The Dark Side of Plant Medicine with Josh Trent

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned lifestyle and high performance coach. Welcome to Listen up the podcast. On this podcast, I do what I do best. Taking complicated information that is relevant to us now and breaking it down simply with actionable steps you can implement to level up your life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on the planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than anything they ever dreamed possible. Creating everything from nothing. If you are new here, I encourage you to go back and listen from episode one, when this podcast was previously called Leveling up for the Full Transformative Experience. Today I've got my friend Josh Trent back on the show. Welcome back, Josh. I can't wait to chat today. So Josh is CEO of a wellness media company. He has Wellness Force Radio, which is a phenomenal podcast if you haven't subscribed to it. We had our first conversation on my show a little over a year ago, and when we spoke, we talked a little bit about plant medicine. And I was new to experimenting a little bit with it, and he was more versed on it, and we had an interesting conversation about that. But the reason I wanted to have Josh back on the show is a lot has changed with him in the last year. A lot has changed. A lot of deep work that he's done on himself. He's got very different opinions around it. And so I was. I was having my own internal conversations with him. He didn't even know about what I was seeing him post about. And I thought, let me bring you on the show, Josh, so we can discuss this openly because you've so much good information to share. So thanks for coming back.

Yeah, thanks for having me. And you're right. Wow, what a 2020. And then slash 2020 when we've had, holy shit. Like, yeah, who would have thought, who would have known? And so, yeah, a lot has come to light for me and it's really about duality. Like today to talk about both sides of the coin, the dark and the light of plant medicine. And also the good things that can come from self awareness and going through the gauntlet.

Yeah, I love it. Okay, so I wanted to. Because somebody listening right now has no idea what we're even talking about. So let's. I want to start kind of elementary on this. Like, what is plant medicine and what drew you to that to begin with?

Well, the scientific term of plant medicine is it's an entheogen that is a psychedelic class. And the medicine aspect of it is that it is Medicinal because it allows people to see things in their deep subconscious from a observer's perspective. In other words, plant medicine is an antheogenic compound that's found in nature. And by the way, plant medicine is not just ayahuasca. It can be mushrooms, it can be frog medicine or toad medicine. There's lots of medicines that fall into the entheogenic compound spectrum. Plant medicine at its core is something that's being used on planet earth for, for 5,000 plus years. If you look at the Peruvian Amazon or even in the east or in India in Ayurvedic medicines, every single culture, every single religion has used plant medicines at one time or another. Now, just like with any medicine or any tool, if you look at a hammer, you could build a house with a hammer or you could murder someone with a hammer. It's really about the intention behind the tool or behind the medicine itself. And look at our medical industry, right? Medicine or Western medicine is demonized a lot because it's been abused, it's been improperly used. But also there's a time and a place for everything like Western medicine can bring. So plant medicine really is not for everyone, but it is for people that feel the call. We can talk about this and also this, the space and the set and the setting because the abuse of this is rampant. If you look at the blog post that Tim Ferriss just put out this year where he basically called out the entire plant medicine world and said, look, not only are these plants being abused, but we're also harvesting them so fast that Mother Earth can't regrow them. So there's a lot to talk about.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I have so many questions already. Okay, so for people listening also that are. Have no education around this, would you, can you tell them, would you put things like marijuana into plant medicine or okay, so. And then I know some people even put like raw substances. They say it's plant medicine like cacao, or they'll say, do you, when you're, do you think all things are considered plant medicine and there's just a spectrum?

I think so. I think the spectrum starts with any kind of like adaptogenic compound, whether it's ashwagandha or like chocolate. Like chocolate has theobromide. Before our conversation today, I had some pure dark chocolate because it helps with verbal fluency, it helps me stay connected. It's a heart opening medicine. Cacao is one of those as well. But so is anything that we take that is grown in nature in plant form or in medicinal form that can be Grown on a tree or picked from the ground, all of these things Mother Earth has placed on planet Earth in her divine wisdom so that we can partake in the benefits of these compounds. Yet these compounds also have protective mechanisms inside of them, much like the phytonutrients that are found in some nuts and seeds in the dietary aspect of nutrition. So we have to take all of this into account. And the one thing I would say is, like, yes, there is a spectrum. And whatever someone is looking at changing in their body or changing in their mind or changing in the way that they see the world, there's a unique and honestly respectful way that they must approach this.

Okay, so now let's talk about some of these harder ones. Like, people are. It's getting trendy all of a sudden, to go to an ayahuasca ceremony or to do frog. Whatever it's called frog medicine.

The combo.

