TrueLife - Dr. Randall “Healingseed.world” Hansen - The Language of Recovery

Episode Date: July 30, 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/randallshansen.comhttp://www.triumphovertraumabook.com/ I am Dr. Randall Hansen, and I am an educator and advocate for healing trauma -- and helping you a life of truth, health, peace, and joy.Big News! Check out my latest project -- a new book that focuses on a variety of healing stories through psychedelics. Read more about it here: Triumph Over Trauma: Psychedelic Medicines are Helping People Heal Their Trauma, Change Their Lives, and Grow Their Spirituality. Curious about why I wrote the book? Read my Questions & Answers Interview.I am a passionate educator and entrepreneur -- I have taught at the college-level for most of my life and I am also the CEO/CMO and Publisher of EmpoweringSites.com, a collection of websites designed to empower people to lead more successful, happier lives. I am also the founder (and former CEO) of Quintessential Careers, which I sold to LiveCareer in 2015.I have been empowering people my entire adult life -- focused on helping them lead better, richer, happier, and healthier lives. In fact, empowerment is a key part of my professional philosophy statement.HEALING the world is my agenda. My current areas of passion center around healing: nature, food, exercise, prayer/meditation, wellness, love, and psychedelics and entheogenic plant medicines.My new goal in life: Become a superhero for HEALING... and for living a life of joy, peace, and health.I have loved nature and conservation my entire life, including traveling to state and national parks, improving the health of a 40-acre Ponderosa Pine forest, serving on the board of a Conservation District, and volunteering with other organizations that promote good stewardship of our open spaces.Thanks to Jesse Gould of Heroic Hearts Project, I became aware of the healing potential of psychedelic and plant medicines. If you are unaware, we are finally discovering the unique properties of these psychedelics to help people suffering from a variety of conditions, including PTS, addiction, depression, anxiety, cluster headaches, and much more. (The research is so very promising, which is why I am writing the book on the subject.)I recently finished a 2.5-year, criss-crossing nationwide trip in which my wife Jenny and I had two goals: First, we wanted to blog (JenRanAdventures.com) about national wonders (parks, forests, monuments, and the like), organic and natural farms and ranches, and wonderful small cities and towns. Second, we wanted to find the ideal place to live, teach, work -- a community that includes a college with a vibrant business/marketing program for me, a focus on veterans for Jenny, and rural enough so that we could own about 15-30 acres of land -- and we found that in NE Washington, just north of Spokane. We have recently finished building our dream home. (Yes, during the pandemic!)Finally, I am a published author, with several books, chapters in books, and hundreds of articles, both academic and practical. (You can find some of these publications listed/linked here, but also on my EmpoweringSites.com network. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearers 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 Seraphene. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we made it. It's Friday. We're here. Got a great show for you today. I hope the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the wind is at your back. you're back. I got the one and only Randall HealingC. Dot World Hansen, PhD on the show today. I could get into some interesting topics that I think everybody will enjoy. You may have seen

Randall. If you're in the LinkedIn community, I know you're probably a friend of his. You've probably had some long, in-depth conversations with him. But for those who may not know, he's a healing advocate and educator, a thought leader with a goal to help the world heal. Author of the tremendous new book, triumph over trauma, which I highly suggest everybody to take a look at. And one of the many things I really love about Randall is that you can often find him helping others find their healing modalities, whether it's in nature, somatics, psychedelic, spirituality, nutrition, and breathwork. I'm so excited you're here today, my friend, and I can't wait to get into it today.

What's up, Jeff? I see you over there. My friend, thanks for hanging out. How's it going, Randall? Man, Jeff, you're doing double duty today. Yeah, great show. I'm loving it. George, so great to be here again.

I'm out in my outdoor studio because my wife is having an all-day Zoom meeting, so thank God I'm not involved in that one. But when we're in the same office, it can't be in the same place. So I'm enjoying nature, and hopefully the viewers can virtually enjoy a little of the background as well. Yeah, I think it sets a beautiful ambiance. and what a great office you have there, my friend. We were just talking about nature and therapy. It seems like you're surrounded by it.

Yeah, yeah. Everyday gratitude for that because it is. I mean, you take a break from writing or podcasting, whatever, and you look out, and you just see something different every day, whether it's the clouds. Last night I was here, just had my last meditation during golden hour.

And I hear this kind of scratching and kind of breaks my attention. I know bad meditator, bad meditator. But I love animals. So I peaked over the edge and there were two bunnies chasing each other down there. So yeah, healing comes in many ways. And for me, nature has always been probably the primary healing tool for me. Yeah. It's for me, I have to agree.

I think that on some level, when you find yourself in nature, whether you're just taking a walk or maybe you're sitting out on your patio. It's, it's so healing because you get the idea that, you know, you're part of nature. And it really helps solve the problems or at least give you a different aspect of how to solve your problems in your life. If you're just watching the bunnies run and you're like, oh, man, this kind of reminds me of this problem that's been chasing me, you know, and you start thinking about things like that. But just to be surrounded by nature is a great way to get out of your own head. Yeah. Yeah, I found, I started walking many years ago as part of my wellness routine and I found I had to take my phone with me to start recording ideas because

when you're walking, you're not, you know, you're you're blocking out all the stress of whatever day to day and the flow, the thoughts just start flowing. And I find walking and, you know, it was in nature too, but I just find that is just a great combo for, for relaxing, for new ideas, for creativity, for peace. Yeah. Well, it's, I think it's, I think it's, incredibly relevant because, you know, when you're on a walk or when you're outside, you're surrounded by the language of nature, unlike the language we see today that's wrapped around our entire communities, our institutions, and our own reality. We weave our web of reality with the language we use. And I heard you talking a little bit about the language of psychedelic.

Maybe you can unpack that a little bit. Well, you know, I, I've been thinking about it for a while. And then you had Rick Barnett, Dr. Rick Barnett on. He was talking about the ineffable, the ineffability of being able to talk about the psychedelic experience. And then that just got me thinking about. And then even I think Tom mentioned in this podcast with Jeff something about language. I can't remember what that context was. But it just hit me like, yeah, we're all. And it's kind of funny.

We're talking about these things. and sort of talking around them because we don't have a good language to really discuss the psychedelic experience. So that's definitely something. And I know, George, you with your crazy brain have some ideas on that as well. So I'm looking forward to that. And maybe picking up on a few other things, too, as we go along. Sure. Yeah.

it's fascinating to me. You know, I wrote down a quote that was something along the lines of. Language can be both a prison and a key to unlock new world as it constructs the boundaries of our understanding, opens doors to new possibilities. And when I started thinking about that, and when I was talking yesterday to Ben, the producer of Psych 23, you know, we got a little bit into what we're talking about today. And that's this idea that, you know, maybe the world of this kind of constraining psychedelics, this constraining limiting use of language that sees it only as fragility or that sees it maybe on the aspect of,

you know, it's fun, it's cool, and it's a magic pill. Like I think that in some way, this echoes the world of the world we live in, you know, and it's, it might not be a bug. It might be a feature. Like it might be a way to keep psychics. psychedelics in its own little cage until you can figure out how to centralize it, how you can create supply chains, and you can keep it pinned away. Maybe that's what's going on. What's your take on that? You know, I look at the world of psychedelics, and I think it's definitely a challenge

we have in separating this industry from, say, the pharmaceutical industry, where, again, if you saw my post a couple days ago, I'm kind of on this kick again where I'm a cheap, a cheap person, or a frugal person, as Bill Baker likes to say. So I'm a frugal person. So I buy the streaming service with ads because I don't want to pay the full price. And half the ads are pharmaceutical ads, at least half of pharmaceutical ads. And I swear they all must have the same writer, director, because it's always the same thing. It's always, you know, here's the amazing things I can do in my life.

I have a happy family. I can play volleyball. I've never shot an archery, but I just got a perfect, you know, into Target and all these great things. And I'm singing and I'm dancing and I'm biking. And then the second half the commercial is, you know, beware of stroke, cancer, death, blah, blah, blah, blah. you know and all these side effects right and but the gist you walk away with magic pill and the problem we have and i think someone mentioned this in the um this first half of the double header today someone mentioned you know psychedelics aren't a magic pill but that again that's

that language issue because psychedelics can be amazing they can be an amazing healing tool we both know that and many others do, but it's work. And I think we have to develop another, not a different language, but a different way of thinking, philosophy, something that still touts these benefits without making it like these pharmaceutical commercials and say, oh, it's all going to be happy days after you take your first psychedelic experience, because as we know, it's not always happy days and it sometimes takes multiple healing journeys to get to a point of healing. And it always takes the work.

You have to do the integration work. It's not just a pill and I'm done and life is beautiful again. So yeah, I don't know how we get, I don't know if that's, if that's language or if that's philosophy or if that's framing or something. I don't know. What do you think about that? Well, it's great. And I love the direction.

So I think that the language that we're using, it's like, fractal of society. It's like, think about legacy code. Okay, I'm going to jump up, I'll take it back to psychedelics, but think about the way a programmer has to deal with legacy code. A programmer today goes back in and like, I don't even know what happened. I don't speak Ruby on the rails, or I don't speak, you know, this old Java.

Like, I don't even know what that means. So we're constantly putting a patch with this new code on top of this old code. But you fast forward like 40 or 30 or 20 years, no one even knows what the heck happened. And they don't even know why the person did that because they don't understand that language. I think that there's a lot of that happens in the world of medicine, the world of law in our society. If you look at the way we pass bills, it's like bills, built on bills, built on bills. And it's framework, built on framework, built on framework.

But you can't undo this framework up here because there's a guy way down here who has a patent that won't allow you to do it. So that's why you have to build this patch. And I think that the entire medical system, whether the clinical trials, all that's built on this faulty infrastructure. And so that's why there's the language around it. That's why when you watch a medical commercial or a pharmaceutical commercial, they just go strictly either for fear or love or they go straight for an emotional trigger. It's because they're not really trying to sell you a medicine's going to heal you. They're trying to sell you something that's going to make you feel good. And in that language, that's what it actually does because they don't need, it seems to me, that the science in clinical trials, and this takes us back to psychedelics is in the medical model today, you know, they don't really need to prove a whole lot.

They just need to prove that it seems like it has a good effect. It just needs to seem like that. You know, they're not measuring everything. And we see that in clinical trials with psychedelics. you know, what, they don't measure what they can't, they don't measure the subjective. They want to put all that to the side. And let me give people an example of what's subjective. If you have PTSD and you take psychedelics and a month later, your family is crying tears of joy because they know you're better,

they don't measure that in clinical trials. That's not in there. If the tears of your mother crying because her son has came back to life is not a fair and attributable. thing to being healthy? I don't know what is. But science is like we're not going to measure that. Why not? Why don't you measure that? We don't have the tools. It's like in science and math, we don't have the tools to measure non-Euclidean space. So we just pretend it's not a thing. It's the same thing in clinical trials. Medicine refuses to measure that which they can't understand. And I think that psychedelics

bring spirituality back in there. And spirituality is a component we should measure. I know It's kind of a long-winded way of saying that. But it's all about language, right? Yeah, I love it. I want to come back to that last statement you made. But first, I want to come back because I love what you said because this is something I wish everyone could hear. So let's put George Monty on the mountain and have these, yeah, every one of these prescription

ads we see, it's not about healing. It's about symptom management. And yes, that's a good thing. I mean, if you have migraines, heck, yes, I want you to have symptom management so you don't have to be in a dark room for three days or something like that. But for depression or PTSD or anxiety or OCD, who wants to live a life where I'm simply managing the symptoms? Right. I want to heal, you know? I want to have a life like you talked about.

I want to be that veteran that, yeah, the family says, oh, my God. God, he's back or she's back. And so I think we have to somehow break both that ingrained sense. I also saw a reaction to my post about that where this woman said, oh, yeah, I hate all those ads. And I would never do any of those. She said, unless my doctor told me to take one, I was like, no, no, you're missing the point.

good, but that brings in the other half the equation, which is, you know, many of the, many of our Western doctors are just symptom managers. They're not the true healers. And that, again, that's what most of these prescription drugs are, are symptom management, not healing. And so, but psychedelics are healing if you do, or back that up, psychedelics help you heal if you do the work involved with it because it's involved in in really doing that inner work that you I think that was the last part you were talking about so yeah you know it it allows you to do inside yourself and actually you know that there's a line we all talk about you know we are all our own healers we have the healing within us and that's true we do but if we have trauma you know with especially childhood

trauma you know we spend all our life blocking it not looking within you know you we talk about that, you know, we fracture ourselves. And so that's another piece of that language. How do we convey that trauma fractures us? And as much as we might try to pretend to be whole and healthy, we're not because we are, we are wearing masks or we're pushing stuff down. And so psychedelic, but also meditation, breathwork, allows us to do that, that inner work. in a safe environment rather than that scared child or that scared adult that had that

trauma. Yeah. I see a pattern here. And, you know, when I, when you talk about us being fragmented or broken down, on some level, I almost think that that's what culture in our society does and that's how it works. It seems to me, and this, you know, forgive me if this sounds a little bit too woo-woo, but, you know, we live in somewhat of an authoritarian system. And we always have, whether it was the monarchy back in the day.

And the best way to control people is to keep them in fear. You know, and maybe we should get into this idea of fear in language. But let me just stay on this premise of where we're at. What if, what if it's not a bug? What if it's a feature? Like, think about the media that comes out. It's like, you're going to go to war. You're all going to die.

