TrueLife - Rainbow Pearls of Wisdom: Bridging Psychedelic Magic and Legal Insight

Episode Date: January 25, 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/Serena WuLadies and Gentlemen,Prepare to dive into a mind-expanding conversation with the extraordinary Serena Wu, a trailblazing business attorney and author. Serena's passion transcends legal boundaries, focusing on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, health, wellness, and mission-driven social entrepreneurship. From advising on psychedelic-assisted therapy to navigating the complexities of blockchain and cannabis, Serena is at the forefront of emerging industries.Join us as we explore the intersection of law, psychedelics, and purpose-driven entrepreneurship. Serena's journey from litigator to advocate for purpose-driven companies is a testament to her soul-aligned path. Harvard Law School alumna, advisor to Reason for Hope, and founder of Women in Psychedelics, Serena brings a kaleidoscope of experiences to our conversation.Get ready for a thought-provoking odyssey as we delve into Serena's novel, "Dandelion Odyssey," inspired by her own psychedelic journeys. From Rainbow Pearls to advocating for mental health reform, Serena's narrative promises to captivate and inspire.Welcome, Serena Wu, to a conversation that transcends boundaries and explores the uncharted territories of law, psychedelics, and purpose-driven endeavors.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPLD4LNXwww.radiclelaw.comwww.serenawu.com#Psychedelics #HealthAndWellness #SocialEntrepreneurship #LegalInnovation 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. Heiress through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles, the track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, guess what? I have an incredible show for you today with an incredible individual. For those who may not know, I just want to take a moment to introduce the incredible Serino. And I hope everyone is prepared to dive into a mind-expanding conversation with an extraordinary individual. A trailblazing business attorney and author, Serena's passion transcends legal boundaries, focusing on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, health, wellness, and mission-driven social entrepreneurship.

From advising on psychedelic-assisted therapy to navigating the complexities of blockchain and cannabis, Serena is at the forefront of emerging industries. Join us as we explore the intersection of law, psychedelics, and purpose-driven entrepreneurship. Serena's journey from litigator to advocate for purpose-driven companies is a testament to her soul-aligned path. Harvard Law School alumna, advisor to reason for hope, and founder of women in psychedelics, Serena brings a kaleidoscope of experience to our conversation. She's also the author of an incredible new book that you can see behind her. And I would recommend everybody go down to the show notes and give the button a click and check it out, Dandelion Odyssey.

Serena, thank you for being here today. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah, I'm exot. I think it was about a year since we've talked last. It took me about a year to finish the book.

It's interesting. First off, congratulations on the book. And I want people to understand a little bit about what goes into writing a book. And some people say that the book may be a little autobiography, though. The first book people put out as sort of an autobiographical in some ways. But maybe you could give people a little bit of background on why you wrote the book. How it got started and what does it mean? Yeah, all great questions.

I think I've heard since I was young that you write, authors write what they know best, right? Whether that could be learned through research or from their own experiences or observations or things like that. But then there's also an aspect of imagination and creativity that goes into writing anything. I've been thinking about this book for some time. My best friend was the one who encouraged me to write it for many, many years. and I resisted writing it because I think at the beginning it was just sort of like who would want to read my story or how can anybody even relate to that. And so I still resisted it, but then I had an experience where I was reaching an epiphany and the question was asked of me whether I was going to write this story or not. And at the same time, psychedelics was becoming mainstream.

more and more people are intrigued about psychedelics and psychedelic medicine. I've worked with certain types of psychedelics in my healing journey with psychiatrists and also abroad. And there was just something that was, you know, I wanted to tell the story about how, like, what a journey would look, could look like for somebody who is going through that process. because oftentimes we hear, oh, people take, have this condition and then they go and have a journey and experience with psychedelics and they feel much better. And there's like the problem at the beginning and then the solution at the end. But I wanted to kind of dig a little bit deeper into like what goes into in the mind of somebody or possibly goes into the mind of somebody in the in between. And I think it's also like a story that I was telling to me to like, like my younger self, if I was younger.

I wish somebody had told me a story like this where it's kind of like, it's hard. Life can get hard. Like we experience trauma. We experience traumatic events. And there are certain things, especially as kids when I was growing up, there were a lot of things from my culture that wasn't explained to me in my family. Like we didn't really talk about emotions. And it sounds pretty cliche now in the Asian culture.

but it's true. And what I've learned from my experience was that by working on myself, by changing myself, and that actually started to have ripple effects with my friends, my family, and started changing those relationships. So I was trying to encapsulate in the first book, Why a Search for the Rainbow Pearls was that the protagonist's search was basically a search for loving herself, finding her essence.

And by finding her essence, she can start healing herself and hopefully that that will create rippling effects throughout her life. And the goal for this story, Gandaline Odyssey, is that it would be like a three-part book. I don't know what's going to happen in the next, in the future in the next books, but for this first one, it was really a message about returning to one's wholeness. I truly believe that we are born home. We are born perfect and wonderful. but over time, through our experiences growing up and the environments that were around,

we learn different messages and we learn different opinions and perspectives about ourselves, as well as the world, but particularly about ourselves. And those experiences, you know, could be great experiences that have positive impacts or it could be not so great experiences that have negative impacts. So the story of Wira is that she would just kind of go through that process where she was at a low go through the process with the help of psychedelics of returning back to her own wholeness and being to start healing those parts of herself. It's so awesome. You know, I can't help but see like when I see the background behind you,

like your head is perfectly framed and the explosion behind you. And what makes me think about is the explosion of your story, like the beauty just radiating from the back of you and the courage it takes to go through difficult times. Like you've gone through some, but I think that your story and in this book, you're giving people to, you're giving people permission to explore the beautiful side of tragedy. You know what I mean by that thing? That's really hard to see sometimes, especially when you're in it, especially when you're in a culture where, you know, we're not to talk about that. We don't talk about Bruno over here. You know what I mean? But like you're really inviting people into your life and saying, hey, look at this. This is a really hard for me to talk about.

but I want to show it to you so that you guys can maybe take this pearl and see how it might be a pearl in your life. It kind of brings me to my, yeah, go ahead. What do you got? No, no, it's just, it's beautiful the way you see that because I think an aspect of the story, what I wanted to get at is there is, there are gems. There are, there is light in the darkness. And I've, with my healing journey, I've spent a lot of time in the dark. And I grew to really feel really comfortable in that. But to the point where it subsumed me for a very long time, but it's over the process of like rediscovering myself, I learned to see that there was, there are still lessons to be learned.

I can't really say there are reasons for everything, but there were definitely nuggets of lessons and insights that I gained by having those experiences. And that was something I did try to imbue into the character, Wira, is that she sees the world in pretty bleak terms, especially in the beginning. But over time, the way psychedelics work sometimes is that it acts like a mirror to see our inner worlds. And it challenges our perspectives, good and bad, you know. And by mirroring not just like, it's like, oh, you can really, she can really see the darkness,

but also she can see the light, which she's not seeing, but the psychedelics is mirroring that because it's already in her. So that's, again, kind of going to tell people that, I wanted to tell people that like, hey, as cliche as it sounds like there is light at the end of the tunnel in the dark. And the dark and the light, it just coexist, co-exist together. You can't really have one or the other. Yeah, it's a great point. And I, there's so many similarities where, you know, sometimes in the height of a psychedelic experience, you're able to gain a different perspective. And it makes you realize that you were in the dark about some things.

