Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #251 Michael Higgs

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

Michael Higgs is a former Navy Seal operator who has been on his healing path principally with 5Meo DMT as well as Iboga/Ibogaine. He is currently a facilitator at the healing center “The Mission Within”. They are a therapeutic facility, taking on a 60/40 split of vets to civilians for healing. We dive into Michael’s origin story as well as his work with the medicines. Please share this with anyone you think could benefit from this work. Love yall!   P.S. If you feel called, there are a couple spots left for this run of Full Temple Reset come join us!   Connect with Michael and “The Mission Within”:   Website: www.missionwithin.org  Sponsors:   Qualia Mind is hands down the most balanced neurotropic I have in my arsenal right now. Head over to neurohacker.com for a month’s supply currently @ 50% off. Punch in code “KKP” for an additional 15% off everything. PaleoValley Some of the best and highest quality goodies I personally get into are available at paleovalley.com, punch in code “KYLE” at checkout and get 15% off everything! EarthRunners Get back to your roots with this badass minimalist earthing sandals at www.earthrunners.com. Use Code “KKP” for 10% off!  Organifi Go to organifi.com/kkp to get my favorite way to easily get the most potent blend of high vibration fruits, veggies and other goodies into your diet! Click that link and use code “KKP” at checkout for 20% off your order! To work with Kyle Kingsbury Podcast as a sponsor   Connect with Kyle:   Fit For Service Academy App: Fit For Service Academy  Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys   Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com  Zion Node: https://getzion.com/ > Enter PubKey  >PubKey: YXykqSCaSTZNMy2pZI2o6RNIN0YDtHgvarhy18dFOU25_asVcBSiu691v4zM6bkLDHtzQB2PJC4AJA7BF19HVWUi7fmQ   Like and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. Leave a 5-star review and let me know what resonates or doesn’t.

clap bap we're back i've got uh michael from missionwithin.org who is a former navy seal and has gone down a similar path of healing through the intelligent use of plant medicines some of which are known as the granddaddies of them all, Ibogaine as well as 5-MeO-DMT. And I don't know if he's the chief therapist. One of the guides out at Mission Within, which practices healing therapies, that started specifically with spec ops guys

and got into all men and women and veterans of the military and then started working with spouses, so civilians, and then further into the civilian game. And now they're about 60% veterans, 40% civilians. But one of the questions I finally get to at the end of this thing is, can I go there? Can you go there? Can the listener go there? And the answer is yes. They do have a backlog. Obviously, they're quite popular. They have a very high success rate in treating all sorts of ailments from PTSD to TBI and CTE, whether it be physical symptoms that initially can create mental, emotional issues,

or the other way around trauma that creates physical issues and everything in between. These guys have an incredible approach to medicine with the utilizing the plants, of course, and then with modern technology from float tanks to HBOT oxygen therapy and a number of other resources. And, you know, truly in speaking with Michael, like you'll get to understand, it's the practitioners, it's the guides that really make their success rate possible. And the fact that they have likely been there, especially if you're a civilian and you're wondering, surely you haven't had an experience like this. I'm willing to bet you they have.

It was just an absolutely beautiful conversation. And I really do look forward to getting to meet Michael in person and getting out to experience medicine with these guys, because they are just phenomenal guys and girls. They're phenomenal people. And I love what they're doing. I love what they're doing for the community of people who serve for this country and beyond that. And really, I've always had a deep appreciation for men and women in the military because it's something I didn't do. It's something I didn't do, but I went on tours for the troops, goodwill tours. And that's how I met my wife, Natasha. Many of y'all already know that, but going to, uh, other countries and, and, you know, war zones that places that have been torn

apart. I mean, I, I spent the night in Saddam's palace one night and, um, in Baghdad and just seeing that firsthand, what people go through and talking to thousands of people about their experience, um, has only given me more compassion for what they do and the work that they do. And you'd be on all sides of the fence. I'm like, oh, you shouldn't send guys to X, Y, and Z or blah, blah, blah. And that's a separate conversation. For people who say yes, they say yes for their reasons. And being in other countries, there's good reason. There is good reason to protect certain people and certain groups of people.

And there are, you know, war, there certainly could be a better option than war. And at the same time, there could be a better option than fighting. But if somebody's swinging at me, you know, my response is to fight, period. It's just built in. I'm not a pacifist. And I think with certain aspects of the way the world works outside of this country,

which many people who live in this country are unaware of, there are, um, times where violence is necessary. And, uh, it is my prayer that that changes. Um, but I have no judgment. I have no judgment for people who say yes to engaging in changes. But I have no judgment. I have no judgment for people who say yes to engaging in that. And I have no judgment around anyone in particular, but you could make judgment in hindsight and armchair quarterback particular wars. No doubt about that. No doubt about that. I've done that myself and to many of the men and women who have been there have done that. So I don't think there's any disagreement there. One thing we can all agree on is that when you put yourself in harm's way, the likelihood of trauma increases significantly. And, um, you know, a lot of people make believe that they have no trauma or no issues. No,

my life was perfect growing up and blah, blah, blah. And it, Hey, maybe it was to a certain degree, but we all have certain issues and we all have been through a lot. We all have been through a lot. And Michael Punky, as his nickname, Higgs, has most certainly been through a lot. And I was really, I felt fortunate and blessed that he was able to open up. Because in speaking with thousands of veterans, it's not something, it's not a, and certainly on a podcast or publicly, it's not something to invite somebody up on a stage when we're out there signing autographs and be like, tell me your story and go deep. Don't go shallow. I was very pleased that Michael was vulnerable and opened up to a lot of his experience and obviously not every detail, but quite a bit of it and really illuminated what life was like for him in his lowest moments.

And that touched me because I've had moments like that. No, I haven't been to war, but, um, you know, my filter looked pretty similar to his filter in that life was not going to get any better no matter what I did. And so why not fucking peace out? Uh, that happened to me, you know, right after college ended and football ended. And I just really felt like I was never going to be loved. I felt like I was never going to be seen. And I think seeing other people's paths out of that and what they've gleaned from it and how they've really integrated this stuff and become the medicine themselves is always inspiring to me. It never gets old, and I absolutely love Michael.

And thank you, Punk. You're doing the good work, brother. I really appreciate you. A bit of housekeeping for the podcast before we jump into it. There's many ways you can support this podcast. Share it with friends. If you know a veteran, for sure share this one. And I've got quite a few that I'm going to share this podcast with because I know people and on the surface, you know, we all, we all can make pretend that shit's going

fine and, oh, you know, this stuff might've come up and nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news or the Debbie Downer or the fucking Eeyore, the Eeyore in the room that's saying like, hey, I'm really fucking struggling right now. But if they know there are options and good options at that, maybe there is a little light at the end of the tunnel. So please share this with friends. Please share this with veterans. And maybe they take you up on it. Maybe there is a reason for them to go and that they haven't quite illuminated to you, but something deep inside them calls them to the medicine. Also support our sponsors. They'd make this show possible. And quick, before we get into the sponsors, you've got one week left. This is it. When this thing releases, you got one week left to sign up for Full Temple Reset 2, which is a five-day fasting mimicking

diet. And it's combined with all sorts of shit. I'm going to be running people through the very best of my knowledge and integration of the body. How does the body work? How do we integrate that? How does that change the way I think, view, and operate within the world? How do I heal the gut? How do I eat the appropriate diet? All of this is answered in the Q&A. We dive deeply into each and every one of your personal things going on, as deep as you want to go in this with a smaller group. So this is very close, very personal. You have brothers and sisters in arms that are going to go through this fast, this challenging thing with you. And when we come out on the other side, it's going to change your life.

There are no two ways about it. We do blood work with Ways to Well to get everyone medically cleared. You don't have to fast. That's not a requirement. Actually, we had a couple members that were too thin the first go around, but they wanted the medicine of everything else we were teaching there. And everyone that came, we're betting a thousand, everyone that came absolutely had a profound experience in going through this together. We do have a few spots left. So if you go to fitforservice.com, and again, there's a whole host of other shit.

