The Ryan Hanley Show - Is Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? | Austin Mao

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comCan psychedelics be a powerful tool for self-mastery? Go Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyConnect with Austin MaoCeremonia: https://www.ceremoniacircle.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinmao/Listen to special guest, Austin Mao for an eye-opening discussion on the transformative potential of psilocybin in mental health and personal growth. In this episode, the host shares a candid account of their journey with hyperactive bipolar disorder and how self-administered 'hero doses' of psilocybin have brought unprecedented clarity and focus into their life. We delve into the importance of addressing past traumas and mental blocks to achieve a balanced and fulfilling existence and discuss real-life practices like "circling," inspired by gestalt therapy, to foster deeper self-awareness and connection.Listen as we explore how the intentional use of psychedelics can quiet the inner critic and enhance our ability to navigate challenging situations with mindfulness and presence. The episode highlights the significance of set and setting in creating outer and inner safety, emphasizing the role of authentic, vulnerable connections in our journey of self-mastery. Learn how to transform your life through mindful living, self-empowerment, and genuine human connections, and discover how these elements come together to help us become the best version of ourselves. Whether you're experienced with psychedelics or just curious, this conversation offers valuable insights into the path toward personal and mental well-being.

I'm just remembering, like, the first question I asked you, what's it like to be you right now? Now I have such, so much deeper of an experience of you. So the process that we just went through is a process called circling. What I was doing is asking you, what's that like? What's it like for you? Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy. The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business.

This is The Way. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Austin Mao, the founder of Ceremonia, a plant-based retreat program that uses psilocybin and ayahuasca and other plant-based treatments to help us understand our trauma, deal with it, and move forward. This is a dynamic conversation. And I know many of you who are listening to this probably hear psilocybin, you hear ayahuasca you think scary you think drugs and my friends these are plant-based medicines that is what i believe i talk about some of my own experiences with some of these medicines and what they've done and how i've used them to work through uh different things that i experience in my own life. Austin provides a template of questions and insights

that we can use, even if we're not engaged in plant-based medicine, to start to uncover and understand some of the traumas that live inside of us that keep us from moving forward. Even if you don't believe in any of this, even if this is something that makes you feel uncomfortable, understand that dealing with past traumas, dealing with blocks and obstacles that are wedged into our

brain from our past is the only way to become the best version of ourselves, move forward, and make all our wildest dreams come true. All right. My friends, if you enjoy this show, please subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Leave a comment or a review. Let us know what you think about this type of plant-based medicine. If you've had your own experience, I would love to hear about it.

I would love for you to share it. When we get into the episode, I share some of my own experiences and I would love to hear how you have used plant-based medicine to move your life forward. I love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Austin Mow. Austin, so you asked me if I have ever done a ceremony or anything. I have never done a, I've never been part of a guided or formal process. Um, I became, so I'll, I'll,

I'll give you just the backstory for me and my experience with psychedelics, which is, which is just psilocybin, um, all self-administered, but not in a, not in a party kind of way. I've never actually done them in, uh, you know, the kind of the college, let's go eat some mushrooms and run through the woods kind of scenario. It was always with a purpose. And I did a tremendous amount of research beforehand. I was diagnosed with hyperactive bipolar two years ago, had it my entire life, didn't know, just thought I was crazy. And I started searching for ways and, and as I've gotten older, so, so for those

of the audience that haven't, are new or haven't heard me talk about this before, uh, hyperactive bipolar is basically like, instead of going manic, depressive, manic, depressive, I go from manic to hyperactive, manic to hyperactive, manic to hyperactive throughout the day. So I never am depressed and my mood doesn't change, but I get massive energy spikes, which often lead to a lack of focus. So what'll happen is I'll get supercharged, but with that supercharge, my brain will splinter and I'll have a thousand thoughts running through my head and it'll be hard to stay focused on one thing and for a long time I thought that energy was a superpower which which it is to a certain extent um but I didn't understand the negative ramifications that came from it which was this uh in a in a in a

entrepreneurial setting or a business setting, it came off as I was shooting from the hip or I was distracted or taking on too many tasks, etc. OK, so I went on a journey to figure out how to start to pull that in. And I did not I did not want pharmaceuticals necessarily or was I didn't want to go down that path immediately. I've done, I found fitness really helps and some other things that are kind of common, you know, going for walks. And I found that sauna and cold plunge, like heat and cold therapy really help with that a lot.

And then I started researching psychedelics. And I have done, I guess you'd call them two, I don't know what the appropriate term is. I call them kind of hero doses that I administered to myself, did a tremendous amount of research on the amounts and when and how and kept a journal and went through the whole process. So I've done two kind of hero doses on my own. I also tried micro dosing for a while. And in all honesty, and this is why I'm so excited to talk to you,

I found it to be the most potent solution to the challenges that I had of anything that I have done in terms of realigning my focus, realigning with what's important, realigning with my goals and my standards and values that I've ever had. So that's my experience with psilocybin. And, you know, you used a term off before we went live with the recording that I want to kind of set my first question on. You used this term of self-mastery. Can we define that term? Can you define that term and talk about what it is, why it's important and what that actually means for someone.

