TrueLife - Susan Guner - The Melodic Voice of Our Healing Nature

Episode Date: February 25, 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://psychedelicconversations.com/https://linktr.ee/susangunerSusan Guner is a freethinking explorer of spirit, passionate about self-agency through the central principle of meditation, specifically interested in learning and teaching about integration practices that can further facilitate a psychedelic renaissance allowing the emergence of holistic lifestyles.A holistic psychotherapist, as well as the host of The Psychedelic Conversations Podcast, she has spoken with some of the most interesting, imaginative, and innovative people in the community. If you have ever been curious about microdosing, somatic healing, psychedelic therapy, holistic therapy, about dealing with trauma then you will definitely want to clock on the links above to learn more about her! One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

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

maze, lights my war cry Born from the blaze. The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I'm so excited. I have an incredible individual here who I admire

and I've seen their work, and I think that the entire audience is really going to enjoy this podcast. I have Ms. Susan Gooner. She grew up in London. She's a holistic psychotherapist. She's the host of her own podcast, the Psychedelic Conversations podcast, and she offers something called the Reset Program, which is like a microdosing program. And before we get into that, I just wanted to offer you an opportunity to maybe fill in any blanks that I may have left out there. Hi, George. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here. Yes, that's accurate. So that's the kind of things that I do.

I'm passionate about conversations, building communities, making friends, and also bringing as much education into this psychedelic renaissance that we're currently experiencing. That's the passion. Yeah. It's what an amazing time to be alive, right? There's so much. much happening and it seems as if it's happening quicker and quicker and the results are becoming more profound. Did you want to share maybe your story? Like how did you find yourself where you are today in the midst of talking to all these influential people and going out of your way to try and make people's lives better? I'm assuming you at some point in time you had to make your own life better. But how did you get here? Yeah, that's always my favorite question that I ask my guests as Well, so yeah, I'm always curious about how people find their way into the psychedelic sphere.

So I began studying psychology very early. I think we're all psychologists in our own ways, even if we don't know it. And then I started developing interest in, you know, asking the bigger questions. And that came through a family member of mine when I spent most of my childhood. actually and this individual happened to be really, really challenged mentally. That kind of put me on the trajectory on this path of like asking bigger questions. And then then I started getting interested in psychologists wanting to study the traditional modalities.

And through this journey, I developed more curiosity around. So, okay, what is the body's role in healing, in transformation, in changing? our perspective and mind. So all of that led me to somatic therapy. Then continued on my journey, just literally looking for out-of-the-box modalities to bring to people. Because through my observation,

nobody was healing, nothing was changing, and people were just functioning, and they were just coping with their symptoms and managing. And I thought, there has to be something. We can't just be managing. There has to be something

that could bring people the breakthrough. And around those times, I then stumbled upon psychedelic medicines. It's so interesting to see the Ariadne thread that seems to point the way out the maze for all of us. And, you know, when I talk to people, I find myself drawn to people that may have suffered similar or deep traumas. And that's one thing I've noticed about psychedelic, at least to a degree, is that it seems like the people, that have been dramatically affected by trauma seem to gravitate towards higher doses or seem to gravitate towards something that's stronger.

Have you noticed that in some of the people that you've spoken to? I have. I have. And I'm always talking about the same subject. And, you know, my understanding is it's not about the dose. It's never dose dependent. It is never dose dependent. We need other elements into the mix.

It's not just about how much can we ingest or how much can we take if anything we could the more you know in that kind of approach we can literally lose the intention and why we started here in the first place and we can kind of

take a whole different path and get more confused get more lost and it can become more confusing a disorienting place for a lot of people so it is never about the dose it's all about the container it's all about the

conditions and being deliberate in our intention. Let me push back on that just a little bit. Like sometimes it's about the dose, right? Like if I take like a micro dose versus, say, like a large dose, maybe it's dose dependent on what it is. Maybe it's dose dependent on the conjunction with your intention. Because if there's some, you know, if there's this giant Gordian knot that you need to pull super hard to get the thing out of

there, then like you may need a little bit more of the medicine or you may need someone there with you. But on some level, it has to be about the dosage. Or I don't know, maybe it doesn't. But do you think that there's, what does dosage have to do with it? Yeah. So I love one of my favorite traumatologist, Dr. Bezo Wandercoe. I think a lot of people know about him.

The body keeps the score. After listening, yeah, after listening to his sharing on a research they did among the veterans, I think it was. they put these, you know, VEGs on their brain, just to kind of measure their brainways and what they are, you know, going through in this high doses of psychedelic medicines. And what they've noticed is that their body started dumping

high levels of their own chemicals to block, to block the psychedelic substance. So as soon as obviously they created conditions, there were sounds, a smell, you know, that reminded them of their own, you know, experience of trauma. And they all started blocking out. So our bodies can intelligently create our own chemicals and counter the whole thing. So there is that.

And we see this again and again. I guess we can look at it through a trauma lens, people who have gone through really deep wounds and trauma and they carry a lot of these, you know, blocks and experiences. then surely there is another way of working. But then the average folk can take many different layers and doses. Of course, the experience will be different, but because my area, my specific area is the trauma-informed, so I'm always focused on that.

Yeah. It's, do you, have you found that each individual is unique in that, in that each individual may respond to a different dose? or maybe not only dose, but a different sort of combination of therapy, integration, and dose. It seems like while there may be a standard that works close for everybody, that each individual is calibrated to a certain set of parameters. Have you found that to be true? Yes and no. Yes and no, so I have my own ideas on that one.

So, George, like, if, I mean, for our listeners, I'm sure you have this incredible show that a lot of the people, who came here talked about trauma, but let's just define what trauma is, for example. Again, this is coming from Dr. Peter Levine. A lot of people are probably familiar, the Somati experiencing, the founder of the Somati experiencing. And he says trauma happens when there is no choice, lack of choice, lack of choice. And it's too overwhelming to the system, which leads to. to disconnection from ourselves.

