TrueLife - High on Healing: Uzma’s Journey from Opioid Fallout to BloomHigher

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

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/www.bloom-higher.comWelcome, everyone, to an enlightening episode featuring a trailblazer in the realm of plant medicine and holistic healing – Uzma Zakir RPh, the visionary founder of bloomHigher.At bloomHigher, Uzma's mission is to broaden our understanding, acceptance, and harness the healing potential of plant medicine. With a decade-long background as a community pharmacist, Uzma witnessed the devastating impact of opioids on communities, families, and healthcare practitioners. This experience ignited her journey into natural and alternative healing modalities.In 2015, she became a dispensary pharmacist at the Compassionate Care Center in Bethel, CT, and later served as the Director of Outreach for the Botanist, where her role as an indispensable resource and educator significantly influenced the Connecticut cannabis industry.Uzma's dedication extends beyond corporate confines. This year alone, she has been a featured speaker at UCONN, xpoCanna, NECANN, the National Cannabis Festival in Washington DC, and the Cannabis Science Conference in Providence, RI. Her influence resonates through a popular monthly webinar that empowered individuals until she ventured into new frontiers.A cum laude graduate from St. John's University College of Pharmacy, Uzma delved into cancer pain management research at the onset of the opioid epidemic. Today, she continues to pioneer the integration of internal medicine with cannabinoid therapeutics at Ultimate Solutions Medical Spa in Stamford, CT, alongside Dr. Jennifer Jose and Dr. Denise Green.Get ready to be inspired as Uzma Zakir shares her wealth of knowledge on the healing benefits of the cannabis plant, empowering individuals to make brave choices in their journey towards holistic well-being. Join us as we delve into the intersection of plant medicine, community empowerment, and the transformative potential of embracing alternative healing modalities. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

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

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I have an incredible show for you today with an incredible guest. Uzma Zakir, an incredible individual. And I want to welcome everybody.

Hang on one second here. I want to welcome everybody to this incredible show, and we're going to be talking to Uzma Zakir at Bloom Higher. Her mission is to broaden our understanding acceptance and harness the healing potential of plant medicine. With a decade-long background as a community pharmacist, Uzma witnessed the devastating impact of opioids on communities, families, and health care practitioners. This experience ignited her journey into natural and alternative

healing modalities. In 2015, she became a dispensary pharmacist at the Compassionate Care Central in Bethel, Connecticut, and later served as a director of outreach for the botanist, where her role as an indispensable resource and educator significantly influenced the Connecticut cannabis industry. Her dedication extends beyond corporate confines. This year alone, she has been a feature speaker at Yukon, Expo Kana, Nikon, and the National Cannabis Festival in Washington, D.C. and the Cannabis Science Conference in Providence, Rhode Island. Her influence resonates through a popular monthly webinar that empowered individuals until she ventured into new frontiers. A cum laude graduate from St. John's University College of Pharmacy was medelved into cancer pain management research at the onset of the opioid epidemic.

Today, she continues to pioneer the integration of internal medicine with cannabinoid therapeutics at Ultimate Solutions Medical Spa in Stanford, Connecticut, alongside Dr. Jennifer Jose and Dr. Denise Green. Dr. Usma, how's it going today? Thanks for being here. Yeah, hi. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for that great introduction. It's always nice to hear that, you know, from someone else. Thank you. Yeah, it's my pleasure. It's always nice to talk to some. somebody who is on the front lines and helping us push the boundaries of what is possible. Maybe I can get you to give me a little bit more background on your introduction.

And it sounds like in the beginning of the opioid crisis, there was some things that really changed for you. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, so I'm a traditionally trained pharmacist. I went to St. John's University in the late 90s, actually. And that's really when we started, pain was presented to us as the sixth vital sign. we started more of these pain medications were being developed. And I was, you know, in retrospect, looking back, we all kind of questioned it at first. And then we were like, no, like, you know,

all of this, this marketing, if you want to call it, and now we can call it propaganda by the drug companies. We're like, it can't all be wrong, right? And, and so what I did was a small research project with one of my professors. And it was really just asking patients, cancer patients, about their pain and improvement in before and after and just putting that data together. But what a powerful experience, you know, of course, being on the cancer floor of a hospital is. It's so incredibly moving. At that time, we're like, great, we're treating pain, we're treating pain. And then, you know, when I graduated and moved into the community pharmacy setting, that's when it really started to get a little out of control, where the number of prescriptions for

opioids and for narcotics so drastically increased in such a short period of time, like from the community pharmacist perspective, you know, which is what I was doing. And so this, I would say, over the course of about a decade, we started to see the problems that were coming along with these prescriptions. Where you would see just, you know, maybe someone that you know from the pharmacy, a patient that comes in for regular medicines, they come in after an injury, you know, with something that, something called tramidol that they promised was not habit forming, that it wasn't, it was just kind of like an opioid, it's different enough.

And, you know, and this young woman was a single mother, you know, just, just, just, regular person, just like all of us. And I would say in four months, you know, she started exhibiting drug-seeking behaviors, looking for her prescriptions early. And these are to no fault of, no fault of their own. And with any type of addiction, I think that something that we see often is that people, we think like, it's not going to happen to us, right? It's not going to happen to us. I'm going to take this pill exactly as my doctor prescribed. Nothing's going to happen to me because I'm using it exactly as directed. So things like that really started to hurt me and really just really made me aware that we're

not, we might not be doing the right thing here. And once you start learning about more natural alternatives and things you can do to heal yourself and self-care, I started giving people advice at the pharmacy to like not use their prescriptions or maybe just think, oh, you know, did you think about maybe using this as an alternative or, you know, someone, small things from, you know, a woman coming in and saying, I've had the worst migraine for three days. And I said, how much water did you drink today? And she said, oh, my God, I haven't drank any water for three days. You know, we just, we all forget to take care of ourselves. And then with the, with the opioids, it really started becoming,

seeing the doctor's involvement and doctors selling their prescriptions, you know, for cash. prescriptions. I'm in Connecticut, prescriptions coming up from Florida, people filling monthly. And people's pain aren't improving. People are getting into worsened health scenarios. And then you get legal involvement, right? Then we would have the DEA coming in and doing investigations and we would still have to fill the prescriptions, even though the person or the doctor, right? So we're still just putting it on the street, putting it on the street. And that plus a couple of other things with pharmaceuticals. I realized, you know, it got to a point where really just didn't align with my values anymore. And I knew that there was a better way.

And I was so fortunate in Connecticut that the medical marijuana program is a pharmaceutical model where they have pharmacists and pharmacy techs doing the dispensing, treating it as a schedule two in Connecticut. So that really started such an amazing. amazing experience and journey for me that I always knew, I think innately when I was younger, that natural medicine and even agriculture was something that was really a part of me. It was an interesting detour to become a pharmacist and then to come back around full circle. But that is such an important part of my journey and my understanding to health and wellness and even, you know, consciousness expansion in our awareness.

