In this conversational interview, the hosts explore three core principles for integrating psychedelic experiences, especially for newcomers and veterans. They begin by unpacking the lingering stigma and myths—such as fears of DNA binding or permanent personality change—surrounding psychedelics, noting how these narratives deter many from trying them. A veteran guest shares his personal journey from a substance‑free military life to discovering psychedelic medicines, emphasizing the distinction he makes between recreational drugs and therapeutic medicines. He explains the botanical and historical background of ayahuasca (a recent, complex plant combination) versus psilocybin (an ancient, ubiquitous compound), and contrasts their effects with THC, which he describes as highly disorienting for sensitive individuals. The discussion then shifts to practical guidance: the importance of aligning set (mindset), setting (environment and supportive people), and dosage to the intended experience, illustrated with a micro‑dose at a concert example. They reframe “bad trips” as incomplete trips caused by resistance to a therapeutic “gate,” arguing that with proper environment, dosage, and facilitation, these challenges become temporary and lead to breakthroughs. Finally, they stress the value of a trained facilitator or supportive team to help navigate resistance, ensure safety, and turn difficult moments into integration opportunities.
Chapters
What are the 3 secrets to integrating your psychedelic transformation? I mean, you know, I mean, growing up when you heard psychedelic, for me I was like, oh, those hippies in the '60s, right? Yeah, there seemed to be some judgment for sure, and then fear, and then, oh, that's not for me, I'm not a druggie. There seemed to be a lot of labeling that went on there and misinformation.
I mean, it's, it's still there because I can tell you that, like, working up to— I, I was completely substance-free other than alcohol because the military loves, loves their alcohol. Oh yeah, I was— yeah, that's, that's the drug of the military. Um, I was completely substance-free until I got out of the military when I was 27, 28 years old. I had never— I had, I hadn't had cannabis. Not a thing in my body system.
Oh wow.
And so I was absolutely terrified of the concept of LSD because I'd been told that LSD would make you jump out of windows and that it would bond to your DNA and they could find it 20 years after you're dead. And all of these little sort of myths, some of which may be true, um, you know, that it changes you forever. And I was like, you know, now that I've sat with it, I'm like Well, yes, it does. But it doesn't change you in the ways that I think some of the fear-based narrative has been. So, so I completely understand that perspective. And also, as a veteran whose post-trauma has been really helped and healed by this, and I've watched so many of my brothers and sisters from both the military and also just from my community heal with these medicines, I've come to recognize the difference, in my opinion, between drugs and medicines. And to me, these are true medicines that have been around for quite some time. And interestingly, ayahuasca is the newest of them all. She's really only been around for a few hundred years.
Okay.
And because she's a combination of two plants, of the chacruna plant and the ayahuasca vine. And so, the combination of those was a very particular— there's a brewing process that some shaman had to like download and, and, and understand because the plants don't even grow in the same area of the jungle. So it's completely like unreasonable that ayahuasca even exists, um, if you think about it logically. But psilocybin has been around for quite literally billions of years. Um, and so that's one reason why, you know, why we, why we work with, with Psilocybin, because she's an oldie and a goodie.
Yeah, I mean, I love mushrooms, period. So being vegan, I— yeah, and, and my sister is— she's a little more versed, and we've had some mushroom tea, and I've tried some CBD. I tried THC, but I tried way too much. It was not a good experience. And my son laughed at me and he said, Mom, you've got to make sure you take the right amount and you need to make sure you have someone with you.
Oh, this is so powerful. And kudos to your son, he knows how to do it. And THC, you know, I'll say two things about this. First is that THC in my world, um, and my body, especially as an empath, a highly sensitive being, um, THC is the most disorienting of all the medicines.
I would agree. I was a babbling fool up to all hours at night. I couldn't move. I felt heavy. It was so weird. Anyways, yeah.