So if we look at that definition, I think a lot of us probably would agree they, somewhere on their timeline experienced similar experiences. And so when we look at this, and also we bring in the element of trauma being the relational result of a relational experience stemming from very, very earlier on when we're impressionable kids,

So if you look at all of these different elements, then somebody, I mean, the trauma-informed piece for me is very, very important. And when I bring it to any space, that is kind of my key element that I really focus. And trauma-informed pieces that we acknowledge that all of us, big, T, small T, somewhere in other way, we are trauma survivors, right? So having that sensitivity and having that acknowledgement, it creates an amazing container for the person to come in and do their work. And for me, the psychedelic medicines always been secondary compared to what I can bring in first. For example, if trauma happens relationally, then we have to be super mindful of being the facilitator, the mediator, the facilitator is the key person. and then the container and then the conditions that are created for this person to go through their own experience and always always comes back down to facing what really traumatized them in the first place.

And that level of healing requires a lot of holding a safe container, a connection, trust, and also the facilitator must kind of pick up all these cues and there's a lot of nuances involved. and for me it's always, you know, psychedelic medicines are the secondary compared to what we can create deliberately. Yeah, that is really well said. It brings up a question that I find myself more and more thinking about is, what do you think is the relationship between healing and learning? Learning as in how we're doing. So they seem almost synonymous.

Like at times, learning and healing seem. interchangeable to me, even though both of those words are, you know, if we define healing as a way to understand what happened to me and make peace with it, versus learning as, as we can define learning as maybe creating or understanding a new skill set that makes my life more fun. functional. So it seems to me that both of those words, healing and learning, are something that happen in the process of treating trauma. But I don't know, they seem similar to me, but on some levels they seem different. And I'm just wondering as someone who works with people, do you treat those two things differently when you're working with someone? There are levels. So there are levels of

what people need. For example, we have a category of people where they really, really struggle. There's host of mental health illness, you know, disorders, there's lots of mental health complications. So they require a specific approach.

Let's talk about just for the sake of the conversation generally. I think healing, transformation, learning, unlearning all happens at the same time simultaneously. I mean, we can literally heal someone from trauma without even talking about it through creating conscious containers.

Somehow, you know, our early experiences, I mean, for me, trauma or suppressed, you know, survival energies, suppressed emotions are just, you know, part of our early life that we had no choice over. We had to develop these mechanisms, coping, defenses to adapt our early environment so that we can survive. And somehow this has disconnected us from nurturing healthy relationships. Like we don't know what to do with. We don't have any grasp of what is a healthy relationship?

Like biggest challenge, right? I mean, this is like among my friends who are therapists, like somatic therapists, we always have this inside joke. Like, in order to heal, we need other bodies. We just can't do this alone. We need other people. We cannot do this alone. And one of my favorite, you know, passion is to create containers, communities, group

processes. Because one can learn so much in a group, group sessions, or group content. containers, coming together with all different walks of life, you know, it becomes so confrontational to their prejudice or to their programs or to their limitations. And suddenly it's like, you know, super learning sort of container. Like everything's amplified. So literally can cut 10, 20 years of therapy. This is very powerful.

You bring in everyone together and this is a deliberate conscious container. Believe me, that's like for me the ultimate healing space, regardless of what modality is used because trauma is what disconnects us from ourselves, that then we are disconnected from our environment and then those people. So then when we operate from that lack energy, you know, I talk about the lack energy, is when, you know, again, template growing up, we don't have these healthy models and healthy templates that we couldn't just follow, copy, learn from. Therefore, it becomes like you are operating from this lack energy, which means unmet needs. So your needs weren't met. So then

you develop these, there's, you know, unavailable parents, for example. whole, right? Lack, not enough to go around, like food-wise, like shelter, security, safety, all of these compromised. So you inevitably begin to operate from this lack energy template. For me, this is what trauma is. A lot of us carry this. I mean, I am yet to meet anyone so regulated and positive and really have gone through, you know, the work of this to understand what they are dealing with and this all comes down to understanding ourselves through other people because if we can start to like for me is um you know when people come to me for help in sort of like financial or you know they have this anxiety or depression or something like that the first thing

is like how are your relationships because for me that's like a direct measurement of where they are in understanding themselves and how they are operating in the world Wow, I love it. I once heard a story about a rabbi that had said something similar and he had said, if you are you and I am I, and I am I because you are you and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you. Like we need each other in order to understand who we are. And if you look at Carl Young's work, it's the same thing. Like if you see people like a mirror, then you get a really good example of how you are interacting in the world. I think it's beautiful. I can you define, can you define?

somatic healing for me? Yeah. So just want to quickly say, we'll move on to that one. So, you know, there are so many things out there now. So many people are reading stuff like, yes, the other person is your direct mirror. You know, like, for example, we have this concept of relationships, romantic relationships being a container. Have you heard of that model? I'm new to the container model, but I'm just kind of picking up on it. It sounds beautiful. Container means like an agreed space you go into with another, right? So, for example, romantic relationships, right? They are the best containers for self-growth.

Do they have different shapes, the containers? Like what a romantic? Yeah, okay. Yeah, of course, of course, because in that romantic relationship is where all of our templates play out everything, everything we've learned, impulsory, limitations, attachment disorders, everything gets to play out in that container of a relationship. So, you know, we can read so many books about the other person being the direct mirror,

but nobody knows how this works out. How do we work with this? Like nobody, not nobody, but people do understand, but how do we grasp it on a level that we are entering with an agreement that this is a healing space? Right. So in a group therapy, I give you a quick example. Yeah, please. Group therapy, for example, the initial thing would be everybody will be scanning each other. And then in their minds, they're already making judgments, criticism, judging someone's hair, or the way they dress up, or the way they sound and speak.

