Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #335 Using Plant Medicines To Heal Americans IN America w/ Justin Lapree

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

FULL TEMPLE RESET is live!!! Come join us in this incredible protocol to kick ass in 2024. Click above!   Justin LaPree, the guiding force behind Heroic Path to Light, stands as a beacon of hope and transformation for those embattled by mental health challenges. As the Founder and President of this pioneering Entheogenic Sanctuary in Austin, Texas, he dedicates himself to the healing of veterans, first responders, and Gold/White Star families through the profound wisdom of entheogenic therapies. The things Justin and his organization are doing are paramount for the health of our world. He’s already hip deep into helping first responders and combat vets in their healing via plant medicine. The next move for him is to begin helping well people with these modalities. He’s a soul brother of the highest caliber and I can’t endorse his vision enough. Please listen and share with anyone you feel would benefit. If you feel like you could benefit from this work, you’re needed, please reach out to The Heroic Path To Light. Love y’all!   Connect with Justin: Website: heroicpathtolight.org  Instagram: @justinlapree - @heroicpathtolight   Facebook: Heroic Path To Light    Show Notes: Justin on “LIfe Beyond The Game w/ Joe Hawley” Spotify Apple   Shawn Ryan Show #34 Cody Alford Spotify Apple     Prep for Gafni podcast series "A Return To Eros" -Marc Gafni/Kristina Kincaid  Kyle Kingsbury Podcast #276 - Marc Gafni Spotify  Apple    Sponsors: The Wellness Company Grab your medical emergency kit from TWC.health/kingsbury for all the must-have medications you may need in case everything goes belly up. Cured Nutrition has a wide variety of stellar, naturally sourced, products. They’re chock full of adaptogens and cannabinoids to optimize your meatsuit. You can get 20% off by heading over to www.curednutrition.com/KKP  using code “KKP” Bioptimizers For an exclusive offer for my listeners go to stressguardian.com/KINGSBU . Not only will you get 10% off by using the promo code “KINGSBU”, keep your holiday stress at bay! 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   Connect with Kyle: Twitter: @KINGSBU  Fit For Service Academy App: Fit For Service App  Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys - @gardenersofeden.earth  Odysee: odysee.com/@KyleKingsburypod  Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com - Gardeners of Eden site    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.

Welcome back to the show, everybody. Today's guest is Justin LaPree, somebody I got introduced to from a few different people, but I really couldn't remember. Couldn't forget. I couldn't remember who had introduced us, and so I asked him, and he said it was our buddy Jay Bird, Jason Bodine from Louisiana,

my homie that I met down at Spirit Quest with Don Howard and Aubrey and the crew. Such a fascinating, awesome, awesome friend to have. He was out at our farm and he works with Wachuma pretty exclusively now. And just a fascinating, awesome dude. He's becoming one with that plant, one with the cactus. And so we were walking the land and talking and he kept telling me about Justin and everything that Justin's doing. And I was actually really excited because

a lot of people tell me, oh, I got a great guy for your podcast, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure it's far more for people like Aubrey and especially, I can't quantify how often that must happen for Rogan or Tim Ferriss. But that said, a lot of the times it's not a good fit. A lot of times it's, you know, it's not a good fit for various reasons just because I may have had several podcasts covering the same material already. And certainly I've had veterans on this podcast

and certainly I've had veterans that are working with plant medicines on this podcast. Johnny Wilson comes to mind from the navy seals different people like that the heroic hearts foundation all doing awesome work but justin's story is unique as is everyone's and his what he's doing is totally fucking unique especially in this field it's quite ballsy and uh it would take a guy who who who has his background to do something like this. In my opinion, when I think about just the nature of what he's doing, but also it makes sense to me at the same time.

It's not just, holy shit, I can't believe you're doing this. There's, yeah, man, you're doing it. We need this work in the world. And it can't wait for government approval. It can't wait for people to get on board where they're like, yeah, the science confirms. This shit's been working for thousands of years. I get all that. Justin's story, we get into his background.

It's fucking awesome. Cool to meet a local Texan. That's a rarity in Austin. He's not a local Austinite, I guess you'd call that, which I don't know if you get bonus points for that now or if it goes the other direction, but at least he's not a new transplant. Sorry, new transplants. Thank you for coming. And yeah, but he was born in Texas, spent some time in different parts of Southern Texas and kind of bounced kind of bounced around when he got out of the military, he stopped here in Austin, joined the fire department and my wife and I, uh, and the kids actually just dropped off a bunch of goodies over at station 35, uh,

for the boys down there. And, um, super cool. I talk on the podcast about how much love I have for the fire department. I've got a lot of buddies that, you know, really that was their life and still is their lives getting out of high school. And it's such a wild and badass job. And, you know, having gone through the process of being hiring myself, like I know, having gone through the process of being hired myself, I know some of the reality of what that job looks like. And we talk about what that reality looks like. And it's not fucking pretty at all. If you're a first responder, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you're used to watching TV shows with firemen on it, then this is going to

be a rude awakening because it's the shit that nobody talks about that keeps people awake at night. And this is why Justin is so fervent in his mission to make sure that there is help for first responders, as well as military personnel, as well as everyday fucking people like you and me that want to be well. And that's exactly what Rick Doblin talked about years ago. If you listen to the podcast with Robert Forte, you may have a newfound opinion on Hunrick Doblin that's okay I like taking information from all sides

and the truth is we do need medicine for well people and people that want to be more well or more themselves early on plant medicines saved my life in many different ways they saved my marriage they saved me from being a fucking alcoholic

and drinking myself into a stupor they saved me from a whole bunch of stupid shit and re-centered me in my path and reconnected me to my inner knowing. Really, one of the things that we try to do at Full Temple Reset, which we have coming up in the end of January, there's only, I think, a few more days to sign up for it. We'll link to that in the show notes, is this process of reconnecting you to yourself. What the fuck does that mean? What does it mean to clear your temple? I think of the body as a temple, the mind as a temple, and the spirit as a temple. Obviously, the three are in one. How do we affect and clear all that so we can come back to our inner knowing? How do we listen to intuition? How do we find the North Star and know unequivocally that I'm being taken in the right direction, that it's not just some

foolish, childish desire that's bringing me into this new thing, but there's actually weight behind it. There's actually some meaning and substance there with what I'm desiring. And a big part of that conversation is going to come up with Mark Gaffney. I've got Mark Gaffney coming up 12 fucking times this year in 2024. I'm super stoked. If you want to get a head start, the book, A Return to Eros, is a phenomenal place to start. Can't wait to dive into that. We're going to do the 12 Faces of Eros. And you'll understand very quickly, if you haven't listened to my podcast with him, please go back and listen to it. It's incredible. And obviously, I won't have any time to get Robert