Yes, absolutely. First, I just want to share my appreciation for your vulnerability. I imagine in this public forum, sharing your process is, you know, has an element of healing to it and a recognition of how far you've come. Right. And at the same time, wow, it sounds, it seems to me like you've really led your life with intentionality and very purposefully sought to look much deeper into yourself to find greater wholeness and greater peace. So really just honoring. Not always, but trying to, yeah, trying to. Yeah. And we're all working on it, right? Yes. Yeah. Rather than define self-mastery to you, what I'd like to invite is maybe a short process

where maybe you can feel it and share how you feel. Does that work for you? Yeah, I love it. Okay. So Ryan, in this moment, what's it like to be you right now? I am excited. I am focused. I am intrigued by you and what you have to share.

And I feel very present in the moment with you. What's it feel like to feel present? What's it feel like to feel present? What's that like? are fully in the moment that you're, you're, you're not reaching into the past or the future that you're right here right now. And you're the best version of what you can provide when you're present. Wow. That feels so deep to me. I'm just so curious. How do you experience fullness? as someone who, as I explained, my brain wants to wander, um, in those moments, I don't feel whole. I feel like I'm multiple versions of myself. I'm this past version of myself that I may like or dislike. I'm this future version of myself that I may like or dislike, but when I'm present, it's exactly who I am in that moment. It's just, you feel like you, you, this is, this is what I am. This is what I can give to you. Uh, and what

I can give to myself is, is when you're whole, you're, you're there, you're fully present in this moment. Uh, you know, depending on, I guess, where you, how you define consciousness in your spirit or your soul, however you want to define it. I try to, I think of it as a soul. It's, it's there. You're, you're in that moment. You're, you're that thing. You're not letting your mind or your body dictate your actions. Your, your soul is actually dictating the actions. It's when I heard you say it's like the like, or dislike, it sounds to me like in this moment, being here now, there is neither a like or dislike. You're just here. Yes. Yeah. And the word that's coming up to me is acceptance. Does that land for you? I think, I think that really does. I would not have put that word on it, but hearing you say it, that feels right.

If you're in the moments where I feel the most present, like you said, it's just me. I'm not saying, well, I could have done this or I should have done that or I hope I do this in the future. It's just this is what I am right now. And, you know, you just roll with whatever comes. I'm just remarking, like, the smile on my face is coming from the earlier start where you were sharing what I would, the word I would use, like a fractured mind, you know, in the manic or hyperactive state. And then hearing you share that you're just me right now. I'm like, wow, what a contrast that is. I imagine that being for you. And I'm curious, what's it like to recognize that right now? So it's been a journey that started in 2017

when I had a moment that I've explained on the show that we don't have to get into in which I was very unhappy with where I was and how I had allowed my life to get and I was very, very fractured, chasing things that... So I talk a lot about status and I have a...

I actually talked about this on the podcast, but I got accepted for a TED Talk. It's called The Status Trap. And the core crux of it is that Maslow missed a step. There's a step before self-actualization in which we chase what we perceive others think we should be. And though it's not technically part of the hierarchy because it's not helping us improve ourselves, it's always there. And I think so much of the negativity that we draw into our lives is that step and not understanding that that's there. And when we can start to move past, what do I hope Austin sees me to be versus this is who I am,

and I will react to Austin as he reacts to me. You're able to be yourself because I would like for you to like me. Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process? Chasing leads is a losing game. That's why I created the OneCall Close System, a battle- battle tested sales system that uses behavioral psychology to close deals in just one call. No more. Let me think about it. No more. I'll get back to you using the one call close system. We took new reps from 25% close ratio to over 80% in just three months to grow fast, you must close deals faster at zero extra marketing cost.

The one call close system allows you and your reps to build trust, address pain points, all while watching your revenue skyrocket. Ready to stop chasing leads and start closing? Visit masteroftheclose.com today. Close twice as many deals this time next week. Visit masteroftheclothes.com to learn how. But if you don't, I can't control that. So there's no other way to be than exactly who I am. And reaching that state of mind has allowed me to move into places in my personal life,

my relationship with my children and my career that I don't think I could have otherwise done if I hadn't done the work. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'm, I'm coming back to this place of like, uh, you're being yourself in this moment and connecting with me in the, in the dynamic impact of each other that's happening right now. Yeah. How do you feel? How does being yourself feel in your body? It feels good because when I'm myself in my body,

good is such a bad way to describe something. I know, right? What's the sensory experience? Yeah, no, it's, so for me. So I read The Untethered Soul. I don't know if you're familiar with that book. Singer. So I've always felt without being able to put words to it, like I wasn't my mind or my body. I couldn't I couldn't have put those words to it. I always felt this disconnection between who I was, my mind and my body. And it wasn't until I read that book about five years ago that I was really able to verbalize the idea

that your mind and your body and the voices and sensations that you feel for them are not you. They are data points that are meant to keep us alive and are important, but they're not who we are. And when you're present in the moment, what I believe is your mind stops, you stop hearing the voice, you stop feeling all these crazy sensations. You're just, you're actually able to communicate as exactly who you are.

