Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Art of Loving Yourself First with Sheri Salata

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Sheri Salata is an author, world-class producer and transformation doula. She is the founder + CEO of The Support System, a global membership group for women dedicated to creating real-life transformation.  Friendly warning: this episode contains conversations about using psychedelics for therapeutic purposes. If you or anyone around you is uncomfortable with this topic, you may want to skip this episode.  To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep187. Sheri spent 20 years in the land of Oprah finishing that glorious run as the final Executive Producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show, President of Harpo Studios and President of OWN as captured in the cable hit series Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I have another life-changing conversation for you. And this time, it's with this incredible woman that is going to crawl right into your heart. And her name is Sherry Salada. And some of you might know her name because she became quite famous by being the executive producer of the Oprah Winfrey show for over 20 years. But what really has drawn me to Sherry is what she's. done after that time. She calls herself, and I love this title, she calls herself a transformation doula. And you will see in this conversation that that is a very accurate title. And coming out of the

Oprah Winfrey experience, she wrote an incredible book that I think everyone should get called The Beautiful Know. And it was all built around what her next chapter of her life was going to look like, and this time she realized that she really wanted to not only get to know herself, but she wanted to build a life on her own terms. And this is where I think so many of you will resonate with this conversation of how do we move from a place where we realize, hey, maybe our life isn't working for us. Maybe there's something that needs to shift, but how do we make that shift? And Sherry explains her mindset and how she went from serving the masses.

with Oprah and bringing all the information to the world to really tapping within and understanding what she wanted. I recently had dinner with Sherry and one thing she said that really hit my heart was that she really wanted to make the last 30 years of her life, her best years. And I think it's so interesting how often as we age, we have a tendency to think there's a winding down. There's like a slowing down and that maybe we're even not as useful. But what you're going to hear from Sherry is that she doesn't look at her life like that. She looks at her life as actually it's starting to heal and she wants the next 30 years to be the best they've ever been.

And so in this discussion, you're going to learn techniques on how to stop the people pleasing, how to learn to listen to your own heart, how to stand up for relationships that matter and how to go of relationships that you no longer serve you. And that is the beginning part of this conversation. And then in the back half of this conversation, we talked about the psychedelic journey. So I want to just point out that if you're not comfortable with the discussion around psychedelics or you have children in the car, you don't want this listened out loud, I want to just tell you this may not be the episode for you. But if you are curious about this renaissance of psychedelics, that is happening across the world, and especially here in America, and how people are using it

in a therapy setting for the transformation of their lives, Sherry and I talk about it. And it is such an incredible conversation. And I hope that you all will gleam personal insight that might be applicable to you. And if it's not, as you will hear from Sherry and I, we're just giving you our own experiences and take what works for you and leave the rest. So Sherry Slata, my new best friend, I can't wait for you to listen to this wise woman. Enjoy. Hey, Dr. Vindy here and welcome to season four of the Resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're a passion for learning, if looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

Enjoy. So, so let's, here's what I want to do is I want to start where, you know, your life dramatically shifted. So in your book, I love how you explain what your ahas were when you all shut down the Oprah Winfrey show and said goodbye to that. And then what I read in your book, the, the, the, the. The boundary of no? The beautiful no.

The beautiful no. All I saw was it was boundaries. You set some boundaries. And what my takeaway from it was that you really stood up for yourself and said not, you know, in that there's going to be a new chapter of my life. And it's going to be one that I am the producer of my own life, not the producer of somebody else's. That's the way I read it. So can you talk a little bit about that transformation? For sure.

Well, what's happened since is, and the journey that I went on was the answer to the question, why am I so unhappy? Why am I so unhappy? I'm at the freaking top of the heap. Why am I so unhappy? Why do I feel like that old cliche, is this all there is? Why do I feel listless? And, you know, it had been a recurring pattern for me.

Now, that was a good strong 20-year run. And it was high pressure. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It gave me a spiritual life. It opened up the world and changed my life forever, for sure. But prior to that, I had had this pattern of always not being able to make a change in my life until I was miserable until like I couldn't get out of bed.

Then it's time to end the relationship, end the friendship, end the friendship, leave the job. And that continued to be a thing. It's like, gosh darn it, I just want to make everything work. Even when it's like, but you don't even like it. What are you doing?

Why are you trying to make these ill-fitting clothes fit you? What are you doing? And, but it's something, maybe some, some childhood stuff about achievement and worthiness. and certainly some Midwestern plucky off to my job with my lunch pail. And gosh darn it, I'm going to let blood from my veins if you write a paycheck with my name on it.

And I will be loyal and win the gold watch at the end. So I've got all that. It's a powerful brew that I've had to shake free of. I love that analogy. I mean, that actually a lot of us feel that, you know, in our own lives. Like you do all the things that society says do. And then you get to the top of the mountain and you're like, wait a second. I'm not happy.

This wasn't the path for me. Well, and that's why we get so annoyed with the younger generations who are like, I'm not doing that anymore. We're like, what? What do you mean you're not doing that anymore? You're not going to suffer and struggle and be miserable? Get in line. Get back. So we're a little jelly.

We're a little jelly. And, you know, I know that's true of me. So I always have to say, listen, you, you're of a certain age. You were trained a certain way. You're trying to set yourself free. Don't trap anybody else in those chains. So, yeah. So it was basically the answer to the question of why am I so unhappy?

And the show had been over for five years. I had been, I think, very. generously devoted myself for five more years to help with the own turnaround. And it was time for that all to be done. And they're a set. They're going, well, jeepers. Owns in a good shape. The show ended with a bang.