Yeah. This is, like becoming this trendy thing. There's retreats around it. There's people go. You know where. Years ago, I remember, it was like a very, very special thing. Like, only a few people would go to what they would call sweat lodges or whatever. First of all, why has it become all of a sudden, so commercial? Like, what do you think that's come from?

Because anytime there's a crisis, there is an enormous opportunity for financial gain. And right now in the world, more people than you could ever imagine are more stressed, more taxed, more emotionally drained in a spiritual crisis of their own. You have people that are being completely abused by manipulation by the mass media. You have people that are angry at God. You have people disconnecting from God, from higher power. We are in a spiritual societal crisis. And I believe it was Winston Churchill, Natalie, Jill, that said this. You know, never let a good crisis go to waste. And so the reason that so many of these luxury plant medicine centers and these antigenic centers have came up is because they are really appealing to the limbic system in our brain. The limbic system just thrives on novelty. It thrives on the quick fix. Why do you think that, like, people don't exercise is because it's not as rewarding as it is to eat a bag of chips. Well, it's the same thing when it comes to plant medicine. The reason why so many of these centers are coming up and why it's so trendy is because it is a powerful medicine that elicits massive change. And not all change is good. Not all change is healing and healthy.

So I want to talk more about that and what called you to it, because I'll share from my experience. I went, you know, my gosh, 48 years with ever touching any type of, like, ayahuasca or any of this psychedelic stuff. And then on my own personal development journey, I decided to. To dabble with that and try. And for me, it was tremendous breakthroughs, tremendous insights, and then I was complete with it. It was like, I did it. I went and did ayahuasca. I did it for, you know, several days in a row. I had my breakthroughs. It was work for me. I had the insight, and then I was complete. I'm like, okay, I did that. Check it off the list. In life, it was. It was interesting to me. Where does that go wrong with people? And what. And I'm curious, like, what called you to it to begin with?

I was called to it in 2014 because I really needed what a lot of people in psychology call ego dissolving. I needed my ego to be cracked. I have a big ego. Shit, to be human.

Don't we all, though? Don't we all have a big ego?

We all have a big ego, right? So I think if you look at psychology and even if you study Carl Jung or really anyone that has any hooks into what makes a human being a human being, we have this observer self, the one that watches all of our lives go along. We have our child self or our lower self. And then we have our higher self, which is the person that doesn't have judgment. We don't have anything that wishes harm on anyone else. And we're really coming from a place of pure love. This is like the 1% of 1% of people, like the Mahatma Gandhis, things like this. The challenge is that most of us are operating from this little self or lower self. And that little self and lower self is within 100% run by the ego. I'm not here to demonize the ego, but a lot of what happens to us in life is we become 30, 40, 50, 60 years old without ever even once being challenged from an ego perspective. And we literally have our lives run by a child tyrant inside of us. In other words, we have relationships that continue to repeat and cycle, and they always flounder in your third or fourth marriages or our body's not healthy again for like the 10th or 12th time. The reason why people go to the medicine is because they think it's going to give them a quick fix. Well, let me tell you, my friends, it'll give you something quick, but it might not fix you because that's an interesting. There's a bigger conduit to explore.

So I want to dive deeper into that because I know, like, for me, again, like, I went going through personal development training, workshop after workshop, all that. I had gotten to a certain point where I learned a lot, but I was still working. My ego, we all have that ego, was protecting me on such a great level that I wasn't fully embracing or understanding some things. And what I experienced, especially with ayahuasca, was it broke that down for me. So I was able to see things that I had heard before and that I had been coached on before, but they weren't landing for me. So what happened for me is that that did change me. For me, it changed me. Whether that's for better or worse, I don't know. But it changed my perspective of how I was showing up to people. It changed the direction of my business, for instance, it changed the direction of my relationship with my husb. It changed a lot for me. So I looked at it as a good thing, but it was one of those, like, I did it and I'm complete with it. Do you think that is still the case with plant medicine? That it can help people if they use it that way, like for a specific thing or.

I do. I hundred percent believe in that. And like, this is an urgent plea to all users of psychedelics or plant medicines. And like, let's consider ethics as we use these medicines because we. What drew me to the medicine as I talked about earlier was like, my ego needed to be cracked. And so I'm very grateful for the like 12 ceremonies that I've done with ayahuasca. And I've explored other plant medicines too. But I got my ass kicked so hard two years ago and I got decimated to my knees to the point where. And I'll just share openly here. I thought I was going crazy. I literally thought for a couple years. I went down to a place in Costa Rica and had some very bad medicine poured in a very disingenuous way. And due to legal reasons, I can't even name the center. I mean, that's how sinister these. These are.

No, that's fine. Is it the poor or is it the medicine?