I have made entire podcasts about what we offer there. There is an online course, of course, available for people who can't make it, but we really want to see you there. I want to see you there. I want to get to know you people on an individual basis. I love it when people show up because of this podcast. They're like, yeah, man,

I heard you talking about this on the podcast and that's what made me come here. Fuck yeah, let's talk and let's get to know each other. And you get to know each other at these immersives because they are smaller. So check it out, fitforservice.com and make sure you sign up this week when it drops because spots are going quickly and we are not going to be available for people jumping in late. All right, this show is brought to you by Neurohacker. Neurohacker is one of my favorite companies. Nootropics are substances that support focus, memory, mood, and general mental performance. But for years, the only enhancements I experienced to my mental performance were ones that came at an expense of balanced emotional presence, and I value that just as much. But I recently tried a nootropic formula that supports

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have it intra-workout or right before you work out, and you will see a really big difference in your ability to perform. Love these dudes. All right. Without further ado, my man, Michael Punky Higgs from missionwithin.org. Well, I'm super excited to have you on. It's a bummer, Martin, or is it Martine? Martine. Martine. Yeah, it's a bummer. He couldn't make it today, but he had kind of pushed for us to be on this podcast together. So I'm excited that I got you. And certainly there's a lot to discuss here. As I mentioned to you before the podcast, we've had different special operators on the podcast and

military personnel. And I met my wife on a tour for the troops. So I have a lot of love and respect for what you guys are doing overseas. And certainly I've seen firsthand, you know, really what the cost of that can be, you know, and how much can really take a toll, not just from obviously the mental emotional side, but with everything we've learned about the brain and how traumatic brain injury works and CTE, how that too can affect mental emotional stability and one's ability to reintegrate into civilian life. And of course, you know, my audience is no stranger to the talk of plant medicines and all of the wonderful benefits and cautions that go with that. But I think when I got introduced to you guys, I'd actually heard about y'all from Dr. Dan Engel,

who's a good friend of mine, as having one of the premier centers in the world. So I'm really excited to have you on today and to dive deeper into what you guys are offering and your background in particular. This show typically has the arc of what life was like growing up for people on an individual basis and kind of what brought them to where they're at today. So what got you into the military and the Navy SEALs? And then, of course, what led you to where you're at right now would be great place to start. Yeah easy day yeah it was I grew up in East Tennessee my mom was divorced at the time we actually grew up in Maryland moved to East Tennessee my mom had married a Secret Service guy former Marine kind of a hard-ass guy you know lost his first wife, super abusive, just because he was going through his own shit.

But he kept trying to get us all to go in the military after high school. I was like, there's no freaking way I'm going to ever go in the military. So I had zero interest. Played sports in school, wrestling, track, and football. So I had a super great outlet for a little bit of the anger that followed me as a kid. But still actually had no interest in ever going into the military. I was so against it. And the flight went down to Lockerbie, Scotland.

For some reason, I was at the gym with a friend of mine. I was watching old news, and it just resonated with me. I have still to this day no clue why it resonated with me. But I'm like, hey, I'm going to go do something about that. You know, me, the little one-man army. So it was interesting. But he was a former EOD guy, Bob Disposal from Vietnam. He's like, hey, man, you make a good seal.

And I'm like, what the hell is that? So we just kept talking. And it kind of kept spurring some interest in me. And then after a while, it just became my new path. So as much as training time and stuff that I was putting into my sports, it shifted everything to getting ready to go into the Navy. Into a space I really still had zero clue about and just kind of dove into it. Yeah, so many people talk about what that's, what that's like, but I'd love for you to paint your own picture. I mean, I've read,

I think a lot of my audience has likely read some of Jocko's books and, um, different people that really explained the difficulty and the challenge and the uniqueness of what it's like going through buds, but talk about that experience for you. And, uh, when did you start to transition to really, you know, wanting to be there and wanting to be of service in the way that you did? You know, obviously it's not something it's, I'd like to compare it to fighting and say, like, if you're not all the way in, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. But I, I'd have never been there. So I don't know if that's a, you know, an apples to apples or not, but it seems to me from the outside looking in that if you're not 100% into what you're doing, you would stand no chance of making it through Bud's. No, I agree with that. It was interesting when I started my train of, there was no books out. I came in in 1986, so there was like one or two books. They're all Vietnam books at the time. No movies. So no Hollywood stuff to go

off of to falsely motivate me but yeah it was just kind of in my dialogue with my friend of him just you know sharing the significance of the job it just really shifted with me and I think at that time he was such a strong mentor in my life and we hunted together we worked out together he's my pseudo father and I just really drove me in the gym. And there was a point there. I think I was just kind of half-assed training. And he even said, like, you know, do you want this or not? I'm like, yeah.

And he goes, well, then own it. I was like, okay, what does that mean? He goes, you know what it means. And then for some reason, something clicked to me. And I just really dialed in my training. Kind of turned into a little madman for a while. Isolated myself from my family and my girlfriend at the time too I think I was trying to get everyone out of my life that was gonna try and disparage me or discourage me from going in and just uh locked myself on the path and it was uh it was hard you know for me as a

athlete you know I ran track so I was a skinny kid. Then I wrestled. I either gained weight or lost weight trying to make the cut and then put back on weight to play football. I'm like, man, I'm training for this thing that I still have no idea what it looks like. All I know is they run and they swim a lot, and I'm just now learning how to swim. Let's see how that goes. It was pretty funny.

I ended up taking swimming lessons, and then I took lifeguarding lessons. I met this girl at the pool. She was a lifeguard, and I said, basically, I'll just be your crash dummy for as long as you'll have me. So I basically got drown-proof for four months just working out with her so I could survive in the water. So that was pretty fun. Yeah, of all the things, that's the most scary to me. I'm like, I'm built to swim, but I don't have any technique. And you know, as with anything, whether it's jujitsu or shooting a gun, like technique is the thing. And, um, yeah, that, that, that scares the shit out of me. I think it scares the shit out of most people.

Is it true, you know, that you guys get, uh, you know, that one of the tests is to basically hang out in a pool until you go out and then you get resuscitated? Talk about some of the gnarlier bits. It's not exactly like that, but that's kind of what it ends up being. The only thing I suffered with in training was the swimming aspect in first phase or where Hell Week is and all that. The runs I survived. I was mid-level. On the old course of stuff, I thrived. Then I would get in the water.

I felt like I was just always dragging this anchor when I swam. It's like, just get this thing over with. They had this evolution where you basically had to tread tread water but you had your hands out of the water so you're basically just using your legs and a lot of us came in we were like super leg heavy at the time as well and we had just gotten off a run prior to that so i'm already deficient i'm already starting to cramp up i'm in there and i start to cramp and my thigh just sees up and i sink um you know i get pulled out like hey you got one more shot of this and uh i'm sitting here watching all these other guys go through you know

probably 60 percent naked the other guys are sitting on the side with me i'm like shit man this is this is gonna be over fairly quickly i think and i remember getting back in there and just like driving through that pain in my legs it's like trying to get the timeline in my head of like how much longer I had. And I couldn't even focus on that. I know just that's really kind of where I started learning how to breathe through things and just recenter myself and just muscle through it. I made the cut and got to the side of my that was close. And so I got to stay in the class. And then I think half of the guys are on the side with me ended up getting, you know, got to stay in the class. Then I think half of the guys that were on the side with me

ended up getting, you know, they didn't make the cut after that, so we lost those guys as well. But that was my big, I think my biggest fear going through training was all the water work. I just didn't have the experience with it. You know, you briefly touched on this, this piece of finding your center, finding your breath, and allowing that to be the guidepost, moving you through it. That's not something that everyone truly gets, whether you be at the highest level of fighting or swimming any sport, let alone what you guys

were doing. And it seems like the ability to draw within, to push through something, to move beyond thought and return to the body, returning to the breath as a focal point, seems to be one of the key ingredients for the high in quite a few of my fights, there was this, oh no, now I'm down, you know, X amount of points and I need a knockout. And it just, this negative spiral that would take place. And in the fights that I did really well, it was centered around me following my breath and just not in my head, back in my body, just moving with the flow of things. Was that something that was common? Was that something that people got in the situation you were in? Was it something that was required? Or was that just one of these key takeaways that you took? And then obviously you take that with you for the rest of your life, whether you're fighting or not. Yeah. I think it's something that I was taught earlier on in sports. And just like said in your fights i remember in my wrestling matches i get in there and that and you know same thing you know you're on your back that

you know that dialogue starts in your head and it actually removes you from the fight you're not even present anymore and you know once you dial that breath back in and get yourself back in the game everything just kind of gets in its natural flow state and you work it out um and i saw that in track i saw it on football and then other it out. And I saw that in track. I saw it in football. And then other guys that I was working with later in life, they kept always bringing back that same kind of conversation. It's like, hey, there's something here.

I never really dove into it past that other than knowing like, hey, this is how I calm myself down and get re-centered. And then obviously later in life, it's been a key aspect of everything that I do and everything I preach. It's just, I think we all need it. I think we've forgotten how to get there. And it's funny you said monkey mind because I describe it all the time. I remember I would go get in float tanks and try and float and my mind was just so cluttered and dirty.

