We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - What Psychedelics Taught Glennon

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Join us for the hilarious, unfiltered, and vulnerable story of the time Glennon tried therapeutic psychedelics. At last, Glennon reveals to the Pod Squad:  The mishap that turned a “micro-dose” macro;  What Glennon encountered on her guided psychedelic journey; and How Sinéad O’Connor, a basement vision, and the magic words “I don’t know” helped Glennon heal.  Disclaimer: We are sharing lived experience, not medical advice.  00:00:00 Welcome to WCDHT 00:04:30 Glennon sets the stage for her treatment with therapeutic psychedelics 00:05:45 Psychedelics & rigid thinkers 00:09:50 Glennon’s journey prep 00:14:58 Glennon’s micro-dosing trial run 00:18:46 Glennon realized she macro-dosed 00:27:01 Abby gets involved to help 00:35:49 The journey day 00:42:00 Glennon wants to ask “Why am I so scared?” 00:50:30 Glennon shares the visions she had 00:56:21 Abby on how Glennon came down from her journey 00:58:57 After the journey and how Glennon felt 00:59:31 Sinéad O’Connor appeared 01:00:38 Glennon’s next phase and how it helped her heal Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: Youtube — @wecandohardthingsshow   Instagram — @wecandohardthings TikTok — @wecandohardthingshow

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things and today I can't go that fast so as long as you go super super fast you can beat her I'm sorry I needed to interject a little bit of fun welcome you guys I love you I love you too thank God for you and your interjection of a little bit of fun a little bit of fun a little bit of fun. Oh, you are? No fun. No. Yeah. She said, oh, you are. Like, it was a news. Like, not something that I had been. Oh, you are? Hey, you know what you want to know something? Amanda,

I'll try to pay attention. But you want to wait your turn. No, it's totally, no, listen, it's totally okay. Because in post, they can slit little, they can slow down. Also, we're having fun. Okay. Doyle. Hold on. This is fun. Hold on. I do want to tell you something. You want to know what our oldest child said about you the other day? What? He always says this, but what? That you're like the funniest person, funniest person that he knows. Yeah.

Yes. That, like, that's how he thinks of you. Like, Mandy is just always so on the comedy, on the bites or the bits. I was like, damn, that's a good compliment. And I need to do that. Do you know the other random thing he told us last night is that what? When he was little, he heard, like, okay, you, I think, or my mom, somebody, he tells the story. We were sitting in Reedville at Bubba Tish's house, and he thinks it was when you were announcing that Alice was going to be born when you were pregnant.

And mom said something at the table. Oh, she went, because she figured out what was going on. And Bubba goes, just be careful, don't take up all the air in the room. and Chase for his whole life until he was old enough to know better thought that there was a limited amount of oxygen and that we that Bubba had just said the quiet part out loud and that we all knew that one day we wouldn't have enough oxygen and he was just biding his breaths. That's what he felt secretly believed for like years. Well, it's true.

It is true. There's not going to be enough oxygen. It is true. We didn't have the heart to tell him that last night. So we were preparing him for life. Yeah, you're right. Shit. He was right. Okay, I can't believe we're doing this episode.

Me, fucking neither. Because I told myself two years ago when I did psychedelic drugs as a therapeutic method that I would never tell these stories publicly just because I just could not be another white lady from L.A. whose life was changed by psychedelics. So to the point where even in our last book and we can do hard things, you will see sections where I'm like, and then I had a thought,

and then I had this vision. And they are from trips, but I just couldn't bring myself to be that guy. Therapeutic journeys. However, I actually did tell the stories of my psychedelic experiences on tour

because I was like oh this is just our family meeting like nobody will right so I just asked everybody just a small group of our closest it's just like a kind of like a finite number of we can do hard 10 cities of tens of thousands of people

and so it's just intimate but okay what I will say though about our community is that over the last 20 years because we've been doing versions of these town halls or tours for 20 years where we gather a everybody in their communities and we just sit and talk for hours. I have said amazingly private things in those rooms over the years. And I have said to thousands of people, y'all,

this is going to stay between us. And it does. How the hell does that work? Because our community is freaking amazing. We really, we really trust them. I know. And they actually listen to private stuff. That's cool. I know. I'm like, this is between us. Rare. And it's 5,000 people. And they're like, Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. So that's what happened with the psychedelic story.

But I just felt like the rest of the pod squad needed to know. Deserved to hear this too. Needed to know. I'm so excited. I'm so excited that you're telling them. So let me set the stage. This last round of recovery, which everyone knows about who was a part of this community, where I got the anorexia diagnosis a couple years ago and then went into intensive treatment.

Okay. there were people, experts, doctors throughout the process who kept saying to me, we really think that you should try psychedelics as part of your therapy, as part of your treatment. I was hell-bent against it because, mostly because I didn't understand the whole genre. And because you're an addict who has... figured out that maybe drugs don't work with you. Exactly. But that's why I didn't, but that is related to not understanding.