That's both. It's both. How the medicine is produced. There's an energetic compound to it. Look, you know, like when your grandma or grandpa makes you sauce or food, they put their energy and emotion into the food. Right. There's a psychosomatic connection to recipes and how things are built. It's the same way with Plant medicine. So if you have people that are administering medicine and they are putting their energy into it also on top of that, and you can go across Google and just do a basic search of set and setting. This is a key term I want people to really take home. Set and setting. The set and setting is the intention and the space. So the intention behind what's going on with any kind of medicine being administered and the setting of which it's being poured are the two most important things. Because, yes, I do believe. I do believe that people can have massive healing, massive breakthroughs. I'm not here to demonize plant medicine. I'm here to talk about the dark and the light so people can make educated choices. That set and setting component is big because my example that I made my mistake, that I wish I could go back and plant a little seed in my pocket on. Do not go into medicine ceremonies as a victim. Do not have victim consciousness. Do not be on your knees asking God for help, asking the medicine to save you. Do not. That is a prime space for dark entities and energies to come in. And that is exactly what happened to me. I was going through a really big, dark night of the Soul in 2014. That took me all the way to 2019, is when I took on what's called an entity. And the entity that came in was very sick, very demonic, very, like, sadistic sexual energy, very weird sexual energy, looping thoughts. I had to go to a mentor in San Diego who I love and trust, and thank God he was able to clear the entity from me. But the repercussions of me basically having what's called the psychic shattering two years ago, in 2019, that's what brought me to this place of, oh, okay. I was able to see the gift that came from this, and that was healing my relationship with pornography. It was 25 years of my life that was just run by porn. So since 2019, I haven't even looked at it or used it in any way. So there's a beautiful blessing and a beautiful gift that came from that. I share the same story that in the likes of Drew Manning. So Drew Manning has talked about his porn use as well. And I think. I think it's rampant for a lot of men that really. It's a shadow that if you go into a plant medicine ceremony, you will not be able to hide from any shadow you have. So there's a blessing and there's a curse. They both exist.

Yeah, I found that with me, where I was kept. I kept getting confronted with. From the number of plant medicine ceremonies I did, I would get confronted with the same, like, messaging. And it. I didn't want it. I didn't want to receive it. But to me, it was. It was like, it didn't. It felt like I had resistance to it. I had resistance to it. But the messaging, when it finally. When I finally let it in, it actually did help me shed light on things. So. So that's where I get torn with, like, is this something helpful for people or. And then is it dangerous for people? So that's. That's what I want to explore more with you, too. How do we know? Like, how does somebody that's considering it or not considering it, like, how do they know, like, that they're making a good choice with it or they should stay away from it? And then I also want to talk about religion and where that plays into this, because I'll know, like, I'll speak. My husband would say this publicly. My husband's the one who first talked to me about plant medicine, and now that he's, like, fully reading the Bible, like, he wants no part of it, like, he's. He's done a whole switch based on that, and I don't know enough about that, but he literally said, now that I'm reading the Bible, like, I literally. I'm not for it. I'm not. He's not dictating to others, but he's. He's very committed to that. You know, here's Jewish girl. Hear me. Like, I don't even know enough, but I'm like, you know, I'm trying to understand all this, too. So anything you have to say on this.

Yeah, it's so powerful. What a great. Thank you for creating this space. We can have this conversation. I hope this reaches as many people as possible. So if anyone listening has ever had an experience with plant medicine that was not loving and of service to their higher self and that really caused them pain, please share this podcast right now, because that is exactly what I want to speak to. The way that, you know, if you're in a safe space is if you leave that space knowing that whatever gift you received, if it was uncomfortable, if it made you cry, if it made you throw up, which, quite frankly, if it's ayahuasca, it's going to make you throw up. But if you receive anything at all that you know in your heart of hearts was true, thank. Thank the medicine for that, then you'll know it's a safe space. If you receive something like I did that, you know, when you check in and there's no ego attachment, and it's not yours. And it's something that you actually absorbed from someone else. That means that you were in what's called a leaky container. That means that you were in an energetic space where the shaman or the maestro was not connected to you to protect you from the 4 and 5D entities that come in. And by the way, I just did a show with Hamilton Southern Wellness Force, so we can leave that as a resource for your audience.

Yeah, that's what made me reach out to you. I love that episode.

