The Masterful Listening Trip: Psychedelics, Cosmic Jokes and the Path to Healing

Speaker 1 Hey there, masterful listener. How you doing? This is gonna be a fun one. Uh it's eleven forty-four at night. I typically do not record this late, but things are don't always go the way we plan. And uh it's probably perfect because I'm kind of I'm exhausted, but in a good way. You know what I mean? Like when you've had a full day, but you liked what you were doing. I have a really good friend visiting me tomorrow from Hawaii. So I am excited for tomorrow, but here we are today. And my shows go live at midnight on Tuesday morning and Friday morning. So I always get

Speaker 1 that confused. 12 a.m. Thursday night, right? Friday morning. You know what I'm saying? So I didn't want to miss my deadline, although I probably will miss it a little bit. So the point is I got inspired to actually record a different episode than I was planning on recording. I kind of have this process every time of I kind of think I know which one I'm gonna do. I have probably like 30 topics written out. It's kind of how I have my system. When I get inspired, I write it down, I put it in my spreadsheet. But then usually last minute, something else happens and I change

Speaker 1 my mind. And that's exactly what happened today. So this episode goes out to my dad because it was a conversation with him that inspired me to think and decide, hmm, I want to share about what happened when I had a very surprising and powerful psychedelic journey with a guide. So before I dive in, and by the way, welcome back to Masterful Listening. This is episode 12 of season two. So cool. I'm proud of myself, I gotta say. Uh yeah, I've been wanting to have a podcast, and I've been told for probably a decade to have a podcast. And you know what? Sometimes it takes us 10

Speaker 1 years to do the thing we've wanted to do, we've known we could do, we thought we would enjoy, but who cares? The time is now, right? This is it. So it's exciting to make these episodes, to have all the incredible guests and to share all these really vulnerable and deep and true stories for me. And I'm really glad to be hearing from a lot of you after today, it would be awesome to hear from you as well. So keep on reaching out, write in your reviews, subscribe and share and spread the love, spread the knowledge, spread the mental wealth, the masterful listening. Because as you know,

Speaker 1 if you've heard, if you've been to the Super Rad Listening School, uh meaning this podcast, uh, yeah, listening is the one skill we're never taught. And so I created a school, and masterful listening is all about going deeper than just trying to hear someone's words. It's truly a being curious, but like for real. Are you really interested? And do you have the time to really focus? Focus on my words, what I'm saying, what I'm not saying, my tone. If you get distracted, come on back. The cool thing about a podcast is you could just rewind it. If only we could do that in life, huh? Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's why we gotta listen in the moment as best as we can, as masterfully as we can. So we're gonna dive in. I'm gonna give a little context around this episode and how I'd like you to listen since we're in school. Then I'm gonna share a really I think it's epic. I think it's funny, I think it's interesting. I it was profound for me. A story of the last psilocybin journey that I did with my uh therapist, who is a trained guide. And it did not go like I thought, shocking, but but what I got from that was was a reminder that has stayed with me

Speaker 1 every day since. And it really helped me see clearly the reality of not just my life, but the world. And maybe it'll serve you. That's my hope. So before I dive in, I also want to say I am not a doctor, I am only sharing my personal experience with psychedelics, this type of medicine, as I've shared, you know, in other episodes, my other experiences of all kinds of things. As a mental wealth advocate, I specifically want to create a space, a safe space, an honest space where we can talk about our mental health journeys. So that's what I'm doing. So I never encourage people to do

Speaker 1 anything other than do their research, go where it resonates. If you ever want any more information, feel free to reach out. But I want to share this story because as someone who's had a long and convoluted mental health experience of life, I have discovered so many tools throughout the years that have truly helped me. And uh psychedelics are just one little tiny piece, one little tool that I didn't use often, but I used in this most recent time that I went through a very dark night of my soul because frankly, none of the other tools were working. I give the metaphor often of a lot of

