Realfoodology - The Work I've Done | Solo Episode

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

165: Diving deeper into the layers of personal trauma, I share my own experiences with loss and how therapy has been instrumental in processing and overcoming these pains. I discuss my exploration of alternative therapies like Breathwork, and controversial ones like ketamine therapy. In particular, I share my experiences with psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, and how it played a role in understanding and addressing my past. This conversation ends with an exploration of my journey of self-improvement, the healing power of various therapies, and the transformative impact of mindful living. Books Mentioned: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence Topics Discussed: 0:04:30 - Healing Journey and Self-Love Modalities 0:06:27 - The Journey Through Trauma and Therapy 0:26:00 - Exploring Psilocybin Research and Healing Experiences 0:31:50 - Healing Trauma and Finding Personal Responsibility 0:36:02 - Unrecognized Childhood Trauma and Its Effects 0:44:34 - Exploring Various Therapies and Wellness Practices 0:54:58 - The Journey of Personal Growth 1:02:36 - Nutrition Passion, Food Industry Corruption  Sponsored By: Wildway https://wildwayoflife.com Code REALFOODOLOGY will give you 20% off your first order Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off LMNT Get 8 FREE packs with any order at drinkLMNT.com/realfoodology ARMRA Colostrum tryarmra.com/realfoodology enter REALFOODOLOGY to get 15% off your first order Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic seed.com/realfoodology Use code REALFOODOLOGY for 30% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database

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so you can try all the different flavors and then see which one you like the best. So again, that is drinkelement.com slash realfoodology. Element is spelled L-M-N-T. Hi friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. It is just me today, your host, Courtney Swan. I'm flying solo. We're riding solo today. I periodically get the motivation to do a solo podcast. One, because you guys will write me and say that you have been enjoying the solo podcast

that I've been doing, which I really appreciate your feedback. And sometimes I notice a trend on Instagram in my DMs of people asking me certain questions or sometimes I'm just feeling in the mood to share. So the other day on Instagram, I shared a post from Carnivore Aurelius. And if you guys follow me on Instagram, you probably have seen his account,

maybe follow him or her. I don't know. There's speculation that it might be a woman behind the account. I don't know that I believe that, but it's a rumor. They posted something about people doing quote unquote the work on themselves. And then I shared in my stories, all the work that I've done, that's helped me a lot over the years. And I figured I would dive into that today because I got a lot of questions and I shared a lot of the stuff, the modalities that I've been doing to heal myself really. And it's been quite the journey of self-love and coming back to myself really, if I'm being honest. If you guys have been listening to the podcast for a while, you probably know the story of my childhood trauma. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it because this episode is meant to share with you my healing journey. And the reason I'm sharing this is if you are dealing with something and you're not

really sure where to turn to, maybe this will give you, maybe this will illuminate some light in those dark places and give you some ideas on what maybe, like maybe this will resonate with you and hopefully you can maybe find healing through some of the modalities that I have. So when I was eight years old, my little sister got hit by a car riding her bike down a hill a block away from my house. And I was the first person on the scene to witness it. I did not see the actual accident. You know, it's funny. Some days it is, I've told the story so many times that some days I can get through it as if it didn't happen. And sometimes it affects me

emotionally, you know? I mean, it was a single most horrifying thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. I did not witness it, but I was the first person on the scene because we heard an ambulance drive by my house and my mom wanted to make a phone call to the house where my little sister was riding her bike from. And she asked me to run down the street, not actually thinking that it had to do with my sister. And I saw them lifting her into the ambulance and at that point dropped to my knees. And I don't remember a lot of that year of my life. I don't remember the funeral.

I remember saying goodbye to her in the hospital. She sadly passed away. And yeah, that was a capital T trauma. And then unfortunately, I also lost my little brother at the age of 21. We don't have too much information as to what happened. There is speculation that it was vaccine injury, but we don't have any conclusive evidence

because oftentimes it is hard to actually make a claim for that. But he was born completely healthy and then something happened neurologically and he could never walk, could never talk, could never hold up his head. And he sadly passed away when he was 11, 11 or 12. I believe he was 11. So I've dealt with a lot of grief in my life. And I, being the personality that I am, we all deal with things differently. I had convinced myself that I was fine, that I had dealt with it, that it was a part of my story, that I was fine. I would tell everyone, I was fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. It was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. That's always my story. And it was really interesting. I had a friend tell me a couple

years ago when I was sharing with her a psilocybin journey that I had that was incredibly healing. And mid telling her the story, she stops me and she goes, Courtney, I just have to tell you that she goes, it's really incredible to hear you tell this in this way, because in all the years that we've been friends and that I've heard you retell the story of your sister passing away, I noticed that you were always telling the story as if it was someone else's story, that it wasn't yours. Basically indicating that I was so detached from what had happened to me that I didn't even fully understand

what had happened to me. You know, and you think about it, I mean, when you're eight years old, you are just barely figuring life out, you know? And you have grieving parents who have no idea what to do over the loss of their child. They are trying their absolute best to help me, but also distraught, as you can imagine.