No one's going to work. You guys all suck. Black people hate white people. afraid of gay people like just constant bombardment of fear that is out there to scare you it's there to fragment you it's there to make sure that when you go to work you don't ask for more money it's there when you get up and you you wake up you're like oh man i got to leave my family for 14 hours because i got to put food on the table i shouldn't i shouldn't say what's on my mind because i don't want to get in trouble think about the way we go to school kids go to school and they sit in front of a classroom

where they have an authoritarian figure and it's based on pavlovian whistles and bells and We're taught at a young age to be fearful. And so much of the people coming into psychedelics that are breaking through PTSD that have generational trauma are confronting that fear. And I think that that's something that's happening with our language. Like we're beginning to change our language from retreats to confrontation. And I think it's a beautiful thing. And I think it speaks volumes of where we are in our life with substances. And maybe we can move into this idea of we are changing from marijuana to medical cannabis.

We are changing from, hey, instead of this weed being called white widow weed, now I'm going to turn the label and I'm going to see the Terps on there. I'm going to see the THC content on there. We are growing as people and it's being reflected in our language. I think that's a very positive thing that's moving for. What's your take on that, that whole aspect? I agree. I mean, as an educator, advocate, I, I, I, I, as an educator, advocate, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, believe in many of the things you say. I want to just go back for one second because I love your

comment about fear-based and so much of it is. And we also, you know, for lack of a better word, I would say oftentimes I feel like our government is paternalistic. Sure. I don't need another dad telling me what to do. But that's, I mean, that's what it is. I mean, you know, you can only do this, you can do that, you can do that. And I think that's what scared the government in the late 60s and early 70s is like, whoa, we're losing control. We better rain in these great medicines because people are all sudden realizing, hey, there's a greater life out here that's not involved with going to war or the government or any of that. And I think that, you know, maybe that's should be part of the message, George, because, you know, I've been working on healing.

I've talked about, you know, triumph over trauma. And I think maybe some of those words trauma, even healing, which I think is a positive word, I think maybe that scares people because of that, because of this culture of fear. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe we need to say something like not lose all your fear, but, I mean, it has to be something like that. We need to find a linchpin that people understand in this cultural setting as you're talking about. this language that we have, because healing, they still think go to the doctor.

Yeah. And trauma is something we don't talk about or something that didn't happen to me because, you know, I've lived this great life. And I believe with Dr. Peter Levine and Dr. Gabor Matei that we all have experienced trauma, whether we know it or not. A lot of it's childhood trauma, some of it's intergenerational, some of it as adults. And it affects us. And that trauma actually helps fuel the fear within us.

That does work in tandem because if we're traumatized, we already are fearful of it, you know, something happening like that again. Add to that the fear of our culture. And you really, yeah, I mean, wow. we need to figure out a way to change that language for sure George well I think your I think your book has has your book is awesome and I think the people who haven't read triumph over trauma should definitely check it out but as I was thinking about it today in the conversation we're having now you know one of the one of the side effects of overcoming trauma

is wanting to make sure is wanting to understand why it happened yeah and people who face it their traumas begin to have the confrontation with fear. And so, you know, on some level, the side effect of trauma is standing up to the people or situations that caused it. And this gets us right back to what you said about what happened, you know, in the last round of this sort of psychedelic waves that are happening. And you know what?

If we're being honest with ourselves, in some ways, you know, maybe what we just saw with psychedelic 2023, maybe we're like in the late 50s. And all of a sudden, like just you and I having this conversation about, wait a minute, what are we doing out here? We should be moving back out of the fields, man. We should be finding ways to live our best life. Maybe what we're seeing right now is a slow creep into the 60s right here where just our language alone talking about facing fears could be something that begins to scare the people

in the positions of authority that if you look at the fact, hey, workplace participation rate is at its lowest. At some point in time, the people that run that are going to be like, how do we get these people back to work? Why are they not working? Why are they not working for the amount of money that we give? Like, what's the problem here? You know, pretty soon these dirty hippies or these dirty psychedelic people, you know it? In some ways, you know, if you just squint your eyes a little bit, you can begin to see that whole little rotation going again. I don't know, man.

Is that too crazy? It's cool. I mean, I hope so because I love live your best life. And if that wasn't used by like 10 pharmaceuticals, I would love to steal that. But see, that's the problem with our vocabulary again. I mean, this is what psychedelics do. Almost every person that I've talked to that is healed, not just through psychedelics, but even healing in other ways, have almost all changed their career path, their job,

looked at their career and job in a totally different perspective. because yeah, now that job that I was working 10 hours in a two-hour commute each way, and I was paying for the bills and all that. All of a sudden I realize now, man, that's a shit job. Why am I working it? You know? And I want to help people. I mean, that's the other cool thing I love about the psychedelics is that, or healing, I should.

But psychedelics is one of the main ways, is that when we heal, we, we. then turn around and say, how can I help others? And I, and I, again, not to, not to give you a big pat in the back or make you embarrassed. But again, I just love with you what you're, this, you're an example of this. You know, you, you know, you had a fine job and all that, typical of all of us, probably not the great bosses that we would love to have. But then as you heal, and as you also expand with this podcast, you say, well, that's job. job's not serving me anymore. Yeah.

And how can I get my voice and the voice of this beautiful spectrum of guests that you have? How can I get that out to the world and help other people, you know, feel that, feel that love, feel that healing? And so I think that's fantastic. Back to Larry Richards for a second, because I also want to pick your brain and maybe even whoever's still on their brains about skeptics because. Yeah. back to language. So I have a brother-in-law, and we talk about having these awkward conversations about psychedelics with your family and friends. So I was visiting him last year, and he didn't want to talk about psychedelics at all.

And so I thought, well, maybe I'll break it more gently by talking about cannabis. because cannabis is also certainly a master plant and has many healing benefits. And throughout the whole conversation, we actually did have a somewhat conversation about this, but it was all about marijuana, the marijuana, the marijuana. And I'd say, oh, you mean the cannabis, cannabis. And he's like, marijuana. And I'm like, well, if you're trying to meet me halfway here, you know, marijuana. Some say it's a racist term. If it's, even if it's not a racist term, it is certainly

part of the war on drugs. That was, you know, the evil marijuana. Yeah. So again, that's just changing the language a little bit. Cannabis is actually the name of the plant. So why don't we just call it by the, you know, he's this big, you know, science thinker type person. So I'm like, well, this is the scientific name. So you should, especially you should be calling it that. So I think language does play a role in how we do this. And I know medical marijuana sounds nice and all that. But medical cannabis, as you said, it's just rolls off the tongue just as well. I also love that one of my cannabis people posted a meme that said, all cannabis use is medicinal.

And I'm sure some of the, you know, maybe recreational users love that meme. But it's true in the sense that just like psychedelics, you know, yes, I am a strong proponent of the intentional use for healing. But so many people have talked to, you know, have done, did psychedelics recreationally as a kid or not as a teenager or young adult and or maybe still doing today? And they're still getting the benefits. That's the cool thing about these plants that, again, I'm not saying, you know, everyone should be doing recreational. psychedelics or cannabis, but these plants are so healing that they'll work even if you're not setting an intention to do that work. They're not going to maybe do the healing part, but they'll do some of the other cool stuff in your brain. And for me, cannabis is a pain reliever.

So if I'm taking it recreationally one day, all of a sudden, oh yeah, my knee feels great now and I can go an extra five miles on this hike. So, you know, I think that's part of the language too because, you know, for so long, these have been called drugs. And yes, they are drugs. But that's why, you know, we're trying to use medicines, you know, again, language. But medicines maybe aren't the right word because now then it starts getting into the pharmaceuticals and, you know, we just talked about how we hate all those ads.

And I, you know, some people call them substances. but, you know, there's another word. What could we call them that fits what we feel they are? Because in my mind, they are medicine. But then medicine has, you know, kind of a mixed bag of connotation. So what do you think? I think we can go with, like, exogenous neurotransmitters. Yes, that rolls off the time quite well.

Why not? Like, if you look at the way, way they interact inside the brain, they're doing the same thing a neurotransmitter does. Yeah. And if we can't, if people would permit me this little, a lot of people believe in the big bang, but why not, if we're going to believe in some sort of creation myth, why don't we believe that maybe we don't come into this world, maybe we come out of it? And if we're part of this planet, why wouldn't we have exogenous neurotransmitters that help us see the world in a way that's different? Why wouldn't we have substances or medicine or plants that help us understand what

nature is trying to tell us. And I think that's what's happening. Like if anybody who has used cannabis or used mushrooms thoroughly begins to feel the connection with nature the way in which they once felt a connection to their mom in the womb, like you're connected to it. And this particular bridge is something that shows you that. It allows you to walk down this bridge and become this oneness that we often talk about, this non-duality that's there. And I think that medicine is a limiting description of psychiatics. It looks like it's so one-dimensional. And that takes us back to, hey, maybe it's not a bug.

It's a feature. If we classify it as medicine, now all of a sudden we can use the framework of centralization. We can use the framework of supply chain. You know, once we put it into that box, we can limit it and market it and sell it. And that brings me to this idea of like, why do we even need, like, I don't understand why we need to figure out what's going on in the brain with it. It works. And, you know, if you start drilling down on some of these incredible people who have spent, and I love them all.

I'm so stoked there's people out there that are doing the work to find out what happens with the 2A receptor. But what do we know? We don't know that much. After millions of dollars and after thousands of hours, we don't know that much. But we do know it works. We know that much. So, you know, why are we using our language and why are we using our tools to not move forward? It's like we have this awesome tool in our hand.

but rather than use it, we're trying to figure out the best way it fits in our hand. Hey, let's start using the tool. Right? That's actually very brilliant. I love that. Yeah, I agree with you. All the scientists that are doing the research in the brain and, you know, I love that neuroplasticity part of it.

And, you know, my focus is more on the healing part, but, and I kind of sometimes, skip over the spiritual part and the transformational part of it because to me it's all part of the healing. You can't, in my mind, you can't have that spiritual connection to that oneness to the divine, to the source, to whatever, unless you are healed. But you're right, it's not, I agree with you. I'm not hung up on the how. I love seeing it.

I love seeing those brain scans. but I'm more focused on the outcome like, whoa, you're a different person today than you were last week, last month, because of the healing. And so, yeah, wow. But how do we, so, okay, I agree with all that. But, you know, my brain is, still, how do we package that in a way that people understand, and separate from the medical model, separate from anything else have heard,

and also going against all the lies have heard, you know, on the war in drugs, how do we do that? And Dr. Matea, I was listening to a podcast. She taught about recovery. We have to recover. Everyone needs a recovery journey. And to me, that sounds too much like an addiction aspect.

you know, whenever I think about recovery, I think of someone recovering from an addiction. So I don't know if that's the right word. I don't think it is. But I'd love to find it. And one more thing before I forget, George, I love what you said about the nature because I watch this documentary. And I'm looking out outside of my property right now. And there are all these native weeds, as we call them today, all these native plants. I see Yarrow, St. John's Wart.

other ones that all have healing medicinal powers that we've all lost. Yeah. I mean, we could heal ourselves just by walking through nature and pulling certain plants if we know this one needs to be smoked or this one needs to be made into a tea or this one does, you, whatever. And so nature does provide for us. And that's what these plants, you know, do for us. They, they heal us.

But how do we get that across when we're so deep? disconnected from nature today. Well, I think the first part is being aware, and I'm glad you said that. Isn't it interesting that you can look out right now to the side of your house and see all these plants that heal us? But instead of us going out there and using those plants, we try to pick those plants, put them in a lab, decipher what's in them, and then make a synthetic version of them, and then test it on people to see if it's the same thing and that they work.

And what are we doing? Just use the plant. It's right there. I know. So, but there's a lot of great comments. in here. And let's, we're going to get back to language and we're definitely going to get back to the idea of skepticism. But let's go through these here because I'm so stoked to have these people here. Yeah, I love seeing all these. Yeah, thank you to everybody. Let's, let's see what we got here.

Obviously, we got Jeff starting everything off. He started us off with a double header, him and Tom. Thank you guys. Great show this morning. Yeah, it was great. We got the incredible Salisha Abbas, who's, uh, if you don't know what she's up to, Google her right now. Or just go on LinkedIn and see what she's going. She's weaved this web of being an esthetician and psychedelics, which I think is another way that fits into what we're doing, Rand. I think that, you know, beginning to see people branch out into the world of estheticians and cosmetics. And, you know, it's a, it's a treatment that goes well with psychedelics, like so much of it. It's a pretty incredible tributary, right? Yeah. We got Aliana. I think I'm saying her name right here. The marketing guru right here, incredible woman.

back to Jeff. Here we got one from Emma Sissanaro. Emma, thank you so much for an EMDR therapy. That's a great. What do you know about EMVR? I don't know much about it. I know that it's an it. Some people use that for PTSD, post-traumatic stress.

It's just another way of, again, trying to get into that conscious state and, kind of disarm the default mode network so that you can then. see again it's similar to a psychedelic experience in the sense of you're you're allowed to go kind of remove all the stimuli and just get to that trauma and it's almost like not like watching a film strip but you just see the experience and you move through it so I think again for those that are still afraid of psychedelics for whatever reasons and you know some people will just be afraid in general that EMDR is definitely a good method for for dealing with trauma as well yeah good way to get in and get

you know maybe kind of get into the water a little bit and see how you feel about it yeah I think so Lori Lori I if you could see my desk I have all these papers around me and like I they're all little like notes. So I'll write like four or five keywords. And I try at first I'll memorize the quote and then I'll just put up a note and then I'll paraphrase from that. So I probably didn't quote it exactly right. But I have found that if you read something and then just make like four keywords, your brain will fill in the gaps there. Sometimes it's pretty humorous, but I highly recommend it. Thank you. Two quick comments on that. First, more thank you. One is sometimes when I watch George on the podcast, he does this. And I swear he has notes on his ceiling too. I think he really

does. But the other interesting thing, just a geeky educational comment, there's a whole body of literature called writing to learn. And there's a real truth of that. If you read something and you just write a couple notes and then you maybe write it again and maybe one more time, that's a great memory technique. Your brain does, it does get stuck in your brain. So, you know, a lot of us don't write anymore because it's all on, you know, devices.

but that old-fashioned way still works. Good. Yeah. Thanks, Lloyd. Yeah, that's awesome. The more modalities you use, like, if you think it, if you write it and you say it out loud. Yep. Or maybe you could even sing it.