Why am I so unhappy? And why is my life not what I want it to be? So that began really what ultimately was this, it was almost like a five-part journey. Like I took all my little skills, my producerly skills, and also the knowledge I had, I had a front row seat to every thought leader that had ever been. And it was like, oh my gosh, okay, let's just start applying some things and really looking and seeing, what have I created? And do I have the courage to look at it, truthfully? What have I created? Where have I stumbled? Where have I fallen short? What are the unlived corners of my life. And then, then what do you really want? I mean, I hadn't taken two seconds to think about that. What do you really want, Sherry Salada? And, you know, I pulled out my someday list and it was as dusty as the Magna Carta. You know, I hadn't thought about it. Like, I got no time for activities and expansion and things like that. And I just decided that I was going

to learn how to dream again. I was going to practice what I believed, which is that we are constantly magnetizing the next version of our lives to us, the next version of ourselves, by our choices, by our thoughts, by our stories about ourselves. And I was going to stop being a leaf on the wind. And I was going to start really authoring my own narrative and my own story and play the game, play the fun game of what's working. What do I want? And thank you, thank you, thank you so much because so much is working. And slowly but surely, you know, I just, I felt like my feet, I got my feet on the path

of transformation. And once I got a taste of that, once I had the feeling for that, I'm like, I'm never getting off. Ooh. So I feel like I'm at the beach. beginning of that, what you just said. And I feel like for the first time I'm doing what you, you just explained, where I'm asking myself at 53 years old, like, what do I want? And I think this is sort of, it's a human condition, but I think it's very much a woman condition,

where we're constantly giving, giving, giving to those around us. And it feels good to give. I thought, don't get me wrong. It feels good to give. It feels good to have people reflect back to you, how meaningful and useful you are. But in that, we truly lose what our heart desires is, what our soul desires. Right. And I'm just learning how to ask that question through. I know you and I are going to talk about some of our psychedelic experiences, but it's giving me new perspective on what I really want.

So share with us because I think a lot of our listeners are in that same place. We come, we get done with parenting, we get done with a career, and then we sit there and go, holy shit, my life was about everybody else. Now what am I going to do? Well, and again, we're all of a certain age. There's this generational area that we share. And the truth is we were not trained to receive. We were not trained to shake things loose.

We weren't trained to upset the apple cart. We were trained to people, please. We were trained not to bother anybody. We were trained not to draw attention to ourselves. We were trained to give and give and give and give and just stuff that resentment down with chardonnay and chit. It's true. It's true. So even when you start to feel that rage, and the rage is really rage at yourself, that you've just let yourself be in many ways, kind of a, kind of a doormat in a way.

And that once we start to feel that, we were never taught those feelings were appropriate. So it's a very, very, it takes a lot of courage to open up that Pandora's box and feel your grief for the life. that you thought you might live, that you didn't, for the choices that you didn't make, you got to grieve that, that life that you thought was going to happen, that didn't happen. You've got to rage at yourself and get that anger out of like, oh my God, everybody came before me. Everybody came before me. And we have to learn to understand that in changing those patterns, that it's going to bring up that crazy guilt thing.

like who do you think you are you're not the center of the world blah blah blah you know all of that all of that so it's tricky yeah okay so i want to take those two concepts because i've experienced exactly that last year was grief and it was like every morning i would get up and cry and and everybody around me is like what's wrong with you everything in your life is great and it was like i couldn't explain it you know my kids had left the home i was leaving my clinic i closed my clinic i closed my last year and it was like, I think what I was grieving was my identity. My identity was falling apart and I didn't have a new identity that was my own showing up. And then the guilt part that you just explained, that also is really huge because the guilt, I believe, is the programming from society.

And I'll even, you know, put in there, the patriarchal world of just, hey, in order to perform in this world, you need to show up a certain way, and I wasn't willing to show up that way anymore. Right. Right. For sure. So everything's shifting. Everything's changing. Now, so in your first experience of that, it feels like the world is crumbling around you. It feels like you don't know who you are or how to be. It feels like you've made such terrible mistakes and it'll be too late to change it. And on the other hand, when you walk, get on that path and you start doing the work and you start really looking at the shame and seeing where it comes from and understanding that almost every, this is going to be a bold thing I'm going to say. And I'm going to preface it by saying, obviously, it can't be true

for every single person. But this is a real generalization that when you first come get real about this, how you formed relationships, if you are of a certain age and you're a woman, almost every relationship you ever formed is tinged with the taint of codependency. Oh, yeah. Because that's what society's taught us to do in relationships. Yes, yes. Don't be a bother. Don't be a bother.

Don't put yourself first. Don't say what you want. You know, I don't care. Where do you want to go? I don't care. And also, even in friendships, it's like, I'll put up with you and you put up with me and let's not bother each other. Instead of, let's support each other in real growth and not need each other.

Like, I just want to cling to you so I'm not alone. So, you know, when I walk into the party, I know some people, it's that almost every relationship is tainted until you sit back and say, okay, I'm going to heal this stuff. and then I'm going to come to my life with a new sense of integrity of I am authentic and I'm going to authentically interact with others. And what do you do when you make that bold decision in your relationships that you're not going to operate in a certain way? Let's say you're in a marriage. Let's say you're – now, a friendship, I can see where friendships could fall apart.

And I've gotten to this point where I'm okay if friendships fall away that are not in my highest good. But what about like really intimate relationships or family members? How are you able, is there a way to express like, hey, guys, I'm no longer putting up with this anymore. I'm actually going to stand up for what I feel is best for me. Is there a way to eloquently do that? Yes, you can be eloquent, but you have no, no control over other people's responses. And here's what I'm going to say. As somebody who I would like, lug around relationships for 30 years. It's like right to the day I take my last breath, I would have been lugging everything

along. But you start to do this work. You start to transform your life. Endings happen naturally. And I'm like, gosh, what is this? What is it that I'm learning now? Oh, it's okay to have conclusions. It's okay for things to run their course.