So what we talked about and what he talked about is plant medicine and shamans that pour it. This is a very ancient practice that deserves incredible reverence and respect. We're talking five, 10, 15, 20 or more years of training for people to be able to go and hold the power of these healing arts and these sacred medicines. What happens is, is you have people that are placing profit over people's progress, and anytime you place profit over people, you're gonna pay the price. And so, unfortunately, and I'll contrast this with your religious question as well, which is super powerful and perfect. When I went and when people go with the wrong intention, and that is, please, God, save me, or please, plant medicine, save me and make me whole, guess what happens? It's written in the Bible. I'll tell it to you right now. I'm not a religious man. To those who have nothing more will be taken, and to those who have everything more will be given. That is a direct quote from the King James Bible. And that is exactly the energy that all the ancient masters downloaded from source thousands and thousands of years ago are saying to us, if you go into life or if you go into ceremony, or if you go into any spaciousness with you as a victim, or you having that kind of takey energy where you need something from someone else, you need something outside of yourself in order for you to be healed and whole. Guess what's going to come in? Demonic energy. Devilish energy. Entities that come in because they feed on that, demonic energies and dark energies feed on victim consciousness. They eat it for breakfast. But if you go into a space and you are willing to look at your life, but you're not needing the medicine to heal you, you're just surrendering to the medicine to show you what's true. That is a totally different mindset. And that is the one thing I would plant in my pocket two and a half years ago on that fourth night of ceremony that I had that just rocked me to the core where I took on the entity because I wasn't aware that I needed to have a different mindset. And it was like my 12th ceremony. I thought. I thought I. You know, my ego, right, my strong ego that I talked about, my ego was like, you're fine, Josh. You're good. You know, everything's going to be okay. But. But really deep down, I wasn't telling the truth. And the truth was, is I didn't really feel whole. I was still plagued by this addiction, this pornography addiction. So it was really just crushing me to my knees. And in a weird way, in a. In a. In a very powerful way. And it kind of brings up emotion in me just to talk about it. Like, I needed that kind of a slap. I needed to be hit that hard with something, like an entity with looping thoughts. Thought I was going crazy for a long time. I needed it because it's the only way I would have paid attention.

It's interesting because if you read about, like, like, because I. Look, I was neurotic, studying about it before I ever did it, to, like, what are all the side effects? What are all the possible things that can go wrong? When you read about, like, what can go wrong with plant medicine, it says that it's rare, but it says you can have, like, a psychotic break. And that's almost like that's basically what you experience, but it's just recalling it different things. But maybe that's what people are referring to when they say they had a psychotic break or something, that. Something crazy from it. What I feel okay. When I listened to your podcast episode, which was so good, by the way, one thing that I really resonated with me was that plant medicine at one point was this whole sacred thing where you. It was all this lineage that would pass down. Like, a shaman was trained by his father. Was trained by his father. Like, it was years and years and years, and it's in the Amazon. And then all of a sudden, it's now, like, anyone can become a shaman and administer this medicine. So they have all these centers or places that people go now. And like, literally anyone takes a course on how to be a shaman and they're becoming it. So to me, that's a big thing that's gone wrong with this. Where it was once this, you know, people would literally travel and work with this ancient medicine versus now it's this whole commercialized thing. Maybe that's what's also creating the different experiences.

It's a great point you make, and it ties back to your initial Question too, of how does religion play into this? Because those sacred temples and the way that medicine was served by shamans that have been trained for multiple decades, that is how it was intended. Just like in religion. Religion and people are so straight up, let's talk about this. People are so wounded by the words God, spirit, higher intelligence. There has been so much of the egoic mind and man's manipulation, specifically the old school structure of patriarchy where, like, women were on, like, property and passed around, like, land and title and women were allowed to vote. That type of energy, that type of like, compressive dark control is what makes profit over people. The main figurehead in the plant medicine world, we it is being infiltrated by the greedy hands of people in Silicon Valley. People that have the mindset of making a bunch of money and not keeping the medicine sacred. It's the same thing that happened in the churches. I believe that there is a higher power. I believe in God. I do not believe that God is a bearded dude in the clouds watching over everyone with a golden pitchfork, okay? But I, but I do know, and I do trust that the word of God we know because when we hear it, it resonates in our soul. It just sticks to our heart and we know it's true. There are certain things that are happening right now in both religion and plant medicine that are being exposed, and they have to be exposed. Just like when there was cartoons with Barney Rubble smoking a cigarette, or just like when Monsanto was put into court and glyphosate was found to cause cancer. We are seeing on a massive scale, not just in religion and plant medicine, we're talking about those two, but in every single lane of human existence, in every single subject of commerce and economics, we are seeing a huge shakedown of just the truth coming to the surface. And let's be honest, when the truth comes to the surface, it causes a lot of pain because we have to look at the ways that we were controlling, lying, and suppressing the truth. And we have all built in an egoic fragile identity on top of these systems that really don't serve. So if you look at religion, or if you look at plant medicine, or if you look at any sector of business or even just ways of being politics, pharmaceuticals, everything. We are in the middle of a massive shakedown. And there are a lot of energies, a lot of money, a lot of old patriarchal systems, and just so much that is vested in these old systems, still thriving, still surviving, that they will fight to the death. I mean, look what's happening Right now with vaccines and everything else. So there is a war of consciousness happening. Graham Hancock talked about this in multiple videos. He's been on Joe Rogan talking about it. And so is a lot of people, including Tim Ferriss. And they're all echoing the same sentiments. And that is there is a war on consciousness. There is a war on information. There is a war on truth. And the same way that we're dishonoring the sacredness of these medicines by people pouring them that have no business pouring them and not holding that set and setting that I talked about, it's the exact same way that people have abused God's word. It's the exact same way that people have abused religion. And we are all coming to terms with the nausea of what is really the truth.

