Living The Red Life - From Heroin Addiction to Healing Minds at Scale

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

In this episode, Christina Thomas and Charles Patti, the founders of MY Self Wellness, reveal how ketamine therapy and psychedelic healing are reshaping mental health, helping people overcome depression, PTSD, and addiction at the root level. What started as personal survival becomes a fast-growing wellness movement built on purpose, frequency, and transformation. As they expand into advanced psychedelic research and a global healing model, they share the mindset, risks, and unconventional strategies behind scaling impact in a controversial space.Key Takeaways• Healing at the root cause creates lasting transformation, not symptom relief• Personal trauma can become the foundation for a scalable business mission• Psychedelic therapy is redefining mental health treatment models• Raising internal state and mindset directly impacts external success• Building a purpose-driven brand requires risk, belief, and unconventional thinkingNotable Quotes• “Psychedelic medicines gave me the ability to love myself enough to change my life.” • “If I heal myself, I heal the world.” • “Nothing ever worked for me, except psychedelic therapy.” • “We don’t put people in boxes. We meet them where they are.” • “It’s never too late to redeem yourself.”Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

Psychedelic medicines gave me the ability to love myself enough to actually want to change my life. I hated myself for a lot of years. And this message isn't to be forced on anybody. No, God, no. And it's not to shove it down anybody's throat. And if you're ready to listen, come listen. Christina Thomas and Charles Patty are compassionate, purpose-driven entrepreneurs and the co-founders of My Self Wellness.

Drawing from their journeys through trauma, healing, and personal transformation, they are redefining mental wellness by creating spaces centered on compassion, connection, and innovative approaches to emotional healing. You're going to have your good days and you're going to have your bad days, but they help you respond to your bad days better. Oh, yeah. And that's really what our clients tell us, especially with the ketamine therapy. If people got an up close and personal look at what happens at our clinic on a daily basis,

nobody would think this is a bad thing. A lot of folks are listening that are very dormant, they're not, they don't understand they haven't woken up. And I feel like this is an avenue for them to just like, this is something they need to unlock. their true potential even if they're in their 90s. And what's so special about my self-wellness is that we don't put people in boxes. We meet them where they are. We don't push psychedelic therapy on them.

But if they're ready for it, then we can open that door for them. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, The Red Life, The Red Life Edition for Inside Success. I am Ray Gutierrez.

We are just moments away of, we literally just finished filming their episode of Legacy Makers. Joining me today is Christina Thomas and Charles Patty. Gosh, you guys are both wizards, alchemists of ketamine. I'm going to bastardize your intro, but I'm so impressed by what just transpired. Before we begin, please introduce yourselves. Go ahead.

Hi. Nice to see you. I'm so glad to be here today. So, Christina, who are you? What brings us to the show? I'm Christina Thomas. I'm the co-owner of Myself Wellness and Alusis. And we're just here to help people on their healing journeys.

Right on. And who are we with here? I am Charles Patty and I am the co-founder and CEO of My Self Wellness and the co-founder of Alusis. I actually have some show notes here. I want to give you the proper introduction. You're both legacy makers because you've built a wellness center that transforms lives through innovative ketamine therapy giving hope to those struggling with mental health and addiction.

Ketamine therapies. That's something you hear a lot. Yeah, no. So like a lot of people don't realize, but ketamine is actually an FDA approved anesthetic. Right. And so it was FDA approved in 1970. It's one of the safest, least toxic anesthetics on the market. It's actually the number one choice for pediatric sedation.

So they use it on children one and a half and older for surgeries. That being said, we use it off label for mental health. We use it for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse issues. And instead of like a lot of the antidepressants and other pharmaceutical medications out there, which is more of like covering a symptom up or throwing a band-aid on a bullet wound, ketamine actually gets to the root issue and the root cause of why people are suffering to begin with. So when someone is on ketamine, what is physically happening to the body? Like are networks being rewired?