I don't have to keep blowing my breath on and stoking the fire. of something that is, you know, is barely there anymore. So I don't have to keep twisting myself in a pretzel or dimming my light or pretending like I haven't grown in order to keep this going. Now, I am not married. So this is again, another bold statement. I am not married, but I work with tons of women who've been married for decades. And maybe I'm not married because it gives me a crisp little observational point that one might not have if you were involved in your own long-term marriage or entanglement. But listen, same with that. I see women all the time who start to put themselves first, start to begin to think about their dreams and what

they really want for their lives. And they say, listen, it's okay if my marriage is over. It's just the thing that neither one of us has said to each other, but let's have that conversation. And we can either decide together that we're going to reinvent this marriage and this relationship, so it suits us both we are today, or let's part as friends and go find new love. And for those of us who loyalty and devotion, and we take that very seriously, that can be really challenging. And yet often it's the next right thing. Yeah. I think, you know, I can tell you giving the perspective of a woman who's been married for a while that one of the things I did last year was really go to my husband and be like, hey, I'm showing up different. Our life is different.

I don't, we don't, the kids aren't around and here's what I need from this relationship. And I'm really blessed to be married to a man that heard me and has expanded with me. And I think there's a way that you can take a step into something that feels old and stagnant and you can be very true with your words and then watch together if you can expand. And I will tell you, my parents have been married 60 years. They're in their 80s. And when they had their 50th wedding anniversary, I asked both of them, what's the secret to a long-term marriage? And they both said, when the other person wants to grow, let them.

You have to let them grow. And sometimes you're going to want to join them in that growth, and sometimes you're going to be fine just sitting back. But there has to be room within that relationship for growth. Genius. And I think super genius, right? So I do believe that there's a lot of ways we can skin that discussion that we're having around containers.

I call them containers now. Like I really am looking at the containers of my life. And some of them are friendships. And my work was a container that just needed to be blown apart and redefined. So there is an elevation, I believe, into that conversation. The one thing you said, though, I really, this is like my deep in my heart and what I learned from my last psychedelic journey is the power of women nurturing women. Yeah. So talk a little bit about that.

When we look at friendships, because friendships also can be something that holds us back. Sometimes friendships, they don't, your women friends don't want to see you grow. I've seen situations like that. Of course. But where in your life have you used the power of friendships and meaningful connections with other humans to accelerate your growth?

Well, so about maybe 14, months ago, I started therapy for the first time. And the first thing that came up were this, a whole litany of how I would form friendships and relationships. And it wasn't necessarily reciprocal, and it wasn't necessarily mutually supportive and probably fraught with a lot of things. So then all of a sudden, I'm on a rocket ride of this expansion. and spiritual growth, and you're just no longer a match. So in thinking about that, as I could start to see that and feel that and have to deal with my anxiety about like, oh my gosh, you know, this is the, the, the, the, the, what my, the picture of my life is changing so

dramatically. And my cast of characters in my story, whoop, whoop, whoop, go, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. And I was like, you know, here is, here is, here is the simple truth is that finally, I love my own company. I'm not trying to like have a buddy all the time. I love my own company. So in loving my own company, I'm okay to be more discerning. And to give you an example, one of my, like, maybe the last eight years, a friendship with somebody who's much younger than me. Like, it wasn't like a, oh, you're the greatest, you're the greatest. Like, it, it happened over time. And as she has grown, I mean, I learned so much from her. She's such a PIP. I'm like, tell me else how you're doing that. Tell me, you know, like, what do you think? Like, tell me,

like, she's really, I learned so much for her. I'm just not the big wise elder. And we decided, gosh, maybe a year ago that what we would do is every month we would do like a soul council. So we would make sure we live in different cities that we would have a Zoom like on a Sunday, you know, with our coffee or green tea if we're fasting. And we would really talk about the soul issues and just leave. Both of us would have the opportunity to say, here's what I'm going. through. Here's where I'm expanding. Here's what I'm thinking. And I'm telling you, what a change from, what a change from the, I feel so bad. Da-da-da-da. Whose life is worse. Yes. Yes. What we do,

that's what we do is women. We binge with each other. That's right. Why do we do that? We could do exactly what you're saying where we could elevate and lift each other up. The friendships in my life are very much like that. Yeah. It's very much like, here's a pattern of thought that's not working for me. And I, like, help me. I want to hear how you're thinking because you're thinking maybe add to the way that I'm thinking and it might elevate where I'm at right now. And I think that's the power of women that we can come together and expand our beautiful hearts. Yes. And it begins with you making the commitment to wanting to be expanded and elevated. It gets tricky. when you don't want to change. And you don't want to hear that stuff, that woo, woo, woo,

you don't want to hear that. And, you know, I just would rather tell you everybody I'm mad at and what those stories are. So that doesn't work anymore. Not going to do it. Not good for me. Not good for I don't, I don't want to spend my time doing that. And so now I'm not a match for for what you want. But I am literally, that is not a standard I'm going to ever lower again, because I don't want to talk about anything else. Amen. I am amen. What's the difference? This is something that showed up in my writing the next book. What's the difference between your heart and your soul? You know, we say I'm giving everything my heart and soul. But yet when we go into the self-discovery place.

We're trying to get to know our heart and soul. And so are they the same thing? And that's a question I've been asking myself. That's interesting. Well, off the top of my head, so here's the download that comes to me. That the heart is what's here with me in my 3D experience that is giving me emotional feedback that if I would only pay attention would show me a lot of things. And the heart, through my heart, is how my soul, my inner being, my, the part of me that is not in 3D, that's kind of running the show, uses, speaks to me through my heart.

