In this episode, Joe interviews Amanda Feilding, Founder and Director of The Beckley Foundation. In the show, they cover topics on psychedelic research, policy work, regulation, and the benefits of psychedelics in a time of crisis.

3 Key Points:

1. The Beckley Foundation pioneers psychedelic research to drive evidence-based drug policy reform, founded and directed by Amanda Feilding as a UK-based think-tank and NGO.
2. There is some interesting research happening around LSD expanding the neuroplasticity of the mind and increasing neurogenesis.
3. We are in the midst of a mental health crisis, especially in the West, and psychedelics may be helpful in improving mental health.

Show Notes

The Beckley Foundation

• Amanda says she felt alone for a long time, they were taking a scientific approach, and it was much too serious for the underground
• The Beckley Foundation is doing policy work, medical work, scientific work, etc
• Amanda has a passion for science, but felt a social responsibility to do the policy work
  • It's a very destructive work with ‘drugs’, because they are all under the same umbrella, but we psychedelic enthusiasts know, that psychedelics are beneficial and different than other drugs
• Joe mentions he always thought how crazy LSD sentencing is, in some places it is longer than murder charges
• “The ego is really a mirror of the government, and it can be much too restrictive and damaging” - Amanda

LSD

• LSD increases cognitive function by expanding the networks of integrative centers in the brain
  • Amanda thinks that LSD is better at increasing cognition than mushrooms
• She says they are doing exciting work with LSD and how it expands neuroplasticity of the mind, and how it increases neurogenesis
  • She thinks we haven't really even scratched the surface of exploring the benefits of these compounds
• Joe says he is hearing about a lot of athletes using LSD as a performance enhancing drug
• Neuroplasticity is like when the brain becomes hot metal and it can adapt and change

Crisis

• We have a horrible mental health crisis in the west, 1 in 3 teenage girls are depressed
• Out of all death causes in the US, air pollution is one of the largest
• “Our society needs a paradigm shift” - Amanda
• Amanda says that she doesn't believe that all people need to take psychedelics, but that they can be very beneficial

Regulation

• Joe says he would love to see regulation everywhere
• The cause of most drug harms are prohibition
• Portugal and Switzerland are great models for boosting public service
• Recognizing the potential benefits helps (starting with medical but not stopping there)

Final Thoughts

• We are all moving in the right direction
• The spreading of knowledge and education is the right path
• The intuitive gains are the main benefits of these altered states of consciousness

Links

The Beckley Foundation

About Amanda Fielding

Amanda Feilding has been called the ‘hidden hand’ behind the renaissance of psychedelic science, and her contribution to global drug policy reform has also been pivotal and widely acknowledged. Amanda was first introduced to LSD in the mid-1960s, at the height of the first wave of scientific research into psychedelics. Impressed by its capacity to initiate mystical states of consciousness and heighten creativity, she quickly recognised its transformative and therapeutic power. Inspired by her experiences, she began studying the mechanisms underlying the effects of psychedelic substances and dedicated herself to exploring ways of harnessing their potential to cure sickness and enhance wellbeing. In 1996, Amanda set up The Foundation to Further Consciousness, changing its name to the Beckley Foundation in 1998.

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Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about current topics in the news including MindMed, psilocybin synthesis, treating climate grief with psychedelics, psychedelic decriminalization and more.

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Navigating Psychedelics

Show Notes

MindMed

• Psychedelic Pharmaceutical Company MindMed Develops LSD Neutralizer Technology To Shorten and Stop LSD Trips
• MindMed is a psychedelic Pharmaceutical company that is exploring LSD and patenting anything they find during the research
• Joe comments and says that organizations like Zendo are able to do optimal work and we don't necessarily need a Pharma company to help in recreational/festival settings
  • But in a clinical setting, this is more necessary
• “Are these big companies coming into the space as allies are not?” - Joe
  • Joe says he thinks they are part of the ecosystem, for better or worse
• Joe says, imagine if drugs were legal, they would be so much safer
  • Kyle questions what legalization would look like not in a capitalistic market

Scientists Turn Yeast into Psychedelic Psilocybin Factories

• There is a lot of reason why people choose not to play in commodified markets
• “How do we know what is true? How do we know what is helpful for us?” - Joe
  • Joe says lets not have a quick easy answer
• "It's infeasible and way too expensive to extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms and the best chemical synthesis methods require expensive and difficult-to-source starting substrates” - a quote from the article

Can Psychedelics Treat Climate Grief?

