TrueLife - Cole Butler - Lionheart Wellness

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://www.lionheartwellness.net/Cole serves multiple roles at WholenessCenter in Fort Collins, CO. He primarilycoordinates MMED008, a LSD for Anxietystudy sponsored by Minded. He is aResearch and Clinical Intern through theMaster's of Addiction Counseling program atColorado State University, as well as a Back-Up Study Coordinator on the Phase 3 ClinicalTrial investigating MDMA-assisted therapy inthe treatment of PTSD, sponsored by theMultidisciplinary Association for PsychedelicStudies (MAPS). He has been trained by PRATIin Ketamine and Psychedelic Medicine, andcurrently co-facilitates ketamine-assistedtherapy groups.http://linkedin.com/in/cole-butlerhttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cole_Butler2Creators & Guests George Monty - Host Cole Butler - Guest One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We are here with an incredible and an incredible individual, someone who cares deeply about wellness and cares about the wellness and cares about world and is an exciting and fun person to talk to recently started up lionheart wellness, which we're going to learn about a little bit. But before I go any further, perhaps I should just give you the microphone, Mr. Cole Butler, and allow you to say anything else that I may

have left out there. Yeah, thanks for having me on again, George. I'm super exciting. Oh, gosh, yeah, you know, I'm figuring myself out in a lot of ways in real time. And lion heart wellness is part of that. And I have some ideas, but, you know, I'm also down to figure that out in real time right now. So, yeah, let's get into it. Okay. So as someone who has a background in clinical trials, and as someone who I believe has an incredible grasp of the English language, and let me explain to people what I mean by that. For those of you who may not know, Cole Butler is somewhat of a poet. And not just the poet that

like George Monty, he's not like a cat and a hat poet. He's like a poet that has written some really beautiful poems that are used in integration. And you don't by chance have one of those poems close to you, do you, Cole? I can pull it up pretty quickly here.

Okay. I'm a lot of them around my website. Okay. And what is your website? Just throw it out there as you're looking at it up, maybe. Yeah, lionheartwellness.net. If you go to lionheartwellness.net backslash poetry, I have about six poems up there. I've probably written like 100 poems. I've lost count now.

Sometimes I write them on the back of receipts and leave them for waiters and waitresses. And they get lost in the ether, which I kind of enjoy. But I have a lot of poems. Gosh, I need to publish more of them. I always said once I have a hundred poems, I'll just publish them all, throw them in a book, but I'm realizing they have such different, like, themes that it's hard to, like, have a common thread, kind of. So some of these ones that I had published online through Prati, Ketamine Training Institute that I worked with, They were all, like, kind of ketamine-specific, either written while I was holding space for a ketamine session, integrating my own ketamine sessions, preparing to go into, I think, an LSD session with one of them.

That may or may not be on the website here, but yeah, yeah, but I can read one. I got it pulled up here. Yeah, please. Okay, let's read Silk Scarf here. Loading down an unknown road, heading to my eternal home. Quiet leaves patter on wood floors, opening us up to nature's doors. Bluebirds call in from window sales.

You can hear them when you sit still. A held hand cures all wrongs and writes upon life nature's song. Rocking chair on the front porch, grilling in the backyard with a tiki torch. Music floats about in sacred space. Call me to be awake. Crying out for gentle kindness, we all need a little lightness.

Unburden me of all my woes and make sacred things to be known. There you have it. I love it. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. So I guess I'll start on the surface of this idea that I want to mind a little bit deeper. but how is that particular poem? What was the inspiration for that poem?

Was that something that you were holding space for? Can you speak to that? Yeah, I think I wrote this one while I was holding ketamine space. So, you know, when I do a group session, especially sometimes in individual sessions, I'll kind of just be sitting there. And it seems like a really kind of ripe environment for a writing poem. poetry because you're kind of just quiet, really peaceful, really tapped in, in tune. So I find it a good place to start writing.

So yeah, so a lot of the times I'll just start going and I'll just kind of see what comes up. My process is very fluid. I try to just really be present and kind of let it unfold in front of me. A lot of the times I get into elements of like. sacredness or the divine or the unknown or kind of the mysterious kind of trying to ride that line between you know the material world and the unknown world and get some of those elements and then i also just like sensation um you know so grilling in the backyard with a teaky torch

is kind of, I guess, an homage to my home and just growing up in the South and this kind of, I don't know, embodied vibe of just being outside at night, smelling the air of the thing and the teagy torches are always there to like get bugs away, but they're so luminous. so I'd like to incorporate a lot of those elements of sensation of feelings, of smells, things like that, yeah. So it blows my mind to think that the inspiration that comes from sometimes being in or sometimes just as likely being around like a psychedelic situation. And I would argue that being at home on a rocking chair and a place you grew up with surrounded by those memories and loved ones and even tragedies and contemplating is in itself a psychedelic experience, you know, and it's that space. And this, Mr. Cole Butler, is what is beginning to blow my mind. Like, when I, when I listen to the language of poetry, especially when I,

and I couple that with the way in which you were inspired, it reminds me a lot of Carl Jung, and he talked about, you know, he talked about different interpretations of these said states. He called them fantasies, but I really think that you could just replace fantasy with psychedelic experience, especially since a lot of people say the Red Book was Carl Young having psychedelic experiences. But in the Red Book, he talks about we have an objective level in which we interpret what happens. I look at that as the science, as the clinical part, the objective part. And then we have the subjective level, which may be the integration where you're talking to people and they're talking about their feelings. But what I want to bring to the forefront and spotlight is that maybe what people aren't talking about and you've just demonstrated is the interpretation at a collective level.

Is it possible that the inspiration for some of these poems when you are next to these people in psychedelic states, when you yourself are in a psychedelic states, it seems that you explain the inspiration for these poems was in these states. maybe you're tapping into like the collective unconscious there and that would parallel exactly with what carl young was talking about what do you think about that oh yeah you spark my mind in so many different directions uh man carl young's been one of my biggest influences and so i think about you know the conscious mind the subconscious mind you know the objective the subjective kind of the material world the non material world Yeah, and I've always been fascinated by, you know, the unknown, the mysterious world. I've also spent a lot of time and energy in these careers that are all, you know, scientific, objective, very pen and paper. And I just, you know, I don't know, it's interesting. I don't see those two worlds as incompatible at all. And I just read a study this morning, at least an article about a study that was saying that a lot of the times atheists think that Christians think that science is incompatible.

And Christians think that, you know, science is totally compatible with Christianity. And, you know, I've always found the spiritual side, the scientific side, to be. compatible. And in a lot of ways, like tapping into this poetry, like having this really subjective relationship and artistic expression kind of balances me out in a lot of ways. I've never sought to like really be like a poet, you know, quote unquote, like a career poet. I don't like sit down at my laptop and write. I only write when I get inspired. When I'm in that space, like I said, it's very right for writing, if it's post-psychedelic, pre-psychedelic, or even just in life. You know, like I said, sometimes I'm sitting down at a restaurant and I'll get like an

experience from my waiter or waitress. And a lot of people don't pay. much attention to that. They kind of tune out of it. It's just something that's going on around them, just the way their food gets to them. But I was a waiter for three or four years of my life, and I know how much of a life that is, and how much it means when you get like a little something special from somebody. And, you know, the last restaurant I worked at before I got a big, fancy psychedelic, or not psychedelic, but research coordinator job. My first day waiting table was after like three weeks of shadowing and training. Somebody left me a golden dollar on my first table is a beautiful little golden dollar, and I thought it was so cool and so nifty. Anyway, so sometimes I'll be

sitting down and the server will have a certain vibe, the restaurant will have a certain vibe, analogists write a poem, like using their name, for example, or using, like, their style or their attitude. And so, yeah, I mean, in some ways, I think that's tapping into that collective unconscious space around me and saying, like, oh, I'm picking up on, like, what you are, who you are, identifying that, turning it into a little piece of art. And then what I really like to do is just leave it. I don't sign my name, usually.

maybe my initials sometimes, but I'll just leave it usually a four or five line poem, just real short, 12 to 15 words, just leave it for them. And it's like, you know, it's like a flower. You know, flowers are beautiful because they're temporary and they disappear. That's just written on a piece of receipt paper, but, you know, it's just a fun way for me to, like, tap into something else. Yeah. That's so beautiful. In some ways, it's like its own language.