F. Kennedy Jr. on the podcast because he's running for president, but he has another new one. He has a couple of new ones, the Wuhan coverup and Vaxxed versus Unvaxxed. Both these books are just absolute fucking game changers. If you haven't read the real Anthony Fauci, like buckle up, get on the fucking, get in the game and actually understand what's at play here. If there's one book I say that would summarize it well, other than, I mean, it's such detail on the medical system. There's many other books. I just finished a new one from Mark Gober and into upside down medicine. He's going to be coming back on. I'm very excited for that. Hopefully in the first two months of the year, Gober has just an incredible

library of amazing reads. If you're not familiar with his work, please check him out. They're very short listens on Audible. I think five hours of content on Audible. You'll fly right through it. We recently had a trip out to New York for some trial prep for the UFC lawsuit. I'll be talking more about that as I'm allowed to with the law team. A lot of people, no fucking idea that's going on. It's been going on since Bear was in the womb. He's now eight. It's about nine years in that. So we will be diving into more of that and uncovering more of it next year and hopefully getting some interviews with our Harvard economics expert, Dr. Hal Singer and different people like that to really showcase what's happening there,

what has happened, and what the claim is, and who it affects, and all that good shit. So we're peeling back the curtains and showing you a little bit more of what my life looks like outside of this job, outside of Fit for Service, that kind of stuff. But inside Fit for Service, we're changing a ton of shit. We've got Fit for Service Academy coming up for the first time next year. I'm very stoked for that. You'll out about full temple reset and fit for service

Academy all over at fit for service.com. Please check it out. Full temple reset is we're closing the docket at the end of this month. So, uh, come, come December 31st, if you haven't signed up, that's it. So really, really, really make, make your way over there. Uh,. Direct link, right first thing in the show notes, just scroll down, be right there, pop it open and see if fasting with 35 people, 30, 35 people is going to actually be something that can change you and shift you. It is. It is something that will absolutely change you. You're from your physiology to the way you think and move and operate in the world. Support our podcast by supporting our sponsors. These guys make this show fiscally possible.

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stuff. With Easy Greens, we're bringing the power of green juice to kids in a way that they're really going to love. All right. And that's it. Welcome to the podcast, Justin LaPree, my brother. All right. We've officially begun. Are you podcasting now? Is that what you wanted to know about the headsets? No, but it's something that I'm toying with. A, I have, you know, my social media manager is always busting my ass for content. And so I think by creating a podcast, I'm being very intentional with that because I want to do something a little different. I'm just not exactly sure what that's going to be.

Are you thinking seasons, themes, particular, like you explore a concept in depth and then move on? Well, you know, because of the work that I'm just not exactly sure what that's going to be. Are you thinking seasons, themes, particular, like you explore a concept in depth and then move on? Well, you know, because of the work that I'm doing, I think we can really just, I think A can be an avenue for veterans, first responders, families to come and share their story. And really reach, because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to reach that veteran with a gun in his hand on the couch. And so this is why I do this. Do I enjoy reliving my past and podcasting? Not yet.

It's uncomfortable. It's different, though, because you're a guest. For a long time, I didn't want to talk about MMA or fighting. I was just like, that's fucking 15 years behind me. I'm onto some new shit. That's right. And yeah,

and that's not even, I don't, I'm not holding anything from that in the way that, that somebody who had been in your situation would, right. It's like apples and fucking something way different, you know. But I,

but you know, it's such a great tool to reach a greater amount of people and you know that that was definitely apparent when I was at the maps conference in Denver and you know I was I was working the booth life um trust me I had a VIP pass I wanted to go and listen to all the people talking right Aubrey and Aaron Rogers spoke. I was like, oh, that'd be a great conversation to go here. But I needed to be at the booth. And there was an active duty firefighter for Denver who was running through the trade floor looking for me. I only know this because I'm friends with the organization that put on the MAPS conference. They ran into this person.

They were like, where can I find Heroic Path to Light? Where can I find Justin Lepre? And she was thinking that I was holding some sort of medicine circle back here on the corner of the trade floor. God, what did Justin do? Sight me up. Right?

And as they're kind of going through the floor, he explained to her that he heard my podcast. He heard the MAPS podcast I did with Zach Leary, that he needs help. And that was really a beautiful moment for me to understand that this, we are part of something bigger than ourselves. And this is reaching those distant cities outside of, you know, here where we're headquartered in Austin, but it's reaching people that truly need to hear the words that we're saying and need to know that there's options out there to find help. And so that's kind of sparked this idea of, you know, creating a channel to where, A, we can share the stories of transformation and then bring on different, you know, subject matter experts in the conversation of becoming well. And I really enjoy learning about the science of all of this,

although there is a huge spiritual component. For me, getting into this space, I needed to learn the science. I needed to actually understand, you know, somebody telling me that they can... It didn't really match up with me. Right? I was like, oh, I have no idea what you're talking about. Cool parlor trick. Right?

Right. So, you know, for me, actually understanding what was happening in my brain and my body led me to understand the spiritual aspect of it. Yeah, I think there's something to that. I mean, especially in the age and the day of science, you know, and I listened to your podcast, I'll link to it in the show notes because we probably won't go two hours and 22 minutes,

but you did an excellent podcast with my buddy, Joe Hawley. Thanks, man. And you talked about turning away from God at a certain point in your life, you had to, right? And I think, you know, most people who are given, you know, a package set of this is what God is, at some point they say, no, I don't think that's it, you know? And some people throw the baby out with the bathwater and some people try to fine tune and search in other areas. But a lot of people look to science as God for better or worse, you know? And we see that as this is what's provable.

We know, and we have a certain degree of certainty around that stuff because it's hard to grapple with the uncertain. It's hard to grapple with the unknowable, but that makes sense to be able to speak to the right brain and the left brain to give the science behind something. And there's this whole other piece to it.

I think that's really important. It's like hitting the lowest common denominator so that people will understand it from any different Avenue or background of life. And I think that's, that is really important. And it's a good thing that the movement's doing. Obviously there's some, there's some weeded areas that we can get into, you know, in terms of like people trying to figure out big pharma, a way to make acid, not have bad trip or a way to pull you out with another thing. And it's kind of like, but that's, in my opinion,

that could ruin the experience. Like some of my most challenging bad trips were the fucking most transformative, best thing that ever happened in my life. So I think there's more to it. It's more nuanced. But this podcast, we always roll with what roll, um, with what made you, you, and, you know, it was really interesting. I listened to, um, Sean Ryan. I never was in the

military, but as a fighter got to go on many tours for the troops. I spent three nights in Saddam's palace. I met my wife in Kuwait and Iraq. She was a ring girl in the UFC. And, uh, just really, I mean, I've, I've loved every one of those tours. I've learned a lot about what life is like outside of the United States. I've learned a lot about what draws people into service. And I still geek out over like what makes this person a certain type of person that's capable of fucking getting in there and doing the same thing.

It's like, I look at a guy who fights and I'm like, oh yeah, you got it. But I remember listening to Sean Ryan's podcast and I will find this one. Uh, it was a guy named Cody who was a Marine. He talked about the battle of Fallujah. Cody Alford. Yeah. Yeah.

Cody Alford. Same unit. Okay. Fuck yeah. Oh, this is great. This is great. Cause right when you mentioned on Joe Holly, I was like, I wonder if he knows Cody. Cause that I don't know him.

I know, uh, don't do not know him. Uh, so different, different companies, but same unit. Yeah, six hours they did that podcast. We'll link to it in the show notes. It's mind blowing. And obviously we don't have six hours here, but with that as the kind of the peak experience, I guess, walk us through life growing up,

what drove you into wanting to be in the military and then how that career went which which led to one of the fucking biggest you know holy shit moments of your life so i grew up in katie um and i grew up in the country um pretty secluded um my parents put me through private school um i went to an all-boy high school, Jesuit high school in Houston. And my life was, my childhood was rough. Had an abusive father, alcoholic. Wasn't around.