And, you know, I know meditation helps with that. Fitness helps with that. There's a lot of different things. I do think that psychedelics and particularly the experiences I have with psilocybin help you do that. I mean, that was one of the things when I was microdosing that I found to be the most profound was during that period of time in which, you know, I was under the influence of that microdose, there was no voice in my head. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean I wasn't hearing, oh, you should be doing this or, oh, someone like this does this or, oh, you're not working hard enough or you haven't talked to this person. It quieted that voice for me. And, and it was really an awakening to say, I, there are ways of not allowing this voice to

influence my day-to-day activity. And it was, it was a life-changing experience. So in this moment, being with you, I'm just remembering like the first question I asked you, what's it like to be you right now and what I got from that was was present right and having explored the sensation inside of you and and now I have such so much deeper of an experience of you right we went from present to wholeness to being yourself to being connected with me, etc. So the process that we just went through is a process called circling, right? Which came out of gestalt therapy. And effectively what I was doing is asking you, what's that like?

What's it like for you, right? And when people ask, how are you? what are the most common answers you got? Good. Fine. Okay. Great. Yeah. Am I right? And then what happens is if I hear good from somebody, I have an interpretation of what good means. And that's really my projection, my story. Right? But if I ask you, what's that like? I can ask you, what's that like for a thousand times, going deeper and deeper into your experience, unfolding more and more. And underneath all of that is what it's truly like for you right now. It could be so many different things that I could not have possibly imagined. So to answer your question about self-mastery, this is something that I'm

doing with you relationally, but we can do for ourselves. So going into the sensation of what it's like to be us at any given moment, aka a heightened sense of awareness, right? And being able to use that information in an embodied way to navigate ourselves towards a higher degree of connection, a higher degree of peacefulness, of joy, of loving kindness, especially when we're triggered. And the process for that is first awareness. Awareness is diffuse. Like in this moment, if you just take a breath and feel into your body, you can start feeling the awareness of more than what you felt 10 seconds ago if you bring that awareness to the space around you your peripheral vision the feeling on your skin this is your awareness sensory right and then in the connection in the

eye contact that we're having there's this awareness of the interconnectivity of both of us right now, the mutual impact that's happening. The next step is attention. How do we put attention on something such as the most tender parts of ourselves, right? Especially when we're in the fight, flight, or freeze. So in our retreats, we do our final workshop before ceremony is a cold plunge. We talked about contrast therapy. Now, do you remember the first time you did a cold plunge yes correct me if i'm wrong but your body was like hell no i don't want to go into this your body thinks it's going to die right and in that experience it's where we wrap up all the

tools that we facilitate right around awareness and intention to hold presence and hold the self-inquiry of what is it like to experience this right now? What am I feeling in my skin? What am I feeling in my heart? As the body and the mind is attempting to dissociate or to fight it, to try to try to gripping on the on the cold plunge or try to flight, right? Try to run away from it. Right. the cold plunge or try to flight, right? Try to run away from it, right? So self-mastery equals holding awareness and attention with loving kindness, right? And so when we experience trauma in our life, now trauma can be a flash incident. We had a participant that was in the backseat of

a car when his parents were killed in the car accident at the age of 10. That's an extraordinarily high level of a traumatic incident. Trauma can also be over time, right? Such as an upbringing in an abusive household, right? And these are like kind of very obvious and big, you know, forms of trauma. But trauma can also be living in a poor household, right? And having to always make, you know, cautious decisions around where to allocate time and energy, right? When we have that, that gets stored in our bodies and our mind creates

these protective parts to attempt to block out the pain. So self-mastery is having the skills to be with those tender parts of ourselves, to recognize when we are in a triggered state, and to bring us back to what you just named, presence, being self, wholeness, etc. And many of our participants, when I ask them, what's it like to be you right now, you know, after a ceremony, during integration, or through our workshops, the word that often comes to people's lips is it feels like home, like I'm coming home to myself, right? And so what we do here in ceremonia is is we facilitate skills that people facilitate in dyads and pairs and then in the practice of those skills they build their capacity the capacity to hold more and more content like hold more trigger hold more information hold more curiosity and when

you go into a psychedelic experience with greater skills and with more capacity, you're able to go so much deeper into the experience. Does that make sense? It does completely. Yeah. And what's really interesting is, you know, when I heard you share about doing psychedelics, doing psilocybin, you know, by yourself and with intentionality. Um, I, I think that's extraordinarily lovely. A lot of people don't realize that 12% of America does psychedelics a year, 12%. Okay. That's a, that's a significant amount of people. Yes. Um, and the vast majority of that 99% of that is in a, what would would what we would classify as a recreational setting instead

of a clinical or a ceremonial setting right when i first did psychedelics when i first did my first ceremony i had already done psychedelics over 100 times burning men festivals in nature by myself like the whole gambit and when i went, I had a chip on my shoulder thinking, what could this possibly show me? You know? And in my first ceremony, I remember having this embodied sensation of feeling my mother's love in a warm embrace, drinking milk from her breast and feeling a level of unconditional love and safety that I did not remember ever feeling before. Now, the way I like to explain it to people that have never had a psychedelic experience or an awakening experience like this is, you know, have you ever had a dream where it felt so real, like you didn't even know you were in a dream? You were just living that experience.