It's like the language, like I look at that as a language in a way. Like if you can see someone's manner, if you can see someone's experience. And, you know, like, you had made the point that you are aware of what it feels like to be what they're doing. And I think that experience is a kind of language. And I think that that translates into almost everything we do, whether you're holding space for someone in a clinical trial and you've had that experience or whether you're sitting at a table waiting for someone to bring you some awesome food or whether you're having a conversation with someone you admire. It's this language of experience that no one really talks about. And it's almost like we can't measure it, but you can subjectively measure it because you can see how it makes the other person. person feel, but I can describe it, but it seems like there's no real words to explain it.

Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I mean, it's a stark contrast to, you know, what is your rating on this scale, how, you know, severe is your anxiety, you know, where you feel in tightness in your chest, et cetera. It's just, yeah, it's just a tapping in. And it's not, you know, like I could sit there and take my receipt paper and my pen out of my pocket. I could write, you know, you're wearing black clothes. You know, you brought me a biscuit.

But that just wouldn't be. It wouldn't have the magic. And something about, you know, just kind of tapping into this presence of experience and letting these poems unfold. Taps into, yeah, some of that other world. for me, some of the more subtle in between factors. I'm thinking I have another poem. Yeah. I wonder, I might have read this one

the last time I was on. I don't remember, but it doesn't matter. No, please. Okay, so I just wanted to do this one because it also gives kind of a different perspective because this was something I wrote right after I had a very powerful cadmine experience. I think I went home and wrote it.

So this one's called Harmony. I want to swim among the stars, bask in the moonlight with a mason jar. I want to erase my schedule and hop on a plane to Mexico. I want to sniff the cool morning air and kiss a child on their hair. There's no need for worry in the moonlight, just the central air with its sweet delight.

Artificial worries dissipate with gratitude. Old fear replaced by the new. Love and light return abreast. Springtime brought it's Sunday best. So yeah, that one was like when I'm still in the headspace, you know, coming out of it. And gosh, I have one more at the ready here. Yeah, please.

And this one kind of trying to give all. sides of the psychedelic poetry I guess this one was preparing or kind of right before taking LSD with my partner and that session like beforehand there was a lot of nerves and anxiety in that session ultimately led her and I both to decide to have a child together and now we have a daughter on the way so Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so this one's called departure. A gas gripping of a faint image, paintings of undone remissions. Deep inside the unconscious mind, fairies play with strings of time. Beauty unfolds her weathered wings, showing us all of nature's things, a secret gem to be unlocked, the flowering feather of a peacock. We will find things. once not known as we journey to the earth's core alone. Fear is no longer necessary for each other we will carry. That's beautiful.

Thank you. Yeah. So I guess I'm just trying to paint this image of, you know, tapping into like what's the beforehand, you know, so that poem being departure, it was like my, you know, my anxiety, my nerve. getting ready to have this big, you know, psychedelic experience. And then harmony, you know, is like being in that kind of blissful afterglose state of ketamine

and kind of going home and I was sitting on my back porch, you know, looking up at the sky, feeling the cool air and just kind of right. So, yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot of different spaces to tap into that. and a lot of ways to tap into that energy. And I encourage, you know, a lot of people to tap into that, even if you don't think it's bad, or even if you don't think it's good, even if you don't think it rhymes, it doesn't need to rhyme. You know, my first time I, like, sat down and wrote a poem,

I just needed to get out like a feeling that I had. And it didn't rhyme at all. It was just like the power of the words and putting together in this certain way that convey passion and emotion. So I always, like, I want other people to do it too. Like it doesn't have to be anything, you know, special or profound. I think the worst poetry is when people are trying to be profound.

I try not to be, but I can be very critical. And just, you know, when somebody's trying to sound deep, a lot of the time, just like, no, just like, just let it go from whatever's coming up. And then I think that's the most beautiful like not being afraid of being judged for it or feeling comfortable in that uncomfortable space and able to just write.

Yeah, I think that that is well said. It's almost like a dance between your emotions that you hold and your ideas in your hand and trying to translate that onto a piece of paper. It has emotion and power. For anybody that wants to write poetry, I'm sure, or even a journal for that matter, I mean, some of the things that you write down are the most powerful insights that you haven't found a way to verbalize yet. And so maybe it comes out raw or it comes out what you might think is wrong, but you don't have to share, like, if you don't want to share something,

it would be good for you to reflect on later, especially in a state that's highly charged, I think. Would that be good advice for people? Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned when we started, like trying to kind of figure out who I am right now, trying to figure out, you know, what line art wellness is. It's kind of my brand, my company. I mean, it's small. It's not even a company really more, just a small business side project. But, you know, one of the things I've been thinking about on this recent LSD experience, the one that I wrote that poem before, where I just had this moment of just like overwhelming, just ideas, just being inundated with ideas. And I couldn't handle it. It was like so much information. And I just realized, you know, that I have these thoughts and then I need to get them down. And so through podcasting, through writing, you know, which we're doing now, which is awesome.

You know, it's just like I need to like get my ideas out there. Like I still, I don't know who I am. Like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm in this place that kind of having to sit almost in like poetry space and just kind of like let life unfold, which is scary for me because I'm not wired for that unknown all the time. I do a lot better when things are clear and in front of me. But anyway, what I'm saying is,

is that I just started to kind of be like, I just need to write. Like nobody asked to read it. Like it doesn't have to be for anybody else. I don't have to have an agenda. I just open the notes app on my laptop. And I just start, you know. I did that a couple days ago.

And I'm just trying to like realize that through the process of just writing that I'm letting it unfold now. that I'm figuring it out, you know, and that's what I'm saying, I'm figuring out, you know, who I am, what I'm doing in real time right now without putting these projections out there or these roles or these labels or I do this, so I'm this. But just kind of, you know, like letting that unfold. And, you know, a lot of times it's just being able to sit down and just write and let whatever comes up, come up. And I think that's a super valuable tool. It's been well researched to be super valuable, just writing sort of automatic or whatever, just journaling. I'm not that good about it sometimes.

I don't have a good habit. I try to get in habits of it, but sometimes I just need to organize my thoughts. I'll get this journal out. I'll just start typing. I'll start writing. So, yeah. Yeah, I think that there's. something magic about verbalizing your ideas and you know I know for me like sometimes I'll sit down

and I'll write or I'll do a podcast and then I'll just be cleaning stuff up like three months later or four months later and I'll be editing or I'll be looking back at my notes and I'll be like oh that makes total sense you know what that thing I did three months ago is going to fit perfect into what I'm talking to Cole about tomorrow like and it's just this weird way of It's almost like when you're writing things out, you're drawing a map into the future, even though you don't know where you're going until you look back. You're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. You know, that's not a coincidence. Like, I was already beginning to feel that way, and I can look back at this note and see the beginnings of it right there.

