44. The Collective - Psychedelics and Reality: Insight or Illusion?

We recently got invited onto The Collective for a two-hour panel on psychedelics and reality, and it turned into one of the best conversations we have been part of.

We sat down with other men who have each come at this work from a different direction: Gordo Hurley, a fifteen-year special operator now building suicide-prevention infrastructure for veterans in Canada; Josh Tyler, a former pro MMA fighter and BJJ black belt running men's healing work in Virginia; and the show's own host Chance Burles and co-host Sean Taylor, who has been around this medicine for twenty-five years.

We got into why microdosing and plant medicine amplify whatever is already there, why integration is the work that actually heals trauma and PTSD, what happens in the brain during ego death and the two-week window that follows, and the hardest truth of the day: how dangerous this medicine can be for a veteran who gets sent home to the same environment with no support.

If you are curious about this path for yourself, or you love someone who is struggling and you want to understand it better, this is a full and honest map. Listen all the way through. The best parts are near the end.

About The Speakers:

Gordo spent fifteen years in the military, half as an airborne light infantry reconnaissance patrolman and half as a special operator and joint terminal attack controller, before a medical release in 2021. He runs the creative agency All the Way Factory and the nonprofit All the Way Foundation, has produced a documentary series taking female combat veterans for ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment, and is a co-founder of Stronghold Wellness. On this episode he announces Program Full Circle, a crisis-to-care pathway for veterans in Canada.

Josh is a former professional MMA fighter and BJJ black belt based near Richmond, Virginia, and a co-founder of Savage Gentleman. His work has moved from goods into experience: combatives, bushcraft, time outdoors, and carefully held men's gatherings.

Chance hosts The Collective. He is a jiu-jitsu brown belt with a background in equine therapy, and he frames this whole series around getting more honest information into people's hands so they can make better decisions.

Shaun is the co-host of The Collective. His first major psychedelic experience happened by accident in Peru twenty-five years ago while he was working international security. He is the author of A High Fidelity Mind and is co-writing A Warrior in a Garden with Seb Lavoie.

Follow The Collective: https://the-collective.ca/ & https://www.instagram.com/the_collective_ig

Follow Gordo Hurley: https://www.instagram.com/atw_alltheway/?hl=en

Follow Josh Tyler: https://www.instagram.com/joshtylermma/?hl=en

Thanks again for listening!

Enrollment is open right now for our Mindful Microdosing Program, which has helped 250+ veterans, first responders, and trauma survivors overcome anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

Visit https://www.becomingom.org/coaching for all the info and to get in touch with us.

Or DM us the word INTERESTED on Instagram.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Two one spark, one thought, one choice at a time. Collective. Hey everybody, welcome back to the collective. We have another fantastic show for you planned out today. I am stoked. We got Dr. David Z up here. We got Gordo here. We got Josh here and Sean, of course. And I am pumped for this one. I hope y'all are too. Make sure you like the show, subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, do all that good stuff, get your emails when we go live, which is of course Fridays for the collective, Wednesdays for the workshop. If you have any thoughts, questions, comments, anything at all, put them out in the comment section. We can hit those throughout the show. And of course, if you have not yet, make sure you're signed up for the reinforcement loop. That is our weekly newsletter. It goes out. Yes, last week's edition just went out on Thursday, yesterday. And uh it was a gooder. I thought I did pretty well on it. That's my second edition that I've written. So I'm it was a good one, chance. Well done. Sweet. Um, other than that, I want to get into this, but we're gonna get some uh intros out of the way. It's been a while, Dave. Let's hit with you. Start with you. Give me a quick 10 to 15 seconds for you where you come from all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Oh man, I should have had something better prepared. Uh technically, I'm a doctor of physical therapy, left that whole world behind. Now I do psychedelic integration coaching, I guess would be the title. So primarily we run an online program helping people get into microdosing with mushrooms, um, along with shadow work, all that kind of good stuff to prep for or integrate after other bigger experiences. So I'm stoked to be here to kind of focus on the integration front because I feel like that gets missed quite a bit. And I run some jujitsu retreats and mushrooms, all that kind of stuff. But as we talked about before, that's on the back burner for now, as my wife is pregnant with kid number two. So trying to slow down just a little bit. Just thank you guys. A little bit, just a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:43

Although I can't think of a more uh interesting experience than trying to do jujitsu on psychedelics. That would be small amounts of mushrooms. Small amounts. Small amounts. Very clear on that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Gordo, give us a quick little rundown where you're where you're at. Hey guys, it's Gordo giving you a shout uh from Moncton, New Brunswick. I spent 15 years in the military, half as an airborne light infantry reconnaissance patrolman, the other half as a special operator and joint terminal attack controller. Uh, from there, I released medically in 2021. I have a creative agency called All the Way Factory. I have a nonprofit called All the Way Foundation, which is the conduit to a documentary series, which we just finished wrapping up, filming for documentary number two, where we took uh female combat veterans down to receive IBegain and five MEO DMT treatment. I guess I'll do a quick little plug as well. I'm co-founder, you guys are gonna start seeing it come out of uh organization called Stronghold Wellness, which is a veteran medical navigation platform where we can hook you guys up with all the information about operator syndrome and treatment solutions.

SPEAKER_05 2:48

Bam, I love it. Josh, want to give us a little rundown, 10-15 seconds? Who are you where you come from?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Yeah, man. Um, I'm tuning in from Richmond, Virginia area. I was a performer MMA fighter. Uh performer, former professional MMA fighter, those are the words. Um, BJJ Black Belt for those who like to engage in such uh endeavors. I am the co-founder of SavageGentleman.com. Um, we're we're transitioning from selling goods and and kind of artifacts of masculinity and and getting more into the experiential um realm of exploring that because there's a lot of guys that just haven't had the opportunity to get out and do a lot of things. And so part of part of the work that we're doing, which incorporates you know combatives and and uh bushcrafting and just being outdoors and in general, we've also been introducing the element of plant medicine in some of these experiences, and that's been really interesting to see how it's it's progressed with guys and allow them to I guess tap into things that that otherwise weren't available to them um and and see the world from a different perspective. And everything that we do is built around that. If you've never done jujitsu and all of a sudden you get on the mats, your your your like world might be shattered in a way because like, oh, I thought I could do this, and I guess you can't. Um, and and I think psychedelics have a very similar effect for for people of like, oh, I thought the world was one way, but maybe it it it could be different.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

That's a good way of putting it. Maybe it could be different. And you know, as you said, not a lot of people get the experience uh of the outdoors, not a lot of people get the experience of um just rugged life, I guess. And I I was reminded of that while I was out branding this last weekend and having the time of my life, but most people don't even know that that even happens at this point. So I think you're you're on the right track with making sure that people get the experiences in life. This is awesome. Sean, how's life out in the mountain street? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Really good. Uh so two things. Just listening to the fellows right now. I'm already having thoughts. And the first thing is that, you know, every single person on this panel um is being exposed to men who are really in the game. Uh, like we've talked about Bushcraft, uh, Josh mentioned, you know, um, approaching things that perhaps are more adverse, that maybe uh I was gonna say a standard issue man wouldn't experience because I was contextualizing that against maybe what Gordo was referencing, you know, special operations. They're in the thick of things. And so, you know, it doesn't really matter what kind of a man you are, honestly, what you're facing, what you haven't faced, where you're at right now, where you'll be tomorrow, all those things. Frickin' men struggle. And so that's the purpose of this episode is to deal with not just men, but humans who struggle, irrespective of who they are and what they've done and where they're gonna be tomorrow. You can be Billy Badass. You can be larger and in charger than anyone else on the planet. And at some point in your life, you're gonna be in the hurt locker. And it's really just a matter of how deep that hurt locker is. And then what do you do? What do you do when you are in it? Who do you turn to? What tools do you turn to? Well, that's what this show is about today is some tools that you can turn to if you're struggling, irrespective of who you are and what you've done.