• 20 years is when it's going to be really bad for climate change
• It's been more prominent, people getting therapy for trauma of what's happening in nature
• The question of a conference that Joe and Kyle attended was, “Can extraordinary experiences help save us from planetary, ecological collapse?”
  • We are able to make people feel more connected to ecological systems with psychedelics
• We have to be able to feel the grief, but we have to be able to act
• Are we stewards of the earth, or do we want to work pointless jobs and be a part of consumerism?

D.C. Would Vote To Decriminalize Psychedelics, Poll Shows

• If COVID wasn't a thing currently, it looks like decrim would happen in the belly of the beast, in D.C.
  • Despite the public health crisis, its looks like citizens want to reassess entheogenic use
• “When there is hardship, creativity seems to spike” - Joe
  • Joe says to check out the microdose VR by Android Jones

About Kyle

Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”

Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.

About Joe

Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.

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In this episode, Kyle interviews Melissa Stangl and Daniel Cleland, Co-founders of Soltara Healing Center. They talk about integration, Shipibo healing lineage, accessibility of psychedelics, and psychedelic tourism. 

3 Key Points:

1. Soltara is a Healing Center dedicated toward  integration as well as practicing and preserving the Shipibo tradition of Ayahusca healing. 
2. It doesn't make sense to take nature based traditions and turn it into instant gratification and business. The further you get from tradition, the less beneficial it may be.
3. Tourism for Ayahuasca can bring both harm and benefits to the local community. Reinforcing the heritage, paying the healers very well and giving back to the forests in terms of sustainability are all ways that Soltara is using Ayahuasca tourism to help the local communities.

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Show Notes

About Melissa

• Melissa originally comes from the STEM field
• She was working in corporate America and was in search for a deeper meaning
• She met Dan and after joining one of his initial ayahuasca journeys into Peru, it changed her mindset about healing
• Dan looked for someone to help him after starting up his first ayahuasca center in Peru, and so she dropped everything and moved to the jungle to make it happen
• After witnessing the healing potential working within the Shipibo tradition, and the need for integration within the community, she later founded Soltara with Dan in Costa Rica

About Daniel

• Daniel grew up in a small town in Canada
  • He followed the typical life trajectory, go to school, go to college, get a job, etc
• He didn't have big ambitions at the time, very in line with the middle class area that he grew up in
  • After entering the work-force, he was in un-ambitious jobs
  • He thought “are there just 30 years of doing this until this is over?”
• He felt a strong pull towards South America
  • He was very close to nature in his upbringing
• He got a job leading tours
• He had a personal crisis that led him to do some soul searching
• Within the span of a few years, the trajectory pushed him to build his own healing center in Peru

Pillars of Soltara

• They feel very strongly about having the Shipibo healers lead the ceremony, and everything that they (Mel, Dan and the team) do is to help honor the tradition
• They focus a lot on integration
  • For the Shipibo culture, their life is integraton, but for a lot of people that are coming from the Western world and other places, that is not the case
  • They started collaborating with clinical psychologists to help create a program that puts the retreat at the start of the program, the work comes after
  • Soltara includes a workbook for integration afterward
• Our transition times in modern life are shamed, getting your period, having a mid life crisis, having a psychedelic experience, but these experiences can be very sacred
• “Connecting to the sacredness of life is so healing and so needed for modern-day society” - Melissa

Container for Safety and Integration

• The sensationalism is more around the experience itself
  • People think that you just go in and have the experience and then your life is changed forever and that is not the case
• A place where people not only can find who they are, but then be who they are in that container, and meet people and create community, is so powerful
  • Kyle said when he attended his retreat there, he can't shake how safe he felt
    He said it really stood out to him, for someone who is looking at integration and so involved in this field
• “I would like to bring people to this tradition in a way that is accessible, and I think that starts with safety” - Melissa