Like, if you just did those four things, you'd probably remember it way better, right? I'm just pitching myself seeing some of these things. I love it. Oh, Celicia's got a great one here. I love this conversation. And sorry to have to hop off. I love your comments on language. Yes, psychedelics have a huge potential to help a lot of people, but they are not a panacea.

And much be appreciated intentfully and carefully. Can't we to catch up with the rest later? Thanks, George and Randall. Thank you, Celija. It's always a pleasure to have you on and hear your thoughts. And we're stoked on what you're doing as well. Can I just say something? Anytime, please.

Yeah, yeah. So I have a friend close to me that is going through some bad stuff. and but she's playing the victim. She is, she's not ready for that healing. So she's been, she's definitely been traumatized, especially even more recently lost her house, lost her car, lost custody of her child. She's problem has alcohol disorder, alcohol use disorder, and now is moving on to some other worse drugs.

And I want to help her, but I can't, because. because she's blaming everybody else, she's blaming society. She thinks all she needs is a hand up to get back on her feet, not even mentioning all the bad stuff going on. And so I just want to mention that in terms of this also because we talk about, yes, psychedelics, you have to be intentional.

Yeah. But you can't get to that point until you admit your reality, you know, that my, I don't like my reality anymore. And it could be something as small as I don't like my job anymore. That's a piece of that puzzle that we're, you know, from day one, you know, the first, one of the first questions people ask us when we're kids is, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Yeah. And so that that's ingrained in our heads. Work, work, work, work, work. And so I think that's one little piece of the healing journey that maybe you're not even on that journey yet, but all of a sudden you realize, wow, I don't like this job. It's not fulfilling me. Maybe that's part of it. Or it's a realization that, yeah, I just lost my apartment and my car.

And there's something seriously wrong here. And I need to look at this. I need to figure out what's going on. So, yes, every healing journey has to start with is kind of a realization of that you have a problem. But then I agree with Salicia 100% that, yes, as we talked about earlier today, you know, it's not a magic pill. it can work amazing things that we've both experienced, but you have to do it intentional and you have to do the work afterwards. It's not just take it and have the fun experience.

So anyway, blah, blah, bah. Thank you. Yeah. No, I feel it. I think, look, if I'm honest with myself, I've been down that road. I found myself being angry and blaming people and afraid. And, you know, when you do that, in some ways, I think the world takes things away from you because it wants you to understand that you have to face it.

And you're going to lose everything. Fear will take everything from you until you stand in front of it. But the beauty of it is, all you have to do is stand in front of fear to scare it. If you stand up to fear, fear will get smaller. If you stand up to fear, it'll shrink down. If you stand up to fear, you'll see your image in it. You'll see your reflection in it. and it won't be as scary.

And pretty soon all those things will come back. To your friend who's lost everything, I'm so sorry. Like, I got goosebumps. And I know, I know what it's like to be scared and fearful. But if you just take one step forward, I promise you, all those things can come back. And they can come back in ways that you've never imagined. But you have to be willing to hold the space for yourself and be like, look, what am I doing wrong? Ask that question.

And like, what can I do this right? And stop. Like, it's really hard because it's, It's really easy to look at everyone else, oh, they had help or someone help them or why can't that happen to me? Like, it can happen to you. But you have to be willing to help yourself before anyone else will help you, help you. But there's tons of people will rush in to help you if you begin helping other people.

Exactly. Yes, love that. I was going to say, I just want to echo that. Yes. Once you take that first step and say, hey, I need help, you'll be amazed at how many people come in, especially those of us that, you know, have found healing, want to help people. So yeah, so I love that. What am I doing wrong? Yeah. And, and what ideas do you have that might help me and go from there. Yeah. That's why I think on some level, look, when people are ready

for psychedelics, I think psychedelics allows you, you know, part of the problem there, at least for me, was that it's so much that you don't want to confront it. And when you don't want to confront it, and when you don't want to confront it, the world crashes in on you. And psychedelics gives you a, a gentle way to begin seeing it. Like, in my opinion, psychedelics helps you understand it's not your fault. And when you understand that part, it gets easier to look at it like, oh, okay, this is a situation I can fix. Instead of just crushing myself, instead of just beating myself up until I'm a bloody pulp and hating myself, why don't I look and see if there's some little things I can do to fix it? And it just shifts your focus from blaming yourself and hating yourself so much. And so much of people that

find themselves down and out are finding themselves in self-hatred and stuff like that. And like, there's no, there's no way out of that. Like it's a, it's a self-destructive manner. And it breaks my heart because I know what it feels like. And we've all seen people in our lives that have gone through there. But there's a way out. There's a way out. There's, I promise you, there's a way out. Yes. It's definitely a way out. And I love your, also your thing about fear. And it made, it may be all sudden when you said that it made me think about bullies and the same thing you face that bully and many times they back away because it's all bluff it's all it's all it's all they're insecure they're afraid and so they're putting up this big thing and you and you and you stand up to them the same

thing fear fear is doing that same thing you know oh if you don't take you know this this pill you know this is going to happen to you or whatever and it's fear fear fear and if you just face up to it, well, let me look, let me do the, let me look at the research. Oh, no, I don't need to take that pill or I don't need it. So yeah, so facing up, I think is brilliant, George, if we can just be brave enough. Because it is, it does take sometimes bravery, you know, to say, especially if you're that far down. Yeah. To be able to say, wait a second, this is BS. You know, I don't need, this fear is crushing me. And it doesn't, you know, nine-tenths of it are, is, is, is, is, is BS.

It's not real. And so how do I fix that? So I love that. Yes. Yeah, it reminds me of, I think a lot of the answers to our life have been written in mythology. And when I hear people that have fallen far, I think of the hero's journey. And I honestly believe the further you fall, the bigger your hero arc, right?

Because when we look at the stories, like, it's this person that had stuff. And then they fell to the bottom. You're like, oh, they're done. But then when they come back, like it's ingrained in every one of our souls. I think it's written on our hearts that we love a comeback. Everybody loves a comeback. Everybody loves to see the bad news bears. Everybody loves to see that person that should never be at the top.

Get there and stay there and excel. And so in some ways, if you can harness that, if you can just dig down deep and read the scripture on your heart, you have the instructions to do it. And I think that people that find themselves in the bottom, as hard as it is down there, maybe what's happened is you've been put in the forge and everything bad about you has been burned away so that you can rise as the phoenix and become better than you've ever been. Like maybe that's what it means.

Maybe you're in a process of becoming the best human being that's ever been born. You begin to look at it like that, like, okay, I've had all the fat burned away from me. I've had all the troubles burned away from me. Now I can begin at the beginning and now I can build the world I've always wanted for myself. And I think that's a good way to start seeing it

at that bottom down there. I love that. As you were talking, I immediately said Phoenix Rising and then you said it, darn it all. But yeah, perfect. I think that's right. That Phoenix Rising is a beautiful imagery. You know, hard to see when you're at the bottom. But to have that, to be able to clutch on to some hope like that is awesome.

And yeah, I think we all do want, love the underdog, love. Yeah. And I love that idea of hope for people that, yeah, it's like that rubber band. It's stretched all the way down. You're so far, but it's going to snap higher. You know, it's going to fly you up there to a much better life. Yeah. Yeah, I agree 100%.

We got our good friend Bob in here. He's, he, let me see. We'll start with this one. This is from the beginning of our conversation when he said, I agree with Randall that this has to be addressed. I see a couple of things that have to be addressed. There isn't enough information about aftercare or downside. What do you think about that? I agree.

I, you know, I think I can't remember if I told her. George, but when I first got into psychedelics, people were, oh, yeah, you go to retreat and, you know, you have a couple integration circles and you're done. Wow, that almost sounds like a magic pill, you know? Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, as I got more involved in psychedelics, I was like, I was looking at it. And, you know, no, the key part of this whole process is the work, is the integrate, what we call the integration. And maybe that needs a new word, too. I don't know. And I think any healing,

whatever modality you use, you need to integrate. What is this new insight mean? How does it fit into my new plan of life and what's going on? And so, you know, my, you know, now when I talk to people about psychedelics, I said, you know, just be prepared to integrate really the rest of your life because it's not a one and done or four and done or whatever because, first of all, you have new experiences that are happening every day in your life and you might have some other traumas that happen to you, small, large, whatever. And so it's not just psychedelics and done. And then the aftercare also is, you know, if you have a challenging experience, you know,

that needs a lot more integration because there's that fear again. You know, oh, I thought I was avoiding fear. Now I'm having this crazy challenging experience. And, you know, George, I think just talking about our language thing now is just off the cuff. But I wonder how much of that fear that we store within us from this culture, from society, from media, from our parents, along with that trauma, if that doesn't also help in a negative way, a challenging experience in a psychedelic journey, because we've had discussion with people

that have set their intention, you know, the setting was perfect, everything was all there, they went in, and they still had, you know, images they never want to see again in their lives or things like that that are that were challenging to them. My thing, of course, is sometimes they call them bad trips. I'm like, no, no, that's again, the drug war talk. It's called a challenging journey.

But those people need aftercare. And so again, I do, you know, as we look at the bigger picture of psychedelics and how people do psychedelics, if the psychedelic guide model still exists down the road after things get rescheduled and or decriminalized, I think one of the things that all psychedelic facilitators have to do ethically is have a package or something of many integration sessions, not just two after the session or some have three or four. I think you need to have that. So I agree that there is that. And again, that's moving away from this idea that it is a magic pill because it's not. It is going to take the work.

And, you know, even if you do journeys four times, a year or however many times again all that work you just got to keep doing the work you got to have to keep doing that integration yeah it's well said yeah you know sometimes i think the integration like i love the idea that you have to keep doing the work because the integration is is an ongoing relationship with the psychedelic substances and it's yeah it's not just taking it and then thinking about what happened for a while. It's like each one is a step. So you take a step up and then you pause.

You take a step up and then you pause. But each time you take a psychedelic substance, I think you're building on the momentum of the last one. And that's why it's apparent to have a relationship. So the integration is never done. You know, in some ways it seems to me that a psychedelic retreat center is like a dip in the shallow end and they should be they should be set up as like a maybe they should be like a kindergarten you know a retreat center is like a kindergarten like you go there to learn the ABCs of

psychedelics and you get a little bit there but ultimately I think that the people that really need help are going to need to go to something vastly superior to a retreat center they're going to need long-term work with a health professional that thoroughly understands the problem they're going through who has probably gone through the same problem. Yeah. But the retreat centers are a great place for people who are curious to begin to understand what a journey with this substance may look like. So yeah, I do. I think that the, and that's a process that we can look to the future to see that they can help people. And I see it unfolding in ways that it can be beautiful. And I'm hopeful and thankful that it can move in that

direction. Yeah. And just to tie into what you just said, remind me, you know, second Back to the 60s, LSD was being used by many thousands of psychologists and psychiatrists to help with the therapy sessions. And so I see that as part of the model in the future as well. Yeah. You know, having someone to help give you a framework for discussing these things if you don't have that. And my, I would love to see that be sort of that same thing as you talked about the retreat center. The retreat center is the start of that.

But same thing with talk therapy, but then maybe after they get enough of that, they can then start doing that own work on their own. And I know many people, George, I know you do too, that do the psychedelic work on their own. Yeah. But I think it has to get to, you have to get to a point first. Sure. You know, it's not safe until you learn the ropes. Yeah. How to deal with what these substances do, how long a journey is going to take, you know, what things you want to have around you in your setting to make sure it's safe.

and all these things. So, but I think, yeah, then it, then it has to be, I think in an earlier podcast, we talked about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So I think,

you know, I never quite grasped that self-actualization before psychedelics. Because I always thought, how do you get to that point? Because he talks about that point where you basically give, you know,

you've achieved this, this self, enlightenment and and you have this sense of we are all connected. We're all one and this wanting to be in a service to give back. And, you know, I looked at our culture, our society. I'm looking at Maslow's hierarchy. I'm like, I get the social needs. I get the, you know, some of the other steps in the process, but it's self-actualization.

But I think with healing, with psychedelics, that's a place we can finally get to and finally understand and understand ourselves maybe for the first time since we were infant or not maybe not infant, since we were children, you know, that we now really understand our core selves like we never have in 50 years, 40 years, whatever, however old you are. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, it's sometimes I wonder, like, when we look back at the way and way, there's a lot of literature that says in some indigenous cultures, only a handful of people would really take the psychedelics, you know, like there may be ceremonies where people go from adulthood to manhood or from adulthood to womanhood where they take them once or twice. But, you know, in a lot of literature, it says that there's a handful of people that take them and that they help the community move through. And sometimes, like, as, you know, you and I and so many people in this community, we're so locked into this. Like, we eat, breathe and sleep it. Like, we're like, it can do this.

It can do that. Look, look at that. You know, maybe it is for a handful of people. And maybe this is a handful of people. You know, like we want everyone to experience what we're experiencing. But the truth is when you get outside a few of the ripples, people are afraid. They're scared. They are comfortable.