And then eventually they'll start judging their opinions, their comments. and then you'll have people clicking, meaning they kind of start to rescue each other. There's a lot of support in a toxic way. And then it's like every sort of like unaware template start to show up in this space. So we pay attention to that. So that's kind of like the powerful container

we can create to learn from others. But what is it triggering? within us. If I'm starting to judge you, your hair, your clothes, you know, your opinions, then that's very much related to what I'm holding inside. So we need to really clarify. There's a lot of people, you know, resent and they repent group containers. Somehow the unconscious knows that if they do come in, there's going to a lot of confrontation.

So we'll avoid any confrontation at all cost. But this is healing. Healing doesn't come from sitting in 100 ceremonies of ayahuasca. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Right. Healing comes from coming back into our mundane and our relationships, our work, everything we do in our physical life.

And then that's kind of like the direct mirror of where we are on our evolutionary journey. And, you know, we can be the best navigator in the psychedelic space. but if our relationships are still struggling and we have all these other challenges that we just can't overcome, we just don't know where to, like we have hit the wall, we're stuck,

but we're just so great at these ceremonies and we could literally drink, you know, five days, you know, on and nothing. You know, it's, do you understand what I mean? It's like, my passion is always like, can we now bring it home? What we can do there, can we bring it home? And we can tie it in with the somatic therapy.

For example, for me, psychedelic medicines are really somatic. They activate our nervous system. There's a lot of expansion. We feel it in our bodies. So many suppressed material comes up, arises. There's lots of releasing, physical releasing, purging. This is somatic. and somatic therapy, which is the, you know, Peter Levin, Dr. B. Delevin founded,

he talks about how trauma is held in the body. Therefore, we need to bring the body on board if we want that full whole healing process. That's what the somatic therapy is. Bringing the body consciousness, the body awareness into the healing space. It's fascinating to me. I want to just backtrack a little bit because there's something that I, when we talk about, do you think that alienation? We talked about relationships and the relationships that we hold with other people and containers is a direct reflection of who we are. The question to me comes up is alienation.

Like we have, if we're honest with ourselves, we probably all felt alienated at some point in time or whether it's an accurate thing to feel. or not, do you, what role does shared sacrifice play in alienation? Because it sounds like when you're getting people together, they're being forced to, not to sacrifice themselves a little bit in that they must show themselves to other people. And that's a kind of sacrifice. And what, what do you think is the role there between alienation and shared sacrifice? Do they, are they together or do they play a role in each other? And it seems like a lack of rituals that we have today, a lack of, you know, like, I can't think of the word, like a kinsignera or a rite of passage. There's so few rites of passage and there's so few rituals that we do as a group anymore.

And that seems like it may lead to alienation. What is the role there between alienation and shared sacrifice? If you think about alienation in early time, age, it's alienation, but you're, you're still with others. There's still people in your life. There's still some carer or, you know, if the parents are not around, there's someone there. There's always people.

It's almost like, you know, it's our human nature to be around with people. The alienation becomes the template, but you still need to function and you still need to connect and be with other people. So that the alienation, I'm not exactly sure how you want to bring it in. but the way that I understand, kids that have been alienated or isolated or grew up in environments that weren't seen, for example, when they come into grown-ups, you know, when they come into the containers, group sessions, they behave the same. They continue their template.

They continue thinking that nobody's noticing them, that they are just being unseen. So this template is so powerful that it plays out in those kind of environments. So then the facilitator's role is to kind of point it out. Sometimes people are not aware of the templates that they are actually playing this out in these group sessions. For example, give you an idea. For example, like when there was a circle, one of our participant said that, you know, she don't belong there. Like it was a female participant.

Like she just suddenly felt like she doesn't belong here. And then once we, and it was really, really disorienting for her to be in such intense, you know, sort of group circle. And, well, after a few days a week, a couple weeks, once we start digging into that, what does that mean? why do you feel that way, that it was quickly revealed that this was the pattern. She felt like that her entire life within her family system or the work that, you know, in her career or job, places, friendships. Like she always felt like she don't belong to these places. And those kind of things play out really quickly and you could catch it so fast, if that makes sense.

It makes total sense. I think of a like an animal in a zoo sometimes. Like we take these animals, we put them in captivity. But if we want to put them back in the wild, you can't just throw them out there. You have to like let them get acclimated. And in some ways, that makes me sad because it makes me think like maybe I'm an animal in a cage in this society. You know, and there's all these while we have people around us, it seems like we're all alone together, which is that's kind of sad too. Like you have all these resources around you, but you're all alone together.

And you, whether that's the rules of society or that's the patterns that our parents put upon us or that that's something that we've learned, it does seem like the majority, would you agree with the statement that the majority of trauma in life comes from childhood trauma? I think big portion. I think we then develop predispositions that then lead to more trauma as we've become grownups. It's the same research study, isn't it? I don't know if you are aware of it. Again, they did this another whole research on the veterans. And the ones that were affected mostly, like develop PTSD, for example, they already had predispositions from a very early age.

They were already wonderful. And it's like not every soldier gets PTSD. if if like Dr. Garber, Mathe and all of these other traumatologists, they always say like if the child is regulated well and they learn how to have that self-regulation, the system is working and they can bounce back in the face of a challenge with the guidance of a grown-up who's present to them,

they become really robust in the state. So I think the vulnerability to continually be retramatized as a grown-up, like, you know, accidents, rejection, meeting people, they continually abandon you and struggle with, like, finding people, partners, you know, romantic relationships. It's hard to, like, navigate. That's, like, the most sensitive one. So all these things, I think, are the extension of what has been set as a foundation.

fundamentally from a very early age. I heard someone talk about this, actually. I can't remember his name, but he said, we assume what we consume. It's a very powerful. So even the assumption of like, I'm all alone in this world, right? Where does that come from?

Like you said, you can be in a crowd of people and still feel alone. I like that. If you see me doing so, I'm just writing stuff down. So I apologize for looking away. I'm usually writing down some notes. I like to go back and visit that. But I want to talk about this foundation a little bit about childhood or even as we begin a new container, we build a new foundation. And I'm wondering, language seems to be a giant problem for us. Like it fails and it's not reliable. It's really good, but it's not reliable. Because what I, you know, we don't sit around in a conversation that let's define all our terms.

