See You On The Other Side

75 | Tripping for Beginners

• Leah & Christine

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The episode TikTok has been asking for. Looking to dip your toes in the world of psychedelics? This episode is for you. Tripping for Beginners. We break down all the basics and reveal the intricacies of preparing for and engaging with psilocybin, from the delicate art of microdosing to the profound depths of heroic doses. Ready your mind for a dive into the significance of setting intentions and embracing the full scope of these powerful experiences, ensuring your psychedelic voyage is anchored in safety and brimming with potential for growth and self-discovery.

In the sanctity of our shared space, we delve into the protocols that guide one's passage through the higher realms of psychedelic use. We explore the impact of dietary choices, the importance of stepping back from the digital world, and the responsibility of recognizing one's medical history when interacting with these substances. With a mix of personal anecdotes and expert guidance, we underscore the healing possibilities that emerge when these experiences are woven thoughtfully into the tapestry of everyday life. Our conversations serve as a compass for those seeking to foster lasting change, with practical advice on maintaining a dosing journal and the enriching benefits of consulting with a psychedelic-assisted therapist.

As we close this chapter, we turn the spotlight on the profound ways psychedelics can aid in confronting self-centered tendencies and fostering a journey towards greater self-awareness. Sharing real-life stories, we illustrate the power of these substances to catalyze personal transformation. Whether you're taking your first steps into the world of psychedelics or are a seasoned traveler, our episodes offer a treasure trove of insights, from microdosing revelations to the life-altering impacts of heroic doses. Join us and set sail on your own journey of learning and self-discovery, as we guide you through understanding and embracing the full spectrum of psychedelic experiences.

For a psychedelic assisted therapist near you:
https://psychedelic.support/

For James Fadiman's list of medications that interact with psychedelics: https://microdosingpsychedelics.com/microdosing-and-medication/



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Speaker 1:

Hello, hello, hello. I love your sing-songy when we come back on.

Speaker 2:

Hello, hey, hey friends, how's it going? Don't answer that guys.

Speaker 1:

Okay, hey, ladies, Welcome back to another episode of See you on the Other Side. Today we are talking about?

Speaker 2:

What are we talking about?

Speaker 1:

Well, the long-awaited episode and, I think, the most important episode we've possibly ever done maybe maybe especially for beginners, is literally tripping for beginners. Love it. Psychedelics for beginners, let's say that.

Speaker 2:

We get a lot of comments on our social media. How do I do that?

Speaker 1:

Right, how do I get started? Yeah, where do I start? I feel like we've done a few little tidbit episodes similar to this, but this is like we've got notes and we're going to bang them out All right, let's get it popping.

Speaker 1:

Let's bang them out. Let's get it popping. First question for anybody who is interested in learning to work with psychedelics or learning to use psychedelics is what is your intention? That should be number one, because we get a lot of people who are like oh my God, I do mushrooms all the time, Not the way we do them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you brook? Because Brook, I don't know, I don't know brook, I don't think I'm not targeting any brook. But it's like, okay, brook, you just go to concerts, which that is totally fine. And that can be your intention.

Speaker 1:

Totally. It doesn't always have to be this deep psychological healing thing.

Speaker 2:

But oftentimes we get comments like oh yeah, I did that in high school and then I went to a party and it was like the worst experience of my life and I'm like well, so many things. Yes, so many things are wrong with that, and it's not a one shoe fits all type of situation.

Speaker 1:

Right and it's not a black and white answer. So when people ask us this question, we're like, oh God, how do I answer that? Because are you talking about? How do you micro dose? How do you macro dose with friends? How do you do heroic doses? What are you trying to do with this? Are you trying to have fun? Are you trying to feel the subtle differences, or are you trying to go fucking deep, like the Psychonauts do?

Speaker 2:

Well, let's say you are trying to do a heroic, solo healing dose.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Give an example of what intention setting for that atmosphere would be like.

Speaker 1:

Well, I feel like that would be different than your intention in doing it, because if your intention is to do some deep, deep healing work, then you're probably going to have a different intention for that journey. For example, mine and, I believe, yours our first ever heroic doses. Our intentions were to let go. I'm a former control freak. I still am in some ways. It just helped with the parts of the controlling that were affecting my life.

Speaker 2:

And I was a former angry little elf.

Speaker 1:

So yours was like letting go of.

Speaker 2:

Mine was letting go of anger, letting go of resentment, letting go of people that I felt like had failed me, and what I like about broad intentions when doing a heroic solo journey is that, if it's so specific, You're kind of putting expectations out there. That where it's like. For me, letting go could pertain to a lot of different avenues in my life that weren't serving me, not just one specific thing.