What is literally happening to the body? So ketamine is a dissociative anise? And when people get into a disassociated state, it's like a chemically induced meditative state. The mind separates from the body and it removes the active blocks that are holding past repressed traumatic experiences or sometimes even things in our personal unconscious that we don't even know we need to deal with. It also does do neurological healing to the brain, though. So whenever we've had these traumatic experiences, neurological damage happens. And ketamine goes in and physiologically remaps and restructures the neuropathways.

in the brain actually touches and hits the receptors in the brain that create our dopamine, so the brain starts producing more dopamine naturally. But when we send people into this dream-like state or these profound psychedelic healing experiences, people are achieving about 20 years worth of therapy and six treatments. Christina, give us the perspective of the audience that just listen to all of this. What is the translation to what we just heard? Ketamine makes you feel better. It gets to the root issue and the root cause of why you have your physical symptoms. symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress. It helps you take, like if you think of our minds like plants,

it helps you pull out the weeds so you can get to the person who you truly are, that person that doesn't feel their anxiety, that doesn't feel the depression anymore, and it helps you peel back those layers. That's us in a different dimension texting each other. When do you think folks started thinking this way was a pre-Star Wars? like 75, like when did folks start taking this, this alternative route to mental health? I think of the Steve Jobs of the world that were way advanced and they were on this journey. When do you think this began?

Well, so like that's the thing. It's like, you know, a lot of people don't know, but Steve Jobs had very profound psychedelic experiences, which pointed him in the direction of, you know, molding Apple the way that it was. Oh, yeah. To a fault. Yeah. I mean, like, yeah. And like, you know, LSD was actually showing very good efficacy for alcohol use disorder, like in the 50s and into the 60s.

A lot of people, when they think psychedelics, they think hippies. And it's like the 70s hippie counterculture. These medicines have been being used for thousands of years. Ayahuasca is a good example of that where people had been drinking ayahuasca for thousands of years having these very profound healing experience. that were used in ceremonies for spiritual enlightenment, and even back to the Elusinian mysteries where people like Plato were drinking Ergot and having these visionary states

that really molded society in the way that it is today. Right on. You're very much in your protagonist energy flow, but it wasn't always like this. You were very much in your antagonist energy. Talk about what made you such a believer of this healing process. So psychedelic medicine saved my life. I quit a six-year opiate addiction. Actually, it was about 15 years of opiates,

but six-year heroin addiction from an NDMT experience. And psychedelic medicines gave me the ability to love myself enough to actually want to change my life. I hated myself for a lot of years. And after I found that overwhelmingly loving feeling for myself and for other people, it really ignited that flame within me to take the reins of my own life

and start to doing things that would propel me forward and actually make me proud of the person that I am. For sure. You listed on a bunch of negative drugs there. And from our discoveries recently, we've recently known that these drugs are basically hindering your energy. It's suppressing your energy. It's keeping you in a lower frequency. You've recently ascended and now you're in a different frequency.

How has life changed for you dramatically? And I don't mean just the binary things that we can see with our naked eyes. I mean, beyond the 10% of what our pupils can see. How has life really divinely changed around you? It gave me a window to see more of what the reality of existence is. And so not trying to sell anybody on my beliefs here, but it showed me that we're all one collective consciousness, whether you want to call that the universe,

God, whatever label you want to put on it, we're all a part of it. I had a DMT experience years ago, right? I was in my living room and I smoked DMT. All of the furniture flew out of the living room. All of the sudden the universe started folding over on top of itself until I was in the abyss of nothingness. I was everything, I was nothing, I was God, all at the same time.

And I was like, wow, this is super scary, and it's boring, and it's lonely because there's nobody to talk to. And then all of a sudden, this download of information came into my mind. The entire universe unfolded itself. I flew back into the living room, and I said, we break ourselves down into the droplets of water in the ocean of consciousness and put ourselves to sleep to forget who we truly are so we can experience the experience of life. So in a way, this is kind of like God having a conversation with God,

pretending that we're not. And to quote the famous Bruce Lee, be Wata. Just be Wata. That's exactly what that means. How do you educate folks about this massive divine download? A lot of folks aren't ready to hear this. They're probably sitting in their trucks stuck in traffic, stuck in this energy, not realizing the reason why they're stuck in that energy

is because they're stuck in that negative energy with everyone else. That one person did something terrible. Now they're hexed in the way. So now they're going to be stuck in that sitting in their car. And you compress that with other negative energy. Now you're just sitting there and this traffic of pattern going, why am I stuck here? Well, if you would have left five minutes earlier, if you would have done this, you would have followed into this frequency of the cadence of like getting to a positive place. I went on a rant and I apologize.

And I'm grateful for you listening and nodding. But that's kind of like what has unlocked. It's you're sort of seeing time. You've learned to compress it. I remember my first experience with LSD. I ran off and followed the sound, the love, the colors. My friends found me later. And the first thing that came out of my mouth was I've learned to stop time.