And maybe, you know, on something. level, maybe it's not for us to decide what people should do. And I like, it's, I juggle with that because I'm like, I think it could help so many people. And I really think it would totally benefit all these people. But then, you know, after I think about that or I pull in that thread long enough, I'm like, who am I to tell those people they need that? Maybe they, maybe they don't, man. Maybe it would. Maybe it would help them, but maybe they're fine. So it's a weird sort of dichotomy we're looking at, right? Yeah, I, I get that. I mean, I, I, I, I, with this book and the new book I'm working on,

it's that same, it's that same struggle. Like, you know, who am I to say you should be healing, you know? But, but I think it's also, it's almost like this obligation I feel. Yeah.

And yeah, no, I'm not going to twist someone's arm. Here, take a mushroom. But, but, but I, so I think, you know, another way, maybe it's not language at all. Maybe it's something like psychedelic science or maybe it's like this podcast or maybe it's a thousand podcasts where it's not the words we're saying, but how we're seeing ourselves, expressing ourselves, being seen because, again, how do you describe healing to someone who feels

like they're totally fine? You can't. So there are, again, maybe they're, so let's pull that back a little bit. Maybe they're just not ready. not in the way my friend is that she's ready she's just not I mean she's desperately needs one she's just not ready in that sense but then there are others that say oh I'm perfectly fine you know oh yeah I you know I was molester as a kid but I'm over that maybe and if you are wonderful not going to be amazing I don't know I'm a I'm a

survivor and I know many others who are survivors of that and I can say I'm now over it. I don't, I, 20 years ago, I could lie and say I was over it. And I definitely was not because I was saying to everyone around me, oh, yeah, I'm over it. And then I was going out and getting drunk and doing stupid things and passing out in my truck. And so, you know, that's clearly, I'm not healed. It was screaming to me, but I wasn't looking at it.

Because outwardly, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm healed. I'm fine. And so that's another question. So, you know, how do we get those people that we see them clearly fractured, clearly not healed, but they're going around saying I'm healed? I guess, again, none of our business, unless, you know, their dear friend, or acquaintance, probably just have to let them live their lives, I guess. But, yeah, I, you know, I just hear so many stories, so many people telling me.

you know, these veterans saying, you know, damn it, there'd be no more wars. And just imagine how much we could cut the defense spending that we, you know, the defense bill just passed in the Senate and the House just passed their own versions of it. I don't know how many trillions it is. But, you know, how much of that could be reinvested in building more parks, building better food centers, building regenerative agriculture, Better roads, better, you know, all this stuff that would make life better. But again, this fear, no, we need to spend trillions on defense to be the world's police and all that.

And when you're healed, it's like, that stuff doesn't matter anymore. What matters is, how's my neighbor next door? How are they doing? Are they okay? What am I eating? Am I eating crispy cream and a diet Coke chaser? Or I'm eating something healthy? It's like, so it's like, I don't know.

Now I'm sort of lost track of where we were going, but I just think it's, it's, so many people are broken. Many of us realize it, many of us don't. And for me, the biggest example I had was like I said, I, I literally realized at some point I was wearing multiple masks. And it got really exhausting because I had to remember, oh, in this group, I'm this guy. I'm happy. I'm happy. you know, in this group I'm intellectual ran or whatever.

And then in the bar, I'm fun ran and woo. So I realize, you know, but then you get, you have this little freak out. Whoa, well, who is the real? Right. Whoa. And if I pull them all off, do I want to see who that real one is? And I think, again, back to that. That's where that healing starts.

So, so yeah, I agree. It's not our place. You know, I love Matt Zeman and I love what he said. You know, I love the title of his book. You know, Psychedelics for everyone, but then he said it. But they're not for everyone. So it's that kind of juxtaposition, you know. Yeah.

And I agree. So, yeah, I agree, George. I think psychedelics could help every single person, especially in the Western world, because we are the most messed up. You know, we have the most chronic illnesses. We have the most addiction. all these problems. But it's not our, again, if we are doing that,

then we're becoming that paternalistic, you know, oh, yes, you must heal. Yeah, they have to decide to heal. Yeah, that is a beautiful summation of it. As much as we want to help people, you know, we've got to be careful about becoming that paternal person who forces healing on people. Like the people that, the people that hear,

the conversations. They say that when you're ready, the teacher will show up. Maybe just having a podcast or maybe talking about it becomes the words of the teacher that shows up to people that need to help. That's enough, I think.

You know what I mean? Yeah, let me give you an example. Yeah, please. So I was, you know, during my breakdown or whatever we want to call it, I was living in Florida. And I,

And I can't tell you where it came from and certainly wasn't the psychedelic experience, but I just got the sense I needed to leave the state and I needed to buy land and live in the forest. I had no idea why. It wasn't, I mean, as a kid, you know, when I was a teenager, I did love environmentalism. I did think about being a forest ranger going to the forest service. So I did have that nature connection early on. but everyone I knew looked at me like I had just gone insane. Like here you live in suburbia, a flat, hot state,

and you're talking about moving to the PNW where there's snow, mountains, and you're talking about living in a forest? Are you crazy? And, you know, there were moments where I thought, maybe I am. And then it turned out nature was the greatest healer of my life. But, and so just getting you your point, I was called to it without even knowing I was called to it. So, again, how do you express that? I think you're right.

I think the healer finds you, whether it's the psychedelic. You know, we talk about the plants all the time. Yeah. You know, the funger that I come to you are, ayahuasca calls you. And I think there's a lot of truth that because we are part of nature. So I think there's an element that, yeah, the, you know, the. the when we're ready, it'll show up. But I guess for me, I would say the warning sign or whatever is,

it might be something totally weird, like buying land thousands of miles away from where you live. Yeah. But don't let that fear say, oh, that's a dumb idea. You know, I started believing people and I started doubting. Maybe I shouldn't buy this land. And wow, thank God I did because that led to healing. That led me to finding. the most amazing partner.

And she's not listening to I can say that. No, but I mean, everyone who knows Jenny in this space, in fact, they probably love her more than love me, and that's totally fine because she's,

she's a more beautiful person than I am. You know, she literally, one of her psychedelic journey, without giving too much away, because it's her journey, but she had this, she holds space for so many people

during the psychedelic journey. She had this, amazing release that felt like a thousand souls were leaving her body and she had this lightness chore that she hadn't felt in years and I think for anyone that's a true empath like that they hold that in and so again now I lost where I was where was I going with that you were talking about the incredible experience she had and how beautiful of a person she was yeah and so so you know healing comes in all these different ways and I think if you if you let that fear go of whatever the idea is whether it's a

psychedelic whether it's going to India to ashram or going to buy a land in a forest or going on a month-long meditation whatever even whatever's calling to you I think that's important to investigate it because that is also maybe maybe a first step of here healing if you're not quite in the zone of recognizing that you need a healing journey. Yeah. Yeah. I think it speaks volumes of not being afraid of your thoughts, whether it's buying land or, you know, a lot of the times we just suppress our thoughts.

I go, I can't do that. And then it's gone. But maybe that's not a thought. Maybe that's your heart calling to you. Maybe that's nature connecting with you. You know, a lot of times we hear things like you are what you eat. Well, what if you eat a lot of mushrooms, you know? What if you're eating a whole food diet?

Isn't that make you part of the planet if you are what you eat? And might that make you see the world in a different way if you're not eating processed food versus eating food that comes from the land? And I think it speaks volumes of a lot of the processed food goes to the cities, which is like a concrete jungle. And it's interesting how you're like, wow, if you feed a person this particular diet, they live this particular lifestyle. Or vice versa. I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg. But, you know, the same thing is like, wow, it sure seems like people that live out in the nature, they seem to eat a little healthier.

They seem to have a little bit different perspective on things. And, you know, it's interesting how that happens. And, you know, I agree. I think a lot of it comes back to fear, whether it's the language we're using, whether it's the way we're living our life. You know, and I think that psychedelics open you up to the confrontation of fear. and it makes confrontation, you know, not a scary word. And that's what you should. People should really try to face whatever fear they have.

Start with a little fear, you know, turn on the faucet a little bit, you know, and it moves down that road. Yeah. I like that idea. Keep your hand on the tap so you can shut it off real quickly. But yeah. Yeah, right?

Just a little drop here. I can't have that battle more. Next thing you know, you're having a drink. And next thing you know, the fear becomes you. And you realize you're dangerous, your fear. It's like making my daughter a while back was like, oh, dad,

there's a monster in the closet. I'm like, I know. And he's very crazy. He's scared. You know, what? I'm like,

but don't worry. He wants to be your friend. You got to make friends with him. Because guess what? As scary as it is to you, once you make friends with him, now he hides in your closet and he protects you from all the bad people. And you always have him with you.

Just make friends with him. And I think that that's something we all should do is make friends with the monster, right? Like, monster. Guess what? You're the monster, but make friends with them. But see, I love that. That just shows what a good parent you are. But I, I love that also because as a, see, as a child, I think we, we can embrace that. Yeah. And say, you know, she might be like, hey, dad or daddy, whatever. But, but then she's like, oh, but as an adult, we say, you know, if you'd say that to me,

you know, uh, I try to name an example, you know, uh, that crazy person in town just avoid him because he or no go go make friends with him because he wants to be your friend i'd be like george you're crazy you know i've heard that guy mugs people or whatever yeah and we put we start putting all these um rationalizations on that but as a child you know we we buy into it it's like oh that's kind of a cool idea to think about and we don't have all these we haven't built up decades of rationalizations so again i think that that healing back to putting all these bows on it, but I think healing and psychedelics especially

allows us to kind of bring back that childlike curiosity about ourselves, about the world, where we fit into that world. Yeah, okay, so this ties right back to language. If we think about as a child, we're given labels and language. You know, if you're taught at a young age to read and write And what is reading and writing is you look at a word and then you look at the letters.

So you're really finding ways to analyze each particular symbol. And we give each letter its own name and then we give it a word and then we give it a sentence and then we give it a paragraph. Like if you think about the way that trains your mind to think, like it trains you to see yourself outside of yourself and as an individual will not connect it to anything you're a letter in a word in a sentence in a paragraph in a story in a book you know what i mean like and it just it it forces you to think like this linear path but that is such a one-dimensional way of thinking and it closes you off to the rest of the world like why not think of yourself as the character the lead character in the story instead of thinking yourself as a letter like it's such a and that gets us back to language right and i think

that's what psychedelics do is they open you back up to redefining the world around you instead of seeing yourself as a symbolic letter in an grand story like that. So yeah, I agree. Psychedelics allow us to rediscover a world that we want to imagine ourselves in. And when you do that, the limit, there's no limitations on your life. You understand that you don't have to get up and go do this thing. You understand that you don't have to be these labels people put on you. You could be anything and we haven't felt the feeling of being anything since we were a child it's like our imagination has been stolen from us yep that's exactly right love it print it print it it's true you know for maybe a few artists and you know all the people maybe in the creative fields

we you know our creativity is often stifled pretty early on because of that that narrate path, you know, and even those, you know, I remember, uh, even as a kid, I'm trying to think, you know, talking about, you know, oh, I want to be, uh, you know, I just want to live out in nature or whatever, some, some non job type thing. And I remember, you know, family members saying, well, how are you going to support a family? And so, yeah, I mean, we get this, we get put on this narrow path. And the one word in, in one of my psychedelic experiences, that and maybe it was really hitting me on the head because it's pretty obvious now, but it wasn't that. It seemed profound in the journey, but it was, I was struggling with a bunch of

issues in this one journey, and I thought they were unrelated, but again, the cool thing about psychedelics is like, oh, no, let's look at this. And it ended with this pounding. I mean, again, language, but it felt like a pounding on my head. of perspective. Change perspective. And so every time now I look at something, especially it's negative, I just hear that word so strongly in my head still today, what am I missing?

What's the flip side? What are they hiding? What's the fear? And so perspective, same thing. We have to change that perspective at times. We have to see it differently. We have to see our life differently, the path that was

maybe chosen for us in some way. I mean, we chose, but we were directed, for sure, even if we think we chose it. And if nothing else, the psychedelics frees you of that, of that one mindset to actually allow you to change and see different perspectives.

Yeah. It's so, it's so beautiful. And I, I think that this, This is one of the underlying messages of most psychedelic experiences. I had someone tell me once that, you know, life's not trying to hurt us. It's just that life is a really good dancer, and we have two left feet. And, you know, it's so beautiful. I think it was Jorge Padron out of Miami. He's a brilliant, brilliant young guy, and people should check him out.

But it makes sense. And I know for myself in my life where when, you know, I have. I have found myself wanting to stand up for integrity and doing the right thing. And when I did that, I was met with a lot of resistance. And, you know, I even, I got fired from my job for standing up for what I believe in. And at the time, I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this happened. But then all of a sudden, I thought to myself like, wow, wait a minute, I did something that I wanted to do.

Maybe, maybe this is the world's way of rewarding me. You know, and then like I went through this one scenario that I really like that I've been playing with. And it's like, I think that life is one big martial arts dojo. And at any point in time when you're ready to go to the next belt, you can. All you have to do is call over the master's attention and go through your confidence. And if you do it right, you're going to get promoted at the next level. But sometimes getting promoted to that next level means leaving that dojo and going to do another one. And you don't get to see.

If you pass the test, you don't get to say, you don't have any say in what the promotion looks like. You just get promoted. So what if these things you think are a tragedy are in fact a promotion? What if, okay, you've demonstrated to me, George, that you're willing to stand up to authority. I got a bigger job for you. Come with me. And you're like, but wait, I'm losing all this. You're like, no, you're not knucklehead.