And the abuse was not just towards me, but towards my sister, towards my mom. Uh, and we didn't have a, we didn't have a solid family unit. And so I would always explore, you know, staying at friends' houses and spending time outside of the house cause I didn't want to be in the house. Um, but that was, that. But that was my reality. And so after I graduated, my dad wanted me to go to college. Did you play football in high school? You're a big fucking guy.

I did play football. Looking at a big man. I'm close to close to six four I'm staring at another guy that's like big and from Texas so I can only imagine like Texas football football was a a great way for me to

channel aggression in a healthy way I fought a lot not something that I'm proud of but I was I was hurting and I didn't know how to properly,

um, channel that energy and that rage that I had. So hitting somebody else on a football field was a great way to do that. Um, when I graduated, I wanted to do everything that my father didn't want me to do. I wanted to do everything for me. I wanted to make my own decisions. And so I decided not to go to college and I decided to join the military. And what I was really looking for in the military was family. I didn't know what to do at that age I was 18 years old and I was looking for purpose what am I doing I didn't even know what I wanted to be so it was easy

you walk into the recruiter's office and you sign I said how quickly can I get out of here he said two weeks I said alright let's do it and I had a friend that I had seen come back from Marine Corps boot camp. He was completely changed. And I was like, I want that.

And so I enlisted in March of 2001. And then I got out of infantry school on September 7th of 2001. My unit wasn't even back yet. They were still floating on a Navy vessel coming back from the Mediterranean, their little vacation and, uh, towers fell. And I remember, I remember we were at the chow hall eating breakfast and, um, I had never been to New York and, you know, you, you see the first plane hit and I was like, damn, that's shitty. Right. Thinking, you know, tall buildings, low, low plane, uh, it happens. And then you saw the second one hit and then, you know,

yeah, you couldn't take your eyes off the screen and the, you know, at 18 years old, uh, you're pumped, right? This is, this is the opportunity, you know, uh, 2% of the military ever see combat, right? And so you look, you look at, you know, this opportunity to actually go to war and fight for your country, um, which to that point, you know, pretty naive. You think the country has your back. You think the country supports you. I mean, that's, uh, that's all on a whole nother level, uh, of a conversation, but at that time you want to serve, right? And so that meant going to war, killing bad guys. And, uh, there's a lot of romance, uh, with a naive mind on, uh, on what happens in war because we don't know, right?

And if we had family members that served in Vietnam or Korea, we don't really talk about it. So you think of it as this beautiful opportunity to fight for America. And the games changed so much too right like when you got in a lot of you said a lot of the old timers at that point hadn't seen combat because there was such a big stretch right that's right yeah that's right so yeah the game is the game had changed and so we deployed in 2003 for the invasion of iraq and that was a that was a relatively easy assignment. I mean, we were rolling through Umm Qasr and up to Al-Nazariya. And it was relatively easy. Pockets of insurgency.

I mean, it was really Saddam's military at that point. Most of them surrendered. But in 2004, we ended up in Fallujah. It was right after the Blackwater contractors were murdered, burned, and hung from the bridge. And that's when we pissed ourselves off enough to go in there and invade that city. Completely different war. And we weren't fighting an organized military anymore. We were fighting insurgencies from all around, you know, neighboring countries. Um, and they blended in, they were wearing regular clothes. They were inside the, you know, the police departments and it was, uh, it was a horrific experience. completely changed my life in a way that would take me a good part of almost two decades to

crawl out of. And, you know, there's something that happens in war that you can never get back, and that's the loss of your innocence. And losing a friend, watching a friend die, is one of the most difficult experiences that a person could ever go through outside of losing a loved one, a partner, a child. And I wasn't, you know know you're going through this these experiences I'm in combat every day and you you don't have time to feel scared and you don't have time to feel emotion if you feel if you take if you take time to feel,

there's a good chance you're not going to come home. And for most of us, we didn't think we were coming home. I mean, you don't go to war thinking you're coming home. Most of us are supposed to die over there. But with the advancements of life-saving technology, more people are living now. And so you have this infl this influx in back into reintegration of, of being a civilian and, and people don't know what it means to be a civilian again. You know, they're fucking programmed, right? It's like you, you're learning

in your early twenties, you know, the military takes these young, fresh minds and programs them into what they want to be, be killers. But they do a really shitty job at reintegrating you back once you make it home into what it means to go back into society. They don't do shit. And so back in 2005 when I got got out and, you know, I had all these symptoms, I didn't know what I was suffering from, but had a traumatic brain injury, PTS, had depression, anxiety, right? The, the high school football star, you know, the, the boy scout, that dude died over there. And so I returned home a

shell. And then when you get out of the military, well, you're not a Marine anymore. So you lose your fucking identity. You lose your purpose. And so you go into the VA system because that's the only place that you can actually see another veteran. That's your sick-ass community. And, dude, it's depressing. Going to the VA hospital was super depressing for me. And the doctors, who I believe truly don't want to be there. Just write prescriptions for you.

They misdiagnose, they over-medicate. I was on 13 different prescriptions over the time I was in the VA system. One of the hardest medicines for me to ever kick was OxyContin. I got prescribed that in the early 2000s when I got out for pain and I abused it. I think that's a natural progression,

you know, that obviously you see like Purdue Pharma paid out some ridiculous amount of money in sweeping the addiction portion of their research under the rug. That's right. Even Xanax though, I remember you talking about that,

like Xanax was something where I had, I had Vicodin, Xanax, and Valium prescribed me from a naturopath when I was at ASU. And I thank God that opiates would make me nauseous. So I just give those to the homies on the team or trade for something else. But when you come off an anti-anxiety, if you don't taper that, you can actually die, right?

That and alcohol. That and alcohol. And Xanax was the fucking creme de la creme. Like Valium was fun, but Xanax was like, if you want to completely escape any pain, any thoughts, anything, Xanax will do it. I remember one of the tours I was flying, I had a 20-hour flight or some shit

and having a two milligrams anti-bar. And it was just like, I'm getting, somebody's waking me up when I get there. Those long skinny ones. Yeah. With the little four notches on it. Yep. Yeah. So you had like two, and this is two of 13 of the most powerful things that, that can be easily mistreated and often are. And we see this with the fucking, you it sweeping across America the way that it did. I've had multiple friends and family die from Oxycontin because when they either ran out, they went to heroin or they died on Oxycontin.

Like that in and of itself is a fucking big deal. And we're, the doctors in this country are treating symptoms instead of getting down to the root of what's causing the depression, the anxiety in the first place. Where does this PTS come from? If I would have been able to look inside of my psyche,

go into my subconscious, which we can get on the conversations of psychedelic medicines, but you can find these deep-rooted childhood wounds into my subconscious, which we can get on the conversations of psychedelic medicines. But you can find these deep rooted childhood wounds. Like why did I go in the military in the first place? Right? So you can start to explore kind of where these deep root wounds are hidden, that psychedelics do a fantastic job at uncovering because we are master suppressors. And then we take suppressants to even further suppress

and to not to feel. And so we are so far removed from that little boy inside of us, we don't even know who we are anymore. And it takes an act of God to snap you out of that, to be able to have the awareness to even start looking into the depths of yourself. And for me, it was suicide.