SPEAKER_05 6:23

There we go. I dig it. But uh, you're 100% right here. I got a couple of comments before we get right into the conversation today. So I want to hit those real quick. Littlefoot says, uh, two collectives in two days, or am I skipping a day in my brain? Either way, let's go. Yeah, it's uh we're back on the Wednesday Fridays, and uh it's good to be back for sure. Dan C says, good morning, gentlemen, as the official conductor of the pain train. Choo choo MS. Time for some ass caking, I love it. Uh well, we'll get right into it right now. So uh this is my first question for y'all. And before I'm gonna use this as my first thoughts, or I want to set an intention ahead of this, is that after this conversation, what do you think you want people to take away about psychedelics, about uh plant-based medicine? What are you hoping to get across from today's conversation? I'm gonna start with Josh. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I think that the best thing that someone could take away from from hopefully this conversation is understanding that it is a tool and that it is a means to an end, not the end itself. And I you see a lot of people in the the psychedelic circle and people that are that are you know on this path of of spiritual enlightenment or whatever it is they're they're seeking, and you can kind of mistake the the the vehicle for the destination, right? And and so man, they it is so powerful, it is so useful, it's done so much in my life, and I can see where it's helping other people, but it but it really is I think best served as a as a teacher and as a model for other things in your life, right? If you're if you're a a raging a-hole um 90% of the time, and then you take medicine, and then for like a week you're you're cool, but then you go back to being an a-hole again, that that medicine really did nothing. And not to say that we have to be perfect, but like we're using it for for something to understand the world in a better sense, and and knowing that entering it into that, not that it's a magic bullet, it that it's just going to help expand, literally, it's mind expanding, it will expand your perspective and hopefully see the world and yourself clearer um and and more truly. Because I think that's what we struggle with, is that our lens is often clouded. Um, and so it it does work really well to clear that and allow us to see things um hopefully more honestly and truly.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

I really like that. Um, quick comments. Celtic Mick walks or Celtic Mick travels now. It says, Great stuff, gentlemen. I am struggling with my hand, but we'll succeed, of course. And B Top says, Glad to be here first time with the collect. It's good to see you. Um, let's go with Gordo. What do you hope? What's your intention for this episode?

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Yeah, I want people to take away that psychedelics aren't uh panacea, so it's not a cure-all, and the biggest uh issues when it comes to psychedelics is uh expectations versus intentions and like what you're actually expecting out of this, and then on top of it, what is it actually gonna do? So if you I like using steroids as an example, you can take steroids and if you don't go to the gym, you're gonna be fatty or you're nothing is really gonna happen. But if you go to the gym every day, you're gonna get huge. It's the same thing with psychedelics. If you just take psychedelics without intention or without proper uh in intentions, exactly what I said, and integration and the change, like Josh was talking about, then what's gonna happen? Maybe nothing. So it's not a cure-all. What you put into psychedelics is what you get out of it. And I tell everyone you have to beat this at least halfway, if not more. So what you put in is what you're gonna get out. If you don't put anything into it, you're just taking a drug.

unknown 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:10

Well, I mean, as a uh former recreational mushroom taker, I can tell you from my personal experience, it is. It's just a drug if you don't really do anything with it. That is uh a great point. Sean, I'm gonna hit you next. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Well, I like how you started things off, Chance, with that question. What's the intention that everyone's looking at uh in this show today? What what do you intend to achieve or what are you what's your own personal intention that you're seeking uh for yourself? So what are you trying to put out? What are you trying to take in? So that word itself, intention, there's two other words that I'm just gonna uh attach to it, set and setting. So now we've got three words, intention, set, and setting. And now those words are kind of like adjacent to the psychedelic experience. They're words that if you've never been around psychedelics, you may never have heard set and setting before. And so I'm gonna twist it up a little bit rather than talk about what my intention is. I'm just gonna say that the moment that you step into or become more familiar with the psychedelic world, what it exposes is many things, not just yourself to yourself and yourself to others, but it exposes you to kind of a universe that you've never been in before, with new words, not just new experiences, new people, not just some people. It's a it's a experience that is wrapped around an experience, if I dare say that. And it is something that unless you reach out and engage in it, you're missing like uh an element of the universe that uh is always there, but you're looking away from. And so it's like it's like uh choosing to look away from the color yellow or green. I don't want green in my life, I don't want yellow in my life. Why would you actively um get rid of something that can enrich your life? Why would you get rid of the color yellow? So that's what psychedelics are, in a way, to me, is another slice of the universe that is presented for all of us to accept or not, and once you step into it, that universe will provide an immense enriching experience. Well put.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

What do you think? Man, I got nothing new to add on top of all that. You these eloquent people here. Uh, for one thing, I could just get lost in listening to Sean's accent through these headphones, man. I was dialed in. Um, to your point of what I hope people take away. If I could just restate some of those things in my words, I would say journey less and integrate more. So very often people want more medicine. They go have one experience and they come home and things are great for a while, starts to deteriorate, and they think they need more medicine. That's like uh one analogy we use is imagine you had a sick goldfish in a dirty tank. Going to an Ibogaine retreat or an ayahuasca retreat is like taking that goldfish out of its environment, taking it to the vet and giving it some antibiotics. It might be that's exactly what it needs, but if you don't clean its tank, it's gonna go back home and it's gonna get sick again. And sometimes, if all you did was clean up its environment, it might not need that medicine in the first place. And if it does still need it, it's gonna have an even more dramatic and longer lasting effect. So that's how I look at things, really just saying the same thing as all these guys, just through my own little analogies. But that's how we look at things.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

I do so, David, I got a question for you. Did you get that analogy from somewhere else, or is that just something that has been rumbling around in your head for a while?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Uh it came to me through the medicine.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

No.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

As far as I know, it is original, but I take credit for very few things that I come up with. So genuinely, it did come to me. I don't think I picked it up anywhere, but I'm sure it's not an original thought.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah, well, it is and it isn't. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 14:04

My uh I want to tell you guys my intention here too, is that uh my the reason I want to, this is our what third, I think, episode we've done on psychedelics total now, and it's like the big thing I want to get is more information out to the world because the more information you have, the better decisions you can make. Not to promote psychedelics, because for some people it may not be the tool they need, but for some, absolutely might be the tool they need. And I just want to have more information for the people out there to make better decisions rather than uh promote or dissuade either way. I just want to put that out there. So that's my big thing, and that's gonna be where my questions come from, from a place of just information gathering. Sean, what do you got? I see you got something.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I do, and I just want to be really clear up at the front end that no one needs anything until they sit down and think about what they need. So don't listen to this show and run right out your front door and start looking for ibogaine or psilocybin or whatever. Just don't. Sit down, listen, and think for at least a day. So no one needs anything out of this show today, other than some deeper thinking and what it means to you. I just want to get that up uh at the front end. And second, maybe apply a um cautionary note uh at the front end as well that psychedelics are not for kids, they're not for adults, they're not for anyone who takes them casually or frivolously or carelessly. They're just not for dabbling. And so the way that we're talking about psychedelics in this show is for more of a um improving your health perspective, your mental wellness perspective, engaging in a path that is betterment rather than distraction or disappearance.

SPEAKER_05 15:51

Yeah, well said, absolutely. Um, I'm the question I have for you guys right off the bat, this is the big thing I want to see uh find out about is what do you think we're doing well? What do you think we're doing poorly? What do you think is the like when you look at the world of psychedelics right now? There's a lot of stuff happening in the States, there's stuff that's been happening in other countries in Europe, there's other places that are highly restrictive. Like, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? Where do you see this uh being beneficial in the world? Where do you see it detracting that kind of stuff? Gordo, I'm gonna start with you. You're on top. What do you got?

