What if the pain you’ve been avoiding is actually pointing you toward healing? with Alexis Leigh | EP 472

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. I'm Brian D Smith, and welcome to Grief 2 Growth. So whether this is your first time tuning in, you've been walking on this path with us for a while, I'm grateful that you're here. The show exists to help you navigate life's deepest challenges, to better understand who we are, why we're here, and where we go from here. Each episode is an invitation to explore healing, purpose, and the deeper truths that connect us all. Today's conversation is one I don't think you're going to want to miss. I'm joined by Alexis Lee, Alexis is a writer, a seeker, and an advocate for radical self-healing through unconventional means. Alexa left behind a successful career in finance and consulting to follow an inner calling, one sparked by a mysterious message she received, received on a walk through the woods. That moment became a doorway into a life rooted in authenticity, transformation, and courage. Her first book is titled Pain is a Portal of Beauty, and it dives into the often avoided terrain of pain and shows us how when we stop running from it, pain can become a profound source of growth and meaning. In our conversation, we'll explore how psychedelics played a role in Alexa's healing journey, the power of deep emotional work, and why our culture's obsession with avoiding pain might be keeping us stuck. So if you've ever felt like your struggle was too heavy to carry, if you question whether your pain had a purpose, or whether you're just curious about what lies beyond the limits of conventional healing, this episode's for you. So stick around to the end And if the conversation speaks to you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. So jump on over to my Substack at grieftogrowth.substack.com, where I'll be posting an article about this episode. You can leave a comment, you can share your own story, and you can connect with me and with other listeners. So let's keep the conversation going. With that, I want to welcome Alexis Lee.

Thanks, Brian. So great. What a lovely introduction. Great to be here with you.

Yeah, it's great to be here with you too. And we're going to talk about some things today that, you know, make, make some people uncomfortable. Pain being, you know, the main thing here. So I know your, uh, your story— I don't know if it begins with, but kind of pivots around, I guess, a walk in the woods. So let's start with that.

Yeah, this was about, um, 5 and a half years ago. I was walking in the woods one day and just listening to instrumental music, and I heard a voice that said, if you die today, your life will have been a tragedy. And It really, you know, struck so deeply to the truth of my experience. And I didn't know what the voice was. I didn't know, you know, just was kind of like, it just became clear to me that that was true. And everything from that moment shifted. I saw the reality of how pained I was. I mean, I don't think I saw the extent of it, but I began to see it. And every step I took after that was informed by this new awareness of my sadness and my loneliness.

Yeah. And what do you— what is it— what did it mean to you that your life would have been a tragedy if you had died today?

I think what it really just let me see is just how, um, you know, I had— I had all of the things in life. I had a lovely husband, we had a beautiful healthy son, I had a good career, friends, family. I had all, you know, everything that I wanted for myself, I had. And so it— so from an external picture, it seems like a life that wouldn't be tragic, a life that would be exactly what I wanted, a successful life. And what this message helped me see was that if I died that day, I would have lived a very lonely life and a very sad life. And it would be a really tragic life. It would be a really, um, something that I wouldn't want for myself or for anybody. So it just helps me become honest about really the essence of my life, not these external pieces, but the reality of my internal experience.

Okay. And what did you do with that information?

Well, not a whole lot quickly, right? Because I was just kind of taking it in. But what happened, you know, my co-parents and I and my ex-husband and I were in counseling. You know what? It wasn't like I was super happy and realized I was sad. I was like, I was trying to find more love and connection in my life. So I think my marriage was where I felt that most. Where I wanted more love and connection. And, and I really thought that if we kept working at it, you know, we were in therapy for years, so I thought we'll get there someday. And this, this voice said, you're not going to get there. Like, what you're doing is not working. So I think with my marriage was the biggest piece where I started to become less patient, less, you know, going with what our therapist told us. If we keep doing this, you know, things will change. I started saying things like square peg, round hole. Like, this isn't working. Getting really honest about the pieces that weren't working. Um, And with that honesty, you know, came, came transformation. Ultimately, my, my ex-husband and I separated and 18 months later, uh, decided to, to get a divorce. So that was the biggest first change. Other pieces came too, but that was the most important one. I mean, I, I didn't, I loved my husband. I didn't wanna let go of our family. That was the scariest change and the, um, most painful change for me. But that was the first one.

Yeah. Yeah. So this voice is telling you that, you know, it's time to make some changes. And you said it began with your marriage. What other changes did you make?

Well, I guess it began with the marriage in terms of the external picture. But what I knew immediately, I don't know how I knew this, but I knew that I needed to start grieving. So I had this childhood, you know, pain that I had been trying to unpack, but it wasn't— I knew that there was more and I needed to up those efforts. So I just started going on walks, listening to sad music and crying. And again, I didn't really know why I was doing it. I just knew, even in therapy, I, you know, it's like it was hard for me to really go to that deep place with somebody else. So this was important to do by myself. And one day I was walking in the woods— sorry, I was walking in another set of woods. And I saw this picture of my grandfather who died by suicide and my mother who was a drug addict and they found her body in a field. So very tragic demise there. And my 40 years of heartache and loneliness and then the life that awaited my son. And I just saw this such, such a clear trajectory. Trajectory that this is what— this is where we're headed if I don't make a big change. So there are these external pieces that then followed that clarity. But that, I would say, that was the biggest, you know, piece was for me to really slow down and start trying to understand the sadness, understand the loneliness, instead of running away from it. For so long, I just— I didn't want to feel that way, so I filled my life with things to try to help me not feel that way. But I knew now I had to start actually embracing the pain and understanding it more.

Do you feel like there was maybe— was there generational sadness that was being carried throughout your family?

I wasn't clear about that. You know, I had read books about that, you know, It Didn't Start With You, those kinds of books. And so, um, I, I was certainly open to that. For me, you know, I had so much trauma in my own life that I felt like there was plenty to unpack just from my experience. But I know we'll talk more about this, um, at some point during the conversation, but Ultimately, when during one of my psychedelic journeys, I did see that I was carrying my mother's, my mother's grief and my grandfather's grief in my body. So I did connect with that more later. But at the beginning, it was more just seeing there's sadness that then spreads just because, you know, when my grandfather died, then my mother carried the grief just from her experience of his death and the way he left. Right.