Speaker 1 my friends and community when they saw that I was suffering, they were all like, Oh, Svet, you're gonna be fine. Like, you have a PhD in depression, like you got this, you've been there. And it literally felt like I was a chef in a kitchen with my hands tied behind my back, and all the tools are there, but I could not reach them. And when I reached them, they didn't work. And it was it really felt like a cruel joke. Um, like a cruel cosmic joke, you know. Like, really, I just spent years suffering and learning all this stuff, and now it's not working. The therapy

Speaker 1 isn't working anymore, the pharmaceuticals didn't seem to be working anymore, the diet that I was, you know, committed to that had helped wasn't working anymore. Like, what do you do when the tools that you've discovered and that have really worked, that you've trusted do not work? Well, you find new tools. So again, uh this is me. This is what I went through. I trust you will do what is right for you, and that's why masterfully listen here. Like, really see what part of you reacts to my story, but feel your heart. Do you get emotional? Can you feel that in your body? Like is your chest

Speaker 1 open or are you contracted? Just notice, notice yourself. And if you get distracted with yourself, come on back. I've said for a long time that I'm a very risky person, like my risk tolerance is higher than most humans I know. But I'm not reckless. There's a big difference between risky and reckless. And I think when it comes to drugs, a lot of people are reckless. For example, uh, people go out to parties and someone offers them drugs and they take them. Now, again, I'm not judging it. I've done that, uh, but I would never do that now. Because after my own experience uh with I mean,

Speaker 1 everything I've gone through in my life and how much I've studied the brain and neuroscience and psychology, which by the way, we still know so little about how the brain works. That's why it's very frustrating going to see a psychiatrist and getting a you know prescription and being like, okay, well, is this gonna help? How is it gonna work? And they're like, I don't know, you have to try it. So I'm not really gonna go deep into discussing, you know, pharmaceuticals or eastern medicine or western medicine. I I'm just gonna say I have literally tried every kind of therapy approach to depression that exists, other than

Speaker 1 um, what's it called, when they literally like um zap you, like um come on, come on, you know what I'm talking about? Um yeah, they like electrocute your brain. And whoever is listening, if you know what I'm talking about, I know that is not the correct name. But the point is everything else. Uh pharmaceutical drugs, holistic, uh natural drugs, uh, vitamins, um, prayer, meditation, uh, dharma, yoga, exercise, you know, swimming, walking, dancing, music, screaming, crying, uh, therapy, youngin analysis, all different types of therapy. Oh my gosh, yeah, I'm I'm always searching because I had to keep searching, because you know, I think once you get to

Speaker 1 some level in the game, the game changes, really. I do think, I'm not sure we're in a simulation. We very well might be, but whatever this is in this world, I feel like we we have to keep leveling up. And that I think applies to our healing as well. So I say that I'm risky and not reckless because some people might see this and be like, oh my gosh, you know, isn't it really risky to try psychedelics? Sure, it might be, but it's not reckless if you do it in a way that feels responsible, which is what I did. So you never know how anything works

Speaker 1 until you do it. That's just the reality. Um, I took a lot of prescribed medication that affected me horribly, much worse than actually some psychedelics that I've done. Um, and you gotta try things and you gotta, I think, be mindful and careful because you are messing with the chemicals in your body. And when you do that to a brain that is already inflamed, because when you're severely depressed, your brain is inflamed. Uh, you usually your hormones are out of balance in your body, your adrenals are all out of whack, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, neurophrase. Like I always say it neuroephrin. You know what? Don't um judge me

Speaker 1 as a mental wealth advocate because I mispronounce these chemicals wrong. And I'm literally saying that to myself as I'm judging myself for the moment. The point, though, is that I'm gonna keep going because I know a lot and I don't know everything. But what I do know is that here's how I want you to listen today. In addition to how you usually listen, meaning pay attention, don't be distracted. If you get lost, come back, be genuinely curious. And I want you to put on a very specific lens because you're gonna be listening to a story about a psilocybin journey for mental health reasons. So when we

Speaker 1 listen to people talking about mental health issues, I feel like there's still a stigma in our world. Most people, if they, you know, break their leg and share publicly about that, do not feel like, oh, are people gonna judge me? But most people that I know who've had mental health issues, which literally is everybody I've ever met to some degree, but like severe ones, like if they've gone through a very dark period of depression, they're not sharing it as much because it's hard. It's hard because A, it's just hard to go through those moments, and B, we do judge people. We're quick to make assumptions, and