That's what I think. I think they work in tandem. So I would agree. I think that the brain has been so conditioned by our extraordinary. world, that when we actually come to this place where we want to get to know ourselves, our true selves, it actually behooves us to not use the brain. It behooves us to really tap into the heart. And the soul doesn't speak to us through the brain because I feel like the soul knows that there's too much noise up there, but the heart doesn't. And if you could turn within and like literally,

like when you think of situations that just feel so right to you for me. me, it literally feels like a warm glow in my heart. Right. Absolutely. And here's what I'll also say about our little trickssters. Yes, we are. We're clever little tricksters. It's just like when I think about, I was just doing this the other day and I was like, there you are. You're doing it again. How I love to talk about meditation. You know what I mean? I like to talk about it. I can talk about it forever. Let's do some more talking about meditation. Let's talk, talk, talk. and then some more talk. Then we'll talk about what I think about,

what I just said about meditation. And, you know? And it's just like, Sherry, it's a practice. It isn't a conversation. It isn't like a thought spiral in your head. It is sitting down. And it really is. So I just, I've got a slippery character

that I got to keep my eye on because I'm smart. I've got to, I've got to, really snappy brain. I'm smart and I can oh I can just tie everything up with the big bow and it sounds so great and I have so much understanding and so and be completely out of my heart. Yes. And be completely disconnected from my feelings and my heart. So I got to watch that. It's such a perfect example. I'm the same way. I can talk about meditation all the day, all day long, but you ought to sit me down and make me do it. That's a whole other thing. That was that was that was a brilliant example of your crafty mind.

And it's like, and I literally somehow convinced myself that I've meditated. No, you haven't meditated. You've been talking about it. I do the same thing with yoga. Listen, I should be a yogi teaching at the Ganges for as much as I talk about yoga. And it's like, where's my dusty mat rolled up? You know, I just, that's so funny. I do love, I do love words.

love spitting a yarn. And really what, when I really get on point, it's when I realize the words are the creative building blocks that I need to use to ignite my heart to magnetize what I want to me. Not a bunch of fluffery that sounds good. Fluffery. I love words as well. And I will take a word. I actually have a whiteboard in my office here. And I will take a word and just write it up there. Like one of my new words that I'm fascinated by is the word curiosity. I want to take that word and magnify it and bleed it into every aspect of my life and be curious because when my brain is curious, it's not in judgment. Yes, exactly.

What a tool. Yes. What a tool that word is. And then the, right? It's such a tool. So I just, I've been sitting with that word curious. And I'm like, could you be curious, Mindy, about that? Be curious.

And it just changes the whole agenda that the brain has for myself, which is phenomenal. So that actually leads me to the big thing I want to talk to you about, which is your psychedelic journeys. Because I think we're at seeing a renaissance of the psychedelic movement. People are revisiting this. They're looking at it. I love this concept of it being the third wave of psychedelics where the first wave, we thought everybody would do psychedelics and drop out a society. The second wave was, you know, Nancy Reagan telling us this is our brain on drugs.

And I feel like actually psychedelics is a form of medicine. And the way it's being used right now is actually a mixture of those first two waves. So talk a little bit about how you even, because your story about how you were even open to psychedelics in this new version of you emerging. What did you, what did you think of it? How did you be, what changed your mind and what was the door in? I was not a drug person at all. I mean, I was like, you know, pot was never my drug of choice. It just made me want to eat. And it made me, I'm like, yes, I know I'm laughing, but I feel sad. I don't like this feeling. So I wasn't a drug person. So as I started to learn about Iowa.

I wasca plant medicine and other psychedelics and mushrooms and things like that. I was like, yeah, I don't think that's for me. And I was just like, no judgment. I just don't think it's for me. I don't think it's for me. I don't think it's for me. Until one day, someone said, we're going to get this shot. We're going to see the shaman and do an ayahuasca weekend.

And would you like to come? And I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm not saying no, it's not for me. What's going on? Right. And so I was just open to it. And I wouldn't even say that was a fantastic experience. But let me tell you what is my repertoire and then we can go back. I probably have now done three, four, five, maybe six journeys of various different kinds of medicines.

And at the beginning, I was curious. And I was open. I was like, hmm, I could see some, now that wasn't a particularly transformative experience, but I could see the possibilities. And so then I'd try something else. I think I did. My second experience was guided mushrooms. And that was a big hero's dose.

Yeah. How much did you do? Five grams. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You went to a whole new realm. Yeah. Yeah.

And I just had, I had a couple. mystical experiences during that day. And I always do it guided with intention. Like I'm not just flying around the campfire like, give me ketamine. You know, I'm a little afraid of that. And I'm not sure I do have a bit of an addictive nature. So I really watch that. But very guided, very intentional. There's a start. There's a finish. There's integration. It's, you know, it's a plan. It isn't just agreed. A frivolous thing. So in that big mushroom journey, there was a couple of mystical experiences that were cleaned

up for me, like a relationship that I'd had in high school that was with a guy that was difficult and complicated and like kind of love, kind of what, and was never resolved. and he literally came to me as a 60-year-old man in this journey and told me his side of the story. And I was like, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. Here I was thinking this, this and this. And it just gave me such insight into how my own sense of unworthiness and my own fears created these big narratives that weren't even true.

Like you were just so, you just felt so unworthy and you were trying to act like you weren't feeling unworthy that you just crafted these stories that had nothing to do with reality. So when you're so busy worrying what other people think about you, you're not a very good lover. You can't offer love when you're always self-conscious and worrying about what other people are thinking of you. So it was super, I came out of that. I was like, holy mojol. I cannot believe he came he came to me in my mushroom journey yeah okay so I want to I want to pause for a moment because I

truly believe this is the benefit of a guided journey like the one that you did I also had a hero's journey that that I'll share here in a moment but when you're with a guide when you have that aha in that moment what's interesting and different than like marijuana or or alcohol those two tend to be you check out and then you wake up the next morning and you don't remember anything. What I think in, what I just heard in you is you checked in. Oh yeah. And you went in and you saw a part of you, a pattern of yours that was no longer serving you and you remembered it when you came out, which is why the integration is so important. So how did that change you? How did that, as far as how you handled relationships after that? Well, that was just, that was such a shock. And it's all,

It's another piece. The integration piece is a big deal. And that's when you sit and really say, how many ways have I done that? Have I been so self-focused in my unworthiness that I was really not seeing the love that was being offered, not able to receive it, not even to be able to reciprocate it. And so it begins as a big thought starter. Now it isn't like everything was wrapped up with a bow, but it set me off on this course where I'm like, I'm going to get really curious and this big thing, I'm going to intimately know myself. And I will use whatever modalities are available to me to do it. I want to intimately know myself. I love that.