Like you didn't have all the information or you were unable to see a different perspective of it. and writing kind of does that same thing. It allows you to portray yourself as the antagonist in a story, which are also the author of the story. And in a weird way, it's an incredible shift in perspective when you can do that. And I think that that's a big part about seeing the light is the perspective. You know, if you look at a camera the way photos are shot, it's all about perspective. And when we change the perspective, we change the lighting of the situation a little bit, right?

Right. Definitely. I mean, it's all a lot. A lot of everything is about perspective. It's like I think what do they say is a half, is a cup half full, half empty, right? It's all perspective and shifting that perspective. And I think there are moments now where even in my life currently, there are times when something bad happens. I can choose to wallow my own self-pity or I can choose, like, okay, what can I learn from this?

Well, this sucks. What else can I do differently next time? or can I do anything about this? Maybe it is out of my control. And then just being able to look at what's happening sort of from a third person observer's perspective, so it's not, I'm not so attached to any particular outcome. Although that still happens, right?

But it's a constant process. It's a constant practice to be doing that. And I feel like I'm learning all the time. But at least one of the other things, too that I wanted to promote with the book is the idea that psychedelics medicine can be used when used safely and intentionally can be powerful medicines. And especially in the Asian American space, talking about mental health is stigmatized. Drugs are highly stigmatized. But then, you know, if I'm writing a story about somebody healing with the help of psychedelics medicine, perhaps it could

then help with desigmatizing and being able to push forward and have those conversations. It's interesting to think about the role psychedelics can play in different cultures. And it reminds me of my wife is Laotian. And I remember going over to their house about three years ago. We went over there and we were hanging out with their family. And her sister, Von Lee, has two amazing kids, Tyler and Lauren. And Lauren's getting ready to go away to school. And Tyler is just crushing.

He's super smart. And when I left, I remember walking up to him and being like, hey, guys, I want you guys to know. I love you both. And I'm super proud of everything you're doing. And like, their face got so red. They were like, what? But I could see that, like, they'd only talk about that too much.

I gave him, like, a big hug. And they were like, it was so cool to see it because I just saw them, like, explode with joy. Like on some level, but they were like, what are you talking about? You love me. You couldn't even say that. I'm going to say that. But it was psychedelic in a way. So I know what you're saying about how.

psychedelic medicine in different cultures can have a profound effect on some level. And it's opening in some way, the idea of psychedelics and cultures. Thanks for letting me share that. Yeah, that's wonderful. I mean, it's kind of like the same, like what I've seen is that what I've learned is that, you know, in Chinese culture, at least with my family specifically, it's like they might not say it, but they're very good at both showing it. A lot of it revolves around food.

It's like, have you eaten yet? have you what about this like even if your stuff they're like you know have some more food and they just want to make sure you're well fed and that's their way of expressing love whereas like talking about it saying it saying you're proud of you it's like it's so foreign it's so foreign to the vocabulary that it's just not that comfortable but it doesn't mean but it's like it's the language right um being able to understand each other's language and how what is being expressed in particular different ways um and it took me a while to even really really I was like, moving from my mom.

I was like, that's how she expresses love. And it was just really foreign to me because I didn't understand. Okay. So this brings me to this question. The rainbow pearls symbolize a path of unconditional self-love. How does this metaphor resonate with your efforts in creating a more? Okay, wait a minute. I'm going to come back to that question, man.

I have another one first I want to ask you because it was close to. to it. Okay. Wira's encounters challenge for default modes of operating. How has your journey from a litigator to a business attorney aligned with your soul's path challenging and reshaping your professional narrative? I'm in the process of reshaping my professional narrative. So I think one, it started with could I do it? Like, could I transition from a litigator to doing more business transactions or just being a business attorney and helping startups? Yes. with social impact in mind. And it started out with, you know, challenging the fact that I was like,

oh, I was only a litigator. This is all I can do. A litigator. Yeah. It's this idea of like pushing past the limits. I have this very narrow view of what I can do and what I am in terms of my identity professionally. And then once I saw that I could transition, you know,

It takes time. It takes effort. It takes a lot of work as well, too. But once I can start transitioning that, I think it's more about like, okay, what do I want to do with my career? What do I want to be of service to? And I think just, you know, my business partner and I, we form radical law. It's a corporate boutique law firm. And we've been talking about social enterprises since we were in law school. But then we win the traditional path and then we came back and formed our own law firm because we wanted to infuse that as an ethos, like supporting social entrepreneurship and promote that as an ethos of what we want to do with the work with the type of clients we want to work with and the way we're trying to be in the world as attorneys. And I think like that process is being played out, especially in terms of like the like who we're trying to.

trying to support. Like right now we're working with cannabis social equity applicants. We're also working with businesses in the psychedelic space. We're also working with businesses that have like social good and social impact as part of their mission and their PBCs and they want to create good things in the world. I think it's just now I'm really coming around to the idea of creation. Like it goes beyond just like social. impact and social entrepreneurship, but this idea of creations, like what can I create, whether it's a book or whether it's just some art form, whether for myself, my friends, my family, or greater community, that I would like to put out into the world.

And as I'm looking, we talked about startup spaces. I'm just like astounded and amazed and inspired by a lot of the creativity that people or coming up with, whether it's services or different types of products that they're putting out into the world or different artworks and creative works. And there's just something very magical about that creative and creation process. And I feel like that is becoming more and more as part of my professional identity is like, what can I create rather than just be like, I'm an attorney. It's more like even as an attorney, you're still creating something, whether it's doctor,

or it could be a podcast series or some kind of content YouTube series or whatever it is, there's still this process of creating. And yeah, I'm just kind of, I'm very drawn to that and building that as part of my identity. You would be a phenomenal podcaster. I would watch your podcast. And I have my question. I don't know. You're so much we're comfortable in front of the camera than I am.

So you seem like you're having a lot of fun. I am. I've done 600 of them, though. And I really enjoy it. And it's fascinating to me because much like you, I feel like I'm getting to go and learn something every day. Like right now, I'm getting to learn from someone who is an attorney. I get to learn from someone who's written a book. I get to learn someone with different culture and how they're tying this all together.

And that leads me to this question and that is that, you know, you had said that at some aspect before the book, you thought maybe I was only an attorney. and now you're an author, now you're a creative. Do you see that like every endeavor that you begin in, is that a new piece of the puzzle or is that like a new lens with which you can now see the world? Like if you had to use a metaphor behind it, like does it seem like you're adding pieces to the pole, adding pieces to the puzzle to become a whole?

Or how do you see it metaphorically? Or is there a metaphor through which you see this, everything coming together? Yeah. So I see it as it's an expression of the whole. whole, right? Yeah. I think in one of the scenes in the book, it talks,

Waira meets a character. It's like this invisible character whose name is Beloved. The Beloved is really an expression of God or what that might be to some other people, the source of higher power. And the beloved says to Wira, like she is a creator. Because in her journey, she's creating these magnificent galaxy. and it's all unfolding in her head. But so like it's this, it goes back to that.