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Yeah, brother. I think the fact that we're having this conversation is a good starting point. Um, I'll leave a lot of people are getting healed by it. So I think it's fine to leave it at there. And I'd rather focus on the other aspects where where we could be doing better. You see countries like uh Australia approved $734 million for through Veterans Affairs for psychedelic assisted psychotherapy that's MDMA and psilocybin. So that's fully covered by Veterans Affairs, and then you see the states pushing everything ahead, fast track FDA could be just Trump, orange man doing his thing to get more votes. Um but we look at Canada and it's a very confusing culture where we have such a progressive mindset when it comes to everything, and then when it comes to this one treatment modality, we're extremely far behind. The treatment modalities with psychedelics heal everybody. There is no color, race, gender, uh anything that it discerns or uh goes against. And that's something that I just wish this country would pick it up a little bit more. And then specifically around veterans. Unfortunately, what I've seen is that the lack of caring for veterans or military in Canada is so substantial that in other countries it's the thing that's progressing psychedelics forward, and in this country it means nothing. Um Cancer Association Can Pact Cancer uh Psychedelic Association of Canada just got a huge grant, so they are pushing for it, but that's for end-of-life distress and for cancer distress. So it's uh it's hard as the guy on the ground trying to get people to convert. We're very, very, very adverse to it in Canada, which is fine. I'm not saying one's better than the other, but like let's open up the menu of treatment possibilities. And I'm pretty sure everyone's tired of the opioid crisis as well as uh suicide and poor mental health.

SPEAKER_05 18:19

Yeah, uh, yeah, 100%. Dave, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Man, uh as far as what's going well, I'm gonna second that. This conversation, the fact that you started off just by setting intentions made me very happy, like deep inside. That touched me. So I'm glad. Uh other good thing, man, is the normalization, just bringing this stuff into the zeitgeist. Some people like Gordo here deserve some credit for that. You know, all the work on the documentaries, the podcasts, like this stuff is out there, which is great. But I think on the flip side of that, um, with the government legalizing things, with veterans' affairs getting involved, I think that's a slippery slope, too, um, of trusting the government to handle this well. So, like the same people who run the DMV, like you want them in charge of psychedelics now, the same people who've been screwing up everything with Veterans Affairs and with VAC, we're gonna trust them to administer this in the right way. I think that's problematic. Um perhaps the other hand, or the other thing here, I'll admit I'm a little biased, right? My entire business is integration coaching. But I do think that a lot of these centers popping up, um, even the places that do an amazing job at what they do, I don't think that they offer enough prep and integration support. I just don't think that you can do both things well in terms of running the actual retreat center and covering all the bases there. I say that as someone who ran the retreats and someone who now just does the integration coaching. So I don't ever mean to take something away from what these places are doing with their integration programs. It's excellent that they have it, but I don't think people are aware of how much more support they need until they're on the other side of it and they're not getting it. And that's honestly a struggle I'm running into is helping people understand that before they're six months out from an Ibogain retreat and they're kind of going back into some of those old patterns and those old behaviors. I don't really know what the solution is yet. And again, that's my bias. This is my business, but that is what I see.

SPEAKER_05 20:10

No, I dig it. I got a question on that about and I'll come back to you in a second here. Josh, I want to get your thoughts first. What do you got?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Yeah, I mean, the I think that the stigma is slowly eroding around psychedelics, um, which is what you guys were were mentioning. And I think that that is great, seeing that more people are having access to it. That, you know, this is something you could talk about at a Thanksgiving table now. At five years ago, you better not, you know, like man, you you might be kicked out of the family for that. And now it's like, oh, did you guys hear that Aaron Rodgins did, you know, this celebrity, that celebrity? I mean, there it is becoming more mainstream, and I think that that's that's fantastic, but it does come at some kind of a a little bit of a cost because one, now we've got the potential of government regulation, like you were talking about, David, um, which has some uh you know some some glaring problems in it. I I think delegalizing it would would be a step in the direction, not necessarily regulating, um, but just like, hey, this is uh these are things that like grow out of the ground. Um we we don't need paper and and you know uh contracts and and all this litigious nature to go along with it. I mean it is it is dangerous, and so I can understand that the fear and trepidation, and it should be treated with with respect. Um but but one of the things that with that is we need to go back and I think look at how this was traditionally used, right? You you didn't go to an institution, and not saying that you can't, and I don't want to like disparage any anyone that is administering or practicing it in that way, especially because that's kind of how you have to in this day and age, but you went to your local medicine man, like he was a part of your tribe, it was a guy who knew you from birth. He was probably there and saw you being born. He knew your mother and father and grandparents or whatever. This would be the person that you would um interact with. And so I think one of the things that we're lacking is maybe the personalization, which goes back to the integration part where you go to you go to a place, you meet the shaman or whoever, maybe you talk to him on a couple of Zoom calls prior to you go, you spend the weekend, and that person probably isn't gonna remember your name because there was 30 other people there, and they've got 30 more people coming next week. And so I think one of the things we have to be cautious about is the um the the corporatization of the thing, the tendency of like, well, man, we gotta follow the business model, we gotta scale it. And how do we do that? Well, we've gotta and and I think that can lead to some very poor outcomes. And we're we're seeing that all over the place. We're seeing the effect of that mentality in so many other facets. Um, seeing that in something as as profoundly spiritual and personal as psychedelics, I think would be would be really terrible. So I think that's something that we need to be mindful of and and kind of keep an eye out for.

SPEAKER_05 23:12

I love this. So far, like we have we've hit some amazing points already, and I probably not gonna have enough time for this. Two hours to get our through everything. Sean, you got any uh thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah, things that we're doing well is what we're doing right now today in this conversation. So I remember kind of when you and I, Chance, talked about ooh, should we or shouldn't we cover this topic? I mean, ooh, that's that was our response. That was back in the day when you, Chance, and I were clueless as to not just psychedelics per se, like at a scale. I mean, personally, we both have had some familiarity with it, but at scale, I didn't know much. And I didn't know what it meant to the veteran community or the broader community as a whole. And so um, you and I were both kind of working off of inferences and innuendo and myth and and sort of disinformation, and we neither of us knew the regulatory bodies and we didn't know the players. And so we were just kind of bumbling around in the dark to some degree. But we had great guests on, we covered a lot of good material, and for us, for you and I, chance, that was to some degree not groundbreaking, but it was certainly like creating a a trajectory that I never saw in my life like 20 years ago. I didn't think I'd ever be talking about those kind of things. But here we are, and now, as you said, I think this is our third one. It actually feels a little more familiar now. It feels far more comfortable for sure. It helps that we've got this panel, but again, I'm we're we're doing some things well, this, but right at the back of my brain, I've got this little itch that I want to scratch, and that itch is, it still feels wrong. It still feels wrong that we're talking about something that for so long was illegal or was frowned upon or had stigma. And I I embrace the idea of psychedelics. I I feel like if I knew more about it, I'd probably be an ambassador for it. I'd probably be trying to sit in Gordo's seat. But Gordo is owning that seat far better than anyone I know right now in Canada, and so I don't want his job. So then what's my job in all of this? That's where I'm I'm left in this conversation. Is we might have started the conversation a couple of years ago, but now today I still don't know where to take the conversation. I don't know what we're trying to grow as a group, what what we're trying to achieve for next year. Those are the kind of questions that I'm left with. So I have this little itch that says this still feels a bit wrong, even though I know it isn't. And I'm curious as to why that is. But then I'm more interested in where we are a year from now. Josh, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Yeah, so I think to answer that question, maybe you need to look and and explore well, what what does the medicine actually do? What do these psychedelics actually do for people? Um and at its most, I guess, simplest terms, it is it is healing, right? Like, why do people need this? Why is this important? Why are we talking about it? Um because we we live in a very unwell culture and society, and people people need to experience certain things, I think, to work through the you know, you can call it trauma, you can call it damage, you can call it propaganda that we receive growing up about certain belief systems that we that have been like institutionalized into us. And so being able to understand and appreciate, you know, how healing it has hope been for you, uh, presumably, um and then and then helping other people understand that again, not as a quick fix, not as a silver bullet, but but as as a as a tool to help you explore and understand and recognize how much bigger things are than the world that that we the very limited scope that we experience on the day-to-day. I mean, we've taken we've taken our our massive perspective and we've narrowed it down to a little rectangle for most people. And that that has become their world. And and helping them to understand that there's so much beyond that, and that that these tools, these medicines actually take that filter off, right? There's so much information that we are potentially bombarded with. Our brain has to like decide, okay, what's important, this isn't, this this is, and then everything else gets filtered out. And what the medicine does, among other things, is is removes that filter and you get everything for a temporary amount. Uh, and then that opens your your your eyes to how much you're missing out on things. And I think that if people understood how much they were missing, their lives would be so much better, and somebody a lot of that healing could actually occur.