Then it was the next journey and the next. So the next ones were guided. I don't even know. Is it MDMA? Is that MDMA? Yeah, so there's MDMA is one of one of things. Ketamine and LSD as a trio, which is a day long experience that, you know, I did sessions beforehand. I intended what I wanted to do.

And so this is another big mystical one was my first session with LSD ketamine and MMD And DAA, I always screw that up. See, I'm not, I'm not very proficient in the drug world. It's all good. You're doing a great job. And I was going, I was going in to really explore my mother wound. My mom didn't have the tools and had really struggled with self-love and worthiness herself. So it was, it was very trying for me as a kid.

And so I was going in to really explore the mother wound. And at about 30 minutes in, I'm telling you this thing happened. My guide counselor starts to talk about something. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And I can hear myself start to chant, all the mamas bring the love, all the mamas bring the love, all the mammas bring the love. And I'm like, and even in that state, altered state, I'm like, what does that mean? And I'm like, oh, my matriarchal line, my patriarchal line.

All the women going back to the beginning of those lines were bringing in the love. We're just bringing in the love. And I was just weeping and chanting and weeping and chanting. That went on for about 45 minutes, according to my guide. She's never seen anything like it. And all of a sudden I was like, okay, now we can begin. Like they began the session. these women, these spirit women from the beginning of time, you know, came and brought in the love.

So what happens after that? So then I think about that. And I think about that, that sense that, oh, when I heal, my mom heals. Ah, yes. And up and down the lines, the healing happens. Or I can still be sitting around in a corner being, I don't think. my mom loved me and I wish I would have a mom or I can do the healing work set her free, set myself free and then uncover the next thing, Dr. Mindy, because then there's a next thing to intimately know and explore and intimately know and explore. And at the end of the day, and I'm curious what your experience has been, when I'm really jazzed by the psychedelic experiences, when I know I've slipped my 3D dimensional perspective and I'm dancing with my soul. Yes. Yes. So well said. When that happens, I'm like,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm so powerful. I'm so powerful. Yes. So powerful. And so you know, when you look at, they've been saying for many years that we, like right now, we're only using about 10% of our brain. Like we're not accessing our full brain power. And, and, And I think one of the things that happens to us in our 3D human life is that we don't have a full perspective. Like you've used the word perspective several times. And I think that hurts us because we're not, it's like we need that 30,000 foot view of our life to have a better understanding of what that day to day is going through.

And the biggest thing I can relate to that was, I think I told you this. when we met that I actually had a near-death experience in my mid-30s. And one of the things that I came out of that with was I had the life review. I went down the tunnel. And every thought, every person I ever met, every thought I ever thought, every event I ever had in my life was played back to me. And when you stop and you think about how that could happen, it's illogical. But when I decided to come back, what I learned from that experience was that there's a whole lot more to life than we are seeing.

Right. And we are only living a small, all of our troubles, all of our happiness, all of our self-worth is built around this small little fragment of what we know. So when I go into a psychedelic journey, I go in with that intention. I go in with a question. I go within, I need to come back into a bigger perspective, which is what I just heard you say. Yeah. And I think when we do it from that lens, it's like we can all have these near-death experiences in a very safe and somewhat of a systematic way for our own emotional well-being.

Is that what, and I'll tell you my journey here in a moment, but is that how you feel like you come out with this expanded perspective of yourself that you now can. operate from. Yes. And if, if that you decide to do the integrative work, which is here, here are the four gems that got dropped on me. How am I going to incorporate that into my daily life? And give myself those touchstones. So I mean, literally, one of the gems on one of the journeys was get in the water, get in the water, get in the water. I'm like, so I come out and I'm talking to my guide in one of my sessions afterwards, I go, get in the water, get in the water. And she's like, do you have a lap pool by you? And I go, oh, I do. I just saw an advertisement for it.

Next thing you know, I got my swim cap, you know, and I got in the water. And I got in the water three days a week. And I'm like, this is really good. This feels very spiritual. It feels like I'm more connected. So sometimes it's little specific things like that. And sometimes it's like, Oh my God, there's so much more, right? Oh, there's so much more. Oh, my God, there's so much more. So tell me, let's talk about yours and then we'll talk about the one medicine that we both did that. Yeah.

So last year in my grieving year, I did three major journeys and then I just did one six weeks ago. The three major ones I did last year, two of them were psilocybin and one of them was ketamine. I feel like ketamine, and they were all done in a therapeutic setting with intention and integration, ketamine was really beautiful in the sense that I felt so calm and peaceful afterwards. I felt connected. It is definitely the one that makes you feel connected to so many things. I felt a deep connection to women. It showed up in a visual for me, which was really beautiful.

The psilocybin really helped me understand. like why was I left? That has been a question I've had from my near-death experience is like, what is my soul's purpose? And I definitely, the psilocybin helped me with that. But this most recent one is the one we should talk about. So I did it with two women. One was a therapist, and one, I'll call her a psychedelic expert. And I did MDMA, I did psilocybin, four and a half grams, and I did 5MEO DMT, which is Bufo, the toad, and it was a synthetic version. Same. And so there were a couple highlights.

There's a lot of highlights. And for people listening, I think one of the things that happens to me in these journeys is it's like a truth serum. It's like the cells start talking. And they're like, hey, we need to process this. Hey, we need to process this. And so I would tell them, like, I've sat at the bedside of four patients dying. And I'm like, I got to tell you what happened to me in that.

And they would just write it down and we would keep talking about things. But two of the biggest things. One is, you know, my daughter and I have had some bumpy road in the last several years and really committed to working our relationship out. and what I discovered is that I energetically had some things that were holding me back from that relation because of her birth. It wasn't the way I wanted it to go. So these two beautiful women actually set and held me as I rebirthed her. And I went through that experience and I talked about how I energetically wanted that to be. And I got to tell you, our relationship is changed now.