And I remember yelling at him, hey, you guys figure this shit out. We'll talk when you're done it was like i i let him go to battle for a while and then then i just got quiet i'm like all right you guys are finished thanks so i'm gonna try and meditate now yeah that's that's that's an interesting piece for people that haven't had i think a lot more people have been exposed to float tanks at least you know on a one as a one-off just because of Rogan really promoting it. But, um, my first probably two or three times, like that's all I experienced was just fucking, Whoa, this is weird. And then, you know, the, the, the sensation of it, it's kind of like Terrence McKenna, you know, when he says on DMT, no, don't get, don't get lost in the

astonishment, you know? And I was just like, like, all I'm doing is feeling like this weightlessness and what does that feel like? And describing that in this constant play-by-play in my head, like Bob Costas. And then finally, when that started to dissipate, I'd be left with all the thinking that I hadn't done. You know, it was like, oh man, what's it like to be alone with yourself with no stimulus?

It's a real pain in the ass if you've never gotten quiet and you've never learned how to push stop on that motor. It's super interesting how that goes. But once you get it, the first time I got it, it felt like I was in there for three minutes. I did 90 minutes and the light came on and some whale music. And I was like, is something wrong? And she goes, no, you, you did great. Your time's up. And I was like, no, it's, it's not up. That was three minutes. And she's like, oh, you did great. You know? And I was like, that's when I got it. You're like, holy shit, that's possible. You know? Um, talk about, you know, what in your, obviously you

see a lot in your career and, and, um, you can go as deep or as shallow as you want and then into that type of water. There's no pressure there, but maybe talk about some of your experiences that led you to want to understand deeper. You know, what is the healing that's necessary? What are the different modalities that are akin to that level of mindset where you can focus on a certain area to calm and quiet the mind. Like, bridge us to you wanting to work in the field that you're in right now and what that looked like. Yeah, I mean, it didn't happen actually until way later. You know, I did 30 years in the team, so I just got out in November of 2016. I remember there was probably a period in the early 90s, mid-90s. Do you remember when Celestine Prophecy came out? Mm-hmm. I was kind of going down that path and really diving in.

I was doing a keel at the time and really just trying to get back to what I was prior to coming into the service. And just trying to realign myself. And then obviously the war kicked off. I got married, had a kid, then the war kicked off, and just everything went all stop. And then during that time, it was like i just caught my crazy period um got remarried you know i got divorced my first wife and i were we basically married ourselves we both had sexual physical abuse as kids so but we didn't share it with each other so that was just a very ugly dynamic together. We've since been able to beautifully reconcile that. But then I got divorced, got remarried, had my daughter in 2001.

The towers went down and then the entire world changed after that. Pre-war, I was a pre-war SEAL. So we traveled all through Europe and South America and the Pacific and just had fun. We trained with our counterparts, and somehow we were able to make $12 a day last a month and still party and train hard. But it was a really good period. Then the war kicked off, and everything shifted. Our training shifted. Our training actually became serious. It's like, whoa, this is game one now, right?

Because when we first kicked off the war, all you had was years of training behind your belt with nothing to even bounce off of to validate it. Like, hey, I hope this works. They've been making me drink this Kool-Aid for 10, 15 years now. And then it got over, and then just the pace of everything increased uh i at the height of the war myself and almost every one we came off cycle so instead of deploying you know once every 18 months we're deploying once every six once every nine and it was really you could deploy as many

times as you wanted to because there was just so much work um in the midst of all that, I fought all through Iraq, like most of the guys have. I went through Fallujah, fought that battle, fought in Najaf, fought in Sadr City. Haditha had fought out west in Al-Qaim. And each of those rotations

was just entirely different from each other. But it also brought back a lot of scars. You know, I was talking to somebody else before, you know the the one-on-one gun battle you know with the guy that you and you both chose to be there at that time no dramas right made the best man win um i'm glad i did and then there were other instances that happened over there that you know brought on more injury and people get injured on target or just all the stuff that you see. I lost a bunch of Marines, you know, cumulatively under me. Never lost any SEALs whatsoever. And I just kept bringing that baggage home.

And then finally I came home one day and my wife was addicted to Oxycontin. She was a triathlete and got, you know, sent home with a bottle of pills that eventually took her down. Then took our marriage down, then our finances. And then my oldest daughter ended up getting addicted as well to Oxycontin and went down a path. So I was basically coming home from crazy town and fighting overseas, rolling into crazy town in my household and not knowing what to do with it. You know, I was almost hiding.

I was mad at my family for being addicts instead of loving them and trying to help them. Because at the time for me, it was almost embarrassing that they were addicts. And I didn't know how to help. And I was still trying to calm down and reset from being, you know, all the shit that happened overseas. As well as, you know, do my job. You know, there's an upward progression path in the team like you do your job but you know you're already eyeballing your next position and they're eyeballing you uh so then try to keep my household you know in order as best i can because you know

the navy's looking at you like hey can he do this next job uh and all that so it really kind of took me completely out of myself and just away from my family. I started to isolate and I would just stay at work all the time and work out and just my whole focus became work instead of my family. It really did. I didn't realize it until way later. And then I just kind of,

you just kind of turn into a machine after that because you're numb. And so next thing you know, I'm back and forth, back and forth. Multiple deployments go home. End up getting divorced. End up getting custody of my daughter. But now I'm numb. I don't even have this relationship with my children. And so I remember I got out.

I came off my last, uh, my last deployment from Iraq and, uh, I had opened Iraq, closed it, reopened it and almost closed it again. And I came back and for the first time I'm stepping off to an airplane, off the airplane at home. I've got no family to meet me, you know, no wife, no kids. And I was like, wow, this is where we are right now. And just kind of came to grips with that. And then after that, you know, just I got out and worked for a bit. I was doing some public speaking, speaking on resiliency. And we could talk about that because that was interesting. What a lie that was. And then went to grad school went up to usc got my mba because i was

doing some executive coaching at the time like hey i should probably know something about business if i'm going to coach these guys uh so i was doing that and then in that four-year period three four-year period when i got out i just had a guy or girl die every single year they just kept dying and they were my younger guys. It wasn't the older guys I was so really attached to. It was the younger ones. And in the SEAL teams, you know, you go through as an operator, but you also have to do a training tour. And during that training tour, whether it's two or three years long,

you get to meet, you know, and witness the growth of, you know, hundreds of guys and girls coming through the pipeline. So, you know, your touch points are huge across the community. And then you end up working with these guys and girls, you know, at some point in time. So you just form these relationships. Anyway, I had a series of those guys die. And then that really started to just drown me, I guess. And then I was in grad school, and two former colleagues of mine got blown up in Syria, Shannon Kent and Scotty Wertz.

And for some reason, that coupled with at the same time I'm dealing with another friend of mine who's having a meltdown. He's having a psychotic break um and he was my you know my friend I never checked on because he's always stable his marriage is good his kids are good like he's just the guy that's always dialed in tight and at that same time his wife calls me and she's like hey I need you uh so then in dealing with him you know we're just he's asking all these questions, and I'm terrified right now. I've never seen anybody on a psychotic break. All I can go is, if you remember Jack Nicholson in The Shining, that was my friend, which was 360 out from who he normally is. And I was terrified at the time. I don't think i've ever been scared in

my life except for right then um but we just started sharing and then he started asking us you know more stuff about overseas he and i had a different path in the community he was more in intelligence and human um and i was a lot of i was inhuman as well but a lot of myself was just direct action uh so we just saw the war from two different lenses as most people do even if you're in the same gun fight you see things differently uh he just kind of was asking like hey so what about this you know what about Eddie Gallagher how do these things happen how do these things happen I was like let's look this girl here and talk you know let's talk about you know what things happen over there and for some reason that coupled with my friends dying and dealing with him it just popped my champagne cork

and every single memory i had all the way from childhood all the way up until that moment came pouring out of me um i was having nightmares i was having flashbacks from all different stages of life um it was extremely scary and at that same time like i think he realized it too he's like hold on i just i just released the dragon here in punky man sorry and i'm sitting at my house and next thing i know i'm spiraling i made it through the seal teams with like zero incidences other than a bunch of fights and bar fights and next thing i've got a dui i'm i'm pulling people bunch of fights and bar fights. The next thing I know, I've got a DUI. I'm pulling people out of cars that I'm angry

at. I'm just beating them up for no reason. I'm going here to zero in a matter of weeks. I get my DUI. I wake up in the drunk tank. My daughter's at home in bed. She doesn't even know I'm gone. Then I come home.