SPEAKER_05 28:30

You know, to that point, I think that uh, and Dave, I see you you got something on your brain. So let you why don't you go first?

SPEAKER_01 28:36

You hit it up. What do you got? All right. Uh, just again to kind of draw a distinction between like the large events, like five grams of mushrooms, ayahuasca treat, et cetera, versus a microdose. So I think Josh is spot on that one of those big experiences, it can completely reshape your worldview, show you what you're capable of, show you what you've been missing, but people can't live in that place. So I think once you see that, now it's up to you to rebuild an identity based around the things that you actually want to be there now that you've been shown what's what's possible. I stole this from Seb. He told me we know what happens to people who get put in boxes is they tend to stay in boxes. I don't think our goal is to completely break out of that box. And like a large dose of psychedelics can dissolve the boundaries of that box you've been living in, but that's called psychosis if you're in that state 24-7. So then the question is, how do I build a new box that I want to inhabit instead of this one that was given to me by my service or my childhood trauma or societal obligations, etc.? So again, that's the integration piece. Okay, my box got destroyed. Well, I need a box to live in. Which one do I want? I don't want to go back to that old one, so how do I actively build a new one day in and day out?

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Can can I just pose a thought? Um, can we is it possible to change box to maybe story just because I have a hard time with boxes. I don't, I don't know. And not that that's a bad model, but I think you know, by virtue of the word itself, it is kind of limiting.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

For sure. Fair. I think a box with like big ass garage doors on it, I'm more comfortable with where it's like, I know there's ways, I know that this box isn't the only box, but this is my box. But I want to know that I can leave whenever I want.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Man, can I can I draw out this analogy one step further? I'm sorry for hogging up the airtime. I love extended analogies that you take so far, they stop making sense. Do you guys know about hermit crabs and how they change their shell once they all line up and they all line up? So until they have a bigger shell waiting for them to step into, they cannot shed their old shell. I think of it like that for our identities, your your story, as you say, Josh. Like we all have a story and we want to get rid of this old one, but we have to be constructing a new one that we're stepping into, or else we we won't be able to shed that old one unless we know who we're becoming to some degree. So exchange box for shell, maybe, maybe that's better.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I kind of like box though, because I've been saying it all my life. Think outside of the box. And and this is actually a relevant point to this box conversation. Uh because without the idea in your head that you are an outside of the box thinker, naturally, or you, by your very nature, you like to think outside of the box. If you don't believe that, then what do you believe? You're stuck in your box? Because all my life I've felt like I like to think outside of the box. I've I've told myself for decades that I am standing outside of the box, looking in at their box. As I stand next to someone, I like to think that I am outside of the whole box. And if I'm not thinking that, I start creating actions, steps. Whether it's a millisecond from now or it's a day and a half from now, I start looking for a trajectory that has me outside of the box. From the moment that I am standing in the box, I want to be outside of the box. And that's the way I've been forever, as long as I can remember. And in fact, I would go so far as to say that people who know me really well know me as a person who kind of creates trouble by thinking outside of the box maybe too much. And so here's my point you can have all the psychedelics in your pocket, and they may get you to a place that you want to go. But I believe that you've got to be part of that journey by considering what box you're in and what box you want to be outside of.

SPEAKER_05 32:35

I I really love this. Gordo, what do you got?

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Yeah, I think what I've learned the most from psychedelics and then applied to like war and stuff is like there is no box. The box is what you make, like the box means nothing. And I get the analogies and I agree with you. They're good ways to look at it, but to see the scope of mankind and what they can do doesn't have to be war, but it can just be everyday life and what police and first responders have to deal with and the capacity of what people do, good and bad. I don't believe in a box anymore, and I wish more people looked at it that way like, no more box. That it what is the box itself? You were just like labeling something that means what? And something I think I wish I said from the very beginning, like that we haven't hit on, and I want people to know about is the indigenous culture behind all this. Like, we're at a point with this medicine where we don't have to whitewash this like everything else, and that's the most crazy part about the system right now is that we prop up all in the indigenous rights and historical stuff, and I think it fairly I think it should be. But here we are, white man pharmaceuticals shoving down people's throats when the whole time our indigenous people have been using it for thousands of years and now it's illegal. But this is the thing that you guys all want. So we're at a very good point to from the very beginning treat this with the respect it deserves from the indigenous lens.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

What you're saying is you don't want to go on a vision quest in a completely white room on a hospital bed with a doctor in a white lab coat. Come on now, you're crazy. That's how I want to experience life. You're just crazy. Uh, I I do really love where this is going, and I come at it from a kind of a construction point of view, and I always looked at it as like um putting an addition onto your house because I think this is one of the perhaps the issues that most people don't realize, especially with the integration piece that we're all talking about, is that it's gonna get worse before it gets better. Right. So, usually the first time you do these things, it's gonna show you all the things that are wrong, right? All the things that are like aren't working or are the things that are uh that are challenges for you in the moment. And that's where the integration piece comes into. So for me, when I think about this analogy of uh construction, I want to put an extension on my house. Well, that means I gotta go outside, I gotta take the walls down, I have to cut a giant hole in my wall, I have to then continue to construct this building from the outside in. And then finally, when it's done, I gotta move all the stuff in. I gotta organize, I gotta paint, I gotta, there's a whole lot of work that still needs to happen before that is now part of the home. And I think that's uh so when we're talking about being in boxes or not, I think it's really it's just about expanding that box, creating little outcroppings that you can just kind of bring in and it remove from the uh the elements.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

John, what do you got? Just want to be careful for all of the listeners out there and amongst ourselves, of course, as we create our own um stories about psychedelics, as we are explaining what it means to us, there'll be people out there that are not relating to your version of psychedelics. They won't relate to how you build your house or how you put on an addition or how you paint walls. Um, because their house that they're currently living in in their head is is a mess, is a ramshackle tin shack that is a disaster and leaks every time it rains. That's their house. So they're putting on an addition to a dilapidated mind, perhaps. And so as we kind of tell our stories and as we use these analogies, I just want to be careful for all of us that we're not like casually throwing out, well, this is how it works for me, and that's probably how it's going to work for you. And I definitely don't want any dogmatic language like, first time you take it, it goes terrible. Or first time you take it, it goes amazing. You know what it will do? It'll do whatever it does for you. And I can't tell you, and no one on this panel can tell you how that will go. What we can tell you is there's a way to move forward with it, and usually that is by being surrounded by professionals or people who've been in the game who can not just quite hold your hand and guide you through it, but can pre, during, and post process help enable you through the pipeline or through the trajectory of this moment. But again, to my point, no matter what I say or anyone says in this conversation, that's our experiences, not yours.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

That's a great point. And I appreciate the clarification because you're right, we shouldn't be making these uh ham-handed statements.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Gordo, what do you got? Trying to explain what psychedelics are to someone is like trying to explain what free fall feels like. If you've never jumped out of a plane and floated freely down towards the earth, it is gonna be very hard for someone to understand your explanation of psychedelics. So you have to be very careful. I echo Sean's point.

