TrueLife - Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester - The Map of the Self “Awareness”

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://www.revdrjessicarochester.com/Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester is the Madrinha and President of Céu do Montréal, a Santo Daime (Ayahuasca) Church she founded in 1997 in Montréal, Canada.She is a transpersonal counselor, she trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Assagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grof.She worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve an Section 56 Exemption to import and serve the Santo DaimeSacrament (Ayahuasca).She is an ordained Interfaith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity.From 1986 to 2018 she has been a workshop leader, teacher, and in private practice.She is the author of Ayahuasca Awakening A Guide to Self-Discovery, Self-Mastery and Self-Care, Volume One and Two.She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being and personal transformation One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

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

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. It is the first Tuesday of the month. And so for those of you who regularly watch, you are in store for a treat as you know. And for those who may not know what happens on this day, we have the incredible Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester as an ordained interfaith minister with a doctorate in divinity.

She's a transpersonal counselor. She trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Asagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grav from 1986 to 2018. She's been a workshop leader, a teacher, and in private practice. She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development and personal transformation. She is also the Madrina, I may have pronounced that wrong, forgive me, and president of the Sue de Montreal, a Santo Dime church.

She founded in 1997 in Montreal, Canada. From 2001 to 2017, she worked with the Health Canada to achieve the recognition of the Santo Dami as a legitimate religion and the right to import the Santo Dami's sacrament for ritual use. In June 2017, this mission, was accomplished and Sue de Montreal received an exemption to import and serve the Santo Diamese sacrament. She is also an incredible friend of the show and an incredible teacher and leader, and I have tremendous respect for her. Dr. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. How are you?

Oh, well, thank you so much. It's always a joy to be with you. Thank you. And it's such fun to discuss these deep topics with you and try and make them available for everybody to try and take and take sometimes some difficult concepts and experiences that not everybody has and try to make a bridge between you know these concepts and everybody's everyday understanding of them and and why why do we talk about these things and why are they important to talk about and you know like that conversation in the canada didn't really happen until really recently i mean sure in small little bits and pieces here people would have conversations but a larger conversation with the community has not really happened and so today we're going to talk about you've been so kind to invite me to

talk about um i recently last year published two books um aowaska awakening and uh volume one uh is well the main type title is you know a guide to self mastery to self discovery self mastery and self care And, you know, we've been dancing around through concepts in volume one for a little while. And then we thought it might be fun to talk about some of the cornerstones of self-care. And in my world, there's four of them. So what is self-care? We're going to start with that today. And what are those cornerstones?

And for me, it begins with self-awareness. Then the second is self-love, and then self-respect, self-responsibility. And so all of these important foundational aspects of self-care. And so today we're going to be talking about self-awareness is because that's where we all have to start. You know, if we think about a baby, a baby comes into the world. And it's like, where am I and what's all this? And, you know, the eyes aren't quite working. And they're trying to figure out what's going on.

And so when we look at young, young children, they are just complete bundles of awareness. They're looking at everything. Everything is new. They want to taste it, touch it, smell it, feel it. Okay, well, that's an issue when you have small children under the age of two, you know, because that's when they go into the, you know, the dog bowl and they want to taste the dog food and stuff like that, you know. So, you know, we have to be careful, you know. but this awareness of the world around them and this innate longing to discover everything,

that's we're born with it. And what happens to that incredible self-awareness and curiosity is that it gets narrowed down by the demands of everyday life. If we have an environment, let's say at home and a school, that encourages curiosity, encourages exploration. If we have, if we have that, then we are able to develop our natural inclinations. We find that we can channel curiosity into various sports and activities and interests and art and science and things like that.

And we can maybe get a little telescope set or a microscope set or something and, you know, or how the body works. And so all of this curiosity or whatever draws us, you know, we can start to study and we can learn in that. And so, you know, a wise family looks at young children and instead of trying to box them into what society thinks we should be doing right now, what culture demands. You know, I'm appalled when I see families with really young children and they've got, okay, I'm going to be. really out there right now, but I once saw some, I once saw down the United States, I'm sorry, but I have to say it, I once saw, it had to be a two-year-old in a stroller, and the mother was pouring coke into a baby bottle. Yeah, okay. So, you know, the mental equivalent of that, okay,

Okay, that was a very physical thing And we're all shuddering Those of us who were parents And especially those of us who were like really Kind of more naturally You know, more we like the more natural organic, you know, healthy lifestyle It took everything for me not to say something by the way

Sit it up. Don't just keep walking Just keep walking. There's nothing to see here There's nothing to see there's nothing to do okay If we do that to our kids mentally if we fill them up from a young age, if we do that with all of these concepts and precepts that come from social media so that our three-year-old wants to be a TikTok store when they grow up, okay? What are we doing about our natural world? How are we teaching them about this wonderful awareness instead of it all focusing down on what's in the box that our culture says is this is the now, this is a fashionable now this is desirable now how do we encourage that natural curiosity and that's

that awareness to mature through the years into self-awareness an awareness of our interrelatedness between ourselves nature community and the divine is this making some sense over there in your box yeah i i'm just thinking that the the world of relationships around us begins with the relationship with ourselves and we need to desensitize. We need to get away with the conditioning so that we can relearn relationships with ourselves so that we can have relationships with everybody. Yes. And, you know, whatever biases prejudice, this is kind of narrow blocks of cultural or religious or traditional, you know, information we receive as we're growing up. All of that will either encourage self-awareness and awareness of these

extraordinary interdependency issues that we all have with, you know, I have to breathe there, drink water. If I want to stay alive, eat food. Okay. I need hydroco back. Otherwise I can't, you know, I need Montreal to clean the water so that I can come through my taps. And so we're interdependent. And the awareness of this, I think modern society has somehow removed the most basic information that we can receive as young children about awareness. And this is why it is the cornerstone in almost all spiritual traditions, as they try to peel away all the things that you thought you learned about life and yourself and all these, let's call them belief systems. and I don't mean just spiritual or religious ones. I mean about what life is about it. And so most true spiritual, especially the Eastern ones,

were about awareness and meditation and practices that increase your awareness. And so when East met West in the late 60s and through the 70s, what happened is these techniques of self-awareness and awareness and consciousness entered into Western civilization. And many of us threw our arms open and said, welcome. Others said, bad beliefs. So, you know, where are we now with awareness and self-awareness

and what we can encourage our culture to develop? Because what's the opposite of self-awareness? awareness. That's the opposite. Ignorance? Yeah. Denial. Denial. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way to, yeah. Yeah, denial.

That's tough, eh? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Denial. You know, not me polluting the earth. You know, in an arseltree, it's like, hey, I can have five kids. I have the money. I can have three cars. I'm paying for it. I'm paying my taxes.

Yeah, but over there, that's happening. There's no water there. There's no food over there. The glaciers are melting. And hello, stop breathing. Sorry, you're probably going to get nasty chats over that remark. But you know what? There's too many people on the planet.

We have this conversation before. So awareness, awareness, the opposite I'm suggesting is denial. Because it's all here for us. All we need to do is open. and it's here. Okay. And so let's talk about the mechanism of denial for a moment. Why do we deny?

Pain, I think. I think that it is this idea of pain mixed with authority that causes us to be conditioned to deny. That's a good one. I like that. Yeah, I like that. So, yeah, why do we deny? Well, we can deny on many different levels. First of all, we can deny things.