Speaker 1:

And I think a lot of people will go into. And if you're new here and you don't know what a heroic journey is, we'll get to that in a minute, but it's probably the dose that's not going to be fun Not probably. This is the dose that's not going to be fun. This is the dose that you don't want to accidentally do when you're at a festival with your friends or a concert with your friends or whatever. But I think another intention for someone to do a heroic journey or a larger dose would be I would like to stop drinking alcohol. I would like to work on whatever trauma I have from my childhood. Those are really big intentions, and so if your intention is to, I just want to explore the benefits of micro dosing. That's a great intention, and then you start from there. Micro dosing is like the smaller doses. If your intention is, I want to go to a cabin this weekend with my girlfriends and I want to feel connected and I want to have fun, then that's a completely different dose too.

Speaker 2:

And we took a gram and then we went to a concert and I don't know if you had an intention, but my intention was to, just like, be in the moment and be present.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, have fun and have fun with the people that I love and connect with. Yeah, that was exactly a connection. Yeah, so, and it doesn't even have to be like you don't have to like speak that out, yeah, like just know that when you're doing it, that's why you're doing it. I think intention behind a lot of things matter, like intentional drinking, intentional coping, intentional a lot of things.

Speaker 2:

Ooh, you can use intention with everything in life.

Speaker 1:

Really everything Like working out. Why are you doing this? Are you doing this because you have body image issues? Or are you doing this because you're trying to be healthier All together?

Speaker 2:

personally, it helps me with my rage. So.

Speaker 1:

And there's nothing wrong with either one of those right. It's just know what your intention is before you do Anything really like. Am I drinking this alcoholic beverage because I like the way it tastes, or did I have a rough day and I'm just trying to turn off and tune out and Shut down for a little bit?

Speaker 2:

am I eating this burger and fries because I'm wanting to binge eat and eat my feelings? Or am I doing it because I'm going to savor this food and and I want?

Speaker 1:

to enjoy it and truly enjoy it. Yeah, so this can be with literally anything, but I think that that's like the first question that you should ask yourself when you're like where do I get started? Well, what do you want? What do you want from this? Yeah, what are you trying to get from this? So we always we joke about it, but like set, setting and dose, yeah, but this kind of goes along with that intention. Depending on what your intention is, your set, setting and dose are conducive to that intention, for sure, and it goes back to getting messages like oh, I got fucked up in college and it's like well, or had a bad trip, right well, bob, you took a heroic dose and then went to a fucking concert with your friends and cried.

Speaker 2:

And then your friends were like stop crying, you little bitch.

Speaker 1:

Not the right dose or nobody knows what to do with you. Right, yeah, right, because you're not in an environment that is going to support whatever heavy things that your mind is Showing you yeah, okay, so start from the beginning.

Speaker 2:

What is set?

Speaker 1:

set. So set setting and dose set is really just your mindset going in. We do not recommend doing something like this. Any type of psychedelic, really. If you are in a very, very, very dark headspace of you, let's say you just lost a loved one. Yes, you know, going through a divorce.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it may not be the right time. You may have to let some time, you may have to have some time to sit with whatever hardship you are experiencing before Going into yeah, using a psychedelic.

Speaker 1:

Can I use the analogy? I've used it before but like we are Emotionally constipated as a society. I love that and I've said this before, so forgive me, you guys, I just really like using this analogy, but we're emotionally constipated. I heard this from psychedelic passage and I added to it Because if you are coming out of a divorce or you have just lost someone, that's a lot of heavy shit that you're going to have to process a little bit over time before you go into some type of journey, or it will like literally be explosive diarrhea. But the analogy that I was gonna use is like you know, they they say Psychedelics are like the laxative to someone who's emotionally constipated and for me, what I like, what I added to it, is like for micro dosing. If you're micro dosing, that's like the stool softener before you take the laxative.

Speaker 2:

Hmm, her old journey is like the full-on, full-on plumbers coming.

Speaker 1:

He's empty in your shit out. He will no longer be emotionally conspicuous.

Speaker 1:

I know, right, let's talk about shit, but for for me, like your mindset is, whatever is stuck in there is gonna be the thing that ends up coming out. And if you're not ready for that, like you really have to be in a, in a place Mentally where you are prepared and you have coping skills in place that are there to help support you in that journey. You know, like Breathing exercises or grounding yourself and really having someone there to support you emotionally who can lend you their calm nervous system. So heroic journeys that's a whole new thing. But the set is your mindset. Setting is when you are, where you are and who you're with. To be honest, like the music around you that plays a huge music, plays a huge Role in all of my journeys.

