TrueLife - Dr. Jessica Rochester - Power & Ethics in the Psychedelic Community

Episode Date: November 7, 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.revdrjessicarochester.com/Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester is the Madrinha and President of Céu do Montréal, a Santo Daime (Ayahuasca) Church she founded in 1997 in Montréal, Canada.She is a transpersonal counselor, she trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Assagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grof.She worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve an Section 56 Exemption to import and serve the Santo DaimeSacrament (Ayahuasca).She is an ordained Interfaith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity.From 1986 to 2018 she has been a workshop leader, teacher, and in private practice.She is the author of Ayahuasca Awakening A Guide to Self-Discovery, Self-Mastery and Self-Care, Volume One and Two.She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being and personal transformation 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 Codex Seraphini Check out the entire song at the end of the cast Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining, the birds is singing. I hope you realize how lucky you are to have some people in your life that love you, and I hope you realize how lucky I am to have everybody here with me today. I've got a great show for you today. The one and only the Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester.

For those who may not know, she is an ordained interfaith minister with a doctorate in divinity, a trans-personal educator. She trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Asagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grop from 1986 to 2018. She's been a workshop leader, a teacher, and in private practice. She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, and personal transformation. She is the Madrina and president of the Sioux de Montreal, a Santo Dime church that she founded in 1997 in Montreal, Canada. From 2001 to 2017, she worked with Health Canada to achieve the recognition of the Santo Dime as a legitimate religion and the right to import the Santo Dimey's sacrament for ritual use.

In June 2017, this mission was accomplished and Sue de Montreal received an exemption to import and serve the Santo Daini Sacrament. She's on a mission to inspire and empower those who seek the adventure of self-discovery, those who hope to awaken consciousness, to rediscover authenticity, to find meaning in everyday life, and cultivate deep connections with oneself and others and with nature. Self-mastery is a psychosiritual journey of self-realization that requires good maps to guide the way and courage, faith, and willpower to navigate life's various challenges. It is possible to achieve and maintain greater health and well-being on all levels, physical, mental, emotional, creative, and spiritual by working with the principles of self-care, self-awareness, self-love, self-respect, and self-responsibility. Her work is dedicated to providing the maps and tools to facilitate personal growth and transformation. Awakening to the knowledge of our own true self, we can choose to live with consciousness,

wisdom, and kindness. And her books, Ayahuasca, or Awakening, are these maps. And if you've been following our series, we have really gotten into some incredible information that has been profound for me and I think most of the listening. Reverend Dr. Jessica, thank you for being here today. How are you? Well, did you read my whole website? Of course I did. That was really funny.

What an introduction. It's always a joy to hang out with you and talk about things that are close to our heart. And above and beyond that, that are on the frontier of what's happening in this, you know, some people are calling it an awakening. Some people are calling it a renaissance. Some people are calling it whatever, a new age, you know. Those of us who are a little older, we've been around this block, okay, a few times. And a lot of things are recognizable as, uh-oh, that happened last time.

Okay, oh, and it happened the time before. So can we watch out? Can we take care? Can we pay attention? Can we learn from the things that happened in the past that didn't work out well? And can we do our very best to try and make sure that what's happening in this field of Anthagenz and psychedelics is done with responsibility, accountability, ethics, transparency, diversity, inclusivity, equity, you know, all these words that have deep, deep meanings,

and powerful importance and just need to be discussed. We need to have these open conversations about them because what gets in the way is what a colleague of mine from years ago, who was a very brilliant astrologer actually. And I say, you know, astrology, I know that there's a wide range in the field of astrology of the very serious who are very careful what they say and how they conduct their work to the, you know, right out there. Like every field, you got to pay attention to what you're doing and who you're talking with, right? And, you know, this person's take on things is that all of us have our little demons, okay? And what we're going to talk about a few of those today because we were talking about, you know, power recently. And certainly the use and misuse, we've opened the conversation back about ethics and responsibility and accountability.

And then there's some things that people don't particularly like talking about. Okay. And so we're going to do our very best to try and talk about those things in a way that people can hear them. Okay? Because often these things are discussed in a way that it's not so easy to hear or to listen or to understand. And walls go up and reactions happen. Okay. So if we use a little humor, you know, and a little like,

and understanding and patience, then often it goes a little bit easier. Would you agree? Yeah. I would definitely agree. So this colleague of mine, he would say, you know, everybody wants to come in and they want to have a reading and they always want to hear the marvelous stuff, right? And he says, I have to feel around the edges, you know, about how wonderful they are and how marvelous their life is going to be and today is going to be the best day.

You know, that's, you know, and he says, and then you have the people who come in and they say, help me understand the challenges. Help me understand what's difficult in my life. And don't just tell me the good things about what's in my church, you know, but tell me the challenges and the difficult things. And the things that are just not in my chart, but things that might be in me, that might be the very

very thing that that thing in my chart is going to bring me up against. Okay. So you're going to find kind of more the cosmology astrologers and the archetypal astrologers are going to use this kind of language rather than the, you know, everything's fine in Rainbow Land today, astrologers, right? And so he would talk about, they say, can we call them just little demons? Okay, the things that everybody, you know, I've referred to them as personality glitches and, you know, flaws, personality flaws, and our baggage and, you know, all of these different words that we can use

to help the medicine go down, right? And so, you know, this is a kind of a language that we have to find the best words. We have to find the best words because these are difficult things to talk about. And so let's jump right out with saying we all have character flaws. Right. Right. We all have glitches in our personalities. We all have little bibits. little, you know, the kind of the little demons, okay? And however they got there, whether they're just part of our personality in this lifetime, because we are all, you know, we all arrive on planet Earth and we have our strengths and we have our shortcomings.

And I believe that it's not our task in life to hide our shortcomings because that doesn't really work. That's the wizard of awe. So all you need to is lift the curtain. Okay, that's the emperor with no clothing, right? And so if we, the people around us who love us, they're usually the people who know our flaws best, who can see our little demons at work and our little flaws

and all our, you know, our baggage and actions and our faulty beliefs and all those things that, you know, personal work and transformation is about. So what, are we on board? Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah. So what happens when you take, when you take a situation where your situations, such as we have today with this psychedelic and theogen renaissance, where you have people who may not have addressed, who may not be in a situation to, you know, as like a supervised apprentice, you know, in the heritage traditions, we talk about apprenticeship. And I've said it so many times people might think, gosh, and I'll say that again. But anyway, I was 14 years in my apprenticeship.

And that does not count my transpersonal trainings. That does not count my inter-hate ministry trainings, my daughter. And none of that is counted. That's 14 years. All of the other stuff is added in on that, 14 years of apprenticeship in the Sancto Danube before a church went in the pen. And so that's kind of the essential, the same way you want to be a psychiatrist, that's okay, but guess what, you have to go to medical school. You want to be a dentist, you have to go to down school.