Denial is the first stage in the grieving process. Kubler-Ross, her homework work in grief. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, for those of you, if it's possible, there's people on the planet who haven't heard of her. Okay. There's probably no point out. Okay. Her groundwork, her and Stephen Levine.

Okay. And Ram Dass, groundwork in grieving and processing grief work and everything. And denial is the first thing is because we, don't want to feel pain. We don't. We don't want to feel pain. And so when the doctor says, hmm, I'm not so happy with these blood tests, I think we better, you know, look a lot of people. The first thing for a lot of people is tonight, I'm fine. Everything's fine. Even people who are given their diagnosis say it's a mistake. And so we don't want to feel pain. We don't want to feel fear. We don't want to feel all those uncomfortable feelings, right? They're very. They're

uncomfortable and we don't want to feel them and if we open to them it feels like they'll be overwhelming and then and then what do we do if we open the door to if we say okay the door of denial has been closed i'm going to open it up and i'm going to take the next step forward the first thing we have to do is deal with whatever's there the feelings usually anger sadness, depression, bargaining, et cetera, fear, all of those things, shame, you know, all of those things that move around inside of us and take so much space and get in the way of our happiness, okay, which we're all told we should have and we have a right to have. Instead of happiness is something that comes and goes like sunny days, when it's there,

totally enjoy it and, you know, and then try to create it in your everyday life. But don't think that it's an end goal, that it's a place of arrival. So back to awareness. So the lack of awareness is denial. The lack of awareness comes from social, cultural, family educational structures that got too tight. But we have to learn how to grow beyond. So how do we return? How do we increase our self-awareness?

Well, there's lots of practices that will help you do that. that first of all there's the intention I'd like to be more self-aware what do I start with my body is my body relaxed is it tense so there's these wonderful exercises that help bring us into our body to notice that I get tense when this happens or I you know my stomach jerns or my heart pounds or you know or I'm really open and happy when that's happening and so we learn to let our body teach us because our body has its own instincts that we need to be aware of and they're hardwired, George, we all have them.

Right. Fear, anger. They're there. It's not like we see back. I think I'm going to get angry over this. Okay. I think I might be frightened of that. So it's there.

Yeah. It's just there. And so we're hardwired. Like every creature on the planet is hardwired with this. It's part of physical matter reality. And so how do we manage with those things? So some cultures and the Eastern ones are terrific for this is they have developed techniques for increasing self-awareness. So whether it's yoga, Tai Chi, some martial arts, relaxation techniques, you know, whatever technique feels right for you.

Some people meditate when they're walking. Some people, let's fit this on end site meditation. For me, when I'm swimming, it's almost a meditation because it'll be here now. When you're eating, just eat. When you're walking, just walk. When you're swimming, just swim. Let everything else go. So bringing our awareness to our body, realizing, oh, I keep eating even though I'm full.

Or wait a minute, I'm controlling how much I eat. I'm only eating two carrot sticks and a slice of soldering and, you know, a tiny cube of cheese. And what are we doing? My body keeps selling me once more. What's that about? And so our relationship to our body with self-awareness, we start to understand a completely different relationship. Did you have a question about that? Well, I think this is a relevant point is something you brought up in your book that talks about the way we tend to see the here and now and hold our thoughts.

In book one, you talk about an indigenous philosopher, forgive me if I'm not remembering his name, but the quote was something along the lines of the thoughts in our head can be like the wind they blow in and we stay with them and they blow out i thought maybe you could you could address that a little bit more of the way other people see that i think that's important yeah well that that's a really good intro because after awareness of the body is awareness of the mind okay what a tricky thing this is how to our mind to study our mind okay so well through awareness because it depends on the model we're working with. If we believe that we have a soul that's above and beyond, that's wider than longer, bigger, however, you know, existed before and will exist afterwards, if you believe that we

have a spirit or a soul or a consciousness, whatever words you're comfortable with, and that we have a body and that we have a mind, okay, and that, but we're not our mind and we're not our body, then we have awareness of our thoughts. We can see the thinking process. We can attach. We can attach to it or we can breathe and relax and let it be. You know, there's many wonderful Eastern sayings, you know, that thoughts are like the birds in the air. You can't stop them from flying through, but you can prevent them from building a nest. Okay. So we have, what is it, 60,000 thoughts a day, average. 90% same as yesterday. 10% new thinking. It's not bad. And so we can become aware of our thoughts.

And this is really important because what are we thinking? A friend of mine many years ago said to me, do you think your thoughts or do your thoughts think you? I don't know. I think how do you grow your hair, right? How do we do that? I think it goes back and forth for me. I try to be conscious of them,

but there's times where my thoughts are, They do think me. And maybe that's a good meditation. Maybe that's a good way to bring yourself back. Well, I'm going to help you, you know, consider other options that I and my thoughts are one. Okay. And, you know, because that's a deep attachment. That's where we lose our identity in a thought form.

And what are thought forms? Okay. Thought forms are something, now this is, we're going to borrow a little bit from neuroscience. So if there's any neuroscientists out there, I wanted to give you a nice shout out for all the wonderful work that you're doing on studying the brain and the neuropathways and how thinking processes create a six lane highway to a certain information or a story. And the more we could visit that story or information, the bigger the highway becomes. And if we realize that that story information is not healthy for us, then we stop visiting. Okay, and that's a whole process into itself, is how do we, and then after time, our brain recognizes, oh, awareness or consciousness is not going there anymore. They're not taking that book out of the library.

It can move to the back shelves, and now it can move to the back stacks, and now it can go in the basement. Okay. And so instead of right up front, when you first walk in the door, there's that book. And so this is what our clever little brain does. it figures out the things that we visit very frequently in our mind and creates strong neural pathways to that and connects them, makes a strong connection. And if we don't visit, then those neuropathways shrink down and shrink down. This is just my understanding of, you know, I stand to be corrected if I'm not getting it right.

And so how fascinating is that, that our actual physical brain develops, pathways to stories don't even exist some of them. It's just our distorted version of something that we believe happened or wanted to happen or some fantasy that we have. Okay. Some distortion of a childhood experience. Okay. It's interesting to think about the relation. For me, my mind automatically jumps to the next idea of how even, even,

though those destinations may not be real, everyone has a sort of idea of what that same destination is. I don't know if my words accurately explain this, but if I think of a, let's say I'm a Christian, then someone else that I go to communion with is also a Christian. And they could have, even though we're next to each other and we're seeing the same Psalms or we're talking about the similar saints, we both have an idea of this destination that can be radically different. And in fact, I might not even want to go to his destination or she may not even, she may think my destination is crazy. I know that's kind of out there, but that's when I think of the neural pathways

and I think of the highways we connect to get to this place, it's so similar, but yet so different at the same time. Well, yeah, I'll tell you what I think I'm hearing you say. Okay, okay, is that you're imagining that there could be two people in the same environment hearing the same songs, singing the same songs, hearing the same prayers. And yet within themselves, they may be having a very different experience of the connectedness to that which they are praying and singing about. Yes.

