TrueLife - Desmond Wallington PhD - The Difference Between Forgiveness & Reconciliation

Episode Date: August 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/http://linkedin.com/in/desmond-wallington-phd-b6a3b4211Desmond Walling ton, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who provides Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy in Denver, CO. He found his way to working with Ketamine after working on the historic Initiative 301 campaign in Denver that decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms. His political activism in the Denver campaign opened the door for him to gather petition signatures for the 2020 Decriminalize Nature DC campaign to decriminalize entheogenic medicine in Washington DC for their November 2021 campaign. Dr. Wallington earned his PhD in Counseling Psychology and MS in Community Counseling from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. Prior to becoming a licensed psychologist, Dr. Wallington worked as a Licensed Professional Counselor. While at OSU, Dr. Wallington conducted research in forgiveness and American Indian Enculturation. Dr. Wallington's passion for working with entheogenic and psychedelic medicine stems from his American Indian heritage, which fuels his passion for integrating his ethnic heritage with his professional training. Prior to working with psychedelic medicine, the majority of Dr.Wallington's work centered on Post-TraumaticStress Disorder (PTSD). Dr. Wallington has found expanding his practice to include psychedelic work has resulted in more dramatic and drastic results than his previous modalities like talk therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. 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, furious 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 Kodak Serafini Check out the entire song at the end of the cast It looks like we made it!

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Friday. I hope everybody had a beautiful week. I hope that like some small miracle happened in your life and you're just living the dream right now. I've got an incredible guest for you today, and I've been working on this intro right here. So here we go, ladies and gentlemen.

In the high altitude realm of Denver, where the thin air seems to whisper untold secrets, strides Desmond Wallington, PhD, a psychologist, as enigmatic as the profound journeys he facilitates. With a license that allows him to traverse the landscapes of the mind, He guides his patients through uncharted territories using ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Yet his journey into the realms of altered consciousness was not a straight path.

It was woven through the fabric of political activism. Wallington's Odyssey found its genesis amidst the fervor of Initiative 301, 1, 1, 1, 1. The historic campaign that unfurled in Denver calling the decriminalization of psilocybin mushroom. It was in the wake of this audacious endeavor that his, his calling began to crystallize, leading him towards the realm of ketamine-assisted therapy. His voice resonated as he gathered signatures for the decriminalization, Nature, D.C. campaign, a symphony of activism, echoing across the nation's capital. Capital, capital.

But before his metamorphosis into a guide of the psyche, Wallington was a scholar. He honed his understanding at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, earning a PhD in counseling, psychology, and an MS in community counseling. Amidst the academic tapestry, his research threads wove through the themes of forgiveness and the delicate entwining of American Indian heritage. In the shadow of his heritage, Wallington finds his fire, a passion for entheogenic and psychedelic medicine that burns with ancestral wisdom. The legacy of his American Indian roots dances in harmony with his professional prowess,

crafting a unique blend of healing that transcends conventional boundaries. And he's here today, ladies and gentlemen. He's here today to talk to us. Desmond, how are you, my friend? Oh, my goodness. That was quite the introduction. You know, the writers are on strike, right? I hope I'm not stepping over picket lines because that was masterfully written kind of thing.

Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be back. Oh my goodness. Who is this asshole that you just invited on? Quite the introduction. I hope I can live up to the, the, the, the, the, uh, your little spiel there. So thank you for having me. Yeah, well, like you said, the writers are on strike.

Yeah. The writers are on strike, so they're easy to, they're easy to pick up right now. Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah, they're hanging out like outside of Home Depot kind of thing, right? You can just get them really cute kind of thing. Well, good for you. Good for you.

And I'm sure there's a lot of Hollywood writers that live in Hawaii. You know, it's just there. Nothing else to do. So. Yeah. But very flattering. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

I live in a really weird moment in a history and a really, Yes. Unique city. I live in Denver, Colorado. And I actually do live on high street in Colorado, Denver, Colorado kind of thing, which people are always like, you know, when they come over, like, where do you live? And I give them my address. They're always like, horse, you live on high street. You fucking second hot kind of thing.

I'm like, yeah. I'm kind of legally obligated to live here. So thank you for having me. We had a really fun talk last time. So I hope I have something new and interesting to say. I think we'll always have something new and interesting to say. And times have changed since our last talk. Yes, yes.

Year ago, you know, the world in Denver, you know, there's other states that are coming up, man. Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of the changes that you've seen in Denver. I know that you went to the PS 2023. and it must seem like the rate of change there is happening really quickly. What are some things going on there that people may not know about or that you've noticed in the last few months? So you're right. I think like the last time we spoke, we were right before November 22 where the natural medicine act passed, which was monumental. So, you know, there were three different components to it.

There was a decriminalization of psilocybin, Ibegaine, DMT, mescaline, with the exception of peyote, which is good. You know, we don't need all the white people coming in and taking indigenous medicine. So it's good that that exception was there. but it also created a, and there's a, what do you say, expungement component of it, right? If you had any sort of criminal history related to any of those medicines, that we can remove that from your record, which is good. And then it created a legal framework for psilocybin assisted therapy in a community setting, therapeutic setting, or some sort of setting, right, where maybe your average soccer mom,

he's like, I want to do mushrooms, but I just don't want to do it by myself kind of thing, right, and being thrown to the wolves. Maybe I need a therapist, maybe I need a group church setting, and there's some sort of framework there. right, which is necessary, right? Because there's a lot of articles out there about people who, who seek out these types of services, and they've been let down by Zoloft and Prozac and the big pharma kind of thing. So they're desperate.

They need something else. However, you know, like they have to go underground. to find some sort of psilocybin service, right? And then you run into all these creeps and predators, right, who take advantage of you under the influence kind of thing, right? So let's bring this above ground, because there are good people out there operating underground kind of thing, right? But how do we give them a path to do what they're doing,

get a licensure thing. And if you do something fishy, that they can, like, that there's some sort of licensing board or oversight that can be accessible to you to get, you know, some sort of legal, ethical board ramification. Right.

So that was the exciting thing about 122. Right. It was the creation, of that maybe framework in where we're still working out the kinks this is going to take time there's still like a board and they're meeting every so often and we're trying to learn a little bit from organ i guess because organ has some big kinks that's happening right um you know it's like if you just want to microdose an organ right you you have to go to this community center paid $250.

It's just like a little microdose and sit in a room for an hour or two. And didn't they let you go kind of thing. So we're still working out like what does this look like or what will this look like, right? In the grand scheme of things. So it'll be interesting to see how, we came up with in Colorado. Yeah.

There seems to be a tension, Desmond. As I'm listening to some of the people that are coming out of there and I'm reading some of the articles, there seems to be like this tension between the work and the monetization. Yeah. You know, I guess that's something that always exists whenever there is something that is trying to be born as an industry. You're trying to be born in an industry.

into the world in some ways. I guess it's the growth pangs maybe, but, you know, it seems that the more we medicalize something or the more we try to get science in there, the higher the cost comes. And I realize that there's insurance involved, but it's almost like the more we try to make psychedelics or in theogens a medicine, it gets so many people away from the price. Like, you know what me by that so many people get pushed out because it becomes a medicine it's almost doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do yeah um so strange it's a really good point i i think my reaction to that is like hey like i i guess i just got to put my political cards on the table like i'm a lefty like i think all medical medicine any type of cancer treatment or anything you ever have to do

should be free you know yeah medicaid for all kind of and that's not maybe everyone watching this and whatever you're allowed to have your thoughts and feelings about that idea but but there is this kind of capitalist kind of maybe thing that a lot of people are really skeptical of and and fearful of right and i can understand that because it is antithetical to the psychedelic experience right you know You eat seven grams of mushrooms, smoke some dm tea, drink ayahuasca, I have a game, whatever you're doing, right? And then you just have this big, wazzle, dazzle, like, oh, hey God, you know, you're there hanging out with God for however long that experience lasts. And then it's come back in a reality and a thing. and those things to resonate with you on a very philosophical level.