And she even said to me two days after the journey, she said, you're a new version. You're softer. And it was like energetically, I could put down something that I perhaps had been holding against her. And I didn't even realize it, right? It was like, I didn't even realize that. So that was one thing. But then the five MEO DMT, the Bufo, you know, it's a short journey. It's like 15 minutes and you go somewhere else.

And you know what I did, Sherry? for the first I did it twice in that in the whole thing was about an eight to 10 hour journey but the Bufo part of it um I screamed my head off for 15 minutes and it was like the greatest scream I had ever had and these two beautiful women screamed with me I was like at one point I was like oh my god their neighbors are going to come or something is going to happen but I you know what it felt like it felt like every single time I could cry right now every time I'd didn't use my voice. Every time I pushed down what I wanted to say, I was able to set free in that experience. And I feel like a new person because of that. Oh, my God. That's amazing.

That's amazing. My, um, my synthetic buffo experience was, um, it wasn't 15 minutes. It was 45 because it was, it was taken differently. It was taken through the nose rather than, um, Oh. Yeah. And it was, it literally was a dance with my soul. I just, it was just a dance. And like, I remember downloading all this information. Like all this. Like, give me all the information. Give me all the don't leave anything out. Give me all the information. And then the trust comes with, I will continue to be led. As long as I do my practices and I keep my heart open. I will continue to be led to exactly, you know, exactly what's right for me, exactly what's expansive for me to the life I say I want.

Yes, yes. You know, I think if what I'd love for people to understand is that I can tell you in the near-death experience that there is so much more than what we're seeing. And when I hear you say, give me the downloads, that's what I feel. feel like Bufo does is it gives you the downloads. Right. And one of the downloads I got in that experience was how much I have pushed down my own desires.

And I'm not going to do it anymore. It's like once I let that free, I have been standing up for myself so much more and saying what I want so much without guilt, without worry of disappointment. and I saw that in that 15-minute experience. It was really interesting. So interesting. And again, you know yourself intimately. You learn something about yourself.

You were able to really, I feel the same way. Like something happens. There's a release of something. It isn't just like, oh, more things to work on. It's like something is healed. Something is healed. Something's revealed. And, you know, here's what I found.

because obviously I get asked a lot of time about where, who, what. And I say this, respect the magic and just do some little inquiries with people that you think are open to it. And that's how you find your guides. They're not advertising, you know, like, here, come to me for that. No, they can't. They can't. So do let the magic, work the magic. You know, just start keeping your ears open, start listening and find the guide and the medicine

that's right for you. If you listen to us having this conversation and you're like, oh, my gosh, I think that's next for me. It certainly feels like a momentum changer, doesn't it? Yes. Yeah. Do you feel like the medicine called you? Because that's how I feel every single time it was like this internal, yes.

Yes. want to go do that. And I was like you. I was, you know, as a health professional, I'm like, no way are we going to do this stuff. Like this is crazy. But there was something inside me that said, oh, but there's more. There's more. And you, if you're willing to take this out of the container of bad and harmful and put it into the container of possibility and open that up, maybe there's more to your life than you're really seeing. And there's more to understanding your soul than you really know. Right. And there's more assistance. There's more assistance. Like, can we allow ourselves some support, some support in this expansion? And what ends up feeling to me, somebody asked me once, like, what do you feel like? I go, I feel like a spiritual pioneer. I feel like we're living in this time. The patriarchal is crumbling. The patriarch is crumbling. It is. It's no longer a match or a fit. So it's just crumbling before our eyes. The divinely. The divinely. divine feminine is rising. There's there's never been a better time to be alive, what you have access to.

If you'll be a good steward for yourself, what the information you have access to, the possibilities you have access to. And this just feels like the leading edge of pioneering that level of expansion. And I don't, I don't push it on anybody because you got to be called. No. No. It's, yeah. You have like, you know what I'm not called to is. ayahuasca. I don't know why. I don't know why. Maybe at some point I need to know more about it, but it's just not calling me. And each journey has been very isolated. It's not like you come out of that and go, oh, I want to go do that again. I come out of it and go, wow, there's a lot to process here. Yeah. Let me sit with that. And then I process it. And then when the processing feels like it's normalized, then there's like, okay, do I ask myself every three to four months? Like, do I,

do I want to go in again because it is a version of tapping into another dimension of healing. And I think what would you say to the people who are like, that sounds really scary, which I have heard people say? I think there have been a couple times where beforehand I'm a little like, whoof, you know, just a little trepidacious, maybe a little nervous. But what what overcomes that for me is understanding that it's. It's okay to be trepidacious. It's okay to be nervous.

But I want to live my life where I'm on the leading edge of consciousness. That's where I want to live. And that's where I want to relate. And that's where I want my companions to be. And those are the experiences. That's where I want my work to be. Those are the experiences I want to have. So if I'm going to follow those expanded consciousness breadcrumbs and I'm going to tune

myself so I can hear the downloads and I can get those big, big yeses, those heartful yeses, and I can continue to heal and elevate and transcend, then I want to be on the leading edge. And I don't want to leave any stone unturned. And I don't want to not know myself. Yeah. And what do you say to the people who say, oh, isn't this dangerous to your brain or your body. Well, I don't know that I'm qualified to answer that. Dr. Mindy, you're more qualified than me. You're qualified. Listen, I don't know. You've read the studies. It sounds like people's neuroplasticity increases and there's less depression and like are we just beginning. I mean, these are, these are ancient techniques. Yes, they are. Yes. Ancient techniques. Yes. And we're just

beginning to understand them. I mean, Huberman just did, Huberman just did three back-to-back episodes on psilocybin, psychedelics, and MDMA. And he is the number one podcast in America right now. That tells you. And he did it, what's going on, which is why I'm feeling like we need to open up this conversation so that if people are called to it, that they would, that they can, like you said, I love your, I mean, we can't tell you who to go to or what to do. It's definitely an underground thing at this moment. But my next question actually to you is, do you think, I mean, I know that our federal government here in America has the intention to legalize it within a year. Do you think that's actually going to happen? I think, well, I don't know that it's going to matter.