You know what? So not to get too off topic, because I have so many questions on this topic, but what you just said about religion is. I'm seeing that so loud and clear. I see a lot of people that speak that they are Christians and that they practice Christianity, but. But they're the first public stoning people right now, this whole year. This whole. The whole idea of attacking people for saying the wrong thing or not supporting the right cause or whatever it is, it's like literally like public stoning. And I'm like, wait a minute, but you're saying you're a Christian and you're doing this. So it's almost like the same thing with people saying they're a shaman and they're. But they're doing this. Like people are saying one thing or using something that's sacred, but. But their actions are showing something totally different.

It's so true. Because that in itself is a powerful mirror and representation of exactly what we're discussing. And that is people saying they're one way. But when it comes to embodiment, and this is a phrase we can explore, their true embodiment, their true ego integration, their true awareness. You know, earlier I talked about the lower and the higher self. And the observer, they're living from the lower self. Their observer, their higher self wants to be connected to God. They want to have this. I'm a Christian and I'm doing all these good things. But look, Natalie, Jill, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A lot of people that identify as Christian or with any religious sector, they might have, like, quote, good intentions, but it is the integration and the embodiment of who they actually are in their deep subconscious, in their heart, and how they identify themselves in the world and how they see Other people, whatever I project, whatever anyone projects onto others is a very. Is a judgment that I get to look at within myself. And this isn't like spiritual mumbo jumbo. It's real. When I'm angry and when I'm triggered by anything. You know what I'm looking at in my life right now? I'm looking at how triggered I am by people that are shaming others to not wear a mask and to shame others to wear a mask. This whole conversation of, like, mask versus no mask.

Shaming of everything. The shaming of everything, everything.

It's the lowest human frequency we could ever experience.

She's shaming everywhere these days. It's. It's just. It's so disheartening. Okay, so you did a post the other day that really grabbed my attention to. And I'm going to mess it up trying to say it, but it was something along the lines of. And I understand this because I used to say was called to it. You said, stop saying that you're being called to the medicine or that it's speaking to you or it's being called. You're called to it. What's actually happening is you are wanting to get a high. Can you speak into that? Because that was like, oh, that was so interesting to me because. And I'll give you a little bit of a framework on there. To me, when I was experimenting with plant medicine, the thought was, I can't get out of my own head. Like, I literally can't get out of my own head to see this stuff because I have so many past wounds and all these things. So the plant medicine is going to help me open that up. That's the story I told myself. But then when I reread what you wrote, I'm like, was that the truth? Or is the truth that I want something else to escape that thought? Like, you really had me thinking there. So I want to talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, it's big because we're. First of all, we're all doing the best we can. And I'm not saying this out of judgment for you myself or even the people that want to go get high. Like, look, if that's your life path is to learn, by contrast of going from ceremony to ceremony to ceremony, who the hell am I to judge you? But I do think it's good to bring the awareness to the light. It is so easy. And what I'm exactly talking about, it is so easy for people that do what's called a veil of spiritual bypassing. It's not just spiritual bypassing, it is a veil with spiritual bypassing. And the veil is behind the veil is their little self, the one that just like wants to have fun, doesn't want to look at their shadows, doesn't want to really dig in to healing the wounds and the triggers and the programs they've inherited from their parents and even past life. And so they'll put a veil in front of that. So imagine if you will, a three year old child that's putting like a force field around his or her mind and on the outside of that veil they're an adult, they're in the limelight, maybe they're a leader. And the worst of it all, Natalie, Jill, the worst of it all is some of the top people that you and I know that are in the spiritual community, that are in the personal development world, that are operating from this veil of complete and total spiritual bypassing. Because what they're doing is they're going into ceremonies, they're doing medicines, they're going into journeys, but not only are they not willing to really look at what the 3 year old is trying to tell them, the little self, they're actually abusing it even more, which is even more sinister. And they're going from ceremony to ceremony and floating around as if another ceremony is going to heal them. And they're telling other people, oh yes, I was called to go to this bufo ceremony, I was called to get go to this mushroom ceremony, I was called to go to this ayahuasca ceremony. And you look at their calendar and They've been to 12 ceremonies in one year. And it's like, well, it begs the question, are you really looking at what the different medicines or medicine is telling you or you just floating around from ceremony to ceremony because you like to get high?