Like, how can we monetize this? It feels maybe ethically and congruent for a lot of people, right, to have that big spiritual experience. And then, like, well, fuck, buddy. I think I could charge someone like $5,000 for a weekend, you know, that kind of thing, to have this experience. You know, I can understand that there might be some sort of ethical qualms about that. And maybe that's maybe the interesting thing that I've noticed working in this space,

is that there some. There is some assholes out here trying to do that kind of thing. But there are also some really good people out there who are a little cat, who are very cute or no your cat's cute there are these people out there who are very sincere and very you know genuine and they're just trying to do the right thing and like you know if this can be my experience how can I like the mom who's single mom of three who works for jobs supporting your kids and you know like how do I get this these experiences that hurt and not charger of the nose kind of thing.

And it will be interesting too because since the last time we spoke, the American Medical Association has successfully lobbied, the people who create billing codes, you know, for psychotherapy. So we are maybe in the process of creating some sort of billing framework. work that you know if you are on Medicaid Medicare Blue Cross Blue Shield X Y Z that there needs to be a billing code right because the idea that like with MDMA assisted therapy or psilocybin assisted therapy which should be coming out in the next year to that who the fuck can record for afford having two therapists for eight hours in a room kind of thing. I can't afford that. Yeah. You know, that's a luxury that a lot of people don't have kind of thing.

So there needs to be some sort of infrastructure happening within that space. And I will give my tip of the hat to Melissa Lavasani. She was the campaign director of the criminalized nature, D.C., campaign. Her husband was pretty active in the Obama campaign from what I understand, maybe 2008, 2012. But she has been really active in trying to get more insurance reimbursement, or at least ketamine, aside, assisted therapy. Her organization is initially started off as a medicine coalition. And now I think it's the psychedelic medicine

coalition. So the ability for access is always something we have to have at the forefront of our thought. Because we use the term in theogen, right?

So in theogen, Theo is God. You know, if we go back to our Greek and Latin roots or whatever. So plants that have the spirit of God in that energy of it, there should be no barrier between me and your pursuit of God. Maybe my pursuit of God would be temperance and abstinence and abstaining from all substance use.

That might be my pursuit of God. But your pursuit of God might be psilocybin or eye. ayahuasca or any other psychedelic experience that you choose from. I feel like as a culture, that's something that's really covered under our First Amendment rights, correct? Yeah. Yeah. It's so fascinating to me on so many levels. One thing I've really noticed that is there is this reemergence of our spiritual nature.

And just to hear you bring up the word entheogen. I've been hearing the term rewilding a lot. And in some ways what I think is happening is like the human soul or us as individuals are beginning to rewild ourselves. And when that happens, we kind of bring God, whatever that is back into our lives. It feels like the spirituality's been absent from us from so long. Is that too far out there? What do you think?

I like that. when I went to the Maps conference a couple months ago I had a good friend she did a presentation about um still Getty I think her husband's related to uh adult is Hexley and they're pretty well known like you know kind of in the older generation of the psychedelic space and she gave this really beautiful presentation about bringing the psychedelic from the underground, above ground. And what is that path going to look like? And she had done some survey or research or whatever. And I forget if it was fifth or sixth place, but she said, you know, like music festivals

and concerts were like the fifth or sixth most popular places for people to do psychedelic medicine kind of thing. which she found surprising. She thought it was going to be higher on the list. And, you know, she's like, a lot of people consider this to be recreational use of psychedelic medicine. She's like, I like the term recreational kind of thing. You know, like you're, you know, and I really resonated with me because I grew up poor. I wanted to be able to go to concerts and music festivals when I was a teenager.

My family was broke as a joke, and I couldn't do any of that fun stuff, you know, I think. But in my mid to late 20s, I had a lot more disposable income, and I could do those experiences. And the idea that something could be recreational, you know, that you're able to kind of have a space of healing and community and connection with a large group of people kind of thing. What made my difference, my experience any different than anyone in a mega church? Like, you know, like having that experience. Not to shame them or anything, but, you know, there is that sense of connection and that grandiosity that those medicines can create. So it will be interesting to see how we kind of rethink this medicine and how we do it responsibly.

Right. Through a very intentional harm reduction lens. And it's a big lift that we're asking for right now in this moment of history. Yeah. I love the idea of bringing the underground above ground. In my mind, I had this image of a seed. You know, the seed starts inside the ground. And so too does the psychedelic experience act like a seed inside of us and finally bearing fruit a little bit, which I'm always so amazed, Desmond, when I speak to you and some of my, I have a, whenever I speak to people who have roots in the indigenous community, the language they use, the metaphors are so organic and from the earth. And then on another time when I talk to a lot of people that are coming out of like Silicon Valley, it's so mechanistic. You know what I mean?

And it's like in my mind, I see this. It breaks your heart, doesn't it? But I see the thread of spirituality that weaves it together. You know what I'm doing? I'm hopeful that both sides begin to see that connection there. But isn't that interesting, the language we use and the world we see when we see when we use that language. Yeah.

And when we talk about maybe the idea of language and indigenous cultures, I always think about Maria Sabina, right? And the term she used, I'm blanking on it. It was like mechic connectal or something. That was the term that they had for the magic mushrooms. And that term translated.

into into God kind of thing, like the skin or the body of God kind of thing, right? And then you go up like north, a couple thousand miles up to the Lakota people. And when I did my pre-doctoral internship up there, you know, they said that their language was a gift from God kind of thing, right?

And maybe there is some sort of connection there that you know, because there's that kind of that, Dennis McKenna had that idea of the Stone Ape Theory. The Stone Ape Theory, right, and that our prehistoric ancestors were fleeing Africa and, you know, that they were pursuing mushroom. You know, you didn't get a kill every night, right? If you were tracking buffalo or pison or whatever you were tracking at the time, you were looking at poop of these animals, right? And what grows in their poop mushrooms, a kind of thing.

And then there's, you know, the idea that to continue on with that, the human brain just exploded in a small time of space of like 200,000 years, which for us sounds like, oh, 200,000 years, that's a long time. But for like the evolutionary people, you know, that biologists, that's a very short window of time, right? So there is always that speculation of like, what did psilocybin do, you know,

as far as our neurological development and our evolution as a species, right? And then you look at, you know, peyote and, you know, and you even think about stuff like ayahuasca, right? You know, like it was the leaf of one plant and the vine of another plant and they combine them and they brew that shit for like, like, 12, 15, 24 hours. I don't know, for a really long time. And then you get this magical, mystical experience kind of thing, you know, really bizarre. They kind of think that these things just don't happen on their own kind of thing. You know, that there had to be some sort of that the end theogenic medicine just kind of presented itself or gave itself to us. different periods of time and whatever we were able to, like, have access to kind of thing.

And then, you know, you start to muddle that with the whole, like, money gaining capitalist scheme. And that will be problematic, right? that, you know, you think, hey, George, like, hey, let's give you some mushrooms two or three times, you know, maybe over a course of a couple years. You resolve your trauma or you resolve your depression or you get a better grasp on your day-to-day living. And this isn't going to be maybe something you need 10 years from now. 20 years from now or even want to do again. Right. How the fuck do you grow a business model on that?