And when I got out of the military i was i was i ended up homeless for about a year i was in new york um i was one of those marine vets that dated a nighttime dancer you know super healthy not, but, but I was toxic. And so I was surrounding myself with toxic relationships and toxic people, toxic substances. And that's what I was attracting. And so, you know, I moved up to New York. She, she went to Fordham and, um, that didn't work out. And so I ended up homeless. I was on the streets for six months. And then I moved into a halfway house for six months. And that's where I met a gentleman by the name of Bob Cheeseman. And he gave me an opportunity to work for him at Citigroup.

And that was the beginning of my Wall Street career, which would be about eight years that I worked on Wall Street. And during that time, money was in the bank account. Definitely didn't understand properly how to spend money because it was the first time in my life that I actually had some money in the bank account. So it was spent on unhealthy activities, right? And so, you know, Manhattan has everything at your fingertips, right? And so, so, um, and you know, Manhattan has everything at your fingertips,

right? I mean, walk down half a block and there's three bodegas, right? So, um, I was missing purpose. And so I got married in 2012 and I wanted to reinvent myself. It's kind of what I've done. This is a pattern that I've done in my life is when I get tired of being who I am, I'll do something drastic to reinvent myself in search of who I truly am. And so in 2013, I moved back down to Texas. At that point, I wasn't going back to Houston area,

wasn't going to Dallas. So Austin it was. Die hard Longhorn fans. So I was like, yeah, let's go to Austin. I love that town. So came down here and I started to go through the process to become a firefighter with the city of Austin. And in 2017, that's what I did.

I got on with the department, went through the academy. I was 35 years old. I was like, fuck, this sucks. I was like, man, this is a young man's game. That's what I was feeling. I was going to fuck, this sucks. I was like, man, this is a young man's game. That's what I was feeling. I was going to cryo every day. My knees hurt. My legs are swollen.

But I was proud. I had two young children at the time. Well, one, one on the way. And I wanted to do something that would make them proud and make me proud. And getting back to service was how I've always been able to kind of fill up my cup. And I thought firefighting was going to be able to do that for me. I worked at two of the busiest stations in the city.

I worked at Station 14, which was a special operations station off of Airport Boulevard, the old Mueller Airport fire station. And then I worked at Central, station number one off of 5th and Trinity. During my stint at these stations, if you remember, how long have you been here? I got here in 2017. So I beat the rush, but I haven't been here that long. So there was a serial bomber in Austin that was delivering FedEx packages

bro a shit you not a shit you not like I so I I used to think that I was

I was desensitized to trauma right that I could see it it wouldn't bother me just suppress suppress suppress bro

like when you when you when you when you see innocent people die I mean this isn't bad dudes anymore right these are women and children men just commoners fucking horrible and you know we were first on scene for these and these packages were being opened up on the doorstep or inside the the kitchen ball bearings. I mean, IEDs, right?

And I mean, incredibly traumatic. Multiple mass shootings on 6th Street. And it definitely rocked me. And I wasn't in a healthy mindset anyway because I had never truly recovered from coming home, that this thing just completely spiraled me out. I had a really bad home life with my ex-wife. She was an alcoholic at the time. I'm not saying that was all her doing.

I was gone a lot. I was working overtime shifts at the fire station. I wasn't the most healthiest me. So I know I had a lot to do with that as well. So we had two young children and there was a lot of stressors. We just built a new house in 2017. So life changed with a career, two young children in diapers and then a new house and it fucking broke the camel's back.

And we filed for divorce in September, 2018. And family lawyers, I got a special place for them. And, uh, like I'm, I'm, I shit you not, man. Like hopefully somebody loves them out there because they manipulate good people, uh, to, to put them against each other in the sake of money. And it was really sad what happened to my family. And my diagnosis and disability rating with the government was weaponized and used against me. And they took my kids away for a period of time

because they thought I was dangerous. And my kids at that point, that was my lifeline. Like that's all I had. I don't have a family. I don't talk to my parents. Right? So that was all I had. And so when that was taken away, I'm like, why the fuck am I here? What am I doing here? And up to this point, I had lost 15 friends to suicide. And their decision, whereas once I used to be pissed off about them checking out, part of that was jealousy. I'm like, wow, that shit makes sense to me now. And so on Veterans Day of 2018, I walked out to my truck. I was on duty. I had a Sig 45 under my steering wheel and I put it on my lap. This was all premeditated. So I had a letter to

Leo, a letter to Stella. It was titled, My Last Letter to You. And it was really me spilling my guts to them so that they would hopefully understand that this had nothing to do with my love for them. This was me not wanting to hurt anymore. Me wanting to find peace through death. And I just, I prayed for peace, you know, through making this decision. I didn't want to leave my kids, right? But I didn't want to fucking go through life how I was going through life anymore. And I didn't know how to get out. And so I put that gun in my mouth and I pulled the trigger and the hammer dropped and nothing happened. And it was clear that nothing happened because I still had this thought unless I'm in some weird different dimension, right?

So I was so anxious at the moment, I threw up all over myself. And I just was fucking screaming. I was so pissed. And my weapons always loaded. I mean, I'm meticulous with firearms. So I dropped the magazine, It was empty. And then I racked the chamber back and it was empty. And so somebody loved me more than I loved myself,

saw me spiral, you know, since, since the kids were taken away, I was, I was pretty open with my crew at the fire station on what I was going through. It was obvious what I was going through. I was drinking myself to sleep every night. And, uh, somebody intervened, got the keys to my truck. I can't tell you that it was that night. I don't know when, when it was, I would say within a month. So I would say October, anywhere from October one to, you know, uh, veterans day in November. And November. And they unloaded that weapon. And I don't know who that person is. And they have given me the most sacred gift of a second chance. And they gave me the opportunity and my children the opportunity to grow up with a father and to allow me to walk my daughter down the aisle and to teach my boy how to throw a baseball.

It's something that I was going to give up consciously. I knew that I was going to give that up, but I didn't know how to get out of the loop I was in. And I mean, I had spent 13 years up to that point, highly medicated, not feeling. And I just wanted to feel again. I just wanted to live. So I took some time off from the station and a friend of mine sent me a book in the mail, How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. Two books were really influential for me in this period of my life. That being one of them, the second being The Immortality Key from Brian and I read these books extremely quickly.

I was desperate because I knew the next time that I attempted, I would watch myself load the magazine, watch myself put the round in the chamber, and I wasn't going to miss. And so it opened up this conversation with myself that just possibly I could change my mind about dying. Just possibly I could change my mind about wanting to leave my children and calling it quits. And so I was a straight-laced fireman. You can count the times on my hand at this point that I had smoked cannabis, never worked with mushrooms before.