First off, thank you for sharing the story. It's always enlightening to me to get to hear and listen to someone's journey about how they came about seeing all these things. I'm wondering if we could take it back just to a moment. When you were, what was it like in, when you got your training in pharmacy school, did they teach about natural medicine or was that, was there, was that kind of left out? Or was it maybe not had a giant light shined on it? or what was the education in natural medicine when you were going through pharmaceutical school?

I would say little to none. None that can I can actually remember. So I would say it was little to none. You know, some pharmaceuticals that are commonly used are natural or from natural molecules, maybe a little bit there. But I would say, especially at that time, you know, we weren't learning about the endoconabinoid system. We weren't learning about any natural. alternative. That was something that I was interested on my own. I actually do remember I went to a homeopathy lecture out, you know, because just in New York City, and it was a homeopaths from India that was visiting and doing a lecture series. So I always kind of had my own curiosities, and really am so pleased now with the present moment where so much has come together for me that

so many of my different passions and now what I feel like I'm very knowledgeable about I can put together to help people because, you know, healing, as we know, it's not about going and picking up a pill. It's the farthest thing from that. It's also, though, not about just buying an eighth of lead at your dispensary and getting high, you know? There's so much more that there's so much potential that you can do with the cannabis plant that what I really like to do is teach people and guide people on how to maybe use different parts of the plant at different times of the day. And I really take a lot of time with each of my patients. Of course, for physical or physiological, you know, component of the disease,

the mental health issues, right, whether it's anxiety, depression, overthinking, we get into details, you know, you know, what are your PTSD symptoms? Are they auditory flashbacks? You know, is it the hypervigilance? A lot of times it's irritability. And once I can identify that for people, it helps their relationships get better. Hey, you're being annoyed all the time is actually a symptom of your PTSD.

So really understanding their physical, they're mental, but then tying it all together with them with the emotional burden or the emotional illnesses that we all carry from the many experiences we have in our life. So I'm a firm believer that our emotional illnesses, our emotional traumas and barriers, do lead to physical illness. And really putting those three together and then it could be matching the right cannabinoids, you know, for different times of day, teaching them to guiding, you know, whether it's with meditation or prayer, different intentions that can be set with different sessions and also how to interpret the outcome. That's abstract for a lot of people, right? So yeah, you did this

great session, you know, and you're feeling really great. What do you do with it up until the next day? What do you do with it in between sessions? How do you keep it with you? And I think a big part of my journey and why I like to focus on that with people is that it was something that I found I was missing. So I'm a practicing Muslim and we pray five times a day. And I do as you know as many prayers as I can. I'm not perfect. But what I realized is that I really liked who I was on the prayer Matt. I really liked how when I thought about different scenarios or this happened yesterday, the responses that I would have come up that I, you know, that I came up with while I was in that kind of state of consciousness was who I really wanted to be. But it's hard, it was hard to recall in

those moments of conflict. And so really my intention for a big part of my journey was how, how do I stay in that state of consciousness, whether, you know, for some people and for sometimes for me, it's meditation or it's a prayer, how can I stay as close to that as possible and move through life? So that's really what I think has guided me to understand how to help with just connect the dots for people, for patients, with that emotional element. I think I was kind of doing that for a long time at the dispensary without realizing it or having a verbiage for it. And then it all kind of clicked. I love it. I'm always fascinated to see the Ariadne thread through which medicine is connected to spirituality. And it seems like at least in the Western world, you know, we've kind of

gotten away from there. And I know for me, when I get out of balance and a lot of the people with whom I've spoken to that have shared some really incredible stories with me, it seems that on some level, addiction is being out of balance with your own nature or nature in general. Like we get addicted to this thing because we forget or we're we don't want to face this other thing. And addiction is a real thing. And there's a real physical manifestation out there. But I was wondering with your background in spirituality, maybe you can speak a little bit more on the relationship between spirituality and holistic medicine. Yeah. No, thank you. That's a really, let me think about how I'm going to answer that.

So spirituality and medicine. Yeah, I think that, I think hopefully we're moving towards understanding that it's probably one and the same. And I'm a strong believer in the unified fields and the oneness that is everything. And so that's where we understand that, yeah, we are mind, body, and spirit, but when we treat them and we can integrate them. Something that I find so fascinating in working with people with chronic illness is that they develop sometimes a disgust with the part of their body that is ill, that is, that is not well. It's caused them so much trouble, you know, and they want it away from them. They think they just, they want that part of their body, like, as far away from them. They don't even want to think about it because it's caused them so much grief and they can't get a grapple on it.

So that's going to be really hard to treat with just a medicine, right? With just a medicine. George, you're frozen. Am I frozen? No, you're good. I can see everything perfect. Okay. I wasn't sure.

Yeah. Was I frozen or was I coming through? Yeah, you're coming through loud and clear. I'm perfect. Okay. Okay, good. I was telling you earlier, we had a little snow storm last night. and I was worried then that the connection might not be so good.

So I apologize about that. Okay, so we're talking about the oneness and the unified field. I think that, and what cannabis and other types of psychedelics helps so much with is that we're always connected. We're just not always aware of that connection. And I think that awareness is what I was looking for. That conscious awareness is what I was looking for when I wasn't on the prayer mat.

was moving throughout my day, right? So again, like having the verbiage and then being able to share that has been really remarkable for so many people that I've been talking to and really seeing the light come back to their eyes. So I would start seeing that, you know, at the dispensary had a young mom who was struggling with severe PTSD and she was on very high doses of Valium for a long time and she couldn't get off of it. And benzodiazepines are really medication that it's so commonly used and so many people who are using it wish they weren't using it, right? They just, they, you know, when someone will give me their medication list, I can't even tell you maybe eight times out of 10 if they say Xanax or Adam and or Valium, but they're like, but I hate taking it,

you know, but I wish, I wasn't on it or I wait until it's really bad before I take it. And And that's just unfortunate that people don't have a lot of alternatives. But that's why we're speaking here today to let people know of other alternatives that they have. So she's a young mom on really high doses of Valium. She, when I first met her when she first came to the dispensary, she really didn't want to take up any space. She just made herself so small. She had her head down.