That's what a psychedelic experience is like, right? And then the second part of that ceremony is I had a vision of introducing to my father, my wife, and my father had passed four years prior. And I thought I had properly grieved him, including with recreational psychedelics. I didn't even know that I was missing the missed opportunities that I would hold in my life to be able to share that with him. You know, is that the preparation that you do? Cause one of the things that you explained in, in again, before we went live was, uh, the level of preparation beforehand. I think people are under, maybe under the impression that you show up and you just start mowing down mushrooms and walking around and talking to people.

Talk to me a little bit about, and this is, this I'd say was a big difference between the first time that I did a, again, I don't know what the appropriate term is. Maybe you could educate me on this. I, again, I call it a hero dose more than a micro dose, but the first time I felt prepared, but I didn't have a notebook. I just set my stage, made sure everything was set up properly for me, and then experienced it. And it was good. The second time I did more preparation, not what you do, and this is really what I would

love to hear from you, but I was more prepared and I did have a, not what you do. And this is really what I would love to hear from you. But I was more prepared and I did have a notebook so that I could, you know, just jot down thoughts that came to my head in different things. And funny enough, I kept writing the same thing over and over again. But talk to me about how we prepare to put our mind in that place versus just someone hands us a capsule before we walk into the club or whatever absolutely so first i think it's really important to state that the psychedelic experience is like a focused microcosm of how you lead your life right and if you lead your life constantly in your mind and constantly in triggered states, you're going to experience that in the psychedelic experience, but have more tools and more what in psychology we call self-energy to be able to meet that with greater presence, with greater loving kindness. So in life, life seeks to create life.

And in order to create life life needs safety we are one of humans are one of the few animals that when born if our parents weren't there on day one that would have been the end of us right and if you really boil down all decisions in life it is aimed towards how can i feel safe and how can I feel love? How can I feel connection? Right? So if you've heard of set and setting with the, you know, having a proper set and setting in the psychedelic experience, what that maps to is the outer safety and inner safety. The outer safety is how safe do I feel in my environment with the people in the room,

with the music, with the facilitators, with the people in the room with the music with the facilitators with the medicine right the inner sense of safety is how safe do i feel being with myself how safe do i feel being with my emotions my stories my beliefs that come up if a memory pops up that i wasn't even aware of right that is a traumatic memory that my my psychological system has suppressed, how safe do I feel to be with that experience? And what we believe is the two most important aspects for safety, for outer safety, it's connection, human connection at a deep, vulnerable and authentic state, right? Because then we feel like we're in a family, in a tribe that can hold and support us as we hold and support each other. Right. And the second for the inner sense of safety, the best form of safety we believe is self-empowerment, self-mastery, AKA I have the skills and the capacity to meet anything. Okay. So everything that we do in workshops prepares us to have greater connection and greater self-mastery. And we

have this philosophy, this protocol where it goes from the inside out. So you can only connect with other people to the extent that you are capable of feeling yourself. Because where true connection happens, as you had named, is me feeling me while I'm feeling you, right? And being attuned to the dynamic impact. For example, you know, it said that 70% of all communication happens through body language. And so if you start, if you pull out your phone and you start sending messages, what happens to the connection within us? What happens to the impact for me, and how do I express that to you, both verbally and through body language or energetically, right? So when we start from the inside, our first workshop is very simple, and we actually do things as simply as possible.

We start with eye gazing between a pair and you can say only one of four things i'm thinking i'm feeling i'm sensing or i left i left is like i dissociated from this experience do that for a minute and what ends up happening is people are the download they usually get is like often it's like oh wow'm thinking a lot, or I leave presence a lot, or I didn't, wasn't even aware that there's distinct elements of consciousness that sometimes I'm thinking, sometimes I'm feeling, and sometimes I'm sensing. Like most people aren't even aware of that distinction, right? And then we go deeper into bodily sensations. So track, so we start with a body scan. And a lot of this comes from

both clinical and Eastern traditions of Buddhist psychology, etc. And so just feeling the heart, feeling the lungs, feeling the breath, so on and so forth, and just tuning into what it feels like in the body. And then after that, it's moving deeper into a sensory experience. So I'll walk you through something right now. Yeah. If you hold up your hand or hold up your wrist and just pinch yourself. Okay. Do you have a judgment on that? Do you like or dislike that?

No judgment. Not really, right? But can you imagine that some stranger or someone you don't like comes up and pinches you on that same spot? What might happen? You'd be pissed. Yeah. You'd have a judgment on it. You'd dislike it. You'd want to push it away. Right. Now the exact same nerves are getting hit. Right. The exact same sensory experience is happening and yet what's happening in our in our mind is there is a judgment there's a label and there is an aversion that's happening does that make sense yes right now now take your hand and push push down on your chest all right now that do you feel like a weight on your chest right now not really I mean you feel the pressure but you feel like a weight on your chest right now? Not really. I mean, you feel the pressure, but yeah.