Corporadelic

• There are new products, treatment centers, etc
  • The further away you get from tradition, the less beneficial it may be
• Dan says it doesn't make sense to take nature based traditions for instant gratification, monopoly, and business
  • The ceremony is the healing part, the ayahuasca allows one to connect with the plants, and that it is just the songs in ceremony that really create the healing
  • Melissa says she understands that the science is helping the movement, but she is so afraid that big corporations will just run with this and ruin tradition around it
• Kyle says during his experience at Soltara, he just felt flooded with gratitude to experience the medicine healing in nature and in the Shipibo culture, where it is natural

Ayahuasca Tourism

• Tourism for Ayahuasca causes harm but also brings benefits to the community too
• Dan says they are expanding the work, they are not taking away from the traditions
  • It takes a certain capacity to travel to the jungle, speak the language, figure out where to go, how to get there, and how to receive healing is not typically possible for the vast majority of people
• The Shipibo is receiving really good pay doing this work, which isn't typically possible for the indigenous people
• This is also reinforcing the heritage, encouraging the children to continue the traditional path
  • Now it’s not only a cultural heritage, it's also a way to make a living for the community members
• You don't cut down trees to grow ayahuasca, you grow ayahuasca among the trees, so it's protecting the jungle
• In recent years there has been more information and collective awareness to ask the hard questions, Bia Labate has been on the forefront of this, asking the indigenous leaders the important questions of how to keep Ayahuasca tourism sustainable, beneficial and protected

Sustainability

• They just completed a fundraiser for the Amazon
  • They have been collaborating with Amazon Watch, and they raised over $10,000
  • They are working to plant new Ayahuasca, not to harvest but just to put back into the jungle

Final Thoughts

• Melissa suggest listeners to watch Reconnect, a movie about a man’s journey to Soltara

Links

Soltara Website

About Melissa Stangl

After taking a leap of faith in September 2015 to step out of Corporate America and into the Amazon jungle, Melissa has since used her background in engineering, science, and management to help advance the plant medicine and psychedelic movements – first by helping run a top-rated ayahuasca center in Peru as Operations Manager, and then as Director of Business Development – and now as Founding Partner and COO for Soltara. She is passionate about using her technical, managerial, and problem-solving skills to help bridge the gap between the Western world and the incredible healing potential of plant medicines and holistic health. Melissa is honored to be a part of this project and working with such a high-quality team that understands the importance and sacredness of this work. Her ethos is one of authenticity, professionalism, respect for tradition, transparency, and high-quality service. These mutual tenets are the team’s vision for Soltara as a whole, and she is grateful to take part in creating a space that is a strong conduit for healing, sustainability, and knowledge, empowering each guest to become global beacons for positive change.

About Daniel Cleland

Daniel Cleland is the Founding Partner/Chairman and CEO of Soltara Healing Center. He is an international entrepreneur, traveller, and author of the book, Pulse of the Jungle: Ayahuasca, Adventures and Social Enterprise in the Amazon. Originating in Walkerton, Ontario, he has spent over a decade globe-trotting and hosting group tours all over Latin America and in the deepest parts of the Amazon to work with traditional indigenous medicine practices. After completing his Master’s of Intercultural and International Communication, Daniel founded the company Pulse Tours, a company operating in Peru which became one of the highest rated shamanic retreat centers in the world before he sold it completely in 2017. He believes in supporting sustainability initiatives around the world, such as a free solar power installation that he spearheaded for an entire village in the Amazon in 2017, and the work being done by Amazon Rainforest Conservancy, a Canadian NGO wherein Daniel sits as a member of the advisory board.

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In today’s Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about the Shadow Panel, embracing the weird in psychedelia, what is real, re-examining ‘normal’, and more.

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Navigating Psychedelics

Show Notes

Shadow Panel

• Topics in the Panel include
  • Ayahuasca retreat centers
  • Maximization culture to use psychedelics for optimization
  • Ketamine therapy and shadow as aspects of character
  • The collective shadow and astrology
  • and much more!

Erik Davis

• Joe and Erik just had a call and they talked about his book High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (The MIT Press)
  • It is a study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson
  • It's a really nice survey of the weird
  • “Are you acknowledging what you're getting by believing something is true? It's a part of your analysis”
• Joe says if you're into the weird stuff in psychedelics, this book is for you. If you are only into the clinical stuff, then this is good for you.
  • Kyle says sometimes we don't give enough credit to the weirdness in the psychedelic space
• Corporadelic is a means of spiritual bypassing
• The weirdness is core to what the psychedelic experience is

What is Real?