Speaker 1 also we're quick to try to fix them, which is even worse. So I encourage you when you listen today, or I really invite you, put on this lens of like fierce compassion. Listen to my story as if you're listening to the story of someone you really uh care for, like as a human being who's suffered and triumphed. Because here I am, right? I got through every single horrible day of my life, and guess what? So did you. So put on that special mental health lens. And also, I really encourage you to do that moving forward. It's so easy to judge and think we know and actually

Speaker 1 try to jump and fix something. I gotta tell you, most people who are suffering like that, like who are really down, don't want someone to say, no, don't feel bad. Come on, let's cheer you up. Usually the best thing that I think we can do, and I've supported a lot of people now through my work who are in very dark places, is I'll be like, hey, you down there in the dungeon. All right, hey, can I come just hang out with you in the dark for a bit? And let's just talk about how shitty everything is. And then you don't feel so alone because it's normal

Speaker 1 to not feel good in this world. This world is absolutely insane. It is scary and oh my gosh, it's wild and it's hard to be here, and it's incredible, right? And what's gotten me through was there were just some people who showed up who were just willing to sit in that shit with me for a while and then say, all right, we've been here long enough. Let's climb out of the well. And so let's see, I think that's it. So just uh that's the lens, and all right, I'm gonna dive in. So I said that this episode was dedicated to my dad. It got inspired by

Speaker 1 a conversation I had with him earlier tonight. Uh, my dad, who I love so much, I hope he can feel it right now, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I think about five years ago at this point. And it's been a really, it's wow, it's been like a really big, deep journey of, you know, me facing that, him facing that, my mom. I mean, anytime anyone gets any sort of diagnosis or illness, it's it's challenging in different ways. But one of the things that I've been doing is just sharing with him and my mom and just educating myself all the different various tools and modalities for healing

Speaker 1 that I've found because Parkinson's also is a neurological mental issue, most of all, with physical symptoms. But really, it's all about the dopamine in the brain. And if you're familiar with, you know, depression, those chemicals are probably a bit imbalanced. Some part of your brain, I don't know how this works exactly because I'm not a doctor, but you're probably not getting enough of those happy chemicals flowing to you, or the receptors aren't working, right? And that has an impact. Now, I do believe in chemistry and science, and I do believe that depression is more than that. I think that for me, it really felt like I

Speaker 1 needed some de rest. Jim Carrey says that depression is deep rest, deep rest. We need to rest. And if we don't rest, the frickin' universe is gonna force us to rest. Seriously. So sometimes if you're running too hard for too long and you burn out, that's what happens. And so when I started studying all of these different healing modalities, um, I've realized psychedelics have really been talked a lot more about in the last probably like decade, maybe five years, more and more and more. And as part of my mental health journey, I never used psychedelics as a therapy. I'd only ever tried them a few times

Speaker 1 at Burning Man, at, you know, some special occasions, but never as like a I want to get fucked up kind of thing. I gotta say, I'm not a big partier. I never have been. I've never really drank much. I don't drink at all now. I just legitimately do not like it. For me, my body has always responded so poorly to alcohol. And it's funny because I was, you know, there was vodka on my table when I was five years old. And in my household, I could kind of do what I want. I think I never felt the need to like be bad and do the drugs

Speaker 1 or drink because, you know, no one told me I can't. Uh so I've never really drank much. I've never really done drugs. Marijuana has definitely been more of a medicinal um force in my life, which I think it is for a lot of people. But I've always really gone to substances more for not an escape, but for a deepening. You know, like I wanted to have journeys that would allow me to go deeper into myself, my psyche. And for example, ketamine is a drug that my psychiatrist throughout the last couple of years has said is considered right now, if he's right, one of the most powerful

Speaker 1 antidepressants on the planet, like chemically. It works super, super well for depression, right? And there's ketamine therapy that you can do. And I did that as well this year. And honestly, it was very helpful. Now, I've seen people do so much ketamine that they look like they're out in outer space. I do not find that attractive or interesting or something I would ever do. When I did it, I was prescribed it and I did it with my doctor. And then I got a little spray bottle and I would do these sessions. It's like a very, very, very small micro dose, right? So with psychedelics, like a