Right.

And then, and then she had her very dramatic experience that impacted me deeply. So it's kind of— I felt like it was isolated enough. There was enough isolated, right? But ultimately, I did see that current running through where I actually had their grief in my body.

Okay. And you talked about, um, this, this— after you had this voice, and you said you started, I guess, grieving, you know, something that had happened long before. And I know in my work with people, grief is something I think that we have to just kind kind of go through and feel. And do you think this was like a delayed thing that you didn't grieve it properly when it happened earlier?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I, you know, my mom was depressed, and then she became addicted to prescription drugs, and then ultimately went away to rehab, and then they found her body in a field. So I had this kind of layers of loss with her. And I was 11 when she left home, 12 when she died, you know, younger than that, obviously, when she was home, but not present. So there was so much there and I, that I didn't have the resources to deal with. And there was a moment when we actually, we went to visit her at rehab. The story was that she was gonna go away for 3 weeks and then come back home. And it took longer than that. And then we visited her and when we left, I, there was something in my body that knew this isn't coming back together. So that was a, a moment where my, where my body just started numbing. So I had, again, I'm sure I was coping along the way, but that was a moment when the heartbreak was too much and I stopped feeling. So absolutely. Absolutely. I think that this was something that I couldn't feel, and I packed it away until I was 38 years old, and my body said, okay, it's time now. It's time to look at this.

Yeah. And the voice that you heard, what do you— have you identified what this voice is or where it came from?

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think for a long time I kind of, um, thought it was something— obviously it's something bigger than me in the way I've known myself, but I, I kind of liked the idea that it was somebody else. Because it just felt like almost like I had that support. But ultimately, I believe that it was my body's wisdom and that my body, you know, it's— I was not in my body for most of my life because of this pain. I escaped that. So I was in my brain, but not feeling my own wisdom. And I think it was my higher knowing, my intuition. Of course, everything is connected. But, you know, I do think it was something that was in me that said, we can do this now. So it's time now. You know, I had been doing these efforts. I thought I was making so many efforts with therapy and all of this stuff, but the voice really was saying, you got to go bigger. Yeah, it's not working. What you're doing is not working.

Yeah. So you were doing the things, you were, you were in therapy and you were—

I was in all the things that I knew to do. Um, and it, and it, you know, got me to a place where again, I heard this statement that said everything was absolutely a failure, right? Like, if your life's— if your life's a tragedy, it's not saying a couple things need to be tweaked. It's like everything's not going well. So it really encouraged me. Again, my son was a little— was my North Star here, where of course I wanted a better life for me for sure, but I desperately wanted to change our trajectory for him. And so it was so clear that I had to do big things. I had to do whatever I could. I had to stop listening to other people. I mean, there's so much where we— there's so much noise in the world, and it's not that other people are wrong, it's just that only we know what's right for us. And so I had to learn how to listen to myself and to follow what felt right to me instead of what a book told me to do or what a therapist told me to do or, you know, those kinds of things.

Yeah, I think that's very true. We, we, we so often look for answers, you know, outside of ourselves. We'll go, we'll go to a book, or as you said, we'll go, we'll go to a therapist and what other people Um, so you, you started making these changes. How did that work out for you as you were making all these changes?

Well, um, it was very hard, of course. You know, I loved my— it's like I had the grief from a childhood to wake up to, but then I had the grief of losing basically everything in my life. And my marriage was the most important piece, but then my relationships with my family also fell away around the same time. And I knew that my consulting practice was not really my long-term meant to be. And so I started letting— loosening my grip on my work. Friendships fell away. I mean, everything fell away. And so it was a period of aloneness and deep grief, both in what I was revisiting from my childhood, but also losing all these pieces that I loved in my life. And that was really, you know, incredibly painful. But also, I started to wake up, like my— I started to come alive. You know, there are things like I started to do dance. When I went through such a hard time, I was really focused on how to balance that, right? Because I'm a mom and I have to show up. So what do I need to do to take care of myself so I can still show up for my son? And so that was going for runs in the forest and it was going, you know, paddleboarding on the river and going to dance class and doing all these things that really fed my soul. So as painful as it was, it also was a really beautiful time of reconnecting with me and of, you know, filling myself up with all these things that really brought me to life. Yeah.

So you mentioned your consulting practice and, you know, so, you know, you talk about losing a lot of things that we think of as, as maybe even our identities, right? Being a mother, being a wife, you don't lose your son, of course, but being a wife and having this consulting practice, did that give you another thing to grieve?

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Um, you know, I think what's so— I think there was so much to grieve there, but there was so much that started to uncover. And that's why, you know, the book is called Pain is a Portal to Beauty, where I started to discover these really essence parts of me that I had lost touch with for so long. I mean, I always thought that I was so devastated for losing my mom, and I was, but when I numbed, I lost myself. And so this really was a time where I was letting go of these pieces, and that's terrifying. And, you know, typically my experience is that when you let go of something, you don't get the replacement yet. So you are sitting in this place of just goo is how I felt for a long time.

Right.

But then you start to discover, you know, I discovered dance as an adult and I discovered that I was a singer. And ultimately I thought I was a terrible writer. And during one of my periods of grief, this book started coming through me. And so I had these incredible, you know, to go from a life that was so sad, as much as it was hard to let go of things, I was also, I didn't have so much to lose in that way because I did feel so, so deeply lonely. And when I rediscovered parts of myself, I didn't feel lonely anymore, right? Like, these core wounds started to be healed. And, and so I don't mean to say it was an easy time. It was incredibly painful, but it was also so beautiful and enlivening in a way that I really don't remember during my life.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's the, that's the paradox, I guess, or the irony about having to lean into our pain to, to get the, the lesson from it, to get the beauty from it. Because naturally, I think biologically, we're wired to avoid pain. And we're— and we're— and, you know, people say just, you know, buckle down or buckle up and just, you know, strap in and go through it, uh, and endure it. But there has become a point where you become brutally honest with yourself, and it sounds like that's what you did.