You really can't, right? So that becomes the problem, right? And that becomes the pushback that we all hear is that, you know, I hear that in Colorado, right? That psychedelics is just gonna be like cannabis again. You know, that it's just gonna be a bunch of privileged white men who come into the space and make their money and then all the people of color are going to suffer and not be able to thrive kind of again especially and that's this is problematic because it's part of their culture part of their heritage and all that stuff right um it and i always kind of have to respond like you know if i go to the dispensary you know and i buy an eighth of cannabis from Emily, you know, behind the counter.

And she's having a bad day and she's moody with me kind of thing. I go home and I'm smoking my pot and I'm enjoying it kind of thing. But I'm not thinking like, I wonder how Emily is doing. And, you know, and like, is this cannabis like been tainted? Like, you know, like, she didn't really seem like the biggest spiritual leader, you know, that I should be listening to kind of thing, right? There is a difference than going to a cannabis dispensary, having a five to ten minute interaction with someone

versus seeking someone out to do a facilitated psilocybin session, right? that you know I'm not going to be looking for the Elon Musk you know of the tech world kind of thing I might be looking for

you know a person of color who has had struggle and then I feel Ken has maybe a little bit more credibility in the spiritual realm of things

right so I I think we do a disservice in psychedelic space when we can flate psychedelic experiences in trying to find facilitators versus just going to the dispensary down the street. You don't really give a fuck. You're selling you the weed.

You know, you're there for 10 minutes and you put your tip in the jar, and then you're going about your day kind of thing. Yeah. It brings up so many interesting questions. On some levels, when I think about these different models, and I think about the different people that are affected,

it seems to me that psychedelics and theogens in some ways are showing us that the real experts are the people with lived experience. And someone who's gone to school and learned from a book that was probably written by at least large, part studies that were funded by the pharmaceutical industry, you know, versus someone that was, you know, maybe raped as a child or who was abused as a child and found their way through that trauma. Like which one of those people is better to help you with that trauma? Someone that deeply cares and went to, was fortunate enough to have, you know, $100,000 to go to school to learn

from somebody who knew a guy who had a friend whose dad may have seen this happen one time, or someone actually went through it, right? And I don't think it necessarily has to be either or. Both and. It can be both. And I'll share, you know, I grew up, you know, I was, my mom conceived me when she was 16. I was born when she was 16.

Five days later, she turned 17. You know, her mom dropped out of school when she was in third grade. You know, like I did not come from a history of privilege. And then I think about like the most transformative experience I had with psilocybin. What was when I was in graduate school? All right. my dissertation topic was on forgiveness. So I had done, when I get into my doctoral program,

all the people above me in my class encourage me. It's like, you pick your dissertation topic right away because every paper you're going to write is going to be on your dissertation topic. So when you go to sit down and write your fucking dissertation, You can pull from this paper, that paper, and this paper, and then, ta-da, you got your lit review assail kind of thing. You have everything that you need to do. So I was like, okay, okay, okay. So I picked my dissertation topic really early.

It was around that time when they had that school shooting at the Amish church in Pennsylvania. right and the government walked in and just plowed down all those you know kids in that one's room school kind of thing and um and and i saw that um funeral service procession that they had that you know there was this community in pennsylvania and they had all these little coffins going down the um procession right and they had the coffin of the school shooter right mixed in with it because the community realized that, you know, we have an obligation to forgive, you know. If we can't forgive other people, God won't be able to forgive this when we die. Forgive us, just as we forgive our trespassers, yada, yada, yada, you know how the whole thing goes. And that really struck me. And, you know, counseling psychology, you're supposed to be resilient-based and focus on growth. all that stuff. So that honed in on that, did all my studying for a couple, three years.

Yeah, and I really had a really good intellectual understanding of what forgiveness was, and I got it on a cognitive level, right? And I say this is like a cognitive scaffolding that you have. But I don't necessarily believe that it jibed with me on an emotional level. So then one day, fortunately for me, it come across these mushrooms and I have my headphones on and I'm curled up on my bed, heads over my cap, you know, covers over my head kind of thing, right? And the right song came on at the right moment. And I had a very spiritually transformative moment where all that intellectual understanding. in setting that I did over forgiveness, you know, I was thinking about my mom's trauma and my grandma's trauma and, you know, all my indigenous lineage is very on my maternal side kind of thing. So all that stuff came up and the whole ancestral processing happened. And then the next day, you know, like, well, yeah, you know, grandma was an awful person or really,

pill or, you know, really difficult to manage kind of thing. But I get it now. But I don't take it personal anymore, right? And I was able to have that healing experience. Do I think that everyone has to go, you know, do some elaborate PhD research and, you know, do some, like, psilocybin thing that, you know. But I do think that there is some sort of preparation work. in some sort of, you know, like research is research, you know. And, you know, psilocybin isn't going to necessarily correct everything.

But it is the information, the education, the self-reflection that you do bring into the experience that creates a scaffolding for all this stuff to take place. and it's not like, you know, a silver bullet kind of thing. But the more prepared you are going into it, it's like playing roulette, right? You know, we can put chips on the board and we're going to spin the wheel and the fucking ball is going to fall where it's balls kind of thing. So how do we maximize your results when that ball lands in the wheel kind of thing. Right. So, and I think there's a lot of maybe a need for mentorship or some sort of

apprenticeship, you know, because that becomes problematic, right? I've been in the room a couple times where some guy walks in and says, good news, everybody, I did mushrooms two months ago. told me I should be a shaman, you know, the kind of thing. I'm here now. You're welcome. That kind of thing. And it's very cringe, right? Okay.

Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. You know, I think that the best psychedelic experience begins in the library. I think it was Terrence McKinnon who said if we don't read the books on our shelves and we're no better than our cats and a dog like there's so much that we can learn from the experience of others and not that we not that we should take everything as gospel from others but we should build that scaffolding and maybe in some ways this counter contradicts my last statement about schooling and stuff but I should try to clarify. I think that self-discovery can be a really, really powerful tool. And I'm glad we have institutions out there that help people find ways to discover realities

that are meaningful to them because it's very, very important. But for those who may not have access to it, there's plenty of resources where you can go and find those voices that are calling to you, that you can provide that scaffolding for you. You can find the framework or the lattice to build on, right? It's in some ways, this, this is another question I have, Desmond. It seems like we do need, on some level, a mentor or a guide for the beginning of our journey. But the ultimate guide, the ultimate healing should be for people to never have to go see that person again, right? Yeah.

I sometimes I say, you know, being a good therapist isn't being the smartest person. George, you might be smarter than me and you know, you might do better at Jeopardy or whatever, you know, whatever I'm at me. Right. Anywho, the best therapist, right, it's going to be the most curious person in the world, right? Like, you know, what makes you feel that way? You know, oh, what made you react that way? Tell me more about your history, right? You know, like, how did you get point A to point B?

You told me this a minute ago. Now you're telling me that. Help me understand the, like, it's just these things. It sounded like, help me connect those thoughts in my head, right? These are kind of the cornerstone. of any therapeutic relationship. You're not Jerry Springer, like, you know, being angry and upset, you know, with the other person. So there's that component of it, right?