You feel the pressure, right? Often people describe grief as feeling like a pressure or a weight on their chest. Is that right? Now, we just created a very similar sensory experience. But in this case, when you put your hand on your chest, not much judgment. But if there's grief there, then wow, how hard is it to be with grief? Does that make sense? Yes.

And so this concept of equanimity, being at the center between pleasure and between pain, which is where we find peace. It means being with the sensory experience while letting go of the judgments of the labels of the, of the attraction or the aversion that we have to something. Right. And so we start walking people through that process of being with an experience and holding that experience with compassion, with curiosity. Oh, what's that like?

With equanimity, with presence. Does that make sense? It does. You've used the word curiosity multiple times now. Talk to me a little bit about the role curiosity plays in understanding ourselves in your process, because to me, curiosity is one of the most uncultivated, we'll call it a skill, I guess, that we as adults have. As children, we're curious about everything. And then we hit a certain point often and curiosity goes away.

We just start living. What role does it play in our day-to-day lives? How does it impact your work? You've obviously used it multiple times, so it must be important. So curiosity is the energy of openness, right? Of having an open mind. So, and this works on two levels on the inside and the outside, and I'll start on the inside. First, I'm going to ask permission to interact powerfully with you on something that you've

shared earlier around your bipolar. Can I do that? You have all the permissions. Great. So I heard you label yourself as hyperactive bipolar. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Now, when you label yourself something, there is a certain way that you start to experience your life and experience yourself. For example, I imagine that when you get into a state of having more scattered thoughts or more energy, you might say, that is my bipolar hyperactivity. Is that right? Yeah. I probably don't say that explicitly, but I have started to become aware of that sensation when it happens and knowing what it is, I guess. Totally.

So curiosity in this particular case could be like, oh, I'm experiencing this thing. I watch my mind label it. And then I actually ask myself, what's that feel like for me? What's that feel like in my body? And as we start tuning in, we're able to pay attention to the nuances that are in the experience and start getting out of the labels and out of the boxes, the frames. Now, there's a Buddhist teacher named Suzuki Roshi that was asked by a student. The student said, I've been learning for years on Buddhism and I just don't quite get it all. Can you summarize Buddhism for me? Suzuki Roshi, a Zen master, thinks for a moment and he says, everything changes. Now the, that statement has extraordinary import because when we start to feel ourselves, when we start to feel our, our bodily sensations,

we can start to tune in to the sensation of it actually changing. But when we fix ourselves on a label, then we box ourselves in to something static, that it's not actually changing at any given moment. Now, what's really interesting is there is extraordinary evidence for every person's life that everything changes. For example, are you a different person than you were 10 years ago? Are you a different person than you were 10 minutes ago? Exactly. And, and if we look at, um, the scope of our lives, every single thing that happened before led us to who we are in this moment. Right. And so there is extraordinary evidence that things change. And yet when we feel anger, grief, guilt, shame,

something happens in our psyche. That's that believes we're always going to feel that way. We're going to feel that way forever. And then we can ruminate on it, et cetera. So approaching that with curiosity allows us to tune in to the truism that things are changing for us, that we are changing. And so the process of being curious is if whenever you're in the suck, the key is to zoom in or zoom out. Zoom in and be like, what's that like? Or zoom out and be like, why is this happening for me instead of why is this happening to me. I love this question. What is that like? I've already written it down three times on my notepad. I think this feels like a, like a, a master key to unlocking so much of what you're saying, because we can ask ourselves that question, right? Like you asked it of me multiple

times to start this, to start this podcast, but we can, and again, catch me where I'm wrong here. This is something, it feels like we should be asking ourselves more often, even as we go throughout our day, even if, even if as a way to start the habit, it's a reminder on our calendar just to stop for a second and say, what does it feel like to be me in this moment? What is happening? Because one of the things that I learned, and I got tremendous advice from a mentor about five or six years ago, maybe longer now, I can't remember. But he said, and we were just talking about business and life and different things that

had happened in my career and things that I was unhappy about. And he said, do yourself a favor, go find a counselor, just someone you can talk to. He actually advocated against like a licensed therapist. He goes, go find someone you can talk to and just meet with them every other week for the rest of your life and call it a life expense. And what's been funny about that is because it wasn't just when there was a problem that i went and saw her it was just whether everything was great or everything was terrible or somewhere in between um sitting down and just talking about it forced you to take stock in where you were in that moment and and i never i've never framed it the way that you have. And I

think that's brilliant, but that has been so, it's been such a change for me, such a monumental shift in the way that I view day to day, because it's like, just, just taking stock of where you are in that moment, just sitting down with her and going, geez, I don't have anything to bitch about today. Like if things are going good, you know, kids are good. Life is good. Business is good. You know, like, and, and, and like living in that moment for a second where all of a sudden you find yourself with a smile where maybe an hour beforehand when I hadn't, when I wasn't speaking to her, I may have been ruminating on things like that were trivial to a certain extent. It gives you almost that space to say, I'm actually okay.