Yeah. And, you know, for me, there were all these there's, you know, internal family systems where we have these parts of ourselves that get traumatized at the various ages based on what we went through. And so when I'm just coping with everything, I don't know any of those parts of me. I don't know any of that grief in me because I'm numbing and I'm, you know, just completely unaware. And as much as it's painful to go there, we're carrying that pain even if we don't know, even if we're not aware of it. And so when I would, when I would discover a young part of me that needed love and to need, needed to be understood for what she went through or to feel the feelings that I couldn't feel then, then that part feels so soothed and so loved. And, and what happens is that's when I discover I'm a writer or dancer. Some of these things kind of come alive with that part. So there's, um, there's this really beautiful— you know, it's like you don't— you didn't know how much you were hurting until you, you go toward it, and then you can get to the other side.

Yeah, yeah, really good point. For people that aren't familiar, could you familiarize them with internal family systems?

Yeah, so this is something that my therapist introduced me to years ago, and she just introduced me to the, the idea that I have a little Alexis in me. And so there's a little Alexis that went through something really hard. And when I have these feelings, then it's that little part of me wanting my attention or my help or something. And so I thought that was kind of awkward because she would have me kind of put my hand on my heart and talk to this little part of me. And I was like, gosh, I'm two versions of me. Like, this is— I thought it was awkward, but I started to do it. I started to, because I think also when you don't know when you don't have that sweetness for yourself, it's, you know, it can be really hard to be compassionate to yourself for what you went through, especially as an adult. It's like, I should have my stuff together, right? Like, why am I having these issues?

Right.

But I started to try it out and I thought, okay, you know, can I picture some other little girl who lost her mom? And that's sad. And I can be sweet to that little girl. So can I kind of borrow from that and treat myself sweetly? And so it kind of started to develop a relationship between me and this little part. Again, Internal Family Systems is like you have these parts of yourself that went through something traumatic. They couldn't process it at that time. That's what trauma is, right? Like, it kind of— it's something that was beyond their capacity to handle. And so they're stuck. There's stuck energy there, basically. And when you can go relate to these parts of you as those stuck— the stuck energy as little, you know, innocent children that went through something, then that energy actually becomes unstuck and it can start to move in places where you feel stuck as an adult. You don't know why you keep doing things a certain way. Well, when you can turn toward yourself with compassion and love, then those things start to move in a way where you don't have the same issues anymore because you're acknowledging this part of you and you're sending love to that stuck energy, which again lets it move. So what I thought— there was a little Alexis and a big Alexis. And so you have kind of your higher adult self that can do this for your little child. But as I was going through this huge grief process after my co-parent moved out of the house, I found out I have many little Alexis. It's like one was angry from this thing and is sad from this thing and one is fearful from this thing. Like, they have different needs. And so it can be a lot if you have a lot stored, like I did, it can be a lot to navigate where you're trying to be sweet to all these ones, you know, you kind of have to pick the one with the most urgent need and be sweet to them and the others have to be patient and wait till you have time. So it's, it is like a parenting process where you go to these little parts and you say, well, you know, how can I care for you right now? So there's a parenting in terms of giving to them, but there's also, they, Um, these little parts, again, they have stored with them these gifts from our childhood, you know, the pieces that had to go to sleep with them. And so they also— these parts can, can offer such exquisite gifts when we come toward them as well.

Yeah, thanks for— thanks for explanation. I've been hearing more about this, uh, you know, as I've gotten older, and I think it's a really good model. Uh, it seems to be very helpful for people to understand these different parts of ourselves, even though they're— I don't think they're literal parts of ourselves, but it's, it's just a good way of looking at it, because so many of us don't realize that we were, we were wounded, or the ways that we were wounded, because we don't take the time to, to take care, or even know that we have permission to take care of ourselves, right?

Yeah. I mean, I recently, just as a kind of gentle example, I recently felt loneliness one day, and my son was with his dad, and my house was quiet, and I immediately went to, okay, what am I— how am I going to fill my time? Or what do I do to basically not be lonely? But then something in me realized this loneliness was a part of me, a young part that was sharing how lonely I was as a kid. And as soon as I realized it wasn't this adult me experience, it was a kid me experience, then I could be really sweet to and go, oh yeah, that's so hard, you know. And it became a really beautiful experience. One, again, when I thought it was just me as this adult, it's like, what do I do to change this, to kind of go away from it, right? Once you realize it's your young experience and you can just go, yeah, that's so hard.

Yeah.

And it's— and it, it feels so soothing to hear that from yourself, right? To hear that from your adult self to the world.

And I think we can be a lot more patient when we view it as a younger version of ourselves, you know, as opposed to, as you said, I think earlier, just, you know, I, I shouldn't be feeling this. I'm an adult. I, I should have all this together by now, right? So I know that at some point in your journey, you also started using psychedelics to help you in terms of uncovering, I guess, some of this pain. So tell me about those experiences.

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, as you were talking about losing the identities, I think that's another part that was so rich for me. I, I just happened upon psychedelics.