• Psyche means more than just mind
  • When its mind, body, spirit, breath, it seems more accurate
• It is worth reading Alfred Whitehead and James Fadiman, Philosophy is important
• We are trying to understand and have helpful language around the psychedelic experience
  • “There are no whole truths, there are only half truths”
• Kyle said that at the core of our being, how do we know what is true and real?
  • At the fundamental truth of what real is, Kyle says that sitting in the CAT scan machine and being on the brink of death, that's the only place where truth sits for him

Psychedelic Liberty Summit

• Saturday and Sunday April 25th and 26th
• Receive a discount here
• This is a psychedelic conference that turned virtual due to COVID-19

Group Work

• Breathwork, retreat centers, etc are at an undetermined standstill because we don't know how this is going to plan out
• The Navigating Psychedelics Today Online class has students learn the information first and then come together to talk about it
• There are so many means of transmission
  • Kyle mentions he read something about COVID being transmitted on the soles of shoes
• We will probably need additional shelter in place measures all the way until 2022
• We are almost hitting 9/11 death toll numbers on a daily basis

Re-examining Normal

• Do we want to go back to the way things were? Or do we want to take this weird/uncertain time and do something with it?
• The worst of climate change is only a mere 20 years out
• It's easy to have emotional heartbreak when ecological destruction happens
  • Eco-psychology is a huge field

Mind Medicine Australia

• Australians crippled by anxiety from the coronavirus crisis 'should be treated with MDMA and magic mushrooms', charity claims

Final Thoughts

• Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists, May co-hort is SOLD OUT
  The wait list for the next co-hort can be found here 

Psychedelics and the Shadow: A Series Exploring the Shadow Side of Psychedelia

Enroll Today!

About Kyle

Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”

Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.

About Joe

Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.

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In this episode, Joe interviews Michelle Janikian, Author of Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion. In the show, they talk about Michelle’s book, the need to speak about the unspoken, and how psychedelic experiences differ for everyone.

3 Key Points:

1. Michelle Janikian is Author of the book, Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion, an easy-to-use guide to understanding magic mushrooms, from tips and trips to microdosing and psychedelic therapy.
2. Psychedelics can help people, but they don't solve all problems. Doing the homework after an experience is so important.

3. The psychedelic subculture has a lot of repressed stuff going on like sexual abuse. We need to speak about the things that aren't necessarily good for the movement, we need to talk about all of it. 

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Navigating Psychedelics

Show Notes

About Michelle

• Michelle was originally a cannabis journalist
  • Then she was a staff writer for Herb
• She then started writing her own book, Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion
  • So much has been happening with mushrooms lately, and Michelle thought we really needed a resource on how to use mushrooms safely
• Ulysses Press did a few Cannabis books
  • Michelle was approached by them, they wanted to do a mushroom guide
• She first took mushrooms when she was 17
  • She took them for fun, but had so many deep and meaningful experiences too
• Michelle believes there are multiple right ways to use psilocybin, either therapeutically, ceremonially, recreationally, etc.
  • "As long as you're being safe with your surroundings, and with yourself, anyway is the right way (except for the fact that they are still illegal)" - Michelle
• In places where mushrooms are decriminalized, she mentions it totally changes your comfort level and experience when you're not so afraid to have them on you

Retreat

• Michelle just volunteered as a trip sitter at a week long women's retreat in Mexico at  Luz Eterna Retreats
• She says she doesn't have all the answers, but the group environment can be really great for some, and not good at all for others
• She suggests, “do what feels right for you”

Routes of Administration

• There isn't one ideal form of administration across all drugs
• Joe says one route of administration may be good for one person, and not for another
• You can powder the mushrooms and put them into capsules, put them on food, eat them plain, make a tea out of them, etc
  • Michelle says she has a great recipe in her book for mushroom tea to prevent nausea

Different for Everyone

• Michelle felt a calling to write the book because she says many other books and publications were coming out, and she didn't want some people to feel upset when psychedelics didn't just ‘heal them’
• She says psychedelics help her, but they don't solve all of her problems
  • Doing the homework after an experience is so important

The Unspoken

• She says she feels uninspired to write about the ‘black and white’, the same old, stereotypical narrative
  • She wants to write about the grey, the unexpected, the in-between
• Michelle asks how do we talk about the things that aren't right for the movement? Like the sexual abuse that happens in this space
• This psychedelic subculture has a lot of repressed stuff going on, and how do we talk about it?
• We need to keep learning in this field to keep improving, it is dense and detailed
• Michelle leaves us with a final thought, “read more books written by women!”