You know, I mean, the wave is the tsunami is here. So is it going to be regulated and safe and you know, things like that, or is it going to be, I mean, there's no going back because the experience is, I mean, is, is that the change is too deep and wide. I mean, there's, there's just no going back. So, um, agreed. Agreed. I mean, I, you know, you can get, you can order ketamine through mind bloom. You know, there's, there's little mail order people. They'll, they'll deliver, um, you know, and they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they recommended for depression. So I don't really know the ins and outs.

I know that these are ancient practices that I think best done under guidance and supervision with intention. And I bring tons of spiritual intention to it. It's not just some crazy day for me. It's like I go in there like, I want to elevate my life. Oh, me too. That's the last set I did with these two beautiful women, they were like the next day. They're like, wow, you just, you did the work.

And I was like, anything that came up, I'm like, I got to talk about this. It was like, I felt like, and let me know if you've, I've done a lot of therapy in my life. And I felt like it was like a decade of therapy done in one day. Like my cells were like, here you go. Let's talk about this. Let's get this. We felt like a purging of the traumas and the past. and the negative belief patterns that held me back.

And then the next day, I could start it new. So you're saying, okay, so now, so here we are six weeks later. And here's what I've heard you say, that you are just, you speak what you want, you say no, and it's easy? It's easy. It's easy. What else? And your relationship with your daughter has improved?

Yeah. So relationships that weren't working for me or relationships that needed to be healed, I have absolutely gone to those people and healed them. One of them is a very good friend of mine that I lost contact with. And about two weeks after the journey, she just kept popping up in my head and popping up in my head. And I was like, why am I not calling her? Why am I not rekindling? That was a friend like you talked about, your soul sister who you talk on them.

That was what this friend was to me. And so I called her out of the blue. She lives in Australia. and we just picked right back up. We're actually going to meet. We haven't seen each other in like four or five years. We're going to meet in Hawaii in August. And this whole beautiful friendship has been rekindled.

I didn't even realize that I was asleep to the fact of how much I was missing that friendship in my life. And that those are the kind of ahas that keep coming. And they keep coming after the journey. What about workwise? Oh, oh. Come on. on. Okay, you want to know? Yeah, I do. I don't want to work as hard. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to succeed in a patriarchal way anymore. I, I want to bring the feminine to this next phase of my life. So, you know, I feel a little bit like your post- Oprah moment. You know, it's like I, as an author, feel like I've hit the pinnacle of something really amazing. I was just on a,

call with Hayhouse this morning. We have over 100,000 copies that have been sold fast like a girl and are out there in the world in six months. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So, and there's like a movement that is just so beautiful. So now I sit here and go, why am I working so hard? I want to inspire. I'm like you. I want to be on the forefront of spiritual teaching and leading the changes in thought. But do I have to do a 10-hour work day to accomplish that. And what I'm learning is that my own creativity actually comes in the quiet. So this about a week ago, I canceled like half of my travel. I canceled interviews. And I just made a stand that I'm going to have a summer for the first time. I'm actually going to play like I did as a kid. And I'm just going to enjoy this life that I've created. I have never, everybody that knows me is like,

are you okay? What's wrong? Like, I have been on a go-go machine and that journey help me see I don't want to do that anymore. That's amazing. That's amazing, right? Amazing. So, and when we look at like how the patriarch has taught us, it has been, in order to achieve something, you better work your ass off very much like you just said. When we look at the younger generation, we're like, what do you mean you don't want to work so hard? But what if the new paradigm that's emerging is coming? through fluidity and it's bringing that femininity forward and in the femininity there needs to be softness yeah that softness is actually how we go further yeah so much so that I was on Diary of the CEO a couple weeks ago that and he's the number one podcast in Europe and I

made a statement about feminism that has now been clickbaity all over the internet what'd you say. Yes. I said, and I stand by this, which is as women, if we want to get ahead now, or if we want to be healthy now, if we want to be successful, happy, and healthy, we're going to have to learn when to soften. We're going to have to learn when to say no. We're going to have to learn when to pause. Oh, that sounds like the new, true, multi-dimensional definition of feminism, though. Yeah, I'm calling it authentic feminism. It's like, authentic, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like feminism draped and informed by the patriarchy. Yes. Authentic feminism. Yeah. It's very much like the red tent idea, you know. If we go back and we look at even matriarchal societies, there is this moment where women every month would go into a place of nurturing and rest and restore so we could come out and we could be the, the empowerer that we want to be.

but we're not doing that as women. We're not doing that. We're push, push, push, push through. And it's destroying us. Yeah, I would totally agree. I mean, that's your story, right? It's totally my story. And it will sneak up on me.

My slippery character, next thing you know, I'll start, oh, there's the push, there's the effort, there's the push. There's a, well, maybe I should do this, this, and this, and this too. And those are my clues. Uh-oh. There it is. There's the old version of me, inserting yourself. and she's not in a place of trust.

She thinks she has to do more doing. And I got to keep my eye on that because those patterns are deep. Yeah, they're very deep. And I would say the other piece that I've come out of this recent journey with is I can actually sit on the couch now. So I literally could sit on the couch and watch a movie now. I couldn't do that before because every cell in my body was like, get up, go. Like, why are you sitting here? You got 10 YouTube videos to do.

Right, exactly. You got a book to write in a YouTube videos and a podcast interview. Get your ass off the couch. And last Monday, I actually sat on the couch at 4 o'clock on a Monday afternoon and I watched like four hours of movies. It was heaven. And I would have, I have never done that in my adult life. I haven't done it in about 25, 30 years. Yeah.