You're being promoted. Yeah. You know, and I think people can use that metaphor in their life. What if this tragedy that you think happened to you is actually a promotion? What if you're just, hey, something bigger than you imagine said, this person has it. Come with me. Like, that's what's happening in life. And I really believe that.

Like, these things that are happening to us are because you've passed a test and you've graduated. And now we need you for bigger and better things. Come with me. What do you think? Yeah. I totally agree with that. I think that, yeah, I think any. uncomfortable moment in your life is a chance to kind of look into it.

Right. And uncomfortable from light to, you know, all the way to trauma, obviously. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think, you know, just as you were talking, I was thinking, we get lulled into being comfortable. We get lulled into thinking, this is. what life's about. You know, if your job, you know, you worked that job for a number of years and

you were comfortable in it. You know, you like the people and all that. And, you know, it wasn't until, as we all have experienced, some bad bosses come in. But, and, but when we're comfortable, we're like, well, you know, don't rock the boat. You know, I'm happy here. I'm okay. And I think you're right. I think that, again, whatever we want to call it, universe divine. God maybe does interrupt, have these interruptions of our life to try to wake us up. Yeah. And if we just say, oh, no, you know, I'm scared, I'm fearful, or that doesn't mean anything, or I'll just find a new job, you know, screw them.

I don't, you know, instead of like, ooh, this is a wake-up call. Yeah. Which, you know, and so I love that idea. I like that. I'm looking for moments of discomfort as, you know, A sign maybe you need to start a healing journey. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's a road sign, you know? Yeah. If you're aware of it, this, okay, so this just brings us back to the world of language and metaphors. Right? Like, and as someone who thoroughly understands the language, what a beautiful world it is when we can use language to describe a world we want to live in. And isn't it interesting that the only way you can come up with new knowledge is to reference. old knowledge.

And like, I think that that's something that maybe we could get into that for a minute. I love talking to you. This is really fun. But I'm let's, let me, let me address some more of these comments right here. Okay, sure. Yeah. I'm so stoked on all these people. There's so many awesome ones in here.

Yeah. So, so. Some of her love, yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Ken, Aliana, Jeff, Bob, Rachel. I love you guys. It's so awesome. Here's Ken.

George, you've been nipping into the site. You know this, Ken. I'm talking to Rand. You know I'm a microdose and I'm talking to Rand. Come on. We're going to come back to Bob has a, we're going to come back to Bob's ideas about skepticism because we're going to get into that.

But I just want to address some more of these before we touch on that one, Bob. I love you too, Bob. You're an amazing human. Yeah, Bob's great. Yeah. Rachel, psychedelics are in no way recreational for me, but I look forward to the day that they can be. And I use THC for Exorcist. She's probably in the sauna

right now listening to this, Rachel. her poster crazy but I love her I love that she's on that healing journey yeah yeah and so that's fantastic I think this one's our friend Jeff right here great discussion about fear George and Rand fear acronyms false evidence appearing real oh face everything and rack him let's we should start writing them down yeah really oh I like to face everything in rise I know it's it's so amazing what we can do with our language. And we talked about how language is a way in which we can change the world around us, because your language changes your inner dialogue as well, too. I think acronyms can play a big part in that. Need to play ball with the FDA overlords, and that's the price of admission. Woo!

That's it. We can spend the whole podcast just on that topic. Yep. Ken, Jeff Wilner, CPM, of course, absolutely, I concur with all of this. Pauliana, after one of my plant experiences, my own therapist was shocked at how quickly I made progress between two of our sessions. Plant medicine is not a magic pill, but it definitely feels that way. So I can see why someone would promote it as a magic pill. They're passionate and most have good intentions. I mean, they are called magic mushrooms.

Right. I love this. I just want to talk about this first second. Please, please do. This is, again, for those that are fearful of psychedelics, of psychedelics, this is a great testimonial because, and I think a lot of the therapist that are now working with psychedelics are hoping to you would agree with this completely. You know, there's an old, I think one of the first things I heard when I was getting into

psychedelics was, oh yeah, taking psychedelics is like having seven years of therapy or something like that. And it's, and it's not that, but it's this, just what she said. It allows you between sessions to almost prep for the next one because you see stuff and then you can take it that you maybe were totally unaware of, especially with childhood trauma because, again, our childhood brain doesn't know how to process it. So what it basically does is just puts it away somewhere else where we don't want to see it. And when we do see it, we call those triggers. It, you know, it forces a reaction and we push it further down. So with plant medicine, as, you know, we've talked about earlier, allows us to see something

and maybe we don't quite understand it or maybe, you know, and that's, again, why it's so important to have integration or therapy because then you can go talk it out and say, so it's not just an echo chamber in your head. It's, well, this is what I experience, and these are the imagery or whatever. And, you know, this is what I think it means, but I'm looking for feedback. And I think so this is exactly for those who are looking for that know they have trauma and know they need healing and want to work with a therapist. The plant medicine goes hand in hand with the therapy wonderfully. Yeah.

Yeah, and I love what you said right here because it does, to me, I would like to speak to the magic of it. And to me, what the magic of it is is that you're consuming part of nature. And when you do that, you see yourself as nature. And that helps you thoroughly understand that you're part of something bigger. And when you can do that, I think that that opens you up to processing information in a different way. way. So much of us, you know, and maybe it comes back to the idea of language and letters and words and a sentence. We see ourselves as an individual and we've been conditioned to see ourselves that way since we were children. So of course when there's a problem, we're going to blame ourselves

and then we're going to dislike everyone around us because we dislike ourselves. But when you ingest the plant medicine, it's almost like you get the chance to become part of nature and see yourself as nature and part of the whole again. And when you do that, You realize, oh, generational trauma. Hey, look, I'm this tree that fell from a seed on top of this big tree. Of course, I'm going to grow in the same area. Of course, I'm going to have the same characteristics. I'm the same kind of tree.

Hey, well, look at where the tree bends over here. Okay, maybe I should try to grab some sunlight over here. You know, and you really begin to open up to this idea that you're bigger than this walk from the hospital to the graveyard. You can process information that way in a different light. To me, that's the magic that is in there. And I don't know. It's such a beautiful way to look at. I'm glad she said that.

Well, coming back to what you said earlier, George, you know, the indigenous, like you said, for a long, long time, the shaman, the medicine person, man, woman would do the psychedelic and then help heal the community. but look at the difference between Western, as you just said, individual. We are individual, individual, individual, and the indigenous, it's community. It's community. We're all in this together. And so I think that's why they didn't have to take the medicine, because they were all already in tune with nature, in tune with themselves, in tune with the community.

one person wasn't better than the other. In the Western model, you know, who's going to make their first, you know, how, what, you're 50, you only made your first million dollars? What are you? You're a slacker. You know, and it's all this individual stuff. So you're right. So I think that's why we have to take the psychedelics because we've been so programmed to be

separate from nature, separate from community. and building our own little fiefdom, our own little silo that we, you know, the second allegation shatters that silo. Yeah. And says, yeah, I mean, I love when I hear someone tell me, you know, I took, I smoked my five MEODMT and I was shot into space. And I saw the universe and I saw I was. I was nothing and I was everything.

And that's the common thing. Most people say I was nothing and I was everything. And it's like, and it was the worst experience, but the best experience. I'm like, how could that possibly be? And I haven't, you know, I have, that's a medicine I haven't done myself. And I go back and forth. Is it a medicine calling me or is a medicine scaring me? I'm not sure which.

But I love that sense of back to what you said about. individuals because that if no other psychedelic does that one certainly does because it shatters you into a million pieces and says you're you're throughout the universe you're throughout nature but then it puts you back together and says okay now that you realize this go forth and and you know it sounds crazy but that you know so i love that yeah i think that's why we have to take psychedelics because we have become so separated from nature and from community and from, you know, I know there are some people that still have multiple, multi-generational people living in their property, but most of us don't.

You know, most of us, our parents or grandparents live completely different places. Our kids live other places. And so, you know, that's also a way of fracturing that community. Yeah. You know, it's, when you talked about 5MEODMT, 5MEO DMT is like being a scholar of the Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities for Lifetime, but you do it in like 10 seconds.

It's the best, the worst of times. You just become a Charles Dickens scholar in like 30 seconds. That's so funny. Exactly. But yeah, when we think of the West, like, I'm confident that this was done purposely on some level, the people that are in charge of society, try this experiment. We're like, hey, why don't we as a community? And I think that this was the

foundation of let's send our people to old folks, send our parents who want old folks home, let's send our kids to school, we'll send the people to work. Like, in a weird way, this was based on, why don't we let the community help everybody? And we'll let everybody do that. But that system has failed, be it corruption, be it greed. But I'm sure it was based on a good idea when it began. But as someone who lived that life and found it so incredibly empty, and then I moved to Hawaii and I saw the way in which generational families live, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so much better. There's so much more wisdom a parent or a grandparent has with a child than a new set of parents. Like, as a new set of parents, man, you're like, oh, I don't know what to do with this

thing. You freak out and you're tired and you're fighting because the kid doesn't sleep and you and you and your wife are at each other's throats. But if you have a grandparent that lives there, they're like, you come here, dummies. Why don't you go, go away for a little bit? We got them. And here's what you do when that happens. Here's how you do it. Like, we have decided that on some level that that wisdom can be taken out of the family.

And maybe it can, but it just doesn't work as good. It's so much better when you have people around you in a family that love you. And it's a better world that way. Yeah. And I love the wisdom being passed down. That's a beautiful idea. Yeah. Yeah. And we see where we are without it. Like we get in trouble without it.

Yeah. This is beautiful. Today's conversation is so delectively scrumptiously delicious. Edibly tasty, good and filled with nuggets of wisdom, kindness, goodness, patience, encouragement, empathy, understanding, sincerity, perseverance, knowledge, honesty, love, hope, courage, tenacity, awesomeness, caring, positively, compassion. passion, passion, inspiration, resilience, respect, appreciation, gratitude, enthusiasm, guidance, and motivation. I don't know there's ever been a more beautiful sentence put together. Speaking of language, there you go. Wow. Right.

He encapsulated everything possible right there. Yeah. I think, I think, George, that's, I think that's both our goals. I mean, we have more to strive for. but I think that's what this is about it is trying to share our knowledge share our experience and be generous with our you know we're on this healing journey and we just want others to be on that healing journey as well so I love and I appreciate Ken so much for those yeah words because you know again words or words but you know words can motivate and I think these are

quite motivational yeah I think every one of those could be a meditation I'm going to write him down. I think there's almost 30 there. Like you could have one for every day. Just wake up and read one. Thank you, Ken. Ken, you should make a calendar of this. And we could all, we could all put it on our, on our calendar and wake up every morning and just say it out loud. This is what comes from Jeff. Indigenous cultures and native people rely upon prayer, ceremony, song, and dance.

Maybe this is LinkedIn user primarily. And then psychedelics are utilized in only a few ceremonies. Yeah, it speaks to the power of the medicine. And the community too, like you were saying. Yeah. Here's another. Yeah. And by the way, song and dance are great modalities for healing too.

You know, somatics, getting out there, shaking it out. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. There's something to be said about the way in which you can move your body that is medicinal in a lot of ways. Yeah. And something so seductive and beautiful about dance, too, that puts you in a different state, right? The realization you are broken is the beginning.

of your healing path. That's well said. Yeah. I think we've all been there before. And it's hard. It's hard to come to the realization because we don't want to believe it, right? Right, right. Because again, we're programmed to succeed.

You know, whatever, whatever that success term means. But, and I always ask my students that when I was teaching, I had freshman first year students. And I would say, okay, you're in college. What's your definition of success? And there's a lot of different definitions, but all programmed by, you know, it's like, well, get a good job, you know, get a good college education, get a good job, have a family, all these things. We're programmed to do these things. And so I think that leads us to being able to deny being broken because, no, we were promised all these things. We were promised a good job. You know, not probably. But in our upbringing, we were kind of were promised that. And so I think that's sometimes why it's so shocking at times because we push away.

I'm not broken. I'm not broken. I'm fine. And then you hit that wall. Yeah. And you smash your face against the glass or you break through the glass and do more harm. And so I think, yeah, the realization you're broken, but I think sometimes it takes about 10 times getting you there for some people because we're so programmed to say, I'm not broken to hide that or hide that brokenness. I think Jenny and I talk a lot about marketing to women because she's quite sensitive to that issue and I am as well.

First it was all the airbrushing, and now they have these AI models that aren't even real that look like, you know, perfect. And so she's, you know, she and many women struggle with this, you know, here's this image of perfection put on by marketers in advertising. And here's the reality. And, oh, I must be broken because I don't look like that. I don't act like that. And so there are all these things going on with society. We have to figure out how to separate ourselves from that. So we can have this moment of, I'm broken, but it's okay.

And then we add your part to that, which is because once I'm on this healing path, I'll find, not enlightenment, that sounds too woo-woo also, but I'll find myself. Maybe that's a better one. That is, that's perfect. Because I think, I think that the term I am broken means the programming doesn't work for me. You know,

and like, if you just think about it, like, when you had asked your students about the definition of success, what they are giving you is someone else, someone else is conditioning. Yep. And,

right? And it's, it's everywhere. We have gotten away from creativity. Production is, you know, creativity stripped of its imagination. And we don't, there's, that, that's why when we see something new, we're like, oh, it's so

original. Because we're all just, just stay in your lane, just be programmed. Like, that's what, that's what people that scream about production want is they want people just to be focused and do this one thing. But when you do that, it's just this like flavorless vanilla. Like, that flavorless vanilla sucks, man. We should be doing original creative things. And I think psychedelics.

lends us back our creativity. It leads us back to, you know, why are you broken? Well, you're broken because you're not being your authentic self. And that's the feelings of tragedy that are weighing on you. That's the brokenness. It's your soul screaming to you, be yourself. Come on, man. Have the courage to do what you want to do. But you feel broken when you don't listen to the, to your soul, man. And I think that's what it kind of comes back down to. It's, it's a crying out for authenticity. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I was probably broken for, you know, 20 plus years, not realizing or not wanting to admit it. And I said, it wasn't until, and I, you know, probably had, if I look back now and we're totally honest, I probably had other moments of acting

out before the final crescendo that showed me, okay, no, there's something. something wrong and then the nature came up. But so, yeah, so don't, you know, so that my point there is just telling people you can start that healing journey anytime, whether you're 22 right now and realize you're broken or whether you're 92 and realize you're broken, a healing journey. I'm thankful every day that, yeah, do I wish I had that healing journey, you know, in my 20s? Yes. am I extremely happy that I have a healing journey and live this life now?