I didn't understand at the time that this is actually a method, psychedelics are actually a method of treating addiction. And treating. And so if you've never, I'm going to give a poor, a poor explanation that won't be exactly right. Don't at me. Just, I'm just going to try to tell you my version of. why psychedelics are so effective and prescribed often to people with anorexia or other thinking diseases, which in some ways, that's not exactly the right words, but anorexia is a thinking disease. It's that when it's about rigid thinking, it's about not being able to see

outside of one tiny neuro pathway. It's about every time there's a trigger, every time I get scared about the world or the family or anything, I go to, okay, I know how to keep myself safe. I know, and I go to food. It is a disorder of rigid thinking. And so if you think about like a mountain where a bunch of skiers are going down, okay? And there are pathways kind of smushed into the snow. Ski slopes. Ski slopes.

Is that, okay, so there's slopes. I thought the slope was the whole mountain. It is, but you're grooving. You're putting ski grooves and yes. Okay, so there's like ski paths where you wouldn't, you put your skis and you're going to naturally go down a path because it's well worn, okay? You're not going to like forge your way through a new fresh snow because that doesn't make any sense that it's like the least resistance is the path that's already created and that's

what your brain does. Okay, and Neuropathway is basically the road most traveled. The thought that you've gone to the most times over and over again until it feels and looks like and actually is experienced as the only path possible. You don't even look up enough or know that there's fresh snow everywhere, that you could actually go a different way with your thoughts and create an entirely new path, entirely new experience. And so what one thing that psychedelics do and why they're prescribed to rigid thinkers is

because it's a way to create new paths that suddenly the fresh snow is everywhere and you can like somehow find new ways to think, new different ways to get down the mountain that might be less destructive. You're like skiing in powder is what they call it, meaning like you're laying down new tracks. Right. Laying down. And so this is the science of neuroplasticity. The idea that your brain is adaptable and you can think new things.

things and your brain is still kind of able to adapt. But if we don't do new things, we don't unlock that adaptability. Right. So even though these things have been presented to me as actual, I mean, the success rate for eating disorder recovery is not good. This element, adding this element does seem to. increase the possibility of recovery meaning recovery meaning new ways to think new ways to survive new ways to deal with stress that don't um all relate to body control okay i said no for a very long

time and then had a plateau where i couldn't figure out how to move forward and got pretty hopeless and finally said, okay, I will try your situation. My backstory is that I've done every drug in the world. Like, there's not a lot I haven't done. I did a lot of shrooms in college. Let's just say it wasn't like a therapeutic, okay? Recreational. Just because it was self-medicating doesn't mean it's therapeutic.

Right. So it was hard for me to imagine that in a different setting. with a different intention. Okay. One doctor that I was working with said to me one day, okay, we're great. This is great. You're going to try it. Now, one challenge with you doing a journey.

So a journey is when a doctor or therapist or someone with credentials prescribes a psychedelic experience for you. And then there is a lot of lead-up preparation that has to do with. identifying intentions, wishes, questions, goals, a lot of therapy goes beforehand, then there is the actual journey, then there's a lot of integration post meetings where you talk about what you experience and how it might apply to your life and how you might integrate it into your thinking in your life to start afresh. Okay, so basically what you're saying is that you don't just show up one day and you sit with a doctor and they give you some drugs

and you do drugs with somebody watching. That wasn't my experience. What you are saying that is your experience is that it was weeks of prep, months of prep talking to this therapist who was going to be facilitated into the journey, getting you to the journey, taking you through the journey, and then also facilitating integrations post-journery. Right. Got it.

So the first thing the therapist says is, and I'm going to be paraphrasing everything, I'm a storyteller, not a doctor. Okay? So just don't correct me. If it's not clear so far. Right. So the therapist says there are some challenges. We're going to get through them together.

One of the challenges is that we have to find out if the psychedelics are going to break through your antidepressant because you have been on antidepressant since you were a toddler. That was paraphrased. So in, I'm not on them anymore, but at the time I was on them. That can create a bit. Basically, you're just like one big human lexapro. So we have to see if this is going to be able to break through enough the barrier of that to have an experience. I say, okay. Can I ask you a question about that?

Is that mean are SSRIs always a block to, or maybe you don't know, but chemically they like don't allow the, psychedelics to do their thing? Sometimes. And that's what she told me. Sometimes SSIs will block the psychedelics from doing their thing. So there needs to be some sort of experiment beforehand to see if it's going to break through. Right. So she says to me, what we're going to do is I am going to,

you're going to take a micro dose of the psychedelics just to see if we have any reaction. And she said, what that will feel like is I will give you some micro doses and you will take them and basically you will feel nothing. Like if we're really lucky, you might feel like some tingling in your toes or something and then we'll know, but that this is going to work. However, don't, don't worry because this is not going to be like consciousness altering. You're going to be absolutely fine. You might feel some sensation. Right. So I say, okay.