And I was given no tools on, you know, how to work through this. No one really talked to me about it because we were all traumatized. And, you know, I was put in therapy and the therapist, you know, didn't really ask me or like require me to talk about it. And I've said this now in my adult life that I'm very frustrated that the first therapist that I had when I was eight, I would go in there and we'd play with toys. And she'd be like, are you ready to talk about it? Do you want to talk about it? And I would just go, nope. She wouldn't push, she wouldn't pry, she wouldn't ask any questions. And I realized looking back, at least for me and my personality, I needed someone to ask me very pointed questions because I had no idea what was going on. But you know, hindsight's 20-20.

And like I said, I harbor no resentment to my parents or anyone that was in my life during that time, because I know that we were all just trying our best. We were literally just trying to survive through this crazy traumatic situation that just happened, you know? And, you know, I will say I attribute a lot of my resilience around this situation to my mom. And I'm planning on bringing my mom on and we're going to talk all about this. And she's also, if you guys have been listening to the podcast for a long time, my biggest inspiration for eating healthy, because she was very, very onto this or she was onto this at a very early time. When I was a kid, we weren't buying the processed foods. I wasn't really allowed to eat like McDonald's. I wasn't allowed to have sodas occasionally, but it was very, very sparingly.

So anyways, back to my journey, but I am going to bring my mom on to talk about all of that, how she really got into nutrition at such an early time and healthy eating. And then also, I want to ask her about her mindset around all of this and how she survived losing two of her three kids. I always get very emotional when I think about my parents around the loss. You know, okay. I'm going to share with you guys everything that helped me. So I mentioned earlier that I spent a long, a lot of my life after that convincing myself that I was fine. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I started having really like debilitating panic attacks. And I was also dealing with a bit of like disassociative behavior. Meaning that if I was, if I got

really stressed out, I would essentially leave my body for lack of a better word. And I sought out therapy because I have always been, I don't, I've been like this forever. I think probably as an influence from my mom but I knew I didn't want to be put on to medication and I don't say this to shame anyone else this is just my journey and I'm sharing my journey and my thoughts around it I did not want to be put on any sort of medication

because in my mind it was just going to put a band-aid over it and numb me out instead of forcing me to face whatever it was that was coming up for me. So started going to therapy and therapy helped me immensely. I can't even tell you how much it helped me. I worked through the panic attacks. I stopped having the disassociative behavior, thank God. Which again, like, I don't know how else to explain it other than I would essentially, it felt so unsafe and scary to be in my body

that I would just like mentally check out. And the interesting thing is, I remember when I was really at the height of my panic attacks and the disassociation, I would ask my boyfriend, like, can you tell, like, you know, like for example, like we'd go to a party or something and I'd come home and I'd be like, man, I was like, I was like verge of

having a panic attack. And he was like, oh my God, I couldn't even tell. So it was very much an internal struggle that I was dealing with that very, very few people knew about. Anyway, so talk therapy immensely helped or very, very much helped me with that. And I was given these tools on how to figure out how to get out of these panic attacks when I felt them coming on. And then also was given tools how to not leave my body anymore. And essentially, my therapist taught me how to be safe in my body. After that point, I went for probably another, how old was I when I went in that first time? I don't remember exactly, but it probably would have been around 25 maybe. I then took a break from therapy for a while,

thought I had figured it out. And at this point, I still am not aware of how much this trauma affected me. Even at that time, I did not fully wrap my brain around the fact that I had not dealt with all of this trauma. So let's fast forward to when I moved to LA and I had a really close girlfriend who was very vocal about going to therapy. And it was really empowering. I think that's also really important and why I feel so passionate about talking about my journey and talking about all the things that I've done and really talking about therapy. Because I remember when this girlfriend would tell me, I kind of felt like many of us had this stigma. Maybe you still do. I don't know. We're all in different varying journeys, you know, of all of this,

of opening up ourselves and becoming less judgmental of whatever it is. And I remember I had been a little bit judgmental of myself going to therapy. And I had this friend who was so open about it. Like she'd literally tell everyone, like we'd just be at a party and she'd be like, oh my God, I met with my therapist today and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This came up and I learned this and just like total strangers. And I was so, um, what's the word? I just was so taken back by that, that it, it made me passionate and want to share with more people because it took away all the shame around it.

It took away this like stigma because why should we be ashamed about seeking out help? You know, like there's no shame in that. And God, if I've learned anything in life, life is so hard for everyone in varying degrees, you know? Like not everyone's gonna know what it's like to lose their sister to a tragic accident. But like, I can't compare my trauma or what I've been through to anyone else's, you know, we, life is hard guys. Like, and it's okay to seek out help. It's why it's there. So, and we're all in this journey together and we're all suffering to,

you know, various degrees. So anyways, it was really amazing to normalize it. And so around that time, I was like, you know what? I think I need to go back to therapy. So I seek out a therapist. I'm with this one therapist for like three years. She's amazing. Again, like really just helped me a lot with my anxiety, helped me to really see different perspectives on things.