Speaker 2:

Oh, God, yeah, for sure, and I have trips at for people and have played a playlist and said like if there is any song that does not resonate with you, just tell me and I'll change the song. Yeah, and there have been times where people like I don't like that song, yeah, change it not. Not it, not it. So and that's okay. So, but again, going back to like I had a bad trip because I went with my buddies and I started crying and then they were making fun of me not the right people right not the right I think it's really difficult If you are the one taking mushrooms and all your friends are like drinking or something Like you feel very disconnected, yeah from the group.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in that way. So that's another reason. Like I will do mushrooms with Friends who are also doing mushrooms, I will not do mushrooms if I'm with people drinking. It's not a vibe. Yeah, not a vibe.

Speaker 2:

I once went to Tony and I went to Vegas and we did mushrooms and then we went to a club Not the vibe, not not that anything happened. I didn't feel anything. Yeah, I did not feel a damn thing until I came home and I think I didn't feel anything, or until I came back to the hotel. But I think I didn't feel anything because it wasn't the right atmosphere, yeah, and yeah, it wasn't the right energy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so be mindful of that. The setting is important and then the dose is like. It's hard to like say which one of these is most important. They're so all it's like they're equally as important. Yeah, set, setting and dose. Somebody said in our tiktok, we should put that on a t-shirt, and I'm like honestly, though Honestly, we should, hey sister brand, help us out.

Speaker 2:

Make sure.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, that setting and dose the dose is. Again, this is where I'm like this is just as important, but, like, we have a guideline on our Instagram and I think we should like maybe pen it or something to the top of our page, because I refer to it a lot. If you are doing a mic, a micro dose, that is like a tenth to a twentieth of a normal dose where you would feel something, so be mindful of that. A micro dose and we've said this before, we've done an episode on micro dosing where it's like if, if we're comparing it to alcohol because that's the only thing we have to compare it to or, let's say, a bottle of Tylenol, do you drink the entire bottle of wine or the entire bottle of Tylenol? You take the entire bottle of Tylenol and and expect like to feel something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you do. But a micro dose would be like you dip your pinky into the fucking Bottle of wine or tequila and you look, take a little lick, it's not gonna affect you on a On like a psychological level, but like it's doing stuff it internally. Yeah, so you can function. Yeah, you can drive a car, you can go out, you can go to work. Yeah, highly encourage that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but this is where I have to say like you have to do this responsibly. Yeah, we cannot stress this enough. So you're not gonna go Take an entire bottle of Tylenol right and then be like fuck the Tylenol right, like that's on you, yeah, where we hear a lot of stories of people taking way too much and being in the wrong situation with the wrong people and it's like, well, you need to know how much you're taking, yeah, and I've watched people just eat handful after handful and have like a really bad time.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I've heard so many horror stories and I'm like that nerd who, like always, has my scale.

Speaker 1:

Nobody's going to have a bad time on my watch. Like we are not overdoing it, like this is how much you get and you don't throw a fit. But yeah, the dose is super important because there is a threshold of dose that you're going to start feeling it like anything over for some people who are more sensitive to it. Anything over 0.5 grams you're going to feel a little bit. Oh, I feel a point five I've accidentally microdosed a point five and worked on it but like had a really great day but I could definitely.

Speaker 2:

I was like oh, did you see like graffiti on a? Tree and you're like, wow, that's so beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Like on our lunch break, like we're driving and I'm like, mesmerized by the graffiti on the train.

Speaker 1:

And then I'm like oh yeah, I that was more than a micro, I can tell, but I wasn't tripping and I was able to like finish the rest of my work day. It was fine. But that's where I can start to feel something. It's like not sub perpetual anymore, it's a little bit perpetual. Yeah, so yeah, and then one gram is you're going to feel that. So be very mindful of that. Anything over three You're going into that, it's going to be a bad time territory.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I don't mean it's going to be a bad time, as in like, you're always going to have a bad trip, but it's going to be a bad time if you're not prepared for that type of journey. Yes, it's going to be really difficult. Yes, for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we know of people who have like taken three grams at home by themselves and it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, with no preparation, just do it, just to do it, just to try it, and then to further specify when we have talked to people about doing three grams or over. There is a protocol to follow, a very, very like strict protocol. Like I, before I do a heroic journey, I stay on social media for a week or two. We don't eat meat. Yep, we set an intention no caffeine.