And it's, I think it's having the courage to do it because sometimes it's scary or it's silly or for me, you know, there's times when I get down on myself. and I'm like, what am I doing? It's so dumb. You know, but, you know, we're our own worst critic. And I think it helps people to understand that if you ever feel that way, congratulations. So does everybody else. And it's not that you feel that way. It's like, okay, you feel that way and now what are you going to do about it? So I think that there's a lot there.

And when you spoke about it, I'm wondering, do you ever look back on some of your poems or some of your notes and think to yourself like, wow, that idea has been with me for a long time, and I'm making it happen. Yeah, yeah, a lot of the times it's pulling strings together, you know, strings of ideas are, you said out of the collective unconscious, out of my own unconscious mind, kind of tying things together that I've always been there. Or kind of, yeah, like you were saying, like kind of, going back and looking at it like I wrote something for my daughter on the way I think we're 17 or 18 weeks in and it wasn't even intended to be a poem it didn't rhyme at first it was just

what I wanted for her you know the life that I want for her and I just needed to get it down. And then towards the end, it was kind of wavy. It was just this and this and this. And then towards the end, it started to rhyme just naturally. And then I was talking to my partner and just kind of talking about where I met in life. And I realized that, you know, I needed to read her this poem. And as I read it, I just, I was just trying to hold myself back from just bawling in tears. I was crying. I was just like hard to get the words out. I was choking up.

It's just like the only way I'm going to read this is if I'm like not completely bawling. But by the time it was over, I was just a mess. And it was just kind of realizing, you know, that like, I won't. one of these things for my daughter that like having a daughter that keeps me present, like slows me down through all my own anxieties and BS and that, you know, like I want to be there for her and give her this life. So, you know, I wrote this thing kind of, you know, just sort of somewhat normal had space, just, and then when I read it, it was like so powerful.

It just tore me up. So, yeah, I guess kind of in time, it works both ways, as you were saying, kind of going back later and being like, oh, I wrote this thing for this. Like, even journaling the other day, I was talking about kind of just the process of writing and just get started and just let it flow and unfold. And here we are today talking about that. You know what I mean? So it's beautiful. It is beautiful. as we're having an awesome conversation.

It's so weird to me to see the fractal nature of it. And what I mean by fractal is that, you know, in the beginning we talk about, you've spoken to me about Lionheart Wellness and how it's being birthed right now. Like you have this idea and you've yet to give it a label. You've yet to limit it with a label because it has the potential for eternal growth. and this is this new form of you. And simultaneously, you have this new daughter being born. At the same time, this new idea of your life is being born.

And at the same time, it seems like the world we're going through is being reborn. You know what I mean? So, like, as you're telling me this story, like, I can see these same cycles of birth happening in people that I care about. And it just, it blows my mind to see just these one, two, three cycles of it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. it's funny that the name Lionheart Wellness came to me in the middle of the night. Like one night randomly, I was asleep.

I like woke up just like with that in my head and I'm like, I need to write that down because I'm going to forget it. It was like 3 a.m. I woke up the next morning. I'm like Lionheart Wellness. Like that's pretty good. You know, and there's a couple other businesses out there that use the name, I'll be honest. but I was like it's too good, like I need to use it. And so anyway, I looked into the laws and I'm good. I paid $1 to register the trade name in Colorado.

Anyway, you know, I kind of, I saw it when I created it as like an umbrella, I guess, and capture, encapsulate, you know, everything that I do. And so, you know, my podcast appearances are on the website. My, some of my poems are on the website. Hopefully I can add more. You know, I do coaching through there. I do consulting. I haven't had much of that in the past couple of months.

I do free phone calls. It's also just a way to, like, have a brand, you know, like have something that I can unfold under. or like, you know, like we're able to talk about it here on this podcast. I don't have to say exactly what it is, you know, it's just a thing and it gives it a name. It gives it kind of life to, like, grow through. And people are like, hey, send me a link so I can refer people here. And so I say, yeah, go to my website.

In any way, so, yeah, you know, it's unfolding in real time. I've been trying to process what all that means. I've been trying to live in the uncertainty with the baby on the way. You know, another major thing in my life is not getting into a PhD program when I put six years of work and concerted effort as, like, my singular goal. And then realizing, like, because I have this daughter on the way, because, like, I need to stay here in Fort Collins, like Colorado, and I want to stay here. I'm not going to be able to, you know, jump and move across country and do a PhD, like,

just wherever the research takes me, and I didn't get into the local university, so that's not happening. And I kind of, I've always latched on to the PhD as like my identity, is my goal, as a thing I'm pursuing. And, you know, I decided to prioritize, you know, my relationship and the family life, and that's been incredibly rewarding. But, you know, it leaves this big question mark of, you know, who am I? Like, what am I doing?

What's my identity? I don't have this thing to, like, always look towards saying, I'm Cole Butler, PhD. Like, you know, it's just, I'm just Cole, you know. And what does that mean? And my brain tries to fill in the gaps of like, well, I can do this. Well, I can do this. Well, I can do this. And I opened this Eckhart Tolly book the other day, which I've read before.

And it was just full of gyms. And I was flipping through it and I dog-eared a bunch of pages and I got to this page. And it was just this little passage that said, like, you can't identify. with these roles, like just because you fill one role, as soon as you give yourself that label and say, I am that, you take yourself away from that natural process of unfolding, of just being yourself, of being who you are, like figuring it out, just that beauty, you know, that beauty that comes from being in the present moment

when I'm writing poetry, you know, just like I try to just tune out, I try not to be analytical, I try not to be analytical, like try not to overthink it. It's just like just be really present and what comes to me, you know, like what are the words that just appear almost in my mind. So I'm trying to like live in that space. I've also had my brain scanned with like a quantitative EEG machine. And I've been told that I have a brain pattern that's like,

wired specifically to want order to want things to be there. I do really poorly when things are chaotic when there's no planning. So I'm like wired to want to put things together. I think that's, you know, why I'm in the role I'm in professionally, my coordinate clinical trials. I can look at all the details. I can put all the pieces together. But it's never been enough for me to just have just like my organizing, you know, like I need creative expression. I need creative out that. I need to live in the moment. I need to let my life unfold and it's hard not to just like be out here in the future, but to let it unfold naturally. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, but it, I think it gets us back to the idea of the dance, you know, maybe it seems to me some of the people that I admire most are people

that have decided to make their own way when they came to the fork in the road. Like you can take the road that has paved the golden path and that leads to the world of published papers and PhDs and boardrooms. Or you can take the road less traveled that you don't really know where it goes. But the word on the street is there's some beautiful scenery that most people have never seen in their lives. And I think that that is the road that, that, you know, It reminds me of this Arthurian myth about King Arthur and Percival and these people are sitting,

I'm totally blitzering it, but I'll just kind of paraphrase. They're sitting up at this roundtable and they're preparing for a feast and the knights of the roundtable are talking and King Arthur stands up and he says, I feel as if we are in the presence of a miracle about to happen. And as he says that, like this golden image of, of the grail appears onto the table and it's just like, oh, and everyone's just like,

whoa, and it's just for a second, and it's just this image of the Holy Grail. And after it flashes for a moment, like the knights get up and like, this is a sign. We must go into the dark forest and find the holy grail. And so they all get up and they find their way to the forest.