I—

my mother was a drug addict, so I didn't— she struggled with addiction, so I didn't, um, ever want to do drugs. Like, it was very much like not in my world. But I started creating— I was approached to create a business plan for this educational institution that trains psychedelic guides. So I just got exposed a teeny bit through that experience. And when my co-parent moved out of the house, there was a life coach who said that I might consider psychedelic healing as part of my journey. So I paired up with a guide and she just was brilliant. You know, she was trained in all the Western stuff also, but she just was— she was kind of had the whole landscape covered. And we started with MDMA. And the idea is that you start with MDMA, which helps bring up ego-level trauma. Basically, MDMA helps lower the fear response. That you can go toward these emotions that might feel too scary otherwise. And so you can go approach some of your ego-level trauma and start to work with it with the medicine. And again, I had this guide there with me to help support me as well. And I had done a lot of work with my ego-level trauma, not that I was done, but I had— nothing surprising came up during that session. So we moved on to psilocybin about a month later. And psilocybin, you know, my MDMA experience was really just blissful. And looking back, I think it was giving me just a glimpse of what my baseline state is underneath all this pain. If I can let go of this pain, then I can be in a really deeply peaceful place, which is how people kind of describe, you know, in spirituality, like just being in this really deep relaxation. And then for psilocybin, I thought it would be another beautiful experience, different. I'm sure it would be different, but also beautiful. And it was really hard. I immediately went into the underworld and there were gremlins dancing with my mom's teeth. It was just like super uncomfortable. And they barked at me. They said, "You have more work to do." And I was so stunned because I had done all this work for years in therapy, and then I was doing this grief work before that. But they— the message was, "You have so much more grief to unpack." And so I was really disheartened by that journey, but also it's what's true. So I started kind of going toward grief. Anytime I felt anything, I would clear my plate and try to just sit with it. And what would happen afterward is that, you know, colors were more vibrant. Like the trees came alive to me. My experience in life became more beautiful every time I did a big grief session. And frankly, again, coming back to this book, at some point I was in the midst of very heavy grief and then I woke up one day and one of the chapters just came out of me. And so I've had this experience over and over the more I go toward my grief. And, you know, I do think that journey really set the stage for this whole thing, which is go toward your pain, stop avoiding, you know, like you have stuff to unpack and it's time to do that. So I did a couple psilocybin journeys and they were all really uncomfortable and dark. Some people have— everyone has different experience. And so some people have these really beautiful light experiences and mine were not. So my guide ultimately said I might try ayahuasca and that's what I did next. And I did that on and off for maybe 2— yeah, 2 years, I guess. And that was the deepest relationship I developed, was with ayahuasca.

Okay, so the psilocybin, you know, the thing is, um, for me, I've talked to people who have done psychedelics for— for— and we're not talking about recreational stuff here, and we'll just make it very clear to people, we're talking about you had a guide and you're doing this with a purpose to work on yourself and your traumas, your grief. Um, but I'm the kind of person— I'm a very fearful person. So I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, I'd be scared to have a panic attack. And she, she'd done ayahuasca. She goes, oh, I did. But then she did it again. So the thing I— when I listened to your book, because you sent me the audio of it, um, I was like, wow, you really leaned into what most of us would turn away from. If I had a bad, you know, bad experience, I'd be like, I'm not doing that again.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because that, you know, they can call them bad trips or whatever. I do think, I do think that's where having, having the right setting where you feel safe— I had my guide— was critical. But also, you know, the journey itself with psilocybin was so dark for me, but the aftermath, you know, so you take, you do these psychedelics and then you integrate what you learned. And so much of the time you have no clue what it's about during or right after. Sometimes you get a sense for things, but most of the time for me, I have no clue what it means. And then you just, it just unfolds. Your, your brain is rewired and things start to change in the weeks and months afterward. And in the integration of it, my life was changing. You know, who I was was changing. And I also think there was, you know, an element of all of it where I wasn't spiritual at all before any of this. And I think part of that probably was my mom's Edwards, like, what's the point of any of this? This sucks. So I think that the psychedelics helped me start to see some of the spiritual connection and And my life was changing. So as difficult as it was, even if I hadn't tried ayahuasca, I think I would still have done more psilocybin because it was so impactful on my life. You know, the lessons I learned were so profound.

Yeah. So yeah, that's great. It's great that, you know, you did that integration and you mentioned you weren't spiritual before. So I'd like to talk about that. But I was thinking about like people that have what they call negative NDEs or hellish NDEs. Is that they— after they integrate the experience, after they get over the fear, they realize, "This is what I needed." You know, so what we call negative is not necessarily bad. It may be what you need at the time, and you have to lean into it, as you said, and integrate it.

Right. Yeah. And that's what the— you know, and I can't speak for anyone's experience but mine, but they say that the medicine shows you what you need to see. And so, for the people who get these really super fun psilocybin journeys, Good for them. I, you know, what I needed to see was my pain because ultimately that let me acknowledge it and release it. And then my way of being in the world is, is, you know, dramatically different. I will say I did have one psilocybin journey that was super joyful. And the integration of that was actually the hardest for me because I went from the super joyful, you know, place to back, back to being human and go, well, what do I do with that? That. So it— having the pain with the medicine actually was quite— then it's like, okay, you come back to earth, you get, you get some relief, but also you did— it's like you did the hard work in the journey with the medicine. There's some— there's a great gift to being able to do that.

Yeah, that— well, it reminds me, I was interviewing PMH Atwater, who's a near-death expert, and she was saying she was in, I guess, in a room where people were sharing their experiences, and one had a hellish experience and said it was like the best thing that ever happened, and the other one had like a heavenly experience and had a really difficult time integrating it because of just like you said, now this compared to that was just like, why am I even still here?

Yeah, how do I find that here? What's the point? What's the point? I mean, I was— I was— it didn't last long, but there was an immediate depression after the happy journey.

So your, your spirituality, when did that start to develop and how?

Um, you know, I didn't, I didn't label what the voice in the woods was. I think on some level I was aware that it could be something beyond me. I mean, it was in the sense that it wasn't my brain, right? It's not like I was thinking through things and thought, gosh, if I add all this up, my life's a tragedy, right? It was a spontaneous, you know, from something else, something besides my brain told me that my life was a tragedy. But I think it was really that first MDMA journey where I just saw— there's, again, it's not something that I can describe. They talk about how these journeys are ineffable, that you can't— there's not words for it. But there was something in me that goes, oh, I am a spiritual being. You know, like there, there is more to this. And even sometimes in the ayahuasca ceremonies, in a really scary way, like, it's like I was in this room and I was high on the medicine, and then it was like the curtain was being pulled back. Like, I would, I would see the room, but then I saw, you know, the, the kind of human perspective of it being pulled away, and it was terrifying to me. Ultimately, I didn't, I didn't stay in that place, but I think I kept having experiences like that with these psychedelics that showed me, you know, one time during the psilocybin journey, talked with my mom. I'm not in human form, you know, it's kind of like a spirit knowledge transfer. Um, but I just, you know, that's what those psychedelics do. They give you— they gave me a glimpse into what it— what reality is. And then you go into your— back into your human life and find that again on your own.

Yeah. So the ayahuasca, what was— so we talked about the MDMA and psilocybin.