She didn't really want to make eye contact, right? the hoodie was up. She would, when we would chat on the phone for follow-ups, she was so nervous and so unsure of herself. And when we can step back and recognize that there's this beautiful light of divinity inside all of us and inside all living things, right? And I'm looking at her and that's what I see. But when she looks and thinks of herself,

there's no awareness of that. So we started her on a cannabinoid regimen, CBD and THC we used for her. And generally when I'm working with patients who are looking to discontinue medications, I like to have them not decrease on any of their doses until I start meeting their needs for symptomatic relief and get them stable and then start slowly coming off of the medications that they're looking to taper or discontinue. So I do take, I'm pretty conservative about it. I do take a little bit of time, but it's not worth it for it to go the wrong way. You know, it's just not, it's not worth it. Like a couple of more weeks will help you, you know,

stick to it and we know that it works. So that's what I was doing with her, brought up her cannabinoid doses the right times a day. And then we started discussing and working towards, you know, dropping down and cutting down some of the doses of volume. And this, I think, was during COVID. So I hadn't seen during quarantine. So I hadn't seen her for a while. But when she came back in, I would say about eight, eight months later, I could not recognize her. I mean, she came in. The light in her eyes was so bright. She was smiling. Her hair was done. She gave me the biggest hug. But it's the joy that we would see coming back. You know, my coworkers and I when we were at the dispensary, that joy and that light that we would see in people's eyes. And that's when I also

started noticing people would start like vibrating differently. Their energy changed, right? And that's what we were seeing, that joy, that light in their eyes. You know, you see a lifting of their emotional burdens. You see that they're not as heavy. And you see them walking with an awareness that they matter. I think so many of us and especially people dealing with addiction post, it's like this feeling of we don't matter. And I see that in a lot of my clients from different levels, right? That could be, you know, from someone who was severely abused and is recovering heroin an addict to, oh, I don't know, I don't know, you name it, somebody who just has like, I wouldn't say just, but maybe someone who's been struggling with something like fibromyalgia

and migraines for a few years. It's also like those underlying emotional currents that oftentimes it can be boiled down to like not feeling like we matter or we have a place or we have a purpose. And so really introducing just new concepts for that. with the right, usually it's cannabinoids, it's plant medicine that I use to help them come to a point of stillness, right? So stillness being a lot of us feel like we have a radio going on in our minds all the time, pop, blah, bop, intrusive thoughts, intrusive thoughts nonstop. Quieting that down, you know, maybe it's a high dose of CBD, maybe it's high CBD, low THC, maybe you have a higher tolerance, maybe we use a one-to-one, you know, we'll discuss the

delivery system. But getting those something like even just getting those thoughts to finally quiet down is so remarkable for patients and then added with, you know, maybe a meditative session or an introduction to these other ideas of conscious awareness. It's really just people just are like, it's awesome. They're just taking off left and right. It is amazing. I love the way in which you're able to describe the way in which someone walks in and you see them. It's like the description you gave of someone with their shoulders slumped and their hoodie on and the aura of them not wanting to be seen is it makes me want to cry. And I think that there's an epidemic of that. You would brought up this epidemic of meaning. And whether it's fibromajala or depression or anxiety or just

negative self-talk that's constantly blaring in your head, it seems to me on some level, we as a society, maybe as a world we've been suffering from a lack of meaningfulness, like whether it's in our relationships or our understanding of ourselves. And maybe you could address that a little bit. Like, are we waking up from a slumber of meaninglessness or are we just coming into ourselves? And what's your take on a meaningful life and healthy and being healthy? I think that, and I can speak for myself for a large part of my life,

is that we didn't know that there were, I almost feel like we didn't know it was an option. I think that we were taking things for granted, right? This conscious awareness and putting an effort and then really finding something that resonates as truth. I think that was a big thing. I think that a lot of established faiths, like a lot of the bigger religions,

I think that they've been so diluted or maybe like colonize. in their thought over the past, you know, a couple of centuries. I would definitely say that we're, you know, I'm Pakistani, so I would say definitely, you know, we've had a lot of colonization of our thoughts, the way we practice our religion and things like that. So there's been so many ways we've been affected that, okay, so let me think for a second. I think I just lost my train of thought, George.

No, no worries. We were just talking about like the mean. that we find in life. And we spoke a little bit about how maybe religions over the last 100 years have fundamentally lost a little bit of their own light. And here we are rediscovering it for ourselves. And so when you begin seeing people, you see that light again. Yes.

And I was saying about how truth resonates, right? That emotional force that comes from the essence of the source of all, what I say, the source of all beauty and divine intelligence. that resonates at a certain frequency that people will either respond to as a deep truth or not. And that's how I like to present it. If I'm talking to someone about, you know, I'll often ask, like, do you believe in a higher power? And, you know, here's just a concept for you. And if it resonates as truth for you, like, please keep it.

And we can keep building on it. I think the way we were taught about the idea of a higher power of God, a lot of us, it was really the man sitting on a throne in heaven. I think that just didn't resonate as accurate for most of us. And so people kind of turned away from these modern, I think, versions of a lot of these religions. And we're figuring it out for ourselves. but I think for me it came back, you know, it came right back to understanding Islam in a very deep, profound way that resonates this truth for me very deeply. But because it's such a, these deep truths are true for everyone, right? It's like, it's not limiting in any way.

It's actually been more expansive and inclusion, like more inclusive to me. So the meaninglessness, I think that I see it in so many people that I see. speak to. And it happens to people at different ages, honestly. So it's not like a later in life type of existential crisis because a lot of times I think it's illness and trauma that can really remove someone's our sense of hope and even our desire to search for meaning because you don't want to keep getting let down. And the guidance that you've had this far really didn't, it didn't resonate as truth for you. So people kind of give up. I think that's a pattern that I've seen. I don't know if you've seen, you know, it in a different way. But that's what,

that's the, those are the patterns that I've noticed. And so sometimes, you know, you can, you're open enough to, sometimes maybe it's just a sign from the universe or, and you act upon it. and you can start in kind of this journey of being aware of meaning and purpose. I think that everyone and we all are all the time getting sent these signs and sometimes we turn away from them and sometimes we go for them. So it's just about everybody's own timing on their journey and then, you know, offering it for what it is and it's okay. it's whichever way it goes i love it i wish more people and i know that they will like i see

i i think if people pay attention or they go walk in nature or they just sit quietly like they'll see the signs that are pointing to them like whether you look at the clock and it's 333 where you go outside and you notice a certain flower that seems to be calling your name not with words but definitely like trying to get your attention like there's something big going on. And for me, and a lot of people that I've spoken to, it's been these little moments of synchronicities that have called to them and began to blow on their candle, not to blow it out, but to make it brighter. And I think that that's when I begin to see people's lights go on and this despair begin to fade into a smoke that drifts away on some level. And I really feel like

we're moving into that direction where there's something more powerful. And it's calling your name. If you're listening to this, it's calling your name right now. And this conversation should be reaching out to people that are, they're looking for it. On a darker note, just for a moment, I've spoken to quite a few people who have found themselves not too long ago. And it happens to people in my family that had had like these suicidal thoughts. And I recently come to this conclusion where I want to tell those people on some level, like, and I don't mean this, this may be shocking to people, but like, I want to say congratulations. Because to me, that means that you've bucked the conditioning.