Like I've learned to just go and breathe. Talk about how understanding what it is to be a human being within that energy, where your breathing pattern changes, the way you touch things, the way you see things is now just evolved. Talk about that new source. superpower that you've discovered. It really gave me the ability to sit into the present moment like you were saying and just go into my breath. I mean like go into the observer mode where I'm just watching the movie of life play out. And I love how you keep talking about the frequencies. You know,

it's like everything is vibration, everything is frequency. And with the other harmful drugs that we were talking about, I believe that they lower your vibration, lower your frequency. And then when you have these experiences on powerful psychedelic compounds, it raises your vibration and taps you into a different frequency where literally like you can start to maneuver and manifest and really create the life of your dreams. What's it like having a partner that's the third eye is always vibrant and open? What's it like for you? I've learned a lot.

You got yourself a necklace with the third eyes? Yeah. Well, it's like the all seeing I have got. I mean, if you are, if you took a body of water and you took one drop out of that body of water, well, it's still water, right? Yeah. So it's the same thing. And we're just one drop of everything.

And like we were saying before on the show, as I heal myself, I heal the world. So you have, it's really selfish in a way. You have to do a lot of internal work so that way you can put out that vibration. And the more you can raise your vibration and raise your frequency. the more you can help others around you and lift them up into that. That's one of the most beautifully put ways that, like, I have this perspective of things now where if we all are a part of this ocean of consciousness, one of the most selfless things that you can do is to be selfish enough to actually heal yourself

because everything is energy, everything is vibration, everything is frequency. And as I raise my vibration and I raise my frequency, energetically it ripples out into the rest of the oneness or the rest of the collective consciousness. And so this is why, as I heal myself, I heal the world. Yeah, amen to that. That's a great, great phrase. It's really funny because the common threat I found with all of our guests,

be it legacy makers or women in power, is they don't believe in this one binary source. It's very much just ethereal or beyond explanation, a North Star. What is your North Star? Especially since you can see all of the stars, how do you just focus on that one message that's moving you forward?

I believe that in the oneness of everything, that this is the evolution of consciousness. And so listen, I want to let people know, like, I'm not out here telling everybody that, like, Charles, like, I am God. This is God experiencing life through Charles. Yeah. Okay?

It's life experiencing itself. Yes, exactly, right? And so what I know now is that if it is the oneness of everything, this whole duality that we've been going through is basically just God doing shadow work. Yeah. Right? And so this is why all I need to do is focus on healing myself and doing this internal work

on a daily basis, which is going to propel things in the direction of oneness where we can manifest collectively a utopic scenario where everything is beautiful. How do you diagnose a patient when they are onboarding and they discover you? How do you feel like, how do you know they need you as opposed they're just looking for a fix? Our doctor does the diagnosing, but that being said, everybody's been through something traumatic in their life. Everybody has something that they need to process. And so it's really based on a lot of like with the diagnosis, the intention of the person coming in. If somebody is genuinely looking to heal and take themselves to the next level of

their life, there's a good chance that they're going to get approved for the treatments. If somebody's coming in to... As long as there's no contraindications. Very true. I love her. The voice of reason is always like, hey, whatever. It is. Yeah.

No, she does a great job with keeping me grounded. No, hell yeah. Good for you. So what's next for all of you? You mentioned a new project. Fantastic name. Go ahead and drop it. I want to hear you said again.

Alusis is our new research center. slash resort in the grenadines that we are going to be focused initially on extended state DMT studies. And then we are also moving into MDMA studies. And we have a license to utilize every psychedelic compound on the planet. Holy moly. But not just limited to that. Sign me up. We actually have a license to manufacture these medicines also so we can manufacture compounds as well. A lot of folks come here and they're like, my resort this, my resort that, I want to fly everyone out to Costa Rica and have a thing and write books. You folks are completely taking it a different dimension,

but folks that are listening are like, what, you're all just going to rent that on an island and get high? Like, no, no, no, no, no. You guys are, you guys are menisfesting. You guys are like a boom-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo, you're sending out a beacon of energy out into the universe, and it's going to come right back. Talk about your philosophies of what you're trying to.

I had a mushroom tip that was just that exactly. There you go. What's happening in this getaway? What's happening in these intimate moments? It's funny because, like, you said it's a beacon of life. in a way and that's really the way that I see it. It's going to attract some of the, you know, greatest minds on our planet that can go out and have a legal, medically supervised psychedelic experience that's going to help them transcend trauma or, you know, transform themselves

to a higher state of consciousness where then people can go out there and share their stories and help cause this ripple effect of healing out into the world. We're doing a lot of studies around TBIs and CTEs. We're working on a flow state program to help pro athletes just drop into flow state and keep it. And then we're working with several different creatives and tapping into creativity programs. So how do you tap into your creativity? This is great for like personal ministries because, you know, the download you're getting the things that you're saying when you're in this flow of energy is very profound. Authors are writing things.