And she was really amazing. And then I hit this point where I felt like we had done all the work that we could have done together. Because around this time, I had started learning about something called EMDR. Okay, I'm going to try my best to describe what EMDR therapy is. If I get it wrong, I'm sorry, guys. I'm doing the best I can. So I found this therapist that does EMDR and I ended up leaving the first LA therapist that I had, who was amazing, broke up with her. And for no other reason than honestly that I wanted to seek out EMDR. I was just feeling like I needed a different modality. And EMDR is called eye movement desensitization, or that's what EMDR stands for. And essentially what it is,

is it helps you rewire certain things in your brain that are super traumatic. And it doesn't necessarily, I've been told, it doesn't necessarily have to be something as insanely traumatic as I went through, like the death or like a crazy accident, death of a family member or something like that. It can be something that just in one way or another traumatized you. And essentially what you do is you do different, there's different

ways of doing it. And essentially what you do is your therapist will have you focus on a specific memory, the traumatic one, and then they'll take you through these side to side eye movements. And it's hard to explain without showing you. So I would just encourage you guys to go look it up. I'm sure there's YouTube videos or something that you can find. And there's like different ways that you can do this. Sometimes they'll do bilateral beats and they'll go back and forth in the headphones. There's also some tapping that you can do. And for me and my therapist, we did the eye movements and then we also did some of the tapping. And essentially what this does is that it engages both sides of your brain.

It's something called bilateral stimulation. I just looked this up. And what it helps you do is essentially rewire that memory in your brain to not be as traumatic as it was, or as it like sits in your brain currently. So for someone like me who went through what I went through with my little sister, I mean, guys, this was, I mean, it was honestly, it was life-changing for me. Absolutely life-changing. I did that for two or three years off and on. We would go back and forth between doing some EMDR and also just doing talk therapy because we would take weeks off sometimes because it's a lot. It really is emotionally a lot.

But looking back, you know, going through that time, I realized that it was very hard on my soul, you know, because you're digging up really old memories, really bringing them to the surface. And I just had a lot of stuff coming up for me. I also, when I was with this therapist, decided to bring my parents in to therapy with me to talk therapy. That was incredibly healing. I started out with my dad. I just realized that because of what we went through growing up, we grieved very separately. And my sister's death really, really kind of tore us apart. And look, I would consider my parents and I to be pretty close, but we were all just so traumatized as a family that in many ways it really splintered through our family. So me realizing that decided to bring my parents into therapy

because I was too scared to talk to them without someone there. And guys, if you have the ability to do this, oh my God, it is the most healing thing. It was so incredible. The things that my parents shared with me in therapy. I mean, I don't think we would have ever talked It was so incredible. The things that my parents shared with me in therapy. I mean, I don't think we would have ever talked about the stuff that we did without going into therapy. It was beautiful. And I want to protect my parents' privacy. So that's all I'll say,

but it was incredibly helpful and incredibly healing. And honestly, I'm probably going to do it again, just do it like periodically off and on, just kind of, you know, to make sure that we really strengthen our bond because our parents are precious, you know? Yeah. That's all I'll say about that. I'm always seeking ways to improve my fitness, boost my metabolism and get that perfect glowing skin. I mean, aren't we all right? Well, I've stumbled upon something truly amazing. It's called Armra Colostrum. Colostrum has been long regarded as a superfood that my mom actually got me on years ago because it's really good for the immune system. But then I found Armra Colostrum and I am obsessed. It's not just a supplement. It's actually a whole food superfood. It's a proprietary concentrate of bovine colostrum.

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and make sure to use code realfoodology. So around this time, I was also starting to get into the psilocybin research. Psilocybin is also known as magic mushrooms. You know, those mushrooms that made everyone all wacky in the 70s. Yeah. So if you are not aware of what has been going on and you've been living under a rock, there has been a lot of studies coming out recently specifically about psilocybin and its effects on the brain and how it can help people potentially with depression, anxiety, PTSD, all sorts of mental issues. So actually Michael Pollan wrote a book about this. Incredible book, How to Change Your

Mind. And he dove into the science about this and the research is absolutely incredible that's coming out. I'm also just, I'm all for medicine of the earth and you know, what more, how more earthy can you get than psilocybin, you know? So I was always very terrified of doing any sort of drug. I did not try anything until I was like 34 probably because I was a product of D.A.R.E. I was a D of dare. I was a dare kid in the nineties and it scared the shit out of me. So I did not do anything until all this research started coming out. And I was like, you know what? These mushrooms, they sound kind of cool. I'm going to try them out. I had a one session in particular that was so incredibly healing. So I have done both guided psilocybin journeys, as they call them,

where you have someone who guides you through it in a professional setting. And then I've also done some with friends. And I will say that there was one in particular that was very life-changing for me and helped me realize a lot. So I will spare you all the details just to keep some of it sacred, but I will say what was so beautiful about this

particular one, I was with a friend and I ate some, actually, to be honest, it's so funny looking back. I think my intuition knew that we were going to address this trauma. I don't know how, I don't know how to explain it, but it was just the wildest thing. But I didn't know, I didn't go into it being like, all right, let's heal some trauma. But that's what's really cool about mushrooms is that they really show you what you need to look at. A friend of mine and I ate some, I ate a significant more amount than he did. because again, I think I was literally being guided. It was the most bizarre thing because it was out of character for me to eat as much as I did. And he suggested that we watch this show, which I'm forgetting what it's called