It's this idea like we're all creative creatures. We're creative beings. And we create, you know, a lot of my teachers and mentors that even a thought is creating, right? So we create our realities. We create our habits. We create our thoughts. We create the services and the products, the artworks, the artistic. expressions, a lot of these different things. And I think if there's, I don't know as a metaphor,

but it's just definitely like that's the idea, that's the concept it goes back to. And I think one of the things that with psychedelics is that unless you are practicing something like mindfulness, meditation or something that requires you to pay attention, I think psychedelics can help people be aware of what they're creating. And then I think once people can become aware, they can have more intention and choice as to what they're creating. So before, I feel like I was creating, whether it's thoughts or a contract or something,

because I was kind of going with the flow. But then now it's a lot more intentional. Like creating the book was a lot more intentional than, oh, I'm just going to write a book and see what happens. happens. And I'm not saying like there's anything wrong with that. If, you know, if people are just like, I want to write a book. And like, that's great. That's the intention. But it's more about, again, being purposeful and just understand. I have a better understanding of why I do certain things. Or even if I don't know why, I know that I'm like, I just want to create this because I want to express this. And that's enough of an intention for me. It's so beautiful. It speaks to the idea of the creative spirit. And what you just said, when you play this back, it's beautiful.

The idea that you come up with a character called Beloved, who is telling you you're here to create. And you have translated this thing that happened to you, on some level, beloved, be it a character, be it a nature scene, but something in your life was beloved and spoke to you, Serena, that was like, you need to get out there and start creating because you're beautiful. And these ideas you have can be contagious. And through the book, you create this character that speaks to the readers.

Like the contagious nature of creativity that flows through us, mind-blowing. And you're doing that. Like, you're a conduit for creativity. And it's contagious out there. Like, that's got to feel pretty good, right? I think it feels exciting and scary. Wow. Why is it scary?

Well, I think, well, so, like, I think fear and excitement I was told by a wise person. in that the difference between the two is just the breath, right? And it's such a beautiful reminder I keep to myself every time I, it's kind of like going on a roller coaster. You're like, oh, it's going to, you know it's going to drop. And it's scary. It's going to drop because it's a drop, but then at the same time, as long as I breathe, it's going to feel exciting.

So it's that transition with the difference of the breath. And I say that it's scary and exciting because. it's unfamiliar. Like writing a book, publishing it, putting it out there, it's unfamiliar to me. I'm not 100% that comfortable with it. And at the same time, when I just take a breath, and I'm so excited I get to come on this podcast

and talk to you about it in your audience about this, it's like, then it feels exciting because that contagious character, the nature of ideas. It's fascinating. You know, you just kind of see where it goes. And I've looked at some of like a lot of businesses and books and works of art and whatnot. Sometimes it doesn't take hold for a while. But then something happens like with artwork.

You know, I heard like with artwork, it could take decades. And then somebody might find value and it or value was created somehow through some, some event. And then now it catches on fire and then it just spreads. and it becomes even more valuable. But same thing with ideas. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to catch certain ideas, and then it spreads and spreads and spreads. But one of the thing is that maybe I'm more aware of it now,

a lot of the ideas that I've been trying to communicate through the book, they're not mine, they're not new, they're not novel. They're just translated and they're repackaged in a different way to fit that particular story. But the ideas that we're all creative being. right, and we're born whole. Like that's been around in other cultures and other traditions and other religious beliefs in their teachings

for a very long time. So it's like I can't take credit for all of that. But the way we communicate these ideas might be new and might be appropriate for the specific time. Yeah. You know, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And sometimes somebody can see something and be like, I don't like that at all.

But it takes a real, it takes imagination to coax the beautiful out of that which is not beautiful. And we admire that. Like when someone can look at this situation and go, I'm so sorry, but I learned so much. You know what I mean? Like that's powerful right there. That's inspiring. And that's what we need, especially in times of transition, is people that can stand at the precipice and be like, Let me show you. Come here. Let me show you something.

You know, and are you scared or are you excited? And it's what we need right now. And I really think that we are on the precipice of creating a new world. And it's people having the courage to say, you know what, I'm more than a litigator. I'm also an author. And I'm also these things. Because that lets somebody else do it. Like there's a young George or a young Serena out there that is maybe going through their trials and tribulations.

And when they see you talk about the difference between excitement, and fear like, oh my God, maybe that hits home for them. Maybe that's the rip, maybe that's the calm pond and you just threw a little stone in there. Now it's rippling outward. And people can read the Dandelion Odyssey and be like, wow, I'm totally affected by it. It's mesmerizing to think about. Let's talk about art and the cover of the book. Like what is the symbolic nature of the cover of that book?

It seems pretty like it's got some deep roots to it. Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate the graphic artist who translated my stick figures into this beautiful artwork. I literally gave them stick figures, and they did magic. So, you know, the girl in the middle is supposed to represent the protagonist, and she's holding, I think, like a dandelion that's kind of like spreading. Dandelions, like, that's a metaphor for me, specifically.

And dandelions have a lot of seeds, and the way I feel like with the characters, journey is and I feel like with the life's journey is that we're drifting into the air we're drifting drifting drifting until the sea finds home the ground and then you know takes root and then grows into another dental line where like the weed and then grows into another dental line and then they keep propagating so it's kind of like an metaphor for the drifting that we might be doing in the life but then at some point we do settle down we ground down and and then And then we propagate. We continue to propagate. But I personally for me, dandelion was just like it, I felt very like for a long time in my journey, I felt like I was

drifting a lot. And then when I return home to myself, that was kind of like the dandelion falling into the ground, the sea taking root and then growing into another beautiful dandelion. So that's what it meant for me. So it's like, again, going back to the theme of the story and the message is like finding wholeness, you can't really find that outside of yourself. It's really within you. And when you feel connected to yourself, that's when you feel the most whole and the most grounded and secure and rooted in who you are.

Yeah. It's beautiful to think of the metaphor that down, it went floating and then find it. finding a seed that grabs hold and, you know, on some level you look at the life cycle. Like all of a sudden, now you're creating this new dandelion. And it's just this system of rebirth and growth. And, you know, it's, let me send a shout out to everybody that's talking to us. We got digs. He says, what's up?

We got Michelle. Thank you for chabining to Michelle. She said, I love that. The difference is the breath. That was a beautiful quote. And she says again right here, oh, my, how cool to come across this. What gorgeous wisdom. Entering the age of Aquarius is a time for the people.

We are finding our tribe. You know, it's interesting to think about the changes that are happening. And I love the symbolism that you use about nature. We're something like, obviously you, have you spent time looking at dandelions? And like, why the dandelion? I mean, you talked a little bit about what the metaphorical is, but have you always been attracted to dandelions? Or what's the symbolic nature of that?

Have they always spoken to you? Yeah, it's just the only plant that I know that has a lot of seeds. It looks like a very puffy conval, but it's so light. It goes and spreads and flies into the wind. And you don't know where it's going to land. It might be close by. It might be a little bit further down. But it's the only plant that does that.