So I say, well, how am I going to get these microdose? dose things. And she says, you have to come and pick them up. And I say, well, I'm not going to do that. That sounds scary because I, that is drugs. And this sounds very shady and scary. So I send Abby to pick up to do the drug deal. Okay. And she comes back. You go and do it and it was fine. It was totally fine. Totally normal. Right. She comes back with two envelopes. Okay. and she puts them in my top underwear drawer now were they envelopes or the zip black I think they were envelopes weren't they little envelopes I don't know I can't remember okay well one of them said point one and one of them said point two okay and my job was to one morning over the next week take point two then an hour later take a point one and see if my toes tingle at some point that day that was my job yeah okay great so I wake up one morning. We have a full day of meetings. And I actually forgot to tell Abby that I was going to try it that day, which I probably should have in retrospect. However, I was assured that nothing dramatic was going to happen. Okay. Right. I don't tell her every time my toes are tingling. It's fine. Yeah, but hold on a second. This was a big oversight. I agree now. I could. In retrospect, we all know. It was a big oversight. It wasn't even the biggest oversight. I mean, it's so weird because we don't, we tell each other everything. I know.

it's a weird thing i think that i felt a still a little bit of shame to be doing drugs i think i felt like nervous about it i know but you made me go get a pick a mom i'm used to i'm an addict i'm used to hiding drugs okay so rule number one of doing drugs you hide your talk about doing drugs exactly so i wake up one morning take a shower take point two are you sure you were supposed to take point two were you supposed to take first okay okay okay take point two we have full docket of meetings that day zoom zoom zooming zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom zooms okay so abby and i sit down at our little table in the corner in the family room and we get on our first meeting and like which is insane now in retrospect sorry no it's okay so like 20 minutes into the meeting i'm like what is happening like i feel like all these

boxes are kind of moving and people look weird but i am very dramatic and i have i can be psychosomatic as shit like i am like no give me any placebo pill and i will give you your result like i am right right my mind very powerful so you're like look at work yeah no so i was like shut up glennon like i'm talking to myself i'm like you're not you're supposed to only feel your toes tickle this is not but then so then the boxes a little bit start changing it's a little changing and so I say I think I should tell my wife I'm on drugs right now I just think that I should mention this

so I mute and I say I did the microdose thing this morning and I just I'm feeling a little bit weird but I don't think it's anything I think I'm just going to carry on I'm going to keep the protocol I'm going to go take my point one because it's been an hour and now hold on just a second I would like the pod squad to really think about what it might feel like to be to work with your spouse, to be on work, Zoom meetings, talking about business and things and that and this episode.

What are we going to do here? How to, you know, and then your wife mutes the, the call and says, so I did those micro doses, this, that microdose this morning. And I'm kind of feeling something. I think it's probably fine. What would you do under those circumstances? Well, what you did, I said, I'm going to go take my booster, my point one, and I started walking away very carefully. I was walking very carefully. And I believed I was walking away.

I think I was. And I was because the next thing I knew I was in my bedroom downstairs and Abby was right behind me. So clearly she had stopped the meeting and said, I'm going to go. I said, I got to go, you guys off. So she's behind me. The next thing I know, Pod Squad, I am, I have the point one envelope and I've poured all the point one in my hand. And I'm, I have my water and I'm getting ready to pop all the eight pills that are in my hand into my mouth. And Abby lunges towards me, shoves my hand down so that all the pills fly over the room.

And this is a strange occurrence in the midst of an hour that has been a very strange occurrence so far. I'm confused about what's going on and why my wife has just scattered my microdose boost about the room. That you were specifically told to take that point one. So then my wife looks at me and she goes, honey, show me the point two envelope right now. Show me the envelope. So, of course, I show her the empty envelope, which had eight pills in it, but is now empty because Pod Squad, I don't know if you're with me right now, but I thought that the point two meant that all these pills together equal. point two. I thought that the envelope was one dose of point two. And so I took all eight pills before the meeting. And now I'm tripping balls. I'm just like, you guys, okay, those that are listening.

She kind of like walks kind of, she, she notchalantly says, I think that, you know, I took the microdose and I'm going to, I have to take another booster, so I'm going to go down. And I was like, this doesn't sound right. Something doesn't sound right. So I walked downstairs. She's got all of these pills ready to take them. And I was like, what is that? What are you doing? She's like, I'm doing the booster. And just like, how many pills? I was just thinking, how many pills were in the point two? How many pills were in her hand? It is a lot to take eight pills of something. Yeah, I really eight right so what is what is point two times eight it's a lot is what it is what she's talking to me about math and how could i think point two is eight pills and it she keeps saying

at any point when you were taking all of those pills did your mind say this doesn't feel right and she's talking about math and all i can think of is that my wife talking is this my life is this my beautiful wife. Oh, my God. Is this my beautiful home? What is happening? And so the next thing I know, now I kind of come to when I'm laying on the bathroom floor. I remember hysterically laughing on the bathroom floor while she tried to explain to me what I had done. I do remember a flash of that. I was one of the funniest moments of my life. But you were scared too. I do remember thinking she's scared and that's scaring me. Your face looked a little scared. I was concerned. I was concerned. not because I thought you were going to die or anything by any means because what I was concerned