Speaker 1 lot of people in the Bay Area, oh my gosh, I feel like at some point a few years ago, everybody I knew was micro-dosing mushroom psilocybin or MDMA, um, I mean LSD. People microdose all kinds of drugs and like go to work. So the point is when you take a small dose, it doesn't have that like um hallucinogenic, and like you're not really high effect, but you get some of those benefits, like for mushrooms. I mean, magic mushrooms, but any mushrooms are so powerful. Um, mycelium, oh my gosh, there's a documentary on Netflix that's incredible. I forgot what it's called, but I'll see if I can.

Speaker 1 Link it. Um so powerful, so potent, good for focus and energy and just the brain. You know, lion's mane is, for example, a mushroom. You can get some, you know, tablets of that. So the point is I tried ketamine, but only when my psychiatrist, who was a trained MD and was a guide who did uh psychedelic journeys with patients. Super cool. It was actually, excuse me, it was really cool for me to find practitioners like him because I really valued both perspectives. I wanted to see the, you know, science, and I wanted to really dive into the spirit realm because in my core, I do believe

Speaker 1 I was having an awakening. And I do believe that awakenings, like shamanic awakenings, deepenings when we, you know, die and get reborn, destruction breeds creation, like that is a difficult process. It could definitely feel like you're going crazy having a psychotic episode. So it's super important, I always say, to stop trying to like analyze it in the moment and just be in it, and the only way out is through. And then later, now looking back, I'm like, hmm, what was that? The first episode of this season was called I'm Bipolar, maybe, because I've heard that I am, I've heard that I'm not, am I? Does it

Speaker 1 matter? I think what matters is how I live my life and how healthy I feel and how I'm taking care of myself. If titles and diagnoses matter to you, cool. If they don't, cool. I'm more curious about tools and using tools that really help and then sharing them with other people. So I'd never really been into a lot of drugs, but I thought, okay, last time a few years ago, I was in another dark time and things weren't working. And so I also was thinking, I need some sort of therapist, but talk therapy is not enough. I'd done talk therapy, young in analysis for seven years,

Speaker 1 and it really changed my life, saved me many times. My analyst was incredible. I am sending you a massive love bomb right now, Leela, wherever you are. Um, but at some point it stopped working as well. Like I talked all I could talk. So someone suggested that I reach out or look into somatic therapy. And I actually met someone, shout out to Abby, um, who introduced me to her friend who was a Hakomi practitioner, which was something I'd never heard of before. And this is how this uh journey started and how we get to the full day-long psilocybin psychedelic journey that I had with my therapist.

Speaker 1 First of all, for anyone who's not familiar with Hakomi therapy, it is incredible. Imagine the combination of talk therapy, but also presence, mindfulness work, and touch. So this particular person, as I was speaking, would also have physical touch be part of it. Now, of course, it was always completely safe and respectful. Like he'd say something like, May I put my hand on your shoulder? Yes, may I put my hand on your knee, right? There's different parts of the body that if you get touched, it could be very healing. First of all, all of us need to be touched. Like hugs are probably some of the best

Speaker 1 therapy. And when we're sad and we're suffering, just having physical touch is nice. But getting physical touch from a safe person and for me, especially a man who I knew was not trying to get anything from me, he was just there to help me and love me and heal me. It was just the work with him was amazing. So shout out to Nate. If you ever hear this, I've told you, but you were the perfect therapist for me at that time. And you really helped me. And one of the things that Nate did was he also did journeys with people, so psychedelic guided journeys. And I

Speaker 1 was a little hesitant to do this because I had made a commitment three years before this. So this was like maybe a year and a half ago, so almost five years ago, I had committed that I would never touch any psychedelics ever again. The reason that I decided to make this decision is because I did some. And in the combination of I took some psychedelics at Burning Man, which okay happens. I didn't even take many, honestly. Some people just go out to Burning Man, and that's all they're doing. I go to Burning Man for the art, for the music. And there was a night where I