And you kind of have to, that is a really useful, important sense to have. Right. And you have to have maybe understanding of neurobioles. and trauma and the effects that that has on the brain. It's not super convoluted that. I feel like your average person can learn that kind of thing, you know. It's, I think maybe the barrier is that because these things have been primalized and medicalized to the degree that they are that, you know, that, you know,

maybe the traditional way of how these things have presented themselves in indigenous cultures may not be accessible anymore. You know, you think about a little bit farther removed in history of people who might just be really empathic or empathetic and they have some sort of innate skill set, right? to be a facilitator, right? And the medicine man kind of recognized that in the person. Like, hey, you, buddy. I'm going to apprentice you, and I'm going to teach you because I've done enough ayahuasca to know that I'm going to die. There's going to be some other person that does the shit when I leave kind of thing. Right. That's where maybe the cultural deterioration has happened, right? And it becomes problematic when you think about, you know, the role that colonialism has had with indigenous people.

traditionally Judeo-Christian value systems is placed on temper and sobriety and not and being, you know, clean as a whistle kind of thing, right? Yeah. And then you have these indigenous people who use history on is like peyote, ayahuasca, psilocybin, library game. Like that opens stuff up that maybe, you know, sobriety and temperance isn't the, the metrics that we're, or measuring stack that we use, right? So this is kind of going to be part of our ongoing conversation, right? And especially, you know, I think there's a really interesting conversation happening right now. Can you be a effective psilocybin facilitator? And never taken psilocybin.

But, you know, like, oh, yeah, I did my training at Jobs Hopkins. Like, you know, but I've never touched anything ever, ever kind of thing. I don't know. I think you know. I'm not going to say it. There's no possible way it can have. Let's read between those lines. It's impossible.

Like you don't know what you don't know. And like trying, the blind leading the blind, you know, it's. You need to see how the sausage is made kind of thing. Here's one. Let's take that one role deeper. What about the people that are studying psychedelics never taken psychedelics. You know, like, what does it mean?

How bizarre is that? It's like, I'm like, first off, thanks for your research. That's awesome. I love what's going on. Don't you think maybe it would be more interesting if you had the experience and then did the research? Like, might that open up new avenues? And you start looking at the millions of dollars that certain people have behind them

to study things for 20 years. And you're like, oh, what was it like when you did it? And they're like, what? I'm like, what was it like when you did psychedelics? I know. And it's usually the worst people. But like the people you would never want to have at a dinner party. I don't want you talking to my grandma kind of thing or my neighbor kind of thing.

And they're like, well, it's not for me, but there's going to be a marketplace and all that stuff. You know, it's always those assholes, right? You don't want to do it. And, you know, there might be one or two prepidious people, maybe in the room. Like, I don't know, my dad had schizophrenia. My brother had, you know, schizophrenia. Agreed. I'm worried that it could put me in a vulnerable place, you know, as far as that.

See, this one brings up, I just want to inject for one minute, because this brings up something really incredible. You know, I realize, I don't realize, I've read the research that people who do have mental disorders like schizophrenia or having it in their family, you know, there's literature that talks about that connection of having a psychedelic experience could trigger something like that. You know, but it's interesting because I think that this, there's a clear. clear delineation here because it seems to me that in the Digis community, when I talk to people like Dr. Jessica Rochester or yourself, there seems to be a healthy respect for in the regions. In the West, there seems to be a fear of it. Those are two different models. Like if you respect something, you're very cautious and you know people that work with it and

you have a lineage. If you fear something, you decriminalize it and you make it dangerous, you know, it's interesting. What do you think about those two? That little dichotomy there. Well, again, the fear part, right? That's the part that as you're talking about it, that really rings in my ears. Okay.

Because I don't know necessarily, you know, schizophrenia or some sort of psychosis is always feared within indigenous communities. You know, just like, it can be sometimes it might be celebrated right like you have you

like my my my my buddy Glenn might have one foot in the physical realm and he might have one foot

in the spiritual realm and there's a place and space for him within the community kind of thing right that he might have access

the information or knowledge that the people you don't have some sort of neurological barrier or typical neurological function might experience kind of thing right so I don't necessarily think that we and there's just people necessarily pathologize people who might be labeled as having conditions or disorders or whatever kind of thing Right. I think that might be a difference between the two. And when you live in a very Western model that values production and, you know, are you

able to work nine to five? What's your 401k look like? You know, that kind of thing. You're not really valued. in that culture kind of thing. And that's gonna be the other kind of maybe layer of this problem, right? It is because I've seen situations

where people who've had these disorders, their symptoms increase, right? They become what I might, if I have a therapist label as delusion or, you know, the illusions of grandeur or whatever I might label that kind of thing. And Western Europeans don't necessarily value that or want that or they see it as a bad thing.

But, you know, in indigenous culture, it's like how can we accommodate you? What can we do to make space for you? How do we make you a part of our, community and group kind of thing. You know, we're, you know, we're not too far away from, you know, people like Rose Kennedy being lobotomized kind of thing, right? And that's, I think that's more of a cultural problem than anything.

I'm reminded of King Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest. Yeah. Right? Yeah, classic. But it's interesting too. I've been speaking with Dr. David Sullivan, who's the creative director of Christopher Newport University. We've been doing this series on medieval mystics, like Richard Role and Marjorie Kemp.

All of these people heard voices. They heard music. And the Christian church at that time was like the beginning of like, these guys are nuts, you know, where just a few years ago they were the divine, they were the muses. They were the Isaiah's. They were the prophets. They were the people that were listening to the sound of God. Yeah, exactly.

We would have no biblical texts. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go as fair to space, right? It's so true. It's so true. Yeah. The point, I was just saying, like, maybe the voices you hear, what's wrong with hearing voices that are God?

What's wrong with the planet talking to you? You know, it's kind of beautiful. It's scary. It's scary to have a really intense heightened state of awareness and hear a voice that is not in the room. But what is the voice saying? Maybe if you can be around that voice enough, you can listen to that. Maybe that's the voice of the planet. Maybe that's the voice of your unrealized dreams desperately trying to shake you and make you a better person.

Maybe we shouldn't run from that. Maybe that's the world yelling at us like, hey, dummy, do this. you know I think that's maybe sometimes we are kind of maybe limited by our own mechanisms of our the neurology of the mechanics

of how our brain works but I hope I don't know if I'm delusional or hallucinating or anything in any given moment the feedback I get from people is that I'm not so I'm just going to have to believe everybody

but you think about this idea, right, that your brain kind of as far as input information. It's usually audio visual kind of stuff, right? I see things and I hear things, and it becomes like a tape recorder running through my brain, and that becomes the record that I'm keeping, right, kind of thing. And that's just the only sense of, information that I have that's accessible to me kind of thing right and then you um I'm going to

maybe really butcher this and give a really poor explanation kind of thing but from what I understand of like people who who study like the really super hard sciences you know that time isn't necessarily linear that it kind of folds back in and upon itself kind of thing but because of the limitations of my senses, it only comes in in a very linear way kind of thing. And you do read about some of these really interesting experiences, right, of shamans who might have a little bit more access to the grand scheme of that. I'll give like the example of the most famous example or the earliest Western example of Gordon Valatina Wasson, right, the people in the live magazine that went down to Blocca, Mexico and met with Maria Sabina and did all that kind of thing.

So that article came out like 1959 kind of thing. That wasn't their first trip down there kind of thing. They had been after a couple times before. And maybe a year or two before that, they sat in ceremony with Maria Sabina's, I think it was her son-in-law. You know, it was a dude married to her daughter, a kind of thing. and their son had been missing for a little bit of time before that. And at one point after the ceremony or during the ceremony or after ceremony, I'm a little hazy on the details right now.