Musicians are painting, you know, musicians are singing and writing painters are paintings. whether in this flow state. So the fact that you've essentially put a label on in Candid is fantastic. One thing I am worried about is, you know, you see them, they see us. It's like you're, you're essentially connecting our brains to frequencies that we're quote-unquote not allowed to, to tap into. This is just my Christianity speaking. I was saved at nine. I live by Christ, but I also am progressive. I understand that there is a similarity between the psychedelics and what we read in the Bible. How do you talk, how do you tell people that you are the one, the source, and that things that they watch in movies are feeling their heart when they hear music is real? You know, it's funny because if I, like, I aspire to be more and more like Jesus every day.

Okay. And like I've had psychedelic experiences where I've been in the presence of Jesus. Same. All right? Oh, man. The thing is, though, is I think that this message that we're putting out there is the same one that he was putting up to begin with. And so, you know, listen, like, if he was putting out that message and he was standing strong by it and stood in his truth and believed what he was saying, and this is the same belief that I have, if Jesus was doing it, I feel comfortable to do it myself. Yeah, I love that. And I think people have to just be open-minded.

And this message isn't to be forced on anybody. No, God. And it's not to shove it down anybody's throw. and you just have to be open and accepting to a different thought pattern, a different mindset, a different narrative, and then the story might be for you. But we're not here to say, we're not here to shove it down anybody's throw. It's just, if you're ready to listen, come listen. Yeah. And I think that's the most beautiful thing about this existence too is that everybody's allowed to believe whatever they want. Absolutely. And like, and we should all just still love each other and get along.

Absolutely. You know, my whole philosophy now is like, observe without judgment and remember that the answer is always love. I mean, because like God is love. I am love. You are love. We all are. We just got to get back to it. And I feel like psychedelic therapy, what it does is it peels another layer of the onion away until we get to the core of who we truly are.

Love. So let's talk business. I apologize for being underdressed. You are very well dressed for folks that are hustling ketamine. Talk about presentation. and talk about the rooms that you're in pushing this message saying this is the future, get in or get out. Like you're dressed apart, but what part are you playing?

You know, listen, I want to make this digestible for everybody. And so the thing is that showing up appropriately for me with my message that I'm trying to put out there, I think that I need everybody to listen to it. And so like I'm never going to pigeonhole myself to only speak to one demographic of people. We've treated from ages 15 to 90 at our facility and from every end of the spectrum. And so, you know, I want the person that's suffering from depression or anxiety to be a believer in this. And also the 65 year old soccer grandmother who might be having too many glasses of wine or something. You know, it's like this needs to cater to everybody.

Because we're here to break taboos and stigmas associated with this therapy. A lot of folks are listening that are very dormant that are not, that don't understand they haven't woken up. And I feel like this is an avenue for them to just like this is something they need to unlock their true potential, even if they're in their 90s. And what's so special about myself wellness is that we don't put people in boxes. We meet them where they are. We don't push psychedelic therapy on them. But if they're ready for it, then we can open that door for them. Are you documenting?

Are you filming these experiences? How are you letting folks know that this is happening in real time? So we have a podcast, the Myself Wellness podcast. We do tons of content around this. We actually have a documentary that hasn't went public yet. But really catching people's testimonials and doing the podcast with them and, you know, showing from every different walk of life that people could be completely different, had different diagnosis, different backgrounds.

And oddly enough, they're doing these treatments and they're having similar experiences. And it really goes back to like what we. were talking about. A lot of people have oneness experiences. A lot of people have these divine burning bush experiences. People speak with deceased relatives during their treatments or people are processing past traumas that they might have been holding onto for 30, 40 or even 50 years sometimes. I remember living in Tulsa in 2017 and hearing about DMT and it was a 15 minute experience. Now it's something that you feel like you can actually keep people there as long as they need to to help them heal. Talk about this amazing.

an ambitious idea that you have. It's a technology. To expend that 15 minutes into, what, 15 hours? 15 minutes. Like, what is your goal here? So it's a technology that was created by Dr. Andrew Gallimore and Rick Strassman. And basically what it is is a normal DMT session would last for about 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes, if that. And Dr. Gallimore was like, what could I do to extend this?