Speaker 1 stayed up super late. I didn't drink enough water, it was super hot. I had chemicals in my system, and then a few more days of the heat and the dehydration and the sleep. And I really got sick after. Like I went down a bad, dark hole. And there were a lot of factors that was right around when my dad got diagnosed, and there was a lot of life stuff. So I always say it's usually not one thing that sends any of us into a very dark place. But I knew that the me playing with the chemistry of my brain, which I know is sensitive, it did

Speaker 1 not help. So I decided after that, nope, that's it, I'm done. And I didn't touch any of them, like no drugs since then, which was actually uh, I didn't know how that would go because in my community, like no one drinks, it's all more psychedelic kind of party vibes. So I was like, well, am I gonna even be able to hang out with my friends? And honestly, I did. And what was so profound, and get this from a neurological standpoint, once you've had a psychedelic experience, like let's say you've taken um LSD, okay, your brain now has a pathway. Like imagine there's a highway and there's

Speaker 1 all these pathways, neural pathways. There is a neural pathway that now exists of you on that medicine, on that drug. Once it's there, you can get on that highway, on that road without taking the drug. Now, I'm telling you this because it happened to me. Once I had tried, I basically had tried every psychedelic I was willing to try, literally for the sake of a journey. It wasn't like a guided one before, but whenever I did this, we always set intentions. In fact, I kind of brought in the coaching perspective. It was very intentional. It was never like, let's go out and just take a bunch

Speaker 1 of drugs. Again, it's fine if people do that. I never really did that. I wanted a deeper experience. But when I stopped doing any drug and I was around people on them, I could feel what they were feeling. Like I once had a party at my house on my birthday. Most people were on Molly, maybe. They were drinking, like all kinds of things and not like debauchery, just like you know, people having a good time. I was completely sober. I didn't even drink coffee then. Also, sometimes I'm on and off. I smoke. If I'm feeling Italian, I'll have a cigarette or I'll have a joint. I

Speaker 1 wasn't, I had nothing in my system, like at all. And I could feel the that same sort of euphoria that I would feel when I took those drugs because I was around people on them. And I don't know if it's some weird placebo effect without taking any placebo or what. But I really started to realize when you have a neural pathway, you can get back on it even in a different car, maybe without the car. The car in this analogy would, I guess, be the drug. So I want to say that to whoever's listening because that's pretty cool. Like I realized I could feel like I'm

Speaker 1 on ecstasy without taking any. Okay. Which is actually kind of how I feel when I cold plunge every day. Really? Or when I salsa dance with an incredible partner and get lost in the music and I'm sweating and I'm not thinking, and then suddenly I'm like, honestly, I've had more moments of like ecstasy off drugs than on them, which is also pretty rad. And a few years after I made this commitment when I was in therapy with Nate, I thought, you know what?

Speaker 1 It might be time. I want to do a journey, but I want to do it right. I want to make sure it's safe. At that time, I was on one medication. So I thought, okay. Pardon me. Wow, 1217. Here we go. Ginger ale always helps. I was on one medication. Um, and I thought, okay, cool, I'm gonna talk to my psychiatrist, I'm gonna connect him to my therapist. They can talk, and they did. That is what a VIP crew does. If you're working with different practitioners, make sure they know each other, especially if it's related to drugs, mental health stuff, or physical stuff. Hello, yeah, it's

Speaker 1 all the body. Okay. So I thought, you know what? There's some things I really want to process. And I know that psychedelics are an incredible way to process. There's so much research coming out, there's so many studies being done. MAPS is a really cool organization to check out. Just like, yeah, you could read about it all you want at the end of the day. You'll know if you try. And I thought, okay, with a guide, I trust him, I want to do it. So here's what happened. Um, first of all, it was wonderful because I was able to have like a personal experience in my own

Speaker 1 home, where you know, typically when you do a psilocybin journey, which is what I did, um, it's like eight hours. And when you do a journey, it's like a high dose. So you're definitely gonna feel it. Um, I think the dose that I took was like three and a half grams or four, which is a lot. Um, I don't think I'd ever taken that much before, but I also never did it with a trained guide. So I felt safe, but also we kind of titrated in and I had done the the drug before. So because I was familiar, I didn't really have much fear going into

Speaker 1 it, but I did assume that it was gonna be a uh a dark, hard experience. I think that I'd been through so much in the last few years, and I had never in that time taken any medicine like this. And so I thought it was all gonna come and I was gonna face it. I kind of thought what would happen to me was what I heard happen to a lot of people on like ayahuasca journeys, which I've never been called to do. When I actually hear sharing their ayahuasca, when I hear people sharing about their experiences, it often feels to me like what they experienced in

Speaker 1 that day or two or three, I experienced for months at a time in my depression. So there's all kinds of ways to face, you know, the demons and go through the darkness and choose your flavor of hello, darkness, my old friend, you know, and I'm not trying to make fun of it, but uh do what you're called to do. I was called to have this journey. Nate comes over, we set it up, there's like a bit of a intention and a prayer. I take the medicine, and then I start feeling nauseous, just a bit nauseous, which made me very anxious because previously, that year before, I

Speaker 1 was super nauseous for a reason I still don't know. I started waking up and I was so nauseous every day that I got really concerned. I went to the doctor, I ran every test. Tests are normal. Uh that's where I had to just I went to every Western doctor. Um, then I went to a naturopath. Then I just started shifting my diet around. And literally the only thing that helped me with nausea was celery juice and cold plunging. That's where I really discovered getting in cold water. That was the only medicine that made me feel better. That was also a time I dropped like 30 pounds

Speaker 1 because I literally couldn't eat most things. I couldn't drink coffee, which I love. I couldn't have sugar. Like that was a rough time. So, point is also it just went away one day, literally for no reason. So six months of nausea, and then poof, here we go. So when I started to feel nauseous when I took the medicine, I thought, oh my God, am I gonna spend eight hours nauseous? And and and I just kind of started spinning. And he said, I promise this will pass. Just breathe. Just breathe and be here. It will pass.

Speaker 1 And it did.

Speaker 1 I don't know how much time passed between then and this next part, but what I do know is that when you're on substances, like most psychedelics, time is super funny. It's like there's times where you can feel like it's been three minutes and it's been four hours. Or there's times where it's been, you know, the other way around. What did I say? Three minutes, four hours, four hours, three minutes. It can feel funny. Like how much time has passed? So what I remember is we were I was like lying in the bed and he was lying next to me, and we might have been chatting a

Speaker 1 little bit. And he told me it might be good to put an eye mask on, but I didn't want to be in the eye mask. I wanted to see, and I could feel the medicine starting to work, and I really needed to pee. So I like got up and I was a little wobbly, but I went there and he checked in, make sure I was okay. Cool. And so then I pee and I come back to sit on the bed, and I remember just laughing. Like I just started laughing. I don't know why I was laughing, I was just laughing, and so I was laughing and

Speaker 1 laughing and laughing. And anytime I thought I was about to stop laughing, I just kept laughing even more. It was like this wave of laughter that just kept coming and coming and coming, you know, like almost where you can't literally like waves and waves, they just kept coming, which is super fun, by the way. But I think after like 15, 20 minutes, I was finally like, oh my god. And I looked at him and I was like, how long has it been? thinking I must have been, you know, caught in that laughter, um, tide set, wave, set, whatever, for I don't know, 20 minutes. And he

Speaker 1 looks at me and goes, four hours. And I'm like, you're fucking with me, right? I thought he was just messing around. And he's like, No, it's been four hours. Or he might have said three hours. It was literally either three or four hours. The point is, hours had gone by, and he said, I have never seen someone like get lost in a giggle fest like that. And I had this realization right then where I remember I got real close and I looked in his eyes and I was crying, and I could tell he also like we both had tears streaming down our face, and I go,

Speaker 1 Nate, this is all a cosmic joke. And he goes, Yep. And I'm like, why didn't you tell me? And he kind of just very gently goes, It's the kind of thing you gotta just see for yourself.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this journey that I thought would be dark and hard, and I laughed for four hours. I don't know why. I had a lot of things not to laugh about, honestly. But I laughed. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. And I I I don't really remember most of the time because again, time is funny, it's relative, and uh, but it it was really cool. And also there were some moments I also remember where like after I came out of that laughter fit, I we did, we we we had some really deep moments where I did face some darker things and I

Speaker 1 cried. And the thing is, if I've learned anything from all the medicine I've done, and when I say medicine, honestly, I mostly mean the the the hours, days, weeks, and years I've sat with myself thinking, reflecting, feeling, crying, observing, talking through, understanding this being that I am and these experiences that I'm having. Um well, a everything eventually passes. This too shall pass. Gamze Ivor in Hebrew from the Bible. I didn't know that was a Bible saying, This too shall pass. The good stuff passes, so be there, the horrible stuff passes. So remember there or remember that and stay. You know, don't make a permanent decision based

Speaker 1 on a temporary feeling. Getting that reminder saved my life in a moment. And uh, I've become quite okay not being okay. So I knew that if I had a dark journey, I'd be fine. I just didn't want to have one, right? I didn't want to suffer more, but instead of spending hours suffering in the dark, I laughed so hard that I got lost in, I don't know where I was, but it four hours felt like 20 minutes. And I really did, I knew that on some level this was a cosmic joke. And what I mean by that is

Speaker 1 to not take anything too seriously and and And when I say anything, I mean anything. I was somehow able to laugh amidst the person I love most being sick. I was able to laugh even though I myself had spent years in a kind of darkness that had nothing funny about it. I was able to laugh at everything because at the end of the day, we're here for like a, you know, a blip, like just not we're we're barely here in the scheme of the universe and life. And we're we're we come and we live, let's say we live a hundred years, which is like a long

Speaker 1 life, right? That's still it's it comes and goes, it's so fast. And we spend so much time getting caught up in all the drama, all the pain and the suffering, and it is real. So I just want to say I respect your pain and suffering. You know, I honor it, I honor mine. We need to stop having pain Olympics. We need to stop comparing our pain. Everyone is entitled to their pain. But everyone is also entitled to their joy and to their laughter. And if we're able to find a way to laugh and remember that, yeah, whoever the creator here has a kind of a funny,

Speaker 1 fucked up sense of humor because it doesn't seem fair that so many of us have to suffer in so many ways mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, all of it. And yet that moment reminds me that when I get really stressed, like my car wouldn't play my music this morning, which I love music. And I listen, I get in my car, I go on a ride with rat, I put on Spotify, and nothing I did. It wouldn't play it. It was so frustrating. I kept reconnecting, disconnecting, Bluetooth, blah, blah, blah. And I was like sitting there, like, ah, and then I thought, all right, Svety, it's a cosmic

Speaker 1 joke. Chill out, listen to the radio, or don't have some music on, breathe, listen to the birds, you know. That's why I want to share this because uh there are moments every day where we are choosing to freak out at the store clerk or a colleague or your partner or your kid or yourself. And maybe if you remembered that this is just a cosmic joke, it'll create just a little bit of space, right? Doesn't mean that you're not gonna care if your friends are sick and dying, and you're not gonna care if you have some real life shit to deal with. Yes, do care. But for

Speaker 1 me, remembering that it's a cosmic joke just helps me also know that laughter is just as healing as crying or screaming or anything else. So if there's some way to just remember that even when you think you're gonna get lost in the dark, you might just end up laughing your ass off for four hours. I mean, it happened to me. So if it happened to me, it could happen to you. And so that was really cool. So that was my experience with psychedelics as a journey. I would highly recommend having experience, having an experience like this. If you have someone who is a professional, responsible human

Speaker 1 being who does this work, who's done it for a while, who can guarantee a safe experience. Again, that doesn't mean no one can guarantee exactly how you're gonna feel and what's gonna happen, but they can guarantee that they're getting their medicine from a good source, right? Um, that they're gonna hold a safe space for you and a container, very important. So do your research. There's a lot of amazing, amazing, amazing people out there. There's a lot of really cool organizations studying the power of all kinds of medicine. Um I wouldn't take drugs from strangers at a party, but if I met a healer who offered me

Speaker 1 a chance to do a new type of experience uh and other things weren't working, I would probably say yes. In fact, I did say yes. And was it risky? Yeah. Was it reckless? No. Yeah. So maybe that's the takeaway that I'm gonna wrap up the story with one more time. Risky and reckless are not the same thing. And I hope that you get inspired to take a little bit more risk in your life, whether it's in this area or another area. But when you're being risky, don't be reckless. Your life matters. You matter, you are a miracle. Even though it's a cosmic joke, what makes this

Speaker 1 joke epic is you being part of it, right? So take care of yourself, take care of your mind, take care of your heart, your body, your soul, take care of all of you. And you know what's gonna help you take care of yourself and take care of others. Masterful listening. Yep, I'm bringing it back there. So, how was that? What'd you think of my story? Oh, the cosmic joke. Yeah. Have you ever had an experience like that? Hey, reach out, tell me about your healing psychedelic journeys. And you know, I thought, should I talk about this live on a podcast where anyone could hear it? Like

Speaker 1 some people might still be like, oh, that professional, you know, coach is talking about drugs. And it's like, yeah, because these medicines exist to help human beings who are suffering. I have dated a few um Marines who've suffered from severe PTSD. And I can tell you that I watched uh psychedelic therapy help them better than any other therapy that I've seen. And I've also seen drugs destroy people's lives. So I want to say it's not about the drug or the medicine, it's about how you get it, how you use it for what you use it. And everybody's chemistry is different. I am a person who's committed

Speaker 1 to mental wealth, and I will always share honestly my experiences that have helped me heal and feel the most mentally stable I have ever felt, despite the fact that so many things in my life in the past year were so tumultuous that I really feel like if it wasn't for these tools that I've been acquiring, I probably would have fallen into another really dark place. And here I am, not in the dark, not in the bright light. I'm just kind of, you know, pretty rad. Pretty okay is more than okay. When you're okay with not being okay, everything becomes okay. Okay. All right, class is done.

Speaker 1 Here's your homework.

Speaker 1 Go and do a lot of your homework is ask yourself what is something, what is a tool, what is a medicine that I've been wanting to try. And when I say medicine, I mean it could be uh aerobics or dance or music or cold plunging or magic mushrooms or whatever else. Okay. What is a medicine that I've been wanting to try and what's prevented me from trying it? See if you can find it. And then I'd like you to masterfully listen to this moment. So wind up to 52, 59, 53, here we go. But go do it, go do the thing that you've been called to

Speaker 1 do. If there's a part of you that is thinking about something and drawn to something, it's because what you're seeking is seeking you. But just make sure that that part of you that's like, oh, I I want to do this, I've been wanting to do this, is the part that you do want to masterfully listen to, meaning you're not running away, you're running towards. I think that any medicine that brings us closer to ourselves, even if it's our darkness, darkness isn't bad. Darkness is just what's in the shadow. It's shadow work. We don't see what's in the shadow. But you realize the faster you run, the

Speaker 1 greater your shadow. So stop running. Stop running away from the stuff you're called to do too. It's funny, we run away from the good stuff too. If you've been wanting to do something, whether it's eat a food, a new vitamin, whatever, do it. Just check in on why you're trying to do it. And as long as you're not running away, go do it. You got it. Look, the worst thing that's gonna happen is it won't work or you won't like it. That's why I'm saying as you do the thing. If you've always wanted to go and, you know, um do some uh, I've wanted to um

Speaker 1 go do archery, like shoot arrows. If I'm gonna go do that, I'm sure as hell gonna do it safely, right? So when you're being dumb, be smart about it. I don't know. That's not what I was trying to say, but yeah, don't be reckless, but take some risks. Riskiness is fun, recklessness, mmm, come on, guys, we got enough problems. Let's not keep causing more problems for ourselves. You know what I mean? Okay, may you not be the punchline of the cosmic joke. But yeah, be the one laughing at the joke. It's fun to laugh. I wish you so much laughter until we masterfully listen together again.

Speaker 2 Bye bye.