was with was that the whole point of you microdosing was to make sure that these new chemicals that you would one day in the week ahead be adding something more into the brain chemistry right and so with with your SSRIs and I just wanted to make sure we weren't going to have any adverse reaction right exactly so I didn't think you're going to die I just thought maybe you'd feel very upset or or not good right she's not qualified to go on a journey is what she's saying she's i am not i am ill prepared for a journey at this point so so but in fairness to you point two i in fairness to you something is labeled point two you could think this cumulatively is point hold on let me do the math on that it didn't say just it didn't say point but it didn't say point

to eight of each, it just said point two. So what are we pharmacologists? What am I? I don't think so. That would be 0.025 per pill. Does that make sense? Well, anyway, we don't know things. We don't know this. I don't, I don't think I should have to do math in my drugs. Like, I just, I don't, I don't, I never had to do that. Okay, that wasn't a part of the experience before this moment. Okay. So, Math is something separate that shouldn't be interjected into this. And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to We Can Do Hard Things for free. You've heard me talk a lot about Seamus, my magical beautiful Golden Rescue Angel Goodest Boy. If you are lucky enough to have a Goodest One at home, then you know there is nothing they wouldn't do for us, which is why we want to do everything we can for them, especially anything that will make them live happy and happy.

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Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.com. Anyway, the next thing I remember is Abby has walked me up the stairs. So she put me out on this little deck that we have on the front of our house. It's like on the street. We live in a very, very, very, very close to our neighbor. So it's kind of like two feet from our neighbors. She sits me in the corner. And she says, in timeout. In a timeout. I'm in time out. And she says, stay here. Yeah. Okay. And I just want to be clear. I want the folks who are listening to understand my thought process during this time. Right. Mm-hmm. I have also experienced with psychedelics in my

lifetime as a recreational shroom doer. And being put into an enclosed space where nobody's watching you is not something that I felt very comfortable with. So I couldn't, I needed to call the doctor. I needed to call her therapist. You did need to do that. And so I needed to also be able to have eyes on Glennon while I was talking to her therapist. So this was the only see-through door, glass door. So I put her on the patio. It's enclosed. It's totally safe. She's sitting there. To think about what she had done. Yes. Continue. I just needed people to understand, like, why would you put her on the patio? It's the only place in our house that has a glass door.

So I remember thinking, this is nice to be in the fresh air. Then I remember staring at my neighbor's roof. That doesn't even make a lot of sense. I don't know how, actually, as I say this out loud, I don't know how I'm staring at the neighbor's roof because that feels like it should have been higher than where I was. But I do remember staring at my neighbor's roof. And then I remember my neighbor's roof was Paisley and rolling, rolling, rolling hills of Paisley. And I remember thinking, that's not exactly right. And then I remember.

I would have remembered that. Yeah. And then I remember hearing as if I had supersonic hearing because Abby was all the way on the other side of the kitchen, say, talking to the doctor. and sounding like it was going to be okay. And then I remember thinking, thank God Almighty, the children are at Craigs. I just thought that I don't know

what's about to happen to me right now, but I know it shouldn't involve children. That's all I know. And so thank God for that. Now, Pod Squad. I'm sitting there, enjoying confusedly the

paisley roof the next thing I know I turn to my right and Tish is sitting next to me okay now I'm not even sure at first that Tish is actually sitting next to me it takes me a minute to be like are you just more Paisley

or is this for real because this can't be happening Tish walks in how did she get there How? How has it been six hours? Has it been one hour? Who am I? Who is she? Where am I? How did she get there? It's a good question. I don't know. She also kind of just appeared out of nowhere. She just walked upstairs, saw you outside and sat down right next to you. And I'm inside talking to the doctor about how you're tripping because you didn't microdose. You macrodose. And I am now like, oh, fuck, I got to get out there because I, I got to get out there because I didn't want Tish to be scared and feel like she's witnessing her mom.

This was supposed to be done in private. That's why, you know, next time we talk about this kind of stuff before we do it. Yeah. So that's the backstory there. So Amanda, she sits next to me and I look at her and now I'm understanding that she is real. This is really happening. She has a laptop in her lap. She says the following to me, mom, can you edit my college essays?

And she picks up her laptop and she puts it in my lap. I, that's worth the math. I've now been asked to do math. And now I'm being asked to do literature. Oh, my God. In the first 20 minutes of my trip. I don't remember how I don't remember what computers are or like what paragraphs are or what colleges or what but I do remember words words and I can't find them I it's it's making the words are moving everything's moving but I do remember in my smart little brain something which is that oftentimes I think

when I'm remembering back to my previous life before I was on so many drugs I do think I remember from that realm that when people are reading something or experiencing something that people they love have made that they make noises. Oh my God. Remember this?

That they go, oh. Mmm. So, So I just sit there next to Tish with the little computer open in my lap, and I do not look at her. No, I just look at the white thing with the black things in front of me, and I just go, oh. Oh. And I just do that for a little while. I think I'm pulling it off.

I don't see her. I mean, she doesn't really pay attention to me anyway. I feel like it's going all right. Right. It's going all right. It's going pretty good. And as long as I don't have to say anything specific about what's happening. Right.