SPEAKER_05 37:53

That's a great analogy. And I have not done free fall, but I have jumped out of a plane, so I have a small small piece of that one. Uh, quick comment here, Dan C says the box is conformity, and yeah, you're right, it is. Um, and I do want to remind anybody watching if you guys got questions for the panel, hit us up, put it in the comments, we will talk it out. Um, the one question I I have, another question for you guys, is you've all been doing this for a while. You guys have seen it from quite a while. Gordo's taking pictures for the social media. I love it. Um, what are some of the things that perhaps you've uh some misconceptions perhaps you had at the beginning versus now? Like what is what are some of the things that have really struck you as being profound through the experien through all of your experiences, through watching people do it, through helping people, through doing it yourself. What do you guys got? I'm gonna hit Sean first on this one.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

I won't make uh it into a really long story. I'll try to keep this less than two minutes, but my introduction to psychedelics at I'll call it the heroic level, or like at such an impactful level, uh, you might hear a term called hero dose or heroic dose. Um, look into it on the Google so you understand. But the first massively impactful psychedelic experience was down in Peru. And that wasn't a planned thing. I was just out on a six-hour mountain bike ride with a national uh mountain bike rider, and we ended up at a place that his friend owned. And I'm gonna really compress a long story. Uh it's not something that I had intended to do, nor did I know what I was doing at the time. I was just handed a glass of really slimy green stuff, and I chugged it back, and then off I went on San Pedro and Hyahuasca trip. And at about zero-200 hours, I was up in a tree in in the nowheresville, Peru, talking to the universe by myself and no one else around me. And, you know, like that that wasn't a guided, that wasn't a setup, an intentional thing. And so um, my my tale is almost like a cautionary tale of how not to do it. And whether I got lucky or not, and you know, it was a positive thing for me, and it was so impactful that right now, in my mind's eye, I can see the universe that I was talking to. I can see the objects that were floating around the center of the universe that you could call them angels or whatever you want to call them. But I had an experience that was life-altering, that was unplanned. And I got lucky because I was all up in that tree by myself. So, psychedelics can come from the 360 all around you, like that or well planned. It doesn't much matter how they come into your life. I guess what is important is once they are in your life, whether it was planned or not, is understanding what they're about to do or what they're currently doing to you in that moment. And I guess I would say that maybe through the rest of this conversation at some point we'll talk about how there's no need to panic, there's no need to freak out, you're not gonna die in the moment. You're actually maybe shedding an old life to step into a new life. But these are things that maybe we'll expand on throughout the combo.

SPEAKER_05 41:30

I love it. Leave it to Sean to get ambushed by the universe. Like, of course, if it's gonna be anybody, it's gonna be Sean.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Dave, you got thoughts? Well, you know, Sean said that was unguided. Uh, sounds like that tree was taking care of you, man. That that went just how that tree wanted it to go. So you're in good hands. Um, your your chance or your your question chance was kind of misconceptions or things we were surprised by, right? Yeah. Um, I wrote down three things. Number one, I think we understand a lot less than we think we do. I was always floored by this in PT school when we're learning about pharmacology, and they're like, this is the proposed mechanism of action of this drug. We don't actually really know exactly what it does. People don't like to admit that. It was like my, I don't know, 12th retreat, probably close to hundredth time drinking ayahuasca before I was like, oh, I think I'm starting to understand how this works a little bit. So we we really don't have a great grasp of what's going on. We like to think that we do because we love to conceptualize things, which is kind of tied to point number two, which is don't forget to feel stuff. You know, we're here having this conversation. It's really great to conceptualize everything, it's really great to be philosophical and have this language. And I think that's another way that we as humans try to control the experience is by explaining it and talking about it. To me, one of the biggest things plant medicine has done is the gift of feeling things that once existed as an abstract concept in my mind, a like gratitude. Sure would be nice to feel that. I could write a list of 10 things I had, but I didn't feel grateful. Plant medicine planted feelings in my heart that never were there before. And I think all of my work still lies in that direction. Um, last piece that I was surprised by personally is how important community is, which for you veterans with that brotherhood shouldn't surprise you. Um, our program used to just be one-on-one with all our clients. We added a group chat, and I was like, sure, they can all get to know each other. Why not? That has proven to be the most impactful element of everything that we do for so many of these people, to the point that now community cohesion and the culture of our community that drives decision making more than anything else. Is how can we build this community of people who understand each other and uplift each other? Um and Rand right there. I've been smoking my pipe a little bit too much, man. That make a team's hitting me.

SPEAKER_05 43:56

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Josh, what do you got? For me. I think the the biggest surprise has come on more on the f facilitation side. Um in and I don't think I was initially prepared for how real things can get and and and and do get for people and and what it what it is that they're going through and they they have gone through and sometimes that surfaces in the medicine um in in really unexpected ways in ways that like sometimes things come out that they hadn't even realized had happened to them. And when you are when you are face to face, and I'm sure you know um you guys here have have seen this firsthand when people are dealing with some really, really difficult stuff that's been deeply repressed, and then that surfaces and comes out. Man, like it is it is one of the most profound human experiences because we have really such a limited concept of what other people have have had to endure. Um and and and I it just it really floored me. Like the it was so humbled by being being in a position to to experience that with someone to to share and then and attempt to help and guide them through some of that. And I think you know, we are just so unaware of how much of an illusion we are typically living in. I mean, it's funny because we we look at the we you know, we call the medicine hallucinic, right? You're having a hallucination. But but in and in some ways you you you are, right? Like I'm not saying that everything that you experience in that is real, like in the you saw a dragon, that was a real dragon. It probably wasn't. Um that that tree likely didn't open its mouth and start talking to you, even though you could probably hear what it was saying. Um, but but but just as I don't know, false and and made up is the the story that we often tell ourselves about our experience and our everyday life. And so it it's just it's just incredible how much truth can come out in this. And I think that the thing that is terrifying for most people, even on a subconscious level, is they're they're they're not always ready to to face that truth. I think the biggest fear that most people enter in this is like, man, what if there's something that comes out that I'm not ready for? And it's valid. And and this is the the reverence and respect I think that we need to come into this thing. I mean, we talk about a hero's journey that comes from you know Joseph Campbell's story arc, the the hero's journey. And and you know, you do have to enter into the cave, but that is where the treasure that you seek lies. Um, and most of us are looking for that treasure, and that treasure is knowing our our truest, honest self. Um, but it isn't easy, and so that's where again the the the guidance and having someone there that can that can make you or help you to feel safe because when everything around you that you've known to be true starts to dissolve, man, it it can be a real struggle for people, especially if they're not expecting it. The fact that you handled that without going completely off the rails, not knowing what you were into, like, oh reality for no reason just went bye-bye. I guess I I guess I'm a I don't know what you thought you were in that moment or or who you became. Um, you know, like I guess I'm a cat now and I'm just gonna live in this tree. Like, I don't know how you manage that. I think that speaks to your mental fortitude and the preparation that your life uh you know experience had led you to. Most most people probably couldn't have handled that, but you have endured enough hardship. And I think that's part of the preparity, um, the preparation of like, yeah, maybe psychedelics isn't the thing that you jump straight into. Like, when's the last time you sat on a on a on and rode a bike for you know over an hour without headphones in? If you can't do that, man, psychedelics, maybe you're not you're not quite ready. If you can't be alone with your thoughts without, like, oh dude, I need to check my phone or I gotta have my music, or I need this, I need that. Um, maybe you need to do some work. Maybe you need to go do some ultra endurance type things and and you know, sit and meditate for a while. Like there's some stuff leading up to it. And but but when you get there, man, the the reality that you encounter is is really cool.

SPEAKER_05 48:33

I gotta say, in terms of facilitation, I agree with you 100%. It is one of the most rewarding, but also um educational things I think I've ever done when you start working with other people. And I worked with horses and people, and uh as soon as you enter into the e-coin realm and everything is based on energy and being able to control your own uh emotional state at the same time and still move a 1600-pound animal. Uh, when people have a hard time with that, it becomes extremely uh emotional very quickly. And it most people don't think that that happens. Like I can see where that is a uh facilitation-wise, it's fantastic. Uh a couple comments.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

I I gotta I gotta clear up that that little story that I told that was over 25 years ago, and so the psychedelic scene really wasn't a scene uh back then per se. I mean, it was you know, the 60s kind of came on the scene, and that was sort of the the hippie trail, as it were. But like where I was in Peru was quite by accident, and um, you know, it was a long time ago and things weren't well established. And so about 25 years ago, the tourism psychedelics scene was just starting to come on, and it was being done wrong, of course, and uh now this the scene to some degree is still being done wrong, but all of those wrong ways have got a counterbalance of people trying to do it right, and so the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because Josh, you'd mentioned that, you know, stepping into the cave, looking for that treasure, we're all looking for the treasure. Well, you know, like 25 years ago, I was looking for the treasure man. I'd come out of a really arduous career and then a couple of other things that I had on the go. And so I was trying to figure a lot of things out. I was bouncing around the world. Actually, why I was in Peru, it was a paid gig. I was working international security, I just happened to be in Peru. And um so all of that long time ago was you could call it by accident, I don't think it is, but when it happened, it changed my life. And so I've had 25 years of life-changing moment. And so if that hadn't have happened, my life would look I would see the world differently today than I do now. And so one of the fascinating aspects of psychedelics, I believe, is it presents a view of the world that you couldn't have had without the psychedelics. And if you get uh in front of that, if you if you do that sooner rather than later, you've got all of those years to consider what you saw. And so if you do psychedelics when you're, let's say it's you're a veteran and you're 40 and you've been struggling for a while and and now it's psychedelics, well you've got another, let's see, the average age for a man in Canada to pass away is about 78. So you've got 38 years of thinking about the world in a whole different way, rather than waiting until you're 60 to try psychedelics. So I I would suggest for anyone who is interested in psychedelics, and I'm not talking casually, for the purpose of improving their life, get on it sooner rather than later.