You want to be an accountant, hang out your shingle, that's grant, but you know what? You do have to have a degree in an accountant before you can do anybody else's books. So, House George, I need you to explain to me why there are so many people in this field of psychedelics and end upheogens. who feel that they need no supervision, no training, no offendership. But they've had a couple of marvelous experiences. And now they think that everybody should be having the same marvelous experiences. But because they don't have the maps and they only have their experience, what's happening? I think, I'm sorry.

Yeah, go ahead. Please put your thoughts out. I think what's happening is that people have a fundamental transformation. of their life and they want other people to experience it. And a lot of the times when there's the Dunning Kruger effect, like the less you know, the more you think you know. So my mentor used to say the impetus barrel makes the loudest sound. And it's not necessarily coming from a place of, of,

it's not coming from a place of anger or maliciousness. It's coming from a place of ignorance. Like, I want to help and I can help because I had this experience. And you don't realize. So let's start ticking them off. We talked a little bit around this in our last session. Okay, the first one is good intentions. Good intentions.

It's like, wow, I love this and this really helped me. And so we can see this isn't that doesn't have anything to do with psychedelics and amphiogens. Somebody might discover a nutritional supplement. Okay. And they become like the advocate for this nutritional supplement. I took fill in the blank, okay, that wraps up your fill in the blank. Okay, and I feel fabulous. Therefore, everybody should be taking this product or doing this exercise

or go to that retreat or take up this practice. Okay, so there's like enthusiastic good intentions. Yeah, okay. That's up there next. The next one would be a feeling of power, I think. Like the idea that they were over to overcome something, or perhaps they have power over somebody else. And that can be intoxicating.

Yes. Okay. This is exactly. This is where we start to range into the interesting side of where people have to make a decision. Okay. The good intentions is like, wow, I really love doing this. Maybe I'd better go and do some training in it, you know. I remember, okay, and I'm going to use, I'm sure if I've ever discussed this example,

if I have, forgive me, okay, any of you listening. But I don't know how far back am I going into the late 80s, okay? And I was just fascinated with all of these, you know, remember I came from the ashram and meditation yoke. So I was already, you know, deeply, you know, committed to my, how it was transformative for me. And I was, you know, advising. I wasn't teaching any of excellent training in it, but I was advising all my clients,

you know, take up one of these, try Tai Chi Chi, or reading exercises and what have you. And I made this little, based on everything that's up, I made this little relaxation tape for my clients. It was just me talking about the light and relaxing and breathing and loving imagery and stuff like that. And it was just starting to be done. And, you know, I had, I give all my clients copy this tape.

It took a few years to figure out that other people were taking that and then copywriting it. So like it, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very interesting thing. Okay, I was the first person in the year, late 80s, who was doing all of this. And I had a client come in, and she says, something very bizarre happened to me when I was listening to your tape.

She's like, I loved your tape. And she says, I would sometimes fall asleep listening to it. And, you know, it was so relaxing, and I breathe and relax my arms. And I'd like, but, you know, just progress in relaxation. Okay. Who knew at that point? I didn't know that this could take people into very serious, non-hardenary states of consciousness.

And people could start having really profound. experiences with it. So, you know, innocent me who thinks that, you know, I'm doing this wonderful thing helping my clients relax. And so this one client said, I had this very bizarre experience. And I said, you're okay, just like that. And like it was a profound experience in which she felt she entered into a past life. And so two things happened to me in that moment. Okay. The first thing was, is how can I help this, my client, integrate this and talk about this and look into this in a way that will help her understand it. So that was the first thought.

The second thought, which was like in a big booming voice inside me, was, you need more skills and training in this, kiddo. If you get your butt out and get some training in this so that you have what you need when this happens. Now, I'm the kind of person that takes that really seriously, so that's what I did, you know. Now, an interesting end to that story, by the way, was for those of you who are interested in, you know, past life experience and are they real or they're not real and all that jazz, is the client actually got a flash of what the client was experiencing was being shot down in a small plane being shot down and dying in, you know, a war situation. okay and so I could help her go through the grieving I can help her go through you know I'd done enough work in the

cooler Ross field and Stephen the winefield that I could offer was grieving it and finding a way of honoring it and she said this is the strange thing is I got a name and then guess what and the client followed it up and found out that that person died when they were shot down in a plane in the second. Isn't that interesting? Fascinating. Isn't that interesting? So, you know, we look at, do we have, you know, we talked about good intentions.

I had really good intentions. Okay. And I came to the realization that, uh-oh, there's stuff here that's happening that's out of my maps, and it's out of my personal experience. and it's out of, you know, my knowledge base. And so you need to have, you need to be able to recognize that.

That's the choosing moment, is recognizing, oh, oh, okay, there's stuck here, I need to learn, I need to understand, I need to look at. And that's the choosing moment, you know. Now, lots of people choose not to. It's like, oh, do I need that for it, you know, and what part of our little character flaws in operation then. And it's usually our ego that likes to think that we don't need training and we don't need supervision and we know it all.

And we can call that narcissism or ego or anything we want, but it's still the same thing. You know, the roses are a rose and then tomatoes a tomato. So we have then kind of a willful ignorance. Willful ignorance is vastly different from good intentions. So there's a willful ignorance. And otherwise, I kind of know, but I don't really want to know. Or I want to think I know, or I want to pretend that I know, or I don't need that stuff. People shouldn't be telling me what I should be doing, you know, whether it's the government,

the government shouldn't be telling me what I have to do. I should be able to do what I want without associations and organizations and governments telling me because I know better because I'm connected to spirit because I said, I'll give you another You want another funny example? I've got stories on the stories, on the stories, okay? So how this can kind of get really out of whack in non-ardinary states is many, many years ago. And it is many, many years ago. Okay.

We had somebody who came in and joined our church and they had this vibration in them. Okay. And then in a certain moment in a work, somebody put a drum in front of them and said, it looks like you're trying to drum. you know, or towards the end of the work or after work, and it's like, oh, yes, drumming, that's what I'm doing. Okay, so I'm drumming and I'm drumming, and you know, it's heard showing me how to drum and I'm drum.

Okay, and it's like, okay, that's fine, you want to kind of learn the drum, but we have musicians practices and hymn practices, and if you're going to play a musical instrument, then you act help to make sure that you're all using the same sheet music, and you're all following the same tune, and you're all in the same rhythm. and we had a marvelous musician for a number of years. And he insisted that we all practiced with a metronome, you know, the TikTok. So we really would get very accurate. So we really could handle the music well.