Don't change any punctuation or anything. So the next thing I know, Abby comes, she swoops Tish away and the computer that's on my lap. And then she puts me in a room. You just said to Tish though. Just keep going. Is that what I said? Yes. Just keep going.

Just keep going. Good advice for a writer. That was smart of you. You're on the right track. Keep going. Keep going. And then I think somehow you made Tish leave the house, right? Somehow.

You got her out. You got her out. You got me safe. Well, I think that I was like, what are you up to today? And she's like, oh, I got to go do this thing. And I was like, awesome. That's great. So then I-

Awesome. Do it now, please. Yeah. Then I corralled you in the bedroom. Right. Well, the best part of this is that when you told this story for the first, for the first time on stage. We didn't know you were going to tell it. And Tish had just opened the show, yeah. For us and was sitting in the audience. And I was watching her face,

watch you tell the story. And it was so amazing. And then when she came backstage for the first time at the first show, she was like, you were high when you added in my college. Yes. It was so funny. I know. And it's like we forgot that she was there. or something like that exactly thank god she still got into a college anyway i know um so the good news was that it did in fact break through okay indeed indeed it broke through so that experiment while not flawless was complete and we could move forward with the journey okay i recovered from that it was a lost day a lot happened i watched friends for a long time because i thought this is something i can understand i couldn't understand it i couldn't understand friends that's another story

that was a difficult time that was like why is joey like that like what why is monica we couldn't you're very confused i was like is this a play i kept saying is this a play anyway anyway i mean if you all knew how much we this family has watched friends over the years it's like Tish's go to. We've watched it five iterations. Yeah, it's a comfort show. So for her not to understand friends was a difficult time for me. I still feel confused about it. Anyway, it broke through. So now what we have to do is plan the actual journey day because that wasn't enough of a journey because I had no guidance. So we decided on the journey day that was going to be like a couple weeks later or something right and so we have it planned now like we are clear that the kids

we have made a low so many really sketchy things that we've said that make it clear that no children will be allowed in the house for 24 hours but so it's okay they were at craigs now some people do this at a at a place like they go to their therapist office I felt like since I'm really only comfortable in my house, like, to an nth degree that it's probably best for me. My favorite journeys are ones that I take from my living room, always. So I thought we'll stick with that. Right. Right. So I needed to, we made all kinds of arrangements. And Abby had a speaking event the day before. So she was going to make sure she was home the night before she could handle the dogs and all the things. It was all arranged. Yeah, I just, you needed somebody else to help manage the

surrounding area. Exactly. So it's supposed to be like. Like Friday, okay? Abby's coming home Thursday night. So therapist is supposed to be there at 8 a.m. Friday, something. You'd be good. So on Thursday morning at 7 a.m., when the children are still here, the dogs are still everywhere, Abby is still out of town, I get a text from my therapist that says, so excited today's the day, I'm going to be there in an hour.

So I have now, once again, fucked this up. I really planned the entire life. I did such good organizing just around the wrong thing, which is the theme of my life. I tried so hard and really nailed it for the wrong situation entirely. So now... You're so prepared for something that wasn't happening that way. Exactly. Yes.

It's like one of my favorite quotes is that adulthood is crossing both ways before, you know, looking both ways before crossing the street and then getting hit by an airplane. That's how I constantly feel. I did the thing. I looked both ways. It's just I didn't. So I think this is not ideal. My wife's not here.

The dogs are here. The kids are, whatever. So somehow I figure out the kids. I call Abby. She's like, holy shit. Okay. We're going to make this work. We're going to make this happen.

You're going to be okay. I'm going to get on an earlier flight, but you're going to be okay. And walks me through it. Now, because I had like a few jobs to do before the therapist came for the journey and I had planned the day Thursday to do those things. So now I had to do them very, very quickly, okay? Some of those, which I actually think in retrospect that all of this happened the way it was supposed to happen. Of course it did. Because I get so anxious in preparation for things that I might have worked myself up into a nauseous tizzy by the next day.

I really think that's possible. For an example, I have to like surprise you. going to the dentist right now that's right she just picks me up for an example she says we're going to lunch and then we go to the dentist that is actually a tip that Craig passed down to her in the owner's manual that was moved from from Craig to Abby no don't let her know just wait so wait the work that you're supposed to do were those jobs for work or were they jobs in preparation for the journey okay so they were things such as and these were just mine other people might have different experiences I was supposed to come

up with three intentions can be in the form of a question that was tied to my therapy and to my recovery, that were something that you would, that I would want to be explored and answered in this journey, that I thought, and my therapist thought would be helpful for my recovery if some new light was shed on that particular question. So I was supposed to come up with three of those questions and then some little things that would comfort me during the journey and then set up a little space. Yeah, like pictures, an altar, things that you want to be looking at during the journey. Right. You know what?