Like, the world will probably be better if we did that, but we don't. We have different experiences, different foundations, and so the language we use is a close approximation to our feelings. And I'm curious if the world of inner imagery might be something that psychedelics is fostering to help us communicate better. It seems like this imagery is inner, whether it's an auditory illusion or these things that we're, you know, these things that we're, we see. I'm wondering, in your opinion, is that something that we can use to help heal people? And it seems like psychedelics brings out that image, read, and it shows us, hey, maybe there's a better way to communicate. I know that's kind of, it's a little bit out there. I'm having trouble forming that exact question, but I think you may have the gist of it. What do you think?

Yes, this is an interesting question. I have a very different approach to working with psychedelic medicines. Okay. Right. What I mean by that is I don't limit it to, but I'm focusing mainly through a psychotherapeutic approach. Okay. And, you know, I love the whole mystical, you know, side of the experience. I love all the transcendental. It's all well and good. But for some reason, I find more value in just kind of helping people navigate this first level first.

you know, which is the psychotherapeutic space. And from what I understand, psychedelic medicines are, yes, they bring up stuff, they help us communicate, understand all of those amazing things. But what I also understand that these medicines are a revealing experience. They give us that they are. They reveal what we hold inside already. whether symbolically, metaphorically, and this is where it gets all confusing for a lot of people,

because people then take it a literal and they run with that, which becomes a whole other problem. So we need people in the psychedelic space to really understand and help people to navigate this space. For example, if someone has come into the medicine first time, you can be sure on their first experience, unless they're blocking it, because we can, because our bodies are far more powerful than anything, they can block the experience as a protective mechanism,

because if that wound comes up, they may not be ready and they may not have the capacity to hold it, to process it. Therefore, unconscious is super clever, But especially in some cases, you know, some people are hypervigilant in their nervous system that they would not open up, even if they're, I mean, in my time I've experienced this. I observed people taking three cups of ayahuasca and sleeping through it. So I have seen people literally shutting down everything. And then I have seen people just the one spoon in that they're kind of like having a psychoanalysis. break. It's interesting. This is. So obviously we don't know all of these answers why and how,

but what I understand is that I always think that the facilitator is very the key. And then the medicine is secondary. If people really want to come into the space and understand and learn about themselves, they really need someone who gets it, who understands and helps them to navigate and also interpret their experiences because that can, that's kind of where there's a fine line there. And if we can catch it, then you can literally put this person on a, you know, increased momentum of healing process or transformational process. For example, sometimes, you know, people feel existential pain

in these psychedelic experiences, right? one might say of course you know one might say like i remember uh one participant saying something like wow i'm just i'm just feeling the pain for the collective like everyone everyone in the world i feel like i'm carrying their pain on me like i'm carrying them that's the level of pain i'm feeling right now but if you think about it george a two-year-old infant when they feel pain that's what they feel like catastrophic levels of pain. So a grown-up can easily translate that or interpret that as, I'm feeling the pain of the collective and bypass that this is their own suppressed pain.

How do we know that's what a two-year-old feels, though? Like, I mean, can you see that in brain patterns or does that manifest itself in long-term adulthood trauma? But, like, it seems kind of subjective to me. Like, how do you, how do we know? Like, I can understand. an abandoned child is scarred forever. However, how do we like,

how do we put that into words? Like, how do we know that? Yeah, so there are so many people doing great studies and research. Sorry, I'm not so good with referencing names. There's a lady that she studied these infants, like age between, I think three to five. I think she says something like, children are on psychedelics anyway.

like children are in that psychedelic state. Yeah, totally. So think about yourself in a psychedelic experience. Everything is online on a multi-diamid, like multi-moder, everything, all the sensory, you know, all online, right? You hear, you're hearing, you're seeing, your feeling, all at once, but they are amplified. Imagine that's how children feel and hear and observe and see.

and feel at that level. So when they feel pain, it's like end of the world for them. And if they have the rage, they rage, they, you know, have the tantrum. I mean, I'm sure you've seen them. They kind of literally go on the floor and roll around. Imagine that. So they express it. They express how intense they are.

And they're very intense. Kids are very intense. They live their emotions. They express it so intensely. So these are kind of the cues and the clues, but, there are so many researches have been done. There is a wonderful lady, Gould, Dolan, I remember her name because she's very, very important in this study,

in this research space. She was looking at the, you know, psychedelic and autism, you know, that kind of angle. She was studying a lot of stuff. And then she's the one that talked about the critical window, for example, and which is the hyponeuroplasticity. and her argument was that when grown-ups ingests psychedelic substances, in that experience there is a time, an opening, which she calls it the critical window,

in that space, everything gets amplified, the learning, the unlearning, the social connection, and everything. And she kind of associated that with the early model when kids, learn at that fast level. Yeah, I can see that. So there are lots of, lots of research studies that can confirm. Again, we don't know for sure. We can just say that they are doing amazing work, understanding this.

Yeah, it's on some level, it seems to me, do you see yourself as the medicine as much as the psychedelics are the medicine? Like when you talk about the facilitator and how important they are. On some level, you're acting as the medicine. Is that fair to say? Yes, you can say that. You can. Or a mediator.