And those connections that feel the same to us, like it's so strange to me, the connection we feel because we believe that may not actually be or doesn't it not I'm having difficulty in describing it but yes that but how can that be when we have two complete different ideas of that destination why do you and I feel such camaraderie together thinking about these things when in fact our ideas could be totally different isn't that that that's so strange to me we're going together even though we are pluses and minuses or even though we have, it's difficult for me to describe. Does that make any sense at all?

Well, what I think I'm hearing is that you're seeing the duality. Yes. You're seeing the duality of every experience. That, you know, let's say you take a walk on the beach and there's a campfire. And people are singing campfire songs. I go, oh, I love those songs. I remember them from camp. Okay.

And you say, hey, can I just sit on the edge and sing along? And they say, yeah, yeah, come on and sit and sing. Okay, so you're singing your campfire songs and everybody's having a great time around the fire. And then it breaks up and everyone goes home. Okay. Now, what happened there? You didn't know the people. You have no idea what they believe.

Okay, well, they think how they live their lives. They could be astronauts. They could be, you know, carpenters. It doesn't matter. you just, you met in unity on something. You met in unity on something. You shared an experience that was meaningful. And so it's the shared experience that brings you together.

The same way if you go into a restaurant and everybody loves the food and loves that restaurant, you know, and, you know, everybody's enjoying their food and is a fabulous restaurant, but you don't know them, you know. You've been in a restaurant and it's somebody's birthday. And the waiters come along and they put something with a little sparkly on it or a candle or something. And the waiters start singing, you know, happy birthday to the birthday person. And you know what? Half the people in the restaurant will join in singing happy birthday.

You don't know this person. But, you know, it's something, it's a relatedness. It's a, we're relating to something to the unity that exists beneath all of our individuality. So we're individuals and we're one. We're back to quantum physics. It's the pulse and it's the wave. It's the pulse. It's the way it makes sense.

So is that when you are aware of the relatedness, are you aware of the self? Are you seeing yourself in the other? Is that the awareness factor of it? That's part of it. That's an important part of it. Our ability to see ourselves. Yes.

Yes. Our goal need to see our commonality. And this is such an important part of awareness. Here I'm moving beyond my, you know, individual wants, needs, desires, and drives. I'm expanding beyond that to see, to have empathy to others, to community, to nature, to the divine. I'm having empathy and relating to now. This is all the key parts of awareness. okay to be aware of my body to be aware of my thoughts to be aware of my interconnectedness and my

need of people and you know as we go along if we're curious and open-minded we find out yeah this people we like there's people we don't like there's people we can trust there's people we don't trust and that's the reality that's the reality okay so you know nobody says oh i you know I love everybody and I like everybody. I've never been a person like that. Okay. Who really, really, you know, maybe Mother Teresa could say it. I don't know, but not about you, but I'm not in her category.

She's a few lifetimes way many lifetimes ahead of me, right? Sure, all of us. Yeah. So maybe there's some people who could say, yeah, I came and I loved everybody and I gave to everybody but I'd have to say that way down deep inside of themselves there's a moment where they're like that I don't like that person very much or I don't like that behavior I don't like this or that makes me uncomfortable and and how do I keep my heart open even when that makes me uncomfortable and I don't like that yeah that's the challenge okay self-awareness so we're

trying to denial so we can deny we can deny our body we can deny the key we can deny the care of our body. This is a big problem in our society. We have people who sit in front of computers all day, people who don't get enough exercise, people who, please don't take those off and annoying me, people who don't get enough exercise, who don't eat properly, don't take care of their body, don't get outside and fresh air, don't go into nature, and then they don't feel well. And so then what do they do? They complain to their doctor, and then they get a medication, and then they're not sleeping well because they have their phone on all night. And so there's this It's vicious cycle.

So we have to start with care of the body. Awareness. How am I caring for my body? Am I giving my body the nutrition it needs? Healthy, regular food. I know people who starve all day. You know, they've got some issues or concerns. You know, people who overeat emotionally.

You know, they'll come home or whatever and they'll eat far more than their body wants. Their body's actually saying, stop, please stop. full, please stop, you know, but it's emotional eating. Now, I'm not saying this in a judgmental way at all. I'm saying, I'm putting this out as when we decide to become self-aware, these are the things we can become aware of. Is how am I training my body? Does it need more exercise or does it actually need a little less to that kind of person who's, you're going to do 35K on that bike, five times a week, your body's dropping off,

dropping off it or not, and your knees are screaming. Okay, you're going to do that because that's what you said you were going to do. Okay. And so I remember many years ago, many years ago, I had a wonderful woman, a client,

and she was a competitive baker. And she would, she'd get these terrible migraines, terrible migraines, and she would have a lot of special treatment. Until finally I convinced her to, She doesn't have to ride at the front of the pack. These bike rides you do all the time.

Have you ever considered asking your body what pace it wants to go to? And so she went through a whole process of learning to relate to see her competitive nature as being one thing and her body's needs. And start to see them as two separate things. And what did the competitive nature want? And what did the, you know, and what did the, you know, and what did the, you know, and what did the, body need. And it was such an interesting and transformative experience for her because what she did was she completely changed her sport. She found a sport that she loved, that she could use her competitive kind of natural competitive instincts in, but in a completely different way that

worked well for her. Guess what? She didn't have any more migraines. So awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness of the body. body, rest, sleep deprivation, do you know what an issue that is? People not getting enough sleep, people not getting enough rest. It's a big issue in our world and far too much screens and, you know, don't sleep with your phone. It's not a good bed partner. I'm seriously.

You really get a life. Hey, good night to your phone. Sleep well, phone. Turn the thing off or your iPad or your iPad or your. computer and you know what don't have it in your bedroom okay I get it if you're a student and resident and that's all you're got you've got your bed you've got your desk you got a button down and do it you know but at least throw a cover over it you know like a power so you put a cover of at night so that it won't talk to you

I mean seriously I mean I never had a bird because I like to see them flying free but I've known people are parrots and you have to cover them at night otherwise it's like busy being with the mouth all night. So, you know, how much management of our life are we doing? How seriously will we taking this? So, you know, getting those things that are so important for our well-being. And so in the mind, you know, let's spend a little bit more time in the mind. What are we doing with our mind? Is our mind ours? Do we have, I don't want to say control over it, but do we know how to navigate? Okay, control? Isn't such a great word.

Let's say, do you know how to navigate? Do you know how to navigate? You think navigation is something that is learned experience and is, is, is, is navigation. We all need a teacher. We all need a teacher. The same way it's like, doesn't matter whether it's, it's, you know, hockey. You need a coach. It's telling you how to play the game, okay, or baseball, choose any sport you want.

You know, you want to learn how to use the computer or speak Spanish. we all need a program, we all need a teacher, we all need something. And so this is where, you know, meditation teachers, Tai Chi masters, or, you know, choose whatever it is that you want. Certainly, they're all going to be working with the breath and focus and learning how to focus your mind, imagining that your mind is like a camera where you can choose where to focus it. So let's say you have a negative thought form. Would you have one on hand for me or do you want me to invent one or one or one? How about a negative like either why me or I'm not good enough? Oh, okay, okay, low self-esteem. There you go. A low self-esteem. Okay, so low self-esteem thought form can have its own kind of body sensation to it.

As soon as the thought form starts, as soon as it gets triggered, often by an external event will trigger. and then the body has a certain sensation and the thought form has its own story. It's the same way if you picked up any book, okay, choose any well-known book, a little bit of writing hood, okay? It's always the same story, right? This little girl goes in the woods with a basket, visitor ground. I mean, it's always the same story. It doesn't change.