And when they get to the forest, King Arthur says to him, the only way this works is for each one of us to find the darkest, most dangerous spot of the dark forest and enter into that forest on our own. And I always think that that's, that's such a beautiful way to look at your life because it is scary to not know. It is scary to get to the door that's open for what you think may be a better life. And then to be like, I can't walk through it. It's not right for me. There's something wrong about this door. I got to

go in over there. There's already been 12 people that went in there. I don't know if I love being one of them. I want to be one of me. And so when you said that, it reminded me of that particular mythology. And I think it's beautiful. Yeah. Gosh, that's, I'm so glad you brought that up. That just hits a lot of different things that have been going through my head. And I've, you know, one of the biggest things for me kind of figuring out who I am, like, maybe at a deeper character kind of level, like not just.

you know, on paper, my resume, you know, like what I do for work, but has been truth and authenticity, you know, and for at least five years, you know, I've tried super hard to live a principal life

of living in authenticity, like living in truth. And I've been, you know, taken to the coals for that, you know, in particular, you know, like, I had the golden ticket to the PhD.

I was in Washington, D.C., working for the University of Maryland and Children's National Hospital, and working on a combined $6 million research project. And just working with all the experts and parent-child ADHD, and they knew all the people had all the papers, had all the multimillion dollar grants, but I was being so taken advantage of and I knew it. And it was such a bad situation for me.

And it was just getting worse. And it was so bad for my mental health. And I knew that the only way to step deeper into this was to take more of that. Like when I needed a pay raise, I was going to be kept at the same salary. It was like it was 42 grand a year. but in Washington, D.C., so my rent was like $1,000 a month for this tiny little bedroom in a bad part of town. You know, I didn't have a car. The only thing that, you know, gave me a reprieve from my horrible job was the climbing gym.

And it was like, all right, well, the only way I'm going to be able to afford to live and, like, save $100 a month and, like, pay, like, $100 a month on my student loans is to, you know, get rid of my climbing gym. I'm not going to be able to get haircuts as often. I'm going to have to eat bad quality food. And I knew I was just like already like being taken advantage of multiple levels. You know, I wasn't safe. I was treated like crap. I was treated like dirt. I was depressed because of what they put me through.

And so I said, fuck y'all, basically. I mean, I, in a respect in the most of the way I could. because I put in a five-week notice, which sucked. That was terrible. But I served out the one-year contract that I signed, and I just said, I'm not going to sign another contract. It's the same salary, you know. And I, you know, there was an ethical dilemma.

They were being unethical. I decided not to, basically not to do any more recruiting because I didn't feel safe, and they were, you know, violating this total ethical rule in research. I don't need to get into all the specifics, but I could. The point being, I said, hey, I'm not doing this anymore. This isn't right. And my boss called me and said, I never had a research assistant in 17 years tell me that they weren't going to do something. And they were like, oh, you signed up to do this job. I'm like, yeah, but this isn't right. And so I left and I went to my hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I,

you know, was living in a cabin. I had, like, I had a job dealing cards at a casino for a while, which was terrible. Like, I don't support the casino in the street. And I was working 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. shifts. You know, like, I was a great blackjack dealer. And they wanted to be a lot. wanted to groom me to be, you know, like a supervisor, you know, but it was just like, man, it was a terrible job, a terrible industry. So I left that and then I was unemployed. I was working on my parents' farm, you know, doing roofing jobs and like repairing my mom's fence for chump change and living for free in their cabin.

I was like 25 years old and I was like, you know, this isn't everybody's low point, but this is my low point. And I felt totally stuck. And I felt like I just reached this point in my life where I was between a rock and a hard place with, you know, no path forward. And I just remember just being like, what the hell do I do now? And, you know, thankfully this master's program came up. I'm, five months out from graduating from now. That took me here to Fort Collins, Colorado, and then all the doors open for me to start doing work with psychedelics, which I'd wanted to do for so long, and now I'm doing professionally, which is super cool. But, you know, I prioritize myself at that point, and I, you know, prioritize my passion, which is psychedelics, which is still

stigmatized in clinical psychology a lot. Like people are kind of chipping their way in at the edges, but it's like you got to play by the rulebook and you got to just barely just chip your way in if you want to get in. But to me, that wasn't authentic. I was like, no, I'm passionate about psychedelics. Like I want to do this work. I'm going to do this work. And I think that, you know, kept me out. And, you know, so I guess I I thought that my authenticity would lead me, you know, where I need to go. But the mistake I made was expecting that I knew where I needed to go. You know, like I was like, okay, well, be authentic.

I'll study psychedelics. I won't put up with the crap, you know. I'll just be myself and expecting that to land me in the PhD program because I thought that that's what I wanted. And then when that didn't happen, then I'm just like here, you know, I have to trust that that's in my long-term best interest. But that's a super scary, uncertain place for me, you know, and it's hard for me, excuse me, to even make these, like, business decisions to say, like, I want to start a podcast, you know, I want to invest in some equipment that I need. You know, I want to, you know, carve out a chunk of time, like to do all these things to say, this is where I'm going. going because then I start to put this label back on this thing. I'm just trying to like sit here and just be like, well, I don't know.

That's super hard for me. It's super scary, super uncomfortable. It's forcing me to like also deepen my spiritual practice, which I need right now. You know, like meditation's been big lately. I'm journaling more. What I'm really getting into right now is breath work and really, using the power of the breath. And just being able to use that to calm my anxiety to sit in the present moment to take

myself out of my head to recognize when I'm spiraling and then just take a big inhale and just sigh it out to the mouth. That's just so calming, you know. So anyway, that was a long rant. That was beautiful. An important one, I think. I agreed, agreed. I think it takes us back to the language of experience.

And I think that, you know, when we look at the world of psychedelics and we look at the world of clinical trials and PhDs and all the red tape that's involved in those, you know, there's plenty of awesome people doing awesome work that have taken the pathway of the PhD. And they've written amazing papers. You and I both read them. And we know awesome people that are trying to help out there. But it seems to me that a lot of the breakthroughs come from unconventional ways of trying to understand problems. And sometimes the conventional way is with blinders on. Hey, you can't think about that. Hey, we don't want you to talk about this. Hey, we don't want to have that.

But sometimes it is these things that end up being a breakout. And like, let me give you an example. I'm just spitballing here, but in the world of clinical trials, of, and this is just me talking, I'm not a doctor, you know, I'm just a podcaster and someone who really is passionate about psychedelics, people, and behavior, and this is just something I was thinking about. It seems that in the world of psychedelics, the people that would benefit most from it are the people that are kept out of the trials, people that have bipolar, people that have schizophrenia. you know, I recently read an article that spoke about different mechanisms of actions and creativity and how structured thought or how people that don't have structured thought may benefit most from psychedelics. And after reading this beautiful study, I'm like, gosh, man, it seems to me that there are

that this particular substance, these psychedelics, this plant medicine, these entheogens may be really beneficial to people that have skin. It may be really beneficial to some of these people, not all of them, but some of them. And we're excluding these people from the trials so that this particular substance can be passed. Like, you know, maybe it's working with these people in the future or, but that's just an example of how the path that's traveled the most sometimes excludes the people that need to be on it. You know what I mean? Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, absolutely.