And I reached out to a friend and they introduced me to this gentleman by the name of Jacob Boone. He lived in Lakeway. Jacob Boone died from suicide this past January. And he gave me my first ounce of mushrooms. And so I really surrounded myself with all the research that was happening in 2017, 2018, especially with Johns Hopkins University. And I downloaded their playlist on Spotify I bought a really great sleep mask and some really nice headphones and I was in an apartment at the time I put a camera in the corner of the room because I didn't know if this was going to kill me or not

and I hit record I took three and a half grams covered my eyes, hit play and that was it and I came out six hours later, uh, and I just fucking cried. I, I, it was the first time that I felt anything good or bad in my conscious memory. And I felt, I felt this like overwhelming sense of love and gratitude for myself for being able to embrace the suck. Life-changing experience. Paradigm shift was happening. And I started to work with

mushrooms twice a month, and I would stair-step, my next was four grams and four and a half and five. And then I started teetering, you know, upwards of that. I've really come down to, you know, six grams for me was, was a incredibly therapeutic dose for me to get to my root traumas. And through this work that I was doing in 2018, 2019, I forgave my father, like personally, like I actually had a conversation with him. And I hated my father. And when I came home from war, which I didn't hit on, I was an atheist. God didn't exist in Pelagia, and I didn't just believe in God anymore. I knew God, and this was, you talk about religious trauma

growing up in the Catholic church, right? The most powerful organization in Catholic church, right? The most powerful organization in the world, right? And what they have done to suppress what's been happening in that religion for so long. And then to grow up in this system and then to lose faith, lose belief, and then all of a sudden it all makes sense. I can't make this shit up. And it allowed me to rediscover who I am and rediscover where I've been and to understand that all of these difficult experiences, I would say unfortunate, but I'm very fortunate to have lived them.

But all of these experiences that I went through that were challenging, that were hard. It wasn't who I was. It was just part of my story. And I didn't, I was no longer identifying with any of those, right? I'm not a Marine. That's just a role I played in a very short period of my life. I'm not a firefighter. It's just a role I played. And so to have all of this awareness and my life completely changed. I haven't taken a pill since 2018. My relationship with alcohol, like drink every now and then.

I have a relationship with my ex-wife. I have the best relationship that I could have with my children. I was able to find a legitimate partner in life that I can share this life with. And I kicked every, when I was doing all this work on myself, I kicked everybody out,

even people that were close to me because I had to work on me first. And then when I got to a space of well, and then I started to hand select who I wanted to spend time with, who I wanted to share this moment with. And that fucking circle is pretty goddamn small today. And I'm sure that you can probably say the same, right?

With who your tribe is. I don't need a million followers. I don't need a ton of acquaintances. I want somebody who's gonna cheerlead me as I cheerlead them, who's gonna champion what we're doing, somebody that I can celebrate highs and lows with, right? And I would have never had that awareness because I was just spiraling. I was

just in this loop. And what psychedelic medicines do so well is it stops the loop. It's a pattern disruptor. And then you have this period of time with all this neuroplasticity to where then we can start to create these new habits, create our own reality, manifest that shit. I like when, when Paulin talked about how, you know, you've got a, a ski slope that everyone's been on and it's late in the season and there's all these different runs that everyone continues to take and they've just been worn, you know, these paths have been worn. Oh, the new powder? Exactly, yeah. And then you're going down and you can't help but find yourself

on one of these pre-made paths that you've taken. You know, that's the neural patterning that you've already made. You've already laid this out through decisions you've made your whole life. And then you get the fresh, psychedelics give you the fresh powder. Create wherever path you want,

you know, build the new connections. I love that analogy. Well, it's so good. I mean, you know, I'm not a huge I love that analogy. Well, it's so good. I mean, you know, I'm not a huge snowboarder. I don't do it too much anymore. But you always want to be the first one on the mountain, right? You want to take that new path that nobody's taken yet. And you're absolutely right.

This was, you know, working with mushrooms over 2018, 2019, rather heavily, and then moving into some of these, these additional teachers and medicines. I mean, I, I was, it, it absolutely changed my life. It was a catalyst, right? And, um, it's all of these were tools to lead me to where I'm at today. And I started to talk about it at the fire station. How did that go? Because when I got out of fighting, I wanted to be a firefighter. In 2012, got nationally registered as an EMT. Sure. Did a bunch of stuff.

There was some pretty cool, back in California, the Sunnyvale guys do fire and law enforcement. So they're interchangeable. Then they can select where they want to go. But everyone that you see, this police officer is trained and can get on scene and actually has all their turnouts and gear in the back of their squad car. Sunnyvale, California, it's by Cupertino in San Jose. But there was lots of cool places like that. Santa Clara Fire, awesome place. And a bunch of my buddies from high school that I'd known, Ryan Mitchell with San Diego Fire, Barry Arata with San Jose Fire and paramedic

and became captain. And so like I'd seen buddies kind of move through. I had a great friend of mine, Phoenix Fire, ended up becoming a captain. So like it was kind of laid out. It was just like, yeah, that's a given. It ended up not working that way for me. And I have complete gratitude for it because of it's there you know so many similarities you know and like

the the dark humor you were talking about um not the dark humor fucks with me but it's the fact that that has to be used just to fucking let's allow the pressure to fucking pop off right like it's yep it's it's it's by pressure cooker it's, it's, it's, it's pressure cooker. It's a pressure cooker, right? It's like relief valve. Yeah, exactly. It's like the steamer, you know? And, and yeah, you know, I, I do thank God that I was able to shift in a different direction, but all for all the same reasons, the purpose, the camaraderie, having a fucking team,

doing something that, that was for the greater good, you know, doing something for the good of all. But, you know, there is a very hierarchical military style in the way that that's set up. And it's very curious to me how the game is now with all this evidence around plant medicines, things like that. But in the past, I was just like, I can't do that.

I'll do that when I retire kind of deal. I got a buddy who's APD SWAT. I'll do that when I retire. His wife works with psilocybin. He can't wait, but he's not touching it until he's done. You know? I know. And, and, you know, I think education, like educating people, um, on, I mean, A, they're not testing for, they're not going to test for it. Right. There's no tryptamine test. Yeah. That's exactly what I said. People are scared and they're programmed. Your buddy that works for SWAT is programmed.

He's gone through the system. He's in the system. I look at law enforcement and they have been fighting the war on drugs their entire careers. Which we've lost. I mean, clearly. It's been lost but you know it's and you know it's you know it's they're they're in the system so they don't feel comfortable they don't and they

also don't have the right education and the resources to understand that they can they can sit with these medicines but that is changing um you know i i was having these conversations to you know you're very close in the fire station um i worked at centrals so we had an engine crew and a truck crew so we have you know um eight people there um 24 hours you're spending with them right so you that is your family away from your family and um they saw a major shift in me. I mean, it was clear. I mean, they knew where I got and then they see this entirely different person. It's like, what's going on? And I was very open. I was like, guys, I, I think I'm starting to figure some stuff out. And, um, you know, I'm working with mushrooms and, uh, my entire being is, is, is healing.

And, um, it's, it's allowed me to go. And, you know, after my TBI, I didn't really have a lot of childhood memories. Some of those were suppressed, but some of those I just could not remember. I started to have a childhood again through these experiences and relive some traumatic experiences because the only way around it is through it. That's something that I've learned. And people were very receptive of what I was sharing with them. And, uh, some, some people would approach me and, um, inquire how I got started. I was growing mushrooms at the time. I still grow today.

I, I, I believe mushrooms are my ancient medicine. Midwest grow kits. No, not anymore. That's how I started. That's what I started. That's what I started with too back in California. A long time ago. I love, I grow one strain for our sanctuary. I grow a ghost strain, very introspective strain. I've played around with a few different strains of mushrooms

through my time working with them. And such a beautiful medicine, man. Like it really, it really is such a beautiful medicine to just be present, right? And just to feel and just to, you know, just to explore like who we are, explore consciousness, explore our existence. You don't have to do heroic doses every time you work with these. Use them as a tool to explore. Explore yourself and learn more about what we're doing here.