Yeah, so what? I, if I'm hearing you correctly, that sometimes it may be true that you're called to a ceremony or an experience, but you're saying that the pattern of like one after the next, after the next after the next, that, that, that can't be a calling, that's more like you're escaping.

Yeah, a true calling is more like a whisper. And I remember when Gay Hendricks told me something like this, he was like, intuition is like getting tickled by a feather. But when you have something that's more instinctual and primal and more driven by the veil of spiritual bypassing, like I'm talking about, that'll be more of a jolt. So if people all of a sudden are feeling uncomfortable and We've all experienced this, right? I know everyone can feel what I'm about to say. Everyone has been kind of floating around in their day and thinking thoughts, and all of a sudden you'll catch a thought and that thought will create a physiological response in your body. And that thought is like, I should go do another ceremony. I should go, I should go do this. And then, and then they'll feel that. And on the outside they'll say, yes, I'm called. The medicine has called me to ceremony. But really it was a physiological response that was created by your subconscious mind to still keep you stuck with an outward veil that you're called to ceremony.

Interesting. Okay, now I have two different questions along these lines. So I find that the same place I was able to get to with plant medicine that let me see, like, have more clarity around things I've been able to get through not frequently, but, but sometimes doing breath work or in a deep meditative state. Have you had any experience with that? And do you think there's any negatives to that?

No, I don't. It's beautiful. It's cool. We're doing such an organic conversation. We really haven't talked about my explor into breathwork. So a year ago, which was part and parcel by some of the healing I had to do for myself, I actually purchased Breathwork IO and so when I bought that, I had the premonition at four in the morning late one night. And I was like, what can I bring to the public that won't make them get hurt? What can I do responsibly that's going to give people the same DMT access, the same awareness, the same introspection, the same healing power with like the physiological response and the, in the somatic awareness, all the things, what can I create for people to do that? And so I went on this deep journey of like, okay, let me go ahead and take every single thing I've ever learned from Soma Breath, from Christian Minson, from Gwen Payne, from Mark Devine, from all these people that have taught me breathwork over the past four years. And I put it into one program. And we've had hundreds of people that have gone through the program. I have people that have written me like in tears, like saying thank you so much for allowing me to get to this place. I mean, it gives me a cry feeling just thinking about it because I'm like, I don't know if that would have ever happened if I didn't get my ass kicked by the entity.

So interesting how that was, that was.

What fueled me to bring a safer medicine, a safer medicine to the world. And so that's a big part of our business now is directing people towards using the power of their breath so they can transcend their stress.

That's wild.

Putting themselves in an unsafe space.

That's so wild.

I don't think breath work is limiting for anyone. Obviously, if you have pulmonary issues or, you know, if you have. There's one more piece that I'm forgetting. So pulmonary issues and. Oh, if you have, if you have any kind of issues with breathing of any kind, like if you have emphysema or if you have anything going with your lungs, then yeah, you might want to consult like a physician before you do breathwork or a naturopath, somebody that you trust, a qualified provider. But other than that. Natalie, Jill, Breathwork is for everyone. You can get powerful, powerful results in three or seven or 15 or like 21 minutes a day.

Yeah.

So in minutes a day, you can have very, very similar experiences to plant medicine by doing the specific breath work that we have in the Breathe Breath and Wellness program. So, yeah, not only do I love it, but I do it myself. I just had some friends over and we did some in the sauna. I have a five person sauna here. So, I mean, it's a beautiful topic and it's a great topic to piggyback on the plant medicine conversation because, God, plant medicine is not for everyone. It deserves so much respect and it's being utterly abused. But breath work is a different, different angle.

I do have one other question about plant medicine. This is a different level of it. This isn't the ceremony thing, but this is a huge trend I see in the entrepreneurial, creative space. I know you and I both know so many people that do this daily and I've, I've actually never done this. I don't, I don't know enough about it and I'm. But I'm so curious what you think about it. And that's the whole microdosing idea.

Yeah, I've heard of it quite a bit. I think that. I think if you do have a curiosity and notice I didn't use the word, I feel called.

Yeah. And also can you explain what microdosing means too? Because I know people listening. This is all like a new topic.