So we've had lots of musicians come and go. Anyway, this particular musician, here you go with good intentions that slide past that. Uh-oh, maybe I don't quite know what I'm doing here. Okay? Just slid past that into, I know what I'm doing. Okay. This person didn't come to him practice, didn't take any drum lessons, and insisted that we were all in our head, in our mind. And she was the only person who was drumming according to spirit.

You know, the dimey has shown her to drum, and that she was drumming in spirit, and all the rest of us were all. Because we were in our minds with our printed-up music. Okay. Okay, where do you go with that? what that what is that about yeah so that's kind of what can happen when people get to the i don't need i already know i'm and so you know it can be called a narcissistic bubble right it's like a bubble you know it really isn't kind of an energetic bubble because you try to kind of get in it's kind of a barrier, you know, can't kind of penetrate past it to actually get in to have the person

listen because there will be anger and defensiveness. So that's a willful ignorance where somebody kind of sort of knows maybe, but they're really strongly holding on the willfulness of it. And so if we look at how is that playing out? Did you want us to add something? You had a thing on what they tells me. You can always see. Is that, it seems to me like that is an archetype or a character in which you can see those same type of bubbles forming probably without the medicine. That person probably has a history of that type of behavior.

Is that accurate? Yeah, 100% accurate. Is all that, you know, antigenes and psychedelics, you know, and really, I'm from the the eugen field, sacred plants. And, you know, I bow to all of those who are working in research and science. And, and, you know, they know they have my support. And I am available if I can ever assist in some way. And I don't pretend to have deep knowledge on that because I don't, you know,

I don't use those substances. So I can only talk about what I know, with any voice of experience. So I can 100% affirm that with sacred plants, they are like amplifiers. You already have a narcissistic bubble. It's going to show you your narcissistic bubble. And you're either going to fight it or,

and depending on there's some people, they come in, and it's like the narcissistic bubble expands. Now, this has been a big question that no one's been able to answer. for me, which is we're taking these substance that expand our consciousness. When I, when in our practice, when we drink dime, it's we're shown, we're shown, we're shown our flaws. You know, we're shown the highest and the best of the possibilities. We're shown our qualities and our strengths.

But trust me, the dining has no problem showing us our weaknesses, our shortcomings, our fears that it is done from a place of grace. It is done from a place of support. It's done from a place of deep understanding that when we have these things, they cause suffering for us and probably suffering for others. So if we're being arrogant somewhere,

but in the end, that arrogance will hurt us. And so that's the place that the teachings usually come from. And I ask myself when I see some of the things that happen. It's like, why isn't this doing showing them that? This person's taking, not just, you know, in our line, but taking sacred plants and they've got that going on for them. You know, what actually is happening? It's such a fascinating study. You know, Jill's Evan's Surreelistic.

Because you've been research on this police, okay, is what's happening there? You know, I love a master's student who's looking for a thesis topic or a doctoral student is, hey, could we look at what happens there, right there, what I'm calling the choosing place, when we're being shown things, like what actually happens? Now, I know sometimes, you know, people are shown throughout the years we've had, you know, many people come in and they have this, you know, maybe their first experience of the second or third And it's all wonderful and it's the bliss and oh, it's so beautiful. And I see them.

And then the daimmy shows them something that don't want to see. And they're gone. Okay, they're gone. They don't come back. Now that's really, really common. They just don't come back. It's just scary. They don't want to see that.

They're going to pretend they didn't see it. They're not ready to face it, whatever it is. So we just send light and good wishes. And because we all understand how scary it can be to see things about ourselves and about the reality of life. and everybody has to be ready and willing to face it. You can't make somebody face it. Life is going to do that all by itself, you know.

So that choosing place, you know, and then I've had plenty of people come in and they take dining and they'll come afterwards at some point to me and they'll say, I can't come back. Okay. Well, because the dimes said, listen, and then they show me, you have to choose now. You can't keep coming here.

You can't keep coming here with this. You now have to choose. You either commit and dedicate to the spiritual path, you go. And that's really serious, you know. And so again, sometimes people step up and say, okay, ready to commit, you know. And other people go, yeah, why would I go?

Oh, they're gone, you know? Again, lots of light, lots of good wishes. Everybody has to find their own way. no did you have something you wanted to say you got that expression on your face again i'm just trying to figure out like i i don't thoroughly understand what the you can't like you said you can't make somebody change and it has to be a choice it has to be a personal decision to want to be better and if someone hasn't chosen to do that maybe there's no substance or or guidance that can that can do that for them and maybe that's what that big bubble is

is like they have such a strong resistance maybe such the trauma was so great for them that happened to them or the generational trauma they're just not ready to change what whatever we're going to come back to talking about that please don't let us go i want to tell the stan gloff story and since it's shared openly and probably christina groff's book the thirst for wholeness and certainly it's been shared so i'm not I'm not at all disclosing anything confidential. She's passed anyway, but still, I know it's an open story. Okay.

How she met Stan Groff was that she got into kind of a spiritual emergency. Okay. And she happened to be a student of Joseph Campbell. And so she tried to explain what was going on for her to Joseph Campbell. And Joseph Campbell, she said, and he said, I only know one person who might be able to help you, and that Stanislaw, Groff. And the big players all know each other. And I would have loved to have been a student.

I'm a student of his work. I would have loved to have been a student of him, his and the person. So she found out where he was and he was going to be whatever at Estillen or whatever he was doing. So she troops off and then, you know, and then they fall in love and they get married. And the side part of it was is that she was a closet out. alcoholic, which when you're living with somebody doesn't stay in the closet very long. So, yes, his story is told, and she had, I believe it's two children from a former

manager, which Stan embraced as his own. And so he and the, oh, because they weren't little small children at some point, they sat her down and they said, Christina, we love you, but we're not going to live with the drinking. So the choice is yours. So she was at the choosing a place. And she had people who loved her enough to point out the choosing place. And they said, you have to choose. That's also the alcohol. Know that we love you, whatever you choose. But we aren't going to support this anymore. That's what love looks like. So fortunately for the story, she chose sobriety. And that's afterwards she wrote her book and the thirst for homeless about her own journey and understanding why she dreamed to avoid what was within her

and to try and seek a comfort that she hadn't been able to find as a youngster outside of herself. So that's the choosing place. And people don't understand. You can zip past it in a blink, not realizing that you've even passed the choosing place, that there's that moment, there's that crossroads. where if you stop and breathe, and people who love us can point out the place when we're there, and can say it looks like you have a choice to make. And it's not done with judgment.

It's not done with anything but genuine clarity and usually love. Or genuine care, compassion, if it's a professional situation, if a professional is advising a client or a patient. So the choosing place, how powerful is that? So we're talking about power. So the first place we can get our power back is by recognizing the choosing place. Does this make sense? Yeah.