Remember, I'm just sitting on my couch. I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And then I got suicidal, and I'm sitting there. I'm talking to myself. I'm like, oh, fuck it. I'm just going to blow my brains out. And there was a period way back

in the middle of the war when I came home, found my wife addicted, that I was right at that point again. I'm like, hey, what am I fighting for? So I'm sitting here on my couch. I've got a gun to my head and my buddy knocks on the door. I'm like,

fuck, what do I do it now? Or do I wait for him to leave? I'm like, I'll wait for him to leave. Anyway, I go outside and we just start talking. He's like,

you're not in a good place. I go, fuck. No, I'm not in a good place. You put me here. And he goes, no, I didn't put you place. I go, fuck, no, I'm not in a good place. You put me here. And he goes, no, I didn't put you there. And I go, no, you didn't, but I'm here.

And he goes, well, let's get help. So I had reached out to Martine with the Mission Within kind of in a roundabout way. You know, hey, I call a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows about this program. And I had contacted him like, hey, does your program work with my buddy and what he's got going on? He's like, yeah, we think it can. You described how it works with the mind and does the preparative work that it does. So I was getting my buddy into the process.

And then shortly thereafter, I call him back. I'm like, hey, man, you got room for one more? And he's like, yeah, what's going on? I go, well, let me tell you. And he's like, hey, man, you got room for one more? And he's like, yeah, what's going on? I go, well, let me tell you. And he's like, oh, yeah, we got room. And it was funny, and I tell this all the time. And next thing you know, I'm in a van driving to Mexico with a bunch of guys I don't know except for one to go do drugs I've never even heard of with a doctor that I've never even put an ounce of research into, and it sounded okay.

And it was like right where I needed to be. And it was. Went down. I was freaking terrified. In my mind, I'd already built up this thing that God's just going to hand me my ass. He's not going to be happy with me. And I was also terrified because i kept saying hey you know these medicines are gonna unearth shit i'm like you just don't understand what i just went through

without the medicine like i don't know if i'm ready for this man and uh you know then that time with my friend when i was scared for him i've never been more scared in my life than sitting there thinking about hey what am i going to witness you know or have to go through to get to the other side of this and even am i going to get stuck there you know am i never going to be able to get out is all this going to go away i don't know because i didn't do any research and i had zero experience with psychedelics as a child or a teenager um but that was my introduction to the medicine. Zero reading, zero research.

I wasn't even curious about it. And even when I was sending guys and girls down to the program, it was always just a handoff, call this guy, and they're out. And I never even went even past it. I just wasn't ready for it. They always say, you know, you're ready for the medicine when you're ready for the medicine. And that was my time. That's, that's incredible.

And yeah, thank you for diving deeply into your process and what led you there. I want to, is, you know, what they're offering right now, obviously, the through website is Ibogaine and 5-MeO DMT. Was that the medicine that you're speaking about? That was your first introduction? Yeah. This is, it's, it's. Yeah, it is. For, I think my listeners heard it before, but it is worth reiterating that, that without question, those are the granddaddies of them all.

I mean, a lot of people have heard of ayahuasca and ayahuasca is certainly no cakewalk. It can be as challenging, as difficult as, as any of the rest of them all. I mean, a lot of people have heard of ayahuasca and ayahuasca is certainly no cakewalk. It can be as challenging, as difficult as any of the rest of them, but Ibogaine and Iboga seem to, you know, if there was a pecking order, they seem to be at the top of the list for the grind and what lies ahead in terms of physical discomfort, purging, and really just getting put through the ringer where like no stone is left unturned. And it's got a long enough timeline because it's the longest acting plant medicine to really get in, you know, get in the sticky spots that you don't want to look at. I only had one experience with it. And oddly enough, it was quite gentle, but

I've had my ass kicked thoroughly from 5-MeO DMT. And that to a lot of people is, if they have experience with that, is like, what are you talking about? Prior to that experience, I had probably 15 journeys with it over the course of 10 years. And they were all akin to dissolving into the oneness of God, like a thousand hits of MDMA, the most beautiful, uplifting, regenerative experience I've ever had in my life. So to go through the dark night of the soul with that as the catalyst was just a mind fuck. But that said, you know, and that just goes to show like any of these things can be the doorway into the parts and pieces of yourself that you don't want to see. And, you know, it's,

it's interesting where, where, where you were at was really a full surrender. It was like, fuck it. I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to go with it. And I don't need to look into it. It's just the time is now. There is something to be said. You know, it gets into woo-woo land sometimes when people are like, you know, there's a calling to the medicine. It's like, well, at the end of the day, there really is. There's a knowing that is intuitive that goes beyond the rational mind, and it doesn't need statistics or trip reports to say yes to. It's the thing that knows, and that's the thing that drives you there. So that's an incredible and beautiful way to drop into that. Talk about your experience in those journeys and what the period of time after with the integration with Martine and what that looked like for you. Because we've been brought up to speed on what life was like prior to that. The ups and downs. At least two major moments of rock bottom with suicide thoughts. And I've certainly been there by myself post post a football

career before I got into fighting. Um, bring us up to speed on what that, what the integration process looked like for you. Yeah. The integration is key to all this. Um, probably the biggest piece of it, you know, the medicine does its work, but but you know what do we do after the medicine right um and my medicine journey was was ugly and dark and beautiful at the same time um my five was probably a lot like yours at first you know my abogadon i basically got to read that my entire life all over again uh but it gave it to me in a very um matter of fact not emotive way and it gave me a lot of cause and effect, which was really interesting. In the teens, we used this Palantir program for link diagrams. So I'm trying to find bad guy X.

But to get to him, I need to get to this guy or this guy or this guy and slowly work my way through, right? Well, when I went through my medicine journey, he gave it to me just like that. But he gave me, hey, here's this person. person it kept throwing people at me until i finally recognized their faces and then i go oh that's this person this is my mom or this is my dad or this is joe or something and it just took me into their life and it played it backwards for me to how we connected what our interaction was and what they brought to the meeting what i brought to the meeting and it did that like all through my my journey and and every time i would get to this

instance i'm like no man i don't want to see this again and it's like yeah you do and it would give it to me in a different manner same it played it out exactly the same but it took the emotion out so i had no fear going to it um and that's how i needed to see it you know to get through it and i came out of that and i'm like holy fuck i i need to go apologize to a bunch of people um i need to go carpet bomb dc with this shit i need to go carpet bomb the world with the shit and um i had had so much reconciliation and just as you know 12 you know 14 hours i was in the medicine um even my childhood traumas i had just got complete reconciliation from it i remember i went to my coach her name her name's cynthia and i said to like what the fuck am i supposed to do

with this information and she's like what do you want to do with it i go i don't know i mean she goes because i wanted to initially i just wanted to go confront people you know that hurt me um and then just tell them like hey i'm sorry you were hurting too right and then she's like yeah what's that gonna do i go i don't know and so i kept playing it through and i got some points like well if i confront this one person if they deny it or they want to downplay it, am I going to revert back to my old self and Hulk smash everything? Right. And she kept asking me, she goes, did you get the reconciliation you need? I go, yeah.

She goes, well, then why do you want more? What are you trying to create with this? You already have what you want. Stop trying to make something else out of it. And I remember sitting all day with that. I'm like, fuck. I was like, no, she's right. She's right.

I have to believe this. And it changed because I went back into those relationships with those people. And I've given them nothing but love since. And there's periods of time where, you know, they may say something or something comes up. I'm like, all right, I'm going to come to this phone. I'm like, no, I can't do that because it robs me of my joy as well. It was very easy for me to fall back into the hate locker. Very easy to go back there.

It was harder to stay just on the path of love because I didn't have the tools going into it you know before it was a whole new learned skill set uh so working with her after that just really helped me dial on those practices um you know before i went down i didn't meditate i couldn't meditate like you said i just had monkey mind when i got in the float tanks i would want to rip those machines apart because there's just so much noise in there um and now i go and i'm just i drift off that's my reset even if my meditation gets off track the float tape helps me reset and i start back from there um and what i really saw after the medicines was the way that i saw the world was different um and we always talk about you know this thing the road rage right like we're

going down the freeway and johnny's moving in from you know the number four lane over trying to get to the number one lane and for some reason you know we decide that i'm just not going to help johnny today i'm gonna make sure that he does not make this exit fuck this guy because for some reason he's bringing something to me that i don't want. And I remember going to work, actually trying to make sure guys missed their exit because they didn't plan well enough in time. And then I started seeing myself drive to work. I'm like, oh, here he comes. Hey, let me create some space for this guy to get over because he probably wasn't thinking. He was distracted.