Okay, there's a wolf. I mean, so it's the same with the thought form. It's always the same story. And yet, what does that story give us? These stories that take us to painful places are trying, in the beginning, they're trying to serve a purpose. Okay, our soul is trying to revisit it because there's something that needs to be resolved or healed there. It won't get resolved or healed if we just go into a negative loop. I'm not good enough. Nobody likes me. I'm the bottom in the class. I'm picked last on the sports team.

You know, those stories start young, right? I wear glasses or was shorter or taller or bigger or plumber or thinner or slower or whatever. Okay. And therefore, I'm not good enough. And it doesn't help if we have a family environment that reinforces that. and so or a society or a culture out on the street or at camp or in the school yard that reinforces you are not good enough because you have fill in the blank okay so here we have our low self-esteem story going now the story can be useful with awareness we say wait a minute i have this thought and this thought comes from a belief that is painful and i keep visiting it because i'm I don't realize that part of me is trying to see it differently and transform it. And if I can go into that story with the goal not to just wallow in it, poor me. Okay. If I can go into that story with something happened to me that was painful and I need to it and I need to now reassure that part of myself.

And here's where self-awareness. What are some things? We need to make a list of our strengths or our gifts at our short. Now this isn't such an easy exercise, but if we're willing to do it, we can start to see ourselves, instead of I'm the bad one, or I'm the lonely one, or I'm the not good enough one, okay? We can start to see, I had an experience where I felt this way. So the first thing that shifts is the identification with it. And that can only happen with awareness.

A, oh, I have the story. B, the story makes me sad. C, the story is trying to teach me something about myself. Okay, so awareness, awareness, awareness, okay, that happened to me, that's sad, I need to grieve that, and now I want to forgive the me that believed that. And I want to send light and forgive the people who, karma will take care of it. If you were bullied in the schoolyard, karma will take care of that one, you know. If you really feel you need to do something, then, okay, write a letter to them, you know,

hey Fred, remember elementary school grade four? You bullied me. Trying to forgive, you apologizing would help. Probably Fred would go, oh, my God, thank you so much. I felt terrible as an adult that I ever did that to you. And then you become friends go bowling together. Well, the bottom line is we don't have to live with these thought forms. and the pain that they can cause us, we need to grieve the pain.

And then we need to sit down and say, okay, who am I really? I'm not only that. I'm not only that poor bullied kid from grade four or whatever. I'm wouldn't that. So then we make a list of our strengths and shortcomings. And if we're not sure of them, I've actually had clients through the years who have no idea what their strengths and shortcomings. coming, sorry. So you know what I tell them? Ask your family members and your best friend. You know, ask them. And they're going to give you some feedback and tell them, hey, don't be shy.

I'm looking not just, I don't want flattery. What do you see as being my strengths? And if you're really unsure, then that's a really good clue that you need to get a little bit of professional help and supporting that with, you know, an accredited professional who's going to be offering you some tools to help you get balanced back into the Who Am I part. So little test, George. Three of your qualities, three of your qualities that you consider quality or strength, okay, and three of your shortcomings. Or, okay, only one shortcoming.

I have more, I have, I could go on for days, I think. The more that I focus on, the more that I begin to, I just focus and be like, that could be, sometimes you think your strength and your weaknesses, but before I me and that. That's a whole other conversation because our strength overused can become. Yes. Yeah. So I think that some of my greatest strengths are my ability to listen. I would put that as probably my first one.

My second one is the belief that I'm strong enough to begin it. That would be my second one. And my third one is that I, I guess my third. strength that I would see is that my use of language, those are the three that I hold, at least have been holding for the last few years on and really trying to continue to make them great. I would say that pride for me is probably one of my biggest downfalls. And I'm trying to find a way to incorporate that and maybe shine it up a little bit and retool it so it can be a strength. Ah, can I, can I say words about your stuff?

sharing this. How precious. Thank you. Thank you. I love it. Okay, the first one was that you can listen. It's not just that you can listen. It's that you really pay attention.

It's not just listening, okay? It's you really pay attention and you really make that effort to understand what the other person is saying. So you bring presence and awareness into the listening. So it's better strength than you realize. Okay. And so that whole communication piece. okay is a really excellent part of your gifts

and absolutely yes and now can I say a little something and yes to you guys and I think you have many more strengths than you realize. Thank you. Many, many more. Ask your kids and ask your partners and your family members. I'm sure let's say

dad you're a really great dad with this and this and you know not so good over here. Okay, because we're really Now, I want to give you a suggestion about pride. Okay. How about turning that into dignity? I'm going to write it down.

Thank you. My great pleasure. I'm not suggesting it's an easy convert, but it's a doable convert. And it's actually, you know, it's the counterbalancing. I'm going to do some guesswork here. giving me permission. Okay, since you offered up the, I'm not good enough. Okay, I'm going to say that pride, a little bit of too much pride, okay, came from the not good enough.

And they're the opposite size of the same coin, okay, because that's how these things usually work. And addressing both of them, as soon as you address the, you know, I'm not okay, I'm not good enough, what happens, you then the need for pride will decrease because the more you feel I'm me I love and accept myself I'm aware of myself I'm you know as we go through this you know this sequence of of talking about the four cornerstones of self-care you're get you're gonna see that can completely transform that can completely transform and again that conversion of pride to And pride is not bad.

False pride or something else, you know. But just a certain amount of pride. Pride in an accomplishment. Pride at our children's accomplishment. Pride at having done a job well. Perhaps an exam that was difficult, you know. Achieve something that we set out our goal to, you know. And on the news, there was this 96-year-old woman who competed in a marathon.

She came first in her category. I'm sorry, how many people over 95 are they running? Okay, so she earned the pride in that. And so then coming back to the dignity, that's the key piece, having the sense of dignity. We don't need that kind of false pride or puppy pride, okay, when we have dignity. when we're comfortable with what we're saying, what we're doing, and our actions. We don't need that other stuff

because we're good. We're good. I did this and I feel good. I was impeccable to my true self and now I'm okay with this. I'm curious. In the beginning you spoke about when a child is born

and they begin to develop a relationship with their awareness. And it seems too, at different states, stages of life. And I can only speak to the ones that I've been in. But it seems that through midlife, it's almost like we're reborn again. Like, I feel like there's this whole new form of awareness. It's beginning to form around me. And it makes sense when you see the rockets of pride fall off and dignity becomes into orbit. Like, you see these things changing. It's so,

have you found that to be true with awareness and age in different stages? Yes. This is the cycle of life. And it has to do with so many things. First of all, when we're younger and development, we have those four stages of human development. There's dependency, counter-dependency, independence, and then interdependency. And dependency is really under the age of six, the core of it. But they continue in our culture because we keep children longer.

They have longer educational cycles. and so they stay much longer in school than in earlier times or other cultures, you know. And, you know, 100 years ago, if you had a high school education, wow, that was it, you could go and get a great job. Okay. Forget it. You'll be stalking shelves at Walmart. Okay. And that's a tragedy because there's so much out there to learn.