Recognizing that every day we have choices. It can be what we eat, what we wear, who we phone, how we write our, report on how we conduct ourselves with our finances in business with our community. It can be, you know, so many ways. But in that moment you choose, in the moment we can choose, to the best of our ability, because sometimes our unconscious sweeps us past it. Okay? And all we can do is look back and go, oh.

back there I could have made a better decision. Okay, but something inside of us blows up. And then that's the learning. Okay, no self-condemnation. You just pick yourself up and, you know, no sitting in a puddle of self-pity because that doesn't solve problem. It certainly doesn't empower us.

Okay, if we need to have a boo-hoo about it, then that's just fine. Sit down and have your boo-hoo. You know, if you need a shoulder to lean on, that's fine. You know, access what you need. Book a date with your therapist. Whatever it is, address it and do your self-care. Don't wallow in it.

You've heard me say, don't pitch your tent next to the sea, lost souls. You certainly don't take a swim in it, okay? You know, listen Churchill says, When you're in hell keep, when you're going through healthy, you keep going, right? So you just, you just, you need to. It's okay to sit down on the path through and get your breath and get some support.

That's totally 100% good, okay? But you don't pitch your tent there. You got to get up and keep going at some point, even if it's a little small step by step by step by step. I'm seeing your head going up and down. Yeah. Yeah. I think it underscores the relationship between meaning and power.

Like someone, when you, when you make a decision to use your personal power and some, it seems to me like you were beginning to ascribe meaning to that event in a way that's positive. Yes. Good point. So there's all of these life experiences that we have and what meaning do they have for us. And, you know, it's so profoundly deep how we can have all kinds of unquestions. meaning is attached to things. Anyway, that's another story. We were interested, volume one.

All chapter on meaning. And so we're back into power because I want to look at that one of the, we talked quite a bit about people who are taking power, misusing power, and the, you know, the conversation about needing to have healthier boundaries and knowing ourselves. and ethics and supervision and a colleague support, a community of transparency and conversation, recognizing when we're getting in deep water ethically and asking for help,

recognizing when things are studying to go whoopsie-dacey, and saying to a colleague, you know what, I think I need to talk through what's going on here. I can, you know, chapeau to many of my supervisors in my various trainings who were just simply wonderful in their advice and their directions and their support and helping me and others understand how to negotiate things differently to get a better outcome. Because is that our intention? Is our intention to get the best for the higher good? what's for the higher good here? Are my intentions wired to what's for the higher good for me and for others?

And so now we're going to look a little bit on the other side about, you know, almost every day we're reading about situations in the field. You know, entheogens and psychedelics, okay, where there's problems. Now, this is a human problem. This isn't an antigen's and psychedelics problem. Let me just say that right out. This is a human problem. It doesn't matter what fields you're in.

There's going to always be challenges that come when people are interacting. We can agree on that. It doesn't matter if you're an accountant, you're a dentist, you're a bus driver. It doesn't matter. There's always going to be challenges where people interact. And the more intimate that interaction is, the more delicate the ethics are. So if you have a situation where confidentiality is essential, you're a lawyer, you're a therapist, okay, you're a medical doctor. Yes, you have to share the files with the other specialists, let's say, but, you know, that there's confidentiality.

There's a certain level of treatment. So wherever there's the individual that you're working with, obviously a medical doctor who's looking at various parts of you is different from your accountant who's only looking in your, you know, income tax return, but still, okay, there's, but do you understand what I'm saying, like the deeper the level of, let's call it intimacy between the individual and the professional, then the more sensitive the ethics need to be around with that on the moral standard. And never so more obvious in non-ordinary states of consciousness. So whatever happens out in the everyday world is going to, again, be happening. non-ardinary states.

The same ethical challenges, there's the same challenges around power. There's the same challenges around healthy boundaries. And so, you know, on the professional side, for sure. And now let's look at the other side. What can we learn about what's happening? You know, what can we learn about this? And I, again, I want to give a little shout to D.L. 7. because he's been writing about the difficult things.

And he's got the courage. Thank you, Jules. He's got the courage to write about the difficult things and the unpopular things that are happening that people don't really want to know about because we all want our special thing that we feel so fabulous about. We want it to be untainted by a human error.

Well, sadly, there is human error. So let's have a conversation about how to manage that and how to try and prevent it and how try and reduce the amount of it happening and the impact of it. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's, I think that it underscores the idea of vulnerability and willingness to change comes from trying to tackle the difficult things. You know, that's where the change is.

Yes. That's where the most profound. I mean, we can have an encounter with good stuff. You know, my first, the first time I went in the Ashfam and my first yoga session is, okay, I ached afterwards. It was half the yoga and the meditation and the chanting. It was the whole nine yards. Okay, I had sore muscles and stuff from trying to do all these asanas that I've never done before. But I went out empowered.

Okay, I can breathe differently. And I feel differently when I breathe this way. And, okay, it took me a while to learn, you know, the breathing text. techniques and the chanting and it's like wow okay so it all our experiences that we have in life offer the us the opportunity okay for positive change it's the difficult stuff that we just don't like the budd and nailed it life is difficult we don't like that we want life to be easy remember simple and easy two different things okay but we want it to be easy we want sunny days we want the parking spot exactly where we want it when we pull up, you know, pull up in front of

the, and we're running five minutes late on an appointment. You know, we want to win the lotto. We want people to love us. We want happiness. We want, I mean, it's even written into the American Constitution. That's a whole other conversation of here and treasure for another day because they should erase it. They should take it out. Or they should rewrite it. So it's more clear for everybody that they focus on the pursuit of it, the freedom to pursue it, rather than it's my automatic right to be happy and you should be making me happy because it looks like that's how people have been interpreting it. Okay. I have a right to be happy. Hello, no. Anyway, okay, back to power is why are there so many people finding themselves in the same?

situation where they are giving their power away and why are we giving our power away? What is that about? What can we learn about it? What can we learn about how we hand over a power? Again, give you a classic example, classic, classic female woman thing. Because the patriarchy is so hardwired into still our culture, even though there's been great advances, but we got to say, hey, still there, not so deeply or unconsciously and strongly as in other parts of the world. Other parts of the world still have patriarchy as the law. Whereas we don't hear in, let's say, North America and Western civilization, but it's still deep in. So you'll get a married couple or a couple, and the woman will hand over,

unconsciously hand over the power for decisions. unconsciously hand over the power to make decisions as far as family goes unconsciously hand over the power to do things and then often and sadly I used to see this and all the couple work I get often and sadly then be curious when the man does not or their partner let's say when their partner does not do

what they think they should be doing hello you hand it your power over to that person to make your decision and now you're angry with them because they're not doing why don't you just take your power back and make your own decision and say listen I think this is the right thing to do and this is the reason why I feel is the right thing to do you know but you still have women deeply following the patriarchy and when we get that oh giving away my power because I have some belief system inside of me that I should be doing this makes me unhappy and angry and A and B, it's so not fair to my partner. How is that fair to your partner if you hand your power over

and then you're furious with them when they don't do what you want them to do? I should just do what you want to do or at least discuss it. Does this make sense when I'm saying? But people handing over their power consciously or unconsciously? I think you could even extend it out to like an authoritarian. Like I think for a lot of men too, and maybe all kids, maybe we're conditioned to respond to authority in a way that is unhealthy. Yes.