Maybe he's got to get his kid to the school or to the hospital. And hey, I'm going to help him out. And once that happened, it really started to shift into every other aspect of my life, into my dealings with people and meetings. It's like, hey, what can I bring to the table today to help you? Advice. Hey, who can I beat up today that didn't come prepared? And then it just started to kind of move outwards from me and

i didn't share my medicine work with anybody it just i just chose to become different and walk the path that i knew that brought me joy and content um and then slowly my cup started getting filled in with people that were on the same path right right? Or even people that weren't like, hey, you know, what's going on with you? You're a lot nicer than you used to be. And it was interesting because I started to see it in my other friends too, guys and girls that had kind of done some medicine work, or maybe not medicine work, they'd just been doing the work period, and just really gotten re-centered back to who they were.

When I went into the five, which was the second day we were down, the third day, I remember sitting at the pool all day and I just cried, you know, because they describe it as the God molecule, right? You're going to meet God. And I was, I think, the most terrified of that than anything. You know, I baptized a kid, you know, had a strong religious base and then very quickly just got completely away from religion, um, organized religion. And then my faith, you know,

during the war, my adulthood, just my faith, it just disintegrated. So I had believed in absolutely nothing, you know, other than me and the guy next to me. So I got in there. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to get it on this one. And so I go in and I just cried. I cried all day. I was so drained. I remember how I got up the stairs because I felt like I had zero energy left in me.

Like my legs just couldn't get me upstairs um and i remember sitting on the on the bed and we're going over the procedures of how we're gonna do it and uh the five mbo we smoke it and she's explaining and for a minute there i'm like yeah bring it you know like i started to get the old me back it's like hey let's just fucking get this on. And I almost brought negative me to the fight or to the experience. And I remember the girl, Mara, she just looks at me. She goes, this is not what you need to bring right now. I'm like, okay. So I go in and I'm fighting for a little bit.

And then I get this breakthrough and I'm just surrounded by love and connection and peace and I can feel the world and hear the world and I can hear my children I like I've connected everybody and so much love and then my battle kicked in because I was not prepared for that amount of love and I fought it and I fought it like there's no tomorrow. It just went battle Royale in the room, battle Royale with myself. And I came out of that medicine. I was like,

well, what the fuck was that? You know? And I'm like, all right, let's go back in. And then I couldn't get back in. I just couldn't get back in.

Each time I get fighting it and fighting it and fighting it. And I remember I sat up on the bed and I was just crying and I was mad at myself. I'm like, great, you fucked this up. You know, you didn't show up. And then I went outside and I was sitting there for a while. I was like, no, I think I'm good right now. I saw what's behind the curtain. I know what's over there.

I felt it. And I wasn't ready for it, but I'm going to be ready for it. And that shifted and started my walk. It was like, all right, I wasn't ready. I didn't allow myself to receive really what I wanted, which was love. And I wanted to feel love again. And peace. So I was like, alright, this is what we're going to do.

So I just kind of kept going down that path. That started my meditation. That started me diving in and learning more about the medicines and more about my spirituality. And then just starting to help other guys. And then one day, Martine reached out.

He was like, hey, we got a big group coming down. Do you want to come down and just help out? I'm like, yeah, sure. So I just came down to wash dishes and drive a truck and just be there for guys. And what was interesting is when I'm there, you know, I had so much time in the team. You know, there's six guys down there.

I probably know four of them. You know, and I walk in, they're like, Punky's i'm like yeah man i'm like yeah me too and so it really started to normalize things for all of us because you go down again there's another guy's like yeah me too man because we're all doing this you know reconciliation dance with ourselves but we're all doing under the table and not even connecting with each other other than maybe the five or six guys that were with you on that weekend. So we're all doing this, you know, heavy shadow work, but not in any kind of community. So I came from that and I kept going down just volunteering.

And then one day I just said, well, an interesting side effect of this. So my wife now is a therapist down there. And we had met years ago, right when my life was completely upside down. And so was hers. We tried to date. I remember asking my friend, I'm like, hey, who's that? He was like, you guys need to stay away from each other right now. I'm like, bullshit, I'm going in.

And that just completely blew up. But we stayed friends for years and she had been telling me about this program but she had never really she never mentioned martine's name and i was still so shallow in my relationship with her that i never put the two and two together that she'd been working at the same program that i went to she just wasn't there on my weekend um but i had seen her in my medicine, in my journey, and I'd seen her on subsequent journeys. And I remember I just called her, I'm like, Hey, you just want to go out for a cup of coffee? And we did.

And we started talking. I just shared everything with her. I was apologizing. And she's like, uh, you know, that's where I work, right? I'm like, no, no, you don't. She goes, yeah, that's where I work. So we ended up going down together one weekend. It just, it was, it worked out at first. I didn't want to go with her.

I didn't want to bring like a, um, our relationship energy into that space. Like I felt it needed to be separate. And it just so happened one weekend and we went down together and we're very good at playing pickup ball with each other. So our dance was really beautiful and it was a developing dance between you know the trip lead which I would be and her as the therapist and just how we managed this entire weekend and it was really beautiful it

was really healing for us and it was really healing for other guys and girls to kind of hear you know our separate stories and almost to see like hey there's there may be some light at the end of the tunnel here um so then i stepped in you know after that called martina hey i've got the bandwidth you know i can come in you know and run ops for you if you need it and he said yeah so i came i was doing that and then katie my wife we just started developing our routine. So we're down there every other weekend. Then I run the backside stuff from here. And then there's other therapists and other tripletes, obsolescent that go down,

but they're not couples. And each crew has their own dance that they do and how the weekend plays out. We have kind of right and left limits for how we want things to go down, but we give them, you know, their artistic freedom in the middle there. And, but the ops leads are all veterans.

You know, the triple lead guys, they're all for the, at first they were all spec ops guys, but they're all veterans. And then the therapists were typically all trauma therapists. They've been working in the space and they've, you know, stepped across the working in the space and they've, you know, stepped across the line in the psychedelic space, which if you've done therapy,

I'm sure you haven't. Most of us had, you know, you're doing therapy for 20, 30 years, and you're just dancing around this thing that you never seem to get to. And therapist is like, yeah, I'll take your 180 bucks. I'll see you next week. Let me know when you're ready to work. But you never know what you're working on because you just don't you can't seem to get to it and then what's interesting is after doing the medicine work it's like you get right to the x you're after it it's like now if you want to do therapy now your real work

can happen um you're not wasting time because you know what you're dealing with. And then that was good. I was just going to say that's such an important piece of the conversation. I remember when I think it was Gabor Mate or Dennis McKenna said, you know, a night with the medicine is equivalent to 10 to 20 years of therapy. And I had done a lot of it, went to see a psychologist as young as seven years old for a year and then kind of bounced around with that through different stints of depression as a teenager and fresh out of college when I attempted suicide. as deep into the things that I didn't want to see and as healing as my medicine journeys, you know, and, and the thing that, that, that is a common, um, saying around that,

whether you're working with ayahuasca or any of these, you know, great tools with respect and reverence in the proper set and setting is that you, you always get what you need. You know, there's a lot of people that, that fear, um, getting the kitchen sink on night one, like all the trauma is going to get healed in one night. And it's like, no, I mean, even if you wanted that, it's not going to happen. Um, but the, the layering, you know, because it is conscious because it is intelligence itself. Uh, it, it is scaled to meet you exactly where you're at. And that's something, you know, it can take you further than what you think is possible. And it certainly has on many occasions for me.

But it's always been what I needed and it's always been what I could handle. You know, and I think that's such an important piece because a lot of what you're doing with a therapist is almost a guessing game. Like how much are you willing to reveal? Well, I, I'm not sure how much I remember, or I care to share with you, you know, and this dance goes on, it could go on for decades. Whereas, um, you know, when you peel back the curtain, it's whatever needs to come up, that's going to come up, you know, and that, that layering, you know, the, uh, another one they talk about, my first practitioners, I had, I'd done a, you know, does my they talk about my first practitioners, I had done a, you know,

does my first dozen ayahuasca ceremonies were on a native American reservation in Northern California, you know, and they'd always say, it's, it's like peeling layers of the onion. You know, there's always a layer to peel, but you're peeling just one layer at a time. And that really resonates with me, you know, in hindsight, looking at all these journeys, because there is always something there. And some of them are very peaceful and some of them are rocky and fucking really hard but but it is just layer upon layer that you could dive further into the self further into the healing process and that to me is super important because with that the stage where we're at in society there is i mean everybody has gone through something, whether you can admit that,

or you're aware of that or not, everyone has their own shit to work on. There's just no doubt about that. There's not a person on the planet that didn't have something, uh, that was traumatizing in childhood or something that was traumatizing in their life that, that could have a, you know, a different perspective or a different viewpoint on and, and some healing with that. And I think that's one of the most beautiful things about any of these really powerful medicines is that it does come in stages and it's not, you know, it's not the kitchen sink calling one whack, you know? Yeah. It's funny too. You know, you, you know, what we're afraid of, right. And it's, you're, it's funny cause you're afraid of what you already know,

right. You're afraid of what you've already seen. So you already know how it's going to play out, but you just don't want to revisit it. Then I've seen guys and girls, even myself too, I've gone into medicines. I'm like, hey, I want to get after this. And the medicine's like, no, you don't need to see that. I'm like, no, I want to see that. It's like, you don't need to see it. And then all of a sudden you make the decision like, hey, I don't need to see that.