And we've narrowed the box down as to what's acceptable in our society. You know, and so if we look at those stages and we see every stage, there's going to be conceptual level changes in which how we perceive ourselves. This is basic human development. How we perceive ourselves in the world changes and changes and changes. Okay. And these conceptual level changes are really important in our maturity as a human being and as a species on the planet. And so it's all tied into awareness and it's tied into our moral compass, what we're taught about who we are and how to be in the world. If we're taught that it's just fine to litter out the car window and dump trash in the ocean, this is fine.

Everyone does it. We can do it. What's the problem? If we're raised with that, then, you know, we may have to have an awakening, maybe a school friend or somebody else, it cracks in. and we go, wait a minute, I'm not okay with what. You know, so there's so much to do with awareness and what we're taught and how we develop. But as to your question about cycles in life,

yes, because our conceptual level is still changing. Who am I in the world now that I'm a father or a mother? Who am I now in the world now that I've graduated with my degree or my certificate or completed my program? who am I now that I'm going into this life change? Who am I now? And so we have all of these, you know, in the cycle of life and all of the challenges that we face, we have these ongoing opportunities to self-examine.

Who am I now and what are my options and what are my decisions? And do I let them come from my higher self? Do I let them come from my beingness? do I let them come from my intuition? This is another thing about self-awareness is the development of our intuition. Now, you know, I pulled out just a couple of quotes that I really love that, you know,

and this one is from Dr. Francis Yvonne. At any given moment, one is conscious of only a small portion of what one knows. Intuition allows one to draw on that vast story, house of the unconscious knowledge that includes not only everything that one has experienced consciously or sublimely, but also the infinite reservoir of the collective unconscious in which individual separateness and equal boundaries are transcended. Now, what's Francis talking about here?

Dr. Vaughn is talking about that our intuition that's sort of wired into our being in this. It's very hard to describe it. We can define it, but it's very hard to describe how it actually operates, okay, the same way how to thinking processes work. You can do a neuroscientist view with MRIs. Right. Okay. And giving them a book to read and then, you know, but the thing is, is intuition we all have that. How do we develop it? And how do we keep it healthy okay because it transcends those boundaries of separateness in which our intuition feels as if it can connect into you ever had an intuitive flash about something and then it happens what we call deja vu yeah okay that's all in the category of intuition okay an intuition that something's happening

that something's going to happen the sense this kind of other way of sensing what's happening in the world. This is all to do with awareness. Now, a lot of people deny and block that. You know, in the most simple of ways, their intuition tells them that there's something, that there's a problem, maybe with a colleague of work. There's a little inside,

a flowering orange light. I think there's something up with, you know, Jane and the next department. Just survive or something. Okay, what do you do with that intuition? Do you deny it? Do you deny it? Or do you go, I think I'm going to ask Jane to go for lunch,

and sit down and sit with her and be with her and see if there's something we need to talk about. So finding ways to act respectfully and with dignity on intuition and how to develop it. And one of the problems with, you know, our society and culture is we don't offer models for this. Right. We don't talk about it in school. We don't talk about it at home. It's certainly not on social media. There's no, you know, how to develop your intuition.

There's a million videos of cats doing funny things and people setting themselves up in ridiculous situations. So they have their 15 seconds or minutes of fame. But where's the conversation about this? How to be a human being? How to be a decent human being. Where's that conversation? You know? So intuition and how do we develop intuition?

It's old, but it's absolute solid gold. Okay. This immediate access to truth, and different quote here, Alice A. Bailey, one of the founding members of the Theosophy Foundation and society. The immediate access to truth is the ultimate destiny of all human beings. It's a destiny for us to have an immediate access to the collective unconscious, that it's there within us, that we needn't feel overwhelmed or frightened by it, but just to know this is part of my human experience. It seems probable that someday the mind itself will lie as much below the threshold of consciousness

as the instincts do now. We shall then function in the realm of the intuition and shall talk in terms of the intuition with as much facility as we now talk in terms of the mind, an endeavor to function as mental beings. Wow. Wow. I've never heard that before. Yeah. Okay.

Right there. So, you know, and this woman lived over 100 years ago. So can you imagine that the awareness that some of these people were developing in that movement, that early movement of, you know, European spiritism, when they were saying, hey, wait a minute, there's stuff that we don't understand with our mind, and science hasn't grasped it yet, but we intuit it and we can feel it and we can sense it. And we can actually prove in our own limited way that this is, we can. can confirm it, you know. And so that ability to communicate with our own intuition,

with our self, in a way that our awareness of ourselves is neither too tight, no, too loose. We don't want to move to indulgence and, you know, me and my feelings all the time. And you know, you know what I'm trying to say. I do. Indulge in things. And, you know, that's the opposite of dignity, by the way. So, you know, how can I own what's real for me? And how can I express it or share it in a way that will be appropriate and will be received and will, you know, benefit.

Benefit. Bring benefit. You know, there's so many different parts, moving parts associated with this, such as, intention and what's the agenda in the heart when we do things with her intuition okay and sense something now how do I do this with ethics and with dignity and so okay let's should we carry on where are we we talked about thought forms do you have anything else you wanted to ask about that maybe just briefly we can touch on the the fear that lies in the the relationship of understanding intuition.

Because I think that's kind of scary to realize that's happening, right? Well, first of all, because our culture doesn't have the conversation, okay? For anybody whose intuition is awakening, I think we've, maybe we've talked, if not here, then certainly those of you who are interested in volume one of my book talking about mediumship and developing spirituality, because the conversation, the maps, It doesn't exist. The cartography, this aspect of the human experience doesn't exist really in our educational systems or in our family homes. Very few, unless you come from a culture where there was a lot of spirituality, then you bring it with you.

South America, Brazil, full of spirituality, India, full of spirituality, Eastern traditions full of spirituality. They bring it with them. They talk on honor, you know, indigenous people honor the ancestors. They honor the, they talk to the tree before they take the leaves. They honor the river and go in the spring or the fall sing songs to the river, thanking it for the fresh water. And so for me, this is the purest form of spirituality is honoring, you know, the nature around us and recognizing the consciousness is in everything.

but we're not taught that in our society. And so when people have openings to it, it can feel overwhelming. It can be warming. And the next thing you know, you have a diagnosis and maybe it goes with it. Okay? Instead of it, instead of you being told

that this is a very natural part of being human. But as long as we're there, we're very tight, narrow, understandings in our systems, in our politics, in our governments, in our education systems, in our societies. It's very narrow. And, you know, there needs to be, you hear me say this very often, a bridge between spirituality and transpersonal psychology and indigenous wisdom and modern science, building the bridges, building the bridges. And so modern Science can, because there are people in modern science who are doing research, consciousness

research, non-ordinary states of consciousness research on intuition, you know, there are some doctors who work with true medical intuitives. These people who have their intuition, happens to be geared to the medical wellness of individuals. But they have to be tested and proven to be true and they work with a team of people. So beware anyone listening, but people who claim to be a medical intuitive, nor are not working with a medical doctor and a team of people,

whereby everything is working together as a team, and the person who is the medical intuitive has been acknowledged as such by research done with that person, being able. So what that looks like is a doctor, the medical doctor, doing all the medical doctor, doing all the medical tests, okay? So they know this person has pancreatic cancer, for example,