But he had told them, like, I see your son. He's in a gray uniform. And he's in some sort of military service. you know over there kind of thing. And then they got home and a couple months later they got a phone call from their son kind of thing. And he

it was kind of like a you think about like some guy in his early 20s in the 1950s his fiancee or girlfriend had broke up with him. He got really depressed, depressed fallen and he joined the army that

tell anybody and they had placed them in Germany kind of thing. And then you read about Tina Wesson's experience of that trip they did take in that life magazine time kind of thing, that she had this kind of feeling like she was floating and able to visit people and friends and family kind of stuff throughout the the space. And she didn't realize that one of the things that she had seen was the area that the helicopter, you know, had put them down in. Because to get to that part in that region of the world, they had to take a helicopter,

you know, kind of thing. And then on the departing part of that trip, she looked back and she's like, oh, my gosh, that's what I saw, you know, during that mushroom ceremony. kind of thing, you know, and she didn't recognize it because when they had dropped her off beforehand, they dropped her off in a different part of the landscape. So I'm not saying this like this is the God, you know, my hand to God truth kind of thing. But these are very interesting anecdotal firsthand experiences that, you know, are where we you know these are things we shouldn't be so dismissive of and you know if this can happen to you know your average joe you know Gordon was um a you know banker for uh jp morgan right a kind of thing maybe you know maybe we don't know yeah and this is just the basis of science right i don't know

What can I do to learn more? Ask questions. Sit with people that do no more. Yeah. I guess, right? Yeah, exactly. Find altered states of consciousness and where you see and view the world different. This brings me, like, I've been zooking out on this idea of sense perceptions.

You know, I've been, my listeners are probably tired of me talking about Marshall McLuhan, but there's this great book called the Gutenberg Galaxy. And he talks about how, you know what I mean? After typography began to make its way into the world, the written word gave birth to ideas like exact repeatability. You know, and it fundamentally shifted the way we see the world. We went from lived experience and finding ways to create our own realities in the world to all of a sudden having the blinders on and having this exact repeatability. And it changed the way we can model reality.

I know, yeah. And that's just one of those things you have to talk about when you talk about, like the limitations of science, right? Is that the idea of repeatability or likeability, you know, the blizzity and the reliability part of it, right? Yeah. I can't recreate my childhood nor what I want to. Nor should you. You know, we're always in a evolving process. We are just trying to kind of

gather snapshots, right? This is what's happening at this time and this place in history kind of thing. If you grew up, you know, during Eisenhower's administration, you had a unique experience versus if you grew up during Bill Clinton's administration, right? There is no way, it's going to take a lot of smarter people than us to recreate all those situations, right, to try to kind of capture, you know, the role of, um, of,

science and the humanities, right? You know, and maybe that's where, maybe we're, one area where we might be going astray as a culture is that we put such an emphasis on STEM in the schools and academics which is great and cool. We need the STEM people, but we also need the historians and the English literature, you know, humanity people. Right.

Because we're always looking at that intersection between, you know, arts and sciences. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That kitty cat is up to no. Yeah. You know, one second, man. Let me grab this little rascal.

All right. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was locked. Nice. Here's an interesting. vantage point that I have I think it's interesting and I think I've gained it from podcasting and talking to so many different people and so many different levels and so many cool people that have been kind enough to share their traumas with me and in doing so I they allow me to share my traumas with

them and I think that in some ways we can go back and fix our childhood what a pattern that I have noticed is that a lot of people that have had trauma they find them selves and positions as adults helping kids that are going through that trauma. And in a weird way, they're helping a younger version of themselves get through that trauma faster. And in doing so, they're going back in time and fixing their childhood. You know, if we, if we take this abstract notion of time that it's not linear, that it's, it's, it's here, it's yesterday, it's four seconds ago, it's now. You know, we are moving through time simultaneously. I know it's kind of a kind of woo-woo, but, you know, it's possible, right? You know, that's the whole thing about

I feel like any type of eyewitness testimony, right? Yeah. You know, everyone knows it shit, right? You know, you see the car accident? I see the car accident, right? And we have two different narratives about what we saw. Right. And, you know, when I use the metaphor with patients, I talk about the idea that, you know, our brains just on a machine level cannot really have any definitive recollection or recollection of what we saw.

Right. If I'm talking to you right now and I have a memory pop into my head from a year ago, right, that version of the memory is the pristine Blu-ray copy playing in my head kind of thing, right? That's the best version of the history that I have playing. And then it gets tainted and altered when it goes back into the recollection. storage part of it. So tomorrow, if I recall the same memory, that it gets, I get the polluted version. You know, it's like when I'm dating myself, when people used to burn CDs, right? Right. You burn a CD, you know, each burning of the CD gets a little bit more poor in quality, right? So all my thoughts and feelings that I'm having right now,

they get superimposed on that re-burning of the CD. So I never get like the true act of it. Like I'm always messing it up, you know, and I can mess it up in a healthy way or in a negative way. I could think like, oh my gosh, that was like the worst, most awful thing that's ever happened to me. life is hopeless, life is hopeless, and I can have that story and that narrative,

that traumatized narrative kind of superimposed on it, right? Or I can be like, oh man, how did I get through that? I was so smart, I was so, like, resilient, you know, and I can bring that story kind of thing and kind of photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, that way kind of thing. You're distorting it one way or the other, right? So that's just kind of maybe one of the limitations of a neurological wiring.

And then there's that kind of that idea of that recreational idea that you're out there before, that, you know, you can have this idea, but, you know, And you see this right, maybe the best example might be with women who left abusive households, right? And they volunteer with their local domestic violence shelter, right? You know, no one else is going to have to go through this again, you know, and if I can do it, or if I can figure this out, I can give a hand up to someone else kind of thing. Right. And there is therapeutic catharsis. and those actions that that's, you know, part of the rewiring process, right, that it is necessary.

One of the conference presentations I went to at the Maps thing was talking about, you know, if you do ayahuasca or ketamine or psilocybin or something, and you have all this neuroplasticity available to you. but you go back home to the same toxic abusive environment you're just re-traumatizing your brain kind of thing because your brain is so malleable and so vulnerable right now that if you're not going back into a healthy nurturing environment you're shooting yourself in the foot again kind of thing because you know you have all this potential that you're just that you're right so I think that's just as people are trying to maybe understand and utilize psychedelics more that it isn't just a weekend situation that you do that that it is about the the living environment that you return to right and and and and that encapsulates a lot it encapsulates you

friends and family, it encapsulates your work health and work culture, and it also kind of envelops the political culture that you return to kind of thing, right? That there's a lot of layers to that and you, that really need to be considered. So, so, you know, just being an advocate for psychedelics, it's cool and great and everything, but unless you're an advocate for bigger systemic change, you're kind of pissing in the wind at that point. I think you just explained to everybody out there of why you might be one of the greatest therapist ever. Like that's so true.

Like it's such a, it's a relationship, man. That's so beautiful, Desmond. I haven't heard anybody really put it so succinctly before. So thank you for that. Everybody listening, like that's how it's done. It's a relationship, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's a really, relationship with yourself, right? That's always an important part of it, you know, you know, the ego death, right? And then people talk about that and then emphasize that, you know, you do your whatever psychedelic you do.

Like everything, sobriety is eventual. You know, it's going away up. And then your ego comes back, it's like, I try George, you've had to kill me. I'm back. You need me, right? You've got to go to work. You got bills of pay.