And it's a very, very tough weed. The end lines are very tough weed. So, again, another point about us in. individuals, like we're very resilient. We're very tough in our own ways. And we, many of us have gone through a lot of traumatic events in our lives or experiences or just like tough times. Even if they're not traumatic, like tough times. Like life can get really tough. And, but us being alive, us living the life that we're living, being around the people that we're living, it's just, it's a testament to our resilience. You know, it's,

It's fascinating to me to get to talk to people and talk about their relationship to the environment. Both of us have had some really amazing experience with plant medicine. But I also think it's incredibly fascinating. I think that the plants with which people choose to describe their lives by seem to embody the same characteristics of them. And it sounds to me like you're really tough. It sounds to me like maybe some of your mindset is like I have all these different ideas and I know one of them is going to take hold. Like is that kind of accurate or what do you think about that? I hadn't thought about it that way, but yes.

I mean, the drifting, the toughness and but also like the lightness. But now I see like, you know, with so many different seats that we planned, something was down to take hold. You know what I really like about it too is like you described how beautiful it is and like you've kind of given an homage to it on your book. And in a way, I hope you see what you're really saying is how beautiful you are. and it's an homage to you. Like, you are that beautiful.

This thing that you see in nature is so beautiful. That's a reflection of you, Serena. All those strengths, all the drifting, all the seeds. Like, that's what you're doing. Like, that plant is calling to you and it's like, hey, we're the same. That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah.

I actually saw in a vision of mine as well, too. The light was shining on it, and it was calling to me. It was the only plant. And it wasn't supposed to be where the environment it was supposed to be. But it was there. And I saw like this because like a dandelion when it flowers, it's this yellow flower. Or the yellow dandelion I was thinking about. And it was flowering that in a jungle, which it wasn't supposed to be.

So. A creative person in the world of law. Like imagine that. Like here's this yellow dand. Yeah. But you know, like a lot of. there are many authors who are attorneys, like John Grisham writes a lot of books, legal books, and, you know, there's a lot of legal dramas out there. A ton of them. A ton of them.

A ton of them. A ton. So people who are attorneys, like, or any profession where it has a stereotype that we're kind of stuffy, you know, and conservative and whatnot. There are a lot of creative souls in those professions as well as in any profession. it must be interesting to be in some ways if we take the idea of the lawyer and like you have to be around incredible stories all the time like you are around high tense emotional emotional events that are happening and it's like it's kind of like being in a novel in a way right like you're this person that's like in the novel and you're trying to figure out what's happening here how do we what words should we come up to describe what's this event right here it's it's an interesting concept how do you mean like we're talking about like the events I experienced as an attorney versus as an author

yeah like is are there some similarities and some differences I think um I think being an author there was just like a lot more events going on in my head like because I was writing a novel right so it require a lot more imagination but right um but it also requires like a lot of thinking through how to translate that imagination of my head onto paper. So I think the similarity is sort of the communication process. It's a writing process. So with law, there's a lot of, I mean, real practice of law is not as interesting as what you see on TV.

But what is interesting, though, is like thinking through the arguments of something or like the strategy of how do you, how do you get something? The client wants a specific, has a specific goal in mind. Like, how do you get to that if possible, if at all? Because sometimes it's not possible. So the strategy. And then sometimes, like, because you're dealing with people all the time and dealing with money.

So there is always high stakes. There's always emotions involved whether people want to admit it or not. And we, as the lawyers, are supposed to try to mitigate, you know, deal with emotions that do come up or concerns that clients have and figure. Because at then the. day is still very much a people-oriented, relationship-oriented service that we're providing. And then it's the communicating of what we thought, what we are thinking, our thoughts, our perspectives, our advice to the client a way that they will understand.

And depending on the sophistication of the client, it changes the way we communicate with them. And then as an author, when I'm writing, like what I'm imagining in my head and I have to translate that. Again, it's just like, okay, thinking about how this will come out, usually I write without any filters. And then once, but then I go through many revisions process and towards the end, I'll read it to myself. One of my editor told me to read it to myself three times. And as I'm reading to myself, I'm like, oh, this doesn't sound good. So then like that created, that prompted me to change how it would communicate a sentence or a phrase or something like that. So again, it's like as we're creating, as I'm creating, I'm also learning about communicating.

How do I communicate with different people? And that is very similar whether I'm an author or I'm in an attorney. I think with an attorney I can see it more in real time. But then as an author, I think it depends. When I hear from readers, that's when I'll know how I could have, like how they've related to the book, what touched them, what was what was good in, you know, what was good in the message that they receive because everybody's at different points in time and they might receive certain messages that some things might speak to them more than others. Yeah. it's sort of like once you release a creative endeavor into the world, like you never know which part is going to inspire someone.

You know, maybe something that you thought was a minor detail. It could be something that could really shift someone's focus or really ship, you know, put a giant smile on their face on some level. It's kind of the surprise of creativity. Yeah. Yeah, and I hope it inspires people because the opposite can be true that they don't feel inspired. And but I think again, it's, it's just sort of like whatever goes. My book is not meant to speak to everybody.

It's meant to speak to the souls that are, that will resonate with the message I'm trying to convey. I like that term because I think what happens in creative endeavors is you're really translating your emotional state into a different medium and then passing it on to somebody else. And that's where the real magic happens. Like if you create with an intention to inspire, when someone reads it and is inspired by it, like that, that's the magic of creativity. Like you really just transferred this emotion to someone through a whole other medium, right? Yeah. Yeah. Especially like when we look at art or listen to music, right? It's just like, especially music when some music just makes me feel a certain way.

Some music makes you want to work. Some music makes you want to dance. Some music makes me just want to feel. at peace. And there's just, you know, something about that. I don't know how to explain it, but it really talks to us to the core of our bodies. Yeah. And there's this weird slippery slope that kind of happens, too. Like when we, when someone, and I understand the reason behind it, but I want to get your opinion and we can talk about some of the ideas behind it. But like, you create something that becomes beautiful and it inspires somebody else. And it inspires somebody else.

else. And then they want to take part of that creation and echo it and amplify it. But sometimes, especially in law, like we have these really stringent, like, patent ideas. Like, this is my idea, and I want you to like it, but you can never use it. Like, on some ways, that kind of stifles innovation. Not so much with artwork, but on some level, like, do you think that there's a, there's sort of like a loggerheads right there? Like, on some level, our need to own our own idea and not let it free stifles what that idea could become later like it stops its growth on some level what do you think i there's um we can have a whole conversation i think it's particularly nuanced like i know it came up with the debate with respect to um psychedelics uh in the biotech space right um there's different

reasons why people will want to pat and own certain things and at least from what i understand from Speaking with patent attorneys that I know, having patents is a way to incentivize people to innovate so that when they innovate, they can then benefit from the fruits of their labor. But what's happened to is that you've got patent trolls. You've got people by patenting, they're excluding other people from the innovative method, idea, technology, whatever it is that they create it. So I think in one way I sympathize and I empathize with the folks that are creators. They're creating something. But then I also understand like there is financial reasons, business reasons, economic innovation stimulation reasons why ownership is important to stimulate and support innovation.