It just occurred to me as you're talking about those questions. It feels like, you know the chapter of Untamed where the necklace is so tight and like it's in all. It's knots is the chapter. And, like, it's all so tight that I feel like another analogy, the ski slope one, but another one is that, like, when you just have a thing that you just can't undo and you just can't work with it, it's like this is just, this journey stuff is supposed to just loosen it a little bit so you can get started. Like, you still have to do the work.

You still have to unknot it, but it has that. first loosening where you could actually start the work. That feels exactly. That to me, that's a little even better than the ski slope. That is how it feels. Do you want to know my metaphor for it? Please.

So the way that I think about psychedelics is like, for example, we have lights that are shining on us right now. To me, what psychedelics are is that they actually explore all this unexplored space. It's like turning the lights. on in places that you didn't know existed and so creating more expansiveness more understanding showing that there are maybe like maybe the ski slope maybe like the lights are only you're

only seeing like the specific slope that you've been going down but showing that there is a a broader mountain or even a broader world that's good so it's like it's like illuminating more space i love that that's right that's right That's right. So, you know, for example, one of the questions that I went in with, which seems silly, but actually was really important to me at the time and tied to everything was, why am I so scared? Like, why am I so scared? And that encompassed a lot of things.

Of course it meant like, why do I have all this anxiety? like what what um what what what happened why is my body like this why is my mind like this why am i um hypervigilant why do i experience life so differently than it seems like a lot of other people do right and i yes that was like a question that was kind of at the center of of everything and then i had a couple other questions but I'm just going to focus on that one for the purpose of this story. Okay. Yeah.

So what happens is that the therapist comes. I have my questions written out. I have my little thing, which is just like some flowers, and I have a picture of my sister and me and Abby and me, and then the kids in front of me. And then I lay down. In my particular case, I took MDMA, and then waited an hour, nothing, I didn't feel anything from that.

And then I took the, I drank a mug of tea, which was the psychedelics. So, so that then, yeah. Right. Now, what I will explain is that at first I was like, nothing, I don't feel anything. And then I was like, oh, shit, okay? I had a feeling of, oh, shit. and I don't know how I transitioned to this situation but I was laying on the couch and I had like she had given me a mask thing and the next thing I knew I was I guess from the outside I looked

like I was just laying there with a mascot I think how it appeared was I was laying there with my mascot but what really happened was what felt like it was happening to me was that my I was my consciousness was that I was in a very strange scary dark world that I couldn't figure out where I was or what it was and it felt like kind of dragony and you also had headphones on oh I had headphones on right which had some music in it which was all a part of this It's strange, scary. And so for a long time, I just was frozen and very scared. I did not think of anything else to do, but to just lay there and be frozen and paralyzed

and scared. So that's what I did for a very long time. It turns out like a couple hours. Okay. Were you aware that you were laying there, believing that you were in a strange realm? Or did you believe you were in a strange realm? believe that I was in a strange role. That is my retrospective understanding of what was happening. Otherwise, why would I have just stood there? I would have taken off the mask.

That was my first question. The door wasn't even locked. It felt like it was. It felt like I was in this scary, scary realm. I was drenched with sweat. Two hours in, I finally say, I think it's a very interesting parallel to life for me is like not asking, just being like, just being like, I'll just be terrified and alone for a long time, even though there's someone sitting there who I'm paying to help me. I guess this is my loss in life. So I don't, though. I sit there for hours.

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and I don't understand why I'm there or how I'm supposed to get out. I hear the therapist from some other realm, which is still in my living room, say, okay why don't you ask the medicine why you're so scared now it's getting fucking weird because that was my intention and now we're and i and i'm asking the medicine what the hell does that mean okay i guess i'll ask the medicine i don't know who i am to talk because i'm in a realm with dragons and darkness so when in rome so i just say medicine why am i so scared oh okay now is when i try to explain something that's really hard to explain to the pod squad in a way that i feel like you will understand even if i don't say

all the exact words okay the next thing i know right after i've said medicine why am i so scared I am no longer in the dark dragon realm. I am sitting on the floor in a cold basement. I'm my age now, I'm an adult. You, Amanda, are sitting down there with me, and there is a child in the middle of us. Amanda's her current age. Amanda's your age, a grown-up. Oh, wow.

I'm a grown-up, Amanda's a girl. You're both grown-ups, okay. yeah but in but we're both grown up in the basement with a child we're both in the grown up ourselves versions of ourselves right now but we're sitting in a cold dark basement and there's a child between us okay without getting into any specifics what i want you to know is that the child that was sitting between us is a relative of ours And what we were experiencing with this child, the child was very scared. The child was like holding the child's self and was scared and we were comforting this child.

This child was a relative of ours who had suffered abuse as a child. What we were doing in the basement with this child was waiting for the child's parents. to come down the stairs and beat the child. You and I, when I asked the medicine, why am I so scared, the medicine took me to some moment in time where someone in our family line was waiting to be beaten.