And it's been such a great tool for me. And I got treated with Ibogaine. Was that down south of San Diego? It was not. Okay. It was down here in Austin. Injection or like a bogus powder? Capsule.

Okay. Yeah, it was capsule. So they synthesized the alkaloid and gave it to me here. I didn't feel safe going to TJ, Tijuana. Um, and I, I had a lot, you know, you know, this is 2022, this is January, 2022. I was freshly married, remarried. Uh, and I, uh, I was on week on week off with my children and, um, yeah, I, I just felt a lot of guilt leaving, you know, it's, there's, you know, my, my wife at the time was, you know, freshly getting to, to, to know this space.

Um, and I just felt so much shame about saying, oh, I'm going to go on a retreat. Uh, right. Cause you know, it, it sounds nice, but these experiences are challenging. And so it's not what we would really consider some bougie experience to go through this, especially when I'm speaking of a trauma focus. So I got- In and of itself though, Iboga and Ibogaine, you know,

there's nothing fun about that. That's right. It was a, you know, it was a super long experience for me. Um, but, um, the container that I was in was compromised and I had done, you know, I've, I've been doing work since late 2018 on myself. Um, And I had this, I'm grateful for the experience, but if it wasn't me going through it, A, I thought it was a veteran retreat and I was with four other addicts. So it was extremely challenging for me to be in that type of, I didn't know what addiction energy felt like

until I was in it. And there was things that was happening and actions people were taking within this container that removed all sacredness of the container, of the work, was really an insult to me. I mean, I don't like taking time away from my wife and my kids. And so I showed up prepared to do the work. And the people that put on this program for me did not prepare to join me in this journey. And so I came out of this experience, you know, they had rented a house on the east side of Austin. They didn't have headphones. There was a dog, a service dog in the house that was barking.

There was road construction outside. So I listened to a jackhammer for countless hours. And so I was frustrated. But I came out of this experience and I took one of the integration coaches upstairs. And I'm like, you know what? I think I know what my purpose is. And that's what I did. I left the fire service two weeks after that.

How long had you been? Five and a half years. And I did not, yeah, the fire service did not serve me anymore. I had moved to station three, which is by UT University, in hopes that I can go to a slower station and kind of slow things down, get some better sleep, but my heart wouldn't end anymore. I just, I was tired of having sad days. I was tired of seeing death. I was tired of holding space for the mother who just lost a baby. So I it. I'm so grateful that there's people out there

that can do it and want to do it. But I'm also trying to help them become well so we can have well police officers and well firefighters show up on scenes instead of people that are spiraling like I was. And so in March of 2022, I worked with some lawyers and I incorporated a sacred medicine sanctuary called Herod Path to Light.

And my focus was to end suicide in the veteran, the first responder, the gold star communities. And it took me about nine months to create a protocol for the first two, we're a multi-sacrament sanctuary. And I did it that way because it's not a one-size-fits-all. So I really wanted to start creating customized pathways for people to become well. And so we started serving mushrooms and bufo.

And that was our first retreat on Veterans Day of last year. And I hand selected that first group and most of them were active firefighters with the city of Austin. People that had seen me come out on the other side and wanted that. And I wanted to, you know, create a community, right? Just like what you guys are doing here. I didn't have a community. I lost a lot of people through the divorce, you know, people start choosing sides and it's, it's crazy. Um, and I wanted to build, I couldn't find a community. So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to build it. I'm just going to create it for myself. And I know, I know I'm going to put out the love and the energy into creating that, that people are going to want to be a part of that. And so, and that's what I did. Since then, you know, our, our, the organization has grown and we have fully sponsored 58 people to come through our program. And I was, I was, I was very, I'll say obsessed

with doing things differently and, you know, really creating a comprehensive program to treat mental health and trauma. And so I was seeing people leave the country and come back and they would return to their same environment and they didn't have community and they didn't have the proper support to make big

time life changes. And so I was like, huh, well, I think we can just manifest anything. So I'm going to, I'm going to put a comprehensive therapeutic model inside of a sanctuary. And that's what I did. I started to hire therapists, psychologists, RNs, nurse practitioners, a medical director. And I started to build out what I felt we needed. I wanted to, this was built by us for us is what my mentality was. Like I'm not a doctor, I'm not a researcher, but I knew what I needed and what I currently need to coexist in this reality. Like, this is the support I needed, so I was going to build it. And so I coupled, I really, through my lack of preparation and integration, my knowledge at the time that I was working with mushrooms by myself,

I didn't know what integration was. I didn't have a community, right? I didn't have anybody to ask, you know, for guidance on. I just had to figure it out. And so we now have a 25-week program that we sponsor individuals to go through. It's eight weeks of prep with our therapists, psychologists, with our integration specialist. We hook them up with a 16-week microdosing protocol. Our nurse practitioner starts to taper off all their medications. So they come in as a clean slate. That's really important, the piece you just said.

And as far as tapering is concerned, I have family members and friends who have similarly seen my transformation over the years and followed me since I was born. Yeah, sure. Uh, and want to get in. And at the same time, you know, there are contraindications, especially for things like ayahuasca. Um, but, but in navigating, but at the very least, you know, like an SSRI will, will prevent psilocybin from working at a buddy that was on a, we're at a fricking bachelor party of all places, just having a couple of grams and laughing. And the dude ended up taking seven grams,

said he doesn't feel a thing. And I was like, dude, you're still on shit. And he copped to it. He was still on SSRIs. And I was like, you're not, you're a bottomless pit right now. You're not going to fucking feel any of that. The medication is not allowing it, you know? But the tapering has to be guided, right? It can't just be something where it's like, willy nilly, I'm going cold Turkey or, and not just guided in the sense of like, you could find a protocol

and here's how you wean from Will Butrin or whatever the fuck you're on, but it's having guidance through that process, knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that you're gearing up for an experience that's going to transform you if you allow it. And I think that's, I haven't heard of

anyone doing that. That's really fucking cool. I appreciate it. Neither have I. And I like to be different. And I believe, well, I know that the prep and the integration is the work. And if you don't support, properly support the psychedelic experience, that's all it's going to be, is an an experience and you're not going to be able to change your mind. Your subconscious is going to kick back in and those old habits that kept you alive, they're going to start up again. And this is why, you know, I, I, I hold people accountable as I want people to hold me accountable. And every time somebody comes to me and says, I need to do the medicine again. I need more medicine. I'm like, no, you don't.

You need to do the work. If you're gonna always need to feel like you need to do more medicine if you're not making life changes, right? Like I tell everybody, hey, clean your house before you come down to Austin. Clean it. Remove things that you want to remove. So when you come back there, it's a welcoming environment. It's new. It's fresh. It's clean. Let's start over. And it's, people need that, people don't know.