But it doesn't happen in all context, right? And I think there's also the open. open source movement and technology where instead of just, you know, you could put people, people can put their software out there and have people innovate, like multiple people innovate for the, like so that everybody can access it. But the thing is that some people are going to start innovating and improving on it. You get a, you get a better product out there. I think there's room for all of the exploration of all of these paradigms and different incentives to see who's going to win. But in our capitalistic culture, without innovation,

there might also not be dollars or investments made into certain types of innovation. And again, I think it's just, it's a little bit hard to say in that context. Like, I don't have, I can feel for both sides. And I think for me, like this artwork, like this book, I have automatically I have a copyright to the book. I do plan on registering it as a copyright because I did create this book. And that protects, I don't know how long copyright is for, but I think it's for like the life of the author plus some years or something like that. It's a very long time. If somebody were to want to create derivative works or stuff like that, they would have to get permission for me

if it's deriving from this story. And I benefit from that, from this work in terms of future work that's created and all of that. So there is like this financial incentive to create as well. And there's been in like the music world, there's a lot of debates going around like, you know, with Spotify, the licensing of the streaming of the, of the music, but making sure musicians are paid a fair amount for their music, but they're

paid very, very little per stream on Spotify and other streaming platforms. But the idea is like there's this tension always, or what I've seen so far is that the tension between like who's controlling the mechanisms of distributing and transmitting it to large scale of people and the people. and the people who are creating the music. And I think it's like part of a supply chain in a way. So you have to create the creative work, whatever that may be. And then they have to go either on a platform,

either on YouTube podcast or whatever it is to have like people get access to it. But the people that are kind of acting in those middleman roles, creating the platforms, they are also innovating. They're also creating, they're creating a platform. that allows people to access it. So there's value that they're creating as well, just like the creator is creating a value in their innovative creative work. But I think the question becomes like what is fair for everybody,

for compensation? And then there will always be, I think, people out there who want to access music without paying for our access. I mean, that happens all the time. But it's a constant, I think it's just a constant. constant challenge and a constant tension in all of this. And it comes down to the question like how much people value creative work to the point where they'll pay for it.

You've got Netflix that or other streaming platforms again, creating content that they stream only on their platform to entice people to come and buy subscriptions and whatnot. But then you're not able to access it anywhere else. So this is all just to say like I think some Sometimes it could, the ownership piece could deter others from creating if it's like, I think the ownership piece incentivizes people to create. Then like maybe the process of panning or like people coming in and buying up pans or just panning for things that may not, may be questionable that kind of could drive people out or push people out from continuing to innovate. And at the same time, it's like, it's like what is the right balance to compensate and also incentivize people to keep creating, whether something they can or they could create a copyright or a trademark. And from a legal perspective, it's really a question about property.

It's a question of political property. So that's what I'm saying. there's a very nuanced discussion about all of this, and there's also philosophical discussions too, but to create an artwork, whether it's a company creating something that they can patent, or it's an individual creating a painting, a song, or a book, or whatever,

all requires some kind of investment. And what are they, it could be investment of dollars, it could be investment of time, energy, effort. Some creative projects take a really, long time to do. But again, it's just like what is that balance? I know like some people were upset about companies patenting molecules that have been in existence for a very long time. So I don't know exactly all the all the rules and the regulations with respect to like how a patent is granted because I'm not a patent attorney. But you know, there's questions about that. I mean, if the USPTO,

the agency that grants, trademarks, copyrights, and patents, if they find that this is innovative, it's new, and it deserves a patent, they may grant it. But again, it's like that's where a lot of the debate and also like the lawyers that are involved, like they would make the case to the USPTO, like, hey, this is patentable, we deserve to get this pan or whatnot.

I'm sure there's more that goes into it than what I'm saying. But it's, yeah, it's like, I think it's just very nuanced and it depends on who you're looking at. I think some creators might feel like, wait, the way we're being compensated, it's not enough. Like we put in so much work. But then at the same time, the market might not value the creators work as much as the creator values it. There's all these different perspectives that's happening. And it's a question of like how do we deal with this intellectual property?

Wow. That is nuance. It's amazing to see how deep that goes. It's interesting to think what we value and what we'll pay for and what creativity is. And how do you even put a value on creativity? And it's interesting to think about all that kind of stuff. Is that something you thought about when you think about that? Does that inspire you to create more? Or is there any sort of? things that flow when you think about that. I don't know. I guess it's interesting to think about the relationship between creativity and monetization. But for me, that like, those two things kill each other.

When I think about monetization, it kind of takes away my creativity. What do you do? It can't. It definitely can't. If you put it simply in that way, it can't. Right.

Because I didn't create a book because I was trying to make it. Right. I mean, if I can recoup my cost, great. And if I can continue to spread the message and becomes a bestseller, great. But that's not the initial intention going in.

And at the same time, I was told like books are not really good at making money. But nonetheless, like, I wanted to put the story out there because that was more important to me and writing it. There was something else motivating me. But that's not to say that money and creativity are mutually exclusive. You can have a creative artwork that started from a different motivation, different intention, and then come along, money just came along with it. And then that allows more money means more investment to create more, whatever that innovation or that creative work might be. I think in some artistic expressions where the monetization, if that's the primary driver, I can see that to kind of dampen creativity.

I think that's very possible. Maybe from some other people, it's not, they might not see it like, oh, no, they're still able to be creative. But it's sort of like, if I'm thinking about unbridled creativity, right? It's really not coming from, at least for me, it's not coming to pay monetization. It's coming from. somewhere within me. And again, I don't think it's like, I don't think,

I think creatives also deserve to be compensated for what they do create. But if that, like if a creative, their only way is to, to feed themselves, to make money and sustain a livelihood, is through their creative work, then that is part of their incentive as well. But would it stop them? Possibly not as well. There are a lot of people who create without the need to monetize without trying to make it big. For example, if somebody wants to create artworks for themselves or they want to show off to their friends, I think that's great.

But then I think with tools nowadays, too, it's easier to monetize their creative works. I think that's also a wonderful opportunity for those creators. I just think they're mutually exclusive. That's what I'm saying. No, it makes perfect sense. And I think it's interesting that the tools out there to monetize are more easy accessible as to are the tools to create are more accessible. So it's kind of cool to see them working together.

Like, hey, these things are growing together. You know what? When we started thinking about that, I once heard a quote that said, that the best predictor of future behavior is past relevant behavior. And it seems to me with this reemergence of the world of psychedelic expression, that maybe we're on the cusp of beginning to see new school buses being painted and touring the country or a new Jimmy Hendrix or a new Fleetwood Mac or a new doors or something like that. It seems to me that psychedelics tend to go hand in hand with creativity.

And I'm curious, like, do you see the, this explosion and tools to create and tools to monetize as sort of the next wave of an explosion and creativity like we had in the 60s, maybe? I'm not too sure about the creativity in the 60s, like what tools they have, but I have seen, because I used to be, I used to not use social media as much. One, I didn't understand it as well. And then two, my work, I was just too busy to really get involved in it. But now I'm seeing a lot of people online.

And I'm using it more for myself, for my business, and also just trying to understand the tools more. And I am seeing more, again, it could just be a bias where I'm looking at it now. And because I'm looking at it now, I'm like, oh, it's actually been increasing. And it's funding. I didn't realize all of this was happening. It could have been happening like years ago and probably was. It gets to the point where it is right now, right?