right now. I'm going to Google it. If you guys know who Duncan Trussell is, He's this amazing comedian and he has a podcast and he wrote this show called, I'm still Googling it, bear with me here. It's called The Midnight Gospel. It's a very strange show, but it really has some gems of wisdom in there. And there was this one episode that my friend was like, hey, we should, or he was like, we should watch Midnight Gospel. Have you ever seen it? And I was like, what is this? And it's like cartoon just like takes you, I mean, it's like what you would think. It's like how movies depict a mushroom journey. It was wild. We watched this one episode. I was so drawn. I was like, whoa, this is crazy. It was like talking about meditation and like just life and the universe. And it was really landing with me. And there was another episode we're scrolling after that. I was

like, oh my gosh, let's watch another one. By the way, guys, this is not my normal MO. Like if you don't know me personally, that this whole night I would say was just kind of out of character for me. Like I don't eat mushrooms and like watch like wild cartoons normally, but this is an important part of the story. So there was this one episode we're scrolling through and we're looking and he, oh, I didn't fully share the premise of the cartoon. He has a podcast and he took a couple of his podcasts and turned them into cartoons. And if you just pay attention to the cartoon, there's kind of a different storyline going on in the cartoon versus if you listen to the podcast. Because what he does is he has this podcast interview, like one of my interviews that I would do with someone.

And then he just put that sound over a cartoon. And the cartoon doesn't really fully align necessarily with, I don't want to say it doesn't fully, but you can literally go down two different paths. Like you can either watch the cartoon and it takes you on like a wild, weird, wacky storyline, or you can listen to the podcast and tune in. So anyways, it's an interesting show.

I really like Duncan Trussell. He has a lot of pretty profound things to say. Anyways, I'm getting off track as I always do. So this episode was about, he interviewed his mom. His mom was really sick and they knew that she didn't have a lot of time left. And they decided to talk about his birth story. So he asks his mom about the birth story.

It is the most beautiful thing. I'm literally laughing, crying, loving this episode. And then it takes a turn. So they're giggling about his birth story, and his mom's talking about him as a kid, and it's this beautiful story, and then they start talking about death. We didn't even make it through the end of the episode

because I'm bawling at this point. And I look at my friend who I'd never told the story of my brother and my sister dying and I just start bawling and he's like, are you okay? And I was like, this is hitting me really hard right now. I lost my brother and my sister. I'm very sensitive to death. He turns it off and he's like, do you wanna talk about it?

I, at that point, I'm like, oh, the mushrooms have like fully hit. I end up going to my parents' bathroom floor and sitting on the floor and absolutely sobbing. When I say I have never cried like this before, I have never cried like this before in my life. I am the type of person that is very scared to make other people uncomfortable. And if I was sober, I would have never cried like that in front of someone else. I think now I'm different and I would. In fact, I know because I've done a lot of work and healing around this. But at the time, the fact that I was crying in front of him was, I mean, but I couldn't hold it in. And I was looking at him going, are you okay? Are you okay? Can you handle this? Can you hold this right now? Because this is a lot and I don't, I can't hold them in. And he just sat there and hugged me for probably an hour or two and just let me sob it out.

And I had this realization as I'm crying, I'm telling him this story. And I was like, I looked at him and I said, I'm realizing right now I am, I don't know how old I was, 33, 34, let's say 33. I'm 33 years old. My sister died when I was eight. I have never cried, like really, really cried and like let it out until now, because I was so worried about my parents. I was so scared I was going to make them worried about me. I was so scared to show that emotion. And I think I was also scared to even face that. And this is the beautiful thing about psilocybin is that it allows you to put down those walls and face the things that you need to face without any judgment, without any concern

that you're gonna be too much for someone else. Or also it just allowed me to face all these really scary feelings of grief that I was so terrified of even looking at that I didn't even let myself have that grief because it was really scary and it was really heavy. But the most beautiful thing happened. I physically felt a weight lifted off of my chest. And as I was telling my friend what it happened with my little sister, I paused and I looked at him and I said, oh my God, I cannot believe the words that just came out of my mouth. I feel like this is the first time that I'm hearing what I went

through. And for someone who's not been through something really traumatic like that, you may not be able to fully grasp and understand what I'm saying. But when you're eight years old and your sister is essentially killed in front of you, you don't even understand what you went through and you don't even know how traumatic that is. And I mean, it's just wild. It fully blew my mind and it made so much sense to me because I was like, of course I don't understand what I went through.

I was eight years old. I was fully traumatized and I'd never taken the time to sit down and be like, oh my God, this happened to me. This happened to me. This is wild. Yeah. So after that, I was like, I'm a full believer in psilocybin. I think it can be an absolutely magical and wonderful drug when used correctly. I also went through a guided journey, which that one's very sacred to me and I'm not really going to share other than I essentially went on a journey healing my inner child and forgiving my parents, forgiving myself for, what was I forgiving myself for?

Maybe for not being compassionate with myself about everything that I went through. I also, I feel like because of this trauma that I went through as a, as a child and not addressing it or recognizing it and really just going through life with this really deep grief and not understanding of what I fully went through, I was held back in many ways for a long time. And I still feel as though I have a little tiny, little tiny judgment in the back of my head about that because it took me a long time to get here, guys. It did.