Like things are all right. You know, I woke up this morning, you know, there's food on the table. The bills are paid. Like I'm doing okay. And, you know, that kind of takes me to my next question, which is the pace of life today societally is incredibly hectic. I don't – I didn't live in the past beyond my 43 years, so I don't know. I can't present it, but it feels like as much as ever before, life is very hectic today. There's a lot of things coming at us. How do we start to integrate? That feels like a major problem,

right? And a lack of awareness around that. But how do we start to integrate these things into our lives? And we may say, you know, I'm too busy to take a certain number of days and go to ceremonia and sit with Austin and learn what he has to teach her or whatever. How do we start to take stock in that? Where do we find these places in our day to reflect on these things, to ask ourselves that question? That's a great question. So one of the questions that we ask our participants in preparation, and I think it's maybe one of the most extraordinary questions that anybody can ask themselves, is how do you want to feel the moment before you die? Because whether you're a billionaire or you're a starving artist, we will all inevitably meet our end, whether it's on a golden throne or on a street corner, right? And usually the answers to those questions are what you might expect. Peace, love, gratitude, proud, right? Those feelings that are at the inevitable end that we're seeking are the underlying feelings that we seek to live our life in.

It's just that what happens is the things that we do in our lives and the materials that we chase in our lives, we believe if I get this car or this house or these, this number of Instagram followers, I'm going to feel that way. If I work really, really hard at this, at this mission of mine, I'm going to feel this way. Right? But the key is, can we tune in in the present moment and feel that way organically, naturally within ourselves? In other words, can we look inwards instead of looking outwards for those feelings? Right. Earlier when I heard you share around presence, I think I heard you say the word peace in there somewhere, right? That you felt peace. Yeah. Which is the, the number one feeling that people seek to feel when they, when they die. And it's what we seek to feel when we go on vacation and we seek to feel

when we take a weekend off, right? We're chasing out at the external for what we can self-generate internally. So it's about flipping the script. Instead of have, do, be, aka I need to have things to feel a way, I need to do some things to feel a way, what if it's be, do, have? Aka how do I feel this way now, not 10 years from now, not 30 years from now in our planning, how do feel it now and then in that feeling what what would my life be like if i lived from that feeling so if i lived from a place of gratitude if i lived from a place of peace well how would i live life differently well you, so I facilitated more than 500 individuals so far. And the first 400 of those were high level founders. We facilitated Fortune 500 executives, founders of the biggest blockchains in the world, Silicon Valley unicorn executives and founders. There have been multiple MNAs that have happened that have been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that came as a result of founders coming through this

program, discovering that they've been living their lives in such a frantic pace because they were chasing. They are already worth over a hundred billion dollars, but they were chasing after something. And when they found that they could feel that thing now, they no longer needed to chase. Right? And what they ended up going into, and this is my belief that I'm sharing, and I always like to preface my belief, is that what feels like the greatest dharma,

the greatest purpose that we feel in life, is projecting out into the world the path of wholeness that we took ourselves. So for me, that's plant medicine. For someone else, it might be meditation. For someone else, it might be sports, right? A flow state in skiing downhill, right? We had a high-level founder go and be a ski instructor at Vail Mountain over here afterwards, you know, making a little bit above minimum wage. But it was what made him so immensely happy. And from the outside looking in, you might be like, what the hell? Why would a multi-millionaire

go and do that? But if you would meet him, you would see that he is the happiest he had ever been in his life. How do you want to feel before you die? Happiness. He lived a life of that now. What's interesting though, is there's a, there's a spiritual teacher named Adyashanti, another Zen teacher out of San Francisco, actually. And he was asked a question. He's like, isn't meditation one of the most selfish things you can possibly do in the world? I mean, you're literally just sitting there by yourself, right? And not impacting the world. And Adyashanti thought for a moment and he said, I think it's the most selfless thing that you can do. Because what happens is when you meditate and open yourself up to life, what pours through is loving kindness or in what zen or buddhism is called beta right and when we start

living a life of loving kindness the way we approach our friends our family approach strangers approach our food approach nature is from a greater reverence a greater um a greater appreciation for what life has to offer and imagine if we all had that and how we would approach climate change, how we would approach competition, competition in business, how we would approach spirituality and religion. If we all had greater loving kindness in ourselves, right? And so to simply answer your question, how do we find time and space? It's your priorities. Do you continue the path of chasing outside? Or do you take the breath in

the franticness of life to find yourself so that you can live a more whole life, more present life, more connected life. Now we had one of the, a very high level founder who's on the board of many publicly traded companies, considered one of the top female CEOs in the world come to our journey. She calls me two weeks in advance from the airport. And she says, Austin i think i gotta cancel because i have a private dinner with prince harry and the duchess of york megan merkel and in my mind i'm thinking okay that's a pretty important thing right but we spent the next 30 minutes discovering what's that like for her and what she discovered um is that this choice point that she was at is a choice point that she's been at her whole life and she's always chosen the outside always chosen accolades the business the impact etc

and the whole reason why she wanted to even come to a journey like this was to investigate deeper for herself so So she canceled on the dinner. She came here five days later. She said it was the best decision she had ever made in her life. She's now started other companies and living a life much more integrated in her big takeaway was I am love. And that's what she's now projecting out into the world through her incredible business acumen and resources. Did that answer your question? Yeah, no. There's a few things in there that I think are phenomenal.