I like to see the fact that things are changing, but that's kind of like the constant with anything in life, the way we were creating before, even 10, 15 years ago, was limited. Like now on YouTube, growing up with YouTube in the beginning, it was just like all these silly videos, like cat videos and, you know, these more amateur-style videos that are just like funny home videos

that people were creating and they're putting on YouTube but they were still like for las and giggles they were great but now like youtube content on in 2023 is so much in 2024 is like so much more sophisticated like they're influencers their youtube creators they specifically create on a youtube platform and individuals who i might never have seen or hurt talk before i'm able to access them on youtube and their content and whatever they're putting out there, depending on my interests and stuff like that. And it's definitely going to keep expanding

as our technological capabilities keep expanding. And with the introduction of AI, it's only, I don't, I mean, I imagine that there's going to be even more expansion. I'm curious to see what it would look like. I know there were concerns that, you know, from some of the creative communities, it's like, oh, we're going to lose our jobs or something like that. I don't know, possibly, but does that also mean that there's opportunities that they can use these tools to innovate even more? I think it remains to be seen.

I see both potentials, but it kind of remains to be seeing like, well, will actually happen. I love the way you said that, and it reminds me. me, when I was a kid growing up, you know, there was like 15 channels and then there was cable. But I remember the first, one of the first things that I, that was really funny as a kid was like America's funniest home videos. And when it wasn't on the internet, it was like a TV show, and you would watch it. And it would just be like, just outlandish stuff like animals falling or a dad hitting his kid with a bat or the kid in the dad with a bat, you know, like, and it was silly and it was really funny. But we just look back at that as a snapshot of what was to come. And you see

the evolution of the home video go from like this funny thing that happened in your family to this young kid who can play the piano at the age of five to this other person that can create animated videos. What you're really seeing is the expansion and a definition

of what is possible. And I hope people can look back on that and see the long term change that's happening. Maybe people aren't going to lose their jobs to AI. Maybe people are giving an opportunity to redefine who they are. And we see it the book that you wrote, we see it with what you're doing.

And you can be all these things now. And yeah, you can look at it through that small lens of like, oh, no, it's going to crash. But wait, is that what's happening? Or are we expanding? Each individual has given the opportunity to become the best, most cool, interesting version of themselves. And they can do it right now. They can just turn on their camera and they can act wild.

And they can say, hey, look at this weird skill that I have, you know? And, like, see, if people like it. Like, that is exciting to me. And I hope more people harness that because I think that's what we're moving to. Definitely. I totally agree. And I love your enthusiasm and energy. And it goes the same for you too.

You're doing podcasts. You're building the true life podcast, but you have your day job as well too. And you're defining who you are and you're interested in learning about the startup space. And I think, again, it's like changes. I just believe that change is possible. It might not be easy. The transition might be really difficult for people. people. My transition period for myself going from a litigator to like doing business law work,

it was difficult. I had a lot of, I had sell doubt. I was like, I don't know if I can do this. But until I started to see the evidence, I can do this. But I, there was still something in me that kept pushing me to keep on going going, keep on going. And I eventually found the support and the resources that I needed to be able to succeed. And I'm still working. through that whole transition period, but it's just, it's not easy. You know, I think it feels easy once we're on the other side, but whenever we learn anything new, like doing, we're learning a new skill set. If I'm trying to learn a new language, it's not going to be, it's not going to be easy in the beginning. I'm going to fumble. I'm going to stress out. I'm going to like,

doubt myself and get frustrated. I'm like, why is it not coming to me? But it's like with anything, once we have the repetition, we see it over and over and over again, it does get easy. It's the pathway is being built in our brain. So it just gets easier. Yeah, I love it. It's, you know, it speaks to this idea of self-discovery. And it's, it's when we find ourselves in patterns, whether it may be, like I was a UPS server for 26 years and I was really good at it and I liked it. But something was gnawing at me on the inside and I was dying inside and I started like, like my relationship started dying in some ways. And I was like, I cannot like the spirit or God, or Waira, whatever you want to call, it was calling to me. I had to change something, and I did. But it was really scary. I'm going to go try this other thing that I've never done before. And all these negative thoughts said, I'm like, are you sure?

What about your family, man? You're greedy punk? You're going to do something you want to do? Is that what you want to do? Leave everybody behind? You know, and all this doubt creeps in, but you start being forced to confront things that you put away in a deep closet somewhere. For me, it was, like, I didn't want to go back to school.

And I was like, school is dumb. Like it doesn't make any sense. And my wife was telling me, like, what is your hang up with school? Like, what is it? Like, it's not dumb. People go there to learn, and there's really cool things that happen there. I'm like, it doesn't make sense. And she's like, she got, she'd get real mad at me because I took this class like a bunch of times and I just dropped that every time.

And she's like, listen, dummy, you have a huge problem. What is it? And she got real mad at me. And finally, I was like, school doesn't make sense to me. And then I just blurted out. When I went to school, I had problems learning. and everybody thought I was dumb. And like I just started crying.

And I was like, oh my God, that's what it was. That's why I don't like school. Because I equate school with people thinking I'm done because I had a learning disability. And I don't want to go back to that. But as soon as you are aware of it, as soon as you become aware of something, you no longer have to put it away and be afraid of it. It's like, oh, that was a stupid thing to think. So what I had a learning disability?

I don't need to have that anymore. I can fix it. And then now I'm able to go back and take these classes because I don't have that. mental block but I just use that as an example because it's really hard to get out of old patterns because you've you've been in this pattern for so long but the path of growth must be chosen over and over again and that's when you can expand when you let go is when you can begin expanding it. Thanks for letting me share that like I yeah no that's beautiful that you finally admit it to yourself like sometimes yeah admitting to ourselves is the hardest like what we are telling ourselves

Not to say we may have limitations, but that doesn't mean we can't push past them. And then when we start to really be honest with ourselves, that's the start of expanding. It's like that's the start of the change. Because if you don't even know what is holding you back, that thing will always have control over you. Or you give control to it subconsciously, consciously, and until you're ready to release that, then it's just going to keep holding you back. And it's so interesting to think about this path of our therapeutic pathway. You know, as someone who's written a book and as someone who has worked with psychedelic medicines before, it becomes impossible to not understand on some level generational trauma.

Because sometimes you realize, hey, this thing that's happening to me, happened to my dad. It happened to my mom. Why am I holding on to this? Or can I be the person that breaks through this? You know, like, well, maybe you could speak to that idea. of how generational trauma, writing, and psychedelics work to help you understand yourself better? Yeah, I mean, so generational trauma, I've only come to start understanding it and looking at it in the last few years. Again, it was a concept that might have floated around in my head, but I didn't fully understand.

And I'm still learning about it. Sure, me too. With psychedelic medicine, I think it helped me start to see that. that certain patterns, certain things about me isn't from me. It was passed down to me somehow some way. It could have been the way I was growing up, the way my upbringing was the patterns and the behaviors that were exhibited by my parents or family or things like that. And again, this is not to blame anybody.