Speaker 2:

Like you? Fast the day of there's integration work with that Like.

Speaker 1:

I think we basically give you homework, like you journal before, like get yourself in a good headspace, like try not to have difficult conversations with people, put them off, yeah, if you have to, yeah, yeah. So all of these that kind of goes with like mindset too, like don't get yourself in a headspace that's negative right before, yeah. So that's a funny thing about dosing. Like one of the things I really really love about our favorite gummies the colors gummies is that it has dosing guidelines on the back. So like microdose is one to three and it's sub perpetual. A therapeutic or social dose is three to seven. So if I were to like go to a concert with you, I would take three or four maybe, and then for we're not going there, but you could take a, you could do a large journey. But right, we're not going to promote that. But that's for experienced you, experienced users only, not for beginners. We're not doing this for experienced users.

Speaker 1:

Next thing is family history. Okay, know your family history. Anyone who has a history of schizophrenia, psychosis, I think, even bipolar, that's tricky and I'm not saying that it can't help you. But what I am saying is you might need more than a trip sitter. You might need someone who is in this space professionally. Well, I'm a psychiatrist.

Speaker 2:

And with that we always recommend going to a psychedelic assisted therapist. If you are not sure 100%, to further look into that to see if you are a right fit for doing psychedelics and you can find a psychedelic therapist at psychedelicsupportnet. Right, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't know if it'snet, it might just be psychedelicsupport Okay, but I mean it's easy to find psychedelicsupport.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, you can. You can type in your zip code and then therapists will pop up that are in your area that can help you. Yeah, so I highly, highly, highly recommend that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I know that they'll do Zoom meetings with you, even a lot of them are very helpful with, like, you don't have to commit to like seeing this person for years.

Speaker 1:

It's really like, hey, I'm doing this journey, can you help me prepare for this? They'll, that's what they're there for. Like, they will help you with that, which I absolutely love. Another website that's really good because it kind of goes with our next thing Um, medication interactions.

Speaker 1:

Like, if you're on medications, know what will and won't work with psilocybin or other, honestly, other psychedelics too, because when we did ayahuasca, there were a whole list of shit that we couldn't take and a whole list of things we couldn't eat. Yeah, um, they will interact with the medicine. Yeah, so be mindful of that, I think. I don't know the website for sure, but there might. If you can like, google Fatiman medication interactions. Like I know that there's a website that James Fatiman started where it's a list of medications that you should not be on. Fad. I am, yes, fad, I am a FAD, I am. Thank you, um, yeah, so, um, we can put that in the show notes. Yeah, but that's an important one, because we've had how many people have we had say they felt nothing on a large dose? Yep, and there's a reason for that. If you are on psychotropic medications. There is a high chance that this psilocybin will not work for you, because they are working on the same receptors and it's like acting as like this block. Yeah, it's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

And a lot of people messaged us and they're on an SSRI or on some type of Benzo and there is like a certain weaning off protocol protocol which, again, we cannot stress enough. We do not recommend you to stop your medication cold turkey. You need to talk with your doctor about weaning off, but there needs to be some time in between from when you've weaned off the medication To then when you start with psychedelics.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so not to like immediately jump into it, correct, I think a lot of people, a lot of people want to get off their SSRIs or get off their Benzos and go right to or they think that, like coming off of them doing psilocybin or micro dosing is like a replacement for them, so they're like switching one out for the other, and that can be not so.

Speaker 2:

It can be a replacement, but not in the way that you think Right.

Speaker 1:

Right, this isn't going to do what your medicine is doing, and I think well it's not going to numb the way that your medicine may numb.

Speaker 1:

So let's go to our next one, which is, well, the next one. I'm going to have to come back, because with that is expectations. I think a lot of people expect this medicine to fix them, or they'll go into a journey thinking this is what my intention is and so this is what I'm going to get. That's not what the intention is, for it helps to have an intention, but a lot of times you don't get what you want. You get what you need out of the journey, so any expectations you have about, like what it's going to be like or what you're going to get from it, like don't have, just don't have them, just throw them out the door, throw them out the window.

Speaker 2:

I've had a lot of people reach out, or we have had a lot of people reach out, for example, as somebody they started microdosing and they're like, um, and they got off SSRI's and they're like, I'm feeling anxious and I'm like, well, maybe you should get curious about that anxiousness and dive into that a little bit deeper, because maybe your body's telling you that it needs something and you're wanting to suppress it and ignore it because that's what the medication did. But this is not that. This is like we're supposed to feel things, to heal things.