Links

Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion: An Informative, Easy-to-Use Guide to Understanding Magic Mushrooms―From Tips and Trips to Microdosing and Psychedelic Therapy

Website

About Michelle Janikian

Michelle Janikian is the author of Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion, the down-to-earth guide that details how to use magic mushrooms “like an adult.” As a journalist, she got her start writing about cannabis for publications like High Times, Rolling Stone and Herb. Now, she writes a column for Playboy on all things drug related and also contributes regularly to DoubleBlind Mag, MERRY JANE, Psychedelic’s Today and others. She’s passionate about the healing potential of psychedelic plants and substances, especially psilocybin and cannabis, and the legalization and de- stigmatization of all drugs. Michelle studied writing and psychology at Sarah Lawrence College before traveling extensively in Latin America and eventually settling down in southern Mexico. Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, Michelle ventures back to the States a few times a year to give talks and workshops on safe mushroom use and other cannabis and psychedelic related topics. 

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In today’s Solidarity Friday’s episode with Kyle and Joe, they cover current events on psychedelics for treatment of COVID-19 trauma, an article on single dose psilocybin effects, psychedelic investments, self care and more.

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Show Notes

A Single High Dose of Psilocybin Alters Brain Function Up to One Month Later

• It was a small study of only 12 people
• The article states, the researchers found that self-reported emotional distress was reduced one week after psilocybin administration, but returned to baseline levels at one month after psilocybin administration

Doctor Calls for "Temporary Approval" of Psychedelics to Treat COVID-19 Trauma

• There were a few doctors and people that didn't understand the value of psychedelics being used as psychiatric tools
• Kyle thinks especially of all of the first-responders that are working non stop, without a break, for weeks on end, witnessing tons of people dying daily, and then trying to come back and process this
  • The mental health, long term of these people is going to be so impacted
• Then we have to think about the people that can't come together for a funeral after they lose someone
• This pandemic is going to be traumatizing for people
  • Joe says this looks like a global ego death, all of the systems that we have had before are not adequate
• The Spanish flu of 1918 was only a few years away from the Great Depression
• We know that traumas influence health and behaviors, but we have tools and technologies to get ahead of this, from an epigenetic standpoint

Psychedelic Investments

• Kyle and Joe talk for a while about psychedelics and money and research and funding
  • It's a tricky thing, because we want there to be funding to make this accessible, but we want people to invest with integrity and to not start a monopoly on the funding
• Joe says we (as a company) have been approached by investors, but we have been hesitant to stay with our vision, keep our integrity and stay on track with our mission

Self Care

• Kyle says stay in the present moment, limit news consumption (watch it maybe once a day to know what's going on, but then put the phone down and not drown in it)
• It's helpful to develop more of a spiritual practice in this time (yoga, meditation)
• Self care is going to look different for everybody
  • Joe says ‘Maslow it’, get good sleep, drink good water, satisfy basic needs, those are first step during this time
  • Kyle says that he uses movement, somatic work, breathing into places in the body that are tense, etc
• Kyle says that those who are doing a lot of online work, take time to move and stretch
  • This is a time to do a lot of work we have put off, but at the same time, its okay to give our bodies a break, take time to rest, get outside, find movement, etc
  • It's important not to take on too much or do too many things

Psychedelics and the Shadow: A Series Exploring the Shadow Side of Psychedelia

Enroll Today!

About Kyle

Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”

Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.

About Joe

Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.

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In this episode, Joe invites previous guest, Dena Justice back on the show to continue the conversation on Neuro Linguistic Programming and non-ordinary states of consciousness.

3 Key Points:

1. 93% of what we do on a day to day basis, is unconscious. If we can figure out how to work with that 93%, then we can really do some important things.
2. A lot of times we aren't happy with our behavior, first we have to distinguish between cause and effect. With effect, you blame other people, but when you're a cause in your life, you're taking responsibility for what's happening.
3. Creating new habits is hard at the conscious level, because it requires conscious thought. NLP focuses on the unconscious.