Yeah. Mediator, you know, mediator between. And also, so we need to also be really careful about bringing in the psychedelic medicine tools, in the healing spaces. When you know this as well, a lot of people who are attracted to or drawn to psychedelic medicines because they have such. such deep, deep wounds and there's a lot of trauma or there's a, you know, there's something there, you know, so if someone is already feeling called to psychedelic medicines, that's kind of, for me, is an indicator that there is a sensitivity that we need to be careful, how we bring these people in, how we take care of them, how we help them integrate. What I mean by that is, for

example, for me, again, I'm going to reference another psychotherapist. He says, you know, in psychedelic spaces, people are so into ego dissolution, right? Ego death. Let's get rid of the ego, kill it, drag it out, you know, whatever. But in the psychology space, we know that. We cannot transcend something we haven't developed first in the first place so in order to transcend and kill the ego we need to have a mature ego first what I mean by that is if we look at the people with deep trauma they haven't developed they haven't developed their ego in order to dissolve it so they have a very fragmented self-of- oneself

understanding, fragmented self-awareness. So when they go into the psychedelic space, guess what gets amplified? The fragmentation gets amplified. So they, instead of learning who they are and their trauma and an increase in the self-awareness, it is the opposite. They go further away from self-awareness. And then these fragmented pieces gets amplified. That's why we see people having one ayahuasca ceremony

and then believing that they are the return of Messiah and they're here to save the world, right? Things like that. And then people claim that they had ego dissolution and things like that. So these are the dangerous territories. Like we need to trod really carefully. So when we, that's why I love the psychotherapeutic approach in the medicine work, because if someone comes to me with full dissociation, imagine they've never felt the pain, their body

never allowed them to be in pain. They've just checked out in the first event of a traumatic event, and they never learned how to process grief, pain, loss. So our job is to firstly help them reconnect, help them open up, crack the shell that they have created, so thick and so protective. And then in the future, they can do whatever they want. They can kill their ego and do whatever they want.

But initially, it's our responsibility to help them reconnect and have that self-awareness. once they know who they are and they are aware of their tendencies, if there is, because all these, you know, fragmentations, they create narcissistic tendencies, borderline tendencies. There's loads of different, like, tendencies that could actually distract us and take us further away from transformation and healing. So we need to be super careful of that.

Yeah, it seems to me that we need not look at, look too far back in the past to see some potential problem, problematic relationships with facilitators and medicine and programming. Like if you look at Jonestown or Manson or people that maybe get the Holy Man syndrome, you know, it's not that these people are dumb or they're lacking. They're incredibly persuasive and they have this ability that maybe it's maybe they're finding people that need help or maybe they are helping them in some ways. But I'm always, it is dangerous. It's a, it's a dangerous position to put yourself. And even you as a facilitator,

like I got to think that feeling the level of reward you get from helping people is addictive in its own nature. And like, is there, well, how do you make yourself aware of that? Or are there things that you do to be like, hey, wait a minute, I'm helping, but I'm actually just trying to give these people back a narrative that they can work with? Like, how do you, how do you navigate that space? Yeah, such a great question, George. So if you look at the indigenous way of working with the medicines, it's a lineage, right? There is a lineage of wisdom. There is a lineage that people feel accountable to the one or, you know, older, someone's older than that. It's a lineage.

So, for example, if you meet a family, like a medicine family in Amazon, I don't know if they still exist now, but in the past, because my foundational work was with a native from Peru. And she would tell us all these stories. Like, you would need to be an apprentice for so long. And then there is also, like each age from. example, when you're 20, you'll be allowed to do certain things. When you get to 30, something else.

And then 40, 50, like, I remember her teacher was in her 60s back then. And she was finally, like, the main sort of maestro, you know, really kind of able to navigate this space and also scan people and give advice and so on and so forth. And those elders then will be watching. changing the younger ones and keep them in check and accountable. So this is how they kind of manage the, you know, the bypassing or people claiming like, I mean, you know, now in the West, if you look at the Western model, you probably meet everyday people who are claiming they are healers.

But who is, who are they accountable to? who's watching over and how do they know they are healers for example right so these are the things that we need to be really careful the way that i navigate this space is that i have two people that are always watching and i am accountable too and they always always question my motives just to keep me in check and we need these people and these people already have gone through a lot of work themselves. You know, they kind of understand this whole bypassing, projection, transference, like all of these things that we could bring when we help people.

Like all of these things that play out insidiously. We're not even aware of it unconsciously. So we need other people to keep us accountable. And we need to continually simultaneously do our own work, always learning, always, you know, being mindful of our own motives and our needs. I like that. That's really well said. I'm glad. I'm really glad you said that. I think it's an incredible insight, and especially in the way in which we seem to be moving nowadays. You know, when we monetize wellness, we begin to find ourselves on a really slippery slope.

You know, we have people that probably are really good people and they care. But because of the way Western medicine is set up and maybe even monotheism or maybe even the culture we live in, you know, it's not always set up to heal people. It's set up to see people as a means to an end. And I think that that in itself can be dangerous. And that is one reason I'm excited to speak with you and other people and learn more. about this space is because I think that we have a real opportunity ahead of us to do some real healing with people. And what, can you maybe help us think about some things that you're excited about and maybe some pitfalls that you see that we should be trying to watch?

Yes. So, um, so the pit, one of the biggest one is the fact that apparently we need about 100,000 therapists trained real quick. in the next two years. So now you tell me, and we're looking at, and these medicines have been part of cultures for thousands of years. They have the only way they managed to navigate and incorporate them into life, into their lives, because they were able to create communities.

People like the whole concept of having elders, in a community, not in a hierarchical way that these are better and the rest are not good, not like that. I mean people who carry wisdom. They are celebrated and respected.

And they always give in guidance. So imagine now we are ripping this model and then we're going to put it into this Western model, as you said, to monetize it. And then now we have this gap of like 100,000 therapists that needs to be trained up really fast. That's really scary because, like I said, for me, psychedelic medicines are always secondary. Initially, my work is about creating report, creating trust, building relationship with the person,

bringing them in, creating conditions. There is a whole lot going on. There's a relationship building. People need to build a relationship before they can touch their trauma. Psychedelic medicines don't do that for us. It's the space, it's the container, it's the setting, it's the intention that does this for us. So now, this whole process, if we compress it to one ceremony, there you go, there's your ceremony, go and sit with the medicine and you'll be healed.

like this is another pitfall because can we come back to our earlier conversation when I said before we can dissolve the ego we need to build it so if if we're working with wonderful people who have never had a choice never had opportunity to develop themselves never had autonomy self-agency never even could think for themselves imagine when they access such powerful substances it could be a disaster because they overnight might feel limitless or the opposite, suicidal. Because I remember, like, one participant when she said,

I am feeling the pain of the collective, like literally carrying it all on my shoulder, and I don't think I can do this, like just to give trigger warning to our listeners. She almost fell into the traps of the suicidal ideation because she just thought, that she just couldn't carry this pain anymore for the collective. And this wasn't her job.