It's like, poof, it's gone. And now you can get on to what you really need to see right or really need to work on um i think that's the beauty in the medicines how they uh you know they're so intelligent how they play with us they meet us with different energies sometimes with humor sometimes with sternness always with love uh you know that whole dance is it's quite unique uh and yeah yeah, I've done a bunch of medicine work since then. Not really out of curiosity. It seems I've always kind of fallen into place like right when, I call it my churn. About every four to six months, my volcano starts to rumble down there.

I'm like, all right, man, what's going on? I start to peel back the onion and tighten up my spokes. I'm like, hey, am I doing all the things right? What's out of practice? And then sometimes it's like, all right, let's see. And inadvertently, I'll end up running into somebody that's like, hey, I'm going to the Indian Reservation this weekend. You want to go out and do some mushrooms with me?

Or hey, we're going to do ayahuasca this weekend. So-and-so's in town. I'm like, I never thought about that but yeah because I wasn't chasing the medicine it seemed to fall in at the right time when I needed it and it was always the right medicine for the right time as well

I remember I did this heavy psilocybin journey out of the Indian Reservation out here was a bunch of team guys MMA fighters from this, uh, Wampkiss, this fire tent. And we're,

uh, the whole premise of the, of the experience is sharing your story. So you would go around the circle and you would share your story. And as you shared the fire would roar. And if you stopped sharing, it would come down. So this is collective energy.

And it got, it went a couple of times around the circle and it got back to me and i got real closed off i'm like no i'm done sharing man and it was so interesting because i'm in such a safe container right with these guys that i love and respect and even if i didn't knew them i felt safe with them and like the fire would start to go out and it's like, damn. And then this internal dialogue would kick in like, Hey man,

way to show up. You know, Hey, thanks for being here for us. Yeah. And it's, it's the guy, the guy on either side of me saying this, which is,

you know, in essence, it's me saying it. And, uh, I remember the guy to the right of me is like, Oh, I'll go ahead and start.

And I'm like, no, no, no. I, I, I have to share. He's like, yeah, but you're not sharing so he would start talking but then i would bounce to the other side of him so i could get back in line uh and still find myself unable to share right

doing it and then i went flat out on my ass and into my you know into my journey and went through a lot of trauma uncovering in that one. But the beautiful thing about that journey is I found myself at the bottom of this super big, I'll just call it a PVC pipe. And it just went up forever. I could see the light at the top of it. And I got all my work done, but now I'm just stuck at the bottom of this tube. So I keep trying to climb it, and I'm sliding down. I'm doing the leg back brace, and I'm walking up it and sliding down, and I'm doing the spider monkey, and I'm sliding down.

And then I see all these heads come in at the top of the tunnel. They're looking down at me, and they're like, hey, punk, what are you going to do, man? I kept climbing and falling and climbing and falling. I'm like, hey, what are you going to do, man? And finally, it seemed like after an hour i just like raised up my hand and then these hands all came down the tube and they just grabbed my wrist and they pulled me up um it was me finally asking for help right and i came out of that tube i'm laying on the ground i'm just crying they're flat out on their ass on their own medicine journey and i came out of that too. I'm laying on the ground. I'm just crying. They're flat out on their ass on their own medicine journey. And I came out of that.

I'm like, yeah, that's all it took. Yeah. Thank you. I needed that. Right. Yeah. But that's how many medicine journeys have been. You know, some have been uncovering trauma.

I've done some that have just like the trauma is gone. It's like, Hey, let's get after this. Some of mine have shown me. It's finally brought me to place back. It's like, all right, we're done worrying about you. And I'll pull what was you. Let's look at what. Some of mine have shown me it's finally brought me to place back. It's like, all right, we're done worrying about you. And I'll pull what was you. Let's look at what you've done to people. Right.

And to really reconcile and deal with that. And that's been a hard one. But that's been the most productive as well, because it's allowed me to do face to face talks and meetings. And, you know, let's, let's talk, you know, let's, let's talk about what we both came into this with and, you know, and be accountable. And that's been extremely healing and humbling at the same time. And then some of the journeys are just beautiful journeys. I had one that just walked me back through my entire childhood and I was

trying to go down the dark path and my older self was, no, man, let's go down this path. And like walking me through this beautiful, you know, memory lane. But hey, here's all the good shit that happened in your life. So they've all been uniquely interesting and different from each other. But they've all played out the way they needed to at the time that I needed them. And then that's kind of guided, you know, me and my coaching work that I do with guys and girls. You know, I'm 50 something years old. I've been around, I've seen a lot.

I have a lot of stories and so do they, but it's funny because if we have six people in the room, three or four of us have the same story. You know, we think we're so unique and that our traumas are so specific to us and they're not. But we go through life thinking that and that causes shame and it causes us to distance ourselves from people

or we don't think that people are going to understand so we're never authentic with anybody from fear of judgment until you hit rock bottom and then you've got nowhere else to go. And I think what I'm seeing now is people are starting to get it. You know, they're starting on this path a lot sooner than reaching rock bottom,

which is beautiful. Cause I don't think we all need to get there. Some of us may just have to crash and burn to, you know, to find our way out, but I don't think we all do. And I think it's just been super beautiful to watch. Yeah.

Paul check speaks to that, you know, on, on the rock bottom, he talks a lot about the pain teacher and you know, the pain teacher comes in to help you. The pain teacher, you could say is the high self, the soul, whatever you want to call that on some level has been trying to get your attention without pain and then resorts to a different teaching, you know, and that, that, that pain teacher starts with a whisper and a knock at the door and then eventually kicks down the door and brings the whole house down.

The more you ignore it, um, uh, over time, you know, I think one of the beautiful things about all of these medicines is the reconnection to the inner self. It's a reconnection to your intuitive process and that, that internal knowing and, uh, as a guidepost, you know, rather than needing to rationalize everything and think through it all and, you know, psychologically know all possible outcomes. It's like, no, you don't have to get there. You can just trust in this part of you. And I think the better we get at connecting to that part of us, the easier it is to hear the whisper of the pain teacher. So we don't have to hit rock bottom again. We then have that, you know, that guidepost come in

and it's like, oh, okay, you know, I can find, you know, by seeking out extreme after extreme on both sides, I can find my center a little bit easier and reconnect to that middle path. Talk a little bit about, you know, what's changed in your community? What's changed? I mean, obviously,

the game has changed completely from when you first got into this in terms of people talking about it, people knowing these medicines exist. I remember the first time I did ayahuasca, I was like, holy shit. Like, I wanted to stand on the top of a mountain and beat the fucking drum and just say like, this exists. This whole experience exists like god exists and it's fucking not what we've read about holy shit you know and and then over time that drum beat became a little lower and then you know over more time it was like all right um for those that are ready for those that are seeking you know that that message can be yeah and i i think that's the big thing is you know i'm sure you were probably the same way. You, you, you said, you come out immediately.

You just want to be an evangelist, right? And then you're like, well, hold on. We've seen what happens to people that become evangelist. It just doesn't fare well for people because there's no credibility in it. So what has to happen is your actions have to speak louder than the words. And that's what I've seen, which, which has been bringing guys and girls in and then slowly over time, allowing that to change the narrative, the proofs in the pudding, without really diving off the deep end and just trying to get this change overnight,

which sucks because we really want the change overnight, but we're not ready for change overnight. The narrative has shifted. I think we're all very, very respectful and cognizant that, hey, these are medicines. These aren't drugs. They're sacred. They should be revered.

I don't know anyone that's running off to go do Abigail in a Burning Man and go have fun if that's the way you want to go. But, you know, be careful what you ask for. And I'm not a psychonaut. I get in these medicines for my healing. I'm not really chasing much expansiveness right now. But I understand people's curiosity of that, and I support that. But I want to make sure that we're staying on the right path and the right narrative.