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Navigating Psychedelics

Show Notes

Last Episode

• 93% of what we do on a day to day basis, is unconscious
  • If we can figure out how to work with that 93%, then we can really do some important things
  • Communicating with the unconscious mind is kind of how we communicate with ourselves
• The previous episode was called Neuro Linguistic Programming and Non-ordinary states of consciousness
• NLP is all about our nervous system and what is coming in with our 5 senses, then the linguistic part is all about how we communicate what is happening in the body
• NLP basically creates all of our behavior
  • The more we are able to understand how our unconscious mind works, the better we are able to get the outcomes we actually want

Outcomes

• A lot of times we aren't happy with our behavior
• First we have to distinguish between cause and effect
  • When you're at effect, you blame other people, but when you're a cause in your life, you're taking responsibility for what's happening
• “When we can help people be more at cause, they get those desired outcomes, and people start to get to where they want to go in life” - Dena

Perception is Projection

• Whatever you're believing that which is outside of yourself, it's actually a reflection of you
• Dena said that she won't go to fitness classes simply because of the language they use
  • Altering your state through movement makes a person very vulnerable and the language can be very suggestive
• What are we subjecting ourselves to everyday? When we sit down to watch TV or movies, we are in a trance-like state
• Dena suggests being very careful to be aware of what we let in
• Getting rid of barriers and obstacles to get where you want in life is the goal for NLP

Prepping the Unconscious Mind

• Going to the gym is a habit so many people want to have and don't
• Creating new habits is hard at the conscious level, because it requires conscious thought
  • When we try to make decisions at the conscious level, it gets really difficult
• “All learnings and behaviors, happen at the unconscious level” - Dena
• “How many times did you have to tie your shoes consciously, before you tied your shoes, unconsciously?” - Dena
• Most people don't have good language running in the background, and that is a big reason why people are stuck in poor behaviors

Prime Directives of the Unconscious Mind

• We create gestalts of emotions and experiences
  • A gestalt looks like a pearl necklace, and they are all related to each other
  • All of our experiences of our emotions (ex. anger) all get hooked together like a necklace
  • It's a way that our mind organizes the information
• When we learn to re-frame intentionally, we can take it as a tool into non-ordinary states of consciousness

Re-framing

• In psychedelic experiences, we are re-framing the conscious mind, we shake loose of our gestalts
  • “We need to learn new tools in order to directly communicate with the unconscious mind” - Dena
• When we can get to the ‘aha’ moment, we can create change more quickly
• Limiting beliefs and negative emotions get in the way
  • Getting rid of limiting beliefs causes massive aligned action which leads to massive life change

Tools

• Our unconscious mind loves following instructions
  • We tell the mind so many don'ts, ‘don't cross the street, don't walk on the grass, etc
  • We need to tell the mind exactly what to do
  • People are really clear about what they don't want, but they aren't always clear on what they do want
• 7% of what we are saying are just words, the other 93% is is how we say it, our emotions, our infections, are body positions, etc
• Joe mentions somatic techniques, but that only goes so far, NLP takes it home
• We learn language, but we don't learn to be effective communicators

Workshop

• Joe, Kyle and Dena are talking about doing a 5-day breathwork and NLP workshop in Sonoma, CA
  • Breathwork is such an amazing tool for non-ordinary state of consciousness
• Until more news is released about the retreat/workshop, Dena invites listeners to take her course over at her website, Ecstatic Collective
• Sign up at psychedelicstoday.com/NLP to be notified of the future workshop

Links

Website

About Dena Justice

As a master manifester, Dena has created a beautiful life for herself. She been financially responsible since age 15 including putting herself through college, two masters degrees and purchasing her own home in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has made over $1M in her life through a fulfilling career as a facilitator, educator, trainer, mentor and coach working with thousands of people across the country. She loved her career, yet hit a point where she felt empty. Near the top of her career ladder, she was a classic case of a high performer and leader hitting burnout. She chose a powerful pivot out of her J-O-B and into her own business. Now, she helps other high performers who have hit burnout and are scared to admit they’ve hit a plateau or a wall. She helps them get the eff out of their own way and move to the next level to increase their impact so they feel fulfilled and inspired again, as well as helping them create more wealth and the relationships they want in their lives. She helps people experience new levels of success, increase/improve focus and performance, abolish FOMO, evolve communication skills, develop transformational leadership skills, create amazing relationships, increase financial abundance and live life on their own terms.