Speaker 1:

Well, and this is gonna amplify it for you, because it's trying to give you the answer. It's wake up, yeah well, and to that point, like I think you and I both have said before, like we used to really struggle with anxiety and now I don't struggle with it, I am friends with it because I know when it's showing up, there's something that it's trying to tell me. It doesn't show up in my day to day life the way that it used to, because my life was so chaotic and not what it was supposed to be that I was feeling at 24, seven, I think we are a society that it's pretty normalized, that we're very disconnected with ourselves.

Speaker 2:

When you do these medicines correctly and you know that they are a catalyst, but ultimately you're doing the work, over time you are able to get closer to home, which is yourself, and so when things are off, you are able to detect that much earlier because you know yourself way more than you ever have.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you're like playing detective. Basically, you're like hold on, I don't feel at home, I don't feel at peace. Something is going on around me. What is shaking me this bad? What's shaking me up? What's causing this anxiety in me? What do I need to change? Are there people around me that I don't need to be around? Is it only when I'm at work do I need to change my career? Is it around a specific person? Is it when a certain topic gets brought up? Like those types of things like, if that's what's making you anxious, like it's really important that you sit with that. But so, to your point, like that expectation that, like this is gonna just fix that and make it go away, it's almost going to amplify that and force you to sit with it.

Speaker 1:

Another commenter on TikTok said I tried micro dosing for a while and it made me a raging bitch and I talked to her about it and I sent her to like one of our episodes. But I was like what have you been suppressing? Like what type of anger have you been holding in to try to be the good girl and why is it trying to force itself out of you? Like it's not for no reason and it's not the micro dosing. Didn't make you angry. It's bringing that out of you because you've been ignoring it For a long time.

Speaker 2:

And I think too, like finding peace within yourself requires work. Yeah, it's not. There is no magic pill. And so that expectation, yeah, you have to understand that, going into it and you have to be the one willing to do the work.

Speaker 1:

And I don't know that everybody is willing. Yeah, so then it's not right for you and they'll start doing this work and then immediately stop because it gets really uncomfortable. It gets really, and we know that.

Speaker 2:

We know how uncomfortable this work gets, but with uncomfortability comes growth, and with uncomfortability comes healing and evolving, and so it's like life is hard anyways For me. This is just my opinion. Yeah, I'll choose my heart, and that usually that heart is choosing myself, yeah, and what I need.

Speaker 1:

So any who yeah, so that's a good one Expectations. The next one is like research. This is a hard one, too, because I feel like this would be number one, or maybe even number two. Do your research, know what you're doing? This goes along with, like all of, like the knowing your family history, knowing the medicines that you're on, knowing what substance you're taking and understanding it to a degree that, like, is unquestionable. Is unquestionable, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, and it kind of goes back to you're not going to drink a bottle of tequila and I'm just going to drink a bottle of tequila. Now, I know you like physically can, because it tastes like fucking shit. Some people can, I know some people can, but like you're not going to drink it, like it's like some fucking water, right. But you also know and have an understanding like if I do if I do, I'm going to be, I'm going to be hurting.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to have a bad day tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm going to have a rough fucking time. You're not going to take a bottle of Tylenol, unless you're wanting to hurt yourself, right? It's the same thing with this. Yeah, don't blindly listen to what we say or what anybody else says. You have to be your own advocate. You have to be your own advocate and know what you're doing. So, whether if you're going the clinical route or you're going the underground route, you know the questions to ask and you have enough like at least like a base point of knowledge, right? So you have an idea of what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Or here's another like a little side thing with that. Like you know enough about it that if you are with like a group of close friends and one of your friends starts going through something difficult, you're not poking fun at them or like upset with them. You're able to support them, even if you're like also like in that space, because you know what's happening. Yeah, you're like oh wait, like they must have it's bringing up something for them and they're having a hard time. Let me go sit with that person, let me help them, let me ground them instead of being like you need to snap out of it. You know what I mean. Like so if you do your research and we have a resource page on our website- I was literally just going to say it that has so many like the best documentaries, some of our favorite documentaries and movies.

Speaker 1:

There are books to read and I know that's like a little bit harder, but like, if you watch some of these documentaries and you have a basic understanding of what these medicines do, you'll be better prepared for what happens.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and when it does, and our website is syotospodcastcom. That's S-Y-O-T-O-S like. See you on the other side, siotos. Siotospodcastcom. Great resources for you.

Speaker 1:

So we already touched on like micro, macro and heroic doses. I so it's just again. We'll find a way to like clip that to our page or maybe just share it again. Macro doses are what I like to call like museum doses too, because you can literally like take it, go to a museum like everything's like. You don't have to.