You've finally gotten to a spot where you're no longer going to live this anymore. And a lot of people, they get there and they feel so bad. But I wish that they would substitute that feeling with of like, oh, my gosh, I've made it. You've gotten to a point in your life where you realize you're no longer going to live like that. It's not making you happy. And this is the first day of the rest of your life. And I know, because I've been there. People in my family that I love have been there.

When we talk later, it's very difficult when it has. happens or shortly after, but a year, a year after you start looking at it as a turning point of like, hey, maybe this was an initiation. Maybe this was me being called by the world to relive a life worth living on like that. But I know that's kind of a deep. So did you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, that is, that is super, super deep. Yeah, I think that sometimes, if I'm understanding correctly, if the idea of like you need to hit rock bottom, you know, and it's, it's kind of, So actually in Sufism and Islam, you know, they say that you're going to constantly be tested with trials. And so the idea until you remember, right, that you remember divinity, you remember like, who are you turning to when you need help?

Who are you so close to? And the idea is to be so close to God and to know God is to know yourself. So it's this wonderful journey of understanding yourself and understanding everything in the universe at the same time. And so it's like the trials, right, that we have to go through. I often I'll share this with clients actually is when we wonder why do bad things happen to good people. So sometimes, you know, people will come in and it's like all of these bad things have happened to me. And it could be really horrific, really horrific things. So first, it's sharing that your experiences don't define you and your experiences are not what are

your, it's not your identification. It's actually not your experiences. So, so I think a lot of us have that understanding that we are where we went to college. We are, you know, what our profession is, or we're defined by how many kids we have or how big our home is. So start stripping away what society has ingrained in us so much as, you know, this is all there is between, you know, capitalism and all the marketing and everything. We don't, we don't see this on billboards. Right? This is like where we're just talking, you and I here because it's not on billboard. So good, you know, it's a cool place to be right now. So there's, there's first that your experiences, I think, don't, don't define you. And I see, you know, people are like, that's kind of a relief.

But then what does, right? But then what does define you? And so I keep losing my train of thought. When you smile really big, I get really happy, and then I forget what I'm thinking. You're such a contagious smile. Oh, yeah, I remember hitting rock bottom, kind of hitting rock bottom. So, yeah, so then it's interesting that you don't have to be attached to what got you to rock bottom. And like you're saying, it's a clean slate. So if our experiences aren't what we identify with, like, then what is it? And then where do we go for hope?

Right. So if we're about to start on this whole new journey and we're looking for a new path, which direction are we going in? Which is it a direction of hope and love and light, right? And then exactly what you said, an expression of gratitude for what we had to endure to be brought to where we are now. So sometimes that's a goalpost for people, depending on where they are on their journey.

journey. So, you know, one conversation really is not going to get someone from here to that goal post in one day or maybe even one week. So, but introducing what I think you and I have gone through and that we can, we can really say for real is our truth is that sometimes you have to lose everything or think you're losing everything, right? To find that right. To find that right. path to make yourself whole again and actually get to the place where one day you can say and express gratitude for all of those, all of those things that caused us so much despair. And when you're in the thick of it, when you're over here, that sounds crazy, right? Doesn't it sound like you, no, because you're sinking, you're sinking to the bottom of that hole. And so baby steps.

right, baby steps. But one thing that I've noticed also is a lot of us don't understand what wellness looks like, sounds like, feels like, walks like. When we've been ill for so long, whether it's addiction or, you know, other types of physical chronic illnesses, we don't, we don't know what the well version of ourselves is even. I'm always astounded, you know, I'll ask, I'll ask clients, like, what can you, what are your three favorite things about yourself, you know? And you know what most people say, I've never thought of that. Like, I don't even have time to think about that. I don't, you know, and I'm, you know, it's like our most important relationship is a relationship with ourselves. And that's a relationship that

we don't know how to explore. And so that's, I like to combine, to combine that with what I do with like cannabis regimens. And that's where I've seen it really being able to, click for people because again, we get some of their physical symptoms under control so they're not in excruciating pain all the time. We get their thoughts calm down and then there's this, okay, now here's a couple of things that if it resonates as truth for you, you can do to like try to try to make it to these goalposts. I love it. I love the way in which you were helping alignment through your past lived experiences and helping other people find that alignment too. touch on this idea of relationships in nature. We talked a little bit about relationships with

ourselves and sometimes people don't even know what they love about themselves. And isn't it interesting when we start using different plant medicines? Like we're ingesting part of nature. And sometimes that allows us to be outside of ourselves or it definitely can change the relationship with ourselves. And all of a sudden it builds this relationship, a natural relationship with ourselves in some ways. And I want to get into your regimen and everything like that. But let's just start off with the relationship between plant medicine, nature, and the human condition a little bit. Yeah. So I feel like we came from the earth and we're going to go back to the earth. Right. We share minerals and nutrients and and we're not our spiritual and energetic, I think,

forces just absolutely need and are one with nature. So again, it's that that separation from nature, I think is what really has caused all the problems that we have in the world, that, you know, taking man and being apart and superior to nature and to the earth is what's caused so much damage. And so again, it's that unified field where, yes, spending, you know, spending time in nature, doing the grounding, sitting under the moon, right? Having conversations, you know, with the moon, taking the prayer mat outside and praying under the sun. You know, doing things to restore that connection helps us with that awareness. Because once we remember once, if we focus on the fact that it's all one field,

it's more ways of just kind of this energy just transfer and it's just constantly moving. And, you know, you absorb it and you share and you absorb and you share. And I think it's, it's, I know trees are my favorite. I think my connection with trees really started me on my journey. So that's, that's kind of my special starting point and very sacred and dear to me. Yeah. And it's almost like joining in their praises of all the beauty in the universe. You know, when you hear the birds sing and you hear, oh, you see the leaves change color and they're so bright and

beautiful. I just think it's all like love and praise. And I like to focus on that and absorb that and try to fill my cup with that because it's so pure. I'm always, I'm always enamored with people who find themselves familiar with like Sufi poets. You know, like it totally comes through and everything that they do. I totally understand where you're coming from. And that type of language to me speaks directly to our souls. And I wish maybe that should be a class and every, every elementary school is like Sufi mysticism. That might help everybody out a little bit. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, it's really, it's so life-changing. And what I think is really fascinating is that, you know, the transcendentalist, like, you know, Thoreau and Emerson,

I feel like they're Sufis. I mean, you read, you know, you read Sufism and you read the transcendental. the transcendentalist really came up with it on their own, their own version just with their connection with nature and their incredible intellect and combining that. And again, there's where those cosmic truths become so evident. Right? It's not really an opinion.

It's almost like it will boil down to cosmic truths. And it's, yeah, I feel really fortunate to know about it, you know, to read these texts. and have access to it. I love the way you describe that, because I think on some level,

that's what we're beginning to see in today's world of medicine and spirituality for so long. And it looks like in modern medicine, a lot of the times we, especially in the West, whether it's in medicine or school, we're taught to learn knowledge.