You know, it's hitting another heartstring for me right now. As I met, I'm in a hard place right now with the particular clinical trial I work on because I've had to exclude so many people. And it's just getting to me. And, you know, there was one day, you know, a month or two ago, and I called a guy and he was just, like, really suicidal, like really having a hard time, broke down crying on the phone. And but he wasn't a good bit. And I said, let's try to get you in here for some ketamine because ketamine's really good for suicidality. And I tried to set that up. And it was just like overwhelming to me.

I was actually the same day doing another like emergent kind of emergency ketamine for suicidality session that like got sprung on me that day. So I get off the call with this guy. next call I get I call this guy he just sounds real depressed he's like yeah like okay and then I get to this question I'm like are you on any medications and he's like yeah I have stage four cancer you know just to be honest with you and I'm just like damn it I'm like and it just it made me so sad you know it's like that's such a tragedy you can tell it's just even hard for him to say it out loud And then, you know, like, so that was just a heavy day. But then since then, you know, I've screen failed, maybe 30, 40 people talking on the phone with all these people.

It's just one thing after another that excludes them. And then the other day, you know, I get on a call and it's this old lady and she's calling on behalf of her husband. And I'm like, I don't even think you can do that. And she just sounds real depressed and he's old. and she's like, well, he's got stage four cancer. And I'm just like, oh, yeah, well, you know, that'd be exclusionary. Like, I just got so removed from the human process of, like, hearing that information that it just became like a job, like anything else, like telling anybody else, you know, that excludes you.

And then I got off the phone and I went to leave and I just, like, had this sinking feeling, you know, like in my stomach, I just felt like sick almost. I wanted to sit down. I was supposed to go to the gym. I didn't know if I could go to the gym. I didn't know why. And then I thought about it later, and I'm like, I think just blocking that out, you know, just like trying not to let that affect me emotionally.

It just like spun up something inside of me. But yeah, man, there's so many people that I'm having to tell, like, no, you're not a good fit. And, you know, I understand the everything. the FDA's perspective of their like, I hate to say they're letting us because, you know, they have power over us and they shouldn't, but they're letting us do an LSD clinical trial, and I see that like we're moving the needle forward in the right direction. But, you know, there is a real lack of research, and this is the first, like, LSD study in the U.S. in, like, 50 years. And so they're putting up every wall that they can, every protection so that we can get the safety data so that we can see if it works, so that we can learn, like, at the earliest stages, you know, like, is this safe?

But at the same time, I see so many people that are suffering acutely that need help. And, you know, right now in Colorado with Proposition 122's passing, you know, I understand that all. of these different drugs are going to be available to where you can do them freely and there is protections in place for people to sit for like you on the medicine like you're allowed to take your own medicine you're allowed to make it to give it away and kind of separately you can charge somebody or you can pay somebody to sit for you which makes it accessible a little bit bit sooner than having go through all the red tape of Colorado's Department of Regulatory agencies figuring out the licensing process and how to make healing centers and all the rules.

So I feel optimistic about, you know, at least being able to give psilocybin to people, you know, maybe some TMT, I believe, excuse me, mescaline, probably just psilocybin. you know there's you can't step on the federal toes right you know or they're going to crack down on you because there's no protection from getting in federal trouble like they're probably not going to come after anybody but like if they decided to they could i mean i have had to go through an FDA audit and it was grueling. You know, I've sat there and I've talked with DA agents. I've gotten, you know, I've been in the process of getting a DEA Schedule 1 license for this LSD trial, you know, and it's all, you know, fun and games and, you know, mystery and the FDA, the DEA, they seem like

these entities out there until an agent is in front of you and you realize, you know, there's, they're a of this institution and it's their job, you know, primarily the DEA's job to stop diversion. You know, they don't want drugs outside of where the drugs are supposed to go. And the FDA's job, you know, to approve or disapprove drugs. But anyway, point being, I think we're moving in the right direction. That's so hard with LSD because it's so stigmatized and we have to be careful, but it breaks my heart really to see us, us turning people away that need help.

So it's a real, it's, yeah, I'm having to like take some time for myself. Meanwhile, there's so much financial pressure to roll around a short timeline. You know, I don't make money if this isn't happening. The company doesn't make money. The shareholders don't make money. And whether or not that's how psychedelics should be done. You know, I don't know. I have my own personal opinions, I guess.

But yeah, it's just it's hard to hold those two opposite ends of like, this is what we need to get these things into our society, the way that we've done it. And knowing the way that we've done our society is so flawed in so many ways. And then also like these are the people that need help. Like we need to open these doors. I don't know if this is their right business model. I don't know this is the right way to do psychedelics.

But, like, I mean, I guess I can talk about it. And hopefully that changes people's minds, you know. But I don't know. Yeah, that's really well put quite. I think that you've summed up the way so many people feel. To be on the front lines and have the actual stories of talking to people that, you know, you can feel their pain through the phone and realize this person really needs some help. But unfortunately, you know, I can't imagine the feeling it must be to thoroughly understand

what someone needs and not be able to give it to them. But I'm so thankful you're the person that's doing it. You're such a passionate and caring person. And I think that on behalf of all the community, man, I want to say thank you for all of us. I'm sure there's tons of people that want to say thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. It's an awesome thing. And if the work that's happening eventually opens up the doors to the people that need it, then I got to think it's worth it. Yeah. Thank you. That really means a lot. I needed to hear it because, like I said, it's been really discouraging. You know, there's all types of leaderboards and this person is killing it.

It's like we as a site, you know, like I'm not the only one. You know, there's like 20 different sites. And we as a site, because we're not a primary research clinic, we're still trying to figure that out. Like, are we researchers? Are we doing this? But we've been running the MAPS clinical trials for six years. And, you know, I needed a site. so we came on board, but it's like we started at the end of the race, and now we're still at the

end of the race. And it's just, it's not a good feeling. And we're like, look, you know, this person's killing it. They're in the front, you know. It's like, oh, man, well, we're out here trying, and I'm having to let these people down. And then it's like, you know, if it's not going, and I have to submit a report every week that said, you know, like this person didn't show, this person didn't show. We had three people cancel appointments last week, and so I'm just kind of sitting around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for people, and then it's like the next person that I call on the phone, you know, I'll ask them all these questions, and then I don't know if they're going to be a good fit. So just at this particular time, you know, it's not really encouraging,

but, you know, it's helpful to be reminded that, you know, this is changing the paradigm slowly and that the work is important. And I kind of lose sight of the bigger picture sometimes when I'm just in the mundane kind of minutiae working on it. Yeah. If, I want to shift gears for a minute and talk about like a hypothetical clinical trial. So this is obviously not anything that you are doing, but just. I was speaking with a very interesting young woman the other day who was an audio artist.

And by that I mean she works in film and television and like in video games. And she has gone to school to be a professional to understand the way in which the waves bounce off the walls and refraction and all this kind of stuff. And it got me thinking a lot about your poetry and integration and clinical trials. And I'm wondering, to what degree do we use sound in psychedelic clinical trials? It seems to me it would be a great way to use sound as an anchor for people that have anxiety or that may have these other things because we all know that after the afterglow kind of begins to fade a little bit. The well-being may get a little tingy or rusty, but it seems to me that, you know, the place. list, the poem, the sound that's used during the clinical trial may be somewhat of an anchor

people could call on when the anxiety began to show itself again. Is there a way to measure that, or does any of that make sense? Yeah, lots of other thoughts. I guess the first one is my partner, Shannon Darling. She is really good about using different tools and integration. And that's, you know, know, mainly right now, just in our ketamine groups. It's not really part of a clinical trial. I mean, I guess you could kind of call it research because we're collecting data and analyzing it and I'm trying to publish on it.