One, when I first shared on this show maybe six, seven months ago that I had taken psilocybin for the first, you know, when I shared for the first time that I had taken it in the past people, why would you say that? What are people going to think all these things, you know, what, what are you trying to get out of it? And tons of questions. And it was wonderful because I got to share my experience with them and my reasons and et cetera. But the feedback that I often got was, well, are you not serious about business anymore? Are you not, you know, do you not want to be successful? And what I tried to explain to them was, I want to be successful. I want to have impact. I want to, there are goals and accomplishments that I would like to achieve someday.

But I would like to get there in the manner that you just described, right? I want to get there being a good father. I want to get there projecting energy and love and positivity and compassion. You know, I think I can reach all those things and be the best version of myself. I don't have to carve myself into pieces that you read in some Forbes seven checklist of what you need to do to be a successful entrepreneur in order, in order to reach all those goals that I have. I mean, I have just as high and just as big as goals of anybody else. And, but I can do that in a way and in a manner in which I wake up every day and enjoy my life, feel good about who I am, feel, you know, peace and presence and connection. And both are possible. And, you know, I love that you're sharing this message about all these entrepreneurs and successful individuals. And, you know, what I would like to break down or have you break down

or just comment on is, to me, this type of therapy, this type of process, program, of this type of ceremony, I think people often say it's either for kids or for people that don't have anything going on in their life and they're just doing it to, you know, I don't know, reach some form of higher whatever. And they kind of compartmentalize it that way. Or they say this is just for super successful rich people who have nothing better to do. Right? And they put it in that bucket. while both those groups may need it, right, there is this entire middle section of, you know, middle vice president in a company who has goals and wants it, but they feel like it's not for them or, you know, they're not in a place where they can take this on. Maybe, you know, I would love

for you and you can pitch all you want here because I think it's important. How do we reach those individuals who are listening, who feel like they don't fall into one of those two, I think, stereotypical buckets that want to live this way, that would love to add more presence and peace and love and compassion and connection into their lives, but somehow feel like it's, quote unquote, not for them, right? Like, how you, how do we talk to those individuals to help them understand that this is something that regardless of your status situation or where you place yourself on some hierarchy, this type of experience, this type of journey is going to move you into a better place and that it's not, it's not just compartmentalized

to certain individuals or certain classes of individuals, if that makes sense. Totally. So we've now facilitated 200 people through Ceremonia. And tonight we start our 31st retreat in a little over two years. So we've had such a broad range of individuals come through. We've had teachers who are living paycheck to paycheck. We've had doctors. We've had, as I shared, high-level founders.

We've had a broad range of ages. Our youngest has been 23. Our oldest, 76. And the 76-year-old is a professor emeritus of harvard university of psychiatry and ran the entire eastern seaboard of psychiatry for the u.s army for 40 years and was the director of two hospitals um we've had priests we've had um one of one of the people that sits on our board an alumnus was the was the president of Unity Church, a mega Christian church with over 3,000 members on the East Coast. So such a huge range of people.

We've now facilitated over a dozen combat veterans that have healed traumatic PTSD. We've had politicians. We've had politicians. We've had CIA interrogators. Like, the range is extraordinary. And what's really crazy, Ryan, is we can have people, combat veterans, mixed with high-level founders, mixed with teachers in the same cohort.

And everybody comes for their own reasons. But what ends up happening, and this is why we are incorporated as a church, we really lead this as a spiritual organization, is because we believe that the endpoint of psychology is the beginning of spirituality. And when you distill down all the reasons why you think you're here, it all comes to the exact same place for every single person. And that same place is love. Do I love myself?

Do I love others? Do I love the world? Right. And how can I be here to really feel that love? love. And so the range of people that have come through, I think really speaks to the availability of this work. We're also a nonprofit and half of what people contribute here is tax deductible. And we're also legal, both at a state and federal level. State because of the Colorado's Natural Medicine Health Act and federally because of the religious rights and freedom act serving psilocybin mushrooms as a sacrament like one would consume

wine from the catholic church right so there's the availability of this is extraordinary and the impact is um we literally guarantee a transformation and you might ask, how do you define a transformation? It's self-defined. So we tell, we ask people in the pre-journey interview, if you were to experience a transformation, what would, what would you hope to experience? Then we ask them afterwards, did you experience a transformation? 100% of the time people share that what they even in their wildest dreams hoped for was a fraction of what they actually got yeah and it and again it doesn't matter the box that you put yourself in we have people that have come with complex ptsd with treatment resistant depression for decades my mother came and a month after she was here,