But it seems to me some of the most important things in my life have been revealed to me, the same way you're speaking about in the Sufi tradition or in the transcendentalists or reading a good poem or just sitting alone and listening in nature or maybe sitting by a battered coastline

or listening to a waterfall. Like truths are revealed to you. And that seems to be the pathway to healing on some level. There's been times where I've been down in my life or I've spoken to people and something is revealed to me. Hey, I'm the problem. It's not this person that I'm mad at. It's me.

And what I saw in that person is a direct reflection of the problem I need to solve in myself. What do you think about truths being revealed to us as a form of knowledge? I love the way you said that. That is absolutely beautiful. I think when at first, it's probably something that's happening all the time, but we're not into, literally we're all like on the wrong radio station, right? And so it's probably something that's happening all the time.

But it's when we do sit out in nature and we do spend some quiet time And we learn how to still our minds and still our bodies. And sometimes we need plant medicine to help us do that, right? Different types of plant medicine to help us become more aware of our connection. So, oh, my God, George, I just got like spaced out again. No, it's all good. Sitting out in nature and getting back to this idea of information being revealed. They're revealing.

The truth, true. Yeah. Okay. So the truth. Yeah. And so I think that's something that's probably always happening. But when we still ourselves and we meditate and we sit out under nature, we can hear it, right? We hear it.

Or some of us see it in like a visualization type of artistic or sometimes there's colors. And I think when it first starts happening, first you think you're crazy. So first you think you're going crazy, right? So first you're like, but that's like, but I feel something in my boat. Is that my intuition? Right. I talked a lot of women about reconnecting with their intuition. We don't even know what it feels like anymore.

So, yeah, so having those truths revealed, I think also when we're really honest with ourselves and we do some of the shadow work and go through some of the not so nice parts of ourselves, it can often, when it's almost like you're going past like a certain obstacle, like in a video game, it's another level, it's another level. I have felt that when it feels like truth is being revealed, it's almost like veils being lifted. So for me, it's like it was always there, but I was able to clear out the veils

so I could read it or see it more clearly. I'm pleased to do that. Yeah. I'm reminded of like Alfred North Whitehead's theory of misbeye's theory of misplaced concreteness. So often we find ourselves with this veil in front of us and it looks like a truth, but then you lift it up and you're like, hey, that's not even real. That's just this idea that I had. It was probably protecting me from something I was hurt from. Yeah, yeah. And that's the journey, right? Like that's the journey. Things that can become, feel so obvious.

You kind of, but you couldn't grasp it four or five years ago. You know, someone could have handed it to you on a clatter, but you couldn't grasp it. And that's like a part of our own individual journey. It's so personal, right? Yeah. I think, I think people can, I know for me, like I've gotten hung up there before and so have some friends of mine where you come to this realization that something happened and then you automatically feel guilty for not knowing. Oh, could I not know, you know? And like, that's a real easy snag right there and you can get caught in a negative feedback loop right there. Do you have any advice for someone who might find themselves in that position? Yeah, you know, honor the journey, right? The trials are just, it's, it's just something that's a part of it. It's something that I think is a part of like our purpose of our time here on earth is, is yeah, sometimes you look back and you're like, how could I have not known better? Well, that's, that's the whole point. And I think that that's where, um,

And the idea, right, the concept of like surrender or trusting also in this higher power becomes so important. Because we're not going to have it all figured out, right? It's not it's not all going to be like typed out and explained like you, there has to be a little bit left for the unknown. And also for there to be some, you know, humility and gratitude for that space of the unknown. because I think when we approach it with like arrogance or defiance, then we start to have a lot of anger boiling up inside of us. When there's a lot of things that if we just, if we can,

if we trust in our understanding of what we're surrendering to, it can be a very nice place to be to let a lot of that go. Yeah, it's really well said. It's really well said. Thank you for saying it like that. You are one of the first people with whom I've spoken. that is talking about different cannabinoids at different times of day.

Maybe you could speak to that a little bit. I think it's fascinating, and I would love to learn more. Okay, yeah, thank you. And thank you for the compliment. I appreciate that. So, again, I felt, so really the evolution for me

and treating people with as cannabis as their medicine started off at the dispensary, like really simple, like Sativa hybrid indica, you know? Like Sativa's, for the daytime high. And that's what we would, that's what we would say.

Here, try a couple of things. Start off slow and low and work your way up. Like, you know, if it doesn't work, just take more. If you're not too high. And we were helping a lot of people. I mean, a lot, a lot of people. It was probably, and it definitely is the most beautiful experience of my life. It was working at the Compassionate Care Center in Bethel.

So it started moving from that to understanding CBD and what CBD does, and then another cannabinoid THCA. So this is going back like seven to eight years. So, and we're on the East Coast. We weren't as advanced as everyone in California. So we're a little different. And then really, I was kind of working out in my head with like pharmaceuticals and medications people were taking and then going on my own personal healing journey at the same time. So there was a really great paper called Clinical Endocannabinoid Defense. efficiency by Dr. Russo. And that really changed how I practiced because what he was saying in there is that if,

okay, so we all have an endocannabinoid system. Its purpose is homeostasis and balance. And it actually has a part of, plays a major part in every part of our pain processing pathway, amongst so many other amazing things we've learned, we're learning that it does, right? Our endocannabinoid system. So he proposed a theory. that if our endocannabinoid system is responsible for maintaining normal pain threshold, if we have a low functioning endocannabinoid system, then we're going to feel more pain.

And he linked migraines, fibromyalgia, which is like pain everywhere, and IBS. You know, so my stomach always hurts, my whole everything always hurts, my head always hurts. He linked those three disease states to a low functioning endocannabinoid tone and suggested that consistent and consecutive dosing would be more. superior and you could get a better result rather than just using cannabis as needed. Okay, so that's really what flipped me from recommending to just use it as needed to using it to build up your endocannabinoid system to actually lower your inflammation over time. And then when you're using CBD, for example, for pain, you're also helping with your anxiety,

with your raising thoughts and for other long-term health goals that someone might have. So I started combining all of that. And then realizing that, you know, most people can't use THC during the day. They can't tolerate it. It could be because of their jobs if they're taking care of children or taking care of elderly, a whole slew of different reasons. So if I wanted someone on like a certain ratio of CBD and THC over time, you know, for maybe someone I think, oh, I'm thinking of a patient with ulcerative colitis.

