Our ancestors have used plant medicine for 1000s of years. Greek physician hypocrisy he's used mushrooms as an anti-inflammatory and for categorizing wounds later the first people in North America use puff bomb mushrooms as wound treatments. Although mushrooms have long been used by various cultures throughout the world, modern science has only recently created studies on their healing capacities. plant medicines, specifically mushrooms, are something I absolutely knew nothing about until chatting with our special guest Allison Crosthwait. We discussed micro dosing, psychedelics for self-care, benefits, legality and overall safety in our stimulating time together on “Call IT in With Dar’!

Welcome in Allison, please tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive into this exciting topic of self worth, and psychedelic medicine.

●     Thank you so much for having me, Darla, this is so much fun. Hi, I'm Alison Crosthwait, I started my career in Canada and then in the US as a Wall Street trader, stock trader. And when that didn't work out so well, and I wasn't so happy, I made a shift over many years into becoming a psychotherapist. And then some losses in my life propelled me forward into my healing. And I discovered Ayahuasca. It's a traditional plant medicine served in the Shipibo tradition, and it's a very powerful healing modality. And over a number of years, I was able to totally rewire myself, and enjoy life in a way that I did not think was possible for me when I was a thin-skinned equity trader. And so now I work with people and am no longer a psychotherapist. And I've worked with people to help them discover the magic of plant medicine. And I know we're gonna talk more about that.

Yes. So would you just expand on that a little bit about how you got started and what that felt like?

●     Sure. So I wanted to have a baby more than anything. That was my motivation, I've come to understand that these desires of our hearts are really created to help us grow. But at the time, I didn't understand that I just wanted to have a baby. And I lost my son at 20 weeks and was completely heartbroken and did not grieve well. And I went to the first ceremony, you do these Ayahuasca ceremonies in a group. And I went to the ceremony, and I went up to the front, and they gave me this medicine to drink. It's like this terrible molasses, it's pretty gross. And you drink it, and then you go back to your place, everybody has a mat, and you wait for the effects to come on. And the shamans sing chants, to bring out the energy of the plants. And I threw up pretty much the whole night, which is not unusual for Ayahuasca. It's a purging experience. And honestly, other than the throwing up, I thought the whole thing was a bit silly. I saw pictures of candy and this and that. And, you know, the next day, I woke up, and I got up and had my coffee. And I was like, okay, normal. And then all of a sudden, I felt energy. From my head to my toe, it was like a jolt of energy. And it was like alive and creative and sexual and all the things and I realized, I mean, it was so obvious in retrospect, I wanted to have a baby. And my desire was woken up. And that day I knew this medicine was my path, that this medicine knew how to meet me and evoke things in me and others that we really need to wake

up, that whatever I purged, I needed to purge, and that there was so much powerful hope available. That created my passion. And so I did ceremony after ceremony and you have to integrate this work. It's not just magic. So I'm doing intense body psychotherapy and feeling all the feelings and taking all kinds of time for myself. And over. Over the course of a year. My partner said to me,” You are not the same person anymore”. And I thought there's the highest praise in the world.

Wow, what a strong transformation you just shared with us.

●     Yeah, that's pretty amazing, huh?

So reflecting on that, and the change you went through? How would you define self-worth then from that viewpoint?

●     Well, I love that question. So we tend to think that self-worth is like, in our minds, but I see self-worth as the embodiment of who we are. So it's walking into a room with our head held high. It's everything we're communicating unconsciously by how we speak and how we show up. So it's not something we tell ourselves. Like we can sometimes have a little talk with ourselves, and that's nice, but you can't really say “Allison improve your self-worth”. But that doesn't really work. It's about clearing out all kinds of garbage, the things that are not true that we've taken on physically, emotionally, mentally, and being connected to our natural lifeforce energy, which we had when we were born. And it just got tamp down by all of the people taking care of us saying settle down, you know, be good be, you know, still and all these things. And so that's what I see self-worth is, as this felt embodied connection to who we are that just overflows and there's no questions about it.