But, you know, she tries to expand the integration outside of just talking to like, let's get some movement going, you know, let's listen to the playlist that was playing while we were on ketamine. Let's go for a walk to like a walking meditation. draw, you know, we can talk together, you can write, you can journal, do like exercises. So, you know, there's a lot of different tools for integration that I think we should be using outside of just verbal processing, kind of what I think you're tapping into there. And then, yeah, you know, the other thing is it's very important to have intentional music.

And thankfully, you know, a lot of the folks. that I work with at Holiness Center. Like one of my friends, shout out ST Frequency, Stephen Thomas is a DJ. And you can go, if you type in Prati, Prati, in Spotify, there's a lot of really good ketamine playlist. And they're tailored to different,

like different routes of administration. So if you're doing oral ketamine, it has a slower, onset and kind of a lower peak and kind of tapers off so the oral you know playlist goes slower intramuscular it's like being shot off of a rocket like falls off um so anyway these are designed specifically with the route of administration in mind you know a lot of people try to avoid talking in um in the songs try to avoid familiar songs because you don't want it to spark you to a certain place or sort of memory, but the music kind of guides you through the journey.

And we have, you know, we have a playlist for the LSD study that's like 12 hours long. I haven't listened to all of it, and it's had some mixed reviews. But yeah, you know, one of the discussions that we've had at Holiness Center is like trying to understand the role of music in psychedelic therapy. It's just, you know, like we're talking about poetry and sound, you know, like these things, they kind of exist in a different space than like what is easily measured. Right. Which isn't to say that you cannot do research in creative, innovative ways or you can't

find ways to measure these things. I just, I understand the kind of mindset you have to get into to like rip out all the variables except for one and really isolate the independent variable and see what role it's having on everything else. And with music, it's challenging to me because it's like ambient music, you know, chill step, like beats per minute, like words in the music or not. Like how do you, like what are you manipulating there? Like what's the type of play this you want?

I think part of the challenge is where figuring out, you know, so much of the basics right now in psychedelics. Like, do they work or not? Like, do you need music or not? Like, do you need eye shades or not inside or outside? Like, two therapists or no therapists or do they have to be a therapist at all? Like, we're still getting such a sort of, I don't know, low resolution image that in my mind, like some of the music is more high resolution stuff. Like can we really understand enough

to where we can start tweaking these minor things and see the role of that to where we really kind of get down to where there's a really clear picture. Like what's right, music or noise or sound, you know, things like that. And that's exciting, but I think there's a lot of groundwork that still needs to be laid down to like kind of get into that because otherwise, I mean, it's hard enough

trying to look at a site psychedelic experience, which is so subjective, and figure out, you know, what the hell is going on there. But to get into those finer details, I mean, it's, you know, it's exciting to try to figure that out. But, you know, hopefully we can get there. That brings up, I read a recent study, too, that is being funded. And I think there's quite a bit of money going into it, especially from some government grants. It may have been John Hopkins. I don't know that for sure.

But I'll just say there's a study that I read. And they were talking about trying to take the subjective results from psychedelics out of it. And the example they gave is like, say you could anesthetize somebody and then give them the psychedelic. Then they would be able, would they be able to have the same beneficial responses, long-term well-being, you know, getting over-sertize? mood disorders without having the difficult, you know, change of consciousness. And that just seems odd to me. Have you heard about these studies? Yeah, you know, there's one in particular.

I think it's UNC Chapel Hill. And there's a guy there named Brian Ross. And he's, you know, big fancy researcher. There was a $26 million grant, I think through DARPA. Yeah. And, yeah. And so they're trying to figure. out. Yeah, it's basically psychedelics without the psychedelic experience. And their logic is that not everybody

is going to want to go through the experience, you know, like some people aren't going to be a good fit. Like these things are helpful, but like maybe, you know, like if we can get the benefits, maybe if it's all, you know, at the subperceptual neurological level, then we can get you know those benefits help all these people without having to go through like a psychedelic experience which can be challenging or you know a bad bit now you know I it's difficult for me because like we need the answer to that question you know we need to to find out if you do have to have the psychedelic experience I mean for me like in my mind having had so many psychedelic experiences that you can't. You can't throw the baby out with bathwater. You can't,

you know, like the psychedelic is the experience itself. Like maybe there's changes happening at the neurological, biological, genetic level at the same time that you're having the psychedelic experience, but it's thought, it's experience, it's emotion. everything is changing. It's, you know, the nature of reality changes. To me, the most fascinating and mysterious thing about psychedelics is that it's not just that like the way that I look at something changes. It's the way that the external world acts is different in a relationship to me. like it's not just like you know number one number two at the optometrist and it's like now now I'm seeing number two it's like I'm in a different doctor's office all of a sudden and like

now like the doctor is like asking me weird questions and prodding me and like I thought I was at the optometrist this whole time but like it lifts up the veil and it seems like the way that the external world interacts with me is different, not just me interacting with the external world, which is incredibly mysterious. But, you know, I think that you, like the magic and what happens there, you can't just throw it away. And that, you know, that taps into the broader thing. You know, if you know Christianity and science are the incompatible, you, you know, throw away Christianity and Can you throw away religion? Can you throw away spiritual experience? Like, no. I think, you know, you can use the tools of, you know,

hypothesis testing. You can use high-tech methodologies to try to study and understand something that's unknown and mysterious. But once you like try to get rid of like all the unknown and the mysterious and say that this is just a material thing that we can manipulate and like this is just like neurocircuitary rewiring like I just don't think that's the case. You know, understanding science, I understand that maybe that is the case that I could be wrong, that we all have to challenge ourselves and our assumptions and say, you know, like maybe these things are just occurring at a neurological level, which is why we need the answer. with a $26 million question.

Like, so I'm not going to say, hey, don't do that study. I'm going to say, I don't think that's going to work. But, you know, if somebody's willing to pay $26 million to find out, and like, you all want to do it, like, I'm excited to see the results. I don't, you know, I don't think it's going to work out. Yeah. I was really. well said. I'm of the same belief. And I guess I would change a little bit. I think it does work

when they prove that it doesn't work, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you can separate. I'm a big why person. Like I always find myself coming back like, why? Why? Why is there this constant need to try to separate the spiritual from the science? Like, I think it's the spirit. part that makes us human. And we spend so much time and money trying to prove, it's trying to prove that we're not. Like it's almost like, it seems like there must be an ulterior motive to me.

I don't understand why that there's so much money being poured into that. And I'm excited to see the results, but it just seems like people are really pushing really hard to try and get the benefits, without doing the work. And I think that, like you said, there's something beautiful about seeing the way in which reality changes around you.

Like, that is such a profound experience. And that's where, like, I think that that is where the neural circuitry changes is you have to be, you have to experience it to learn it. And that's the same with education. It's the same with someone pioneering a new field and wellness versus someone who got a PhD and learning.

from somebody else. Like you can go and learn from other people, but you're just learning someone else's experience. The real magic is in creating your own experience. That brings us back to creativity and the way we interact with the world. When I read that study, I felt the same way you did. I'm happy that people are studying and I'm happy that there's money for that. But I just wish that maybe more of some of that $26 million could have gone to help out the people that you would talk to on

the phone versus anesthetizing some people. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of that comes from you know, the collective ego of, you know, the rational mind, you know, the scientific

revolution and kind of realizing how much power comes with this technology and these tools to understand the world and that this scientific revolution has opened the world in such a this vast way that we can do so much more. I think we've cured so much illness. Like we've taken away like a lot of uncomfortability. We have air conditioning, like food insecurity is relatively not that much of a problem in the U.S. as it is in developing countries, you know, so we can eat, we can cure a lot of diseases,

we can stay in a comfortable climate, you know, like we can interact with people all over the world in real time via our cell phones. We've done these massive amazing things, but I think people just conflate that with like the human ego, the human mind's ability to overcome in just like anything else in the world, like we are the pinnacle. of, you know, humanity. But then you disregard, you know, the rest of the universe, you know, like at the macro level, at the micro level, like, you get tied up in this ego of, like, we know and we understand. And so, like, there's no room left for mystery.