Like, hey, these are healing medicines. When I got in this space, when I got out of the Navy, I was on, I don't know, 15 medicines from the VA, psychotropics, pain meds, sleep aids. All those surely were just working against each other

in my system, right? I was on medicines from my TBI and medicines because I had so much cog damage from explosions and then from sports. So let's throw a pill on top of that. Let's throw a pill on top of your sleeve. What I've been able to do with this medicine is I'm not on any meds anymore. I'm still on my blood pressure meds.

And if I could eat enough spinach to lower my blood pressure, then I will. But, you know, you see the healing property in the medicines. And maybe it's not really the medicines. It's what the healing properties, what the medicine allows you to see that changes, you know, your thought processes. It gives you the reconciliation. So you don't need these other drugs because all those drugs do is numb. They don't allow us to feel, and we're meant to feel. That's the biggest thing we're afraid of, right? So it's that, and then slowly finding the right voices

so that we can affect policy change. Getting the right meetings at the right table with the right audience. And some people are, you know, politicians are like slowly gravitating this, but they're kind of going down the old narrative again. Hey, these are psychedelics from the 60s and 70s. It's really trying to find the right advocates

for that and to make sure that we're trying to keep the space clean. We know it's right for abuse. I've seen the veteran spaces really lean into this hard, and maybe that's the right focus group for this right now, knowing that we still want to get out way past the veteran group because they're only a slice of America. But if that allows us to get these studies done

and get guys and girls off these nasty meds and get some healing. Yeah. Let's just go down that path. But knowing that, you know, the greater good is, is all of humanity right now, just the veteran space.

I think the veterans and athletes are very apt, more apt to jump into this space because they're like one, I think there's a challenging aspect to it. So there's a curiosity. It's like, all right, i've been kicking my ass for so long this is supposed to kick my ass too yeah let's get some right yeah challenge this is challenging i'm fucking accepted yeah so that's interesting how guys and girls come into it with that mindset um and just really just trying to better their performance, right?

Just, just more optimization. So, you know, we lean into that space. So this is just another tool in that toolbox. So I think that's good. I still see it though in the military, you know,

there's all this underground work being done and, but a lot of us have just come out. We're gotten in front of it and we're slowly seeing more and more, you know, prominent people get in front of it. And we're slowly seeing more and more prominent people get in front of it. And that's what really needs to happen. We're just going to keep scratching the surface. It's like, you know, I got my healing, but I'm going to be over here and I'm going to be real quiet about it. Well, then we're not helping anybody. And we're not helping anybody either by keeping, you know, our experiences to ourselves because there's something to be said for speaking your truth, right?

And then you find out that, hey, my truth is the same as his truth, it's her truth, it's her truth. And that just norms things and it just starts the dialogue and it just promotes it even more. And then I think my biggest concern right now is, we're still going to Mexico to get healing, right? Guys and girls are going to Peru and the Andes and everywhere but home to get healing. And these spaces we're going to are safe. They're beautiful spaces.

They're beautiful, safe containers. There's no risk to going there. But we shouldn't have to travel halfway around the world to go get healing. And I think we're finally seeing therapists and psychologists kind of tip their toe into this. Even my shrink, I told him when I was going down, I go, hey, listen, dude, I'm getting off all your meds. And this is how I'm going to do it. And he didn't believe me. He didn't think it was possible.

Here I am two years later. And now he's asking me questions. I'm like, hey, how about you just come down? You know, just come witness it. You wouldn't have to go through the medicine. It'd be better if you did for your own comprehension. But we're getting a lot of the researchers and other people slowly dipping in. But then, you know, these studies that everyone's doing aren't taking so freaking long.

Why they take so long, I don't know. I'm not in the research business. I know there's money to be gained here. Obviously, if you can patent these things and get ahead of it as far as monopolization goes. But these are plant medicines. You know, they've been here for centuries. They're going to be here for centuries.

They're here for us to use. We just have to learn how to find them. And I think they've always been in front of us. We just, we weren't looking right. So it's an interest, a super interesting time, I think in all the spaces right now. Yeah. And it is important. I think something that you're touching on is, is the, the movement is, is bigger than any one particular group. And it does take, you know, the first time I realized this, you know, like I grew up tall, skinny as a beanpole,

and then slowly started putting on weight my senior year, played college football, I was 268. And then it was all about losing weight for fighting and can I make 205 for the weight cut? But, you know, I've always trained with guys that are bigger than me, guys like Cain Velasquez, Daniel Cormier, you know, real heavyweights. And, um, I never see myself. I know I'm taller than most people. I don't see myself as a big guy. And I had this, this, uh, ayahuasca journey that was a day ceremony. And then I've got two little,

little Mexican ladies carrying me to the back bathroom, you know, and I'm trying my hardest to walk and I get out of it and I'm walking back and this super small Mexican lady looks up. She was probably, she's under five feet tall. She looks at me and she doesn't speak a word of English. And she just points and says, the Hulk, the Hulk, the Hulk. And I'm like, what? And then I was like, oh my God, you think I'm the Hulk? And we died laughing. And I made it back, you know, closing circle. She says this, it's all Spanish. And I'm trying to glean what she's saying. And I made it back, you know, closing circle. She says this, it's all Spanish and I'm trying to glean what she's saying.

And then she looks over and points and starts laughing, calling me the Hulk. And I thought of, you know, the meat suit, like how that appears to other people. You know, and I think my, the avatar that I have in this life is one that can speak to a lot of people that have similar avatars.

It's one where guys who are bros and jocks and fighters can say, oh, shit, this guy, he's relatable because I did the same thing. And I think that's something you've been speaking about when it comes to servicemen and women, is that you were at the highest level of the game, and you went through all the same things. There are a lot of common things, maybe not the exact same,

but there's a lot of common traits there that people can glean from. And in that, they see themselves in you as you speak. And part of the game is getting as many different people from as many different walks of life to come forward with their story. And with that, it humanizes the whole thing and people can see themselves in each and every avatar. And from there, um, the, the,

the permission slip is granted, right? We say, Oh shit. Okay. This person's just like me. And it gives them permission to participate when they're ready. And I think that's a critical piece. Um, I like that you use avatars. It's a good choice of words. I always laugh because I have a really stern face. I was born with a resting bitch face. I can't get away from it. My nickname's Punky. I'm a jokester at heart. I'm super playful.

But you won't know that if you stop at my mug, right? And don't allow me to be me. So you always, you're constantly trying to really put your real self out in front of you, which is hard. Uh, cause you never know which is going to get seen first, right. The avatar or yourself. Uh, so it's interesting. You said that, you know, I keep going through our numbers, you know, you know, arbitrary initially just started focusing on spec ops guys. It was only just at a chance.

A team guy came down there with addiction, which led to him getting some healing and stopped his addictions, but he also got all the cognitive repair and regeneration that Avogaine's really beautiful for. But we've only put like six or so hundred operators through this program, right? You know, maybe 1,200 people total, again, counting civilians, and, you know, maybe 80 spouses. We're like scratching the surface, right?

We're not even making a dent on anything, really. And's our focus it's just on that group right this is like how are we gonna you know try and enact this larger scale healing with all these just super tiny little retreats or clinics or whatever you want to call them like we're not we're making headway but we're definitely not making enough. You know, and I don't know what the right answer to that scaling or just passing legislation or where everything changes. Cause there's a lot of people that are just in line, right. To, to get in.

And a lot of these retreats, you know, that's included, we have a backlog. And, you know, I just lost two friends to suicide just this last month. And we keep going back at that. And the same thing is like, I never knew that was going to happen with that guy or that girl. Then I look at these backlogs that we have and it's like, you know, what happens during that backlog? Do we lose another one?

Do we lose another one? Do we lose another one? Do we lose another one? Do we lose another one? Um, but the big thing goes into what you are. We're just really talking about is, is, is normalizing this and getting this narrative out there so that guys and girls are like, Hey, I need help. You know, and they're quick to raise their hand. You know, they're not isolating and say, Hey, I got this by myself. I can figure this out on my own because you can't.