What was the ayahuasca like for Ayahuasca, um, you know, I ultimately did, I think, 13 ceremonies of ayahuasca, and everyone was different. Many of them though, like, I would go in and just cry, grieve for hours. So I would just, you know, without, without a lot of, um, setup, it's just like I would all of a sudden be sad about my marriage. Like, you know, 2 years after my co-parent moved out of the house, I cried for hours about it. I went in, I went in with an intention about something else. And then I cried for hours about my ex-husband. So, you know, kind of like, there are, there are times where you grieve like that. There are times where your body just kind of goes away and you're, you're in the geometric landscapes and visions. There are times that are just utterly blissful. There are times where my body was in incredible amounts of pain. I mean, just kind of like the, the— and there were times where I just talked with the medicine and I would say, I I had just a therapist right here who knew everything about the world. And I would just get to— I would say stuff and she would say, "No, do this instead." Or, you know, like she would tell me to take space from certain relationships. Or one time I said, I thought about my sister and I said, "I should send her healing energy." And Mother Aya, that's the medicine, we call her Mother Aya, she said, "No, keep that for yourself." And it's just kind of like these really gentle conversations that ultimately had this huge impact on me where I would go kind of try to understand what she was telling me. But it was like, um, I mean, the chapter in my book about ayahuasca is called A Tapestry of Letting Go. It just feels like every time was another conversation with the medicine in whatever form where she would just help me set things down and bring my energy back to me and let things go over and over and over. And the grieving was that. The grieving was, let's go look at this moment, this moment that you didn't know was so tender. Let's go look at that moment. And then I got to feel the tenderness of that moment, and then I could let it go. Otherwise, it's, you know, that I— my vision of this is that it's stored in my body somewhere, this density, this grief. And when I can go acknowledge it, then it gets to move through. And if I open myself up by letting go of this grief, then I get to be a channel for love. And that's been just quite a beautiful thing.

It's interesting, what you just said reminded me of something I just heard recently, because we've all heard the pain is stored in the body and the body keeps the score and stuff like that. And I heard someone a couple weeks ago, and I was listening to a podcast. And it said we have to metabolize the emotions or metabolize the grief. I really liked— I liked that word. For some reason, it made sense to me. Because it does. It's there, and it's stuck. And we have to, we have to work with it and transform it and let it go. So that the energy that we have can flow again. And I think so many of us, and again, doing the work that I do, so many of us just We just don't wanna face it. We just wanna keep it buried and, yeah, or not even acknowledge the fact that it even exists.

Right. And so understandably, because it's really painful. I mean, I think what I find so heartening though is that there's kind of like the deep dive. You can have a crisis, you can have a rock bottom moment, like hearing your life's a tragedy or illness or all these things that can say it's time to look at this and, and you're gonna do it because there's nothing else to do. But if you're not in that rock bottom place, there's also the, like, I get to acknowledge even saying, I don't wanna look at my pain. Just being with that, like, that's another, that's a feeling, that's a fear, whatever that is, right? You can go, yeah, I don't wanna look at my pain. Like, just having that acknowledgement of that initial emotion is a sweet thing that we can do to ourselves that will let something start to move. And then, and then that can lead to the next step. I mean, it's like, it doesn't have to be okay. 'Now I have to go do all this.' If you want to, if you're motivated to, amazing. Because really, for me, it was deep dive, both internal work and with the psychedelics, where my life changed dramatically in a short period of time because I was willing to do that. But even if somebody's not ready to do that, that's okay. Then you can say, 'I'm not ready to do that.' Just having that conversation with yourself is a meaningful conversation versus not knowing it's there. Versus, you know, like, if you're totally unaware that it's stuck, it's gonna stay stuck. You're gonna have these patterns in your life that are frustrating and painful and that keep perpetuating. But if you say, I know there's stuff I wanna, I know there's stuff I need to look at and I'm not ready to look at it. Just having that awareness is a, is a great place to start. Or I'm, I, I wanna do this, but I'm really scared. Or, okay, for me it's like taking coping mechanisms off the table. Can I for 10 minutes, I mean, maybe, maybe a day, maybe a week, but could I for 10 minutes not look at my phone? Could I for a week you know, not have sugar, whatever the thing is. We can start to make these things, these steps incrementally without feeling like the whole thing, because it's, it's overwhelming. I mean, it took me years to wake up to my pain because I had so much and I couldn't do it all at once. I had to take it moment by moment when I was ready.

Yeah. So the, the coping mechanisms you mentioned, so talk about that a little bit more. So what do we want to do as far as taking those off the table?

For me, what happens is, you know, I'm— if I'm really annoyed or really like, if I have— I feel like there's kind of the different— there's different levels of pain. Some are— some you can kind of tolerate and you tolerate every day, and others are so scary or big that you kind of have to stop everything and deal with them. For me, I can get into these, like, I'm in these habits that I'm really stuck in a rut kind of thing. And what I do is if I want to stop feeling stuck somewhere, I, I know that when I'm watching screens, when I'm eating sugar, when I'm, um, you know, taking in a lot of noise from the outside world, I know that I'm keeping myself from something. So when my sugar cravings are high, which they've been lately, I'm like, okay, I know I'm avoiding something. And that's okay. Like, I don't, I don't need to say it was, it's bad to do that. I just want to be aware that I'm avoiding something when my cravings are going up and I'm, and I'm doing more of that kind of activity. So when I'm ready, when I say, okay, I'm tired I'm tired of being in this state, then I will say, okay, let's do a week where I cut out, you know, big flavors and sugar and that kind of thing, where I cut out screens, where I cut out social media. If you're on social media, even social interactions, I mean, things like that where it's like, can we, can we find quiet in our lives? And that's when, because when I have a craving, it's something in me saying, I want, I'm trying to get your attention. And I'm saying, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go have this chocolate bar.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

If I'm ready to start hearing the messages that are trying to get through to me, then I cannot have that chocolate bar and I can just sit there and see what comes up. And frankly, for me, there's a lot of like, again, just being sweet to that first emotion, emotion, which is like, I don't want to take the coping mechanisms off the table. Screw you. I don't wanna do this. You know? So there's kind of like being sweet to that part cuz there's all these different, we have all these different pieces of us that are trying to get our attention. And when we fill ourselves up with busyness and flavors and noise and all of that, then it's really hard for these voices to get through.