It's a great point of conversation because I learned about microdosing from Jamie Wheal, who's the founder of the Flow Genome project and he has what's called the hedonic calendaring system. And in the hedonic calendaring system, he talks about doing the specified microdosing with a once a quarter or a once a year larger journey. Of course, set and setting and safe space is important, but essentially microdosing is. Let's just say we'll use mushrooms as an example. Typically, microdosing is like 0.25 of 1 gram. So a very, very small amount. Just enough so that you have an energetic opening in your nervous system and so you can have an increased creativity. A lot of this was brought on by people in Silicon Valley that were looking to create better products and be more creative in their work. And so the microdosing component is. I believe it's every other day. And don't quote me on this, because everybody has a different calendaring system, but it's every other day. You go ahead and take 0.25 and you do that. The goal of microdosing is so that you don't feel a credible effect of the medicine. It's just so that you have a subtle creative boost and a subtle nervous system expansion. And what do I mean by nervous system expansion? What I mean by nervous system expansion is that you feel more relaxed, you have deeper and more open breathing capacities, and you are not as triggered or as stressed by the uncertainty.

Okay, well, when you say it like that, like you just sold me on it. I'm like, well, that sounds amazing. We should all do that. What would be the negative to that? Let's talk about that. Because I don't want. That's my purpose, was not to go get everybody microdosing, but I wanted to open up that conversation.

Yeah, no, and look, I'm telling you this. There are certain people that should never explore. This is a great time to talk about it. There are certain people that should never do any plant medicines of any kind. And that is people that have a past of any kind of psychotic breaks or people that have bipolar tendencies, people that are on SSRIs or taking certain medications. So there's a lot of great research out there. I think a really good place to start would be the Maps organization. So you can just Google Maps psychedelics that'll give you a good guideline if these medicines, even in the smaller, you know, microdosing capacities are good for you. Yes. There are certain personality types, there are certain mental conditions that if you identify in that way, you absolutely 100% should not be doing microdosing. And I'll tell you this, too. This is interesting. I can't say his name. I had a friend I'M here in Austin. I had a friend text me three days ago and he's like, josh. Because he heard about my story and he's like, josh, I think I'm going through what you're going through, but I think it was from a microdose. And so can that happen? I guess I think it can. Because, look, when you open up your system, whether it's 0.25 or 30 grams, right, the devil's in the dose. That's true. But also you're still having a dose. When you open up your psyche and your subconscious mind to fourth dimensional reality, to five dimensional reality, look the hell out. You are not in control. You are a guest in these realms. And so if you do not have the proper ego integration or space holding, you will pay the price. So I'm not, I'm not an advocate for people to go out and do a bunch of microdosing. It really depends. The answer is, Natalie Jill, it depends. It depends on your current mental faculty, your history of mental illness or mental disease, and it also depends on your stress load, your physiological load. Like, is your body healthy? Is your mind healthy? Have you had brain scans where maybe you have atrophy of the brain? So there's a lot of things to consider. It just depends.

Here's my concern with it, and this is why I don't, I believe I haven't done it, the microdosing part. I feel like I, I like, I have that typical ADHD personality, which is I like, I think it's a good thing. I like it. I have bouts of creative energy, creative ideas, and then I have days where I just don't feel like having creative ideas. It goes up and down. So to me, if I were to try to force it with something, I feel like it's always, there's always a negative sling back to things, you know, like, it's almost like the one year in my life that I took Adderall for ADHD years ago. It had some pros to it, but it had a lot of negatives. And I was like, I don't want that. I don't want the negatives. So I, to me, I'm, I'm scared to do that type of microdose because I don't want to depend on something to have to be creative, if that makes sense. Like, I'd rather it come from internally, me versus using something.

There's dependency and then there's novelty. Novelty is good for creativity because going back to how we access the limbic brain, we have this prefrontal cortex. And when we're stressed out, the prefrontal cortex shuts off. So we don't have any connection to like creativity or what's really happening or the birds, the trees. You and I having this conversation when we're in stress, the default mode network is putting us in a constant scanning mode for danger. And so I do think in small quantities that testing, and that's the key phrase, testing and being really loving and kind to yourself. If you want to explore doing the microdosing, test efficiently and test from that place of being kind to yourself and not doing a bunch of crazy medicine because you don't want a crutch. You don't want. Like I remember you hurt your arm, right? And you had a healing. You had a crutch for a while. You had to have this brace on your arm and everything. You wouldn't keep it on there forever because your arm would never get stronger. Keep it on there so your body can heal and then when it's time to take it off, you don't need it anymore. It's the same thing with any kind of medicine. The body has these beautiful homeostatic systems, that synergy that synergistically tap into one another, that the way nature intended it, the way God intended it. So the more that we start meddling with that, the more there's going to be unintended consequences. And so, yeah, there's dependency and then there's novelty.