Beautiful. I know in energy healing, we call it letting your light shine out. And you mentioned lifeforce energy. So definitely letting your light shine and being the unique you.

●     Yes.

Isn’t that a great definition? So how can psychedelics be used to step into greater levels of like knowing and greater expression of our self-worth?

●     Yeah, so they're getting a lot of attention these days. And a big part of what I'm here on this planet to do is to help people understand plant medicine and how to use it really responsibly. So the first thing is you can either micro dose or macro dose. So micro dosing is what I'm going to talk to you about today, it's taking a sub perceptual amount. So what I work with is psilocybin, you may have heard of magic mushrooms. I like to call it plant medicine, because I feel it gives it respect. And it puts it into the continuum with all the other herbs and plants that serve us and love us so well. So you're taking a sub perceptual amount, say, twice a week for say, eight weeks, and you're going on a journey. So you have some kind of intention. And this is also really important. We're not taking them because we feel stressed out, or, you know, because we're depressed. That's the medical model of how we work with medicine. These medicines, your goal

might be to relieve depression, that would be a fair goal. Your goal might be to increase self-worth, that would be a great intention as well, to connect to who you really are is another beautiful intention. I have a client who's working with turning her wounds into wisdom. I think this is so beautiful. So you set the intention. And then you embark on this eight-week journey of taking the medicine twice a week and doing your visualizations, your energy work, your journaling and really leaning into the intention. Because what's happening in it from a scientific perspective is the neuroplasticity in our brain is being opened up. And what does that mean by the medicine? What does that mean? It's like Pavlov's dogs, the bell rings, and you the dog drools. Right, the dog knows it's going to be fed when the bell rings. This is us in a million different ways. We smell fall, we know we got we're going back to school, like our phone dings, we have a feeling about it. We're conditioned. And we have these patterns, our partner does something and we have a feeling about it. What the medicine does is open up the patterns and they're less rigid, so you can actually feel and see things that you couldn't feel and see before. And that's what the journey is, doing your personal work. Incorporating the increased awareness that you are having as a result of your work with yourself and with the medicine and then returning at the end of the eight weeks from the journey, the metaphorical journey with a new embodied sense of self-worth.

I love how you clarified that and I especially like that you need a clear intention because energy follows intention and that they still need to do their deep self-work. They still need to work.

●     Absolutely. Absolutely. They are not magic pills. It's really important.

So let's address what could be the elephant in the room. Our listeners are probably wondering, Is this safe and Is this legal

●     Right! Okay, so safe. There are a few contraindications, you should consult with your doctor and your health care team. And some people say to me what, believe me that doctors are hearing about this more and more. And if you're dealing with an active health condition, or you're on medications, you should check. Also, it's not suitable when you're pregnant and breastfeeding. And it's not suitable, in general, just in general, when you have some type of diagnosis on the schizoaffective spectrum, you're taking some type of antipsychotic, that's not 100% True. But if you're going to do it with that diagnosis, you want to be with a doctor. Other than that, these medicines are very, very, very safe. If you're taking them at 100 milligrams, you're not going to be feeling very much. And you're going to be adjusting the dose if you are. And these are natural, natural substances here to heal us. So most people can work with them if they feel drawn, if they feel that it's right. And in terms of things that happen, very few bad things happen on these medications, the issues come when young people take too many of them and then do something unsafe physically, you need to be responsible in how you do them. But the actual medication itself is very safe. It's also not addictive physiologically, of course, anything can be addictive, psychologically. Is it legal? So it really depends where you live, it's coming. It's coming fast. I believe we've got Oregon, Colorado, DC, there's a few other places. There’re some exemptions in Canada, where I live, which are not legal

at this time. Everybody has to do their research and figure out what is legal in the part of the world in which they live.