She was in her 60s. And she came to me and she was like, we're going to figure this out because I'm reading a lot of stuff on what cannabis can do for my condition. I think there's something more we can do. And I was like, you know what? I just read a study. Do you like, do you want to try this? She said, yes, I'll try anything. So I started her on like a 20 to one high CBD low THC first thing when she got up in the morning to help with her bowel symptoms because she couldn't use THC during the day. And then we had that consistent and consecutive dosing. We did something for her in the evening, I think a one to one. And she was good with her teeth.

at night to help her sleep. She did it every single day. And her symptoms had improved drastically within four weeks. So she was spending like every morning from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the bathroom. And she's like the worst GI, it's like the worst GI virus, stomach virus you've ever had that just never goes away. And she'd been dealing with this for 20 years. Okay. So her doctor, she had gone for a colonoscopy. Her doctor wanted to start her on more medicine because of how inflamed it all was. she was like, there's something more that we can do. We did this. And she did go back in six months.

And her doctor, after her colonoscopy, said, keep doing what you're doing. Your colon looks great. So they're like, okay, this works. And then I was just able, what I started doing was consciously having, asking patients what their day is like. So I'll have you walk me through your day from the moment you wake up to when you go to sleep, if you go to sleep with your physical mental and any, like, physical mental symptoms. So if you wake up in fight or flight, if you wake up with feelings of complete dread and you don't want to get out of bed, versus, you know, somebody who has a great morning and is full of energy, but maybe by 1 or 2 p.m.

Waves of depression or anxiety hit. So generally what I'm doing is looking for like a total milligrams of CBD, THC, maybe CBN or CBG as well. And timing it with what we know how it's going to make that person feel. so they can get the best out of their day. So if you wake up in fight or flight, I'll probably recommend whatever CBD product that you and I choose, keep it next to your nightstand, right, as long as kids and pets in the house.

Take it as soon as your eyes open. I've even worked with patients saying, put your alarm 15 minutes early, take your CBD, snooze in bed. Here's like a really great mantra or a breathing exercise that you can do. or let's try to work on some intentions that you can set. So incorporating the mindfulness with the CVD and then starting their day. And it's been working really well for people.

And then again, timing it with their pain. Some people can sit for four hours at their computer. And then after that, they're in a tremendous amount of pain, but they still have to work. So I would kind of design the whole plan based on what they do now, but then also introduce the concept of, hey, when you start feeling better, what do you want to do? You know, how do you see yourself smiling and happy? Finding those three words for them about what they love about themselves

and helping them reach that place. And then so having them walk me through their day, using the right cannabinoids at the right dose for an immediate effect as well as a long-term effect, and then understanding some of their emotional burdens that they may be having from the past or from what they're going through right now. and I work with flower essences, which is another type of plant medicine, to help them with their kind of stuck emotions.

Just kind of keep everything viving and flow in and get it moving. Is it, are they on like a cycle? Is it like three days on, four days off, or does it just depend on the individual and the doses? So it depends on the individual and the doses. I do work with a lot of patients. I find compounding RSOs, to either rectal suppositories or even vaginal suppositories to be very effective for lots of

different conditions. So sometimes I'll, you know, I think most often with the suppositories, I can do like, you know, sometimes it'll go down to like one every three days or a couple of times a week. Generally, I recommend for patients to take to take their cannabinoids every day if they're taking it by mouth or a sibling, willy. Yeah, it's interesting to see. the way in which it can become, you know, on some level, it almost reminds me of like an exogenous neurotransmitter. It seems like we've been devoid of these things for so long and then you reintroduce it into the body and everything starts to level out again on something. Yeah, totally, because it is. It does balance like our hormones and our neurotransmitters, right?

And then most importantly, it's a consciousness expander. And whatever was blocked from that, that connection that if it's a hallway or doorway just from like our mind to our spirit, it just unblocks it. And that's so valuable and it's such a big part of, I think, why so many people are really awakening the last couple of years and what we're seeing now. And people are understanding that they've kind of been chipped out of their sense of meaning and looking for their sense of purpose. and that's something that's really exciting to be a part of. It's really amazing to watch.

I were saying earlier, the light comes back, you know, the light coming back in their eyes. I feel like just it's a combination of like a little TLC and awareness. And it's amazing how much that can do for someone, for their self-esteem, for their sense of self-worth, you know, for themselves to get through their day to day. it's a really nice thing to share. Yeah, there's something magic that happens when you come to the conclusion that you're good enough and strong enough to get through your day by your own way. Like when you find that confidence in you, you know, like, okay, I can do this. I don't need this suboxin or I don't need this other pill. You know, I can just have this plant with me.

But that being said, you know, sometimes we hear about the slippery slope, you know, maybe people that are predisposed to certain sorts of mental illness. like bipolar or something like that or every now and then we hear about these adverse effects. What can we do to, obviously it's not for everybody, but how do you navigate that particular tightrope? I think every single person is different and unique in that situation. So, you know, that's where I think as a practitioner, you have to trust a part of your intuition and your experience.

Because sometimes bad things can happen, right? And we don't want to cause that or worse than that for anybody. you did bring up bipolar, you know, I think that a lot of psychiatric conditions aren't really treated properly. You know, I think it's really important to first look at nutritional panels and making sure that our nutrients and our minerals are right and what we could, what maybe we're a little depleted of and really replace that first. And so I think that holistic approach to those types of psychiatric disorders, I feel like that would be, that would, if so, so, say someone has bipolar and maybe they are looking to use plant medicine, right? Or they're looking

to start on their journey. I think what I would like to see is, and I would recommend, is, of course, what medications they're taking and, you know, the side effects. Because then at that point, some of these medications, these antipsychotics, and they do so many different things, like so many different side effects that you can't tell, like, symptom from side effect. So working nutritionally and holistically, I think, to try to reach some sort of stasis. seeing if those meds can be like decreased and then kind of adding if you know what whatever plant medicine that person may be looking into I think that would be that sounds like a much safer way to approach it so using the nutrition to really deal with the core of the issue

and then and then once that's balanced out then moving on to the next the next step which be maybe that's person's interest in using plant medicine. Yeah, it's well said. So many of the psychiatric disorders we have are so, like, nebulous. It's like this giant label that just nicely fits on this person. And then sometimes that person will wear that label like a badge and not even want to get out of it, you know. And I guess when I begin thinking about some of the people talking about the cannabinoid system, we're really learning a lot.

Like we don't know a whole lot about it, but it seems to me that we're moving into this age where we're going to see a lot of symmetry between the cannabinoid system and like the different types of genetic testing. Is that something that you see on the forefront? With the different types of genetic testing. So the genetic test that I've seen is for like how your body would respond to different cannabinoids. So that I know is is out right now. now as far as what do you mean specifically as far as like because yeah genetic testing is super exciting right you can know so much um i think that what we don't it would be nice to know um like a test for how like endocannabinoid tone like that's what i'm curious about like you know like how are you

making your natural cannabinoids are they binding to the receptors you know what are you low on i think that would be that would be pretty interesting but nothing that i've seen yet It is fascinating to think about. There's a really great book called Elevated by Sebastian Marancolo. The title of the book is called Elevated Cannabis as a tool for mind enhancement. And he goes really deep on the psychological aspects of it and the way in which alternate states allow us to see the world different. And he argues it's a form of enhancement. But like all forms of all changing environments, like you have to get used to the environment to thoroughly understand where you,

are or how to traverse that environment. And for a lot of people, it seems like for moving in to before now, everyone was really excited about like a high THC content. But with today's profile of cannabinoids and turpenes, like we're really beginning to understand the environment a little bit better. Maybe you could speak to the idea of the environment and the potential for cannabis as a tool for mind enhancement. Yeah, I think that's exactly what's so phenomenal about cannabis.