Are you personally done with plant medicine? Are you done with it for now?

I'm done with it for quite some time. I don't know exactly when I would ever go back in any regard because I'm still healing and integrating the ass kicking that I got two years ago. And I really don't, I mean, I don't wish it upon anyone. I don't wish it upon anyone. I think there's a smoother way that can bring people to the truth. Obviously my way was destined to be, otherwise it wouldn't have happened the way it happened. But I don't feel the call at all in any regard right now.

What do you want people listening that are considering it or had been hearing about it and thinking about it to know, what do you want them to know from you?

So I would say there is a ramp up process. And it's so funny. I just had a chiropractor reach out to me today and he asked me, he's like, I'm thinking about doing a ceremony. Just on the drive home before this podcast, he was like, I've Heard about you, Josh, and I know what you're into. Like I'm feeling the call to the ceremony. I'm like, okay, well I'm gonna pretend like I'm talking to him right here on your show. Okay, if you're feeling the call, that's fine. But have you prepared yourself to receive it? Have you prepared yourself to receive the call by doing specific loving kindness meditation, 30, 60, 93 hours at a time? Have you done a 5, 7 or 10 day vipassana which is a sit that I have done, where you go into nature or Big Sur, There's a few different centers across the world and you sit with yourself. No masturbation, no sex, no looking at anyone, no breakfast, two meals a day, meditating for 16 hours a day. If you can go through a vipassana, if you can go through loving kindness meditation for six months, then after that if you can do something like the 20x which is the mark divine crucible where you go through excruciating physical pain overnight like I've done, if you can prepare yourself by doing physical, spiritual and mental training practices and then you still feel the call, well then you've been loving and kind to yourself in order to be able to receive the call rather than just have the call come from your ego. That's on ramp process. You can also do float tank as well, but I would say three to six months float tanks, vipassana, loving kindness meditation. Then if you're called to ceremony, then you can actually receive it and hold it.

Wow, this is so insightful. Thank you so much for doing this. We had such a different conversation from our conversation a year ago around this. But I think this is so good to present the other side because I, I too see that it's become this like trendy thing. Like people, it's the trendy thing to do. And I was. It's just not responsible information for everyone to think that it's a trendy thing to do. There's a, it's a very serious thing and it's not to be taken lightly. I personally think there's a time and place for it. Like I think of people in terminal illnesses that are super scared of dying. Like there's a place for that, to show that, to not be scared of that. Like I think there's, there is an actual great usages for plant medicine for some people with pain, with other things. But I think like you said, it has to be responsibly. What's the intention? Who is it being administered by? Just doing more research. And not taking it all so lightly.

Yeah. Take it in a sacred way. Sacredness. Like you're a mom. There is nothing easy about raising a child. Sometimes you have easy moments. And you know it's worth it because you receive so much love. But you can't tell me and everyone with us, you can't tell me I'm about to be a father in June. Okay. So my baby boy is going to be here in June. I have no idea what that's going to be like, but I can already feel the call of deeper responsibility.

Oh, yeah, just wait till they start. Wait till he's 13.

Exactly. So. And I know how. I know this special relationship you have with your daughter. So, like, yes, there. There's something so sacred and so special about the way that a parent loves a child. Well, guess what? There's the exact same sacredness, the exact same thing when it comes to you loving yourself and you taking care of yourself in a ceremony. It's the exact same piece. It's the exact same methodology. Because in the. To the same degree, to the degree that you treat yourself with love in a ceremony and you're being honest with yourself about what you're truly. One, being called to and two, being able to hold when you're called, that is the exact same capacity that you're going to love your child and you're going to love your community and everything else.

Got it? Okay. All righty. This is such good information today. Such good information. Thank you so much, Josh, for taking the time and doing this. I'll link up all of the places, especially that last podcast you did, which was so intriguing that where you interviewed about this even deeper. So thank you so much for taking the time and talking with the listen up audience today. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this candid conversation with my friend, Josh Trent. If you're interested in that breath work program, the one that he talked about that helps elevate you without the need for plant medicine, puts you in an amazing space. You'll go to wellness force.com forward/listen up again. Wellnessforce.com forward/listenup. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen in as my guest today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with friends and on social media. I don't advertise this show, so I rely on word of mouth and reviews to get it out in the world. The biggest thank you that you can give me is leaving me a review and a nice one, I hope. By the way, this is how others find these episodes. If you do leave me a review, be sure to message me@supportataliejill fitness.com with a screenshot of your review because I would love to send you a free digital download of my DSR journal as a thank you. And please don't forget to connect with me on social media at Natalie Jill Fit on Instagram and Facebook Sam.