And this is not her life. It shouldn't be her life. So then she fell into the, you know, deep, depressive states. So it could go the other way. People get amplified and ego gets stronger. And their needs for validation, recognition, gets really amplified. And then they go off with medicines in the way. their pockets and offering it to everyone.

Yeah, that's a great point. I don't think that particular issue is discussed enough. Or how many people that may not be trained as a therapist begin working with someone and then they abandon them because either they don't know what to do or they themselves are scared. And now all of a sudden you have this person that's been broken wide open and they're just probably worse off than they were before. Exactly.

So I'll give you another example. Sure, please. So when I did my initial foundation work with my native friend, obviously she had to travel to Europe and she had to travel to other countries. She started meeting a lot of Western people and they were coming to her dieters in Peru. Obviously she started hosting dieters, dieta meaning more deeper sort of detoxing sort of approach to medicine. And I remember talking to her and I said, what is your biggest challenge working with the people from the West as opposed to your native, you know, people that you know, your native, you know, your family, your people. She said, very different mindset, very, very different mindset.

It's almost like they have a very strong set in their mindset where one, they want a quick healing, like to do. can we get it done with? Can we just do it today? And then I can go home tomorrow. Like that kind of mindset. And then another one that she said was challenging. Like they don't understand the word trust. Like you need to trust your inner inner wisdom.

And they were like, hmm? Who? It is like unheard of. And then the relationship with the plant. Like relationship with the plant? You're kidding. Like what kind of relationship with the plants? right so she very quickly she realized that the western people need a western model and that brings

me to talking about the therapeutic model i think going forward we we all need to be psychotherapeutically informed like we need to understand trauma we need to be trauma informed for example in the west children are being neglected parents are working really hard. They are unavailable emotionally, which doesn't often happen other parts of the world where they live in community settings. There's always someone, there's always a grown-up, readily available for kids, willingly with love, you know. I remember like, luckily I caught that little bit of that life when I was growing up earlier. There's always like aunts and some cousins everywhere. There's always people lovingly wanting to share their food with you.

You know, there's always this community spirit. But if you look at the dense cities of the, you know, corporate West, look at this lifestyle. Now we bring psychedelic medicines to these people. All they want is fix their problem tonight to go back to their corporate job tomorrow. Right? That's the issue. So if we, at, least bring psychotherapeutic understanding to some of these issues of our early life that manifest in our psychedelic experiences, how to navigate it, how to understand it, what's the distinction, what is mine, what is the medicine showing, how do we metaphorically symbolically understand these experiences, right? We need a Western model for people to understand

and navigate this space. For example, in medicine space, I know that suddenly, like the circles, for example, like you know in Peru, there are Malokas, you've got like 20 people on mattresses, right? Guess what happens there? Everyone's in that experience. Within hours, suddenly your next door neighbor becomes, representation of your unavailable mother. Suddenly the facilitator becomes the abuser in your past as a kid.

Suddenly they become that representation of that person. And then how do you deal with that? Suddenly all of these people start to represent little parts of their early memories. It's inevitable. It happens in these vulnerable spaces. So how does one navigate that? How does the facilitator understand that? when do you know like when can you catch someone is acting out their early memories right it was

so it's so evident if you just watch it so there's there's a lot of education we need to bring psychotherapeutically i believe it's fascinating to me i you know i it brings up so many questions to me like you know different plants thrive in different environments and different nutrients are provided to different plants that help them grow in different environments. And when we talk about models, if we just use that same sort of like analogy, if the, if the, if the people in the West are, you know, you can't grow ayahuasca in cold weather. You know, you can't grow certain trees are not going to fruit in certain climates. And so, you know, to what end is it, is it worthwhile to try to export a third,

that does well in this one environment, but not over here in this environment. I mean, you can't. Like if you have times, and you're doing a phenomenal job of helping people around you, but is it something that can be exported to the West? You know, maybe it can't be. Yeah, this is great. And I also had an amazing conversation on my podcast with Darren LeBaron. I think a lot of people know him.

He's incredible. He said, you know, he said, And each medicine is given to a specific region, like part of the planet, like Iboga being in Africa, and then, you know, ayahuasca being in South America, and then mushrooms all over the world, for example, right? Sure. So he always, he said something like, there are gatekeepers, you know, there are gatekeepers that are, you know, are caring and they are looking after and guarding these medicines. So I'm sure in the West we can definitely access another medicine. Like for example, mushrooms don't belong to a specific. I mean, they do like Mexico, the Mazatex well-known, documented.

But if you look at it, they are everywhere. They grow in your backyard. They are everywhere. So maybe we can just work with what we have around us. I mean, if there's a calling to go to Peru, to sit in the Nahuasca, please go, yeah, please do it. If you trust the place, the organization, the facilitators, by all means. But I think for me, I'm very practical when it comes to psychedelic medicine work

because I come from this psychotherapeutic work. I always believe in, yes, you know, there's room for exploration in consciousness, the mystical, the transpersonal. But I feel like I'm so narrowing down my attention. And right now, too, people need help so fast now, especially living in this post-pandemic world, everything's just amplified, anxiety, levels of anxiety, depression. I think we're going to see the real, real repercussions of what happened to us in 2020. In the next few years, it's going to be more intensified.

So my idea is, like, can we be more practical? can we bring it to people in a therapeutic way so they can learn to, you know, heal themselves, create communities where they feel safe, can come and talk and just help them, help them go back into their life and thrive again. This is like this is so narrowed focus of mind, but I love it. It's just being so practical. Also spiritual because my understanding of spiritual is, actually mastering the mundane.