You got to go to the grocery store. Get your bread, get your milk or whatever's on your shopping list. Right. And but it's hard to feel unworthy and inferior after this kind of like spiritual journey endeavor that you go in. Right. So you really have. have to change your relationship with yourself, right, of how you talk to yourself and flip up yourself and, you know, being kinder and gentler with yourself versus, like, you know,

George, no one's ever going to love you. Your dad beat the shit out of good, you know, and your fifth grade girlfriend said this about you. That is always going to be a losing conversation that you have with yourself, right? Yeah. But hopefully, right, as you change that conversation with yourself, and I've noticed this too with people. Yeah. That they've set, learn how to set better boundaries with people.

You know, like, I remember I've heard a couple different housewives or moms or married women say, you know, like, you know, I kind of realized after this therapy that I've been doing, like, you know, like, my husband seems to instigate a lot of conflict. Maybe it's just not me all the time. You know, it does take two to tango, right? And then that's where my work as a therapist comes in. It's like, all right.

All right, ladies. And now we're talking about boundaries. Like, how are we going to talk to your husband? Or what are you going to say? what's going to happen? That's going to be different. Yeah, yeah, you know, because sure you have all this kind of a neurological pizzazz because of the medicine that you do, that you just did.

But that's going to wear off. Yeah. You know, in the next couple months, six months kind of thing. Right. But right now, you're really galvanized for change. and this is our moment to rise to the occasion. Today is a new day. I recently spoke to a graduate of Alcoholics Anonymous,

and they from time to time, we use psilocybin. And I asked them, how is that relationship? Is that an odd one for you? Because on some level, they preach this abstinence. And he goes, you know what? Thanks for bringing that up, George. It is strange because some of the people that he graduated with, some of his closest confidants want no part of him anymore because they feel threatened by him or something like that.

But isn't it a weird sort of situation there? Like, you're not sober, man. You did this other thing. It speaks to maybe the rigidness of the mindset versus the plasticity of the mindset. Yeah. And again, you're exactly touching on that idea that I talked about before. the Western value of valuing sobriety and temperance. Yeah.

All that stuff. But it also, you know, this whole mentality is also the void absent of Bill Wilson, you know, the founder of, right? You know where I'm going with this, right? You're laughing already. I haven't gotten the punch on. You know, the founder of AA, right? who was a big advocate for L. Steve, you know, the A.A. space, because you need, for him, part of sobriety and abstaining from alcohol and all that fun stuff, is contingent on a very spiritual moment, right, and have a relationship of God or a higher power or however you want to paint that.

and for him at Ossie facilitated that right and then someone like William S. Furrows right and his interaction his writings back and forth with Aldousaxson became

timeless essential read for anyone in the psychedelic space of junkie right you know the guy that he went into the another There are regions of, you know, he was original hipster. Like I was drinking ayahuasca before it was cool, right?

He went going down to like South America and seeking out ayahuasca, right? Because he was so, he was a heroin addict, right? kind of thing. One of our great thinkers in the counterculture and the late 1950s. Yeah. It was a thought leader, you know, we wouldn't have the, you just said the same one who flew over the cuckoo stuff. What's the same? Casey? Can Casey? Yeah, Ken Kinsey. We wouldn't have him. We wouldn't have a lot of people with that. William Sparrow's kind of thing. So, I don't know, that's a question for the AA people is like how they rectify that kind of thing,

because my brain does not do those mental Olympics, you know, like this, but that kind of thing. That's a conversation for someone else. But I think it's not either or. It can be both and for sure. Yeah. Maybe like in Kentucky, maybe you can help people understand what's happening down there.

It's kind of a nice segue. Okay. Oh, yeah. That was super, super interesting thing, right? Because there's been, I just watched that show on Netflix a couple weekends ago,

about painkiller kind of thing, right? you know about the big pharma, right, going to all these doctor's offices and pushing oxycat and opiates. Sackler family and all that stuff, right? And then there was the guy in Louisiana, he was a pharmacist, I think, right? And his son died. And he did all this kind of like really great undercover research, right, to kind of, of these doctors, right, you know, who were just writing, you know, prescription after prescription, you know, kind of, there were more prescriptions and people in the state kind of thing. Right.

Right. Going around kind of thing. So this is, and I've seen this in my own family, and I've seen this in my own close friends of family kind of stuff, right? and you see this in states like Utah, right? Like the Mormon culture, right? Drugs are sacrilegious to them, that they get addicted, you know, and to opiates, and then the doctor stops writing the prescription

and then they're trolling the streets for black tar heroin kind of thing, right? So we've had this devastating and moral, all the adjectives that you want to attach to that issue with opiates and painkillers and being pushed by a big pharma, right? Because growth, growth, growth, capitalism, capitalism, capitalism kind of thing, right? and it's unsustainable, right? So people have died. And so Kentucky earlier this year, they set aside a big portion of the financial settlement

that they got from the opiate settlement money or lawsuit money. I forget what exactly if it went out in court or if it settled or whatever. I'm blanking on numbers. It's 47 or 74 million dollars. So one of those two. But that's a big chunk of change.

Yes. Right. For Ibrahimate research, right? And I've a game, super interesting thing, probably maybe the new kid on a blog, even as far as like the Western awareness. Right. As a history in Africa and, you know, and everything. Like a foreign exchange student. Yeah, yeah.

I don't ever want to give the impression just because people in the West finally caught on to something. There is nothing new under the sun, right? That's kind of thing. But, you know, it's sounds like it can be a really transformative medicine for people struggling with opiate addiction. because of the opiate receptors, you know, and I saw, you know, there's some health concerns around maybe like cardiac stress and everything. And plus it, from my understanding, that's one medicine I haven't sat with. And so I don't have any of my own anecdotal story to share with it. is that it can maybe last 24, 36 hours.

Yeah. Kind of thing. So you're in for quite a ride from my understanding kind of thing. And it does, and it can be intense. Like it's one of the presentations I went to at MAPS, one of the presenters say that, you know, 80%-ish of the people, I'm forgetting like the exact number, 83, 86, maybe, said that, you know,

They had like a slideshow kind of psychedelic trip, you know, where they went through every trauma that had ever happened to them. Linear order kind of thing. Like, you know, this is your life kind of stuff, you know, and just having to look at that right in the face kind of thing. But you're able to do it maybe a more dissociative kind of psychedelic kind of lofty space kind of thing. and you find therapeutic healing in that, you know, like a good example I heard of is like a military soldier, former military person who had PTSD and they revisited every person that they killed in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever they served kind of thing in reliving each one of those things that they endured kind of thing. Right.

And this is, you know, the power of psychedelics because, you know, people do stigmatize psychedelics. I say, oh, you're just trying to numb out. You're just trying to avoid kind of stuff. You know, it's like, no, like, if you're revisiting every awful traumatic thing that it's ever happened or that you've done kind of thing, you're doing the opposite of numbing out. Yeah. removing yourself on that you're putting yourself your face on the mirror or on the glass kind of thing revisiting all these things and there's got to be an understanding and reverence for that you know that

we overcome and heal our trauma not by avoiding but it yeah there's that great quote that says the only way out is through. How inconvenient is that? If only there is some other way, it is the only way. Let's try every other way first. I know. We have, trust me.