That can be very healthy. Sure. That can be very healthy. And yet, if we're not careful, you know, I was raised as a young child. My father had been an officer in the British Army and fought in the Second World War. And I was raised with that mentality as I was raised that you respect. that people in uniform, you respect the police, that they're your friends, and they're to help you if there's a problem and they give their lives to protect you.

And, I mean, because that's what my dad did, right? And, you know, and other people in our family and extended family had done. And millions and millions and millions and millions of other men and young men and people had done and even women in the forces in the last number of decades. And so there's this training that you are taught to trust and count on your teachers and people in authority. And so that can be a deep training in which, you know, that training should have had an advisory with it, which is, you know, perhaps that always trust your inner wisdom if something doesn't feel right. we can't blindly trust yes if i if i see smoke and there's a fire and i call 911 i'm trusting

that the fire engines will come because that's their deal that's their commitment right if somebody goes into a psychedelic session they are going to depending on how they've set it up they're going to assume that they're going to be well taken care of right And so we have this entrusting thing that we do, depending on how we've been raised. Some people don't trust anybody because they were raised, don't trust. Right. Some people are too trusting because they were raised. Trust everything and everybody just in authority, you know.

So how do we find our way past those belief systems? Because that's what they are. They're belief systems. We keep the good. Yes, if I go online 1-1, an ambulance will come or a fire engine or what have you. And yes, as a whole, we should be able to count on the teachers in the classrooms and to treat our children with respect and to teach them what they need to know and to have healthy boundaries with behavior around them, you know.

And not find out that the science teacher is taking the young boys from grade 9 to his cottage in the woods. Yeah. That actually happened when I was in high school. So yeah. And I love that science teacher. It was heartbreaking. It was brilliant.

And if he just kept his activities somewhere else, whatever. If he had honored, if he had honored his commitment to his profession. And so everybody has, we're back to the choosing place. he chose to dishonor his profession and himself and to trust the students put into him. And that's being repeated over and over again and hearing stories of the misuse and the abuse. And so I want to just help empower people on both sides,

empower, you know, as the Madrina, the Santo Dining Church, it's beholden on me to be a role model of our principles and our ethics, for goodness sake I wrote that ethics code I can't abide by it somebody please immediately bring it to my attention you know

so on that side of it we hold a power anybody in a position of authority has a power each time I serve somebody in sacrament I feel accountable for them and that's what has to

that's what has to be taken into consideration the same way each time the doctor opens his door to receive the patient accountable for you do. Now this is a high level of accountability and we're going to have our good days and we're going to have our also good days because we're human, right? But there's lines that can get crossed. Now again on the other side as the patient, the client, the participant, what is our responsibility? And so we have a list that I wrote up that it's an advisory for external events. It's on our church website.

I copy pasted it into a post on why healers shouldn't be calling themselves healers. Okay. And, you know, let's talk about that. And I'd love your thoughts on it. Because I hold people accountable that they are responsible to do their due diligence about where they're going, who they're going to be with, what they're going to be taking. That that's on us as the client, the patient, the, and yes, something, even if we do our due diligence and we go and see a therapist that we've heard really good things about, and then he

leans over and kisses us. Well, we're talking about a three-year-old experience. That also happened to me too, okay? Yeah, yeah, I did. I've got stories, on stories, on stories. Okay, ask me if he stayed my therapist. Asked me if I stood up, got extremely angry and walked out. Okay.

Now, that's called the choosing moment. That's when, wait a minute, I know this isn't right. This does not feel right for me. I know that there's something wrong here. and what do I choose to do now in this moment? I'm taking the moment, and taking the breath, and understanding deeply how important it is to our own souls that in that moment we are practicing self-care and inner wisdom.

And that if we're doing, excuse me, what's for our higher good, we're actually doing for what's the higher good of the other person. Isn't that difficult, though, for someone who's in a vulnerable position to be that aware of themselves? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's why we need guidelines. That's why we need screening.

That's why we need these conversations. People have to understand. You're going into a non-ardinary state of consciousness. You will be sensitive. Yes. You will feel more vulnerable. You will. Okay.

What I loved about Stan Groff is he had, because in the, training and holotropic breathwork, we had what was called the stop. And that was the word that was used if anybody assisting you in the moment in your process, if something didn't feel right. You just said stop and everything stopped. Okay, I mean, unless for your own safety that someone was preventing you from bashing yourself into a wall, okay? You know, there's moments when it's explained if it's for your own safety or the safety for others then we'll stop but we need to explain to you why we're doing this this is for your you know for your well-being so if you're screaming don't do this i hate this go away leave me alone it's all part of your process the

minute you say stop that's you saying stop how you're supporting my process we need to readjust okay because the body work and breath work is people touching you, you know, and that whole conversation about touch has to happen. That whole conversation about touch, you know, in our church. It's very clear. We have complete guidelines. We don't touch people unless it's for their own safety or well-being.

They're about to call off the chair. Yeah, we're going to be grabbing you before you hit the floor. Okay. And, you know, or if you're starting to purge, cleanse, or what have you, yes, we might touch you so that you don't throw upon yourself. Okay. And so we're, you know, this is, we give very clear guidelines. We won't touch you unless it's for your health and safety or the health and safety of others. Or unless you ask us to you.

Or if we go to touch you, we're going to check in and I touch you. You know, may I help you get up. may I help you lie down? And so there's these guidelines that are there that are hopefully helped. Now, if someone doesn't like it and doesn't say anything, you know, well, that becomes a different conversation, which is we gave you the opportunity. Can we help you understand why in that moment you felt you couldn't? And that's just a really deep conversation to be had,

where both people need to take responsibility for what was happened. you know and and find a way to go forward with what will be for the higher good and for the positive transformation of the parties involved does this make sense what I'm saying yeah you can you know if you look at it the way in which a practicing doctor you don't let you don't let someone who's only gone through the text part of medical school do an operation. You don't want that person there. I mean, I've read it all right. I looked at the diagrams.

I've washed my hands. I think I can do this. I think my sample is sharp. You know, I understand emergency field stuff. Okay, you're out in a war, the first world war, second world war, whatever it is. You're out in the woods and the trench. and stuff like that, but people do what they can do to try and help. I'm just going to dig this bullet out of you, buddy.