And I think that's what before I had the words for it, the real understanding of it, that's what I started witnessing happening at the dispensary to patients, was that it is an enhancement on so many levels, right? And it could be from helping you study better, you know, if you get, and it could be to understanding your place and your relationship with the entire universe better. Again, it's just that guidance and focusing entirely on THC, you know, I think, I think it was a little, it was breaking up a little bit, but I heard you mentioned about like just using THC. So that's not how the plant was designed. It was designed in a balance of different cannabinoids and now with, you know, different breeding techniques. And then, of course, with the

cartridges and the vape oils having such high percentages of THC, I really like to advise everyone to use some CBD and CBG as a buffer. If you're, you know, smoking only THC or vaping or using edibles, but have that buffer because we don't know what's going to happen to someone who started using a 95% THC vape when they were 16 or 17, right, up until we don't know. So I really like to remind people that that balance is super important. And then, of course, with the mind enhancement, if I'm, you know, for me, I think I'm interpreting that is like when we kind of expand our consciousness and go for that, go for our walk through. are consciousness. I think that's, it's, you know, that scope. Like for some people who've

never used cannabis, that, you know, first one or two puffs off of, they're going to have a pretty phenomenal experience. Can you put that question up again? Of course. Of course. I can. This is an awesome one. Could you touch on turpines for anti-inflammatory purposes? Most people don't understand the complexity involved in finding the right strain, dose, and method of entry, along with lifestyle choices that affect the outcome of the outcome of the. use. When I have ulcerative colitis, I spent the majority of my life on strong pharmaceutical medication. I bet a lot of steroids that did all sorts to my body from brittle bones to died skin color eventually. Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. I nearly died from neutropinexepsyst

and most medications exhausted. Okay. So for, I'm really sorry for what you've been through. ulcerative colitis is patients really just go through, go through so much and really how it affects lifestyle. You know, I've had kids who've had to drop students who've had to drop out of college because of their symptoms. They choose jobs and professions to really match the time of day that they're not running to the bathroom. I mean, it really affects your whole life. And then the hospital visits and hospitalizations and the flares. So ulcerative colitis can be very well managed with cannabis. You would probably be a perfect candidate for those rectal suppositories that I was talking about. One of the reasons why I do like to do high dose repositories is because you can

use a higher dose of THC consistently and consecutively, which is what I'm looking for to make sure we're going to get the effect that you're looking for. You can use a much higher dose without getting that psychoactive effect. So you can take, you know, 200, 300, 600 milligrams a day in a rectal suppository, get that incredibly profound anti-inflammatory effect and really just reap benefits. And then, you know, I have some patients who will, again, use that a couple of times a week once the flare is gone. And if they flare up again, they'll use it again. With a standard daily dose, I would say, I would again ask you if you have any anxiety or any issues sleeping and time the cannabinoids so you can get the best immediate relief as well as that long-term relief that we're looking for. So I would say generally almost all turpines are pretty anti-inflammatory. You're not getting enough turpines from smoking or vaping to have a true clinical effect.

So the way I like to describe getting an effect from the turpene is almost like when we, when we, why we're supposed to eat our fruits and vegetables every day. Okay. You're getting those, those compounds in you, but you need to build up. And you need to like take them every day. So that's where like turpene, you know, you're going to smoke. You're going to get that anti-inflammatory effect, mostly from the THC and from the cannabinoids, not necessarily from the turpines.

The turpines are great to let you know. how that particular harvest of that strain is going to hit. So, you know, say something like Girl Scout cookies, which is a classic hybrid, you can grow it outside in sunny California. It's going to be very different from grown inside here in a facility in Connecticut. Right. So each crop is different. And then you measure the turpines off of each crop.

So the best turpines, I would say, for pain, we look at beta-mercine and beta-cariofoling, very, very potent anti-inflammatories. And they also contribute to that couch lock feeling. Liminine and pining, you know, limine we say is like the happy, joyous terpenine. Pining can be good for focus, but can sometimes worsen anxiety. And little little is just a great balancer. I just feel like it just makes your mind even, your thoughts even. It just kind of helps you level out.

So when you, I would recommend, like what I would do is a higher dose of CBD, perhaps THC, depending on your flare is we might want to reverse or help pause what's going on since your extended steroid and other pharmaceutical use and just kind of write a bunch of things at once by properly supporting the endocannaminoid system. So yeah, so if you're looking to smoke THC, maybe during the day, you want something more with limineine and pining, maybe at night or when you can relax, something like something more in beta-mercine and beta-cariophylene. But I would definitely, you know, dose the CBT properly.

We could probably do a couple of things to really, to really get you feeling a lot better. I hope that I'll answer the question. Thomas, you should reach out to, reach out to her. I'll put her links in the show notes, but obviously she's really fun and cool to talk to and she knows what she's talking about. So you just reach out to after the show and have a conversation with her. It's amazing to get to see and listen to the advice and help people solve their problems. I got a couple questions for you that I had written down.

I'm going to ask you a few of them right here. So your journey involves presenting at various events, including Yukon, Expo Cana, Nikon, and the National Cannabis Festival. What key messages or insights do you strive to impart during these presentations and how have they been received by the diverse audience? Thank you. So I really like to share patient success stories. And I like to explain how we got to that success. Because I think that a lot of people, a lot of people, so you'll see something on like TV, right? People may see like a video where someone has this miraculous miracle like recovery using cannabis.

But then, you know, nobody's talking about dosing or what delivery system or how it actually happened. And I think that's a tremendous disservice because it's almost like this carrot stick, but nobody's going to tell you how to go get it because you think you got like a gummy. You know, okay, I'm using medical marijuana. Okay, you know, I vape every once in a while. Like, yeah, I use marijuana for my illness. And now that we've learned so much and so many practitioners, we've accomplished so much, and it is like a science now, right, where we have consistent dosing and we've got.

all these research papers and things going on to support what we're doing, I feel like when people don't know the potential of healing, how much healing can be done with this sacred plant, that's really my goal is to open everyone's eyes to how much is possible, what we're already doing and what we're learning how to do. And that's, again, getting a patient at clear colonoscopy and a lot of relief so they can maybe go on vacation with their family again, right? A lot of UC patients will tell me they can't go on vacation. They're not going to sit in a long car right. They're not going to go on an airplane.

