others to connect with their inner power, power that helps them remember who they are,” Nalinee stressed.
Today, the couple share more about their ongoing spiritual healing journey with others via Mama Love Cacao, a community that offers cacao healing sessions. And while Nalinee believes that these tools can help people overcome certain hardships, she knows that healing remains to be a continuous process.
“To be healed means that we can still feel old pain. However, in healing, there is more awareness, more space for making new choices, and more compassion towards what currently is,” she explained.
The human experience will always include emotions such as fear, sadness, and anger, and so for Nalinee, healing does not equate to the absence of such emotions, but instead, to the awareness of them that allows one to create new actions and reactions.
“The key is responsibility,” she underscored. “No one can heal anyone but themselves.”
While not everyone may believe in spiritual practices such as these, Nalinee promises that there are many ways to achieve healing. “There are many ways that lead us to the same result,” she said. “The most important thing is that I know and understand what I am doing.”