Speaker 1:

When we say stuff about like going to concerts and festivals, like you don't, that's not, you don't have to do that, Like it's fun too to just go to a museum and appreciate art with somebody that you love. So another one is grounding exercises. This is another reason we kind of say and hesitate to say or we warn you not to Do this after like a big life changing event, because you are going to want to practice holding space for uncomfortable feelings before you ever get to a large journey. And I think that's where it people get it wrong when they come off their meds, that they're used to numbing those feelings and they go straight into a journey. They don't have any of those coping skills or those grounding techniques they're used to numbing. So it makes it more uncomfortable for you to feel some really dark things without those practices in place.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and again to when. When I was talking about you know, people were like, oh, I had a really bad fucking trip. And then they start telling me about their experience and I'm like, oh, you had feelings and lessons come up. You had feelings that you needed to feel and you had lessons that you needed to see, but you were unwilling to see or feel them.

Speaker 1:

You weren't ready for it.

Speaker 2:

It was a bad trip because you weren't ready for it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like hate to break it to you, but you are blaming the medicine instead of yourself for using it irresponsibly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah and well, and you and I have said this before in an episode. But like, if you don't respect the medicine, the medicine bites back. Oh yeah it does so a lot of times. It'll be like bitch, sit down, you're not ready for this? Yeah, and it will fuck you up a little bit, yeah. Yeah, I mean let me hurt you with some truth a little bit. Let me show you your shit a little bit.

Speaker 2:

This medicine has been around for thousands of years, probably longer than that, and they are sacred for a reason they've been used with indigenous cultures, as for medicine and for healing, for a very, very long time. So if you don't have respect to it, like I'm gonna just bluntly say this you don't deserve to do it. You shouldn't be doing it. You should not be doing it if you're not going to respect it.

Speaker 1:

And I think that that's the thing that person who it was showing them really dark shit and they weren't prepared for that. When you are going into a heroic journey type situation and you're working with a guide, you're preparing for that. Yes, you know what I mean. You're like, okay, and this is what's gonna, if this comes up, just sit with it. Sit with it, feel it and it'll pass and it always does. But you're sitting, you're working with someone who's helping you prepare for those uncomfortable feelings and uncomfortable truths, but most of the time, you're ready and willing. Right, you're like, all right, ready, I'm ready to change my life. Show me where I'm going wrong.

Speaker 2:

Well, and that's another thing that people get wrong is I think people have stereotyped us Like we are just like some two fucking moms who are just like fucking doing drugs every weekend and I'm like, trust me if you knew to the extent of what we were doing and why we were doing it. Yes, are they profound in healing? For sure They've helped us heal our childhood trauma, they've helped us with our depression, they've helped us with our anxiety, but it's not a thing where you get done doing it and you're like let me do that next weekend, Like same time next week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're like oh no.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm gonna sit with this for a solid year because that fucked my world up in the best way possible.

Speaker 1:

I don't even. I will admit, like the first time I ever did it, I was like I will never have to do that again. I am glad I did that, but I will. I don't ever want to do that again. And our psychiatrist shout out Dr Shealy, I was resistant to doing it again for quite a while because I was afraid I was gonna be dependent on it. Oh gosh, yeah. And he was just like you haven't touched it in over a year. You're not dependent on it, you're using it as a tool to get you out of another situation, like an unstuck situation. You need to get yourself out of this muck. And so, yeah, we talk about that. But like, so yeah, I did it again, and it was like over a year later and it was necessary and it pulled me out of a really, really dark spot, but I was so afraid to do it again. But now I'm like, oh no, every year I will be doing at least a journey before the holidays.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes depending on what's going on, if there's a lot of craziness. It could be like six to nine months. I'm gonna do another one.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes those retreats like if you go to a retreat they've got you doing medicine three to four nights a week and then they recommend you come back in like another three months and it depends on like how much work you're trying to do. But this work is exhausting. I don't wanna do a journey every three months.

Speaker 2:

Well, okay, on a smaller scale and maybe a better analogy that people would understand, if you go and you do a two hour therapy session the next day, you're not like, let's go to therapy again. Granted, that could have been a really profound healing. A lot of things got answered that you were given a lot of tools, but it's still.