Yes. And, you know, I don't have a time machine and I'm happy with this life now. But just so anyway, so just don't be discouraged if you realize today after this podcast, wow, I am broken. I'm not living my authentic life. Whatever age you are, you can start this journey today. Yeah, I think Aliana sums it up here pretty good, which he says, I think technically everybody is ready and everybody can benefit.

Yeah. But I also think if they can't accept it, they might have healing to do. That's an indication we shouldn't really recommend psychedelics. Yeah, it's a good point. And I think it echoes what we were saying earlier about everybody has stuff they can work on. But when they're ready, they'll find the teacher that's right for them. And maybe that means finding an underground teacher. Maybe that finds a clinical setting.

maybe everybody's finds the teacher that they're looking for. Well, you know, and that goes back to what Tom DeNardo said earlier and also said previous, I think on your podcast, which is, you know, that message is always coming to us. Yeah. You know, you can heal, you can heal. But so many of us are tied up in our day-to-day lives, we're not listening to that message. We're blocking it out or we're filtering it out. Perception, you know, that perception, that's a whole other podcast we could talk about.

But that lens we use to, you know, we're bombarded by stimuli. And so we have to do something to narrow that so we can function. Yeah. And, you know, blocking out anything negative is the easiest thing to do to keep us living day to day. Yeah, it comes back to the ego and the threat detector, right? And if we don't block it out, we can rationalize it and be like, well, it's this, this and this. You know, it's because that person doesn't like me or it's, you know, whatever reason you're telling yourself, It's easy to spin it in a way that allows you to continue living a life without adversity.

So it's kind of a trippy thing to see. Another acronym for us, the epic principle, every person in charge of themselves. What do you think, Rand? Interesting, interesting. I agree with that. I think, I'm trying to think how I'm picturing that. I mean, on the outskirt, on the surface, I told. totally agree with that.

And I think that's part of the healing process too. We can't expect our doctor to heal us. We can't expect our therapist to heal us. You know, we have to do it ourselves. We can do it with assistance. Yeah. But we're in charge of it. Yeah.

It's a great point. And Lori, Lori, thanks for, thanks for chiming in. And Lori, this is something that I think you do figure out when you're on your path. And some hit at 20, 30. some hit at 50, but hindsight is 2020. And you don't realize it was a sign until later. Like that's so true. Like the way I see it, Lori, sometimes is like, you're on this path and then you wind your way up to this foothill.

And then you look down and you're like, oh, no wonder I felt that way. No wonder I felt like I was going to fall off the cliff because it was like this narrow. Of course I would have felt like that. Yeah, I should have done that. That was a good thing to do to climb on right there. It's an interesting take. What's your take on seeing signs later in life in 2020? I think probably that's the vast majority of time because we're not tuned in,

especially if we're not healed. We're just not tuned into it. Yeah. You know, I just have probably talking about Jenny too much today. But just a funny little aside, when we first met, I knew immediately she was going to be a friend in my life. But I thought it was just going to be a friend. I didn't think anything more. And, you know, we look back in hindsight now and we start cracking up because

that lasted about three months. And then all of a sudden, we had a random encounter to meet. We were living a couple thousand miles apart. And so it's like, oh, we'll just have a fun friend like you, Jordan, unless I get to a hot Hawaii, you know. Yeah. Good friend, you know, key friend, but just a friend.

And then we had this bizarre random meeting that you could not explain in a million years. It's just not even possible. Right. And again, I didn't have any expectations except to say, oh, wow, this is going to be great. Get a hugger and say hi. And we touched hands. And the both of us, the electricity just went off the roof, off the charts.

And so in hindsight, like, how did this meeting even happen? But we look at it and we say, you know, again, there's whatever we want to call it, some divine, creative, conscious power, whatever we want to call it, there's some power that brought us together because in that we both helped each other heal and then both also formed this amazing partnership and this wonderful life that we live, that we feel with joy and gratitude but I you know I didn't see all that stuff happening until after the fact so yeah I think so much of it when we're not when we're healed though I think you're right I think now that we're in this healing journey we can sometimes see that miracle or that sign happening yeah because we're already

part way up that hill maybe rather than be at the top and having to look down to oh yeah I love that analogy, that's beautiful. But yeah, I agree. I think that Lori is right. And so, but that's okay, I think. I don't, I don't think, I think the key is just listening. Yeah. Like, again, buying that land, I still can't tell you why I did it. Again, I just, it was just, it was this need. I think I realized, I looked at my life and I looked at who the main mask or person was and I didn't like it. And some would say, oh, that you escaped. Well, yeah, I did. That was part of it.

I sure escaped that environment. But it wasn't the environment that was causing it. It was me that was affecting the environment. And so somehow I listened. It wasn't logical. I'm sure, like I said, everyone told me I was crazy. but I followed that. So somehow we have to work in there that, yeah, it is hindsight and you,

you won't know why did I buy this land? But then years later, you will realize that. You will realize what, you know, what, oh, that was part of the healing journey. So I guess I'd just say, yeah, this is the case, Lori, but just try to be open to signs as much as you can, and especially if they're repeated signs. It's like, you know, with ayahuasca, people say, oh, I just saw this podcast in ayahuasca. And then someone randomly says, oh, have you heard about ayahuasca?

And then someone else says, hey, I just came back from an ayahuasca retreat. Kind of sounds like ayahuasca is calling you to maybe investigate a little bit. Yeah. So that's what I mean. So sometimes it maybe takes us a couple signs to hit us over the head. But when we're still in that fractured state, but yeah, just look for the sign. and and I think hindsight's okay. I think it's okay to be, you know,

as long as we follow them, as long as we try to follow them. Yeah. I love what Lori said. And I, if she's still in the comments, I'm curious, and I'll probably DM her about this,

but I'm curious to what she thinks about 2020 and the realization of signs as a relationship with spirituality. Because sometimes we use the word sign in spirit or sign as in, You know, I know Omen as a negative connotation, but like a sign or something from bigger than us. And, you know, when you do look back on your past, you can see it as a sign of grace. Like, oh, man, that was a miracle that happened.

You know, so if you're down, if you're still here, let me know what you think about that. I'm curious. You know, here's the reason why when we talk about great teams, Aliana says, Bufo is an amazing. And yes, the worst and best sums it up. I like the little emoji too. Yeah.

And that's followed right up with Jeff that says, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear Bufo was the name of a muscle tea brand. That's so funny. There's a good one from Ron. He says,

universities and professors worldwide have tested thoroughly more than 150 medicinal plants. And Malotira S. is the best of the best. Haven't you heard? I don't know anything about that.

I have to look it up. Do you know anything about that? I don't know either. Morrow Tira. Yeah, I'm going to look that up too. I just know I went to a conference and they had this Native American speaker. And, you know, he was basically saying, you know, we non-natives are kind of stupid. And because we've lost this knowledge.

Yeah. And, you know, he's saying in a polite way. But, you know, the truth is there. You know, there are all these amazing medicinal. plants and minerals for that matter. And, you know, vitamins and supplements have been poo-pooed for years by, again, the Western sort of medical model. But I'm a firm believer that there are numerous medicinal plants. And so, yeah, after the podcast, I'm definitely going to look this up.

Yeah, I'm going to order some. I'm going to put it in my garden. There's another one from Loria where she talks about, I think this is the point in which we were talking about the way society is set up and we put our older folks in homes and our kids. And she says, without it, kids look to peers instead of the older experienced people, not looking up to anyone. Yeah, if you're just looking adjacent, like, you know, you're just looking sideways.

And a lot of people live their life moving sideways instead of moving up. It's a pretty interesting idea there. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of misinformation comes from peers. way as well, you know. So and then and then, uh, the other thing, too, is the comparison syndrome. You know, if you're focused on your peers, there's also this, well, I have to be like them or, or, oh, they have more knowledge than me. I need to catch up or I'm not as smart as them. Right. So having, having a, uh, yeah, having the grandparents and, you know, I love how some

people talk about their aunties, you know, you know, my, mine were aunts. they were straight-laced ants, but I love when you're talking about aunties and, oh, the aunties took care of me and changed my diaper. And I'm like, oh, that just sounds so beautiful. And so, yeah, I love, you know, again, we've lost that model of having that wisdom that, you know, yeah, I'm sure we all rolled our eyeballs at some of the wisdom that was given to us as kids, but still wisdom. And probably some of that stuff today, we don't roll our eyebrows, but probably some of the

stuff we tell our kids. Yep, guarantee. Or maybe, oh, wait, did I have rolled my eyeballs at that when I was like, yeah. Yeah, that wisdom is there, so I love that. Yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah, I'm super stoked. You know, if we shift gears, Bob had a comment a while back about the skepticism, which I know that you had written a recent article.

Maybe we can talk about that a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, someone on that post that I did said this great thing. And she's like, well, maybe the next article can be. like a list of who these skeptics are. And I was like, wow, it's kind of interesting. I don't know if there are different types of skeptics, but it's fascinating to me because I think like my brother-in-law that I mentioned who I mentioned earlier, I think if I

looked at his skepticism, I think his would be closed mind. You know, he's a brilliant guy, but he, I think sometimes brilliant minds close himself off because they're so brilliant. I had this thought it must be brilliant, so it must be true. Yeah. And so I think, so I think part, so one of, at least one of the skeptics in my mind

are the, I know better or I I've already made the decision in my knowledge. But I would, I would, that's why I put my email address in that article. I'm like, skeptics, please email me. I want to hear why you are skeptics. maybe for a future article, but that wasn't the reason.

Yeah. I just wanted to, I just want to have a discussion with them because I, I have heard, you know, the, the, the war on drugs lingo spit back at me as the reason why I don't want to fry my brain. I don't want to have birth defects. I've heard that. I've heard the, you know, they're dangerous. but I don't know how else people are skeptics. Are they skeptics because it's not coming from their doctor? And I think they should have pretty healthy skepticism about their doctors,

but that's a whole other topic too. But I don't know, George, do you have ideas for, I mean, you've talked to a lot of people, too. Most of the time, if someone's a skeptic, they just don't talk about it. It's like the pin drop. It's just a silence. say just so i don't know what about what about what's your experience with it well yeah i'm not sure what there's what there is to be skeptical about you know it works maybe i i would say the majority of people who are skeptical are people who have never tried psychedelic now we need to

break it down we need to break it down until okay are you skeptical that psilocybin won't work for manic depressive i can see something like that are you skeptical that um psychedelics may not be the best possible remedy for depression. Okay. Are you skeptical that it may not make people more? Like what are the exact argument skeptics have? But when if we just as an encompassing whole, if people are skeptical about psychedelics,

I would say that that person is never taking it because it's a, it is scientifically 100% true that if you take psychedelics at a big enough dose, you're going to have an experience. I'm not going to tell you what that experience will be, but it's repeatable. And it happens every single time. So there's nothing to be skeptical about it, not doing something to you. We could debate what it's a remedy for. But I don't think there's any room for a skeptical argument about psychedelics don't do anything.

They do something all the time and it's repeatable. So what exactly is like what do you have an exact argument people are saying about being skeptical about? To me, I say it's more, yeah, they're, they're definitely. definitely all non-users. That's for sure. But again, I don't know, but the cultural thing, I just had discussion last night. This woman was putting, her daughter was going on antidepressant. And so I did my nosy thing that I do, which sometimes gets me in trouble. I said, well, you know antidepressants are only meant, were really only designed for a steep, depressive episode.

They, and you take them for a few days until that episode passes and then you're done. I said, they're not, they're not supposed to be a lifetime daily drug that you take. And, you know, her response is, well, that's, that's what the doctor prescribed. And so there's where we need the skepticism. Right. Again, so I don't know where the disconnect is. I really think from my discussions, the disconnect is they have heard 50 years, and especially if they have children who then are in the DARE program also, they've heard these, you know, this constant barrage that, you know, and because psychedelic are lumped with all these other cocaine, basalt, heroin, all the bizarre stuff. Quailudes were just when I saw that in the list of you know it's like okay who's used that term

so we're back in the 80s or something right but you know quailudes on that list too but there's no skepticism about that because we've been it's been so programmed into us that that there's no medicinal value and and that's why I also get back to the language thing I get so upset I get excited I'm happy about it but I get so upset when people call psychedelics emerging or new. Right. Because no, they've been used for since time memorial probably. You know, we have ancient cave drawings with the magic mushroom in the cave.

And we have ergot, the foundational elements of LSD in ancient Greek chalices. And so we have this evidence of psychedelic use for everything. ever. And so, but yet somehow in these last 50 years, we've erased all that, we've forgotten that. I think there's also maybe a slight for some people prejudice that, well, the indigenous doesn't count because they, it wasn't being studied, as you said, we weren't studying the brains, you know. No, you're right. We should be studying the outcomes. Yes, look how many people are healing. No, we're looking at the brain function. And so, but I think the brain function, and so, but I think the brain function will be a way to bring people into it

because there are those people that say, oh, well, if it does that to the brain, then I'm okay with it versus the kind of the woo-woo stuff that we talk about that, well, everyone is your brother, once you take a psychedelic, everyone is your brother and sister, and we're all part of nature and people like, well, no, you know, the crunchy granola crowd. No, I don't want to be part of that. And that's not what we're saying.