We tried it as much as we could. If we would have figured, you know, if people would have figured that out, we would be doing it. Right. Yeah. It's such a good mantra. right? In some ways, it makes me think of, like, the absence of rituals and the absence of

rights of passage, you know, and like, we just don't have those. At least maybe I'm talking about me. Like, I don't have those. And so, yeah, yeah, there's so much that can be learned in there about the ideas of time. And you can do, if there's this, if there's a, you know, let's look at the island. Let's take it to Aldous Huxley and look at the island where the, the young teenager goes with his mentor to climb the side of the mountain and sit in the church and have a psychedelic experience and maybe begin to understand, hey, this thing that I have up here is part of the world and we can really make this place better if we understand what part of it, you know? I know.

Sometimes, yeah, it's, I don't know. What do you think about the rites of passage and rituals? That's hard. Yeah, we don't have, you know, kind of thing. Or, no, I'm not going to, not Americans don't have that. Well said. All right. North Americans.

Yeah, North, okay. It's really confine our boundaries. North Americans don't have, right? You know, because we really don't, I don't want to, I'm not saying this to be mean, but we don't really have, right, people in America don't really have a culture, right? And that's problematic, right? Because, you know, you think of people in Peru, right?

you get to an age. Yeah. You do drink ayahuasca and go back to your community and everyone else has gone to that passage, right? And you can even think of like Jewish people, right? Yeah. You have your bar mitzvah, your bat mitzvah, and it's a whole community kind of thing, right? What do we really have? What do white, not me, but what the white people really have?

How much? North America. You get, you're 16 and you get. get your driver's license, right? So your only obligation to the society is your premium on your car insurance, that kind of thing, right? The most far removed thing that you could ever think of,

right? You know, it's the idea of insurance, right? Like I'm paying my car premium. So if you get in a car accident, like our collective money goes to pay for that kind of thing, right? There really is no social safety net, you know, that is needed, right? And for a healthy culture to exist or to thrive and kind of thing, you know, and this is the issue that we see when it, like, people in nursing homes. and there was a big there's a lot of this like you know like people needing to put their kids in daycare and preschool and everything at a young age because they got work and they can't afford you know babysitting kind of thing right that there is no kind of collective safety net protection

I guess that we have as Americans because we're so goddamn individualistic. You know, I got mine, buddy. You figure out you kind of thing. And that is just not sustainable in its tragic. Yeah, I see it playing out. And it seems that this particular mental illness on some level is really playing out. in all of our lives.

And I see it a big part in like my parents and like the boomer generation, maybe because they're getting close to death. And there's such a giant demographic of them. Like I see so many people that I love and I care about that are boomers that are desperately trying to live, that are dying and they don't know how to deal with it. And they are freaking out, you know, and it makes me so sad. It's like, I just, they're desperately clinging on to like, these fallacies and these

unrealized dreams and it's like do you need to take some time for yourself right now like you're knocking on the door what are you doing it's so fearful and it's so fearful and it on some level I try to see it as a lesson like okay I see what my parents and so many people I care about are doing I need to maybe quit my job

I need to start to spend some time with my family like these people are knocking on death's door and they're freaking out like I should start doing the important stuff now you know and I'm grateful that I've got to see that learn from that's hard though it's it is sad right and i i i think part of the issue right is we as a culture we really don't speak to death give it enough space or kind of understand that as a part of being sacred right i i know in most indigenous cultures when it's new time that the people who get served food first are the children and the elders

because they're the most sacred. They're the closest to death. The children just came from that space and the elders are closest to that. So they're the most revered and the most valued within the tribe. And right, and when we're a culture that values Botox and youth, and you know, I just got

my ozobic shot before this thing I say needed to right you gotta be young and cute and vital and everything right you know yikes how unfortunate is that

right um those are the leaders yeah yeah we have to really re-evaluate our value system there right and then, you know, this idea that, you know, the whole experience with the eugenic, right, and kind of having the ego death.

I had a psilocybin experience once where I saw like the Big Bang and evolution and everything happening kind of thing. It was like in a stock motion kind of like you know frame frame frame frame frame kind of thing and then I saw people like I died and then like my friend called other friends like Desmond died this happened that happened kind of then I saw like everyone that I knew died and everyone they knew that kind of thing and then it kind of pulled out in like this night bright day You remember Nightbrights, right? The little... Yeah, I remember that.

And I was just one little peg in the whole Nightbrite kind of experience of humanity kind of thing. And, oh, you know, that was a really powerful, important experience, you know, that I had. but I'm still afraid to die you know I'm a person and I don't believe anybody that says you know I'm not afraid to die you know right like oh you're a sociopath that's what you're selling right kind of thing like you have no fear oh but but I don't feel safe I I do feel safe enough

kind of thing I think that's sometimes where I have to talk to people like in therapy right? Like you know if you're a an LGBT person

and you're coming out of the closet right you might not ever feel 100% safe coming out of the closet to someone but there might be a friend or a neighbor or family member that he feels safe enough coming out of the closet too.

And that's where you've got to start, right? It is this idea of safe and not. So, you know, this whole idea that, you know, yeah, death is scary and no one's ever going to feel 100% safe, dying or transitioning to if it's just nothingness or nothingness or something else. out there, there's something else out there? But we have to start that conversation with, like, what's safe enough for us to talk about?

And, you know, and what tools do we have to enable us to look at that part of life? Because it's inevitable, right? I don't, you know, you know, there's a Homer Simpson quote. if he's so smart, then how come he's dead? It's so good. Right. It's so good. I haven't met the asshole that's figured out a way around that.

Let's hope we do. But in the meantime, it's what we're all looking at. Yeah, I've been actively seeking some people that one of the things I want to do. And if you know anybody that's brave enough or wants to do it, anybody listening to this, please reach out to me. I think that there is some sort of wisdom you gain or at least some sort of understanding you get from reaching a certain age and understanding that you're coming towards the end of life. And I think that that someone that has that wisdom could speak to people. And it could help ease people's way. And it's like a gift to give.

And I think it would go a long way to help bridge the relationship between this strange idea that we put people in a home or we send them off because death scares us. Yeah. What about we bring this person back that's close to death and we have them start telling us stories? Like wouldn't that help us the younger generation? be better when we get close to them and wouldn't not make that person feel like the revered because they should be, right?

Well, I think that's yeah, it's very indigenous. You know, not to, like, yeah, you have to know in the head, right? That's the whole, you know, if you've ever been in a room where there's an indigenous speaker, like, I hope you brought a sack a lot

because you're going to get a story kind of thing. You know, we'd like to talk and we want to share our stories and our experience, and we're really good at filibuster kind of thing, you know. And I mean that in a very sacred, responsible, or respectful way kind of thing, right? Yeah, you know, there is wisdom from life and experience kind of thing. And, you know, when you're a culture of TikTok and YouTube videos, that, you know, you just get like these very two-minute, four-minute kind of videos, stories kind of thing. Like, it's very superficial, right? you know that you need someone that has a long story you know that's going to tell you know teach you right

and this goes back to the the arts and the humanities part of it you know that I was talking about before that you know you you do need the quantitative you know data and information and that type of stuff but that doesn't mean there isn't space for qualitative, you know, storytelling. And that's sacred and that's valuable. And without that, you know, without a context, the quantitative is useless. Right. Desmond, do you, when you, there's like a lot of ways I look at my life. And sometimes I look at my life like a story.

