The Leader's Guide to Cacao Ceremony: Somatic Practices to Combat Executive Burnout and Find Body-Based Presence in a Digital World
Guiding a cacao ceremony, photo credit: Loren Groves
Do you ever get sick of your own mind? I do. The constant thinking, rumination, and the inability to find an off switch. Anxiety is the defining ailment of our generation. And it’s burning us out. The tech industry's burnout epidemic is well-documented - recent surveys show nearly 70% of executives reporting burnout symptoms following intense funding and scaling pressures. Our "always on" digital culture has created a generation of leaders with chronically elevated stress hormones and profound decision fatigue. The traditional solution? More mindfulness apps. More cognitive exercises. More thinking about not thinking. But what if the answer isn't in our heads at all? After a decade building my company, I discovered an entire dimension of wisdom I'd been ignoring by living exclusively from the neck up. Now I guide people through an unexpected doorway to this complementary intelligence: the ceremonial use of cacao.
The Ancient (and Modern) Wisdom of Cacao
I’ve facilitated cacao ceremonies for groups as big as 90 people to 1:1 sessions. The experiences follow the same threads: “I’ve never been so relaxed in my life” “I cried with gratitude and felt my heart” “I laughed for 30 minutes straight!” “A Mayan legend tells us that whenever there is an imbalance between humans and nature, cacao comes from the rainforest to open people's hearts and return the planet to harmony. Some shamans consider cacao the "food for the shift" - representing a new order of love and peace we need right now.”
Keith Wilson, the Cacao Shaman
Cacao comes to us by way of the Mayans, where it’s been prepared as a beverage for 4,000 years. It was considered the “drink of the gods,” which was at births, weddings, and festivals. They used cacao beans as currency and to pay dowries. If you want to go down the cacao rabbit hole, read Wild Chocolate.
Unlike processed chocolate, some ceremonial-grade cacao (like Legacy Cacao I use) descends directly from original cacao trees protected in the remote mountains of Central America for over 3,000 years. Even beyond the impressive historical significance, the science behind cacao is compelling:
Anandamide (C22H37NO2): When drinking cacao, our brains produce this neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of euphoria and pleasure - known as the "bliss molecule." I’ve seen it at work when peals of laughter break out in a ceremony!
Vasodilation: Cacao opens blood vessels, increasing blood flow to the heart and brain.
Reduced cortisol: Studies show cacao consumption decreases stress hormone levels
Magnesium and antioxidants: Essential nutrients that support nervous system function
While some may see heart-opening practices as something for yoga class, I see it as imperative for modern people. The heart contains approximately 40,000 neurons, called sensory neurites. This complex nervous system allows the heart to act independently of the brain, enabling it to learn, remember, and even feel and sense.
What kind of answers and intelligence are we ignoring by only consulting the brain? Most leaders are stuck in one quadrant of intelligence. We've long forgotten the intelligence of the heart and the body.
Why Leaders Need Body-Based Presence
We all struggle with rumination and anxieties of the mind. The tech industry's default response is meditation and mind-based presence practices. But these approaches often keep us "stuck up here" in our heads. When ambitious leaders lose their meditation practice, they lose their sense of presence entirely. I talk to many founders who guiltily tell me that they “used to meditate” but lost the practice. Life got too busy. I get it, we aren’t monks on a mountain. We’re running teams, companies, and services in a modern world. What if instead, we could switch to a different channel - the body?
Somatic practices to combat executive burnout, like cacao ceremony, don't require perfect meditation technique. They simply invite us to tune into physical sensations: warmth, tingling, expansion, contraction. This makes cacao ceremony a practice of the senses - the tip of the iceberg of what's possible when we tune into somatic awareness.
For leaders making complex decisions with incomplete information, developing this kind of embodied intelligence creates a crucial competitive advantage. Heart-brain coherence facilitated by cacao's compounds can improve decision quality and leadership presence.
The transformation I've witnessed in other leaders has been remarkable - increased empathy, clearer decision-making, and a renewed sense of purpose.
I once guided someone who was at a fork in the road regarding his career. He had to decide between leaving his current job or taking a big leap into a new company that he was eager to try but feeling uncertain about. He had gone to all kinds of consultants and mentors before me. We held a cacao ceremony and talked through his decision. I guided him inwards with the assistance of cacao. He told me afterwards that when he got home, he broke out into sweats and a fever. He started crying, and once that was over immediately fell asleep. When he woke up, the fever had broken and what was left in its wake was profound clarity. He was able to make his decision with confidence, and left his old job.
How I Guide Cacao Ceremonies
As someone who guides entrepreneurs and creators through cacao ceremonies, I've developed a simple but powerful format that transforms even the most analytical minds. Here's the essence:
Setting the container: Life is ceremony. It doesn't require temples - just presence, intention, and expansive emotion. You can bring ceremonial awareness anywhere.
Creating intention: Before sipping, participants identify what they're meant to call in, release, or create. This could be relaxation, presence, joy, or clarity on a specific challenge.
The ceremony flow:
Sipping cacao together while holding intention
Breathwork to activate the nervous system
Guided heart meditation
Journaling or quiet reflection integration
Ready to Try Cacao?
I engage in this ritual at least weekly. It's become an essential practice for maintaining my leadership presence and emotional regulation.
The Invitation
As my friend says, we walk this world as if our head was the size of a watermelon and our body was a toothpick. The solution to rumination isn't more thinking - it's dropping into the intelligence of the heart and body.
Cacao ceremony offers a doorway to body-based presence that can transform not just how you feel, but how you lead. It’s one of the most effective somatic practices to combat executive burnout. It's an ancient practice perfectly suited for modern challenges.
I invite you to try a simple 20-minute cacao ritual this week. Set your intention, prepare your cacao mindfully, and simply notice the sensations in your body. The wisdom you seek may not be in your analytics dashboard or your meditation app - but in the beating of your own heart.