So those are the gifts. I think it gives you. Because, I mean, what do you experience just so we can kind of help people see post journey? Do you feel like you continue to have those ahas? I absolutely continue to have those ahas. And experiences, I just literally two days ago got back from Africa, from two weeks in Africa. Ah, yes. And I went there, but I set it up so much differently for myself.

I said, I'm not going as a tourist. I'm going as a pilgrim. and I'm going to connect my consciousness to the mineral kingdom, the earth kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and really let myself learn from those consciousnesses. Let the animals be my shamans. Like come in a very receptive mode and I came back with this. This was the big word, I need more space.

I need more space. You've got to create more space. Like physical space? All of it, all of it. More space in my calendar. Thought I had enough more. I need more space. In my physical space, I need clearing.

More space. Now, I'm getting ready to move. So this week, I'm, I came back getting ready to, what am I going to take? What am I not going to take? What am I going to donate? And now it's just like, gone, gone. I had this big group of purses. Now, by the time you think about, how am I going to resell them and how am I going to

price them and who am I going to sell it? I'm just like gone. My dog nanny's like, these are nice purses. Get them out of here. Take them. I don't want to revert on that because it isn't because I spent money on them that I want to keep them. I'm not using them. Goodbye. Go have another life. I need more space. So that came to me, that deep sense of reverence for the quality of space in my life. And I'm responsible for that. And when I create that space all of a sudden, after the, those journeys and all those downloads, more can pour into me. Yes. But it can't, if I'm carrying around every relationship I've had since the second grade and every piece of paper and every this and every pot and pan and it's like too much. It's almost like it unconstipates you.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You got to open up the channels. You have to open up the channels. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Well, I appreciate your authenticity.

You know, I think one thing that I just adore about you is just how real you are. And I really feel like we need more realness in this world, especially as women. It's like put the mask down and just be our authentic selves. And I just love that about you. It's so attractive. So thank you for that. Listen, and I love talk. Listen, I think these are the conversations. These are the exciting conversations of our time. Agreed. Agreed. And so share a little bit about what's next for you. because I know that you have some big ideas on books and you're moving and what's on the forefront of your mind right now. Yeah. Well, what's on the forefront really is keeping my eyes on the prize here and keeping my heart open and really creating that space. But I do have this next, you know, my first book was The Beautiful Know was really about my journey to the transformation and to the need for it. And I think in a meditation, I downloaded my next book, which is really my own mission, which is, let's say I have 30 years left. How do I make them the greatest 30 years of my life

and not just wind down the clock or, you know, be like, well, since it's, you know, like, what are the things that I need to do? And there's no examples, you know, in my family of that necessarily, like starting a business when you're 60, you know, dreaming a new dream, writing a new book, learning to scuba dive, you know, whatever that might be. So I am really looking at what are the things that are possible for all of us? What are new ways for us to create that last bit, those last 30 years? So you've wrapped up this life experience brilliantly. Oh my gosh. I can't, are you, you know, one thing I've discovered about writing is when you get clear,

it actually flows through you really fast. Yeah. So are you actually actively writing this next book? Yeah. Yeah. I'm actively writing it. I'm actively living it and writing it. Awesome.

Because it's, it's my mission for me. Like, what is the best medicine? Program. What's it going to be? How are you going to wrap this life experience brilliantly? So when your last breath comes, here's, the thing I say. And I've, I've sat next to enough people who are like, regretful and scared about what was next. I want to be, I want to take my seat and say, yay, what's next? And what,

what are, what are the 30 years that are going to get me there? Yeah. You know, you and I need to continue to collaborate more and more because I have a dream that I want us to use our menopausal years as catalyst for a new version of ourselves to appear. And I want women to go into their menopausal years and be like, yes, I'm here. Now my neurochemical armor is coming down, my hormones are changing, and now I can finally live life on my terms. And I feel like if we could rebrand aging, we could rebrand menopause, we could rebrand this time of life that you and I are in, we would free so many women. Well, and Dr. Mindy, here's what I'm going to say to you.

You are very much at the forefront of shifting this paradigm of what's possible for women in the middle of life and the beauty is for everybody who's listening along with you and me. We get to shift it and live it at the same time. Yes. We're not just changing it for the generations that are coming behind us, which is very nice. It's very nice, very generous of us, but we also get to live it. Yes. And that's what excites me.

That's what excites me. And you taught me several things today, but one of them is now when people ask me what I'm up to, I'm going to say that I'm writing and living my next book. That's right. I love that idea. So let's finish up on this. I have a tradition every year with this podcast is we have a theme. And this year the theme was self-love.

And to me, self-love embodies two things. It's the practice of self-love and it's the ownership of the qualities that we're really great at. So do you have a practice of self-love, a daily one? And what do you think your superpower is that you bring to the world? Well, hearty, har-ha, my daily practice is meditation. And I start it like this. I do a 20-minute mantra-based meditation every morning. And I start, before I sit down to do it, I say, I love myself first. I love myself most. And I just, I just let that land in my bones and then I'll do the 20 minute meditation. And I really will do it, not just talk about it. And I think, here's what I think my superpower is. I will not give up on myself. I will not get, I'll make so many mistakes. I'll get, I'll do so many foolish things. You know, I'll just,

go down that road, you know, but I just will not give up on myself. I won't. I think that is so inspirational for us all. And I think it's something we have to make a declaration individually. Each one of us, just don't give up on yourself. I freaking love that. Okay, how do people find you? I could chat with you forever, but how do people dip into your wisdom and find you? Sherrysalada.com. we do is on there. I mean, it's the only conversation I want to have, so I'm having it all the time in my world. And everybody's invited to come along. I love you. Thank you for everything you do. I love you. And thank you. I'm fasting with 90 women in my world every day because of you.

I know. I love you so much. And here's what I always say. It's free people. We're spending all that money on things. Festing is free. Yeah. Agreed. Thank you again so much. I can talk to you for hours, so thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.