she went in for a biopsy checkup on tumors that she had on her liver that could have been cancerous, and they disappeared. And the doctors were baffled at how that could possibly happen. You know, we've had people come that, we have someone who's an alumnus coming again tonight. In the first ceremony, afterwards he comes and he wiggles his toes at me and he says, Austin, look, like, that's great, Judd, like, how was your ceremony? And he says, look at my toes. For more than 20 years years i have not been able to uncurl my toes without extraordinary pain without literally prying it open with my hands i've been seeing specialists i've been preparing to go into surgery for this right for what doctors could only think

is rheumatoid arthritis and after a single session he was free of that he realized he was stored so much trauma in his feet and he's a combat veteran you know so if you are suffering at all and the way i describe suffering is if you're not in a state of christ consciousness or buddha nature or however you want to label it of extraordinary peace and bliss at any given moment then this is available to you do you want to label it, of extraordinary peace and bliss at any given moment, then this is available to you. Do you want to feel that? And what's the priority for you? I think people hear sometimes these stories of the feet unclenching or, you know, masses

or stuff, and they may try to dismiss it. But, you know, my experience, being what it was, the only way that I can describe it to people is like a veil was lifted. Like there's all this energy in the world that we may, for different reasons, not be able to see. And certain individuals who go deep into meditation can start to pull that veil through that method. And there's many different methods, this being one of those methods for moving that veil. And when we remove that veil for a period of time, we're able to see and feel things that we just didn't know were there. And then being able to deal with them in a way that is very honest. It's, you know, if I could take one thing away from my experiences, it's that you, it's almost impossible to not be honest in, in that moment, when you're, when you're under that influence, when you're in that ceremony, that moment,

you, it's impossible not to be honest with what's happening it's it's it's almost like the ability to lie to ourselves goes away to a certain extent and the possibilities and that then present themselves in terms of our our body unclenching a a foot that was clenched because the only way that it could compartmentalize whatever trauma was, was to do that. Right. I mean, that's, that's what was happening is something your body manifested some sort of trauma into clenching your toes as a way to compartmentalize it so you could get through the day. And when you can actually approach these things, honest, honestly, without the ability to lie to ourselves, you have the ability to deal with them in it. And it comes through in all different ways. And guys,

I just I want to wrap and I want to be conscious of your time and of the audiences. But I'll just leave you with this very small, but I think but hopefully powerful anecdote it it manifests in all different ways in our lives. And one example that I've seen is I coach youth baseball. My son plays baseball. I coach. And oftentimes in competitive situations like that, you look at the other team as an enemy, right? And since I've had these experiences and since I've gone deeper and learned more and had the pleasure of being able to talk to individuals like yourself and go even deeper down this path. What I tell the boys is, sure, do we want to, do we want to beat the hell out of this team and win this game? Yes, we do. But you can do it in a way in which

you still care about the other team and you can still appreciate. And like, I'll, I'll tell the, you know, I make friends with the other coaches. I tell them good game. I'll, if one of their kids makes a great catch or a great play, I'll come up and, Hey, congratulations on that. And our kids now we'll start, they'll be on, they'll get out. And as they're running past the kid, they'll, they'll yell over great play, man. Right? Like they've started to pick up.

So, so my, my point in sharing this all with you is that what happens is that positive energy starts to infiltrate so many aspects of our life that maybe we wouldn't even have otherwise been conscious of. Right. And it doesn't mean you're not going to be competitive or have goals, but it means you can do it in a way in which there's, there's positive energy. There's love, compassion, caring connection. You can want to win and still love, appreciate and connect with the individual that you are competing against. And it this, this to me is is, I just believe in what you're doing so much. I believe in the power of it, the potential that it has to help people. And even if they never actually go to a ceremony, just some of the tips and things that you gave in terms of checking in with yourself,

starting to be aware, just these simple actions as first steps can legitimately change your day-to-day life. So I appreciate the hell out of you, man. I think what you're doing is absolutely phenomenal. If someone's listening to this and they are intrigued and they do wanna go down this rabbit hole and they wanna learn more, where do they go?

How do they connect with your organization? How do they connect with you? So, first of all, just so much appreciation for being here with you and sharing so vulnerably with me and your audience. You can find us online at ceremoniacircle.org and if you go to slash henley podcast we're going to have a great offer for you um a self-mastery guide with some of the questions and some of the practices that i shared with you here on this podcast that'll be free to download and if you want to join us for a journey we're going to create a code for anyone listening to this podcast to get 10 off joining one of our webinars and then coming on. So would love to have anyone listening to this.

And if any of the kind of exercises intrigued you, this self-mastery guide will support you and bring this into your relationships through greater clarity in yourself. I appreciate you guys. I'll have links to everything Austin just mentioned in the show notes as well. If you didn't pick up on it and, uh, Hey, I wish you nothing, but to get best, please continue doing what you're doing. And, uh, if myself or my audience or my community can ever support you, uh, consider us friends and resources. Thank you,

Ryan. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you. No changing me. The only thing changing. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the one call close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the One Call Close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit master of the clothes.com.

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