And that fear in that relative's body, that that relative embodied as a child to deal with the abuse is what was passed on in our lineage because when a person is abused, that person's nervous system talk about needing to be hypervigilant, right? Like that person's becomes a certain way in their body. And then that is passed on generation to generation. And even if the abuse stops, which God bless our family line, that physical abuse stopped, there is still an anticipatory fear in the body that something terrible is about to happen

and we must brace ourselves. that is a family legacy. Why am I so afraid that something terrible is always about to happen? There I am on the floor with a little kid who is absolutely positive that something terrible is about to happen because it is and has learned as a family survival skill that we will brace ourselves. We will be ready. We will be prepared. We will survive that.

So. when I explain to you I don't understand I don't begin to understand what the hell psychedelics are what the hell this story is I don't even know but what I'm telling you is I have read 70,000 million gazillion trillion books about this I could have told you in my brain this I knew this and I never knew this until I was sitting in in that I knew it in my body then. I knew in my body that this fear is actually not mine. It's not native to me in my spirit.

It is a survival technique that is passed on, like skills are passed on in families, like beauty is passed on in families, like legacies are passed on in families. This anticipatory anxiety, readiness, warrior, love warrior, carry on warrior, this armoring up, this, rigid fear is a family legacy that was a survival technique and I don't know how to explain how

it changed everything for me I don't even know if changed everything is the right word I don't feel like all I know now is that I have a bodily understanding of weird where the fear is and what it is and what it's from and that I can see it now. I can see and feel the familial armoring up and the fear and the nervous system. And I can have like, I think one of the things it does is it really adds all kinds of compassion. like I have so much I have spent a lot of time being really angry about why didn't things weren't more perfect why didn't people get their shit together why didn't this get worked out and that didn't get worked out and why and I still feel some of that like that's not but but I feel like

this huge compassion around what every generation goes through and what we pass on and what we don't um yeah i remember um because at a certain point during that day you get to like when you when when you are on like the the come down the landing as the therapist like to call it um you can call in your people right to be there for you so that we can we can walk into um coming off of these drugs into sobriety together and I just remember when I first got in there you're not you're not the kind of person that like is um how do I say this that is like cliche lovey-dovey in fact it makes you feel it makes you get the ick at times I think when I get to lovey-dovey like that kind of vulnerability and like I don't know how to say this.

And how would you classify yourself, I should ask. I know what you mean. Like, I'm not like mushy, gushy, like. Yeah. You're not mushy gushy. I do. I feel like I am, but it's like once a year. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you're suspect and distrustful and heck of it. There is something there too. Yes. That is a family thing too. Yeah.

where it's like, what are you trying to pull? Yes. Yeah. And if it happens, it's happening very briefly. Yes. And it's one time a year, right? Right. And it's like, don't get used to that.

That was your allotment for the year. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I walk into this room and she was a puddle, like a puddle of love. And she was looking at all of the pictures she brought and explained to me how much she loves everybody and how much she loved me and how much she like how much all of it, all of it, all of it. And so I just, and I'm not saying that I like that person better, but I thought it was very interesting. Yeah, it is.

That it could open you, like crack you open in a way that your consciousness was like letting you tap into more understanding and love. And I do think that this experience while you're sitting there seeing this younger person and your sister and you. And there was like kind of an unlocking in that experience. Yeah, because I think that not being mushy in the. not talking about love all the time or not being that's just a defense mechanism of course just like a protection thing because that is how I feel I know I feel like a very big love bug on the inside but there's all these like things that block it and I think this is just an unblocker right um and then after that it was lightness and beauty and no more scared was the whole journey

It was like the dark dragon thing turned into this like forest. It felt and the rest of the day, the rest of the journey was utterly beautiful and I'll tell you a little bit about it. But what was cool about that for me in retrospect was the idea of like that's what we talk about all the time. It's like first the pain, then the rising, like go to the fear thing, face it, there it is. And then freedom is how the journey felt. So after the basement experience, the only way I can describe it is that while Shnade O'Connor came, one of the notes in my therapist's thing, I mean, well, my therapist said in her notes that she's never heard anyone in the history of the university. verse, all combined together, talk about Sheenade O'Connor as much as I did during my eight-hour journey.

Sheenade O'Connor was like my guide throughout the whole thing, and I have, you two know, I have very deep feelings and love for Sheenaed O'Connor for a million different reasons, but I am slightly obsessed. I have slight jealousy about Cheneid. So that was interesting. Also, Sheenade's whole, you know, so much of her work was about abuse and, you know, generational trauma and Irish families and religious trauma and oppression and all of it. I'm in the forest.

It's a new realm. Okay. I am now, I've gone through the thing where I figure out why I'm so scared. And then now I'm a different version of myself. I'm not an adult. I'm a kid again. Which I loved because suddenly I was like a fresh, unafraid version of myself. So it was like, it was like now you're going to look at yourself.

had you not have that fear. Okay? It was a fearless childlike version of me. And I was walking through the forest and I was a little kid and I had a little notebook. Okay? I had a little notebook and I was delightedly writing down all the things that I saw. Just look at the trees. Look at the butterflies.