Speaker 2:

it's something that you wanna sit with for a little bit. It's not something like you're like let's do this tomorrow, like nobody wants to do that. So I guess maybe that might be maybe an analogy that people might understand a little bit better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, fun doses. Now that's different, sure, but even that, like, you can't do every weekend. Like, even with microdose, if you can't do it every day, you're not supposed to do it every day, you build up a tolerance to it and so, yeah, I wonder if we have time to talk about this. We know, let's skip that one For beginners. One of the things that I always recommend is keeping a dosing journal, and this is with any dose, any dose like small, micro, large dose, medium sized dose, because when you are starting out for me and I think for you too, like because we're both three fives on inhuman design, we experiment and then we talk about it. I liked to experiment with my doses, and so I will start slow, like I'll the whole term like start low, go slow, and that holds to this as well as to microdosing. But if you are wanting to take a gram for a concert, maybe start with 0.5, especially if it's your first time. Experiment on your own time. That way, if you are out in public, it's not a bad time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like even yeah, even people who are getting ready to do a heroic journey. They start with microdosing and it's like, okay, you want to experiment a little bit more than do a 0.5.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then, maybe a few months down the road, do one 100% and journal about it Right, write down like how you were feeling, like what came up for you, how out of it you were, because, like you're probably not, but like that way you are like understanding how the medicine works. So yeah, seven grams is a lot different than one.

Speaker 2:

Seven grams, it's like another medicine.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're going to a different dimension, brother, uh-huh, like that's a totally different experience. So it's it's. It's like everybody thinks mushrooms are the same, but it's like no, like the doses are so very different. And that's where you get those like different experiences from. Yeah, okay, yeah, so keep a dosing journal.

Speaker 1:

The integration for the end Fucking huge. How to grant, how to integrate an experience when the lessons aren't so obvious, and also how to integrate good and challenging trips. So I will say this my husband's first journey he did not integrate. He had a good trip, he had a great one. He pulled him out of a really deep, dark depression and for months he was coasting and he went right back to drinking and didn't integrate anything, went right back to everyday life.

Speaker 1:

And I was like, fighting him every day, like you wasted that, you wasted a trip. You wait. He was like what do you mean? It got me out of my depression and I'm like, and you're going to be right back there because you're doing exactly the same stuff. So we found Dr Shealy. He is a psychedelic assisted therapist here in Louisville, kentucky, and I was like, why don't you see this guy? And he was like I mean, that was months ago, it's not going to do anything, now it's too late, and I was like actually it's never too late to integrate and Dr Shealy has said this too and I'm pretty sure it's on his website Like you can, if you had a bad trip 10 years ago, you can talk with someone and they can help you make sense of it.

Speaker 1:

But on that note, I think sometimes it's harder to integrate a positive experience. I have a perfect example. Give it to us.

Speaker 2:

So there's someone I know and she had a really, really amazing journey heroic journey where it's, she felt home with her body.

Speaker 2:

She felt so much love with herself, she felt so much confidence and it was, it was, it was very, very good. Fast forward to like again, any, if we're talking to you and we're talking to you about this, we're like integrate, integrate, integrate, integrate, integrate. Because if you don't take those lessons and implement it into your life, your everyday life, you're going to go back to the same old ways and feel the same that you were feeling before. And so she was like OK, so I had this like a really amazing experience, but I don't know what to do with it. Yeah, like like it's. It didn't feel tangible for her. Like it's, like it was love and light.

Speaker 1:

Right. What does that mean? What does that?

Speaker 2:

mean. And so I pretty much told her, I said anything that doesn't feel like that, get curious about it. Whether it's a job, people, your environment, whatever, get curious about that. And kind of like dissect do you want to keep that in your life if it doesn't feel like home, it doesn't feel like peace, it doesn't feel like love? Yeah, like, don't forget that feeling Right, right, and anyone, anything that makes you feel not that they may or it may not be the right thing for you, yeah, whereas you know, if you have a really challenging journey where the lesson is very, get your shit together.

Speaker 2:

Like yeah, stop drinking, you know. Stop doing drugs, stop doing this, whatever. So I'll just use me as a personal example. My last journey that I did was last summer and I felt all the trauma of all my ancestors and I was sweating more than I've ever sweat in my life and I hate being cold and I sat in a cold bath for like two hours Because that's how hard it was to recover from that. I'm like man, like I've had to deal with my own trauma. Now I've got to feel everyone in my whole family lineage trauma Like what the fuck, bro? And but the lesson in that was very clear and it was to stop holding on to the things that weren't even yours to carry. And so I had to carry that for a little bit Everyone's trauma to then realize like, oh fuck, this isn't even mine, it's not mine, I need to let it go. That was not a fun day. It took a while for me to recover from it, yeah, but it was very clear of what I needed to integrate into my life.