SPEAKER_05 52:01

That's a great point. I I I agree with you as well. I got a couple comments here. Uh Little Foot jumped in here, he said, uh, I've done psychedelics on my own and I still don't know what it is or how to put it into words. Uh, then continues on. The that is my hesitancy with psychedelics. I've only done it two or three times. Each time I have a period where I'm in the fetal position and an overwhelming sense of dread and fight to get out of it. Uh, once I'm out, I can stare at the stars for the rest of the trip and see them connect to each other by being online. This is this is great. This is what I love about having this conversation with the live audience is that we're gonna get lots of stories here. Dan C says, uh, I've been told that psychedelic therapy could be beneficial for me, but I'm terrified of the idea of reliving the past incidents that brought me to this point. And yeah, I'm we're gonna get into this shortly. Don't you worry. Uh uh, I want to hit Gordo though and get his thoughts before we uh move forward. What do you got?

SPEAKER_03 52:50

Yeah, uh the thing that surprised me, obviously the healing part, the power of it is it is amazing. It can be very amazing. But the thing that surprised me the most is how dangerous it can be to someone's mental health if you don't have integration or a proper home life. If you it doesn't matter, it's the goldfish. You can't take someone and go get them life mind life altering treatment and then put them back in the same environment. It's not gonna work. So I've been humbled quite a few times by having that idea of oh my god, this is gonna take this is gonna fix the guy, and he's gonna be not suicidal, and then within two weeks he's suicidal again. But now he's suicidal because he thinks it's okay to kill himself because of what he saw on his trip. And it's like that's not how this is supposed to go. So the danger, I don't mean to be the wet towel here, but the danger of this stuff is very, very, very, very high if you do not have proper integration.

SPEAKER_05 53:56

It I I would not say you're being a wet blanket. This is the point of the conversation to show the all aspects of it and that I wanna I want to have more people with more information, like I said, so they can make better decisions. Dave, I know you got something. What do you got?

SPEAKER_01 54:10

No, I was gonna say it probably reflects poorly on us that it took us an hour for Gordo to raise that point. So thank you, Gordo, because that's a hundred percent true. And this is another reason the more I've worked with medicine, the less I actually recommend it, and the less I recommend it as the first step. Because exactly as Gordo's saying, that person will do that. They're still in the same mental place, and now they've lost their sense of ego, their sense of self, and bad things can happen. So it's it's almost never the correct first step for somebody to jump into something like that.

unknown 54:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

Gordo, what do we got? When it comes, so the all this stuff is scary talk, scary talk, right? Well, there's a lot of stuff that's floating under the surface, especially if you have specifically if you have trauma. So it's not the fact of being scared of it, it's just understanding that the stuff that you've buried consciously or subconsciously, you made a choice to bury that stuff. And that you might think is is long gone, but it's not. That is right below the surface. And I can pretty much guarantee you some way it will come out, good or bad, it's gonna come out. But a lot of the times it comes out, and that's what surprises guys is that you can tell them as much as you can that hey, stuff's gonna come, but until they do the medicine, and then all of a sudden you see them on the other side, and they were like, What was that? What what what just happened? And you're like, right, brother, like you've you've been shoving stuff down for a long time, and it just doesn't go away. And now psychedelics open the door. So what's on the other side of that door? We don't know. That's a great point. So, well, what do you got, Josh?

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Um, I was just gonna say, I think, you know, it's important to understand that that whatever we how however that shoving down happens, it's it's almost always a survival mechanism. Like, we're no one, no one is trying to screw themselves up mentally. Like in the history of the world, no one's like, you know what, you know what's gonna cause me a lot of problems in about 20 years? Let me just not deal with this now. Like, no, you you again, you you tell a story, you you take an event, an experience, and you conceptualize it in a way that allows you to move forward and face the next day, whatever that is, good, bad, or not. And more often than not, it's we don't do a great job out of it, especially men, um, especially guys that have seen some pretty gnarly stuff. Like, we're not prepared and we don't have the infrastructure um to adequately deal with that. So it does get shoved down. We do bury it, and whether that happened as a child or in the military or both, or you know, outside of that, whatever, it it is there. And, you know, we just have to recognize, like, okay, that was a story that I that I told that I needed, but at some point you get to a place in your life where you're where you start to question, you're like, man, this isn't working anymore. Like, I I I I hit a wall. And and and and I can continue to keep telling myself this story, and you realize, like, man, I'm gonna keep getting the same results, and I would like to perhaps get different results. And so now I need to rewrite that story. And what what the psychedelics do on a like bio biological level is they they actually re and I don't know, forgive me if this is redundant from one of the other episodes where you guys have have gotten into it, um, but but and and not to like take the magic out of it because it is very mystical, and I'm gonna get a little bit scientific here, and I think it's it is both. I think actually the more you understand the science, the more magical the whole thing becomes in my mind. But but essentially what happens is your your default mode network, the the piece of your brain located in your prefrontal cortex that tells you that you were you. It's the piece of us that allows us to string yesterday and uh 10 years ago together to tell a cohesive story about who we are. That part is is essential. If you didn't have that, right, we wouldn't actually be able to survive because you you wouldn't be able to plan ahead for the future. You wouldn't remember things that you did. You would go out and be like, Man, I'm hungry. I should plant the garden. And then you wake up the next day, you're like, Oh, yeah, I should probably plant the garden. And you never actually follow the next step because you can't string the story together that you already did the thing. So we need that, but sometimes that story gets distorted by virtue of coping and trying to deal with the situation. And in the time when we're under the influence of these these medicines, that part gets real quiet, um, almost almost shut completely off. And this is the ego death that people are describing. The ego is just the story you tell about yourself, not oh, I think I'm so awesome, right? It's it's ego from a Jungian sense of like the identity that we have crafted. And sometimes that isn't a great story. When that gets quiet, other parts of the brain start connecting, they start talking to each other when they normally don't. Um, and you get a lot of neuroplastic plasticity, it becomes very creative, and and that that story um has the ability to be changed. And so when that part gets quiet, that's when people usually get really get start to freak out. I I remember who commented, I forget your name, but you said you end up in the fetal position, right? Like that's because to your brain it is dying. When that default mode network, then that ego starts to get quiet, it can't tell the difference between between, oh, I've I've been subdued by an exogenous substance, or like, oh no, we're dying, panic, this is bad. It's a part of the reason why an NDE, a near-death experience, presents almost identical to the psychedelic experience on on other DMT, you know, Bufo, 5MEO, and and all of these other things. And so, yeah, you're if if if you don't know what's happening and you're not like ready to just let go and and surrender to the process, the more you fight it, the more painful it is, and you end up fetal position on the floor until it finally passes, and and you can fight it and you can try to resist it, or you can go along with it. And I think that very much colors the the experience. But the real magic, the part that that really going back to what what Dr. David has been talking about, that happens is when that part shuts down, and then it eventually comes back online after you've had the experience, you have a window that you can rewrite that story. Um, I yeah, I've heard it explained that the story that you've told is a is a pathway, it's a groove in the in the neural networks that has been run over and over by you thinking this story about yourself. Um, it's a track in the snow, as some people when you take the medicine, that that gets filled back in. And so now you have fresh powder, and you can carve whatever track through that snow you want to if you choose to. And your brain actually goes back to a placidity. There's a window very much similar to when you were a teenager or even as a young child, where you could like learn things really rapidly, like you can learn language, right? And there's a phase in the teenage years where we can assimilate information really quickly. You get a window, and depending on the experience, it's longer or shorter, right? But but but let's call it like two weeks. There's about two weeks where your brain is like the snow is powder, it is clean, and you are ready to receive new information. And that is the time to rewrite the story. And I think unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand the mechanics, and so they don't realize how important that that follow-up is. They're just trying to make sense of what happened because it was so wild and so crazy, but it's the opportunity like, hey, you can be a different person now. Um, I I don't know where I was going with that. I'll stop there because I lost it. But anyway, there's there's a fire hose of information to do with what you will.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