And it really helps me put things in perspective, you know. Sometimes I think to myself, oh, right now I am weaving this tapestry and this is a very difficult part. So the symbol I'm doing this. That's why my life is so difficult because I'm creating this part of my life that's going to be a very delicate symbol later or something like that. I'm curious. Is there is there a certain stories that you live by or is there certain methodologies that you live by? or how do you look at your life from time to time that helps you see the world in a unique way

or a fun way or a good way? Well, you said the magic word tapestry. Right? There's a, I'm blanking on, I'm not going to come off of it off the coffee right now, but, you know, there's an indigenous, some indigenous person smarter than me said, you know, that people are part of the tapestry.

of life kind of thing what you do to what you do to yourself or what you do to the other it's woven into the fabric of humanity or in nature and animals and earth and balance kind of thing

right you're not you're a thread or you're woven into the grand scheme of things right So, you know, it's, I remember reading once, like, you know, we don't inherit the earth from our elders. We borrow it from future generations kind of thing, right?

And I think everyone understands that if I borrow your car, I have a moral obligation to return it to you. and as a good shape or better shape than what you've lent it to me and kind of thing, right? So I think it's, you know, the idea of, oh, I'm blaking on it, but, you know, the idea that, you know, the idea that feature life has equal or greater value than, you know, kind of thing. You kind of have to take four or five steps ahead. Right. And that's really hard for a lot of people because a lot of people are just so self-absorbed and me, me, me. But then there's also those people out there too who want to do better and would do better,

but they're just struggling to keep their head above water kind of thing. Right, and it's not that they have any sort of moral shortcomings or anything like that. But, you know, they're just, you know, trying to make ends meet, you know. Who was it, Eisenhower? Someone said, you know, that once you make ends meet, someone moves the goalpost, kind of thing. Right. And it's, again, it's a simple. of the larger, you know, pathology that we all see and recognize and live with day and

day out in this moment in history, right? Yeah. It's comforting at times. Like I, you know, it is tough times right now for so many people. And when you're staring, when you have the sword of Damocles hanging over you or, you know, you're 100,000 in dead, or your wife. left you or your husband left you or your kid just died you know it's it's really hard to look far ahead when this tragedy seems to be right in front of you you know it's it's so hard to do that

like yeah i think my heart goes out to so many people that that find that but there are there are one way i have i have dealt with things like this that has helped me is that you you try and better questions of like, okay, instead of why me, instead of the why did this happen to me? Like maybe you could say, what can I learn from this? And it's hard to do that, you know, especially if it's fresh. But what are some other strategies people could do if they find themselves in that situation? Well, I think you can ask both questions, right? Why me? Like, goddamn, why me? What the fuck is? When it rains, the pores, why do you? That's a true, perfectly valid question for anybody to ask at any given point.

But you're right, you can also, what else can I learn? Practice anything, right? And what can I do or, you know, and it maybe goes back to the idea of forgiveness that I said to earlier. Is that shit happens and you might not necessarily make, sense or you might not have any understanding at it at any given time. Right. And that's maybe one of the things like when that's your value.

Forgiveness is a value and it's something you practice. Right. I can forgive the situation kind of thing, right? Yeah, I can accept the situation. Just because I accept it does not mean that I like it. Right. Yeah. I don't have to like that my parent is addicted to opiates or whatever, but I have to accept that because that's my reality.

And that's, you know, what's going on with me in the moment. And, you know, you kind of have to understand that I'm allowed to feel anger. I'm allowed to feel her disappointment or whatever that I'm feeling about the situation in this given moment. but I hope two years from now, five years from now, ten years from now, that I have more peace and resolution and that, you know, I'm resilient enough to kind of get through this kind of thing, you know, because you, you know, that's part of maybe indigenous wisdom, right, is understanding that, hey, my relatives overcame. genocide. You know, I'm living their wildest dream kind of thing, right? You know, I'm the culmination. You know, you think about, you know, where are the odds of this sperm meeting that egg and this person going on this date? You know, what got me here? Right. And I've been in ayahuasca ceremonies at the end of the ceremony where the person, you know, had you kind of sit back.

and reflect and think about seven generations in the past and think about all the trauma and all the hardships and all the shit you know your relatives and ancestors have gone through and now think about seven generations forward what are you doing for healing and everything to be the disruption in that epigenetic kind of trauma that gets passed on whether it be through like a genetic transmission of the genes

type of trauma but also you know the social learning part of it right just because my grandma smacked my mom around kind of thing doesn't give me a check

to smack my kid around and to bring that style of parenting and kind of thing. I have to be the glitch that I want to see in the matrix or the change that I want to see in the universe kind of thing, right? Absolutely. I know we're, I got a, I tend to do this sometimes. I know that we're kind of coming up on time. So I thought I would make.

My father is telling me my mind, though, we were good. Okay, so then I'll make it. super complicated this question. Do you like? Okay. So on the topic of forgiveness, sometimes it seems that there's a relationship between forgiving someone

else and forgiving yourself. I found that sometimes it's easier to forgive someone else than yourself. Like, wait, is that something that you've noticed? Or what do you think is that relationship? Oh, no, no. So you're meting two different concepts. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So forgiveness is the idea that just because someone hurts you doesn't mean that you have reconciliation with that person.

Reconciliation is forgiveness with the added set of trust again. I want a relationship and I want to be buddy buddy with this person again. I can forgive an abusive spouse or I can forgive an abusive parent. that doesn't mean I'm inviting him over for Thanksgiving and having some sort of you know ongoing relationship with that individual. Forgiveness is kind of just

I get it, hurt people, hurt people, you're damaged. But I don't necessarily want to be around you anymore. You've made no, from what I can glean, you're still an asshole and you're still hurting people and you're still moving around in the world. Good for you, but I just don't want to be a part of that anymore. But my heart breaks for you because it's a very lonely life, right?

Yeah. You know, if you treat everyone this way, you're going to be alone on your deathbed, you know, a very lonely, miserable person. And how tragic that is for you. Your behavior has consequences. Right. But then there's the idea of reconciliation, which is, you know, the idea that you forgive someone and you trust. Okay.

So I'm not a big believer in the idea of self-forgiveness because there has to be self-reconciliation. If you don't trust yourself, like, who the fuck else are you going to trust? You have to trust yourself enough to be able to navigate and to operate. And to know that like my decision making it is good enough that I can do things kind of that like I can trust myself that yeah, I don't have to use heroin or I don't have to drink or I can't gamble or I can't, you know, do this again. That that's that's the bar you're looking at. And trust is very fragile kind of thing. Right.

So it's always good to forgive yourself, but self-forgiveness is only going to get you so far. If you can't trust yourself to make better decisions and to strive into evolving to the person that you feel like, you know, your moral compass is pointing yourself into, that's the, that's where the dirt meets the road. Was that good clarification? That is.

That's awesome clarification. I appreciate it, man. I love talking to you. This is really fun, man. And I'm always so interested and stoked when our conversations go down these pathways that are kind of unknown, man. It's really fun, man. Thank you very much for this.

I appreciate it. I know. I was really like trying to put myself. Like, what the fuck I'm talking about? You know, you kind of have to have trust. Yes. You'll rise to the occasion. What comes up will need to come up.

And I always enjoy your conversations. Me too, man. Thank you for having me back. Yes, I was really fun. I'm really thankful for your time. But before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, so October 1st, I'll be presenting it.

Krista Butte, Colorado, the grand mecha of psychedelics. We're talking to them about psychedelics. I am coordinating with 100 million ways on developing the Academy research study on trying to kind of maybe get people create a group kind of context, where there is a community healing for the psychedelic kind of. thing. And those are one of the two things that are kind of jumping off at my mind right now. Yeah.

Now my bladder is really good. Yeah. All right, my friend. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for everything. Have a fantastic week. You too, buddy. Thank you so much.

Okay. Aloha. Aloha.