It's just the circumstances were what they were. then as I'm learning and I'm going down my spiritual journey, I'm learning more about karma. I'm learning more about past lives. And I still, I'm just still a beginning student. I just want to put that out there. Like I'm not an expert in any of this. I'm just a student and learning it for myself. And psychedelic medicine sometimes can also bring up things that are not our own. That was not my own. But it's, but it's, you know, it's calling me to do something about it. And especially if you start,

if somebody were to start working with more of the shamanic traditions and using things like, or medicines like, or ayahuasca or Huachuma, peyote, or it's just like more of the, like, ayahuasca and Huachuma, they've been called like the grandmother and the grandfather. And I really like the combination of both.

I worked with folk when I was in Peru and Iwaska and Costa Rica as well too. And the two, it's just like they can bring up things, kind of like the grandmother and the grandfather, they can bring up things from my familial lineage that I didn't even know existed. My mom doesn't even know existed. Like my family doesn't even know existed. And in trying to like, it comes up, I have to try. try to understand it. I have to think about it. I'm like, what does it all mean? How does it manifest in my current life today? And then what else do I need to do to cleanse it? And I am on

that path right now to do that for me personally. And in terms of writing, so the way the Dandelion Odyssey, the reason I'm thinking it's multi, it's a series is that the first book is about Waira in her current life. The second book is actually about the intergenerational trauma. And what I thought of so far is that I'll give you a snapshot. Wira is actually going to journey back into time and she's going to go back to a different point in time to really see an event that occurred that kind of started all of this. Like the curse that I talked about in the Dan Nilei Odyssey is just it's derived. Like I've already hinted to that in the, in my research for the rainbow pearls, it's like,

I've already hinted to like this particular event that happened. And she's going to go back and she's going to find out more about that event. And then that's as far as I got. I have to figure out like how to then incorporate the psychedelics medicine piece, Wira's own personal journeys and what it all kind of means for her. And then also like the plotting out like the various characters that's going to come into the second book to kind of further develop the story. And I think,

a lot of people, I'm seeing a lot of people talk more. Again, it could be my bias. I'm paying attention to it more. But more people are talking about intergenerational trauma and what that looks like. The best example that I learned about intergenerational trauma, and this is even before, like, very early on, it was like around college. Like, I think my senior year, my last, soon after I graduated, from college, I was reading a study about Holocaust survivors.

And the Holocaust survivors, they were in this study was saying how the Holocaust survivors had a higher percentage of likelihood to get stomach ulcers. And I was reading and learning more about what is it called, not genetics, but epigenetics. I was learning about epigenetics because my friend at the time, He was really into genetics and that's what he's been studying. So we've been talking about that. And he showed me the study where they were talking about Holocaust survivors. The idea, the theory was that based on their experience, for whatever reason, these Holocaust survivors and the generations after them,

they just tend to have a higher likelihood of developing stomach ulcers. I think it was correlational. Of course, it's not causation. but it was a really interesting study that was talking about epigenetics and how trauma can be passed down. That was my first exposure to it from what I can't recall. And I kind of put that aside for like 10 plus years. And then now I'm coming back around to my own personal journey and seeing, oh, okay, there are things that like people around me are telling me, hey, have you dealt with this? It's in your line.

It's in your lineage. But are you dealing? Like, you know, it's calling to you. I'm like, what are you talking about? And then, but then more people started telling me about it. Like, why are you guys saying the same things to me? When they've never talked to each other, I've never brought it up. I was like, what are you telling me?

Why are you telling me the same things? Like, it was just so coincidental. And it took me some time like, okay, well, this person's telling me to look into that, to like the family's lineage. That person is telling me to look into his lineage. Maybe I should look into it. So then I started to work on that specifically. And again, I think this first book,

Wyrus Search for the Rainbow Pearls, I've been thinking about this book for six, seven years. The intergenerational piece, which is going to be the focus of the second book, it's going to take some time for me to think through and brainstorm what the characters will look like, what the story will look like, what's the message I want to convey. But it will be around the theme of intergenerational trauma.

And I think when I look at intergenerational trauma, I think there's like a couple of things about it. I try not to use it as an excuse for my behavior and my way of existing and being in this current life. I think it sometimes takes the edge and the pressure off of me, of me blaming myself, like, oh, this is because of something. I did. But at the same time, you know, even if I take that pressure off, if I am choosing to do something about it, I'm taking on that responsibility. And sometimes I can add more pressure to me.

But then remembering that like maybe I don't have to do it alone, remembering to, you know, my family members, the extent that I can or people around me and my loved ones to support me in that journey in that process. Because, you know, I, I learned new things about my past lives and all these things. And it's kind of esoteric. It's like getting into the land of Wu. And it's like, how can I, how can it really be true? But then I had one person say to me, like, even if that did happen in the past, like whatever events it was that I was telling him about, how does it impact your life currently? It doesn't really other than I know something happened in the past. And then if I had certain things, I think like intergenerational trauma, like with the stomach

ulcers thing, it may come up as more physiological, maybe a somatic manifestation. I've had like a really I've had like a chronic pain for about 12 years now that I can't seem. to do to resolve and cure. So personally, I believe that is an expression or a manifestation of something that happened previously in my lineage. But at the same time, I do my best just to care of myself and do whatever I can to be in a better state.

And of course, it's like people tell me, I might be digressing a little bit, but people tell me it's like, oh, it's something physiological in me right now. But after 10, 12 years of trying to explore different modalities, alternative healings, alternative therapies and whatnot, I just don't, I've just kind of hit a wall as to like, there's something about this that goes beyond what I am able to do, but maybe I'm just not understanding what I need to do best. And I'm kind of at a point where I'm just like, okay, it is what it is, but I just need to figure out how to deal with it.

So it's kind of like, okay, if I'm manifesting that somatically, and it could be, a reason could be that it's related to intergenerational trauma or whatnot, at the end of the day, whether it is or not, it doesn't really matter. I am living a life where I have to deal with this and I can't, I can't ignore it. And there are other ways that I'm like dealing with it in my ceremonies working with ayahuasca and whatnot too. But that takes time. That takes actual work. And I don't even know what comes up in those experiences.

But I did get some things. I did get a benefit like in one of my last experience where one aspect of my physiological pain got removed. And again, it's just like, I just want to like caution around this like this is personal experience that's personal to me and there's a lot more that I don't I want to keep learning and I don't know that well about mystical practices and stuff like that but I am getting more into those worlds and mystical spiritual practices and I don't want to like say like oh you know like try this try that because I also do believe in. science and I want to, I like the fact that when science is then able to validate or prove or support some of the what people have been saying in like mystical practices. Yeah. This is a whole very long-winded way of saying like. What's that love? Okay. Yep. Sorry about that. My wife was talking right Okay, no, it's just like this is all to kind of say, like, I think, you know, one thing is intergenerational trauma, whether it exists or not for an individual person, I just wouldn't want to, like, it's not an excuse for how we are currently.

And if we do take on the responsibility to do something about it, to like so-called break the curse or like break whatever the habits. says that it's a responsibility that we're taking on. It's not a, it's not, for me, it's not a light responsibility. It actually can feel heavy at times. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's something to be said about intergenerational trauma or past life experiences.