Okay. So, but in today's world, you know, in today's world, then no one should be, you know, if you are practicing, if you are doing things and practicing things, and you're not trained or you're not credential, though you're not licensed, I think it's time to sit down and ask yourself what you're doing and why you're doing it. like who am I doing this for? Why am I doing this? What is my motivation here?

What meaning does this happen for me? And if I'm really sincere, like I can't even count, I can't even count how many people come in and drink dining with us and they say, I'm going back to school. And they go off and they do a master's in whatever it is. They feel called to do or they do doctorate, okay?

They go back and get some extra training. It's like Diamond shows up, boo-hoo. Back to school. And we say, oh my God, I'm like, you know, how old they are. So I don't have much sympathy because I have compassion, not much sympathy. Because it's like, hey, dummy sent me back to school when I was 60. When Daddy showed me this, I went, ha, ha, ha, you've got to be joking, right?

Like, am I the eternal student? Am I forever going to be writing papers? It's like, yeah, you have my back to school. Okay, okay. So if our inner wisdom lets us know, and we're not listening to that inner wisdom, what's going on? What's going on? What's happening there? Okay.

If inner wisdom is telling us, okay, something's not right there. You've suggested that maybe they have an internal trauma. Okay? I'm talking on the patient client participant side of things now. Okay? Maybe they've had a trauma that they feel they can't speak up. Okay. understand that that some point in their life, probably very young, whether it is in the home or

in this culture out on the street, you know, or in the schoolyard, all of us, I think, or most, if not all of us, had difficult experiences at one time, you know, this is again Buddhism. There's no one escapes illness or suffering. So everyone can point to some things that happened that were painful or difficult or challenging. And again, the human species, being what it is, does anybody get out through the school years without being bullied in some way or teased in some way or made fun of or criticized or cast out of the click because you don't have fill in the blank. These days it would be the latest iPhone, right?

But it used to be how you wore your hair and the clothes you wore or whatever. What your parents did or how you spoke or if you wore glasses or needed hearing aids or whatever it was. boy, it would be taken out on you, you know. And so how do you get through all of that, understanding that it's not personal? That's personal. It's just a human species doing its thing. And it's not personal. And then so how do we transform that as an adult to say the things that I've let affect me

and create belief systems about who I am in the world? that's making me now in this moment when some part of my inner wisdom is telling me that this is wonderful for me therefore go forward or wait a minute red light red light okay something happened here that you know it's not right okay why am I going along with it my end are getting up and saying uh-uh I'm walking out there's no condemnation there's no judgment here there's none there's just an interest of curiosity is how can we address that the choosing place to help people find it and choose what's for their higher good? How do we support that so that people realize I don't have to? You know, the Me Too movement

helped a lot for women, for sure, to come out of the closet and say, yeah, I had a boss just like that or a teacher or what have you or a colleague. But in the field that we're working in, How do we empower people so that they find their voice, they speak up, and they get supported? Maybe we can't. Maybe, like, this is just throwing this out there for the sake of a conversation. Like, maybe it's necessary. Maybe it has to happen to you before you can begin to find your voice. Maybe there has to be this point of resistance.

I don't wish anything like that on people, but I should love it. Very good. Very good. Yay. Now, these things are hard to talk about. Yes. They're hard to take, you know, to take in, you know. What's that story from?

Is it a conversation with God? And there's a group of souls waiting to incarnate. And one soul says, hey, I want to go back to planet Earth and I want to learn how to forgive. Like forgiveness is going to be an issue. And then, okay, but you have to have something happen. You have to forgive. anybody volunteering.

Another soul puts up their hand and says, well, okay, I'll do something that you have to forgive, but you have to promise me when I'm doing it, that you remember it's me and that we have this agreement that I'm going to do this, you know? Right? And so there's that school of thought. It's a school of thought that there's some karmic,

you know, what you were speaking about. Let's talk about a Cormic preset, the Cormic Patterns, in which the Cormic Pattern, again, Volume 1, I write a lot about karma and comic presets and looking and trying to, you know, getting some maps as to understand the patterns that we have in our life.

Does this come from past lives? This has come from my childhood. Does this come from now? This has come from my belief systems. What meaning does this have? How do I empower myself? You know? So if somehow,

in my karma now this difficult situation is coming around and and this has happened what do i get to learn in this what do what are my teachings and what do i get to learn and the sooner i learn to learn to to recognize the choosing place because a lot of times that's the deepest teaching you know stuff happens that we have absolutely no control of right You know, that's the serenity prayer, right? Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. So lots of things happen to us that affect our lives.

And we may have had no role in it. All of a sudden, we're minding our own business and bombs are dropping. Yeah. If we're opening our store or our daycare or our daycare or we're taking our cave to daycare or we're stopping off to have breakfast and get our cup coffee or whatever it is at our favorite little restaurant

and all of a sudden things that we didn't know about that we have no hand in that is like mom's dropping. Okay, what's the choosing place there? The choosing place is, how do I take care of myself? How do I survive? How do I? So we go right back down into survival there. It's not a time to do anything else, but try and navigate through those.

But those are extreme difficult situations. You know, everyday people have challenges of how to manage this. So the best can come out of it for me and for others. So how do we, you know, I love what you're bringing up because it brings us to the little demons. Yeah, totally. How many of us have ever wanted, you know, some of my personal favorite means. however, how many of us have wanted revenge. All of us.

Yeah. We're hardwired for the, okay. You threw a rock at me. I'm throwing a rock at you. What did Gandhi say if we follow an eye for an eye? The world will be blind. The world will be blind. So we're always little, you know, some of them are character flaws and other things.

We're kind of hardwired for them. And so we have to look at these kind of urges, impulses, little demons, whatever we call it, and understand that we have them, but do we let them make our decisions for us? the urge to take revenge when somebody does something you know wrong wrong to us

there's a wonderful story I believe it's Pope John Paul II remember there's a young man who shot him on the shoulder okay the first thing he did when he got out of hospital

was he wanted to go to the prison and visit him and he said I'm here to pray with you. I want to forgive you. Can I pray with you? And a lot of people misunderstand forgiveness. Okay. Forgiveness doesn't mean they became best friends. Right. Forgiveness means that he was living his teachings. He was living his principles. He was living his principles. He was living his beliefs. Okay. I don't want to take revenge on you. Right.

I want to forgive you. A good example of what's possible. So how, how, how, how, again we're at the choosing place do I take advantage where do I choose to stop and think what's for the higher good jealousy another lovely little that we all have yeah okay that we can feed that one oh that can be a really hungry it can sit in a high chair with its mouth open like a baby bird in a nest and tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet me give me another you know

so there's so many of these, you know, aspects of being human that we all share them. We, you know, jealousy envy, you know, revenge, all of these things, we all have the potential for them. And, you know, this dance of power that exists between all of us, there's a dance of power that exists between all of us. There's always people in authority over us, and we will always have some authority over someone else, whether it's our children, whether it's the kids in our classroom, whether it's the congregation in our church, whatever it is. We're always in that dance with it.