Yeah, I love what you just said there. It's really about awareness. I mean, because sometimes we need— we have coping mechanisms for a reason. So sometimes we need those things. But to get curious and say, why am I doing this? What is it that I'm avoiding? At least to acknowledge that it's there, that there's something that we need to address at some point. Right. And then be— to be able to come around to it when we're ready to address it, um, you know, because sometimes grief can frankly be overwhelming, you know, like absolutely the tragic loss of, of your mother, you know, something like that, you know. The coping mechanisms are there to protect us. And even these, this internal family systems, we— all these, these, uh, parts that we have, you know, they're— people would be very careful, they're not our enemies, they're not there to harm us, they're, they're there to protect and— but they're, they're misguided, they're overused, you know, ever. So this idea, I love the idea, and I'd only again heard this pretty recently because I'd heard something before called positive intelligence. We talk about the various parts of ourselves and we talk about sages and saboteurs, which is really different language for the same thing. But in that system, they're more like adversaries. And I like internal family systems, they're like, they're parts of us that are just— need some guidance and need some love. Right.

Right. Yeah, it's a very sweet thing. It's very gentle, I think. And, you know, I was talking with a podcast host months ago, and she was saying how— she was like, why can't I get this right? And then after she read my book, she was like, oh, it's this part. It's the teenage part of me that felt like I had to fight to get— be heard or whatever it was like. And so as soon as she realized it was her younger version, then, then she's not mad at it. She's sweet to it, right? And once you're sweet to it, then that, then that part actually feels acknowledged, and then they probably don't need you to do the thing anymore, right? It's kind of like, as soon as you can turn it from there being your adversary to being a really well-intended, innocent piece of you, then, then it shifts you toward them, and then what they need changes because they've been acknowledged.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, um, I know also we talked about your consulting business a little bit. So you made a career change after this happened?

Well, I kept the consulting business for a good long while, um, I mean, but kind of with less passion. My heart stopped being in it. And then this book took up all my time, and I, and I did formally shut down the consulting practice. So I'm really in a place right now of sharing the book Um, you know, we go through these periods of deep grounding, and so I've been doing a ton of grief work just in this last, this last summer and fall. I did so much grief work, and I'm very aware that I was grounding, I was anchoring down so that the next creative phase can come. But I'm just kind of in that, in that void, quiet space right now and trying to be really, um, appreciative of the grounding and also really honoring the mystery. You know, I had this history of needing to know what's coming next, of controlling it, of, you know, having the plan. And so it's very new, a new practice for me to really say, I don't have to have the plan. I can just wake up today, I can sink into my body, and I'll be guided.

It was pretty wild. I just, um, I wrote a post for Substack earlier this morning, and it was a guest I, I've been speaking with. It was about purpose, and people say, my purpose, I, and I And the post was basically, we look at purpose like it should be a roadmap. We want to know exactly where we're going, when we're going to get there. And I remember talking to him, and he does all this big life lesson stuff. And I asked him about purpose. He goes, my purpose right now, Brian, is to sit here and have a conversation with you. And he's like, this is my purpose. And I think a lot of us think about purpose like it's that big long-term thing. And there is a certain amount of trust that has to come that like we're not going to necessarily get that information, you know, right now, and, and to just to sit with that. So I love you talk about this, you know, you're in a period of time of grounding, and that's okay. Being okay with that is a really important thing, I think.

Yeah, yeah. And frankly, that's when the, that's when the magic— I mean, for me, this is all about like, life feels magical in a way that it didn't before I had this awakening. And there's this magic that can happen when you don't take control, right? When you let that go, when you trust things to move through you. And this can happen both kind of in the time and what I'm here to do. And this also can happen with, you know, from the financial perspective of like, if I don't plan every single thing, will I die? And I think on some level, you know, there is kind of a willingness to let everything go. You almost have to be willing to let everything go badly, like to let the worst be true, to then actually be open to everything going in this beautiful kind of divine way. It's all greater than my knowing. And I, you know, when I'm in these deep periods of grief, I'm very clear to me that that grieving part of me says, don't you go make light of this later. Like, this is so painful. And I know that my grief, all I know is my grief, and there's so much out in the world. So for me to speak about anything as if I know the truth, as if there is a way, you know, just kind of like, I feel like I was in this last period of so much I have to have so much reverence for what people are experiencing that is beyond my capacity to understand. And the mystery of life, you know, I just think from the self-help perspective, it's like, I wanna go find the way to happiness. And if you follow these 3 keys, you'll get there kind of stuff. And it's like, ah, I don't know. There's so much bigger than that. There's so much more beautiful. There's so much more pain. You know, so for me, the best practice seems to be to just surrender to what's bigger than me and, and to empty myself out as much as I can so that I can let love flow through me.

Yeah. Now I can imagine someone thinking, okay, well, this sounds like a painful and exhausting process, and is it ever going to be over? You know, uh, I know some people say, I don't want to start, I don't want to start dealing with my grief or my pain because that sounds like too much work, and, and when do I get to the end? So, how would you address that?

You know, I started doing it because it was time to do it. So, I was kind of on some level, I get it. You know, I wasn't willing to look at it until I had to face the reality of my situation. And so, you know, there's some book I read years ago. I don't know. I forget which one it was, but it was someone talking to her mentor about, "Why do I keep doing these things?" And he's— and the mentor said, "'Cause it doesn't hurt enough." You know, like, when you hurt enough, you're gonna do this work 'cause there's nothing else to do. You're at the end and you've gotta do it. It. So I mean, I think there's just an element of like, you know, again, not to tell anyone else what to do. We're all going to be guided to do this when we're ready. And having said that, on my journey, I have discovered I'm a singer and a writer and a dancer in my way of being in the world. You know, I'm just, I'm in my body and boundaries flow naturally and love flows. I can be so much more of service now than I could before. Before I was depleted and, you know, really wasn't living a life worth living. And now I am. And being so filled myself means love just pours through me to other people. So there's like, absolutely, in that way, there is a destination. You open up. I mean, we do these ayahuasca ceremonies and I'll be there with someone who's, it's their first ceremony. And then I'll see them a few ceremonies later. And the openness that happens with these people who have now, you know, decided to look at the stuff, they flower in a way, they blossom in a way that is extraordinary to see. So I felt that myself and I see it around me as well. So from my perspective, there's no other path that I would wanna take. From someone else's perspective, I understand the hesitation because what I think is we can understand the pain. We know a little taste of pain. We know what we're trying to avoid. But what I couldn't have understood 5 years ago is how beautiful it is. And so it's hard to make that choice to move forward with this if you don't really know what that beauty feels like and looks like.