It took me a long time to face my fears, which was my insane amount of grief that I was holding onto. And just the recognition of what I had truly been through. And in many ways it held me back. I realize now looking back that I was a very traumatized kid, guys. I was very healthy in many ways, but I was also very incredibly shy. I had crazy amounts of social anxiety. And man, I went through a very long emo phase. If any of my friends out there are into, or if you had like an emo alternative, like punk phase, I'm your girl. I went through a long phase of that. And you know, guys, I say all of this with no judgment.

Again, this is just me looking back in hindsight that yeah, I was pretty traumatized and I didn't know it. That's the thing. I didn't know it. I thought I was okay. And, you know, and it is okay that I was traumatized. And that's been a lot of my work too is just having compassion for the fact that like, yeah, I'm behind or I don't want to say that, but I felt like I was kind of behind, you know, everyone else my age going after certain things

that they wanted and, you know, doing certain things. And I was really holding myself back, but I didn't even know it, if that makes sense. And that's all I'll really say. This is all I really feel like sharing, but a lot of my work has been compassion for what I went through and acknowledging that that was not normal. That was crazy. But also, also, also, it does not give me an excuse to be a victim of it either and I will say that is one thing that my mom was really really good at instilling in me at a very young age thank god I never let this make me out to be a victim. I never held it as this like badge of honor, like, oh, I'm just, you know, effed up because I went through this crazy trauma. No, I went the other

route where I was just like, you know what? This is my story and it's really sad, but like, it is what it is. And you have two choices. In fact, after my little brother died, my mom sat me down and she goes, Courtney, you have two choices in this matter. You can become bitter or you can become better. And I chose to become better because what is the life to live when you're just bitter and pointing fingers at everyone else? Because look, I said this earlier, we all have our varying degrees of suffering in life. It is just a reality of being a human on this planet. And we can never imagine what it's like to walk in someone else's shoes. And we can never compare. I would never compare what I went through to what someone else is going through, has gone through. Because at the end of the day, pain is pain, right? And how can we

judge that in other people? So what I realized is that it comes back to personal responsibility because it's not my fault that this happened to me, but it's also not anyone else's fault. I mean, I guess if I really wanted to become bitter, I could blame the person who accidentally hit my sister, but he was absolutely devastated, probably traumatized for the rest of his life. Devastated. Can you imagine living with that? Like what he went through? So I have nothing but compassion for that person because they were also a victim in their own way,

you know, of that. And it was not their fault. And I just decided that, you know, even though this happened to me and it's unfair, life is unfair sometimes guys. And there's no rhyme or reason. And we can't, I mean, we can choose to become a victim or we can say, you know what, this happened to me and it's not my fault, but it is my responsibility to deal with it.

Because if I don't deal with it, I'm going to make it everyone else's problem in my life. And that's the last thing I want to do. So that was a lot of also why I was going down these different modalities of therapy and psilocybin and doing all this different stuff. So a couple of years ago, I discovered to be magnetic. And hopefully you listening, you've heard of it. doing all this different stuff. So a couple of years ago, I discovered To Be Magnetic. And hopefully you listening, you've heard of it. It was created by this woman, Lacey Phillips. I'm actually going to pull this up too, because I feel like I'm going to do a really bad job of describing what this is. Essentially, in layman's terms, Lacey Phillips created this

whole workshop of courses that you can sign up for. I pay like $18 a month or something for it to access. So it's pretty accessible. She takes you through these guided meditations and they are, it's like this, okay, it's this unique manifestation process that's backed by neuroscience, psychology, EMDR, epigenetics, and energetics

with a little spirituality sprinkled on top. That is from her website. The premise of all of her courses are raising your self-worth and stepping into your unique authenticity by reprogramming your subconscious limiting beliefs that you picked up during childhood and throughout your life. To be magnetic has been pretty profound for me. There are different courses you can do. You can actually, oh, and I didn't say, so you can just buy like one of the courses. You can also pay for the whole package, which is what I did. And you can go through all of them and there's different ones based on what you are struggling with. So there's one for money and like learning to be in

an abundant mindset. There's one about healing your inner learning to be in an abundant mindset. There's one about healing your inner child, which is what I did. There's another one for love, healing your relationship with love. And what's really interesting is when you start doing this kind of work, you start seeing this patterning of why you are the way you are based on how you grew up, your relationship with your parents, relationships that you've had with significant others in your life. And a lot of it really does come down to your first relationships, which was with your parents and a lot of what you picked up during childhood. But basically the premise of this, of her entire

work is you get to the bottom of where these limiting beliefs come from. Limiting beliefs are things that hold you back from your full potential. And by shedding light on why you have these limiting beliefs and you do a little bit more work around it and this kind of neuroscience manifestations to rewire your brain around it, then you can rebuild those limiting beliefs and change them to be something more positive. So like, for example, if you have like an abandonment wound and you go through and you reprogram and you change your thinking around instead of thinking, you know, everyone I date abandons me. You can rewire it to I'm abundant in love and I'm not being abandoned. And it's hard to explain if you haven't been through it.