Like, you know, when I was 12 years old, I got asked for the first time, you know, if I'm an atheist, I never thought about it. I was raised Christian. And I said, you know, like, I guess I'm agnostic because it seems like you can't know one way or the other. And, you know, I'm more Christian meaning now. I believe in God now. I don't know exactly what happens after death. But, you know, just the idea that you can know for sure, one way or the other.

it's just like I don't think you can and so I think it's this materialistic gosh Stan Groff has a great word for it Newtonie he calls it the Newtonian Cartesian paradigm like this world view

yeah it's great oh man I'm reading this book Beyond the Brain by Stan Groff and it's complex and super deep and he gets into quantum physics and a lot of it's over my head but he talks a lot about this and that like we exist in this Newtonian Cartesian paradigm where we think that we just understand everything in front of us

and I just I've never felt that way you know I felt like there's a mysterious world and that's so alluring to me you know like even like alien experiences super fascinating to me there's so many great mysteries that's what's always motivated me towards science that's what's pushed me towards I'm wanting to understand psychedelics. It's like, hey, this is a great mystery and something that we don't understand. And like, let's figure it out. But like, it seems so sterile of humanity to just wipe all that away and say, well, we don't know, so we can't know.

And I get like the idea of like we filled in the unknown with so much crap, you know, like, which trials and things. like that like you know you go back and there's so many quirks and oddities that arise out of like people filling in the unknown with belief systems that aren't accurate that don't reflect reality you know but I think you just have to be able to discern like what can we know like what do these tools tell us versus you know like this is still a mystery this is still an unknown question and we can't just you know exit out say, well, like, surely there's no spiritual reality.

Surely there's nothing superhuman or, like, crazy or mysterious or something that defies the laws of physics going on here. But at the micro level, like at the most micro level, it's super confusing. Like the Newtonian physics don't jive with the quantum mechanics. And so we don't know what the hell is going on anyway. So, you know, I don't know, that's my main philosophy in life, I think. It's awesome. I think this is what excites me about the time we live in.

You know, it seems for maybe since the almost industrial revolution, like we have been trying, a lot of people have been trying to pry us away from the idea of the spirituality. But I think it's brought us full circle, especially right now. I think psychedelics has a way of integrating the two. And I think that they work well hand in hand, like science and spirituality. As much as they've been pulled apart, I think that they're pointing towards each other. It's almost like God and man. You know, it's like the Michelangelo picture.

It's like, yeah, we need both sides of them because the spirituality is that divine inspiration that gives us that the spark to do the science. And I'm hopeful that in the future will continue to see the growing together of the two. And I know that that may not sound to a group of people, that may sound silly. But I really believe the two inspire each other. It's almost like the yin and the yang symbol. Like they push each other forward. And I feel like we're at a beautiful point right now where we're seeing the reemergence of psychedelic. Like we're seeing a lot of different spiritual reasons.

retreats where people are going back and they are re-evaluating some of scriptures. They're re-evaluating some events that happen and they're giving them a new sort of shine that can really help people. And to the point of the ego and science helping us move forward to get rid of food insecurity and help us live in place. that are healthier in some ways it seems to me that every for every avenue that we or every obstacle we seem to get over with science it's almost like we create a new one over here that we're not thinking about it seems like there are these new mental illnesses that are popping up

because we're living a life that maybe isn't as holistic but yeah i don't i i love it i'm so stoked to get to talk to you cole and i i really admire the the the instance of the I'm so thankful that you're out doing what you're doing. And I'm inspired by you taking the road less traveled. And so if you ever find yourself questioning like, ah, is that the right, should I have taken that golden road? The answer is no. You should be doing the right thing right now because I'm inspired.

People listening to this are inspired. And that is where the new path is being blazed. And I'm so thankful that you're doing it. I got to, we have a few questions right here. I know that maybe there may be some, some things you may not be able to answer. answer. And if you can't answer, that's fine. But I wanted to just bring up some of these things here. First off,

huge shout out to Hank Foley. Hank Foley is such an amazing guy. I love this guy. Everybody, if you're on LinkedIn, you don't know Hank Foley. You should get to know him because he's an amazing individual. So here's what we got here. Yes, it's the, okay, this is more of the question here. What is the FDA approved or FDA approval pending study using? LSD. Can you give the name organization and application references? Are you able to do something like that? Yeah, it is the technical name of the trial is like, well, it's coined MMed008. And it is essentially LSD for generalized anxiety disorder. The proprietary name of the drug is MM120.

So that is a lysergic acid diethyl amylide diethylamide de tartrate. And so this is essentially a salt form of LSD rather than the free base form, which is kind of the water-soluble solution that you see on the street, maybe in a glass bile, gets dropped on some water paper or sweet tarts or in my case one time a corn tortilla. That's a true story. But anyway, so yeah, gosh, I'll have to send you, George, the full name of the trial and the link to the clinical trials.org website. Okay. So it's not just in Colorado. It is across the U.S.

So there's about 20 sites, as I mentioned earlier. The sponsor is Mind Medicine Incorporated. They essentially pay the money. They manage the high-level business stuff. They wrote the protocol. And we as a site at Holiness Center were site 11-21. We basically take the protocol that they gave us and we execute the study according to how they told us to do it. and we work directly with kind of a middleman organization.

Typically in clinical research, it's called a clinical research organization or CRO. So the CRO kind of mediates the relationship between us as one of 20 sites and the sponsor, Mind Medicine, or MindMed. And the trial itself is MMed-O-O-8 using MM-120 for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder. And it's not FDA approved. This is a phase 2B study in human subjects. We're looking at 200 individuals and four different dosages of MN 120 and a placebo. So this is a dose-finding study.

If it goes well, we'll go into phase three and then you submit a new drug application to the FDA to get MN-120. approved for generalized anxiety disorder. That sounds promising. Like I said, I'm excited that the work is being done out there, especially if it opens up the doors to the people that really need it and may not be able to afford it at this point in time. So it's such amazing work. Good question for Hank.

Yeah, he's got another one. This one, you may have touched on a little bit, but what is supposed to be the source of the actual substance? Yeah, so we have a manufacturer, I believe it's Callagore-Kofflin Pharmaceuticals, based in Texas. And so, yeah, this is pretty much public info. So we essentially get these little bottles with eight capsules in them. And each capsule can either be 25 micrograms of LSD. Actually, I think it's 25 micrograms free base equivalent.

I'm going to get too much into the details here, but or placebo. So you can have a 25 microgram dose, 50, 100, or 200. So if you think about it, like if one of those capsules out of eight is 25 micrograms and the other seven are placebo and you take all eight and you only get a 25 microgram dose or maybe half are placebo, half or 25 microgram free base equivalent pills, you take all of them, then you have 100 microgram dose. So essentially, we're blinded to the dose. The participants are blinded to the dose.