Yeah, thank you. That— I think that was a really good transition, that— because we've talked so much about the pain, and then you just— you talked about the beauty. I mean, what's the payoff? What's the reason why we do this? And we're not We're not seeking pain. We're not going out to have experiences to create pain, but we're acknowledging that the pain is there. And as we talked about earlier, the pain is— it's already there. It's, it's already, it's already in our bodies. It's already in our psyches. It's already, it's already there. What you're talking about is like facing that, acknowledging it, working with that, and transforming it into the beauty that you've been able to experience.

Yeah, it's, it's been pretty incredible. And like you said, I mean, I think it surprises me so much. I think, you know, parts of us, like I said, I thought I lost my mom, but really I lost myself. And I think so many of us don't know who we are, have lost ourselves to this kind of being shut off from our bodies and from our pain. And so you don't know how much you're missing yourself. You know, for so long, because I was out of my body, I looked everywhere else for the answer.

Yeah.

And I wanted somebody, somebody else, like I needed the right partner, the right friends, the right community. I needed these external pieces to make me feel good. But the truth was that that was never going to be enough. I was always going to need more from an external perspective because what I was missing was not that, I was missing me. And so— you know, I was never going to be happy in that context. And I think this voice in the woods was saying, finally, like, are you done being unhappy? Because you can choose something else. I just, frankly, I didn't feel like you could choose something else. I was doing all the stuff that I thought you could do. I was doing therapy. I was going to workshops and I was going to retreats and reading all the books and very diligently, you know, I was willing to do all of it as well as I could. And it was, but it was this external picture. And again, Mother Aya, when I said I'd send my sister healing energy, she said, no, keep that for yourself because I have more to do here. Like, I don't need to send any love outward. Once I'm filled with my own love, love will just naturally flow to other people.

Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. I love that. So do you still do the psychedelics? You mentioned you're doing ayahuasca ceremonies, watching other people. Are you still doing that? Them?

I, um, I'm on a little bit of a break, maybe forever, maybe not. I went in February and Mother Aya told me that I didn't need to come back. And her message was, as long as you look out— so just what we were talking about— as long as you look outside yourself, you'll never know all of who you are. And so even with psychedelics, I realize I'm looking to Mother Aya for the answer instead of going into my body and finding the wisdom there, because that's what psychedelics do, is they, they take you to your own Yeah, but I still very much was like, I have a problem in my life. I can't wait to go work on it with Mother Aya.

Yeah.

And what I learned from her in February, and still integrating that message, is that I can do that. I can do it now by myself. Like, I learned it from the medicines, how to go find the pain, how to be loving to the pain, you know, how to, how to release these things. So I don't know if it's a forever thing or if it's, you know, the funny thing about the psychedelics is they're also very trickster. Like, she'll say something and I'll think it's this over here and she might be joking and she really just said it to get a— to like help me see what my reaction was. Because when I was— when she told me not to come back, I was so sad. I felt abandoned by her. So here I am being abandoned again by a mother.

Yeah.

So I'm aware that it may not be that I'm done forever, but it has been a time of really owning my capacity to do the stuff without the medicine. And to me, that's a very heartening message that, you know, I went to— I went to learn how to do this stuff, not to be fixed by the medicines, but to be taught by the medicines. And now I can take that learning and apply it myself.

Yeah, I think the medicines are very interesting. I've looked into a little bit, you know, because I would say, you know, a Western point of view, they change your brain chemistry and you just have experiences in your brain. I think of them more as like lowering the or allowing our brains or moving the filter and allowing us to see that reality. And there's some controversy even in the spiritual world, but some people say, well, you shouldn't use, you know, artificial means, you should get there on your own. But then some of us meditate for decades and we never, we never reach those types of, of, of realities. So yeah, I think it's, it's going to be individual for everybody to decide whether that's for them or not. Um, and it's, you know, it's interesting, my other, my other ayahuasca might say, okay, it's time for to, to do this on your own, um, now that you've gotten this, you know, the foundation and the realizations that you've gotten from the medicines.

So, right, right. And just for me, it's again this perpetual looking outside myself. I mean, I— it's like you get so much better at things over time, but there's still layers for me to release, to go, okay, I'm still wanting someone to validate me, I'm still wanting someone to tell me I'm okay, you know. I can find that in myself. Yeah.

So the voice that spoke to you in the woods, you know, those years ago, what do you think the voice would say to you today?

I'm doing great. I mean, again, I think that that voice now, I think that voice was my body. And I've thought about that lots, where like, what would the voice say today? It would not say my life would be a tragedy. I mean, The transformation that's occurred in my own experience is incredible, but also just how I— every relationship, every single relationship I have has transformed because of my transformation. And, you know, I show up for people in ways that I never could have shown up before. Before I showed up, I might actually— it's interesting because I might be doing the exact same thing, like showing up for somebody who needs help.. But before, I would have been doing it because I was— I should, and I'm obligated to, and they need me, and I'd be totally depleted afterward. And now I'll show up and do that exact same thing, and I'm just filled to the brim with love, and I don't need anything in return. So like, there are these relationships where even maybe we've had painful exchanges in the past, and I don't need the other person to do anything. Like, I don't need their sorry. I don't need I don't need them for my healing. And so I can just show up and be loving. And it's kind of like crazy to me how different it is. But, um, I've changed the trajectory for me and my son and the rest of my family kind of looks at me with wide eyes going, what's happened?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Um, but it's really beautiful, you know, like things where before I would've been really concerned about boundaries or how, you know, Am I getting compensated for something or whatever it is? And now I'm just like, I'm good. I don't like— I, and it's not— I take such good care of myself is part of that, right? Like I'm very much, if I wanna be loving to other people, I know first if I'm, if I don't feel very loving toward others, I know that means I need to love myself more.