If we, yeah, if we can have, imagine having beautiful relationships. Just imagine having functioning, connect the relationships around you. As a human being, that's a gift. Having shelter, having food, having everything you need, friendships. Imagine you're thriving here in this physical world. To me, that's spiritual. That's spiritual that we seek. So for me, that's like the sacred mission right now to help people really, you know, own their lives.

Come back to that thriving, the creativity again. And, yeah, really function well in the environment. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about the times we're in. You know, I had a really good conversation with Dr. Jessica Rochester, And she was talking about tests. And she was talking about the times we're in. Because, you know, you get tested your whole life. When you go to school, you get tested.

You test the people in your life for relationships. Why wouldn't your spirituality be tested? Why wouldn't your ideas in this world be tested? And as I began thinking about that, I thought to myself of this pandemic that we've gone through. And I like the language you used about the narrowing or like the things are kind, they kind of seem like they're closing in a little bit. And in some ways, it almost seems like the cycle of life.

Like it's like a rebirth. And just like a birth, they call it the miracle of birth because there's a real chance a child can die in birth. And it happens all the time. Like a lot, it happens. And it kind of seems that that's where we are now is in this place where we are struggling to be born as a new society. And you can see the birth pangs all around us. People are struggling. Whereas people talking about nuclear war at a level that is pornographic in nature.

And we see people in our own community that are all alone together, that are struggling. And you can see it on their faces. And so while I see the narrowing happening, when I talk to people like you and I talk to a lot of really cool people. And, you know, I feel inspired to want to help my neighbor to be the best that I can be so that people around me. can be better, whether it's helping people reach Maslow's hierarchy of needs, of food and shelter. But I see this narrowing as something positive, Susan. Like, I see us becoming better because we're being forced to be better. And I feel like there's this spiritual mother.

It's like, listen, you dummies, time to get together and start making it better. I want all of you to line up, start helping each other. Otherwise, we're done. I kind of feel like this narrowing is a hyper focus of us becoming better. And while struggling and while scary, I see it as a really positive point in our evolution as humans. Like, do you see that positive? Maybe it's the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe it's the light at the end of the birth canal that we're looking at.

And we should be scared. But do you see it as a positive time we're in? Yeah, I do. I do. Of course I do. And if you look, I mean, if you look back into the history, there were times like this all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the only thing that I don't hold on to. Like I'm not hanging on to the idea that this is it. Like we're here and we have arrived. I believe this

happened to humans all the time, many times. You probably know about Rumi. A little bit. Yeah, mystic from Persia, for example. He has a tomb in Turkey. And they were meditating for days on and fasting with his comrades or community members, whoever they were studying together, asking big questions. And they built rooms that the ceilings were halfway. Do you know why? No. So that they couldn't stand up in rooms to humble them.

So they can always, I'm serious. This is a crazy. know it's so intense right yeah they couldn't even stand straight because their ego needed to be broken so they just had to sort of you know lean uh bow down to go inside and it was dark no windows things like that and i'm always like when we have these conversations with my friends i'm always surely they were saying the same thing we're here we have arrived we're changing conscious evolution like we're waking up surely you know so i always think and believe that there are times in the history people come to these conclusions these you know thresholds um that you know we're

kind of crossing a threshold uh i feel like we're there again yeah yeah i do too i i'm thankful for it i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little bit nervous but I don't think that's the right word. And I hesitate to use the word excited because it's not like I'm excited for it. But I think I'm aware of it. I think being aware of it is the best that you can do, probably with most situations in life. It's pretty healing in a way, this idea of awareness.

Since we're talking about that, how do you define awareness? And do you use that as something that you could give to other people to help them? That's a fantastic question. And I think there is a lot of, of misconception and misunderstanding around awareness. There are different layers, you know, as you said, layers of being aware of, yes, I inhabit a body.

Yes, I'm in this planet, this planet in the void, right? In the space. Yes, I can see you. There's a lot of levels of awareness. But what I focus, again, narrowing down, I have these tendencies to bring things to most simplified ways so that we can, yeah, like bite sizes. My narrowed self-awareness concept would be like,

can I be self-aware of myself? Can I learn how to connect to my intuition? And can I navigate from, live from inside out rather than depending on the environment? I get to that point of living from inside out? Like, I don't need to run to a book or something. Or do you know what I mean? Like, can I do this?

Yeah. So this is like, for me, this would be the ultimate self-awareness journey. And I think this is what we try to create in our communities. And I continue to reinforce this. Like, the self-agency piece for me is really big. And there are obviously structures. There are processes. that we take people through.

And they do. They go through breakthroughs and the ultimate realization of like how they've been living and what they haven't been seeing and the blocks and the deception that, you know, all these things that they have invested and created externally kept feeding that deception. And it's beautiful when they start to, you know,

start cracking those shells and then slowly coming more self-aware. It's not easy, of course, but it's a beautiful, you know, process. Do you think it's beautiful because you get to see people walking down and doing something that you yourself did? Absolutely. Me too. I think it is. Isn't it?

I mean, just think about it. Yeah. How hard life is. When we continually operate from the lack, from the lack, the unmet needs, how hard life is when you're always operating from the survival. It's very exhausting. It doesn't leave room for creativity. There is no room for, it dumps down people's intelligence and creativity, right? I've been there.

I've been there. I know. We too. So the horizon is very narrow. Like you can't break through. It's a vicious cycle. And seeing someone break through that, it's incredible. What was your catalyst for change?

Like what was it where you were just like, you know what? This is enough. There's a problem. Was there someone in your life that showed you a door? Or was it you getting to the ceiling? and just pounding your way through. Like, what was it for you that made you begin your journey? Pain.