In today’s Solidarity Friday’s episode with Kyle and Joe, they cover current events on COVID-19, social media narratives, a new world, psycho-pharma, psychedelic VICE articles, movies about acid and more.

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Navigating Psychedelics

Show Notes

Coronavirus

• Joe and his girlfriend are recovering from being sick, potentially coronavirus (they weren't allowed to be tested without being hospitalized)
  • Joe said he was really sick in a new and novel way
• Kyle is located in New Jersey (currently around 19,000 cases, close to 250 deaths)
  • He has a weak immune system, so he is trying to be super careful by staying isolated (he hasn't left the house in weeks besides to go on a walk outside)
• Joe says this whole thing is really going to impact humanity and life on earth
  • The ecosystem of commerce is fragile and this is a strong way of showing it
• Kyle says that Drumpf estimated 250,000 deaths in the US
• Joe says we are going to get through this, and life will go on, but what will that look like?
• How can the conscious show up as leaders?
• When we are in a fear state, we don't make rational decisions

Narratives

• Kyle says all of the psychedelic people that he is connected to on social media are posting so much on 5G right now
• There are dual narratives, like people dying, but also a lot of info on conspiracies
  • What do we pay attention to, and what is really happening?
  • Joe said that he played in the conspiracy, occult area for a while, and he couldn't find any solid ground
  • In times like this, the conspiracy media ramps up, because people are afraid, and that impairs cognition
• There is a lot of media saying that COVID-19 is a biological weapon
• There is a lot of unknowns, and how do we not panic?

Processing All of This

• We were not evolved for this moment
  • Now, how do we evolve to handle this stuff?
  • How do we build resilience?
• As ecosystems collapse, some organisms start to mingle with other organisms and then viruses like this can come up, and will pop up more in the future
• We are in a spiritual emergence-y right now, we need to bring up our shadow and do the work
• What can I actually do in my life right now? Instead of worrying about everything

A New World

• 90% of products in the consumer economy right now are completely non-essential
  • We are on a finite planet with finite resources don't mesh with infinite growth
• Hopefully this is the emergency that we need to re-imagine the future
• There is a role that the psychedelic community plays in this
  • The psychedelic culture is familiar with sitting with shadow, doing the inner work, and taking a creative approach at alternative systems and reimagining the future
• Kyle says this feels psychedelic, having new ideas about what the future could look like, what we can offer the future
• A lot of the things that we wish for are starting to unfold, in some sense, the collective has been wishing for the things that are happening
• When we take substances, we are upgrading our operating system

Psycho-Pharma

• MindMed (Mind Medicine) call themselves a leading neuro-pharma company for psychedelic inspired medicines
• Right now they are working on a compound, essentially an iboga-like drug
• There is a lot of suffering happening in the world, and whatever tools that can help with the suffering will do
• There is a roller coaster of the psychedelic experience
  • If every experience was just rainbows and happiness, it would just devalue the human experience

Vice

• Researchers got people to hallucinate from fake psychedelics
• Kyle says think about it, that sitting in a chair for a few hours with music can easily induce a psychedelic experience
• Joe says “the experience is within you, the drug is a key to help unlock that”

Shadow Panel

• Kyle is co-hosting a Shadow Panel with Ido Cohen and takes on a Jung approach to process the shadow
  • They host interviews with doctors and other speakers on the topic
  • They explore a lot of somatics in the shadow
• It is a donation based course right now, potentially paid in the future

Final Thoughts

• Joe says we are heavily impacted by COVID-19, a ton of breathwork events all had to be cancelled
  • But we have a ton of online courses and resources available, from integration books, to online guided therapist and clinician courses, to psychedelic online courses, coaching, and more
• Joe said he had a fun conversation with a film producer (Malibu Road) on the acid scene in the 70’s
  • The film cant be streamed yet, but the trailer is out

  • About Kyle

    Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”

    Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.

    About Joe

    Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.

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