And, and I've had experiences like that with THC too. And, and so it's interesting because we get a lot of people who come to us and they'll, they'll have some fear around going into the journey And I'll say, "Well, what's your experience with plant medicine?" And they'll say, "Well, I've done cannabis. I've smoked weed. And sometimes, I smoked a little too much and then I paired it with alcohol." And I'm like, "Oh, no." I understand why they have this fear because THC, and especially in the ways that it's cultivated now, THC can really take you to places that are both dark and also out of control, while psilocybin, I found, can also— there is the possibility of what people would call a bad trip. I think a bad trip is really just an incomplete trip. We can talk about that.
That's funny, I like that.
But the, um, but essentially it doesn't take you to these places of, of total out of control the way that, the way that cannabis does. And also what your son said was so accurate because what we talk about is set mindset, the intention with which you are sitting with the medicine, knowing that it's a medicine, right, and it's going to do some work on you. Setting, which is the environment that you're in and the people that are around you, who you have near you that's holding that space. And then dosage and knowing that all three of those match each other, right? If I'm going to a concert, for example, maybe I do a little microdose of psilocybin, and that's just enough because it's going to be a very stimulating environment. I don't want to take a macrodose if I'm going to a highly busy populated event that is uncertain, right? So that's just one, one example of how to, how to keep those things in mind when you're on your journey.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then we're going to circle back to a bad trip is an incomplete trip. Yeah.
Um, yeah, this is such a big topic because there are lots of people who will say, well, what about a bad trip? And usually I ask, well, you know, what's your definition of bad, of a bad trip? And they're like, well, I'm uncomfortable, I feel feelings that I don't like and they don't stop, I usually feel like I can't get out of it, I'm looping. And my experience as a facilitator is that people— we almost always go into some experience of that, but that experience gets to be temporary if you are in the right environment, if you have the right dosage, and you have the right facilitation, either tools or facilitator, to help you move through whatever that is. Because really, that's just a block. That you're facing, we call it a gate in our work. So you get to the gate, the resistance gate, and you have all the resistance. You're like, "I don't want to go there. I don't want to think about that. That's in the past. We're not going there." And so what happens is the medicine will loop you around until you face it. And if you don't face it before the medicine completes, like before it's over in your system, then the whole experience was just the medicine saying, this is what you need to look at, and our system saying, no, I don't want to, I don't want to do that, I don't look at, I don't want to look at that, I don't want to look at that. So it's really a result of resisting the potential healing that the medicine is, is trying to do. And when you sit with a facilitator, the chances are much higher that A, you'll have the right environment and dosage to get you into a place like that. And then you'll have the facilitator and the tools to move you completely through, so that on the other side you feel that sense of, ah, oh yeah, okay, yeah, I did it. And that's when you get the, like, upswing, and suddenly it's no longer a bad trip. It was just a temporary challenge.
Yeah, I love that. And I had asked the community if anyone's ever done psychedelics, if they had questions. Um, and we were just talking about cannabis, so Brandy, you might want to go back.
Yeah.
And have a look.
Yes, definitely.
And that's, uh, one of my, uh, while she graduated, one of my students. But, um, yeah, I feel it's really, like you just said, really important to have a supportive team and to help people go there, because I hear it a lot. I don't want to go there. So why do you think people don't want to go there?
I mean, I, I think you and I probably have very similar experiences when someone's like, um, especially for those of us like you who holds that energy of transformation, right? And you're like, that's why I'm in your life, is to help you, like, help you move through this. And that's a very powerful energy to hold. And it can be really uncomfortable because most of us fear change. Change is programmed into our body as dangerous, as risky. And so most of us are still living in that survival realm, which is the physical body system. And in my world, you know, the body keeps the score, right? So the body is just a memory bank for all the ways that we have done it. And those are the ways that are safe. And even though they may have been uncomfortable, I know that way won't kill me, so I'm going to do it that way. And I'm going to keep doing it that way until Christine comes into my life or Susanna comes into my life and we say, "You got to move. You got to move out of this. You got to move out of this pattern." So that— but that facing of the edge, I sometimes think of it like a