Speaker 1:

Like don't hold on to the things that aren't yours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the message was like very clear, but that was not like a ha ha, rainbows and unicorns and you know, sunshine, like it was not that.

Speaker 1:

So I'll give but it was my favorite. I was just gonna say my favorite ever was my second one, where it was like my lesson in loving myself and it was really learning that like nobody had been abandoning me as much as I had been abandoning myself and I was so afraid of being abandoned, like those wounds run deep and that lesson was like, girl, you've been doing it more than anybody, you need to stop. And that was like so clear to me and easy to not easy, not easy, it was not easy to integrate.

Speaker 1:

It was clear, and I had to work really, really hard to get to a place where it felt comfortable for me, putting myself first. Ooh, yeah, that's deep so that integration is like that's hard. We highly recommend working with someone if you're unsure how to integrate an experience, and again you can go to psychedelic support.

Speaker 2:

Well, and to add to that, we're all guilty of it. I've been very guilty of it where I pointed fingers at everyone else and everyone that everyone else was doing and how they were affecting my life.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

The mushrooms isn't gonna bring that up. It's gonna bring how you are fucking your own life up and you are sabotaging you.

Speaker 1:

We've said this. Some people are afraid of it because of the things that it might show up for them and we're like it's not gonna be about anybody. But you boo-boo, yeah, like this is your medicine. This is your medicine. It's not gonna bring up other people I mean not in the way that you think it is but I think you were so afraid of what was gonna show up and it was like oh, it's me, yep.

Speaker 2:

It's me, hi, I'm the problem. It's me, yeah, no, where it's like, you know, when someone goes to therapy and then they just bitch about the people, right? Right Because, like you, should be going to therapy to figure out what your shadows are and work on that.

Speaker 1:

That's what mushrooms bring up. I mean, that's why these are so different than therapy Like this is like they say, like it took. It's like 10 years of therapy in six to eight hours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can't hide no.

Speaker 1:

There's no hiding, and can you imagine, like how uncomfortable that is for people who aren't ready to face themselves?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a big and heavy realization when you're like, oh fuck, it's been me the entire time, granted. You know, we become that way because of unfair things that have happened Right and it also doesn't yes, but sometimes we then we get out of those situations and we stay a victim.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, let's. I'm gonna use my marriage as an example. I was very much a victim because my husband was an addict and an alcoholic and I'd gone through so much and in someone who's unhealed they would see that and be like but you were the victim and where I am now, I would say I let myself be. Yeah, I didn't defend myself, I didn't stand up for myself. I was a people pleaser. I avoided a lot of really hard conversations to keep the peace.

Speaker 2:

But I think unhealed. You like the chaos.

Speaker 1:

I don't know that I liked it. I didn't know any different, because it was my entire childhood.

Speaker 2:

That's what I should say. You grew up in chaos, so that was-.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't that unfamiliar to me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not that you like it because you don't like it.

Speaker 1:

Right, I knew something was off.

Speaker 2:

But I had toxic partners because I was used to living in a toxic home, so it's not gonna like.

Speaker 1:

A lot of times, a lot of people are like but I'm not the problem and I'm like I wasn't the only problem, but I was a problem also. My environment was also a problem and I had to change my environment in order to get to a place of peace, and this is random, but it's not random.

Speaker 2:

But what do we say about people-pleasers? They are the closest thing to a narcissist.

Speaker 1:

They are, and it's really uncomfortable to know that.

Speaker 2:

And I have said that that's also why I'm like.

Speaker 1:

people-pleasing is not the flex you think it is. You work closer to a narcissist than not, because you are manipulating people into liking you and it's not even the authentic version of you.

Speaker 2:

And it's very ego-driven.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is, and I will admit that I've said it before Like I was that person who was putting on masks to please other people and please like me and think the world of me, and it was never authentic to myself. So I mean, there's another difference, though, like how do you heal a narcissist? You make them become aware, and a lot of them are unwilling to be self-aware, so as soon as you're aware of it, you can make changes forward. That's first step anyway, all right.

Speaker 2:

I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I know you have anything to add to that. No, I really think. If you are a beginner in this space, I think our podcast has a lot of material for you With our websites.

Speaker 2:

Yes, get started with that. Just start learning a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we have episodes on micro dosing, we have episodes on heroic doses, we have episodes on other psychedelic uses and how they work for you. So, on that note, stay curious, be open. We'll see you guys on the other side. Bye, hi am Ma.

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Christine

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Leah

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