And I think that it can have real time manifestations and it can change your life because the fact that an individual can become aware that they have generational trauma, it also means that that individual can learn the long-term lessons that were trying to be taught throughout the generations. And the thing that happened to your grandma may have happened different to your mom. And they may not have been aware of it. They may just have felt the consequences of it. But the fact that you become aware of it means that you are able to see what the

lesson is supposed to be in there. And then you can make the change in that. And sometimes I think that that's what could be the manifestation of pressure or anxiety or pain is that there is something deep inside of you that is begging you to solve that problem. Like this is something that you can fix. And you know you can fix it, but you don't thoroughly understand how to fix it. But it's it's the awareness manifesting itself as pain.

And when you come to the, you know what I mean? It's like, you're almost there. I'm going to push it out of you. it's that pain that gives you the, you know, you spoke earlier about the difference between fear and excitement is breath. Maybe the same thing between pain and clarity is understanding. Like, oh, once you figure out what that is, then that pain turns into a drive.

Or maybe you need that pain to write this next book so that you can investigate the trauma right there. And, you know, I think that there's real, real. And I think this is new. I think that the people that break the cycle are people that are aware that these things have happened in their families. And they are sort of the person that's supposed to help their families solve it. Because once you figure it out, now your kid doesn't have to solve it. And in some ways, your parents had to go through all that so that you could become aware of it. You know, they were the person that carried the burden and didn't know why.

They just carried it like the same way that some people are carriers of a certain. chromosome that can lead to a disease, so too are some people the carriers of these trauma that can lead to you being the person that it manifests in. And that doesn't have to be a disease. It can be an awakening. Yeah, absolutely. I like that, that, you know, the difference between pain and clarity is that understanding. And as you're talking about it, it makes me think a lot about the Asian American experience. Even if we don't look at past lives or anything, like mystical, right? Just one of the things is like the history of Asian Americans. Everybody's got a history. Don't get me wrong. But it's because I'm looking at my community, it's like in the Chinese

community, people who went through the cultural revolutions, like people of my grandmother's generation or then and then the generation after that, how do they grow up? How do they live? Like there's certain experiences that they have that can really affect the way they are, the way they behave, and their perspectives in life and themselves and people. And those habits, those way, as kids, like, you've just learned from your parents. And especially if we aren't really talking about emotions and connecting and whatnot, it's like, it's even harder. It's just you're adapting to the upbringing to the best of your ability as a child.

Or like if growing up, I didn't learn this from school, but I learned a lot about Asian American history and history of like some other Asian cultures and countries from my community, like learning about the Khmer Rouge, learning about the war in Vietnam. But then like the tension and the conflict of the Japanese and the Korean. And it's just that all of this has effects on people. And there are reasons why they left their countries to try to find better life elsewhere, opportunities elsewhere. But those experiences kind of stay with them. And however they dealt with it in the best way they can, they live their life.

But if they didn't really release those trauma, you know, it stays. part of them. I think Peter Levine, he, he says, I think he's a therapist, but from what I've learned is like the idea of trauma, it's like it's not in the event, it's in the nervous system. Like it's like we remember it somehow. So again, if it's like a part of us and we just kind of move a long life with it, then it then somehow it comes out through our behavior somehow. It might be like with school. It's like, well, I don't want to go to school. And then you keep on dropping out.

Like certain behaviors come up and you're like, why is that? But I might have had this source, this goes back to this source of like a really painful event that was really hard to deal with. And they dealt with it however best they can, which is I think for me, if there's something that's painful, I tend to ignore it. Or like, I try to shield it away from everything else. But shielding in a way doesn't mean that it goes away. is just put away in a box somewhere and shielded it away from the rest of me, but it's still part of me. And I think it's like the best example I've seen in my personal life is like when I started

doing this type of work, not just with the psychedelic medicine, but all the work I do afterwards to integrate the pieces that I've learned, once I started shifting how I behaved and also shifting my perspective, because now I understand how my parents grew up or how my grandparents grew up, then that understanding can lead to compassion. And by leaning into compassion, it's like, okay, now I don't have to feel upset or like, okay, now I can really feel for them. Right.

I try to understand what perspectives they're coming from. It's like, oh, okay, this is why they behave or say certain things or this is like how they go about the world. This is how they see the world. Even if I don't agree, I can accept that this is what they do based on their experiences in life. Yeah. You know, it reminds me of like, I try to put it like in a story form. Like imagine like a beautiful purple dandelion and it's being grown in in Europe.

It's being grown in Europe or in Japan or China or somewhere. And it's in this environment where it's grown for generations. But that environment is becoming toxic. And so someone rips that dandelion from its roots and it transplants it to this new soil in California. And then the first generation of it, that first, the next generation that it may not grow to the extent that it would have grown in its natural soil. And it may take, it might die.

But you know what? Maybe after three or four generations, it adapts to the sunlight. It adapts to the air. And then it begins to bloom not only a purple flower, but like a purple yellowish flower. It's even more beautiful than a butterfly that it came from. But it has to adapt to the new environment. It has to be, hey, it's a lot hotter over here. Hey, I used to have a lot more water or I used to get water there.

It doesn't even know because it was ripped from its roots. And it's trying to create new roots over here. Like, on some level, we can learn so much from these plants and epigenetics and muscle memory and plant memory. And I think that that is what the plant's medicine is trying to tell us. It's like, look, we're the same. If we're taken from here and planted there, it's beautiful, but there's real problems with that. And they don't have to be problems, but there's real complications with it. And if we want to do that, we have to look to the way that the earth, maybe the earth grows people the way an apple tree grows apples.

You know, and there's certain environments in which things grow. I don't know. I think there's something there, though. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of psychedelic medicine, from what I hear, from, people and stories I've heard is that it does help people feel more connected to nature. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Like, how can we not be?

Like, we are a part of nature. There's so much comfort in that to be able to look around and just see the struggle that's happening in your garden and realize that that's what's happening inside you. And there's a lot of beauty, there's a lot of thorns, there's a lot of flowers. But ultimately, there's a plan. If you know that, like, you can give you some confidence and some faith. And when the times are dark, you know, it's crazy to think about. Serena, I'm so stoked for your book.

I'm so stoked it's a series and I'm so stoked that you wrote this. And I can't wait to, I haven't read it yet, but I'm really looking forward to reading it and giving you some feedback on it and checking out the series. And I hope that everybody that's listening today will go down to the show notes and go to Amazon and pick it up. But before I let you go, what do you have coming up? What are you excited about? Where can people find you?

So this year, I'm taking a step back from writing. I'm going to explore my other creative side with visual arts. I'm trying to work on a psychedelic coloring book. And so that's going to start next February. But I'm going to take it a little bit slower this time, paste it according to my schedule and not to another person's deadlines and schedules and what. Good idea.

Just thinking a little bit easier. this year. People can find me on my LinkedIn. I don't know if I have LinkedIn, but you can also check out my updates on Instagram. I'm at serena.pens. That's my Instagram handle. And I actually have a website, but I haven't published it yet. It is published. I just haven't really told people about it yet. it's serena woo wu.com and once I you know get things situated with my firm I'm going to focus more I'm like thinking through the content I want to put out there into the world put into the website and then also Instagram as well too nice well hang on briefly afterwards I'm going to hang up with the people but I just want to talk to you real briefly afterwards ladies and gentlemen

I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did serena is an amazing author and an amazing person, and I really appreciate the authenticity and the vulnerability with our conversation today. So thank you for that. And ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have a beautiful day. That's all we got. Aloha. Thank you.