Yeah. Pain. Yes. So in my understanding, you know, we talked about templates, right? So we grew up in environments that if, for example, sadness or addiction to suffering, let's say. addiction to suffering if addiction to suffering has been normalized in an environment and a child is born to that environment guess what they do they pick it up you know my biggest breakthrough came when I realized that this whole darkness the shadow work and you know slaying the

dragons in the underworld like all these concepts that you know a lot of us are so passionately intrigued by and talk about and have these conversations around. In one of my ayahuasca ceremony, I've only recently been started to talk about this because I have seen a lot more breakthroughs along these lines. In one of my medicine journey, I was really prepared. I was really going for it. It's like, that's it. You know, this pain is too much. You know, when you just hit rock bottom and you're like, I need to get out of this. this place, I need to get out of here. And I'm going, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes.

That's the narrative. So I'm ready. I'm going in to slay the dragons, going to the underworld, face my demons, and I'm going to break this thing, whatever this is. And then an hour into the medicine, the message was so clear. What do you mean you want to go down to the underworld,

slay dragons and face demons? you kidding me, you know, that's your home. You love that place. You live there. You're the boss of that place. You actually employ these demons and dragons. What are you talking about? Who are you kidding?

That's not your darkness. Joy is your darkness. Joy is very unfamiliar to your system. You don't know what joy is. That's your darkness. And I was like, wow. So that was kind of like the breakest, the greatest breakthrough and then the realization of that and then addiction to suffering that i

continually made decisions based on that addiction to suffering and then continually perpetuated more suffering and then more suffering and yet i didn't know what joy feels like tastes like do you know what it means so alien and then as i started to consciously allow myself to do things that give me joy, it was really fed to my system. I didn't like it. It was so uncomfortable. Then I realized, okay, this is what needs to be worked through. So it's still a process, still a, you know, continued practice, but I'm in a much better place. So that template has now, I can say, kind of lost this power over me, but if our listeners, And I think we, most of us, most of us have that template that we're addicted to suffering.

And we continually perpetrate more suffering in our lives, which is so unnecessary. So that kind of my starting point coming into this work. And then one of my mission, or at least my intention is to show people that, you know, the association to the shadow work or the darkness of conquering, conquering this underworld is a false illusion. It is not. It's just another metaphorical way of perpetrating more suffering. It doesn't have to be.

So we can work towards letting go of this template and we can create more joy and learn how to be in joy. Little step by step every day, doing something different, deliberately. It's a lifelong commitment. Yeah. Susan, you're lucky. I don't have four more hours to talk to you because I would talk to you for another four hours.

I feel like our conversation is just now beginning. Well, I've loved it all. But I really feel like right now we're starting to get into some things that I want to talk more about. That being said, I got to go to work and drive this truck around for a while and make some money for my family. I love it. I'm so excited to talk to you. This conversation has exceeded everything that I thought it would. I'm so excited to listen to some more of your podcast. I'm really excited to get to try to digest some of these things that you have told me. And I can see without a doubt why people are flocking to your podcast. And I can see why people want to be around you. And I can see how much you care. I love it.

I'm really thankful for that. And I, you're going to have to come back because I don't, I haven't, I've only gotten through like one and a half pages of my five pages and notes over here. So I would love to come back. I'd love to come back. I think you're an amazing listener. I think you're an amazing question, like ask questions. And I think you really kind of know how to pull out things, like the important things. I think you're an amazing podcaster, just so you know.

And I really appreciate the work you're doing. You're just saying that because it's true. It is. And I would love to be back. Okay. Okay. We'll set up some more. And maybe we can do some panels and stuff too.

I really want that to be the next step because I think that once we've established a relationship, then you can begin making new connections and having a new, maybe we can create a new container. You know, I really love that analogy. I'm going to start trying to use it. That being said, before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Amazing, yes, thanks for asking. So my website is psychedicconversations.com

and the podcast is Psychedelic Conversations. On YouTube, everywhere, all platforms. I'm kind of like everywhere. If they type my name, I'm like everywhere, literally on every single social media platform. I'm curious. I love connecting with people. They can connect with me.

I'm quite responsive. I just love building these relationships and connections. So like I said, I'm really curious. So I do like getting to know people. So what's exciting? I'll be traveling to US. That's exciting. That is.

Yeah, so I'll be attending the psychedelic summit in Colorado and O'Dune. And I'm really excited to meet those people that I have spoken on the podcast to meet them in person. I know some of them will be there. And yes, and then we're taking some of our work to Netherlands. So good news. We are going to start hosting medicine circles in Netherlands from a psychotherapeutic angle. And then if people are interested. And yeah, there's so much in the pipeline.

But surely they can have, they can also subscribe to be informed. So people in the chat, I would love to, I want to be better at this. Some people have mentioned some things in the chat. And maybe we have just a few minutes to go over. Do you have a few more minutes maybe? Sure. Okay, thank you. So we have Molly Wallace, who is harkening back to the beginning of our conversation.

I think is a very astute point. Learning is intellectual and healing is somatic. Do you have any thoughts on that? I love that. This is my also, this is my wheelhouse. So one of the reasons that I love bringing in the psychedelic medicines as a tool is because they're so somatic. And it's almost like, you know, our nervous system, which us as individual weight containers, right, we have this chemical pharma, you know, organic, and this is the container.

And then we bring in the medicine. Guess what? It's like two friends. Hello. And they work amazingly. That's what I said earlier. Like, we can literally help heal trauma without talking about it through the power of body, the somatic. It's beautiful.

Thank you, Molly, for listening and being part of our conversation. and let's see who else did we got here. We have some really nice compliments. Susan is nice. How about this one? Thank you. She is right. Yes.

So, yeah, I thank you, Roos, 369, for coming in and being part of the chat and Molly and everybody else who's made an observation or a comment in here. I am running low on time. I really am thankful, Susan. I will reach out to you. And as soon as this is over, I'll shoot you an MP3 and MP4 with the raw files. Feel free to use them however you want to. And I will reach out with another email shortly.

So that's what I got to. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being part of this. And I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And that's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.