So I highly recommend if you have not done it, I'm such a huge fan of all of her work. I also, I'd recommend going and listening to the podcast. That's where I got started is I started listening to the Be Magnetic podcast and it blew me away. So that really helped me a lot. And I also got introduced to Breathwork. There is a company called Open. They have a studio here in LA and I go to their classes periodically. Or they also have an app where you can do Breathwork or guided meditations. They have one every morning. It's just like a little 10 minute guided meditation that full transparency. I haven't done it in a month or two,

but I was on a pretty awesome track for a while. They're doing one a morning and it's 10 minutes and it's a really great way to start your day. So that's another great modality that has helped me a lot. Another one I've done, which might be slightly more controversial, but hey, we are in the truth circle right now. Truth corner. Ketamine therapy. So I have had a ketamine therapist on the podcast. If you guys want

to go back and listen, I've also talked a little bit about my experience there. When I say ketamine therapy, I'm not talking about like the street drug. Obviously it's the same thing, but I personally would never touch that. I'm terrified of fentanyl and everything happening in our country right now with drugs, but that's all I'll say about that. But ketamine therapy is done in different ways now. So there's a company called WonderMed where they hook you up with a licensed practitioner and a nurse and you sign a bunch of forms, you have a consultation, and then they send you ketamine lozenges in the mail through a prescription. That is the only time I would ever do it is through a prescription because it comes from a compounded pharmacy. And then they guide

you through meditations while you take ketamine. And it's pretty profound. It has a very similar effect that psilocybin does on the neural pathways of the brain, which is really cool. Ketamine has also been studied pretty heavily and so has MDMA. We're not talking about MDMA today, but they have been studying psilocybin ketamine and MDMA and the effects on the brain and the neural pathways of the brain, which is what made me get interested in doing ketamine therapy. So the guided meditations and the journal prompting and then taking the ketamine really helps you to hone in on your subconscious. So there is that company, WonderMed, and I believe

that there might be some other companies that will send out prescription ketamine lozenges to you. It's under the supervision of a doctor and a nurse and it's through a pharmacy. So it's all supervised. But when I first heard about ketamine therapy, it was actually through a girlfriend who was going through a divorce and her and her husband both were going to a ketamine therapy clinic here in LA, which is such an amazing thing that they have here. And I know they're popping up everywhere. So I know that they definitely exist outside of LA as well. But basically what it is, is a center that you can go to that has doctors, nurses, therapists on staff, and they give you your own private room. They give you a IV or sometimes a subcutaneous injection, one or the other, of ketamine that sends you on a ketamine

journey. And then they have a therapist come in afterwards and talk to you about what came up for you. So there's this processing that you have afterwards of everything and you can journal it and write it down and all that. And what I really like about these clinics is they also have staff on hand in case you have a freak out or something goes wrong. God forbid, I've never heard of anything going wrong. So I wouldn't worry about that too much, but it is nice to have that comfort. If, you know, like my, my girlfriend loved that if there was ever a time that she was having a really tough time, just like in, you know, under the ketamine, she, all she'd have to do is like raise her hand and someone would come in and they could pull her right out of it. Cause they had some sort of drug

that could just like bring, you know, get it out of your system pretty quickly, bring you out of the ketamine journey. So definitely something to look into. Like I said, there's been a lot of research. If you have any sort of judgment around this, I highly encourage you one to look up all of the research that's coming out right now. There's a company called MAPS that's doing a lot of research on all this, on all these drugs right now. And also look up Michael Pollan and his book. It's called How to Change Your Mind. And if you guys don't know who this guy is, he's literally my dad's age. I think he's like 70. And he decided to look into all the research of psilocybin. He looks into psychedelics in general, but a lot of it is around psilocybin specifically. But he takes you on a journey in the book about all the

different drugs that he tries that have all this ancient wisdom and science to back it up. And it's really cool. It's really fascinating. And it really changes your mind a lot around these drugs and how much they can really be used as medicine for humans to help us heal. I want to take a second to talk about some of my favorite Organifi products and why I love them. When I first started getting into health, I was an avid juicer. I was buying fresh veggies every couple of days and wearing out my juicer and also wearing out myself by trying to constantly juice vegetable juices because I wanted to flood my body with all of the nutrients, the phytonutrients that you get from green juices. But after a while, I was like, I cannot keep doing this every day and also

maintain my job, maintain my social life and everything else. But I really wanted to make sure that I had a good high quality green juice that was organic and I knew that I could trust came from a good source. So when I discovered Organifi, I was so happy. They not only have a green juice, but they also have a red juice. And I really like to mix them together because it really helps with the flavor profile. And you're not only getting all of the green phytonutrients from the green juice, but you're also getting all the antioxidants from the red juice. So it's like a win-win situation. I also really love their chocolate gold. It's their low sugar hot chocolate mix. And it's loaded with ingredients like lemon balm,

turkey tail, magnesium chloride, and reishi. Oh, there's also turmeric in there as well. So it really helps to calm down your nervous system before bed and it really makes me sleepy. It also helps the digestion because you have the turmeric in there, you have cinnamon, you have ginger, black pepper. So it's helping with digestion and inflammation. I'm a really big fan of this. You can also put it in your coffee in the morning and it kind of helps to

balance out the jitters that you might get from your morning coffee. And then another product that I'm really loving and taking every single day is their liver reset. Modern living is incredibly taxing on our liver. Like Just existing is hard on our liver because we are constantly being inundated with pesticides, heavy metals, environmental toxins, not to mention if we drink alcohol, that's also going to put a strain on our liver. So I think it's incredibly important that we take something every single day to support our liver health. This product has triphala in it. It also has dandelion, milk thistle, and artichoke extract, which all have been scientifically backed and proven to provide protection for the liver.