and then bringing the medical intuitive in and saying, okay, you know, what do you see? And so they do this many times and they say, okay, listen, nine out of ten times, this person is absolutely dead along with what they're saying. Jack Cornfield tells this wonderful story about the, maybe you know it, about, oh, no, was not that come from it. It's a Larry Dossi story. Sorry. Sorry, Larry. Okay. Larry Dossi story. Telling about how he, I think it might have been a traveling with the Dalai Lama and there was this, this opportunity he was visiting. And so they sent him, they asked him, would he mind? You know, he's a prescriber. Would he mind going and sitting? and, you know, being with a patient

and that it would be a great teaching for the Grand Rounds. And if you know what Grand Rounds is. Grand Rounds is when all the people in the department together travel around or the key people in the department travel around to learn something on the wards and in the rooms. So they're learning it together, the young residents and are learning, you know,

from the people who have the skills on the experience and so this this master of oriental medicine went in and he quietly sat with the person and he took the asked permission and then he took and all he did was put his hand and listened to the pulse and he sat there in complete meditation and silence minutes past of course all the you know the residency and residents are kind of itching he's not doing anything His pulse is he going to do something else. Okay. Afterwards he bows to the patient and thanks the patient and he makes his way out.

And so they ask him, well, what did you see? And he said, well, his heart, his pulses wrong. And he completely described what was happening through the pulse in the heart. And he says, there's a problem in the heart. And he described what he saw in the heart based on the flow of the heart. blood and the pulse. He was 100% accurate. There were faulty valves in the person's heart and exactly what he described in his own different words, not typical medical terminology. Okay. It was exactly what was happening. And so this is a deep intuition. Okay. And some people

have it in art and some people have it in music and some people have it in medicine and some people have it in engineering, okay? They just know that the structure they've designed for this bridge is going to work. Something inside of them that says, wow, this is going to work. Okay, they just know how they've put the pieces together and where the struts are and the supports and the suspension and everything and they know the rush of the river and they went and talked to the river and looked and the traffic and it's like, yeah, it's going to work. you know and so we all have our own individual intuition and it is only through self-awareness

we get to clear you know if our body's well and healthy our ability to listen to our inner world and our intuition is much more possible if our mind is clear of thought forms and silly old stories okay and it's less cluttered okay our mind is more available for new thinking and for positive thinking and for going forward with what our intuition is telling us. Old stories slow us down. They stop our energy. They drain us. That's not so good. It's interesting to see the way in which we explain the intuitive process for an engineer, for someone who is called the medicine or someone who is into the world of arts. And it seems to me the same way that one of those people can say, yes, this bridge will work is the same way an individual

who's developed the inner issue with themselves can say, this thing that I'm building in my life is going to work. It's cool to get to see it. The way you've told that story, it helps me internalize it a little bit. And I think it does for the listeners as well. Thank you for that. Yeah. Just one more thing about thought, you know, is thoughts are powerful. There's a ton of research on this, you know, a ton of research. Let's just take the placebo effect. Okay. They're getting an inert there's no medication in it. They declare that they feel better. Their blood pressure goes down, et cetera.

So the placebo effect is the power of thought and hope. Okay. And so that exists in everything. It exists in everything. But where does that become, where does the power of positive thinking, which is good, go drift into the power of magical thinking, which is not good?

Okay. is one thing when your four-year-old says that Teddy can talk and has feelings, okay, and Teddy's not happy right now because that's appropriate for the age, you know, or the child that believes that maybe there's a unicorn living at the bottom of the garden or, okay, so that kind of magical thinking at a certain age and we support it until, you know, it shifts, okay? But when we're an adult, okay, we have to be careful of that. There's a kind of a new age philosophy about how, you know, how you can think, imagine, dream your way into, you know, just stick that photograph of that house, BMW, whatever it is. You're on your fridge and just keep imagining it.

You know, this is the power of attraction. You have to try. So here we have a basic truth that there actually is power of attraction. it does exist, but not in that way. That has been materialized in a way that becomes dangerous to people, literally dangerous to people, because if they think they can just think away their cancer, or they can just, now by staying positive,

I'm a cancer survivor, so I can speak to it. It was 30 years ago, I'm all good, thank you. But I certainly used talking to my immune system and talking to my body and giving it all the love and positive imagery and we're you know but at the same time i saw my amcologist i had my surgery i mean you know so it's positive and hopeful thinking is part of an overall plan it's not the overall plan and as i always answer these people who've gone to the fanatical idealistic place with it i said how's that working for the people in fill in the blank small yeah who have no food or no water or no medicine do they just get to imagine food and

water and medicine and it's going to arrive show me how that works because i don't see how it can work so thoughts can be powerful and learning how to use them for service for good not to hurt ourselves through rehashing old sorry stories, not through deluding ourselves through denial with silly hyperpositive fantasy and not using them against other people. So awareness, awareness. So attributed to the Buddha, we are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them. Tributed it to the Buddha, we don't know if he actually said it or not, but it's a good one.

Yeah, it's beautiful to think about. And the other one, again from a friend of mine was thoughts, our mind is solidified thoughts. What kind of thoughts do you want to have in your mind? So self-awareness, self-awareness. So encouraging all the listeners to develop a technique, there's so many of them choose the one that feels right for you. Meditating, martial arts, simple practices, breathing techniques, relaxation techniques, working with a professional teacher, guide, all helpful.

And please read my books. Yes. Yes, to everybody listening, do yourself a huge favor and check out the two volumes set. The links will be below. And one of the things that I really love about your books is that while they can be read straight through, like the one I have in front of me has got tons of, you know, bookmarks and different. Just sometimes I'll be thinking about something.

And then I'll be like, oh, let me check out chapter 13. Or this person said that. Let me go back. It's like a guidebook that you can go back. And I keep finding these quotes that somehow I didn't see before. I'm like, how did I not read that for? You know, they had to underline it with a different color underliner because I had it in a yellow, but it should be in a pink, you know, so they're really great books, everybody, is what I'm trying to say. And it's a book that you'll use from time to time. And it just happens to be on my shelf when I'm thinking about something or they're really great books. And I would recommend everybody, not only watch the podcast, but go to your site. And if you love the podcast, if you love the word she's speaking, then check out the books because it's something that can be in your bookshelf for you, your kids. kids and it's just a great resource. I'm really thankful that you've written them.

Oh, thank you. Well, they are guidebooks. It's not a beach novel. And it's not just a, hey, here's my story. Although my editor said I had to put more of my story in, which I did. And so it is what it is, but they are guidebooks. You can read them through or you can just pick them up and put them down or you can go to a certain chapter that kind of tweaks something that you want to understand about. And I also have on my website, there's a lot of lectures and podcasts that I offer free for education

purposes and some other publications. And you know, on that note, George is always amazing to hang out with you. I hope today's been fun for you and for the listeners. And next time we will be talking about

self-love. So the kind of core pillars, the foundation of self-care, self-love, well, self-awareness, self-love, self-respect, self-responsibility. And when we really address those four aspects and set our intentions to take care of ourselves in a way that is healthy and balanced, then we have the best possible way to go forward in our life in a way that is as healthy as it can possibly be for ourselves and for those who love us and around us.