There you go. I love it. Um, so Gordo, what we got? I I see you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

I know we're not, and I'm especially not a doctor. Dave is a doctor, so that's cool. Um, he can say that. I can't. There data tells stories sell, data tells, right? If you start looking at psychedelics actually scientifically and what is happening in your brain, it'll help you so much understand what's going on. The spiritual part, yeah, Roger, that. But like Josh said, if you have had a signal that's been sent hundreds of thousands, millions of times, if you're an alcoholic, if you're addicted to opioids, all depression, that signal's been sent so many times. That signal pathway is like a 10-lane superhighway down on the DMV outside of uh Washington, right? You take psychedelics, all of a sudden it goes from the 10-lane superhighway, maybe down to a single-lane road or two-lane road with some stop signs and some with some turnoffs, right? So the signal isn't as strong. And it allows you to, when you have the urge where you're like, damn, I want that that beer, it's not as strong as what it was before. And you can say, Hey, no, I don't want the beer, which is gonna take your neural pathway and go this way instead of this way. We're all built on patterns, we're built on survival. We're we're humans, we're we're built as the easiest way possible for something to get done, and that includes your brain. So if that signal is getting sent, sent sent sent all the time, that groove, like uh Josh was saying, is so deep. All of a sudden, fresh powder, you have a choice, choose a different way, and you have to make those choices to do that. Not it's not the medicine's just saying the urge isn't as strong. It's up to you to then take the off uh the off ramp.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:53

I take it. Um, so let me ask you guys this because I I have a number of questions here, but I want to get into some of the meat of uh the the conversation. I want to talk about first steps. We've been talking, you know, if you wanted to, if you're curious about this, you want to interest it, you've all you guys have all said that this shouldn't be the first choice, obviously, of uh of some of the larger issues that a lot of guys are facing, but what would you say to the people that are this is their first step? They've never entered into psychedelics before, they're struggling right now. Like, where do we go? What's the the day one, week one? Here's the the layout for you. Uh, say you were talking to me or somebody else that's watching specifically, where would you send them? Gordo, I'm gonna hit you.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

Oh man, I think David would be a good resource. I'll give him a plug right now. Um, any reputable psychedelic integration coach uh is gonna point you in a good direction. But just like we've said uh multiples of times, it's become a cottage industry. And who are you getting your data from? So be careful, have an open mind. Everybody has their camp, and that's the thing that upsets me the most is that oh, I did I did psilocybin and I did uh 1500 burpees upside down backwards. Okay, and this guy over here does oh, I did Ibegain and I rode a boat for uh I did 4,000 meters on a rowing machine, and I did ayahuasca, I did it this way, and they are in their camp, they're so ingrained that I see this a lot. Everyone thinks their way is the way to do it. It's just like there is no box. Be open-minded, listen to everybody, find trusted professionals, and then go from there. Damn, I like it. Sean, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

Um, so if someone approached me and asked me what's my next step or what's my first step in regards to psychedelics, I wouldn't point them anywhere. How about that as an answer? What I would do is say, grab a seat, let's talk. Like, I'm not gonna point anyone in any direction until I get to know. Them a little bit better. If they're an amazingly deep friend of mine, like all my life, let's say, and they approach me, I'm still going to have the same answer. Grab a seat, let's have a chat. I mean, why wouldn't you do that? And I think that that is something that is a responsibility that not all of us take on uh to heart. We're keen to point uh towards a subject matter expert or keen to point towards the best camp for the best psychedelics. Whereas I feel our first step is actually to just hang out with that dude for a bit, whether that's a minute or a day, and just like tune into what they actually want. And so what they want might be something different than what they need. And so they might want psychedelics, but it might not be what they need right now. And that as part of the process is determined in the real time. And so they might show up for psychedelics and they might end up on a mountain bike. It it the the I was gonna say the patterned answer or the glib answers or the token answers of, oh, you need psychedelics, let me grab my Rolo Dex. Number one, number two, number three, that isn't the answer for me. Like I know that I would point people towards, well, everyone on this panel at some point in a conversation, but that doesn't mean it's gonna happen within the first 30 seconds of the conversation, it might happen on day four of our conversation.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

He is such an outside the box thinker.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:47

He is such an sorry, I I was I was muted, but Josh, what are what's your point?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

Okay, yeah, I mean, I I think kind of along the same lines with with what Sean was saying is to I'd ask him why. Why do you why do you feel the compelled? You know, what what what is the draw? Um, because I do think that that quite often, you know, to switch back into the like spiritual woo-woo um mode, I I do think that it is something that that kind of calls to us, whether we know it or not, whether we know what that call actually is, we may not be able to name it, but you know, there there does seem to be something then in in like a timing that works out. Like the the medicine didn't come to me until I was like actually ready for it. Um, you know, you you were seeking the treasure, but actually the treasure found you, Sean. Um and and I think that there is something kind of mystical about the process that we need to give room for. And and so I tell people, you know, to like, man, you'll when when the time is right, you'll know. I mean, ask questions, you know, we can have a conversation, or or uh maybe I'll send you to someone who who might be uh more experienced in the specific area that you're asking about, right? Like, man, I I can't I can't talk to you about ABBA Gain. I don't I don't know anything about it, but I know someone who does. Um but but just jumping to the solution rather than you know addressing what the actual question really is, I think is is a mistake. I think you know my the thing that I tell people all the time is I don't have any answers for anyone. What I what I feel like I'm really good about is helping them ask better questions. So that would be the the game that I would play and the direction I would go. And then at some point I might suggest if I if they're not already practicing, I would probably bring up jujitsu. Um, not to beat a dead horse. Uh but but I think there is something about the ability that of submission and surrender in that practice that can be useful and that you can potentially draw from. Not to say that all jujitsu guys are awesome and have a great time at psychedelics. There's plenty who don't. Um, but but coincidentally enough, those guys also have a hard time in jujitsu because they're they're typically white belts that are like white knuckling everything on the mat. And you start, you know, I I would be curious to see what giving a a higher level belt, a brown belt or a black belt, someone who's learned to kind of work in in that realm, uh what the incidence of like good trip, bad trip to to use the term looks like, but I'll I'll prefer the floor.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:31

I volunteer as tribute. I'm happy to help. I just got my brown belt. I I think that would be a really interesting experience to uh to engage in. So I'm down if we can get that set up.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:41

I got something next week, man. You want to come out to Virginia?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:44

Sweet. I'll talk to my wife about that one. That would be a little tight. Uh Dave, what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:51

Uh, first of all, chance, you got a good panel here, man. These are great answers. Um, completely agree with what's been said of like first seek to understand and to be understood. Like, what is the conversation we're even having here before pointing in any specific direction? Um, if I if I can't speak on a sort of like tactical level to a listener who's probably annoyed by all these philosophical answers when they're like, Well, what do I actually do then? I can tell you a little bit about where we start with people, which is the foundation, like the basic stuff. It's boring, dude. Like before you ever touch the medicine in our program, we take a good hard look at your habits and routines, just basic stuff. When do you wake up? How much uh nicotine, alcohol, caffeine are you consuming? What's your screen time like? You know, when do you go to bed? What do you do before bed? We start there. Because um, you'll hear psychedelics described as a non-specific amplifier. And I particularly think that's true of something like microdosing, where there's not a ceremonial container necessarily, and it's a smaller amount. So it amplifies what's there. So if your brain is not a great place to inhabit, if it's full of anxiety, and then you watch uh, there's someone called Moose on the Loose up there in Canada, some political thing. One of our clients was digesting like two hours of this every morning, and it was ruining his life. So if you're starting off with that and then washing it down with some coffee and like then you take your microdose, you're just gonna have turbocharged anxiety. So for somebody who's wondering what I can do now to prepare for psychedelics, once I'm ready, once I find the right place, once I have all these things in order, start with that. Like improve your starting point because the psychedelics are only gonna amplify that. So if you're already on a good trajectory, it can amplify that good trajectory. So on a tangible level, start journaling. If you don't know how, send me a message. I got things for it. Start meditating, start doing breath work, do something positive because the medicine's not gonna solve everything, it's not gonna fix you, it's it's not coming to save you. It's just gonna amplify all of the good efforts you're already putting in. So start there.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:52