And he created this protocol with Rick. And now, you know, people are being able to kept in these peak breakthrough states for 30, 60, 90 minutes at a time. He thinks you can keep people there for days if, yeah. Yeah. So it's an intravenous drip of DMT. And we're actually honored to be working with Dr. Gallimore himself on this project. Intervenous drip of DMT. For folks that don't know what TMT is, is essentially the body thinking it's dead.

Yeah. So dimethylptamine is. I think it's the key. Fuck out is. DMT is found in everything. Everything in all living organisms and everything. I'm aware, but every single piece of art being the Mayans, the Egyptians, sound to the Bible says, don't do that. That's going to open a portal.

But here we are. You are just sitting on a giant lip ready to go. And I'm here to commend you. Let's do it. Well, like, here's the thing. You know, I get that sometimes. Like, some people are like, oh, isn't this evil? And like, oh, are you opening portals?

Like, how about this? If this is evil, how come it took me from being a strong-out heroin addict to having a deal? to having a DMT experience where I received this message that I was supposed to quit taking drugs, I was supposed to heal myself and get my life together so I could help other people heal. That to me sounds beautiful and it completely saved and transformed my life forever. And I think that what we're doing is a really powerful good thing. And if it was, oh, go ahead, sir. I think it's people's intentions too and the intentions of, and the frequency of the person that is,

holding the frequency of the facility or the clinic or the whatever it is, the retreat, it comes down to that, really. Yeah, I just, I feel strongly about that. I'm so forward. I have like, what, between Rudy and I and these studios, we have like 12, 14 cameras, please, I'd be more than happy to grab all of them and just point it towards me and just documented because I've filmed myself experiencing these and it's a different avatar. It's a different person.

And sometimes I have a moment of darkness where I'm like, Who is the real person that should be on this planet? Is it me that's in front of this camera that's operating under depression, anxiety? Or is it the person that is under the medicine and is ascendant and is fully happy and is just a different energy? Well, I think it's integrating both of those things, right? It's integrating your higher self with your shadow. And it's not getting caught in the trap. And that's what psychedelics teach you that you're going to have your good days and you're going to have your bad days.

But they help you respond to your bad days better. Oh, yeah. And that's really what our clients tell us, especially with the ketamine therapy. If people got an up close and personal look at what happens at our clinic on a daily basis, nobody would think this is a bad thing. Oh, I know. We have people, I have veterans that are suicidal when they walk into our facility.

My favorite story to tell us, one guy came in Marine, and he's like, listen, if this doesn't work for me today, I'm ending it. First treatment, if it doesn't work, I'm done. And I was like, just give us a chance. He did his first session, and he came out of it, and he had tears coming. me down his eyes. And I was like, so tell me how was it. And he goes, I turned into a bird. I was flying over the landscape. It was so beautiful. And I don't know how to explain it, but everything's connected. The answer is love and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. Boom. It was like a light switch went off. And like, that is powerful. That's saving lives. And if there's something

bad about that, then I wouldn't want to be on the other end of what, you know? Yeah, you got to document this. I really mean it. I'd be more than happy to document my entire process. that's entire experience because I completely believe it because I feel that the darkness, the depression, negative energy just lift. And then I feel this new personality. Yeah. Because creep in. I'm like, oh, gosh, I wish I was always him.

But I'm in this reality with this anxiety. So listening to this is like, and the crazy part is like, if it wasn't for your journey with LSD and psychedelics, you wouldn't be sitting here. And it wasn't for my journey with LSD and psychedelics, none of this would be here. And that's what really blows my mind if you really think about it. And I would hate to take all that credit because we're really. and God's divine plan. With that, my friends...

But that's all of the plan, right? That's the plan that matters. With that, my friends, how can folks find you? How can folks continue this journey with you? For my self-wellness, you can go to myselfwellness.com. Me personally, you can find me at Charles N. Patty on Instagram, Charles Patty on Facebook. Yeah, and Elusis on Instagram is Elus Mind.

And the website is also AlusisMind.com. Are you all familiar with Vanilla Sky, the film, Tom Cruise? I remember. Go watch Vanilla Sky. It's very much about what you're about to step into and keeping folks in the lucid dream state. It's one of my favorite films. I'm blown away 48 hours ago as I'm writing music with my AI prompt.

I'm writing 10 tracks. And now I'm having an interview with all of you going, wow, lucid dreaming is going to become a thing. And you guys are pioneering that. We're lucid dreaming right now. I know. There is no spoon. Wink.

And with that, this is Christine. This is Charles and I'm Ray Gutierrez and we are inside success.