And once that happens, then there's so many avenues for healing. If you just raise your hand, we're going to get you. Someone's going to get to you. Because I'm just super tired of losing friends. I'm sure you are too. Yeah, as you were speaking early on about opiate addiction, it just brought up a lot. I'm sure you are too. Yeah. Yeah. As you were speaking early on about, um, opiate addiction, I just brought up a lot. I lost three friends in college and, um, a cousin, you know, that all started with Oxycontin. It's, um, you know, that in and

of itself. And that that's honestly one of the, one of the, when you think of Iboga and Ibogaine as, um, you know, one of the apex teacher plants. It has the unique ability to heal addiction in ways that other plants simply don't get into. To strip and free all the receptors in the brain and to create new connections. I mean, a lot of talk has been around since Amber Lyon went on Rogan years ago about the fresh slate. Michael Pollan talked about that. Rather than having these worn paths down the mountain, you get fresh powder and you can decide

which pathway you want to connect to and how you want to carve through the mountain on a fresh set of snow and skis. And that makes sense on a psychological and software basis. But the fact that this helps the hardware, Ibogaine in particular can create more dopamine receptors. and software, you know, basis, but the fact that this helps the hardware, you know, that this Ibogaine in particular can create more dopamine receptors. And that's, that's massive. Like

there's very few medicines that do what Iboga and Ibogaine do. And I think that uniquely puts it in a position where no matter what walk we're coming from, whether it's an addiction to anything or trauma or just really feeling stuck in life. And I think we've all experienced that at some point. The beauty of these medicines is that ripples into all aspects of life. It's not just, hey, I went there for this and that's what I got. It's I went there for this and then I got X, Y, Z, A, B, C. I got so much more. I think that's what I got. It's, I went there for this and then I got X, Y, Z, A, B, C, you know, I got, I got so much more. Um, I think that's, that's such a beautiful thing. And, you know, you, you touched on this briefly, but one of the questions that I had was, is this just for

veterans or, or can civilians come and, and, uh, are you, you know, obviously there is a backlog, but can people sign up to come and see you guys? Yeah. So we, you know, when I first came on board, we were only treating seals, you know, because only seals, no seals, right? Yeah. And then we started bringing in seal spouses.

We started working with them, mostly with psilocybin and 5-Amino, good pairing. I think any of the excavators, ayahuasca, psilocybin, peyote,

and avigain should be paired with 5. I just think there is such a beautiful pairing because one's an excavator and one gets you right back to your heart and soul, right? It's like, all right, you got all this? All right, this shit doesn't matter anymore.

Poof, now let's reconnect you. And then we started bringing in just civilians. And at first, we're like, well, we'll keep the civilians in a special group and we'll keep all the military guys over here. And then I think it was one of the retreats, I'll just call it like an accidental bleed over where we just had a space and we let a civilian guy get in.

And at first I was kind of concerned, and other people were too. I'm like, no, man, let's just play this one out. Because it was a good guy, and his personality matched the group. And we're only six guys we want to make sure that we've got a really good um just the energy and the personalities can match up because we get some groups are just very corner based everyone just goes their corner and they're isolatory uh we get some that just come in they everyone just super leans in right away and then you get the ones and butt sniffers that kind of pull it off to the side from the head so like alright we'll see

where this goes but it played out really beautifully and then we brought another civilian in what I think at least in my opinion is it just even more reinforced the normalization that needs to happen it's like hey man trauma is trauma

and you know all these injuries that we've all had, whether they're cognitive injuries, CPT from football or from blast, the outcome is the same, right? The symptoms are the same. Medicines or drugs that we've been on are the same. And most of the issues that we've all had in life

are the same, no matter how they played out exponentially later in life, the root cause is typically almost all the same. So if they played out exponentially later in life the root cause is typically almost all the same um so if we could normalize that i think even even better um but yeah so we branched out into to bring them both to the table sometimes we'll get a closed group that comes in um we do get groups that come down as a team like hey i want to bring my you know my five guys. And that's great because you're going to have a really beautiful weekend.

So it's all over the place, but we're still probably 60, 70% vets operators. And then the rest of the civilians. And then we have another program. We have a families program that's standing up, I think in Puerto Vallarta, which will be a longer, in Puerto Vallarta, uh, which we had longer, but, um,

more about either, either the wives are going to go there or more of a couples based kind of retreat. Um, I'm still on the fence on couples using medicine together. I'm like, Hey, let's get your shit done separately and then come together.

Um, but sometimes, you know, when you're doing medicine work, if you're in it and you bring your spouse or your partner is like, well, now instead of being focused on me, I'm focused on them. Right. Yeah. So it really takes you out.

It's an easy out for somebody to like, oh, I don't want to see this shit. Let me make sure she's okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm always of the mindset like, Hey, just do your shit separate and then come back together. Right. Um, but medicine's always going to give you what you need even if you decide to kind of back away from it you're still going to get what you need

uh but yeah that's our those are our numbers um we're down every weekend we're a crew of five down there and then yeah every weekend friday through monday that's beautiful you guys offer a lot of the latest tech. Dr. Dan Engel, he wrote the concussion repair manual. And one of the beautiful things that he did is he really talked about, he spoke to the layers of how things work. How does a float tank heal the brain? Well, if you take out all the stimulus, that actually puts you in a state of rest and repair. And he speaks to many different things, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and things of that nature. So talk a little bit he speaks to many different things, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and things of that nature. So talk a little bit about, you know, this, this complimentary suite of things that you

guys offer, because I think it's, it is, you know, utilizing the best of both worlds, this ancient technology that, that mother nature has brought to us and then the best of, of modern technology. Yeah. I still think, you know, the results are still out on H-bot like i've done h-bot and i feel like i got some healing from it um you know you're supposed to do 40 sessions back to back you know to really get oxygenated so when i was in it yeah it felt great um you know is it sustainable long term i don't know uh the float tank i think has been key for guys and girls and just, you know, if we can get them ahead of time and get them meditating or learning how to

meditate and then get them into the float tank, you know, just the anti-inflammatory properties of just being in a float tank is tremendous. So that's been really key. We're big on diet. You know, a lot of guys and girls are coming in with injuries and we're trying to get

them on an anti-inflammatory diet, you know, and get more fats back in their brain, uh, dial back into that. Uh, we don't really preach medicines, you know, that much as far as, you know, over the counter stuff, uh, other than just getting back into a, the healthy diet that we know is there. Um, we do ask guys and girls to you know go get their food allergies done and taken and find out what you're really not supposed to be eating which is sometimes not fun because you're you just realize your entire favorite food base just went away uh that one's

been key and the big one for us has just been meditation and getting guys and girls just reconnected with nature you know we're so freaking separate from it uh i think you did you did a podcast on that i think that's that's been the biggest one um but yeah hbot we we still support i just me personally i don't know if that's if that's the end all be all or if it's sustainable yeah um well we've had we've had dr dominic d'agostino on the podcast. He's done a lot of work with the SEALs. And I think, you know, some combination of ketogenic diets is probably necessary to really maximize benefit there. Some type of fasting, maybe even a ketone ester to really drive that in. And yeah, you know, when you think, you know, it's hard because what you're

grading that technology against is the experience itself, right? Which is something that will change your life forever. And whether it's done appropriately or whether you had malpractice, it's going to change your life forever. So when you grade it against that scale, certainly looking at something that may only have temporary improvements, that's not the move, you know, and I, and I fully, I fully agree with that. Yeah, it's cool. You know, I was really looking into that. You guys should, should definitely check out Paul Checksworth, you know, work. He's right down the street from y'all. He's, he is, in my opinion, you know, the grand master when it comes to the last four doctors you'll ever need. Dr. Quiet, which is your sleep and meditation

practices, working in Dr. Diet and really getting that dialed through his book, How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy, because there's so many questionnaires in there that really help someone know without doing blood work or a DNA test, what is right for them? What should be their primary focus? Is it a fungal or parasite infection they've been dealing with? And I've taken those questionnaires a dozen times with my wife, and there's always a new focus. But as we go through that, you know, just deeper and deeper levels of health. But yeah, the doctor diet, doctor quiet, doctor movement, and then doctor happiness. You know, what is the big waking dream that you're really living into? I think when we simplify it to that, it gives us very practical, a very practical tool set.

You know, what's missing in my life? What needs importance right now? Where have I been slacking? You know, and where am I bullshitting myself? That seems to be a big one for most people to come to terms with. And these plants have- Yeah, I call that my wheel and my spokes. You know, which one of my spokes are loose right now?

Yeah. Can I tighten it? Yeah, I love that. Well, beautiful, brother. I got to jump on an IG Live here for Fit for Service, but it has been excellent having you on. I'd love to have you out at one of our events and i'd love to come visit you guys and drop in with you at some point yeah please do please do where can people find you guys we uh we're at mission within.org uh we're on facebook uh instagram linkedin uh website

special within.org and and you know the process for us is if you're interested go on the website set up a discovery call one of us will do a call and kind of walk the dog with you and get some background and share kind of our story and what our experiences with the Madison are and if it's a good fit and you're a good

fit for us then we'll start the process to get you involved. Incredible thank you so much Michael I appreciate all the work that you guys are doing and I appreciate your time. No, thank you, brother. Thanks for all the work you're doing as well. Peace. Thank you.