Thank you, thank you for taking care of that elephant. And very, very nicely. You mentioned earlier in your introduction about the loss of your son in that deep grief. Could you discuss grief and how these psychedelics can help in that area?

●     Oh, sure. Sure. So human life involves loss, by definition, and the way that we were held as infants has everything to do with how we're able to handle loss. When we're older. We're always going to grieve the people that we lose, and the animals and the relationships and all these things. But there are ways of grieving that create things that are really beautiful. And there are ways of grieving that end our own lives even while we still live in physical form. And one of the things that the psychedelics helped me with Ayahuasca in particular, helped me become a mother of change. In this world that we live in, it helped me be generative and creative. So my grief became powerful, rather than negative. Before…when I was young, I thought that there was something wrong with me. And this has everything to do with my personal family history. But I thought there was something wrong with me if I couldn't have children that I was cursed, that my mother was correct that the way that I lived, my life was not God's plan, like all these things, and what the medicines helped me be free from was all of the dominant narratives around what a woman should be or do. And connect instead connected me with my desire, and my creativity and my juiciness. And then over time, and this was a huge relief, and I started to enjoy life again. And I went through a kind of teenager phase, which many people go through was really fun. And then as my work deepened, I started to understand more deeply that I want to say this in a way that conveys the experience because it is said so often. “I'll say this, that we're not separate.” That the Beingness sits in each of us is all part of the universe…the field. And I started to know that from the inside, sometimes through medicine ceremonies, things I'd be shown, but also through a felt body sensation. And once I knew that we were all here, we're all meant to be here, we all belong, we're all really one big energy field. I felt way more connected to my son, and to everyone and it let me let go of these ideas that my life should look like this. And if it looks like this is a success, and if it doesn't look like this, it's not a success, like that. Thinking became kind of nonsensical in the best of ways. I just realized, like, there's so much more freedom and possibility in life, then. Then I was coming at it and the medicines really let me see that. And let help me let go of all of the bad things I was taking on around grief, the guilt, all of those things. And instead, like, yes, do I cry? Am I sad? Yeah, that's absolutely true. And I love and it all moves, and we're all connected.

You express that in such a lovely way, the Beingness, the connection, and once you reach that point, the difference that makes in a person's life. Beautiful. And from that, I know that one of your favorite topics is just to discuss “why are we here”? And what is the purpose? So tell us tell us? Oh, my gosh,

●     I mean, I mean, tell me tell me, this is my greatest interest in life. It really is. I think it's fascinating. I mean, I was just walking down the stairs earlier today. And I was like, How is it possible that we're here? Like, how is it even possible? Like how could something come from nothing? How could that even be? It's really, yeah, yeah. And the more deeply I sink into the joy of living and the finitude of it, like the shortness of it, it's just all complete magic. Really is. I don't know why we're here. I do know that we're free. That I do know that there's no one telling us what to do. There's no rule book, the answers. I don't believe I'm going to get them in my lifetime. I think each of us gets a snippet of the answer. And we're going to all have to work really hard together to figure it out.

That's also my truth. The idea of being the magic of being the finding of joy, and being here to just really live it can be in all all the possibilities and opportunities that are in each individual path. Right. It's amazing, right? It is amazing. And there's no reason not to feel that joy.

●     Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

I'm sure that many of our listeners are totally fascinated with the taste that we've given them during this interview. So how can they contact you or what would be the next step for them?

●     So what I suggest is to go to a website called “expand with microdosing.com.” And there, you can put in your email, and I will send you a guide to knowing if micro dosing is right for you. Because this interview is like a taster. That guide goes through everything in detail, and then you'll be on my email list. And you're welcome to email me and ask me questions. And I'm happy to talk further about micro dosing because it's a very personal decision and a very powerful potential for many people at this very exciting time in our history.

Well, all of this information, all of your contact information will be on the show notes page. So I really appreciate you spending the time with us and thanks so much. I'm sure you opened many, many minds during our interview.

●     Thank you so much. I always love talking to you. You are very wise woman

Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai