After The Call: Audra Weeks

In this episode, Audra Weeks, Patrick, and Veronica have an open and honest conversation about trauma, healing, and the paths that don’t always get talked about.

They explore alternative forms of therapy, including experiences with psilocybin and ayahuasca, sharing how those forms of therapy have shaped their perspectives and forced them to confront parts of themselves they might have otherwise avoided. Their stories offer a real and grounded look at what healing can look like outside of traditional methods.

At the heart of this episode is a powerful reminder—PTSD is not limited to first responders or the military. Trauma can come from many different life experiences, and every story is valid.

This conversation isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being real, exploring growth, and recognizing that healing can take many different forms.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to After the Call, the podcast dedicated to the stories and struggles behind the batch, the turnout gear, and the uniform. Each week, we'll bring you a powerful conversation with first responders, mental health professionals, and advocates who are breaking the stigma during their journey and offering real solutions. We'll talk about PTSD resilience, family impact, and the resources that can make a difference. Because the job doesn't just leave scars on the body. It affects the mind, the heart, and the people who serve alongside it. And no one should have to carry that burden along. This is after the call, where you'll find strength.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Alright, welcome to another episode of After the Call. I am your host, Patrick. Alongside of me is Veronica. And we are uh we have a special guest, Audra Weeks, today. Um, so I know Audra, um not in the first responder community, but you are passionate about helping people, and you have a very unique story and uh mindset on how to help people. So we'll kind of dive in that a little bit. Talk about some things that might not be on everybody's um table in regards to what's cool, what's not. But that's the thing, is like how how are we going to heal in other ways, right? So if you want to give just a little background on kind of your story, maybe uh see what happened and go from there.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

All right. Um first of all, super grateful to be here.

SPEAKER_07 1:41

No being comfortable here, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Um grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. Um so a little bit about my background is I experienced a lot of trauma throughout my life, and um the way I dealt with it was how my family taught me to deal with it, is we just sweep it all under the rug. And I after I went through my divorce, I was rediscovering myself and stepping into things that um interested me. And it one was energy healing, and I went through different courses and became a Reiki master practitioner and learned a few different other frequencies, and and then from there I went to to school to become a clinical hypnotherapist. And in that, I really learned a lot about how the brain works and was able to see how my life was literally following a repeating pattern. And I realized, you know, when you sweep those things so far under the rug, it doesn't occur to you that you never dealt with them, but yet they are like a puppet master pulling the strings in your life. And um, so I'm like, you know, I really think that I should go to therapy and try to unpack some of this stuff. Because I genuinely thought that I had dealt with these things, and um I didn't want to keep living my life the way I was living it. I didn't want those patterns to keep repeating because it was it was miserable. Um, and so I went to cognitive therapy and it was really intense. I did this 12-week intensive program, lots of homework. I really dug deep and I really learned a lot about myself in that. And I uncovered a lot of beliefs that I had held, um, unpacked a lot of trauma. And and in that, like I was sharing a lot on social media my journey, and people are like, oh, you should write a book, and I'm like, never gonna happen. You know, never gonna happen. Well, when I got to the end of that um 12 weeks, I'm like, I I told my therapist, I'm like, I think I'm gonna write the book. You know, because there's so many people that feel so alone in what they're going through. And even though all of our experiences are so unique to us, they're also not that unique. You know what I mean? Like we experience it in our own unique way, but trauma is trauma, and people are out there suffering and they don't realize because a lot of people don't talk about it, you know. It I really think it's being talked about more and more now, for sure. Like it's not, there's not a stigma so much around talking about what we're going through. Right. And um, I'm like, I think I'm gonna write the book. I think people need to know, you know, that they're not alone and um going through cognitive therapy, what I learned, and um like literally how those traumas created these beliefs within myself. And a lot of them were mistaken because as a child, which is where most of our trauma comes from, if you follow it all the way down, it's going to lead you back to your childhood and how you process things. That's where you start learning how to process. So everything that comes after that is being processed as that child, that wounded child. And um, I just kind of got lost there for a minute.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Were you were you being told um to just suck it up? Like growing up, your trauma?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

No, I never got told that. It was more of just silence. Like we do not talk about it.

SPEAKER_07 6:00

We don't yeah, it's like uh it's avoidance, I guess. Totally. Because you said earlier when you started how um you know, sweeping it under the rug or thinking that you had processed and dealt with it, but I think that's the misconception. We think if we put it away, that's dealing with it. And it it's it's obviously now we are all more aware and we know that's not what happens. We put it away and it still goes somewhere. We just and we're it's not dealt with, but it's not forefront. So for a lot of people, they think putting it away means dealing with it.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah, and if it's not like affecting their in a big way where it's obvious that it's affecting their life, they don't think it's affecting their life. But really, that puppet master is pulling the strings. Yep. For sure. Um, so I'll give you an example of like the silence. Um so when I was nine, when I was eight, I had a brother that got into a critical motorcycle accident. And um a year later he ended up taking his life. And in that, um, because that experience was so painful for my mom, we didn't talk about it in the house. So, like there was nobody, you know, like, how do you feel about this? You know, um to show sadness around it was hard for my mom. Like it was a constant, like if I cried about it, it was reminding my mom that her son was gone. And so I learned as a child we don't show emotions that are going to make other people feel uncomfortable. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

So um that's hard, like not being able to process something when it happens.

SPEAKER_07 7:53

Was it different for you? What growing up like that? Something with your own family.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

I wouldn't say it was different, it was just there were so many different things that were happening that it's like I didn't know what to process. Right? I mean my mom was like for a lack of better terms, banging a bunch of dudes. So I'd have like guys coming in and out of the house, and I'm like, I don't know who the fuck this guy is, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's like, how do you process something like that?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Well, and if that's all you know, if that's the life you're living, that's all you know.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

And so you don't know that there's something different. Different. And that, you know, something missing, if you will, because that's the life you're you're living, that's what you're experiencing. And so it doesn't occur to you that there's something else. Sometimes we'll have an aha moment, especially as we grow older and we get a little bit more wisdom or experience under our belt, we'll have the aha moment. Like this can be different. But as a child, that's not there. You know, that cognitive ability is not there yet.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Because the the the point I was trying to initially make was like your silence is the same thing that first responders have to deal with as well, right? You go with you go through a call and you're not gonna talk about it afterwards. You you may joke about it for a minute just because that's your your way to dealing dealing with that emotional regulation at first, but like the next day you're not gonna come in and be like, oh shit, that was crazy. Let's talk about this. Like you just leave it alone.

SPEAKER_07 9:36

Um, though, you've already you put that away when you were done with that call, right? And you've already and you've had to go to multiple other things and then go home. So there's all these other layers that you've already packed on top of it. You're not gonna pull it out the next day and talk.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, and our body truly does keep the score. So when you're layering and layering and layering, like you think it's out of your mind because you're you're into the next moment of your life, your body's still there. Yep. It's keeping the score.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

You need to read that book.

SPEAKER_07 10:11

I I have. I read it years ago.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

No, read it again. That's why your knees juggle.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

I'm certain. I actually haven't read that book, but I've done enough. Yeah, but I've done enough of my own work with myself and witnessed others so many times that it's very clear that the body does keep the score.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

100%.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

All right, I shoplifted your story. Go ahead. So you were talking about you wrote the book to talk about your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, and so when I wrote when I wrote that book, um I I had a a gentleman, a retired veteran, read it, and so there's a chapter in there, it's called PTSD, and I was really like talking about how um so I I experienced um I I guess I would call it an attempted homicide. I'm trying to use the word uh the v leave the V-word out because I don't want to.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

No, I mean, but you can say how it is. I mean Were you a victim at the time of that moment? Yes. But you're not being a victim. You you were in that role at that time. I was.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

So it's okay to say that. Okay. So I was a a victim of an attempted homicide. And um my uncle had come into my aunt's house in the middle of the night, and I was the very I was the only one downstairs, so he started with me first, and he tried to beat me to death in my sleep, and when his club shattered, he tried to strangle me. And so I really in my book I I really unpack a lot of different big experiences that I've had in my life and like the beliefs that I took from them, what I learned about myself in cognitive therapy. And um, I wrote a chapter on PTSD and talked about how um these different events affected me, um, and specifically that one as far as PTSD. And he he's like, I didn't realize that PTSD is the same. Like as a veteran, right? It he said when you were describing how your PTSD was affecting you, it is the same as how my PTSD affects me. And so, you know, I think I think there's maybe not a lot of awareness that PTSD PTSD is PTSD or PTS, if you will. Um so yeah, um where was I going with this, Patrick?

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Did you want did you want to talk like what you were feeling before that? How you how the comparison was around what PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

How was I feeling in what way?

SPEAKER_03 13:05

So the veteran obviously read read your book, talked about that chapter, and compare the two. So are you able to explain what you were feeling at that time? So people that might be watching this say, hey, her her injury is different than mine, but then if you explain it, maybe they're feeling the same thing. Okay. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah. Um, so my symptoms. Um, so for years I would experience anytime my sleeping situation changed, like um my kids weren't there, or my kids were there, or somebody else was in the house, anytime, or if I was sleeping somewhere else, anytime my sleeping situation changed, I would have to go through scenario after scenario after scenario on how I was going to protect myself and protect my children or whoever else, you know, was in the house if someone came in. If they came in through this door, if they came in through this door, if they came in through the window, I mean every single night. Um also like loud noises, like if you hear like a certain tone, it would literally send a heat or a f uh a wave of energy from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, and I felt paralyzed as this energy was moving through me, and it was just over a sound. Um whenever my kids, when they were little, when they would come in to wake me up like if they were sick or had a bad dream, they had to stand at the door and say, Mom, mom, they couldn't come and touch me because it would like I would come out of my body and really freak out. Um yeah, it was stuff like that, and it lasted for years. And I actually in that time in my life, I actually um got addicted to crystal meth. Yeah. Um and you know, no person addicted to drugs is like, hey, you know what? I think it would be fun to be an addict. There's reasons that push them towards that. And one of my major reasons at that time was that I was I was scared to death to fall asleep. I was scared to death to fall asleep. And um Yeah, so those are some of the PTSD symptoms. Do can you relate?

SPEAKER_03 15:46

I can. And I mean it's it's weird that you put it in those terms, uh, the addict part of it, because I mean how many, how many and I mean this not towards you, um, but how many junkies do we come across on the street who are literally trying to escape whatever trauma they're dealing with? Yeah. And it's like we don't necessarily look at what the trauma is. We're like, oh, you're you fucking have meth or whatever, so you know you're busted, but it's just you do not yeah, you don't realize like the underlying um baggage that's there with it, right? So yeah, that's why I mean I know several people that turn to alcohol and all these other things, and they just can't get rid of that addiction due to the fact that they are escaping whatever is sitting in their head.

unknown 16:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, and the unfortunate thing is is that there is no escape from it. Yeah, the addiction is just it's just a numbing. It is and and sometimes it's not even that. Like still you can't you're you're into this addiction now and you still have this thing that you can't escape from. You know. Yeah. So I think going through that now, like it has given me so much more compassion um for people that have addiction in any in any way, shape, or form. It gives me more compassion because I know that there is a big reason why. Because nobody, nobody says, yeah, that that's gonna be fun. Let's do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Everybody's got some kind of story of like, oh, you know, I got in a car accident and I got prescribed these pills and these pills turned to this and this turn to that. So yeah. Yeah, it's never just like fuck it, let's do this today.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

Right. This sounds like a great idea today. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Right. Yeah. Um, so in so in that, um writing the book was super healing for me. And my hope is that other people who read it can see themselves because we're all mirrors to each other. You know, we all have something to offer one another, and sometimes it's showing us things we don't quite like about ourselves, and sometimes it's showing us amazing things about ourselves. Um, so in that I was really hoping to it reach people and let them know that they're not alone and that they can overcome this, and um it it was truly a labor of love because it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

What's the name of your book?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Moving Mountains, a hero's journey.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Okay. You can get it on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yep. On Amazon. All right. Yeah. And so from there, shortly after I published my book, literally within months, I I was on this podcast and and they're kind of like psychonaut guys, and we were talking about the my book and hypnotherapy, and um they started talking about some psychedelics, and I was like, Yeah, I really, I really want to experience 5MEO DMT. And um they're like, you you don't find, you don't find the toad, the toad finds you. And it's true, you know, because you kind of put your ear to the wall, and but when you're when you're truly ready, it comes into your life, and um it came into my life, and and I went into it, I went into psychedelics as kind of more a self-exploration. I didn't really look at it as part of my healing because I just went through cognitive therapy and did all this healing, and I truly did do a lot of healing. Uh found out a lot about myself, lots of awareness, unpacked a lot of mistaken beliefs. I mean, it was super powerful. But little did I know, stepping into the psychedelic scene, that it was going to be a whole nother aspect of my healing journey. And what I realized doing these different plant and earth-based medicines is that so for me personally, the the trauma happened and it was like an explosion happened in my body. And so you see this boom, and then this echo echoes out from that explosion. And the cognitive therapy was able to reach a small part of that echo that went out, but the psychedelics reached way out into those echoes. Um, and I did it's been such a deeper level of healing.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Well, and I and I would say because your cognitive brain still won't fully allow you to open up during talk therapy. You know, like you're gonna you're gonna have some good conversations, but are you going to allow you to go to the deepest part of that conversation? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_07 21:07

So are you saying that we even maybe on a subconscious level know like that there are doors to keep closed still?

SPEAKER_03 21:14

We we're able to like stop you're still protecting yourself at some some level, whether you're doing it consciously or subconsciously. Adding plant-based medicine, um doing different types of ketamine therapy or whatever, that wall comes down whether you want it to or not. It sure does. And that and I think that goes to to your point of like you hit that that point and then the medicine opened it up even more.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah. Yeah. I always uh I use the word picture I use is like if you were to think of like a satellite and you see the going from the satellite like it's pr projecting its information. That is to me like what trauma is. You know, like it's isolated right here, like boom, and then that projection goes out. And the psychedelics have really helped me reach those outer, those outer waves.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Do you want to talk about your first journey? Um do you remember it?

SPEAKER_01 22:29

So I actually my my journey started with um Bufo, which is 5 Me O DMT, and I started microdosing. Um I I did microdosing doses, let's say that.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Um and so for you, she like did the Lamborghini of psychedelics versus like the Pinto ML.

SPEAKER_07 22:58

I was going when she was definitely going to ask for uh an English version of all of this.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

She went top, yeah, top tier.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

But they were low doses, so and they were it was still super powerful, but I believe that there is an approach that you can work with five Meod that is a lot more gentle than than you know some people choose to work with it, which is can be a little bit jarring. I choose a different path. Um I would say that the start of my experience, there was still a lot of resistance with me. I had a lot of fear, I had a hard time um relinquishing control. Um, because that's how I learned how to survive. If I can control everything, then I'm safe. Right. You know, and so with the psychedelics, you don't have any control in that space. And um, it feels really scary sometimes to let that control go. But as soon as you surrender, man, that's when that that's when the healing happens.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

That's huge that you say that because that's our community is that first responder community is we have to be in control of everything. That's how that's how we survive, that's how we keep people safe. Um if we've lost control, like things are definitely going bad. Right. You know, yeah, it's going sideways. So imagine that being internally now, you know. You're you're you know, stonefaced on the outside, keeping it cool, you're going to these calls, but you are literally losing everything, all your control on the inside, and you're trying to function. Like that's I would say a lot of first responders.

SPEAKER_07 24:42

I was just gonna say that too.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

So not only are you dealing with your own problems, now I gotta deal with Audra's problems because Audra's having a bad day today. And I wouldn't have contact with Audra unless you were at having a bad day, right? There's no reason for me to contact you. So now I gotta figure out what Audra needs, still keeping myself from losing my shit internally.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Sounds like a a whole lot of pressure.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Yeah. It is, it is, it is a lot of pressure, and that's the thing is people don't realize we're humans.

SPEAKER_06 25:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

You know, you you go to this profession because you want to obviously s help people. 99.99% of all first responders are there to help people. Best intentions, you know, there's nothing I would say nefarious that they're trying to do in regards to being in that profession, right? But of course, everything that you see on social media now is always going to be the bad stuff, not the good stuff. Um, but their whole purpose is to help save and improve people's lives. But at the same time, they're taking the toll for having to see everything and everywhere and doing all the bad stuff or having to deal with all the bad stuff that society doesn't want to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

I can't, I can't even imagine um witnessing everything that first responders have to witness. I I honestly, I mean, I've been through a lot in my life, but that I can't imagine how hard that was.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

It's not a tit for tat, though. I mean you've you've experienced things that I would never experience either.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

No, but I just mean like on a day-to-day basis, like I don't I don't really know how to say what I how I'm feeling about it, but you're subjected to it day in and day out. You know? And I just I can't I can't imagine that.

SPEAKER_07 26:48

Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it before. Some of the stats are that um most people will experience three to five traumatic events in their lifetime while our first responders will see, you know, anywhere upwards of 800 or more in their career.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

I don't think I think that there's um there's a lack of awareness too out there that people think that um unless you experienced it yourself. Right, it doesn't affect you. And and that is so not the truth. Totally. So not the truth. I mean, just witnessing is trauma. I mean when you go to therapy and you dig deep, you know, they'll ask you those questions. Did you witness a trauma? Because that's a big deal. You know, and to see that day in and day out.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Yeah. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_07 27:45

Even sometimes I think uh when we show up after the fact, right? The trauma is sometimes the the family members dealing with them and their trauma, having to hear, hear them go through it, um, not really be able to do anything for them because we're there to deal with you know whatever whatever happened and but we have to we become that person to them. They want answers, they want a shoulder, they want all these things, and we have to be able to pretend they're not, I don't know, somehow put that human feeling away that they're experiencing so that we can just carry on and do the job we have to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Yeah. Multiple hats, right? So we show up at your house, which hat am I gonna put on when I walk in that door? Is it is it a Kevlar helmet because we're going to battle, or is it because I have to put on the social worker hat or the um the daddy, you know, dad hat, mom hat, you know, whatever, like all these different hats that you have to wear when you show up, because fuck nothing really seems, you know, at face value when you walk in that door. Right. So yeah. But I I mean going through what you went through, that's harder than anything I've ever done. Just so you're aware. Waking up and feeling and seeing all that is nothing I've ever experienced. And for you to have to live that for years is pretty intense.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

It was pretty intense.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

I mean, I I shouldn't have to tell you that, but yeah. No, it was pretty intense. You're the one that was there.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

So now with you doing the microdosing with FiveMeo, when did you start actually opening up to it?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

I actually moved, so then I I still kept with the microdosing, um, but I was having a hard time relinquishing control. And that particular medicine requires it. Like so I I so then I I moved into um psilocybin. And um that those experiences were always amazing. Um learned a lot about myself, and sometimes, you know, like the journeys aren't always easy. In fact, they're really not ever easy. It's like you have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you know, and make it to the other side, but it's so worth it because it's the liberation that it I feel emotional just even talking about it because I can't believe how much more liberated I feel in my life. I I felt liberated after I came out of cognitive therapy, but this type of liberation is it's like there's stages of liberation. You'd think liberation is liberation, but it's not really.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Well, I don't think there's an end to your healing journey, you know? No.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I I think that's part of the human experience.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

Right, but I that's the problem, is I I come across a lot of uh first responders and veterans and stuff like they're like, oh yeah, you know, I saw a counselor, I'm good. And then all of a sudden they're still having issues. I'm like, thought you were good, dude. Like, no, there's more, there's more to it. You gotta do maintenance, there's there's other things that you can do to really dive deep into what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Well, I d I think that when people go through therapy, they are good for a moment. But what happens is is is so your brain forms a baseline program inside of it, and it's running this baseline constantly. And when you when you go through therapy and you start having these awarenesses about yourself and you start realizing mistaken beliefs that you have and start unpacking things, you're starting to um see different ways and how you've been stuck in this baseline program. And um so you do have some movement there, but then ultimately you kind of revert back to that baseline program. Like enough neuropathways haven't be been created and they're not strong enough to maintain that you a lot of people end up going back to that baseline. So with the psychedelics, um, it really opens up your brain. This is how I like to describe it. So when you're a child, you you're creative and every day's a new day, and it's like an adventure, and you know, you're you don't feel restricted in any way. You you might in some ways, but all in all, like you're you're in life to have some fun, you know. It's about joy and friendships and connections and what's the next thing we want to do, and um artistic, you know, like all these parts of your brain are communicating with each other. And as you grow up, these programs start setting in, like the beliefs of your parents, the beliefs of your your peers, and it starts forming into this narrow, narrow pathway. You experience trauma, um, and your body learns and your brain learns ways on how to cope with feelings that you don't know how to process or hold or express. And so then you get it gets narrower and narrow, and pretty soon you're just on this narrow path. Well, the psychedelics open up that brain again, and it's like that child, you know, like these diff the different parts of the brain are communicating with itself again, and all these new neural pathways are being created. And um, because what happens when you're in the psychedelic is it completely bypasses that baseline program. You you are completely taken out of that and taken to all these other spaces within yourself, within your brain. And if you do the integration work after, that's where you're supporting these new thoughts, these new neuropathways.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

It works. It does, it really does. Just saying. It really does.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

No, I I will say the the first time that you I guess step into that journey, um, it is funky. And I won't I I don't I don't like using the word scary. Um because it is different. I I'd rather use the word different than scary, because yeah, you're gonna face things that you may not be ready for or walk through the valley like you were talking about, but it's like you're not gonna die. But did you die? Yeah. I mean that's the thing, is like, yeah, it's all there, but it's all things you've already seen. So it's just facing it again.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

That yeah, that and it's you know, parts of ourselves the shadows that we carry, it's all part of ourself. All parts of ourselves that have been neglected, um, on you know, things that we felt were unworthy of love about. Um it's all us. These shadows are not outside of us. It's all stuff that we've created within ourselves. And to face those shadows can feel really scary. You know, and it and it can be really scary. But ultimately, if you just walk through it, you find out that those shadows is this inner your own inner child, and somehow it became a monster, you know, within yourself. And really it's just a scared little kid that didn't know how to process something and is feeling hurt or and it's all you. All of it's you. So it's all facing yourself. You're not having to face anything scary outside of yourself, it's all within you. Yeah. You know, and it it can feel scary, but be and I think some of that fear comes from anytime you're gonna step into an unknown, even something exciting, right? You know, there's there's potentially gonna be some fear there because you can't, you don't know, you can't predict this, you don't have control, you know. So I think that's where some of that comes from for sure. Stepping into that unknown. But man, is all the good stuff there.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Yeah, it's your it's your ego that's keeping you back.

SPEAKER_07 37:08

Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people also don't want to they've put those things away, right, for a reason. I think a lot of people are sometimes scared of having to face those things again. They're not, they don't I think that's what you know, they don't want to know what that monster looks like.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

Yeah, well, just because we have that box of stuff, right? And we we use that analogy a lot. Like we keep stuff and stuff in a box and put it in the corner or whatever, but it's not like everything in that box you're gonna face. That's what's cool about doing a lot of these assisted journeys, whether it's through a prescription or whatever, is that your brain is able to dump stuff that it just didn't need, and then the stuff that you do need to face, it's gonna present to you because your brain's gonna tell you exactly what it needs to do. Whether or not you're gonna do the thing with it, that's that's your call. But it's like, I mean, Mark Mark had that really good analogy. You have this library, you step into your journey, these books that you don't need are just gonna fall out, right? And it's gonna create space. Um and what you do to fill that space back is the integration that you were talking about, right? Doing that positive work, um, changing mindsets, dealing with certain things or whatever to put good books back into the shelf. But you don't have to read every book that you pulled off the shelf. You know, your brain's just gonna get rid of it.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

It's really amazing. Like when you go on a journey, it it really feels like so much is being sorted out, and a lot of it you have no idea what it is. But it's it's things are sorting itself out within you. Um, and sometimes, you know, it's not like you have to. I don't know that I have ever gone into an experience, I can't remember a time where I've actually had to face a trauma, if you will. It was more about recognizing mistaken beliefs and patterns that that were created because of that trauma. You know, sometimes the way we think or where, you know, we are stuck in a belief of some sort that is really holding us back. Um I mean, it's gonna be different for everyone. It's gonna show up exactly how that person needs it to show up. Um, but for me personally, like I haven't like I never revisited a specific trauma where I had to relive it. You know, that's that's cognitive therapy. That's talk therapy.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

It's your EMDR and brain spanning all the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, is you're you're having to talk through it and and like relive it.

SPEAKER_07 40:06

And and and I think I think that's where it's different though, for for people who have never done it and don't know anything about it, is we think talk therapy, EMDR, we still have some control over how much we're gonna say, what we're you know, how far we're gonna go with that. And I think the fear with doing any of the psychedelics and things is we don't we're not gonna have that control. We won't be able to stop what might come up or what might happen versus if we're going and just having a counselor we talk to, like we can control how much how vulnerable we become in those situations.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

And that's that's that point I was trying to make. So for you, just use yourself as an example. I won't give specifics or whatever, but you were with your counselor um talking about a certain thing doing EMDR. There was still part of you that you were in control of where you're like, I'm not gonna push it to this limit because I don't want to, right? So you may have not gotten that full relief of what you could have the the potential you could have had just because you were still controlling the outcome of what happened. And that's that's a lot of us, right? Medicine takes it all away. Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

And that's what feels scary to people is is they lose that control.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Yeah, I would I was scared way more of the talk therapy than any of this other stuff.

SPEAKER_07 41:31

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Which is it's weird because you would think, oh well, you know, what could pop up, but it's like doesn't matter. I I don't have that that wall that I would normally have to prevent me from feeling something. Where talk therapy, I would always be very conscious of that. Well, I could add a brick here and there, right? Or I could take it away if I wanted to, but I was still in control.

SPEAKER_07 41:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

Where you're not.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

I think one of the the liberating things too in those the medicine experiences is that it actually it sounds scary for that wall to come down. It's like you when you think, oh, the wall's gonna come down, and that feels you can feel that in your body already. I mean, if you say, Oh, the wall's gonna come down, you feel fear, right? When you when it's actually happening, it's like a sigh of relief. A sigh of relief happens, like I can finally feel this, I can finally let this go. I can, you know, and and there's it's like you realize there's nothing you can there's nothing you can do about it. You there's nothing you can do about that wall coming down. It's gonna it's gonna come down and to just feel that relief, you know, like let it show up however it's gonna show up, ugly crying or sh your body shaking, releasing that traumatic energy that it's been holding inside of it. It you can't control it, and honestly, it feels good to not be in control of it and to just let it happen. You know, there's it's like a a sigh of relief. Thank God, you know?

SPEAKER_03 43:23

Yeah, it's different.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Yeah. Yeah. But I I would say what you know, like I've I've sat with ayahuasca several times and and psilocybin a lot, um, and a lot of 5MEO DMT. Um and they're all so very different, and they all bring such a very different experience. And um I actually feel like now when I am choosing to sit with a medicine, it does feel like more self. Exploration to me because I feel like I've released and let go of so much. Am I healed fully? No. You know, like I still stuff will still show up in my journeys that are showing me like you might, you know, a little work needs to be done here, you need to love yourself a bit more here, um a little discipline here. But I I feel like it's a lot more about s self-exploration for me now. Which is really fun. Like it is, it doesn't always have to be hard.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

With how far you've progressed in your journey, like you know where you started from to where you are now. How much does your your specific incident affect you now versus how it did back then? Like loud noises, sleep pattern changes.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Um the sleep, I'm not affected by it at all anymore. Um and that that stopped actually a long time ago. Like that faded off the table. Um the loud noises, I will say that there still is. Sometimes I'll hear like something fall to the floor and I will feel that rush come through my body. And I don't know what is coming, you know, I don't know if it was the sound of the the um weapon he was using hitting my head like it was a certain sound, and whenever my my subconscious mind hears that noise, it it's like a flash. I don't know what that is. So but that that does still happen. Um but like I don't have nightmares about it. It I don't have any intrusive thoughts around it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Um there was something else that came to my mind that there was a the reason I was asking that is because you you painted a very clear picture of your incident, right? And how you felt and what it was doing to you. There's a lot of people that feel those same type of symptoms, and I wanted you to be able to to show that there is relief with that. Um it takes some time or whatever, but you don't have to live that in that world. You know, and a lot of people just accept it. And you don't have to. You really don't.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

No, you don't. There's that's another reason why I I wrote the book too, is to show that um and why I also am an advocate for the plant medicines is because i i you can heal. You can heal. Maybe not to perfection, but human is never gonna be perfect. That's part of being human.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

So do you have questions about it? I know you do, you gotta ask questions.

SPEAKER_07 47:00

Well, no, I feel like, you know, we've talked to a few people and a lot of my questions um I think have been answered. Um I think from I always try to put myself in perspective for someone who's never done any kind of therapies, whether it be talk or to me I feel like they see this as like you start at talk and this is like such a higher level of therapy, of of treatment, right? And um and it's hard enough to get people to just start any help, much less to convince them, I think, to that this is the answer, right? Where I and I but I think from what I've been hearing is that the sooner we get to this level, the faster or the better we will feel versus doing just talk therapy for years at a time or something.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

I I would agree with that. I mean I would definitely I think talk therapy is is needed at the beginning stage because you need to be able to address certain topics, right? You need to be okay with talking about that stuff. Um but I will tell you the plant-based therapy will way surpass years of talk therapy.

SPEAKER_07 48:19

It's a fast track. Yeah, and that's and that's what I've heard from people from people who uh do this professionally, you know, help other guide others through this professionally, but also from those who have have experienced it themselves. That that's that's been the most positive thing, I think, that I've heard is that it's just it just speeds up your recovery. Very much so.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

It's been used for hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of years for different um cultures, different uh groups, different countries, different I mean, you name it. Like plant medicine has been used to like we've talked about the off-gassing from a warrior to a civilian, right? Indigenous people have used plant-based medicine as part of that journey to change from one to another. Why? Because it works. There's a reason for it.

SPEAKER_07 49:22

So what do you think the the stigma, why do you think there's so much stigma behind it?

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Of plant-based medicine? Yes, by of going there. One of our profession, right? We're we're in a profession where drugs are bad. But this is not a drug, right? I'm not I'm not classifying this as weed or I mean, I'm not a fan of weed, but meth, uh, heroin, pills, stuff like that, right? This is this is a different um ingredient altogether, right? But we're in a profession where anything that alters the state of mind is is bad. So how do we how do we change that mindset, right? There's tons of research going on. I mean, there's several states within the United States right now that are using psilocybin-based therapy as a mode of therapy for veterans and first responders. And we're currently doing those same trials here.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

I mean, and there's huge stuff going on with eyeball gain, too. Yeah. Huge stuff going on with eyeball gain.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Did you watch that movie? Waves of War?

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Have you watched it?

SPEAKER_03 50:38

Watch Netflix. Watch it. Waves of War.

SPEAKER_07 50:41

I gotta I gotta put a note because I'll forget that again.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

So yeah, so it's it's Tier 1 operators, um, Marcus Capone, DJ Shipley, and a couple other guys who go down to Tijuana to do a retreat um with IB gain assisted therapy.

unknown 50:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

They go down there, they do the IBGain, 14 hours of vomiting and throwing up and all this other stuff, and then it's followed by the five MEO DMT.

SPEAKER_07 51:09

Okay, that does not sound like fun at all. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 51:11

But you're not your body's purging.

SPEAKER_07 51:15

It can really not be fun. But you know what, I'll tell you it's worth it. And I would say, so when I first went through um my injury, I think I did um talk therapy for gosh, I started in 2015, end of 2015, and workers comp, and uh we all agreed that it was probably March of 2018. But up to that point, I was going at least twice a week, maybe down to once a week, forever. It felt like forever, right? I was just always in in the office, and we were always just going through the same things and whatever. So, I mean, I guess on one hand, sitting for three years doing that versus a 15-hour purge might not be the worst situation. Let me put this in cop terms.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Would you rather be sprayed by OC or tased?

SPEAKER_07 52:06

Tased. Why? Because it's over in how long? Like five seconds. Right? Probably.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

Yeah. That was a good analogy.

SPEAKER_03 52:17

I mean, that's the thing, is right, you you're gonna sit there for 45 minutes, you know, with the burning, the snot, and all this other stuff, right?

SPEAKER_07 52:22

And you're talking about you're gonna blink five hours later, it's gonna go and take a shower and go like fuck.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

But no, five seconds of the ride, you're done, right? And then you're back in the game. But I'm not saying it's fun during that five seconds. Right, no. But you feel like you can function again.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Yeah, oh yeah. As soon as it's done, you're done. I actually stayed with my my therapist for I think I was with her for three years, and she actually helped me a lot with integration. She didn't know anything about psychedelics, like I was bringing a whole new world to her. Like she said, when I said I, you know, it's I feel like I'm complete here. She's like, she told me that I had taught her so much, you know, like I took her on a journey through my own journey. Um, and I mean, I thought the talk therapy was still really good for me for integration purposes, able to talk through my experience and like more information would come up and and maybe another perspective of how to interpret the experience itself. Because some of the some of the experiences, especially like with psilocybin, the way the information shows up is it can be weird. You're like, what does this mean? You know, and then usually uh at the end of the experience, it kind of all wraps up and it's like, oh my gosh, like the the profoundness of of what you've received and what you've let go of really takes hold.

SPEAKER_07 54:01

And I what I think I'm hearing also is that um this stuff comes up like on its own versus in talk therapy. I feel like sometimes she's she's like asking, she's trying to pull something from me and I'm just like answering the question or partially, depending on how I'm feeling that day. I'm giving her half answers, no answers, some answers, whatever. Um, but it's not, it's not a voluntary, I'm not there just purging everything. She's she's they're walking you through it or talk trying to get something from elicit something from you versus it just being a very, it's it's going to happen on some.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

Mm-hmm. Well, you're and you're also dealing with life because you may have an agenda to go into talk therapy, right? You have you have your critical incident. Well, that's your main focus, but let's say the day before something happened. Well, now the thing that happened day before is now your priority. So your critical incident is now being put on the back burner.

SPEAKER_07 55:06

Right, because you're talking about what you're talking about, what's on the forefront. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Right. So now it's it's constantly being pushed farther away from what you're trying to deal with versus just dealing it with it at once.

unknown 55:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_07 55:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

But I don't know. You you've also helped me with my journey. Yes, I want to talk about it. You want to talk about it?

SPEAKER_07 55:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

So I got in contact with you, and I I can't remember who who actually connected us, but whoever did I actually think that I reached out to me, I think.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yes, because I was. Veronica, good job. Thanks. I was um on the board of another nonprofit organization and seeing how we could collaborate and work together. Um, because it was for this other organization was looking to help veterans and first responders.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

Yeah. So we got in contact with with each other, we started talking. Um I told you a little bit about my story, um, and then I had tons of questions, right? Because my biggest thing was I was like Ivy Gain. I want to do Ivy gain, because I heard that's that's the top-notch thing to do. Um but I wasn't I I don't even know if I'd want to do it now. I don't I don't know. Um so we talked a lot a lot about it, and and you answered the specific questions that I had specifically about 5-Inio. Because even though it's a psychedelic, right, each form of psychedelic does a different thing for you. Totally different. Where like mushrooms or psilocybin, you're going to feel and see and smell and taste and all these different things where like 5MEO, like once you do it, you're just like, Alright, I'm waiting, and then shit happens, right? You start getting answers versus um colors and all these other different things. Like, I I don't know how to explain that portion of it, but it's it's totally different.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

It's like your body is completely sharing its wisdom with you.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

I would say it's like your spirit. All of it. Yeah. It's it's fucking crazy. So uh we went to an undisclosed location, we'll say, and um you did a very good job of one getting me prepared for the day, because there was a diet that I had to do a couple days before, because there's certain things you don't want to do to interact with the medicine. Okay. Um and it could be diet, it could be caffeine, sleep, all these different things. Um, and then I cannot remember the first thing that you did to me. The um the hope? Hope that shit was wild. So best thing I could say is um it's a very ancient technique where a dust is blown into your to your nostrils, you don't swallow it, you just kind of hold it there, it burns. Um, and then maybe you can explain exactly what it's doing to me, because it relaxed me a lot, but it was uncomfortable at first.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Um so hope is is actually legal. Um it is a shamanic snuff, and it's made from it's uh tobacco based, and it's made from different um tree barks and shrubs and um herbs, and it's made in different countries. And the reason why you felt so calm and grounded, in my opinion, is because it's all like plants and they're earth-rooted, um, that is what it brings forward is this rooting within yourself, this grounding within yourself. Um, I like to serve the hope. I like to offer it before um a ceremony or session, um, because a lot of times people will come in feeling anxious. Um, and it really just helps people kind of calm down and it brings a sense of safety because they feel that sense of safety in their body because they feel grounded again and not like, oh, what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_03 59:41

Yeah, I was I was very relaxed. Um still anxious, but not as bad. Yeah. Um, and then we went into you explained all the dosing to me, all the other all the other stuff, um, and you did a very ceremonial type entry for me into this journey, which was super cool. Because it would I mean it's not like you walk into like a doctor's office and you're like, here, take this. So that was that was very interesting, and I and I thought it it made the experience even better for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

I'm glad to hear that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

So you were like my shaman at that moment. Um and then I took the first dose, which was I won't talk about numbers or whatever, but first dose, like the entry-level dose. And I remember, so you uh you inhale it, you hold on to it for as long as you can, and then you kind of like you you sit up as you do it, and then you fall back and you lay down. Um, you release it, and I remember I was like, oh shit, this is my first time, and I was like, I'm gonna see fucking all kinds of crazy stuff, and nothing happened. And I remember just sitting there for like 10 minutes, and I was just trying to be very patient because I was like, maybe it'll just happen. But that entry level wasn't really gonna do very much, and I think it was just more of a relaxation portion to in you know integrate me into that first thing. But I was I was I was trying to be like really polite and just you know, like nice about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

I was like, you know what's really funny when he says this is that he was actually laying there for like 30 minutes. I thought he had fallen asleep, which is not, you know, like worse. Well, it because that first dose is intentional. Like, well, all the dosing is intentional, but that first one is to kind of gently a lot of times these medicines will kind of like blast you into the, you know, and especially this one because it's comes on so quickly. We can walk into this with gentleness for ourselves, you know. And uh that first dose usually people just feel so calm and relaxed afterwards. They have a small experience, but nothing like what you hear 5MEO DMT is, you know, like it's it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

Yeah, so I guess I was laying there for 30 minutes. I don't know. So I was trying to well, and that's the thing, because I was just I was like waiting um because it could happen at any point, so I just assumed something would happen.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:23

We were like impatiently, patiently waiting. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

So then so then we did it again, the increase um happened, and the first time I felt it, it was out of this world. Like uh I don't even know how to explain it. I remember because essentially you're getting answers to questions that you don't even know you have questions for. Right? So you even though you have an intention when you're doing it, like things are just gonna be told to you. Your spirit, your body, whatever, is just gonna tell you things that you just need answers to, but you may not know you're asking questions for, if that makes sense. I know that sounds very hokey, but it doesn't sound hokey to me at all. All right. So I'm trying to experience you.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

It sounds hokey shit, but trust me. So it does go somewhere. Um this the third, because each dose is is increased in potency, and then you feel something different. My third dose, I felt nothing but pain. My body hurt so bad.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:44

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

Um, and that's where the body keeps the score comes into play because it was literally telling me everywhere I was holding on to like trauma and stuff. So my fucking face was like on fire, um my back was hurting, my knees were hurting, like all these different areas were just pain that I've never felt before. And it was something I couldn't just like you know move and adjust. Like I felt it for a while, um, which was very interesting because it was literally my body telling me where I need to focus.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:18

You felt it for a while while there or like after no during during this.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Um and it went away probably after minutes. Okay. I don't know how long. I mean, you told me it was 30 minutes, but it could have been five for me. I don't know. Um, and then the most profound one was my fourth, my fourth dose. That and that was I could not stop crying. And the reason was um visually I was seeing my wife running through a field, like, and not in a scary running, like she was actually enjoying herself, like frolicking, you know, leaves and flowers and peaceful and playful, very, yeah, very just energetic. And I was like playing with her in the same visual thing that I was seeing. And it was literally my body telling me it's okay to be happy again. Because we put on the face of like happiness, right? We're fucking happy. We're not really happy, right? But my body was telling me it's time to be happy. And it was it was very profound for me. I I I don't I was crying. I don't know how for how long.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:34

Maybe it was like it's okay to be happy, right? Because I think sometimes in our profession, um, we because we pack so much in and um we have guilt for like the people we love because we take away from them, because we're doing this and you know, we're missing events, but then we also feel all these other feelings for for victims or family members that we don't allow ourselves to actually feel. And so maybe that was the like it's okay to not have guilt, to not have all these negative things and just be happy.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

To let the things go. You deserve to be happy too. Yep. Let the things go and actually be happy, feel happy and be happy. Um yeah, so that crying that you're talking about where you're uncontrollable crying, I had that. Um and I felt uh just tons of weight being released. I mean, I don't know where I kept it, but it it was gone, right? I felt much lighter. I felt um a different capacity in my brain. Um and I had a just like a renewed vision on what I should feel versus what I am feeling.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

Or what you could feel.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

Yes, yeah, yeah. And then I don't remember what happened on the fifth one. No, you're not sure. The fourth, the fourth one before. The fourth one was the most profound thing I've ever done. Huge. So and then all the while like you're you're doing all things like in the background, um ceremonial things, like I use a I use a lot of sound.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

Like I I'll kind of read what's going on, and honestly, I ask your highest self to dictate the music. We said the prayer right at the beginning, asking your higher self to bring forth the music. I have like this playlist that's like 18 hours long, and I put it on shuffle and ask the other person's higher self to bring forth the music that they need for their for their journey and their healing. And a lot of times that music will tell me what I need to do, what I need to be doing. Um, and so I do use a lot of sound like crystal bowls and sometimes drumming. It just all depends. And sometimes I don't do anything at all. You know, I'll just sit there and hold the space and be a witness for them. But sound is super powerful. Like we are slowed down sound waves.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:13

That's what we are, you know, like I mean music is part of everything in our life. Good, bad, positive, negative. Everything is associated with some kind of sound, music, beat, whatever. And it really brings out the best of us.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

Well, and sound too, like the different tones, especially with the bowls, helps your body to release there's it's a sound frequency that helps your body to actually release different energy and sound is super powerful. Super, super powerful.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:53

You're gonna have to try it.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:55

One step at a time, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Like even if you want to just go try a sound bath and just see how that feels inside your body to just be present with those sounds and feel it in your body.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:08

Have you done those before? No. Never? Have you? Oh shit. Um just Jess Carter does them. So next time, well, she she you you should go to her studio and she's got the different bowls, and like it'll she'll start, you know, doing a thing and it's got a tone, and then she'll change the tone, and then your body will start reacting and relaxing in different ways.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

It's very soothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

It and sometimes it's also very unsoothing on purpose. It's like it your body's trying to release something, and that sound actually, like the drumming, can be really hard for people sometimes because it's like you're literally energetically helping that person, kind of pounding it out a little bit, and it can feel uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

Like, have you ever heard like one of your favorite songs? And normally you can jam out to it or whatever, but this one time you were singing it and all of a sudden you started crying. Have you ever done that? I don't know. Apparently I'm the only weird one in the room, but I'm the weird one too. It's it's something at a deeper level where your brain is allowing that emotion to come out due to that music.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:27

I mean, I I will say there's sometimes where the sound or the beat or whatever of music is is like something I could get into, and sometimes I'm just like, oh no, not today. Or I need to turn it off. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

Yep. Where it's just too much.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:42

Because it's it's pushing a limit of something in in your emotion, and you're like, no, I don't want it that yeah, I can I can relate to that. Okay. So I'm not the only weird. No. We're weird. We can be weird. I love being weird. So um what other things are you doing right now with that? Because you were you told me that you're gonna do another retreat or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

Um one thing that I wanted to say be about the the 5MEO DMT, the buffo, is um well, again, all of them bring something completely different to the table. Um, and you know, like if you're looking at people will say, well, how does it compare to psilocybin or ayahuasca? Well, it's there is no comparison, and you can't compare any of those three. You know, like they're all so very different. But one thing I will say with psilocybin and ayahuasca, because they are so psilocybin mushrooms come from mycelium, which is an underground network. It's all underground, and the ayahuasca comes from, you know, a plant. It's rooted. So a lot of those experiences tend to be um more, they're all inward, but these definitely feel more inward. And it's it's like you're going underground into your subconscious, if you will, like the mycelium or the roots from the plants. It's that kind of experience. Um, but with with Bufo, um, while you're still going inward, in my opinion, because I believe everything is already inside of us, um, it is more, it's like you're doing you're you're having your experience more in the light rather than in the dark. Not that either one of them is better than the other, because this is a world of duality, right? Everything has its counterpart here. Um, and so when we say dark, like you're going into the darkness with ayahuasca or psilocybin, it's it's not different than going in the light, if you will, as far as good or bad. Like neither one of them is good, and neither one what neither one of them is bad. Um but the buffo is definitely a more you're having your experience in the light rather than in the shadows. It's it's uh while you can still do shadow work with buffo, you're not actually in the shadow. So it's very different in that way. Um, and too, another thing about the 5MEO DMT is because it's so short, the experience is so short. Um there's some research coming out that it's it's uh more conducive medicine for people with PTSD because they're not in, they're not stuck in something for hours and hours and hours. It's happening very fast and they're not caught up in there. Um so those two things I wanted to say about about the buffo. Um and it's all about the journey too. Like I don't have any negative opinions towards people who tend to serve at a one and done. That's not how I choose to go about it. I choose to be more gentle and let it be about the journey and not the the final destination. Um but yeah, I think facilitation definitely is important. Like know who you're sitting with and how they, you know, choose to serve their whatever med whatever medicine it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:39

Well, I think that that goes with any provider that you deal with, any counselor, any um journeyman that you're working with, whatever, it's gotta be somebody you trust. Yeah. Because you're not gonna open up.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:54

Yeah, safety. In order to feel safety, there has to be trust, and that safety is super important. Feeling safe is super important. Yeah. Um, but yes, I have some exciting news. So um me and a couple other women facilitators um and from California are going to be hosting a six-day 5MEO buffo immersion in North Phoenix at the end of July, beginning of August. And I'm I am so excited about it. So excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:29

Is that geared to uh just for women or is that open?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

No, it's open. Okay. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:36

Yep. And there's gonna be a lot of um like somatic practices and uh embodiment work, um, yoga, like it's just gonna be such a beautiful. I'm I'm so I just feel so excited, like I feel so honored and privileged to be a part of something that's gonna be so special. Like I have a sacredness towards all of this, and that's why I show up the way I do in a session, you know, because it's I know what I can't tell you exactly what the other person is going through because everyone experiences it uniquely, but I know how powerful the experience is and how healing the experience can be, and how sacred the experience is. Like in any one of these plants or earth-based medicine, um the experiences are so profound. And to be um a part of that with somebody else, and to be a witness of somebody else's experience is extremely sacred. Very, very sacred to me. Um, so yeah, being a part of this retreat, I'm I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

Well, I will say I'm very humbled that you did that journey with me the way you did it. Um and I don't have anything to pair it to, but it was phenomenal for me. So I'm glad I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

I'm glad you showed up for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

Yeah? Yeah. Questions?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:13

No, I don't think.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:14

Concerns? No. Do you have any questions?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:17

I don't.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:18

Alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

Thanks for having me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:19

No, I think it's a great topic. I know it's different. Um now that the train, right? Um I know it's I know it's a different topic, but it's it's one of those things that people should keep their mind open to.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:32

Well, I think you don't know what you don't know. And this is such a although it's not new, I think in our world, it's a very new option that people are considering or that people can consider that maybe we have been very reluctant to because it isn't an option. We don't call EAP and they're not like, hey, let's go do this, you know. So I think it's very new, new to our world, and it's good for people to have the information to hear it and to to learn about it, I guess, so that they can consider it as an option instead of instead of having more choice. And feeling better but not healed.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:11

Yeah, and a lot of people don't. I mean, I believe that everything has a seat at the table, you know, like prescription medication and stuff. And there's been a couple times in my life where where I was on an SSRI for like six months at a time to help me through something hard. Um, but I, you know, they all have a place and they all have a function, but a lot of people don't want to be on those for the rest of their life because there's a numbing that happens there and a flatness that they experience life in.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:43

Right. It takes the bad away, but it also takes the good away.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:46

Yeah, you know, and people don't want to live flat like that anymore. It doesn't feel like life, it feels like existence. Right. Yep. So um it's really nice for people to have other choices. And and this path, you know, isn't for everybody, and that's okay. Um, but it's nice for people to have the choice if they want to travel down this path or not. I'm glad, I'm glad that I the opportunity presented itself to me because you I would have never known what I didn't know. I'm so glad what I know now. It's been amazing. Very cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:22

Well, everything happens for a reason. I believe that connections are made because there's a higher purpose for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:28

Yeah, truly believe that. There is not n I don't believe in anything random.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:34

Cool.

unknown 1:19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:35

Well, I appreciate you coming out. I think it's super cool that you got to share some of your story. I know some of it's not fun to talk about, but you know it shows that even different professions, different ways of life all experience trauma, and trauma's the same. Or the feeling of trauma is the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:52

Yeah. I can happily say that I'm in a point in my life in my own journey in healing that it doesn't I don't feel that emotion anymore when I talk about it.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:03

That's huge. It's huge.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:06

Huge.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:08

Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:11

Cool. Well thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:13

Thank you.