Mm-hmm.

And so this is very much premised on the, on the, you know, the idea that I'm taking good care of myself and then I can show up for others because I'm so resourced.

Yeah, I like what you said there about, um, you could do the same thing with different motivations and it has a completely different meaning. I think that's the thing that's really, really important, you know, because sometimes people will think, well, self-care means being selfish and not doing things for other people, but it just means not doing things for other people out of being needy or needing for their, you know, for their approval or their praise. You doing it now because you're more of an abundance of what's flowing out of you.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty surprising. And I think that's the other piece too. It's kind of like I first had the awakening and then it's like, okay, what huge things am I going to go do in my life now? I can change the world. And then, and then you settle into it a little bit and it's like, oh, I can do the same things, you know. Like, I, I was, you know, I went to the grocery store before, I'll go to go to the grocery store now. Like, I wish someone a happy birthday before, I wish them a happy birthday now. But the energy of those— of all of my experiences is what's changed. It's my, my doing the same ordinary things feels— everything can feel sacred and extraordinary.

Yeah, well, that gets back to that, that purpose thing I think we talked about earlier. Because again, I think people sometimes think of purpose like the big things. I'm supposed to do this thing, I'm supposed to do that thing. And the, the older I get, the more I think our purpose is to, is to be authentic and to get to know ourselves, you know, really really that internal work that we do, the internal work that you've done, and that you're showing one way that other people can start to approach that, you know. And the biggest thing being getting away from that fear and, and facing the pain.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, getting away from the fear, or just really sitting with the fear. Fear is a really hard thing to sit with, but just letting it all flow through. I mean, I think that's the other piece, is that once you face your pain, you realize how incredibly strong you and that's so cool because I've always felt so weak and so, you know, fragile. And so now I'm— I've gone through so much that anything can happen in my life and it's okay. Yeah, that's such a different place. Before, it was like I needed all the things to line up so that I was okay.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I, you know, I could tell from, from reading your book, it's like, you know, this is a person who's really, you know, leaned into this, right? Who, who is really— I mean, I see you as very bold and very, um, not fearless because we all have fear, but, but to say, I'm going to face my fear, I'm going to face my pain, I'm going to, I'm going to lean into this. And I love in your book about how you're just like, you're very, you're very open, you're very raw about like, you know, your emotions and what's happened to you, and you're really putting yourself out there. And I can tell it's in service to other people. You want to help other people.

Yeah, I do. And. And I'm so, you know, as I've realized how incredible I am, I realize how incredible every individual is. So there's kind of this element of, I think it was, um, I think it was the Tao Te Ching that says, you know, when you stop helping other people, you'll be their greatest help. Something like that, where it's like, if I can just take care of myself and show up with this authenticity, with this love flowing from me, other people, it's, it's just like we're waking each other up. Right. So because somebody else will see that and then something will spark in them. It's less— it's not that I'm helping anybody, it's that they're helping themselves with what we're sharing, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, going forward in your life, um, we talked— we talked a little bit earlier about your spirituality, how it's changed and developed. So where do you see yourself now? Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?

Oh, that would be fun, a little preview. I have no clue because it's like, where do I see myself tomorrow? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, again, this, this last year has been a lot about letting go of the need to understand. And that was part of one of my more recent ceremonies with, with ayahuasca was Mother Aya showed me this huge vision. And I was like, I don't understand how I can do that. Like, it was kind of this vision for me moving forward. And I was like, I can't, my brain couldn't get it. I was so overwhelmed. I was sitting there with a blanket over my head, kind of like rocking back and forth, like like a mental patient. And so I was like, you have to show me how I'm gonna be able to handle that. And she said, turn off your brain. And my brain is really reluctant to follow those instructions. But the more I'm becoming more practiced at letting my brain be silent, and that's when things can move. It's like, if again, becoming an empty vessel so that the the loving energy can move through me, and that's all I'm here to do.

Yeah, I think it's a great answer. And I, and I actually, I love your answer because again, Tom saw some people go to, well, I'm going to be in this job, or I'm going to be there, and it's not a— it's not about that. It's about really becoming more of your authentic self. So, um, I love your answer. Thank you for that.

Yeah.

So, uh, Alexis, we're coming to the end of our time. Remind people, uh, of the name of book, um, where they can get it, and if people can reach out to you, how they can reach you.

So this, it's Pain is a Portal to Beauty, and it's right now, it's everywhere online. Um, so anywhere you search for it by Alexis Lee, and my website is alexislee.com, and there's a, a contact, um, form there. I would love to hear from anybody. And frankly, right now we're doing work with book clubs and anybody who wants a copy, I'll send you one. Just really, um, And this was— this book was a gift that came to me and moved through me, and I'm grateful to, to gift it out to the world.

Oh, that's very generous of you. And by the way, for people that are listening, not watching, it's Leigh, L-E-I-G-H. Um, and Alexis, again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for what you put out into the world. I, I know it's going to help a lot of people.

This has been a fun conversation, Brian. Thanks for having me.

All right, have a good morning. Brian D Smith. Grief doesn't follow stages, timelines, or rules. And if you've ever wondered, am I doing this right? You're not alone. That's why I created the grief check-in. It's not a test. There are no right or wrong answers. It's simply a gentle way to understand how grief may be showing up for you right now. In just a few minutes, you'll gain clarity and language for what you're experiencing without judgment, labels, or pressure to move on. One. If you're wondering where you are in grief, this is a safe place to look. Go to grief2growth.com/checkin. That's grief numeral 2 growth.com/checkin. Hi there, I'm really excited to tell you about my latest ebook. It's 4 lessons that you can learn from the near-death experience without going through all the trouble of dying to learn them. I've been studying NDEs for several years now. I am completely convinced that not only are they 100% real, but that there's some very universal wisdom that we can get from the near-death experience. And I've distilled that down in this book into 4 short lessons. And I've also given you all the reasons why I believe that NDEs are absolutely real. So go to www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons to pick it up for free. www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.