All they get is a little bottle with a label on it with eight capsules. We don't know what's in them. So, yeah. Let's see here. Hank wants to know the name of the lysergic acid dietholamate study sponsor, again, throwing that out. out there. Yeah, Mind Medicine Incorporated. And the ticker, if you want to buy the stock,

is MNMD. Nice. Well done. And let's see. What else does he have here? Is this a continuation of that one or a separate study? There was a study done using LST for anxiety. I believe in Switzerland, Peter Gasser and Michelle Lechtie, I want to say. I don't, you know, I don't know exactly, I believe there's scientific advisors for MindMed. I don't think that study itself was sponsored by MindMed, but I could be wrong. Yeah, that's all I'll say on that one.

Nice. And is the, I know it's not an FDA-approved drug, but is the trial approved yet? The trial is approved, yes. So the FDA approved it at the DEA gave us a schedule and license. It's currently enrolling right now. So there have been patients dose. We're trying to find people right now at our site. And you know what? Before we land the plane, Cole, is there anything else that we didn't touch on that you would like to cover? No, you know, not in particular. It's funny. I think when you asked me to be on the show again,

you asked me to talk about the relationship between poetry and psychedelics. And I was like, man, I don't know. I was like, I don't know what the relationship is. And I don't know if these two things are tied in my mind even, you know. It's just kind of always been this. of self-expression maybe or just something to you know something to do something that keep me sane and express about it and then I have like psychedelics is a life thing it's a career thing but I think you know we we answer that question in a lot of ways and we got to dive into

the nitty-gritty this definitely helped me kind of like see kind of where I'm staring this ship, you know, I'm really glad. I just got to kind of reflect on what's going on in my life, on, like, kind of just have some reinforcement on where I'm at in the study and where I'm going and, like, yeah, there's a validation of taking the road less traveled. So, you know, it's scary for me even, like, to be on a podcast and, you know, not have I'm Cole Butler PhD. You know, I always thought that, you know, I need to get the PhD.

Some people will listen to what I have to say, you know, and on LinkedIn, I've just been saying what I have to say anyway. And I'm like, I'm like, low level in the field of psychedelic research and the field of clinical trials. Like, this is like one of the lowest level positions that I work in. So, like, why does anybody ever care? But I just, you know, I just speak my mind. And it's just kind of shocking to me that people are even interested in that. You know, it's really fascinating. But it can be scary to be like, hey, like, I don't know what I am.

And to come on this podcast and say, look, I don't know who I am, I don't know what I am, I don't know how to label myself. You know, I don't know what I'm behind. I got this little business. I know this is what I do for work. But to be able to come on here and just say, I don't know, like, let's figure it out. That's really cool.

So just, you know, knowing that I can still have cool things to say and stuff to talk about and not really have a clear vision of, like, who I am or where I'm going, but just, I mean, we've just been letting this process unfold naturally, and that's, you know, that's the essence of the poetry right there. That is poetry right there. I think it's beautiful. And I think labels as beneficial as they can be to express who you are. And we both know some PhDs that are mind-blowing and have written amazing books and they have done amazing things and started nonprofits and foundations.

But sometimes that label can be just as detrimental to you as it is a benefit to you. you know and I I I think that it is your authenticity that makes you an incredible person to talk to. It is this sort of, you know, this original thinking that you do specifically that allows you to be different than everybody. And I think that that's also what allows you to influence people. And when I had originally spoken to you about the language between poetry and psychedelics, for me, the bridge is the experience I think.

I think both poetry and psychedelics present the individual with an experience. And it is only through, maybe not only, but it seems to me through poetry

that you can find a way to express the psychedelic landscape to other people. Because, you know, you can't, the words are

fleeting. The language is fleeting, but it seems to me poetry allows someone to convey the landscape. And that's why I was so thankful that you had to read those poems. And that's why I wanted you to set them up with, hey, I thought of this poem when I was holding space. Hey, I thought of this poem when I was getting ready to have a daughter. And, you know, the psychedelic experience is poetry. This podcast has been poetry for me. To get to hear you having a child you're going to be born and to see your company born at the same time.

and to see the original thoughts that you get to present us at the same time. I love it, Colana. I'm so thankful you're here. Before we land it, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, I'm excited to read you one more poem. Yeah, please, please do. That I wrote two days ago that really captures a lot of what we've been talking about and,

you know, unpublished. So, man, I need to figure out how to publish stuff. I'm getting there. I bet I could, you know, write through my notes and publish something small. So I'm excited to maybe do that. I think I will. You could self-publish on Amazon, you know, and... Oh, really? Okay.

I think that... And then you could, you know, you could go on to... You know, Amazon has KDP, which is, like, their own self-publishing. Once you've got the editor or whatever, you could self-edit it. Once you have the artwork, then you can release it almost automatically. And there's all kinds of ways you could self-publish now. I would buy that book. And I think that there's tons of people that would buy your book.

It's beautiful. It'd be nice to have a product to sell. Yeah, yeah. Well, you have all the work right there. All you have to do is kind of compile them. And then, you know, maybe you could work with, I think maybe you had said that your wife is into artwork. You guys could probably put up some pictures like Carl Young's Red Book. You know what I mean?

Like even make it like a manuscript or something. Like that would be epic, man. It would be epic. Okay. Nice. Thank you for those suggestions. I'm going to start looking into that. Okay.

This poem is called, we're here now, question mark. Left to drift in wayward winds, I don't understand the position I'm in. Played the part, yet played the fool. How is I to know? the truth. Trying to beat the game of life, rolling a pair of zero-sided dice. When will I know how to tell the future? Perhaps the answer is that it's futile. Futile to attempt such vain nonsense. Rather, indeed, I must accept. Permanent uncertainty, cosmic confusions, causing contusions of brain matter. What's left? A mystery.

beautiful. I can see myself in a ton of it right there, which is the hallmark of a beautiful poem. Thank you. And what I resonate. Yeah. Yeah. If people that are listening to this, they want to go and read these poems right now, are some of these up on your website? Yeah. There's six of them are up on my website. There's some of the kind of psychedelic-related ones. Yeah. I kind of put them together. as a package. These are ketamine poems. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, if you go to lionheartwellness.net, backslash poetry, there's a link to the Prattie website, and there's six published poems there.

And yeah, hopefully, you know, I can get a book together, go to my website, buy the book. That'd be super cool. That'd be exciting. So I need to start putting some of them together. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people in this community that would be willing to help you do it. When we get offline, I'll, yeah, we can talk more about it. I think you totally can, Cole. I really admire what you're doing, and I think it shows through in your poetry. And, you know, it's weird how life works. Maybe you end up taking the route of the poet on top of the route of the psychedelic, you know, investigator and things like that.

Who knows what? Who knows what challenges are out there if you're willing to. to take a chance. If you're willing to remain authentic, I think the world reward you in ways that you can't even imagine. Yeah. If anybody out there listening, has some thoughts on publishing. Yeah, feel free to reach out. I'm Cole Butler on LinkedIn. C.O. Lionheart at gmail.com is my business email. So I'd be down to get that going. And I appreciate the encouragement, George, and having me on. So it's been super awesome. That's fine. Yeah. Okay, well, that's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. We'll put the links in the show notes. Reach out to Cole. Thank you for taking part. Hank. Thank you for commenting. Everybody in the chat. Thank you so much for participating. We love you. And I hope you guys have a fantastic day. That's all we got for today. Aloha.