They don't know what they don't know. And so being able to meet people where they're at and understand that we don't really, as beings, we don't even really know what we're doing here. And to have that awareness, like we can really kind of nurture people and so that they feel safe to feel vulnerable and fully supported to know that, okay, this person's gonna walk up

this monstrous mountain with me. And we're gonna do this together. It's called a practice for a reason, right? Like all of these tools in my toolbox, I'm not a master at them. I'm learning daily. Do I have less than great days? Abso-fucking-lutely, I do. But I have a great support system now. I have a great community. And I have a box full of tools that I can reach in and pull out and just try something new. And

just because I can't bend myself in a pretzel, we teach yin yoga, right? So lazy man's yoga, right? But it's all about being present in your body, right? All of these different tools, right? And just being present in the moment. They call it the present because it's a gift. And we're so far, for so many years, I was so focused on looking in the past. Can't change that. You have no idea what tomorrow is, right? And so it's really allowed me to focus on today. Now, as a visionary and a creator, I'm looking down there, right? But I have the awareness

and to be able to come back to center, come back to me, come back to now. And so I coupled this, this, you know, eight week integration program or a preparation program. And then they come down for, for these two medicines, you know, we've since onboarded Wachuma and MBMA and then next year, Ayahuasca and Ibogaine are coming through our sanctuary. And, you know, I really want to, you know, build these customized medicine pathways for people with what they're presenting with their behavioral patterns, relationship history, medical history, something that's going to take a very long time for the medical model, the federal government to get on board with and to, uh, to really be successful with. And so, you know, they're, you know, I'm doing this under a religious exemption to the Controlled Substance Act. And I know you guys are very familiar with this.

So they come down for five days. And we don't work with the medicine until day two. We have a ceremony on day two and day four. And we're teaching different modalities throughout this retreat experience and then have different workshops, team-building exercises. We've already kind of, during the prep phase, during their weekly calls, they go start learning these modalities already so it's not new for them when they come down. And we're really building the infrastructure for them to be successful and helping them regulate their nervous system because trauma hijacks our nervous system. And, you know, if you can't regulate that, then here we are in this loop, right? And so by the time they get to

us, they are properly prepared. And the relationships that they have formed by being on our signal thread, you know, with the other nine individuals, because we run cohorts of 10. And we require that people leave faced messages, like visual messages, instead of just voice or text, so people can see how you're doing and people can hear how you're doing instead of just masking behind a screen. And then, you know, by the time, you know, and for a lot of these individuals, they haven't worked with a psychedelic before. And so I require all of our integration specialists to be on site. Like if you're going to have a touch point with a member, either in the prep or the integration, you need to be on site during the retreat. And, retreat. And we have an on-site nurse practitioner,

we have an EMT, we have everything we need to provide a container that is going to allow for growth and transformation. I can't promise anybody their safety, but I can manage risk. And so, and then when they leave, and during this portion, their families get a four-week prep and a four-week integration so that they can, A, get brought along this journey with them so you don't feel resentment and all of these low vibrational feelings that people feel when their husband or their wife comes home.

Well, right? And it's like, you've been shitting on me for like two decades, right? So understanding to bring them along with it. That's such an important piece too, that also nobody does. So just clapping here, like that's a huge one. I learned it from one of our members and it was our second retreat and he got into a bad fight with his wife. She dropped him off. She's like, this is a cult. You don't even know who they are.

And this is a friend from the fire department. And he had this in his head when he sat with the medicine. Extremely challenging. And it made me have the awareness like, holy shit, we need to introduce ourselves to the families. We need to start having these calls with them so that they can be with nine other families and we can all do this together, really heal the family unit. And so I look at every member that comes into ceremony with us and as a teacher to me. And I learned so much from these individuals.

And so that's how I had the awareness of that because I never knew what it felt like to be a military first responder spouse. I didn't have that awareness because I didn't have that experience. And so because of that, we bring them along uh and then these these you know groups of spouses then get to come through ceremony and then get to sit together and then it's it's all of us doing this together then our integration program is 16 weeks now as a non-profit i have to have like a like a start and finish but the whole idea is like integration never ends. And so once you build the community, build the container, then we constantly integrate with each other forever. But on paper, it's a 16-week integration program.

And that includes another eight weeks of calls. The spouses get four weeks of calls. And then it's a 16 16 week long accountability group. Now the accountability groups are still going from our first retreat. They're evergreen and they're, they're holding space for each other. They're holding each other accountable. They do hikes every Friday, right? We have pockets of people now as we expand in different parts of the country that meet up. And I mean, that mean, that's what we're doing here, man. Like this is what we need.

We need connection. And we need somebody to be able to talk to that we feel safe with, that allows us to be vulnerable to express what it is that we're feeling going through. And for somebody just to know the fact that, hey, Kyle, you're just gonna sit there and listen to me. And you don't have to say anything,

but to know that you're gonna hold that space for me, for me to feel like this and to express myself is what I needed to grow from this experience. And so that's what we do. We have a five-week breathwork, like intensive breathwork course. It's all done online that we put people through. Breathwork was a game changer for me.

Being able to tap into DMT, right? And to get into altered States by just breathing. Our, our lead facilitator is one of my board members named Leland Holgate. He has the willful warrior and he was a quad collegiate. Like, like he was, he got out of PJ school, got in a boating accident on Lee, broke his neck, like couldn't walk, like couldn't feel anything down from his Adam's apple. His physical therapist for the VA was an advanced yogi who knew ancient breath techniques. Within two years, he was walking. Damn. Crazy story. And he's getting his double doctorate, fascinating individual,

and really helps to kind of understand the science of, of, of breathing. Great book out there, breath. You know, and, and that's a James Nestor. Yeah. And, and just something that you can, you can start to, to do in the comforts of your home for free, because I'm very clear with, with our, our members,, like I'm not a healer. Please do not call me that. I'm your guide. I'm here to guide you through this process, but you're your own healer. You have everything inside of you that you need to become well. And that's really the paradigm shift of how we treat people in America. Because we always go to the doctor, we take the pill to get well.

Oh man, you cut your arm, your technology heals itself, right? So, you know, I want to just provide all these tools for people to understand that they have the power, they have the wisdom inside of themselves to get out of that feeling that they're going through, to get out of that experience that they want to get out of that feeling that they're going through, to get out of that experience that they want to get out of. And by doing that, then you have this group of people that is now starting to grow and now it's impacting the relationships with their children,

it's impacting the relationships with their families, they're all becoming well. And you look at why we've had, you know, the controlled substance act and, you know, big pharma's in the space. I mean, I saw, I saw some crazy number there. They're predicting, you know, close to like a $7 billion industry in the psychedelic, you know, psychedelic industry by 2030. Like big pharma is here, right? They're coming, we can't stop that.

But, you know, I believe these medicines to be ancient technologies, right? They're here, you know, if God's nature, then these medicines are God, right? And they here, you know, if God's nature, then these medicines are God, right? And they're here to teach us something. And they're here to teach us how to be present. They're here to teach us how to connect with one another. They're here to explore our existence. And they also do a fantastic job at healing from trauma. And that's one thing that you can't, you know, the only thing that we've been able to successfully dismantle the Controlled Substance Act that's still going to take some work and countless amounts of money is research. And it's funny because it's funny and sad that the federal government has done very little at

providing money for research right and all of this has been done on the philanthropic side right like and the government owes this they need to get into the game they need to put forth the money to help people become well, especially if no other community, the veteran community, the first responder communities, people that are truly the heartbeat of this country. And I'm just gonna throw this out there. I have a belief that when our veteran population becomes well,

they're going to start to fight for this country within our borders. And that's going to be a force that is going to be very difficult to stop. Because right now they're keeping us unwell. Right now they're suppressing us. It's a multi-billion dollar industry, and the fact that we have anywhere from 22 to 44 veterans a day killing themselves, it's a tragedy, right? And I'm like, Hmm, just imagine a country to where all of these men and women who signed up to serve are well again, what do you think is going to happen? I think for the government, it's scary. And, uh, you know, I'm, I, I started this organization with the idea that

if I could just save one life, the risk, the risk that I was taking, the money that I was investing, the time I was investing was worth it for their Stella and Leo at home would be able to grow up with a father or a mother. And the ripple effect of suicide is incredibly destructive. And that we can get into like generational traumas, right? And that being passed down. And, you know, I wanted to do this and build an organization a sanctuary here that was a safe haven for people to come to uh in times of darkness to find light again and i didn't want the only access to these substances to be out of the country How on earth can we fight for this country and serve these communities, but we have to leave to find help,

to find any chance at becoming well? So that was the whole idea of creating this here and to do it to where it wasn't a financial burden. So we put people through that program without cost because I believe it's our country's turn to serve them. You're doing fucking great, brother. And I'm very, very, very impressed. Thanks, man.