And then of course, the most important part about Organifi products is that they are all organic and they go a step further by guaranteeing that they are glyphosate residue free. Glyphosate is a known herbicide that is sprayed on a lot of our crops these days. It's also sneaking into organic foods and it is a known carcinogen. So it's incredibly important to make sure that we limit our exposure as much as possible to glyphosate. If you guys want to try any of the Organifi products and get 20% off, go to Organifi.com slash Real Foodology. You're going to see all of my favorite products in that store. And you're also going to get 20% off. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. You know, all of this that I have been talking about, there's been kind of this common thread

in the conversation. I mean, there's been a couple, but one I would like to point out is your subconscious operating without you even knowing. And that is what has been really amazing for me personally about psilocybin. Even the EMDR has helped with this as well. The ketamine therapy and the tibia magnetic courses, they've all helped to bring to the surface things that were in my subconscious that I was not aware was there. And when you bring light to these things in your subconscious, you start to realize you can start pointing these out and you start changing these patterns. And when they come up, you can go up, we're doing that thing again. We're going to reroute that. And it's cool because you bring an awareness around

something that was before just fully on autopilot. And it allows you to have that autonomy over your experience and over your life. It's like you're taking your power back again. It's what I was saying earlier, where you are no longer in this victim mode of like, why is this happening to me? And you find yourself empowered because you're like, oh, okay. And then you also have compassion because you're like, I know why I'm doing this thing. It's because I went through this thing when I was a kid or my parents didn't show the love that I needed at the time to me. And so I'm doing this thing because what I really want is love. It's so incredible, guys. And I can't tell you how life-changing all this work has been for me. And if you are very early on in your journey, and I would consider if you're even listening to this episode, if you've made it this far, that you are on your journey right now, even if it feels like you haven't started it yet, just even being curious is one of the first steps. I mean,

that was the first step for me. It was like, hmm, why am I like this? And why do I keep suffering? And what role am I playing in my suffering in life? And when I'm saying journey right now, I'm saying like healing journey is what I'm talking about. Basically what I'm saying is if you were in the beginning stages of trying to, I guess for lack of a better word, quote unquote, do the work on yourself, try not to get discouraged. I have been doing this for a long time. Like this is a long process and it's that classic metaphor that's used all the time. It's like peeling back the layers of an onion. You peel back one and then you realize,

oh my gosh, there's another layer in here. Oh my gosh, there's a lot of layers under here. It's definitely a journey and I don't want people to get discouraged and think like, oh my God, I have so much now that I have to do. Just start with one thing at a time that interests you, you know, and let it slowly unfold naturally. And, you know, I found all of this different stuff along the way as I think it was

presented to me when I was ready to face all of this stuff. And by the way, I sit here telling you guys, knowing very full and well that this will be a healing journey for the rest of my life. Like I'm not sitting here being like, I'm healed. I'm done guys. This is the finish line. Come, come hither. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm, I feel like I'm just getting started and I think this will be a lifetime journey I hope because my hope is to always be um desiring to better myself and growing I think growth is a very necessary and important part of life um yeah I just wanted to share my part of the part of my story and where I'm at now because, you know, I mentioned earlier that I didn't realize I was going through my childhood and my teens and my early 20s as a traumatized person. I did not realize the full extent of healing that I really needed to find.

And as a result, I suffered a lot. I suffered a lot. And, you know, it's all part of my story. It's all part of my journey. I really believe we have to, we have to get so sick of ourselves and our bullshit that we start seeking ways to get out of our bullshit. And that's what happened to me. I got so sick of my own bullshit. I was like, oh man, this shit stinks. I got to do something about this. What can I do? And then just started digging. I was like, okay, therapy, great. EMDR, great. What else have you got for me? What else can I do? And it's been a journey for sure. I think the last piece that I will say is one of the hardest parts of this healing journey for me has been to be really honest with myself about how I've held myself back. And this comes back to also while feeling that and feeling a little bit bummed

and maybe a little bit ashamed about holding myself back, I also have a lot of compassion for myself because I'm like, Courtney, you went through a lot. It's okay. It was like normal. It's very normal to have been traumatized after something crazy like that. I had to take real responsibility for the role I've played in my own suffering. And that doesn't mean that I don't have compassion for what I went through