Yeah, thank you. is all mine. I really enjoy our conversations and it seems so timely right now to begin to talk about the self. There's so many people that are finding themselves for the first time. And maybe the way you begin to find yourself is to be aware, which we kind of began covering today. It's so amazing to me. So Dr. Jessica, we've talked about your website. We talked about the books. Do you have anything coming up that people can maybe look forward to? Well, yes, actually, I think I'm just doing a freshening up and a redo of my website. So I'm not sure I haven't even looked, but it may say under construction because we're doing a refreshing and adding some more information.

Some people might be interested to know that at the end of June, and I will put that up on my LinkedIn, and I will, so those of you who are connected to me through LinkedIn, I look forward to, you know, reconnecting with you. if you aren't, please do, you know, send me an invite or something. But on the 27th of June, there's the Canadian Association for its Public Health Association. So the Canadian Public Health Association has a conference. And there's a few of us who will be speaking at it. And this is quite big. This is the first time that the Canadian Public Health Association has invited people from the entheogen and psychedelic field to actually have a conversation to people who work in public health.

And so if you are working in public health and you're interested, then please, I will try and by the end of the day to day or latest to where I'll get that link up to that conference. And it's going to be covering, you know, different people from the policy angle are going to be speaking. But again, it's going to be a very, I will mostly be speaking. about the paper that we published I was the lead author on Antheogenes and psychedelics proposal for a new paradigm and so it was making recommendations about education, credentialing, and ethics and how this

kind of what people were calling the Renaissance of Psychedelics, these are the things that really need to be considered. And so I will get that up that the link to the conference information and hopefully people will join in and be part of the conversation about public health and because it needs to happen. We need to be having these conversations and informing the policies that are driving public health. And so, and educating the people. As you mentioned before I worked, it's now 23, 23 years that I've been working with Health Canada,

the Office of Control Substances. It was 17. I was issued in 2006, an exemption in principle, but we got stuck in a little export permission from Brazil import from Canada, catch 22, and then politics changed and governments changed and things happened and time got lost. And then we had to go through a whole new chapter from 2014 to 2017 of educating the government. And please notice that at no point that for me it was always a diplomatic negotiation of providing science and research and reason of being willing to sit with the government and simply here's education, here's science, here's research, here's who we are, here's what we're doing. We're totally available to work with you to develop regulations that will satisfy the needs of health Canada at the same time respect our practices. You know, we never sued the government. We have no desire to.

And we would never want to. And so I encourage everybody out there who are working in this field is sit at the table and be in the discussion. Be willing to work with the government in a way that's respectful and diplomatic. And, you know, it may take time. Be patient. Yeah. Please. Go ahead.

I was just going to say I can only imagine the people that are curious to understand the procedure that you went through to make it happen. I see so much happening in this unfolding right now in this space. I said, thank you for bringing that. I'm sure as a courtesy, you're probably like, hey, everybody, everybody's probably flooding in trying to figure out. How did you do it? You know, so it's probably a good public service announcement. It's been a constant stream. People are constantly trained to reach through.

me personally, which, you know, when I ask people, please don't. I'm not a short cut to our church, and I'm not a shortcut, you know, I'm doing everything that I'm doing for about non-ardinary states of consciousness and trying to educate. And, you know, it's, it's, I care about community, I care about nature, and I care about the study of consciousness and the understanding of it. And at the same time, I don't have a magic wand in my back pocket that I can magically open doors and do things. People have to be the example I used with Health Canada or the office a while ago in some meetings

when we were talking about what we call E&P and the agendas of psychedelics in Canada. And we had a series of meetings with the director and senior staff from different departments talking about our recommendations and what they felt they were able to take in and implement and agree with and what was out of their scope, you know?

and is more in the provincial and territorial scope as far as medical things go. And so very interesting. But what I said was, you know, it's kind of like when horses and when the car was just first being developed, you know, and the first first cars were on the road. And everybody was saying, oh, well, you're never going to replace the horse and buggy, you know. And so, you know, then more cars are on the road. And then all of a sudden somebody said, maybe we better figure out a way that traffic rules.

You know, they didn't exist. Maybe traffic rules. So stop signs got developed and the lights got developed and driving on one side of the road versus the other and lines down the middle. And all of these things grew because of the invention of cars that came on the road. And the next thing you knew, there were cars everywhere.

And then they had to develop things like driver's licenses and driver's permits. and criteria around who could drive and when they could drive, all of these regulations came well after the first cars. And so that was the example that I gave to, you know, Health Canada, which is, you know, hazard cars everywhere. You guys have to develop regulations, you know, because right now there's a lot of cars out on the road,

and there's no rules of regulations otherwise, other than you're not allowed to drive the cars on the road. It's too late. You know, they're already there. And so that's the reality. People need to be willing to understand the current regulations, be willing to work to be part of the solution. It's part of the solution and how to do that.

So that's a whole other conversation. Self-awareness, self-awareness, self-awareness. Okay. It's been wonderful. Thank you so much. The pleasure is all mine. The pleasure is all mine. I can't wait until we continue the next part of this series

and really looking forward to it. Do you have another minute? I had another question. Sure. Curious. And when we begin talking about, and I think it ties together the idea of awareness and regulations, and it's this idea that there's never a perfect time for something to happen. And it does seem that we find ourselves in sort of a time where a lot of people need a lot

of help. What are your thoughts on some of the credentialing as far as facilitators and co-execkeling? as far as facilitators and coaches. Is that something that is messy but necessary? Or is it something that we should be trying to foster in a different way? Well, that's a really big question. Huge question. I think we squirted around it a few times.

But let's try and answer that and address that in this moment because it's a question that absolutely needs to be put on the table over and over again until enough voices joined into the course. conversation. So part of what I've been doing since I, you know, since we published that paper, what was it April 2021 now, so nearly two years ago, is the contributors. We had, what, 20-something contributors, all of whom were in the field one way or another, education, academia, medicine, spiritual care providers, researchers, you know, all of them within their own right, you know, well-recognized for their work. We had research chairs in their field. So really highly respected

people were willing to say, I'm happy to contribute and share my thoughts and because of the importance of this. It's such an important conversation. We're happy to say that people in England picked up our paper and wanted to do the same thing in England. In Australia, they picked it up and said, hey, look, here's some things. Let's, you know, align with that. Currently, there are now. in this last two years, they've been developing in a number of universities programs that will be credentialed through the university. And this is really what, and it's a slower process for universities, because what is the criteria? It's like, it's the same if we look out to, like, when did medical doctors first start being recognized as medical doctors? And what kind of

examinations did they have to do? Well, you know what? They apprenticed. People apprenticed. And then they went to some kind of a school and they were apprenticing with other doctors and they got a cadaver to cut up and you know we off the races and now you're a doctor okay and it became more complicated and more complicated the more technology and science and medicine develop it became more complicated but but where we are now is that there's a um how can i there's an enthusiasm a big enthusiasm that part of the of it is in the community and part of it is enthusiastic, let's say, healthcare professionals who are, who think that, you know, based on some research to date, that, you know, there's

a real possibility that certain psychedelics and or entheogens could be really helpful in certain areas. I'm all behind that. I'm all behind in the research and the, you know, I'm all behind. and, you know, if we look in indigenous practices who've been using sacred plants, no, they haven't been using MDMA and they haven't been using LSD, and they haven't been, but they've been using ayahuasca and Ibegene and, you know, other sacred plants and psilocybin mushrooms, the mushrooms. So they've been using this for centuries and millennia. And so all of their knowledge about anthogen, sacred plants,

should be such an important part of the conversation. You know, that's been left out. I'm delighted to see that Maps and Chakrona and Dysirs, Bandelon and Dysiers, are doing important talks and writing papers and publishing and podcasts on that topic because this is essential. And at the same time, the universities need to have the conversation

with the indigenous people to make sure that indigenous ways of knowing are going to be used. And then the researchers and the clinicians need to be part of that to make sure that what they're learning in research is implemented into what actually is going to be taught. This needs a large conversation. Yeah. It's a large conversation.