And how do we find homeless? How do we find transparency? How do we learn about the choosing place, the place that moment where we can choose? And so back to the list that we have up that I hope to encourage people to, you know, and maybe it is part of their karma that they don't bother to look up where they're going and who they're going to be. Maybe that's part of that conval, that they have this, you know, everybody's having this amazing experience.

I want one. And I'm going to clatter off to the nearest amazing experience. then what do I get to learn about myself? So it isn't just about pointing the finger. There was a big conversation and Jack Cardfield, I have to chapeau, thank you.

I've gained a great teacher for me in his book, you know, after the SEC Laundry. And he talked about, he talks about, he would talk about in person when we were in retreats when he was doing his teaching and he would, and he's written about it.

About both sides have to take responsibility. And he would say, look at all the ethical problems that have happened. You know, there was a Buddhist teacher who was in this closet alcoholic, who was another one who was, you know, having sexual encounters with the disciples or with the, you know, the group. And you can point to him, you can see. And he says, yeah, but are we taking what aren't we? forgetting something, we have to take responsibility.

I watched a a pederino of a large Brazilian church who started traveling throughout North America and certainly I didn't see it here in Canada I saw it and certainly didn't have it in my church. But what I saw was that he started traveling alone. Big mistake. That's a person state.

Okay? And basically people were throwing wine women and song at him. Okay. And this was Jack Cornfield's position, which is we have to take ownership of what we do on our side. Do we hand our power over to people? Do we treat them?

Do we project our higher self onto them? And then expect them to be the all-encompassing, all-loving mummy daddy, authority bigger, God, God-ass that we've longed for. That's very unfair. fair to ourselves, but it's super unfair to the authority figure too. And so on the side of responsible authoritarianism, you have to have everything in place to guard impeccability, responsibility, and ethics.

On the participant side, you have to pay attention that we, as participants, students, are not doing anything that is co-creating. You know, remember that wonderful film, Indiana Jones? Okay, I mean, he's just great in those wonderful watching films. Okay. Do you remember there's one scene, I believe it's in the first film, and there's one scene where he's in the classroom and this kind of dusty, you know, he's a professor in the class teaching archaeology,

and he kind of looks strangely at one of the young women, and she closes her eyes, and she's written on. love you. And I have a lot of colleagues in academia. And I myself have been in situations where you can see, and even in my private practice, where people are approaching you with charm, they're approaching you with flattery, they're approaching you with kind of sexual seductive vibrations. And we need to take ownership of that.

Okay? We just need to own it. what we're doing on our side. Yeah. It's yes, on the other side, the person in authority has to take responsibility for falling into those traps. Because it can be very seductive. Remember the story of Sadatha. He said that's three.

What does marriage? I always love this. Can we talk about this for a couple of months? Please, absolutely. How the temptations that Jesus had were different from the one. the ones that Buddha had. What we find out fascinating is like darkness, Mara, the devil, okay? The tempter, whatever you're going to try.

Now, that plays a very strong role. We have to tip our hand to the dark side that they are only doing what they've been commissioned to do. Okay. But isn't it interesting what they got tempted on? They both got tempted on power. Okay. So what does the, you know, Jesus has been fasting and what does this? is what does Satan come and tempt him with.

He takes them up to the mountain. It's like this could all be yours. Wouldn't you like to have all of this over here? You know, I got to just say the word. Power, just say the word, and it's all yours. Woo, what a trap to fall in. Who wouldn't love that? Okay.

That's like the Matrix film when he says, plug me back in, but it gave me a good life. It would be like a Hollywood producer or something. Big house and big car and stuff. Does he say, Darth, he gets to experience it a little bit, though, when he goes through the idea of being a merchant. Like, he kind of gets to experience having the power in a different sort of way. Yes, but let's just stay with the moment of faith. I find it really interesting.

So, okay, so Jesus gets the power thing, okay? And then what does he get when that doesn't work? He gets the, you're hungry you didn't eat. Okay, so he gets the, you know, survival thing. Oh, like, hey, but it's again, it's a tricky thing because it's trying to reach him through hunger, but it's still about power. You can turn these stones into bread and you can eat. Yeah, but if I can turn them into bread, then I can turn it into honey. Like I turn it into gold and I can turn it into, hey, so it's still about power.

Just the first one didn't work. So I was trying another way of getting in, right? Until finally he gets fed up. Okay, so those are, I think, the two big ones that he's tested. it on and finally gets that up and says, oh, get behind me. I have to ask yourself, he's very interesting. What does he mean by get behind me? We should have Dr. David on for a conversation.

I know. Yeah, yeah. We'll get them. We'll try and we'll try and sort that out in the future, okay? Yeah, absolutely. What does he actually mean by get behind me? Do you really want someone who's tricking you to get behind you? I mean, wouldn't you rather have them in front of you?

Or like, what is that part of this jury about? That's always fascinating. when he says, get behind me. Yeah. You know, the meaning that I have put to it, not wanting to suggest that this is the ultimate meaning of what he was saying, because A, I wasn't there, okay? So I don't know.

He's not here, so I can't ask him. Christ's consciousness, yes, lives inside of me, but that's Christ's consciousness. That's not Jesus, the manifesting as a human being. Okay? So how I understood that is that he didn't want temptation between him and his destiny path. He wanted the path clear in front of him. He was walking forward and he didn't want any obstacles or temptations in front of him on the path.

So when he said, get behind me. It's like, we're done here. Okay, we're done here. Go. We're done. I'm walking my path and nothing that you're going to try and pull me off the path is going to work. So get behind me. I don't fear you.

Nothing you can do to get me all trembling and stop on the path. And so just get behind me. Anyway, that's how I interpret it. If it's helpful to anybody else, I'm super glad. Okay. So back to Buddha. What did he get tempted? Well, according to the stories, okay.

And this opens a whole other conversation too. But about why wasn't Jesus tempted on that? Okay. So what was put a tempted on? Do you remember? Well, I remember when he came upon lust and he saw a woman bathing. And then that was the... Beautiful men.

He was tempted on lost. Okay. Because he, I believe, was celibate, right? Yeah. Although nowhere in the scriptures does it say, nowhere anywhere does it say that Jesus is a celibate. So everybody knows that a rabbi would have been married and had lots of children. Right. That that was the norm, okay, for a rabbi to be married.