Oh my God, the cloud. like just writing down all the things I saw. And then this crazy shit happened, which is my little girl observe herself, delighted observer self, started to ask why. I was writing down what. I was writing down what I saw, what I heard, what I felt, what I, and then I started to say, why? Why am I here? Why is this like that? and everything would go dark.

The forest would go dark. When you asked why. When you asked why. And I couldn't figure out what I kept going off and on. And then something in me said, I was in the Y place of my brain. I was like stuck in the Y. And so there was no more forest and my little girl's self was all stressed. And then I suddenly just go out loud because it's written down on the notes.

I go, I don't know. The realm of the forest comes back to life. And not only did it come back to light in life, but there were fireworks. There were flowers exploding. Confetti. You explained it to me. Yeah. It was like the words I don't know were magical words that made the entire realm celebrate that

this little girl was just back in the, I don't know. And so then I go back into the force. I'm still in the forest. The celebration dies down. I'm walking. I'm writing, right, all these beautiful things. And then I go, why? Darkness.

I don't know. Celebration. I can control the realm by staying out of the analytical mind, staying in the awe and the observing mind. And every time I go towards the analyzing or insisting, on understanding, I stop myself and go, I don't know. And the realm goes, oh, we love you. Yes, honey. Yes. You don't know. Of course you don't know. Stay in the I don't know. That's really cool. I know. So. No, you don't, you don't know. You don't know. I don't know. I don't. I don't know. I don't know.

Anyway, that is, I want to do this again because I'd love to tell you because this is about psychedelics and then of course it's not about psychedelics. It's about like our fears and our heritage and our trauma and our joy and all of it and our subconscious or psyche are unknown the different realms. What the hell is this? an exploration and I think staying curious as to the wonderment of not knowing what the fuck is going on yeah it was like the realm was like that why is my responsibility you get back to your little girl joyful your job has always been here just set just be amazed and write down what what is the Mary Oliver thing instructions for a life be astonished tell about it like that's what the realm was saying to me like you're you're always above your pay grade honey just be astonished

and tell about it and let us handle the why but it's very it's very um it feels like both because i feel like you can only be astonished and tell about it when you can release this kind of cage of fear that you're in, you know, like the cage of fear keeps you out of awe and into self-preservation. And so I think it's beautiful that it was able to show you that why you're afraid, because that is basically like you are afraid for very, very good reason. and you are afraid biologically and you are afraid because of the way

that you were raised. Like I think that it reminds me of the episodes that we did not only with with Galit Atlas with the emotional inheritance. It's like that scientifically, you know, people who survived famine

even, I mean, people who survive famine, their descendants have in their bodies, biologically, affects of famine. Like, not because of anything that happened gestationally or in pregnancy, but because your actual DNA expression changes because of the trauma that someone experiences. So it's like biologically. And then when you're raised by someone who is legitimately afraid and has based their whole survival on their ability to navigate that fear, it is a difficult thing, rendered less difficult by the fact that you don't have to face that particular trauma, right?

that they had to but you are still facing all the fears together like and you are confused because you're looking around and saying I don't there must be something wrong with me because I don't see anything to fear here but we're all so afraid and I know we're supposed to be afraid and I'm raised to be afraid and I can sense the fear but I don't even know where it is Not only is our wiring, our actual biological wiring, that biological inheritance, but the way we're raised to be like, this is how, this is what I can pass down to you to help you be safe. From what? Is a burden, right? And so we're constantly trying to figure out where it is and make it make sense.

and that will make you will be really exhausting and make you feel a little crazy when the whole world is telling you there's nothing to be afraid about but you're very sure that it is and then so to be able to see that and be like oh that makes so much sense

and then to also be able to like when you first told me that story it was devastating to me and also so beautiful because it made me feel like the giver that I thought was of the giver that I thought was of the hardest parts of me had actually given their best to give me the best to give me the best parts of them. and that had suffered a lot and had worked really hard to shield me from the particular inheritance that they had and that they couldn't choose but to pass down part of it and that I can't choose but to pass down part of it and that I can't choose but to pass down.

part of mine but it will be smaller just like it was smaller to me it will be smaller to my people and then it will be smaller again and that like that is the generational work is like I'm going to do what I can to make this to protect you as I can and burden you the least that I can and you're putting it into language just that is such a gift for the next generation we're not even getting it right necessarily with all this language we're all just adding stories to things but this is an important version of a story of our family and telling it to the next generation you know my children understand that I'm scared And they understand that it's not, that it's in my body and not necessarily out in the world.

That it's something that I need to deal with internally. I don't need them to be as hypervigilant as me. And they know the story of why my body's like this. The putting language around it for the next generation is a key that gets them out of that cage, too. You know? Yeah. So thanks for listening, you guys. And we love you.

you so much. Thanks for being the people that we feel like we can share these complicated, tricky stories with and know that you will hold with love and curiosity and understanding. And keep it just between us. Just keep it between us. And by no way, do we

present ourselves to be medical doctors or know what the fuck we're talking about? Just want to say that. We don't know. We don't know. I think it's pretty fucking clear. We have no idea what we're talking about. I just want to be clear. We don't know. We don't know. Bye. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human.

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