It's not just like a pharmaceutical company that's bringing out a new pain medication or a new medication for diabetes or for high blood pressure or something. something where they run some tests and they get, okay, it helps, some side effects. Here you go. And it's on the market. It's, this is talking about working with people's consciousness. This is about talking about awakening people in very strong and big ways. It's not just like a something.

It's not just a medication that you're going to take that. You say, okay, my joint pain is a lot better when I take this. this is something else entirely. And so how to work in non-ordinary states of consciousness, how to help people integrate in non-ordinary states of consciousness, how to do all of that. And so it's a very big conversation. And on the one hand, you have people who are saying,

everyone should have it anywhere, any time, whatever they want. We're all fine to just do it by ourselves at home in our own living room. There's other of us who say, uh-uh, there are some of you who may be able to do that and be, you know, not everyone's Terrence McKenna. Sorry. Sorry. It's a will put. And yes, there are people who say, I'm just fine, but they can't extrapolate that across the population. You know, there's some people who are fine with freed rights.

free diving. They don't put on a tank and down they go. Not everybody's okay with that. So, you know, we can't, just because we have an experience, we can't extrapolate it across the whole population that because I'm okay doing this and everybody's okay doing this. I'm okay eating peanuts. Peanuts is fine with me. I think all natural, completely natural, crunchy peanut butter on a slice of toast, yummy. Okay, people, other people have anaphylon shock. So we're all different. So the people who say it's for everybody and it should be completely decriminalized and everybody should be able to take what they want because we're all entitled to our own something of consciousness. Okay, you're mixing up with your rights with safety.

Sure, we have the right to consciousness. We have right to explore consciousness, but you're forgetting individual safety and well-being. And that's the main interest of Health Canada. I can only speak to Canada and not any other country, is the health and safety of the people. Before they say, okay, yes, you can do this. They need to know. They've learned from tobacco and alcohol. Let's just put that in perspective. They've learned from tobacco and alcohol, which are legal because they were so prevalent in society. then prohibition didn't work. And so they struggle, which is how do we make people aware that these things aren't healthy for you? And now they have this opportunity and, okay, here's something that may be not healthy for you or not healthy for everyone or could be dangerous.

And yes, some people have died and yes, some people have walked out of windows and thought they could fly. And, oh, why would we be saying it's okay for everybody to do that everywhere? We have to have a little compassion for our government. They would be the first people to be blamed if there's something that happens. You should see, I just call my renewal for our church and four-year renewal on our exemption process. Pages and pages of definitions and tight little narrow agreements that are made on what happens and what doesn't happen and where it happens and when it happens and how it happens. Okay. It's fascinating to think about that.

The level of conversation. In some ways, I could see how a conversation about a conversation about a conversation about the laws around plant medicine and theogens and psychedelics opens up a broader conversation to the way we treat each other in this world. It's so fractal in a way. And it makes me want to cry. It's so beautiful. to think that, hey, this idea that we're talking about has radical possibilities for transformation of consciousness. And I mean, not just you and I, but the world around us, it's magnitude is gargantuan.

Yes, the possibility is. But then let's just look at every great teacher that came on the planet who radically wanted to change people's consciousness. I mean, poor old Buddha, he took quite a rap, didn't he, and still does. you know and Jesus I mean really if he arrived today he'd be horrified it's what's being done his name okay he would say whoa whoa whoa I never said that I never proposed that what are you guys doing you know and so we can look at all the great teachers who came and said wake up wake up wake up love yourself love nature love life be good to people you know Moses came down from the mountain with

the ten commandments don't do this and don't do that because he's And it hurts everyone. What did everybody do? Some people said, oh, yeah, those things are good. I'm going to do my best to follow them. And other people said, eh, not interested. It interferes with my selfish agenda. Did you think just for, oh, we shouldn't go into politics,

do you think Mr. Putin is following the Ten Commandments? I don't, like I. Well, you know, all you have to do is look around the world, choose any other kind of dictator you want. Okay, choose any unhealthy, unstable situation around the world and say, okay, are those people using self-awareness and consciousness to discuss and face their disagreements or their differences? Or is it just that ageal story of denial? Instead of awareness of, oh, wait a minute, I believe that God looks like this and we reach God by doing that, by eating these foods and wearing these outfits. and you believe that God exists in a slightly different form,

and you eat a slightly different food and wear a slightly different outfit, and your festival days are a little bit different, but you know, it's okay, because that's so good, we all love God. You know, like, why couldn't that be our reality? Why couldn't that be our reality? Instead of, you know, our God is a good God, your God is a bad God, so we're going to get rid of you and your bad God. And that's the story of the human experience.

So I'm not quite on the same page with you as to, I'm on the same page with the potential. I am not on the same page where there's a whole world waiting to be transformed and awoken. I think there's a lot of people who like in the movie Matrix plug me back. Right. Giving a great life. I'd like to be what do you want, a Hollywood producer for the night I was overlooking the ocean. It's beautiful. I think sometimes seeing that trying to imagine how things are on a cosmic scale and what is possible, ultimately leads me to the idea of, okay, now go back in.

Like here I look at it. Like, yes, it's the, yeah, George, it's that big it can be. Okay, now go back in and just do it work inside. And now ground it. Yeah, yes. It's a grounding that people forget to do. Hey, I have this image. It's all love and oneness and you.

Okay, that's what Stan Groff would call a bodily intercreation. fourth matrix experience very badly created. He used to see Francis of the Sisi as a perfect example of a bad example of Fourth Matrix. You know when St. Francis, his father was a merchant. I think it was rugs or something, goods, household, whatever. And he has this moment of transfiguration in church one morning and he goes home and he opens the doors of the warehouse of his father's warehouse, not even his own and decides to give everything away.

Badly integrated fourth natrix experience. We can be one. We can live in peace. Okay, I'm going to give away gas goods. Yeah. So, you know, and this is the same that's happening now. People have these awakenings. Wow, we can be healthy and well and we can all love and we're all connected in.

It's cosmic consciousness. And then let's, I'm just going to give fill in the blank MDMA, psilocybin, whatever it is. I'm going to just give it to everybody and everyone's going to wake up. No. That's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Yeah.

Well, it's been grand. I know. I love that. I hope we walked around that question a little bit enough. Absolutely. Okay. So I join me with you looking forward to the next time. And anybody who wants to reach me, you can reach me at www.

Rev, R-V-D-R-G-G-R-G-G-R-G-R-G-R-C-R-C-R-C-R-R-Gester. Ladies and gentlemen, check it out. Go to the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did. As much as I did, it was just mind-blowing. I love it. Thank you so much to everybody listening. I hope you have a beautiful day.

I hope you love everyone around you and you begin to be more self-aware. That's all we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, Aloha.