So getting them to that point is a great success, but I think a lot of people think they can just go to their dispensary and have an edible once in a while, and that's all there is to it. So one of my main things is sharing success stories and how we actually got there. So what medications were used, what formulations were used.

So really like the case studies we would do in pharmacy school, so things like that. So that's something that I like to do. And also definitely inspire younger people or people who are trying to get into this industry because I just think it's still so new and there's so much potential that you can really figure out what you love to do

and make it work. Yeah, it's great. It's great advice, and it's an exciting time for people who want to get involved and begin to see some of these doors open up that can really not only help people, but change the landscape and the environment in which this new modality of healing is kind of being brought to the forefront. In your role at Ultimate Solutions, merging internal medicine with cannabinoid therapeutics, how do you see this integration shaping the future of holistic healthcare? You know, I hope it really is, like, I hope it's the future because I think that. we're about to help a lot of people. It's kind of, you know, years ago, I would say back at even like 2016, 2017, at the dispensary, I made a joke saying, like, every doctor's office should have one of us, you know, before these patients are going down this road of highly addictive substances, you know, pharmaceutical. Some of them, if they're not addictive, they're still very toxic, right?

And again, that's to her mind, body, and spirit, I believe. So this was kind of, you know, and actually, Dr. Jose from Ultimate Solutions Medical Spa heard me speak at Expo Cana last year. We kept in touch. And she really, this is how this was born. This collaboration was born was that she wanted to learn everything she could because she believed in it. but she's like, I have a full time practice. I don't have time to take a three-month course. It's better to contact an expert and bring on an expert. And I happened to resign from my job in July. Again, it just the way just really wasn't going in the direction

where I thought where I think cannabis medicine should go, or at least where my role would be, my place would be. So I resigned in July. We kept in touch. and it just literally just when the universe like just gives you something and it was like let's do this together you know so so she's a traditionally trained MD but she really likes to focus on natural alternatives and you know doesn't like to prescribe control substances so so I guess my dream from years ago at the dispensary came came true because she had a patient coming in

with a situational anxiety and situational panics. So something had happened in her life and she couldn't, that despair that we were talking about and that panic that we were talking about. And her therapist said, go to your doctor and just get a couple of Xanax. Like you need to calm down. This is not good for you. She met with the doctor,

you know, got like a little bit of a physical done and then talk to me. And she's very open-minded. And she, you know, We had a quicker session in the office. I gave her some CBD and CBG with Wild Rose flower essence and a cannabis flower essence that I had actually made at my friend's farm, the CBG gurus in Connecticut, and talked,

talk things out with her, watched her get calm, you know, I rubbed her shoulders a little bit, and she left with CBD and a really nice spray with some adaptogens. like lines made and cordyceps. And I followed up with her and she was, she was doing great. You know, we talked about negative thinking. We talked about focusing on herself during this very difficult situation she was going through and then helping her, again, come to a point of stillness with support. And so she left her doctor's office without Xanax, but with, you know, some really nice counseling and some plant medicine. And so I think that's a win for all of us, right? this is kind of the goal.

Because it's sometimes, you know, benzodiazepines and it is hard. It's hard. People go through a lot when they take them, and it's hard to come off of them. So that's a bit of what we're hoping to do, to continue to do. Yeah, it's interesting. When you spoke about, you know, creating an essence on the farm, I had this idea lately, and I just kind of want to throw it out to the world and see what people think. about it. It makes sense to me that the medicine that's grown in your community would have more of a

healing effect on you since you're part of that community. I don't know if that's really taken hold yet. I know that it may not be really popular with people that are selling certain types of oil or certain types of breeds, but it seems to me that a plant that is native to your community that has grown in the same soil with which you find yourself to be associated with for years or, your whole life is going to be better for you than something that's brought in from somewhere else. Do you have any thoughts on that? So I think I missed the beginning of what you said because of my Wi-Fi. I'm sorry.

But are you asking about like home grow versus like dispensary or like indigenous going back to your indigenous culture and what plants are there for you indigenously? I think just like plants grown in your community. They probably are made up from the same nutrients in the soil that is in your wild. water. So that would probably have a better effect for you individually in that community with a plant that's grown in that community versus something that's brought in from somewhere else. So, you know, with home grow and people who grow their own cannabis plants, a lot of them feel that the plant grows for more in tune for their for their health needs. And I think that's

really beautiful. I just wanted to share that. And as far as like with community of, I don't know, I feel like I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but the water thing scares me because I feel like everything is so polluted. But I definitely agree with that about honey. I think local honey can be is really important for people with like allergies and eczema. Yeah, he just said that. So I definitely, yeah, but plants, I think, oh my gosh, yeah, I guess if it was a couple of decades ago and everything wasn't as polluted. But, but yeah, I mean like, Yeah. It's,

I got you right there. It's, you know, it's always amazing to me to get to sit down with someone and not exactly know where the conversation is going to go and then have such a wonderful experience.

I'm really thankful for all of our time, and I hope that we'll have more of these conversations. There's some other people I would really like to sit down with the three of us or four and have like a panel discussion about things. So I'm hopeful you'll come back, but before I let you go, would you be so kind as to tell people where they can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about?

Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you for this amazing experience. I didn't really know what to expect to. So I was just like, I'm just going to go for it. And I did. So I hope. And I had a really great time. Me too.

Yeah. So I'm at 1767 Summer Street in Stanford, Connecticut. I do offer sessions on Zoom as well so I can help anyone anywhere in the country. and my website's www.bloom-harm.com. And I have a couple of exciting things. Well, this was really excited at my schedule. So this is a nice check for something cool that I did. I have an event in North Branford, Connecticut.

I think it's on January 31st. And that's a let's talk about weed. And there's going to be some really amazing female panelists. We're going to really just talk about what we do for plant medicine. And I think, yeah, just working on, I actually have a product line coming out. So I still feel funny talking about it because it's not actually done. But it's really a combination of cannabinoids with different flower essences and some supplements. So it's really kind of trying to be like the whole package.

you know so the product that's coming up for sleep it has something in there like if the flower essence that I chose was to help with excessive rumination regret and overthinking because that's what I have found in and speaking to so many people is really common for for keeping us up at night and why we're not asleep so there's some exciting products coming out so I'm really excited about that and you can follow me on Instagram bloom underscore higher and thank you so much George for this this is awesome and I definitely want to talk more and I think I'll be more comfortable next time. I got nervous a couple of times. Yeah, no problem. It was a wonderful conversation and I love all the information out there and I love the things you're doing and I would point to anybody who's

watching this today or in the future to go down to the show notes. Check it, check it. Check the show notes. Go to the website. It's an incredible conversation and if you're just listening to this on the podcast, go down to those show notes and all the information will be there. And hang on briefly. I'm going to speak to you afterwards, but to everybody who was here today. Thank you for hanging out. Thomas, reach out to her for sure. She's one of us. She's super awesome.

So that's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.