I mean, so again, language. Yeah. Yeah, we need to figure that out. But I think that's where the skepticism comes from. It's from that medical model. You know, oh, if the FDA approved it, it has to be gold standard, which we know is. certainly not the case. Yeah.

And so I, I don't know. I deep program. So skeptics, I think, have just been programmed to, at least the ones I've talked to, or mostly have been programmed by the, by the negativity that would have been told about these psychedelics, which have just been lumped in with, you know, the cocaine and the heroin and things like that, which are much more dangerous. I try to tell people, again, and they talk about that, oh, death, death, death. And I say, you know, I'll give them the thing, you know, more people, you know, the multiplier of how many people die by alcohol every year.

I think that number is, I don't have it in front of me, but it's 500,000 or 600,000 people die from alcohol-related causes every year. psychedelics will use the number under 20 and I think that's even high. I haven't heard of anyone die from psychedelics. I've heard of other, you know, some tragic things with psychic trauma, but not physical trauma. And so we have to get away from that. We, you know, we have to show them these statistics that, no, these are not dangerous medications at all. These are enlightening medications. these are healing medications.

These are, you know, I think of, you know, I'm a Christian in a way I define Christianity, but I love it when someone who is, you know, there's no God, there's nothing after this life. We live and we die, and that's it. We're not spiritual creatures. We're just physical entities that think we have a spiritual presence. and then they do a psychedelic and they come back and they say oh my God I saw God

and it's like wow and they can't explain it there's no logic to it they can't and they're like and they say wow my I'm come embarrassed

by all those years where I was saying those things he said it's still not Christianity or Judaism or whatever it might be but I see the world is connected I see there's this

bigger thing. And I think, again, that's what psychedelics do. And people don't, but that again gets to that woo-woo side of things where I think a lot of people want a logical argument rather than a spiritual argument. But I want to know. So anyone who's a skeptic on here, please, please, please, you know, share it with George, share it with me. I want to know because that can help us tune our discussion.

with the people and find a way to, because again, I know, George, you said that you don't, you know, we're not there to make people heal, but, but if we can at least show them a window, yeah, get them to open the window for them and let them look out and they can close the window if they want to, but at least get the window open. Yeah. So yeah, if you're a skeptic, please tell me why I would love to know. Yeah, here's, here is, first let me, let me address. Lori, thank you, Lori, for chat with this. She wanted to come back. I had asked her about the idea of signs and spirituality.

She said, I'm here. What I meant by signs is whatever it is that is pulling you in a different direction from the path you're on now, no matter how used to it you are. That makes total sense. And I think it speaks volumes of where you're at in your life, Lori, to be able to understand signs like that. And I think that a lot of people aren't there yet where they don't see them as signs. I think that's a step up when you start to beginning to hear things or see things or understand relationships in a way. I think it speaks volumes of where you're at in life. You know, and I hope more people can get there because when you can see things as signs,

then you know what direction you're going in, right? Yeah. And too many people just push them aside. Yeah. Right. Just a blip of the matrix, move on. Like, oh, no, maybe you should be paying attention to that blip. Yeah, great.

And I believe that the world is talking to us. And so I'm glad she said that. And I think that I'll tie this into skepticism too. Like, I think that once you begin to understand that you're part of the whole, that you can see language everywhere. You can see language in the plants that grow in your garden. You can see. And here's something that I'll tie it to skepticism. In my garden, I'm growing like a, I have a cool shamanic garden.

And one of my plants is the psychotropia varitis, which is one of the plants you mix with ayahuasca. However, where I planted with it, all of a sudden I noticed, like, the leaves started getting really dark. And then I looked down and there was all these ants. And the ants were, like, making scales. So they would siphon out, like, the nutrients and they would make scales, and then they would take it down. And I was like, I was watching that. And I'm like, holy cow, this medicinal plant is showing me what's going on in the medical system. Like it's it's not a bug.

It's a feature and that's what I'm skeptical about with psychedelics. I don't think that there's enough people in the world of medicine that want it to change. They don't want it to change. It's an industry. It's a system. And I'm not saying all people are like this. But I believe wholeheartedly that what would happen if we change medicine? You know, people would lose their jobs?

You think the pharmaceutical industries want it to change? They run it. They create the textbook. to give to the schools, to teach the things that they want. It's an industry. We love people being addicted. Yeah, oh, I'm so sorry. Your life is broken.

Come and take this pill. You're on it for life. Now you can go back to work and work at this crappy job, take our medicine, work in our factories, make us rich. The world is run on fear and despair. And when people start having psychedelic experience, what they realize is like, holy cow, I don't want to be in this anymore.

And that's exactly why. that's why in the 60s it was shut down. People were like, we're not doing it anymore. And I really think like, and this is like, in some ways I feel like I'm a fractal part of the 50s and 60s happen. I get why Leary did what he did. I get it. Like he's like, what's going to put in the water then?

You know, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do. And I'm not saying it's the right thing to do. But like I understand that point of view now. It's like, oh, this is what the people and positions of authority want. It's not a bug. It's a feature. And the fact that I can look at my psychotropia

barita plant and see it happening, like that's the world telling me, hey, George, you want to know what's happening? This is it. And so I was like, you know, what I ended up doing and this killed me to do is like, I chopped it at the,

I left the roots in there, but I chopped it because I'm like, it's never going to grow. I have to, I have to replant it. But the thing was like, you have to plant by the leaf. But, you know,

that's what I mean. The language, is in the world around us. If you want to know what's happening, go look in in your garden and the answers are right there being revealed to you. So I'm skeptical about change. I love the PS science.

I love the ideas that we should be exploring every avenue. But I don't think there's a big enough ground swell for change because it disrupts too much of the status quo. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, that's why I love Dr. Rick Barnett and Dr. Gabor Mette and others because here they are practicing or had practiced Western medicine, but saying we realized the model is flawed.

And I would say more than flawed, but they were in the systems. They have to say it nicely. Right, right. Like how many people know that the pharmaceutical companies fund the CDC? Regularly captain. Or how many people know that there's a revolving door between pharmaceutical companies and the FDA? It's like, I don't think a lot of people know that. So they're saying, oh, the FDA approved it.

So it must be. And my doctor recommended it. So it must be right. Well, no, no, no, no. It's definitely a broken system. And you know it's broken when there are pharmaceutical drugs that are prescribed to deal with the side effects of the drug you're currently taking. It's like, okay, now I have to take another drug because this drug that I'm taking. And so if that doesn't give you pause, I don't know what does because, again, yeah, so that's one step of it.

Well, I want to mention nature in another way. Yeah, do it. So I have a, I have a, you know, this new book coming out, and I have a guy named T.J. who's stories in the book. And he tells us, it sounds like ego, and it's not, but it's funny, I think, and I'll tell my version of my story of that. But he said he was in Big Bend National Park, which is one of my favorite national. parks, gorgeous place in Texas. Probably my only place in Texas that I'd ever visit.

Sorry, people in Texas. But it's this beautiful place. And he was in this weekend of a meditation, quiet time just by himself. And he looked up and he saw this mountain in the distance. And he said, hey, that looks kind of like an ancient volcano. He said, I'm just going to meditate here and see if it'll erupt while I'm here. and he went into this meditation and when he opened his eyes,

he thought he saw a little bit of smoke by the mountain. And he was like, no, I'm not saying I caused anything, but he said, I think that's the power that we have of seeing things differently or making things happen. And my version of that story is,

especially right now, we have wild quail on our property and they're all having little cubbies, little babies, chicks. And so I'll sit on my morning meditation, I'll have my coffee, and I'll be sitting there, and I'll be, I would love to see some quail today. Now, granted, they're like probably 100 quail throughout my property. I mean, so the likelihood, so again, I didn't cause that. But nine times out of ten, when I have that intention,

all of a sudden I hear the, I see or hear the quail come. And so I think that's, I think that's what you're getting at is that when we get better in tune, when we're on this healing journey, we get better in tune with nature, these things happen that we don't see or notice normally because we're not in tune with it. But once we're in tune with it, we see that plant, we see those ants going up and there. And we see for not only what it's doing to that plant, but what it means in a broader context of life. of as you just described. So I think that's fantastic.

Yeah, and maybe that speaks to the idea of faith, because sometimes faith is things that we can't really explain. But what if we're seeing examples of what's about to happen in our lives in nature? And we don't know, but we just feel like maybe that's a sign. Maybe we're back to what Lauren was saying. Maybe those signs are signs of things to come. And that corresponds with faith. And that's why people can be so comfortable with uncertainty,

is that they see signs, they don't know how to verbalize, so they know things are going to be okay. And like, you know, what would the world look like if we lived in a place where people had the faith to be their authentic self? Like, man, it would just open up so many more doors. And I think healing would begin to happen naturally. Maybe, how about this? Maybe the same way the earth can rewire.

itself and reclaim its beautiful nature, so too can we as humans reclaim our authentic selves if we just stop with the conditioning. The same way people have to clear cut the ground in order to make it, you know, create their own things. What if we just let it go? Like, what if we just let our lives go? I bet you it would be better than what we have right now. People are constantly trying to say like, oh, this is going to break.

It's going to break. Let it go. I bet you life would be better if we let a lot of these things go. I bet you it'll be less suffering if we let a lot of these ridiculous regulations and corporations, just let them have their way with us. Like, that's ridiculous. So, let me try to further explain why I love you. So at the beginning of your podcast, I mean, I will try to watch the beginning of every podcast if I can.

I don't necessarily watch the whole podcast because I love your beginning and you're into emotion and you were talking about this and I just love that because that's you. Yeah. I love that you are you. I can't tell you how many times on one hand we're told that we're told conflicting messages. We are told, you know, be who you meant to be or whatever. But in the other hand, we're often told, especially by parents or family members or whatever, oh, don't let anyone see you behave like that. You know, don't want anyone see your true self. So I love that. You just said, don't be afraid to, when we're healing, we're not afraid to be our true self.

Yeah. You know. That's a good point. Such a great thing. You said that perfectly, George, because, yeah, we. No, we are because I, you know, I've been told, you know, don't let that crazy out of the bag. Oh, sorry. It's who I am.

But, you know, for years. And that, that limits us, too. I think that actually is trauma. Yeah. That's actually trauma. because it's telling us, don't be us, you know, be this example of what a good boy or good girl or a good young man or whatever, you know, good adult, whatever might be, we're told this is what it looks like. Well, I'm not that. Yeah.

You know, I'm me. Yeah. You know, if I want to, you know, like one of my weird things is I love bathrooms. And if I could be in a bathroom doing this podcast, I would be doing it right now. and any hotel I go to where there's a bathroom, it's like five-star. But, you know, I wouldn't, you know, other people are like, oh, my God, you can't let people see you in your bathroom. You know, how ridiculous is that? And so we, yeah, so we're constantly told, don't be yourself, but don't be yourself.

And it's just conflicting measures that we face. And I think when we're told don't be ourselves, we're, I think it's meant in a loving way. You don't show you're crazy, so to speak, but in a way that traumatizes us. Because it changes us, oh, I can't be that way. Why is laughing loudly frowned upon? I like to laugh. Why is that a bad thing? But again, especially if we're told that as children, we don't understand that.

Oh, I just better be quiet now and shut up. So, wow, I love that. Don't be afraid to be ourselves. Yeah. And it is scary because I, you know, like you said, you're told not to do that. And then you're afraid that if you are yourself, you might fail or people might not love you. Yep. You know, I think it stems, it kind of stems back to that.

It's fascinating to think about. Yeah. Here's one for skepticism. Okay. That's from Jeff. The main skeptic argument I've heard is that the mind-altering properties are purely chemical and don't represent a window into something greater. Wow. Well, it's all chemical.

I mean, you know. Yeah. But how would you combat that? Again, as a scientist person, I think that is a debate. but from every story, every person I've now heard, I'd say probably at least 500 stories from people about psychedelics, is there's always some kind of broader experience. I call it spiritual or transformational,

not spiritual in a sense of, I mean, sometimes it's as spiritual as, oh, I, like Charles and his journey talks about, oh, I, I, I, I, I, Jesus put his hand on my shoulder or something like that. So sometimes it's that. But other times, I could say, other times is just an awakening that, as you mentioned, George, that we are, we're not separate from this natural world. We are, we are part of it. And some of the parts we're doing is pretty darn damaging, unfortunately. But we're, we're changing. and we're learning and nature is resilient. But I, I, for the, for the, for the, for the true, what I call the thinkers, the teas that are, that need that proof that comes back to faith.