But can we kind of guess that maybe he didn't get tempted on that because he was happy? That's no big. Don't bother testing me on that. Any of just a theory, please don't anybody take me the task over this. It's just a thought and it's just a theory. I'll call David Solomon right now. Okay, okay. I'll have a statement.

Oh, no. So here's poor Voda. He gets tempted. He gets tempted on food. He gets, so this is a common one to get tempted through the body, through the body and its needs, okay? He gets tempted on food. He gets tempted on power.

He gets tempted on lost, on beautiful women, okay? And then he gets tempted on fear. Okay, Mark, Pierce him as a huge dark thing and says you're all we're into. Okay. So there's just those little bit of differences of temptations, but if we use that as for all of us, that these guys had to face temptations, challenges, difficult times, right?

Of course we are going to. Of course we're going to. How it's as if, you know, you have children. It's not different from having children. Do you know how children from almost from birth, know all the cracks in your armor? It's like a radar that children have for all your weak points. It's as if they can, before they can talk,

They already know exactly how to get you. Have you noticed that about children? Yeah. I'm a mother and my grandmother. And so we have to accept that our flaws are evident to everyone around us. Okay. And even to tiny young children that they can see them. And so aren't we then behold them to take responsibility for them?

And how can we do that with a sense of humor? How can we do that taking responsibility? How can we do that knowing that we're going to fail a few tests from time to time and that we're going to dust ourselves off and we're going to pick ourselves up and we're going to keep on walking on the path. And so both sides need to take responsibility. We all have to take responsibility for our decisions and for our choosing. And then for the consequences of our choosing, okay, this has to.

happened. These were the consequences. Now how do I manage that for my higher good for my health, my well-being, my higher good? What is the best thing that I can do that is going to help me? And then hopefully maybe my family or others in the community. So speaking up, so people who, you know, we can chapeau to be a lobby, dear friend who throughout the decades I've known her and has been willing to face on the difficult issues and talk about them. write about them and other people in the field who are trying to address the difficult things. And have you noticed how when you try and do that, that you're often, you know, judged and criticized?

So it's an interesting moment in the field. And if we all take part and in the dance that we're in, and learn to understand, ourselves better, and I think that we can make the dance better. Yeah. Maybe the, you know, we often hear that idea that history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, but maybe every time we become better dancer, maybe we're practicing the dance, and this time we don't fall during the dip. Yeah.

And look at how much we have to practice over and over and over things that we're learning, you know, whether we're, you know, in grade one and we're learning to write the alphabet. how many times do we write it until we get a decent enough alphabet going? You know, the times table, two times two is four, et cetera. And so we're always learning. The learning process in life never ends. And we're learning up to our last breath. We're learning about things.

So I just want to do a quick review on eye on the clock and knowing that we'll need to wrap up for today. and it's always a joy to visit with you. And so just to anybody out there listening, whatever you decide to participate in, take the time, please, to ensure your own well-being. Take the time, if you're booking yourself in to go off to some event or some retreat somewhere, please do all your, it's called due diligence. Look into the facts.

Who? What is the organization? Who's running it? What are their credentials and their training? You have the right to ask those questions. Really? You have the right to me. And you should be asking for your own health and what will they be serving? Exactly what will they be serving?

What strengths are they serving? Who prepares you? What does the preparation look like? What is the aftercare or integration or follow-up? they provide material for you. Is there a community event that you can participate? You know, our church has, we have information sessions and we have hymn practices and we have events that people can join in and to ask questions and learn more. You know, we have a resource list for people who find some difficulty.

We've got a resource list of who they can contact for specific help. Some people aren't going to need to go into therapy after we have. therapy after we've drunk a few times. Even a new therapy and we're not a therapeutic center. We say we pray and we meditate, you know. And so what are you taking? How much are you taking, you know? And what are their beliefs?

What are they actually going to be doing in the ritual? It just blows me away. The people go off and do these things. Oh, I'm going to be taking this. And I say, yeah, but what's the ritual? What's the future? And what are the belief systems or the principles of the center? You know, you go on our church website.

The principles are there. The Code of Ethics is there. The visitor screening is there. The history of our practice is there. Links to hymns or videos or whatever. It's all there. This is what you're going to get. Okay.

And so you have to ask those questions. And if people are not asking those questions or if they're not getting good answers, I can't believe how many, you know, of these, I was speaking with somebody just yesterday. who was hoping to do documentary and, you know, peel down through the layers until they found me and our church and my website and what have you. And was thrilled to find that. They said they could not believe how many going to call them hybrid ayahuasca or hybrid medicine, plant medicine circles. Okay. And these hybrid circles, it's the name I've been calling them out of respect because I don't know what people are doing.

And then I don't want to be disrespectful because I don't know, you know. And this individual said, I found so many people. And they have no training. They have no certification. They have no science. They have no nothing to show me. He says, and I came across you, you have all this science. I was like, oh, my God.

You know, that science and spirituality, it has to meet. And so folks out there ask your questions. And that is how you keep your power. And if you are booking into something and they cannot answer you, they cannot tell you what they believe, they cannot say, oh, yes, please, here we have this book or this pamphlet or this. Please on our website, if you go to that, then you can read about our principles.

You can read about our Code of Ethics. If they can't do that for you, then you have to ask yourself why you're going. Does this make sense? Yes? Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, you have questions. seeking answers and why would you go to someone who has more questions than you have, you know, on some level, it comes down to principles. It comes down to the why. Why do I want to do this?

Yeah. Why am I doing this? Yeah, right. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Because my friends did and they had a five years time? Beautiful. Yeah. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Right. Listen, whoever friend who sees a fabulous movie and they come back and say, man, you've got to go see this movie. It's fantastic. Okay, or they find a new restaurant and they see, you know what, everything on the menu was amazing, okay, and the service was terrific. Well, sure, you know, you want to go and try, right? Yeah.

But there's a big difference between going to a new restaurant and going to see a movie and going into a very vulnerable non-ordinary state of consciousness, during which there is a good chance you will not be able to take care of yourself in the way that you can in the ordinary state of consciousness. Yes. So the general rules, the general rules of be mindful of what you're doing becomes even more important in the non-ordinary states. Well, it's been a joy.

Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you. I wish you peace and health and happiness until the next time. And may wisdom continue to grow and blossom in your soul. May the divine light always guide and protect you. And may you and your loved ones be in health and peace. So wonderful.

Ladies and gentlemen, what more could you possibly add to that? Thank you so much everybody who's listening and took part in our conversation. And I want to say thanks again for your time and your thoughts and your wisdom and the books. Iowaska Awakening, everyone who is interested in this conversation, please check out the two guidebooks that she has written. Go to the new website.

phenomenal. Links will be down in the show notes. And ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have a beautiful day. That's all we got for today. Loja. Thank you. Always fun. Yes. Always a great.