I can't remember for the life of me who introduced us, but I know we have- It was Jason. Oh, Bo Deaton. Yeah, yeah, have- It was Jason. Oh, Bodine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Jason. Multiple buddies in the game. And I'm surprised it's taken this long,

knowing you're local, you know? But I love that you're doing this. It's a trek. You know, it's a pilgrimage for people to make it out to where I'm at, Jason. You know, we're at Don Howard's spot. You fly to Lima, spend the night. The next day you fly to I met Jason. You know, we were at Don Howard's spot. You know, fly to Lima, spend the night. The next day you fly to Iquitos.

Then you're on a four hour, you know, river boat ride up the Amazon to get to Don Howard's spot at Spirit Quest. There's no air conditioning. You know, love Spirit Quest. Make the pilgrimage if you can. But a lot of people get DQ'd just from the cost of being there

or because of how long it takes. And if you're there for eight days and you tack two or three days on a bull sides of that, that's a, that's a couple of weeks. You got to be away from home, from your job, from your responsibilities. And what's the financial, I don't know this. I honestly, I don't know it was the gift from Aubrey. So I couldn't say, um, I think Sultara where we go, I've been a couple of times now is around a couple grand and that's in Costa Rica.

It's a lot easier to get to. There is air conditioning, but still outside of the country, you know, some people don't have passports or don't want to travel that far if they're not well and looking to get well. So it's fantastic what you guys are doing and making it available

because really a lot of the stuff is, we can for sure argue that if it's too widely available and not held in the right container, that's a failure on one point. If people don't have access, that's a failure just as well, but people really need access to, to a quality container. And that's what you guys have created. No, I appreciate it. Yeah. And I'm, I'm excited to announce that starting in January illuminated hearts is our, uh, sister sanctuary. That's going to be for civilians. So people, uh, that are a traumatized as well as people, uh, that are executives C-suite, you know, people that are looking for more mastermind types of ceremonies, uh, to be able to, to collaborate and connect with one another. So excited to be able to, cause it really is

access for everybody. Um, so I'm, I'm really looking forward to being able to provide this to the, the greater, uh, community so that we can all start to connect with each other. And then, you know, what I'm going to do, because fundraising has been, like there is a big ass elephant sitting in the room that I cannot lift, right? And so the sister sanctuary is going to be running paid, you know, retreats and programs. And then proceeds of those, as it's all in the 501c3,

is going to sponsor veterans and first responders. And then I will say, I haven't said this yet, especially on air. But February, so February is our next retreat. So they're starting their preparation program next week. And in this cohort is a gentleman by the name of Sarko Djajarian. And he is an active duty police lieutenant in Winthrop, Massachusetts, just a stone throw away from Boston. And he has been given approval from his town manager, which is, they're not big enough for a mayor. That's about 20,000 people. But has been given approval to practice his own religious

and spiritual beliefs and gave him the opportunity to exercise his religious exemption from the Controlled Substance Act. And this wasn't just verbal. This was done in document. It was documented. And so he is joining our sanctuary. And from my knowledge, will be the first active duty law enforcement officer to receive approval to join a medicine sanctuary to commune in a ceremonial way with these compounds. And so he's coming through in February. And that's huge because what I expect to happen, he's also a therapist. He got the 100-hour MDMA certification from MAPS. He was on How to Change Your Mind as a Healthy Normal to Receive Treatment. is that active duty military and first responders around this country are going to start to raise the question on how they can start to commune with these medicines in a ceremonial way to become well and to, to grow and to transform. Um, it always takes somebody to do it the first time. And I'm so proud of that individual because, you know, more cops die by suicide than in the line of duty. And that's astonishing.

And you got to understand that, you know, I want to make sure that the first responders get brought along this conversation. I mean, the veterans had to be the people, the community to start this, but first responders never leave the battlefield, right? It's just trauma, trauma, trauma, go home. You're detached from your wife, trauma, trauma, trauma. You go home, you can't tuck your kids into bed. Trauma, trauma, trauma, suppress.

It's like death by a thousand cuts. And you don't know until it's too late. And you're on your third marriage and you've spent a lifetime with addiction, legal addiction, sugar, alcohol, tobacco, relationships. And it's too late at that point. And you see more and more people within these first responder communities killing themselves. And we have to understand why is

that happening? And I think it's going to take a few of these dominoes to fall and the system is going to break. And people are going to start to want to become well and know that they have access, you know, here in this country to do so. And, um, so really excited, uh, you know, for Sarko to, he's never sat with mushroom. I'll, we'll be facilitating mushrooms and bufo for him. Um, he's not the, the only controlled compound he has ever worked with, um, has been MDMA and, uh, just a shout out to Rick Doblin and maps for the work that they've done. Um, uh, PBC just filed, um, with the FDA for approval for MDMA. So I'm super great.

I, we've manifested this reality and all of my things are starting to happen. Um, and I'm so proud of what, what they're doing on the, on the state level. You know, I love being in Texas. I love having a psychedelic research center at Del Med, you know, what they're doing on Capitol Hill and in DC, although it's going to take a lot longer, um, people are having the conversations and we are dismantling the Controlled Substance Act. And it's, you can't, one thing you can't do is shy away from the testimonials of people that don't want to kill themselves anymore and that are becoming well. And, and then you, you back that up with evidence and research. I mean, it's, yeah, brother, it's, it's going to change the world. Fuck. Yeah. So good. Well, where can people reach you? And, uh, and is the illuminated heart going to be something that's available to people in 2024?

Starting in January. So illuminated hearts are our first program will be, uh, January 26th to 29th. So we'll start, uh, over the next week, uh, taking applications for that. Um, and then you can reach out to us via, uh, heroic path to light as well. Uh, so you can find me on social media, um, on all the channels. My, uh, my manager just created a tick talk.. I'm embarrassed to say this. I'm embarrassed to say it. But yes, Heroic Path to Light has a TikTok. So please reach out if you have a loved one, if you personally are struggling, if you're looking to sit in sacred ceremony with these medicines, if you want to join community, please reach out. If you want to help save a life, if you want to say thank you, or if you want to make a donation in somebody's memory who has lost the battle to suicide or was killed

overseas or killed on the job, please do. This does take a village, but we together can be the delight in somebody's darkest hour. And, um, I, I assure you, uh, life-saving is happening right here in Austin, Texas. Fuck you, brother. That's excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you.