I don't think, I don't know if there's a way to prove that you have outwardly, that you are, you know, projected into the space and, and you have this crazy out of body experience. I don't know there's a way to prove that, but I have 100% faith in that because I've heard these stories and every story. has a component of that in it. So that's how I believe it. But I don't know. How would you prove something like that? What's your thoughts on it, George? Well, I would say that to me,

it doesn't matter how accomplished someone is or how articulate they are. If they have never tasted broccoli, they don't get an opinion on what broccoli tastes like. You know, like, oh, have you done it? Okay, then leave. You can say whatever you want, but you have zero credibility.

unless you've done it. Zero. You have zero lived experience. Hey, please stand on the outside of the circle over here. You know what I mean? Like, it's not for you. Yeah. At any point in time, I'll invite you in to do it. And then you can give me your opinion about it. But if you haven't done it, then just stand over there and do your, do some research. And I appreciate your contribution. But this conversation is is not for you. I love what you're doing over that. That's awesome. Thank you for that. It's relevant in a lot of ways. But it's, it's not very meaningful or impactful in any sort of way there. But for someone who has done it, like I, for someone who has done it and says that it's purely chemical, I would need to be drilled down more on that. Like it does, just because

something's chemical doesn't mean it's any less shades of true. You know, I mean, what is truth anyway? Truth is what you experience it to be. And my truth is different than someone else's. So, and I think that this is the problem they have. They can't measure subjective results. And for some reason there's a part of our, part of our world that, that still thinks magical thinking is a problem. And I think it's gone the other way. I think we've gone from magical thinking being a problem to the scientific materialism being a problem. But that's how I guess I would, I would, be bad at it.

Yeah. And, you know, I don't think there doesn't need to be something greater, I think, because to me, if you get that freedom from within to find your truth. self and find that healing, to me, that is the greatest benefit. There doesn't have to be a meeting with Jesus or a meeting with the aliens or a rocket ship to space. It doesn't have to be any of that. I mean, it has to be, but what happens is you see yourself.

Yeah. And I think that nakedness is what we need. I have not had one every psychedelic experience I've had has given me insights into myself that I could have gotten through yeah maybe some deep meditation or deep thinking or really or you know a sweat lodge or something like that but again the benefit of psychedelics it's it's relatively fast depending on what psychedelic you create but let's say psilocybin you know four or five hour journey unless you do a booster. And in that four or five hours,

I gain more insight than I, on myself than I have in my entire life. So why wouldn't I want that benefit? I don't care that I don't see Jesus or I don't see, I don't have a great long conversation with my dead grandmother or my, or whatever else.

Yeah. I care that I see myself for the first time. and I can love myself with all the good and the bad in my whole entire history and realize that these were things that just happen and don't necessarily, and this is who my true self is inside me. And so I would, so I agree. Yeah. So if you haven't done psychedelics, you haven't eaten broccoli,

you can't know the true insights you get from or how. great it tastes until you do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think Aliana covers this nicely. She says, when I first met my husband, I was still an atheist. I asked, what if psychedelics were purely chemical? He said this to me as a response. Either everything in life is meaningful or nothing is, but we don't get to pick and choose. And it's true. Why would a child's birth be more meaningful than a leaf falling from a tree? The beholder gets to choose the meaning of. it, right? In life, you don't get to choose what happens to you, but you and you alone get to choose the meaning of that event. And there can clearly be a leaf falling from a tree, could be a sign

that allows you to go on a hunt or ask someone to marry you or name a child. There's so much meaning that can go there. I think it comes back to the individual. And I would add, too, to the idea that taking a psychedelic or even if it's a chemical reaction in your brain, the fact that that chemical allowed you to learn more about yourself in a few hours than in a lifetime, why does it matter what's happening in your brain? Yeah. Why does it matter if it's that? Yeah.

And if that neuroplasticity, you know, if that chemical connects you to a new part of your, or an old part of your brain, it's new to you now, it's not. that fantastic. I mean, who cares what the process is that gets you there, but that you have that new learning about yourself. That's that's the outcome I want. Yeah. You know, one of the most biggest revelations that I have found for me is that under psychedelics, I felt I got to see myself the way others see me. And like, that was so profound to me because I got to be on some, on some levels, it was like, wow, this person really loves me. You know, I cannot, oh my God, I should try to love them more.

I should do this. And then other times I'm like, oh, I don't think that person thinks a whole lot about me. You know? And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I never thought about it like that.

But just the fact, like what a gift it is to be able to see yourself the way others see you. Or what a gift it is to get to see yourself or learn more about yourself. Like, you know, these sorts of realizations or revelations that happen to you are profound,

because they can have life-changing ramifications. And again, like, why, it doesn't matter. The clinical trials are irrelevant in so many ways. It doesn't matter which receptors triggered for what thing. And if you have the trip or not, like that to me on some level is the most ridiculous, stupidest, dumbest waste of time anybody can do. It works. What, like, are you trying to find out if it works for 0.007% of the nation?

Hey, congratulations. I guess we need. that but and that's a ridiculous part George yeah so again you look at and the the Prozac and that original round of antidepressants the efficacy of those drugs was so minor but you play with the statistics yeah and then the numbers get a little better and then the FDA approves it and it's you look back speaking of You look back and you say, oh, man, people were paid off pretty big on that because then you look at psychedelics. Yeah, and we have to go through every, you know, every I has to be dotted.

Every T has to be crossed. And if it's not, go back, do another trial. Let's try it again. And then even some of the results. Oh, yes. Oh, well, only 45% blah, blah, blah. It's working. You know, why are we focused on this?

And yeah, I agree. I think for whatever reason, psychedelics are having to do the most complicated Olympic routine to get approved versus the other ones that just walked into the facility and were given the gold medal. You know, so we, but so I think, I think it's a necessary evil. But I 100% agree with you that it's, it's a folly that we're doing. because we know it works. You know, everyone we talk to, if they do it the right way, and sometimes if they don't do the right,

sometimes, again, not to, I just want to stress this because the medicine's going to work on you. Yeah. Even if you didn't plan for it to work on you. And so that's why I, you know, it scares me when people say, you know, the good old concert and they're going to do the psychedelics just because

some heavy stuff can come out and, you know, and here you are watching a concert and whoa. But the point is, yeah, they work. And if you give them the opportunity to work and you take the time back to what we were talking about earlier to examine it and what we call it integrate it, then you'll find out some things about yourself that you will never in a million other ways have a chance to find out about yourself and to to live this authentic self life is I don't know how to describe it you just feel lighter there's more joy it's not a perfect life you're never going to

it's not we're not talking a perfect life we're just talking about a life where you can just take off all those masks take off all those shells whatever you want to call it and just say here I am naked and proud and love me or don't you know I don't need it no one not everyone needs to love me yeah it's true you know we we we're focused on this comparison syndrome and this feeling of we you know we all have to get along and we often be loved and and you know some of our authentic selves are a little wacky little weird and and only certain people are going to love us George, you're one that loves me. It's so true.

It's very true. Yeah, it's, here's another one that says, if every young man in 1968 had a psychedelic experience, good luck fielding a force in Vietnam. They had to put, yeah, they went to a voluntary force after that, right? It was conscription and now it's voluntary. And, you know, they say sometimes out of, great tragedy comes great realization.

And yeah, I think that, you know, the reason they had so much pushback afterwards is because they, they forced people to go and they realize that can't happen again because no one will go. Yeah.

Yeah, I have veterans tell me that now, that I've had the psychedelic healing, that they say the same thing, you know, he said, you know, if every world leader had a psychedelic experience,

there'd be no, there'd be no wars because no one want no one would want and certainly and or the world had it uh you know no one would have the want to fight and and and again yeah who wants to kill your brother or sister we don't we we just want to live our lives so yeah that that that's you know that's my one little fear about now though i think we're we're far enough into the renaissance now that i think they the governments couldn't pull back to do the same thing again although we still haven't rescheduled so it hasn't officially happened, but I think there's enough in Congress and at the state level that

they're realizing that we can't go back to the 70s again. We have to move forward. So I think that it still will happen. Yeah, I think that there is a sort of control. There's a recognition that the gene doesn't go back in the bottle. Yep. But there's this idea that they can control the genie. And like, that's why, in opinion, you're going to see anybody that tries to start a for-profit psychedelic company is probably going to fail because the powers that B want it to have, the only way to have a successful model is to have a way to centralize it. And that's why they're constantly looking for, hey, how do we get this thing without the psychedelic part?

Right. How do we rejigger this molecule so we can patent it? Because it's very hard to monetize mushrooms. It's very hard to monetize things out there, right? With monetization comes centralization, supply chains, industry, treatment. And that's what one half of this group is desperately trying to do. They're like, how do we make this thing fit in this model? But you know, you can't, you know, you can't use a cookie cutter to mold steel. Like it doesn't work, you know.

You can't use a cookie cutter for a phone case because it doesn't fit in this. there. And so people are desperately trying to jam it into this cookie cutter model, but it's not going to work. And in some ways, it's, it saddens me to see people that have gone out of their way to raise money to start this for-profit business because they want to help people and to see him fail. But that seems to be the MO. I just don't see how you monetize it. In some ways, it makes me sad. But in other ways, it kind of makes me see what the reality is. What's your take on that? Yeah, I mean, I think back to the language or back to new models, you know, I think what they're doing is that, well, the pharmaceutical model works. Let's just use that.

So, yeah, we'll create a, either, you know, we'll create a synthesized version of psilocybin and you'll have to go to your doctor, get it prescribed and, you know, follow that, that, because that model worked, you know, the Merks and all the other pharmaceutical companies are making, you know, billions and billions of profits. So that model works. And the FDA likes it. The CDC likes it. So I see them following that, which is why I love the DCROM model. I, you know, back to what we were saying before, I walk a line because I don't want people

necessarily to have that first psychedelic experience by themselves, which. especially if they don't do the research. But I think, as you said, after they've learned it, done it maybe at a retreat and know the process and know the medicine, that they should have the full right to be able to do that at their home, in a safe location, without having to go to their doctor and getting a non-natural version of that medicine, which some say probably works the same as the natural.

And we could debate that too. But then, yeah, they're developing LSD bromose. which is LSD without the psychedelic effect. And so, but that fits a medical model because the non-psychedelic, the LSD bromo still has the brain chemistry aspects that they can prove, but it has none of the psychedelic experience. So, but to me, the psychedelic experience is the part that allows that introspection. Yeah. I don't think it works with the. Bromo because that's just that's just impacting your brain but not having the but not

shutting down the default mode network so that it quiets your brain so you can have these other hallucinogenic experiences but I I fear again I I laud that that what MAPS is doing because it's the avenue they have to do yeah but that cannot be the only avenue for psychedelics because that, again, is false into a paternal model where I had to get approval. Right. Unless I go out into my cow pasture over here and start harvesting my own. And so I agree.

I think we have to figure out what works. Yeah, I certainly don't want either a Merck or Philip Morris to, now be running my mushroom supply or my LSD supply. I just, mainly because I just don't trust them. You know, when you put profits above everything else, and that's,

and to me, psychedelics is the opposite of that. Because when you heal, you just, you want to get back. And it's not, you don't want to make money, but you don't need to run over 10,000 people to make your money.

You can make your money in a way that, where you're helping people. Yeah. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in Denver, they just changed the law so that you have to have a license now.

It used to be that you could be a practitioner without a license. I think that's what it was. I don't know exactly. You know anything about that? I don't. I know Oregon's a stricter in that sense, and I know there's all sorts of issues with Oregon.

With Colorado, I'm not as aware, although I've been excited to see people talking about opening an Ibegain clinic in Colorado. It kind of blows my mind, but it's exciting. It is exciting. And the other thing I love about, somebody you mentioned earlier, George, the one thing I love about the idea of decriminalization is the problem we have with psychedelics,

and actually with all these substances are illegal, is there's a black market, an underground market. So on one hand, that's good because you can. can get the psychedelics that way, but you can't do the research. And so there are underground centers today, and we've talked about this before, but, you know, I had a really bad experience at an underground center. And if that's, if it were decriminalized, the guy would have a website, testimonials or not testimonials. And I could get, I could actually do the research and say, oh, no, I don't, I do want to go

that retreat or I don't want to go to that retreat center. And so that's another big benefit for me. If it gets decriminalized, then we can have all these psychedelic facilitators, all these retreat centers out in the open. I also love that idea because we can have right now most of these nonprofits that are healing veterans are sending them down to Peru, Mexico. And if we decriminalize it, we can have these healing centers for veterans and first responders right here in the U.S. You know, why do they have to go fly, you know, multiple flights to get down to Peru and then, you know, take a bus a couple of hours to get into the jungle to find the retreat center when they can, you know, just go to Peoria or, you know, wherever and in the States and find that retreat center. Yeah, it's true. And I love the direction we're going in.

And I love to investigate what's going on. And I'm thankful that we're at this spot right now because I do think it's a radical. shift in healing and consciousness and I'm stoked to be alive right now. And my heart goes out to everybody that's that's debating, that's talking, that's working in this area. And even though we may disagree on things, I think it's all helpful to have the discussion because,

right, when people aren't talking, then they're fighting. And it's a fun discussion. And I love to get into the nuance and dig into it. And it's a really fun time. Randall, this has been,

we're almost coming up on three hours, my friend. It flies by like that. It's so much fun. It is. And I apologize to anybody who's still listening. This is awesome. I think everybody had an awesome time.

We've gotten some great comments. Yeah, we really did. It's wonderful. Thank you, everyone who did those comments. Wonderful. I love it. Yeah. And so before I let you go, Rhanna, where can people find you?

What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Well, if you're a skeptic, please go to triumph over trauma book.com. my email address is for that particular one is ran at triumph over trauma book.com. Send me an email. Tell me, give me more reasons why you're a skeptic or if it's that one example of that there's nothing else happens. Tell me more about that. Find me on LinkedIn.

That's where I try to do a weekly article about healing or about psychedelics. And then, yeah, soon, soon, soon, more about the, my new book, but if you go to heal me, hold.com, you can get a little preview of what's to come. Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, what an incredible show. What an incredible guest.

What an incredible audience. Thank you so much to everybody. I hope you have a beautiful Friday. I hope you have a beautiful weekend. Check out the show notes. Check out, Rand. Thank you for supporting the True Life podcast. We love you guys.

That's all we got for today. Aloha. Aloha.