HI, I'M PETE ISAIA

I have a diverse background, working with people from all walks of life. From Hollywood A-listers to the incarcerated and homeless, my 30-year professional career has seen me work in such roles as registered nurse, counsellor, life coach and trauma therapist. 

I have worked exclusively in settings where trauma and chaos are prevalent. These include private practices, emergency rooms, remote indigenous communities, drug and alcohol rehab clinics, mental health wards, youth detention centres and maximum-security prisons. 

In these settings, I developed a talent for tracking and mapping patterns of human emotion and behaviour. This has translated into mastering a range of communication and interpersonal skills which, when applied, help bring order to chaos and breakthrough to breakdown.

I draw on personal experience with healing my own anxiety, addictions, trauma and PTSD. I have personally overcome many adverse life events and gone on to build a successful private coaching practice and start my own company, focused on the ground-breaking and transformative work that is shadow integration.

My childhood years were lacking in the kind of nurturing I craved. I was subjected to frequent emotional put downs and insults by my father, as well as physical beltings from both my parents, as they battled alcoholism. While attending a private Christian college for my secondary schooling, in the 70’s, I was subjected to regular violent assaults from some of my teachers including being belted, punched, slapped and kicked. Exactly what were they trying to teach me?

After a three-year stint of using alcohol to mask my pain, I began psychotherapy in my early twenties and my path to healing was underway. After many years of psychotherapy, counselling and personal development, I learned to heal the wounded child within and repair the relationships with my parents.

In 1989, I graduated as a registered nurse and counsellor. I have worked as a counsellor with individuals, couples and groups in a variety of settings and began my nursing career working at an alcohol and drug residential detox unit. To support the healing of my nervous system, I practiced yoga for 15 years, including Kriya and Kundalini yoga. After awakening my Kundalini energy and developing Siddhis (supernatural senses), I travelled to Bihar, India to study at the world’s only university of yoga. There, I received honours for my studies in yoga psychology. 

In 2008, I pursued an interest in shamanic plant medicines. By then, I was seeking a method to clear my psyche from of a decade of working in prisons. I travelled to Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico to work and study with a shaman and medicine woman. In my 12 years of experience in non-ordinary states of consciousness, I have experimented with ayahuasca, DMT, mescaline, psilocybin, LSD, ibogaine, cannabis, MDMA and 5 MEO DMT.

My experiences with psychedelics were both healing and, at times, extremely challenging. The lasting value to me in all my psychedelic experience, was the way it lowered my social mask (persona) and revealed my underlying shadow self. This led to four years of deep, personal and introspective, shadow integration work.

This path has equipped me with the experience and inspiration to support those seeking personal shadow integration and psychedelic integration work. I am not one to encourage people down the psychedelic path, as it is not a path for everyone. In my opinion, it has as many pitfalls as it has promises. I support Carl Jung’s assertion that psychedelic experiences represent “unearned wisdom”.

I live in the Byron Shire, Australia, with my partner Rebecca. When not pursuing my mission, I enjoy sailing with the humpback whales on their annual migration along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Pete Isaia R.N.                                                    

Dip. App. Science (Nursing). Curtin University. 1989

Dip. Counselling (Institute of Human Development) 1989