because I do. I think that you can hold all these feelings at the same time. Being honest to myself, being like, court, you can't keep doing this. You went through something real crazy and it was a lot and it was really hard and it was scary and it was traumatizing. And at the same time, we can have compassion for that. And I do, and I have compassion for knowing that, man, I went through something crazy. And also I can no longer allow this to hold me back and to keep me traumatized because now that I'm aware of it, that's the beautiful thing is once you bring these things out of the subconscious and you make them aware to you, that's where the real healing comes because then you can say, oh, okay, like I know where this is coming from. And I already said

that, but I just think it's important to reiterate. So, well, that was a really heavy, heavy episode. You know what, guys? I want to take a second to read the thing that I posted from Carnivore Aurelius because I think it was actually really beautiful. I want to make sure I'm giving him credit for this or her again. Carnivore Aurelius wrote this on Instagram and I'm going to read it. Shout out to everyone here doing the work on themselves. We've all inherited so much shit from our parents and grandparents' generations. Repressed emotions, absent parents, lack of love, seed oils, VPA, heavy metals. Basically, the last 50 years,

everyone has been so incredibly asleep because externally, everything was going quite smoothly. However, the last 10 years, all of that has changed. And finally, the buck meets the road with us all. It's fucking hard to get healthy and happier. It's painful, it's challenging. It forces you to confront all your crap and that's why they didn't do it before us.

The way we create a more beautiful world isn't by screaming at others to change. It's by taking the steps each and every day to become the best versions of ourselves, to run towards the pain and fear instead of away from it. Makes me incredibly optimistic seeing how many people are willing to do so. I just love that so much. It's so beautiful. And it's such a great reminder that as we are all so concerned, what can we do about the

divisiveness in this country? And it feels like everyone hates each other and they're screaming at each other and everyone's getting in fights online and whatever. But it's such a great reminder that the best way that we can heal all of that is by healing ourselves first. And by doing that, we encourage the people around us because they look at you and they're going, oh my gosh, what are you doing? Your energy feels different. You look more vibrant. You seem happier. And then it encourages them to wanna do the same. And as we all individually heal and get healthier mentally, physically, and happier, we collectively become healthier and happier.

So, oh, I didn't even mention this. This is the very last thing and then I'm really gonna go. This was a really big part of my overall health journey as well. I got very into food and health when I was younger because I was looking back, I think it was because I wanted to know how to keep myself and my family healthy because I was so terrified of losing my parents and I didn't want to die young. And so I started on this journey of really unpacking and understanding nutrition because it was a way to ensure at least

some of the control around being able to live longer and same with my parents. And I realized along my journey, as I started unpacking all the emotional trauma of everything that healthy is not just about what you put in your body and on your body. It's also your mental state too. It's also your brain and your emotions. So if you have all these repressed emotions and this trauma that

you're carrying around, you're only going to be able to find so much healing until you're able to figure out how to deal with that too. So basically this episode was a really long-winded way of me saying why I got into nutrition and why I'm in the field I'm in and why I care so much. It's why I want to go after the food industry, the corruptness of it and why I'm so passionate about it because I get so incredibly sad. I mean, guys, I literally like, this is embarrassing to admit. I cry sometimes alone at night thinking about what is happening in this country right now and how so many people don't have access to healthy food, healthy organic food, food that's not sprayed with deadly pesticides. And also how so many people are so incredibly confused on what

it means to be healthy. And then you look at this recent report that just came out about how the food industry is paying dieticians to confuse the public even more and tell them the processed food is fine in moderation. And in fact, it's quote unquote healthy. I literally cry about this stuff sometimes because it just breaks my heart because I know what it's like to lose a family member. And look, I know it's the reality of life. We're all going to lose our family members and we're all going to lose the people we love the most. And it's a devastating thing to wrap your brain around, but it's even more devastating to know that when it comes to our food and our food landscape, this is something that we do have a lot of control over.

And this is something that we can't avoid. We can't avoid freak accidents. We can't, but we can avoid the awful food-like products that are also destroying our health and leading to early death. So, okay, I'm gonna leave you guys with that. I hope you guys liked the episode. Write me and let me know how you felt about it. I'm feeling very raw and vulnerable right now, but I'm very happy that I shared it because now you guys understand a little bit more about me and my why and why I started all of this in the first place and what my motivation is behind it all. So anyways, I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resonant

media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I love you guys so much. See you next week.

The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. Do you suffer from IBS or other digestive issues? Are you looking for a new podcast to listen to?

From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast comes the all-new health and nutrition podcast, Digest This, hosted by Bethany Ugarte. You may know Bethany as the face of the popular Instagram page, Lil Sipper, or you may have even read her book. Now you can find her wherever you get your podcasts. On Digest This, Bethany examines topics

such as gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and highlights specific ingredients that can be beneficial or harmful to your gut health. She also explores non-toxic options in beauty, home, and cooking essentials. If it has to do with your health, Digest This is talking about it. Each episode features an interview with health experts, doctors, and wellness advocates, and delivers you information that is, well, easy to digest. Bethany also delivers a weekly segment every episode called Bite of Knowledge, where she highlights an ingredient commonly used in food, skincare, household cleaning,

you name it, and gives you the lowdown on the benefits or dangers that ingredient might have in your everyday life. From Botox, potassium, olive oil, and magnesium, all the way to those Thank you.