This is great. And uh to Josh's point, I'm I'm down with beating a dead horse about jujitsu because I love it. Right, arm borrowing a dead horse. There you go. That's a good way to put it. Uh, Sean was bugging me a little while ago about the fact that I bring it up pretty much every episode. So now when somebody else brings it up before me, I am very happy. But I think it's uh it's very similar to uh what you're talking about, Dave. It's very similar to jujitsu. If you show up at class and you ate a ton of McDonald's beforehand and you haven't been working out and you haven't been training, and you've not been drinking any water for three days, and like you're gonna have a really crummy experience. Uh, but if you go there and you're eating right and you're training well and you're you're integrating the information that you got from the last class, you're gonna have a better class, I think. And I think that's a it's a great point to start for anything across the board is look at your platform, what are you standing on, and then move forward. Sean, what do you got?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

That's all very true. Good analogy with the BJJ. Hopefully, we don't have too many more analogies that are related to BJJ. Um, I would say this the the interesting part about your analogy is that every time you go to class, you're aware of how the class runs and who shows up with the class and what your expectations are and who the instructor's gonna be, and and your favorite little lucky rabbit's foot that you always wear, your little jujitsu socks, and it's all very rote, very routine, very familiar, except for the dude who's watching this right now who's never touched psychedelics and doesn't know what a class looks like and doesn't have a favorite jujitsu socks. How about that dude who's scared to try it? And so what what do you tell a guy who would benefit from psychedelics, but is freaking out because of the stigma attached to psychedelics? Or he's heard that one story way back in the day where a guy freaked out and you know ate 12 watermelons and he doesn't want to be that guy? What do we tell that person who is scared to even reach out to like Dave or any of us and have that conversation? Because he doesn't have a jujitsu class that he's familiar with. He's just got fear right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:05

Gordo, I saw you click off. What do you got?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:07

Yeah, I think I'll address that first. I think you I try to tell a lot of guys, especially the special forces guys, because they think they're big, strong, tough operators, right? BTO, big tough operators, and you have to put your psycho knot helmet on, get your brain bucket on, strap in, have a little bit of forward-leaning confidence going into this. I told it to the ladies that came down on the the last documentary, like right before we do it. Okay, guys, this is this is game time. Like flak fest on, chest rig on, weapons readied, we're good to go. Lean into it. People are freaked out, like I get it, it is really scary. But that's also where you have shown in your life that you're able to overcome these things, you have to have the same mental attitude going into it. And something that we haven't touched on that Josh lightly touched on is uh when the medicine calls, and that's what does that mean? When people finally say, Hey, I'm ready for medicine, then that's truly it. I had two ladies on the cohort before uh when I first started up this last documentary, and uh we were getting closer to the preparation and they both dropped off, and it's not a bad thing. And for me, that is a huge sign where I'm just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not gonna be like, oh, please come do it, please come do it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right away, stop, drop. If the person backs away from psychedelics and if you're having second thoughts, then you're not ready for it. When you get to a point where you're like, Yes, I want this, and that can show up in many different ways. That is when the medicine is calling, and that you'll hear that a lot, and it's so, so true. So do not force this. You will know as abstract as that sounds, you will know when it's ready. Dave, you're nodding profusely.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

What do you got? Uh I'm nodding because he's saying everything that I believe. Those are great points. Um, if if I'll listen to myself talk and add anything, it's like, don't confuse the fear or resistance right on that threshold with the like, this isn't for me, or maybe it's not really calling me. As you said, Gordo, those people are fully committed, they want to be there, and there's still that fear right beforehand, which there should be, there should be some some healthy respect. Uh, to that scared person, man, I would say the same thing I say to my two and a half year old, which is it's okay to be scared. That's okay that you feel that way. Being scared is just an opportunity for us to be brave. So, do you want to do this or no? And then let's figure out a path forward. Dig it. Josh, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:43

You know, it's it's interesting um how much uh we conceptualize things, how much weight that that carries in you know our perception versus our reality, right? If if you tell someone who's about to go perform and sing a song, and they they they come up to you and they're like, Man, I am I am so nervous and anxious. And you're like, oh my gosh, yeah, you must have stage fright. And they're like, oh no, stage fright, what do I do? Like, oh, well, here's what you have to do, and like, oh man, that's a that's a problem to solve. Or you could tell that person, you're like, oh, you must be really excited to go do the thing you love in front of those people. That's awesome. And just that that rephrasing, that reframe, um, changes things quite a bit. And so I think being being able to discern, you know, real fear uh versus you know excitement, I think, I think is important. But but again, a lot of that comes back to practicing getting to know ourselves and and putting ourselves in situations where we can feel that out, maybe in a different in a in a different arena, right? So the the the cool thing and the re about psychedelics is unlike the the thrush of jumping out of a plane, right? Um, like the consequences of screwing that up are really severe. And there's other things, like again, a near-death experience that you have life-changing for people. I don't think there's anyone on the planet that has had a clinical NDE, has come away from it and like one been been like worse, like you die and then you come back to life and you're like, oh man, that was the wrong move. Like, no one ever says that. They're just like, the world is is is incredible after that. Um, but you don't want to have to experience like a horrific car crash and be put in a coma to get to that. What psychedelics allow you to do is to to bump into that threshold to have a similar uh experience in a much safer way, if you're going about it in in the right terms with a guided person and all the things that we talked about. And so to the person who is terrified, who is scared, uh I would say like one really get to know your feelings and like is that fear, is it excitement and and is it anxiety? Like, like what is it? Can you tell the difference? Do you know? If you don't know, we'll spend some time exploring that. And and then from there, kind of following the steps of okay, now that I know that, where do I want to go? And what does that look like? And what you'll find is that when you're ready for the medicine, again, the medicine will find you, the opportunities will will come up. You don't have to chase it, you don't have to cut against the grain to get philosophical, um, you know, a Wu Wei principle of like being being in a flow state. Uh man, the more you can adopt that in the medicine, the the I think the the better the outcome is gonna be. And and honestly, the more you can adopt that in life, the the better it's gonna turn out as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:52

Digga. Sean, what do you got? Oh, Dave, what do you got? If if I can go back to a jujitsu analogy just to make Sean mad for a second, because he raised that point. What do we say to the person who's scared of jujitsu? We've all trained, it's normal for us. We can say these things from our perspective, but that guy who's never done it before. Well, if if we're already convinced that this is a good thing, so somebody who's heard horror stories of psychedelics, the evidence is overwhelming that this seems to be a positive thing for some people. So, how do I figure it out? If you're scared of jujitsu, but you know you want to do it, hey, can we work on our flexibility in the meantime? It's gonna set you up for success once you finally take the plunge. Can we work on our cardio, our strength? So our physical meat suit is ready when we're ready to take that plunge. It's the same thing here, man. It's can I get into journaling? Can I get into breath work? Can I start doing some of these practices so that once that fear subsides, or once I do feel that call for the medicine, I'm kind of ready to go instead of getting ready from that point.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:49

So sorry, Sean. Do it to him. Yeah. All right, I'm I'm gonna do it to myself. I'm gonna talk about jujitsu. And so, um, you know, one of the interesting things about um not advising, but recommending jujitsu to hard asses, to badasses, is they're often scared to go face that first day on the mats because they have a certain sense of themselves, they have an identity that they don't want to face in reality. So they think they're gonna kick that ass on the mat on day one. No, they never think that. If they've been told that d dude, your first day is gonna be bonkers. When you get on the mat, whatever you think, it doesn't work that way. You're gonna get your ass kicked. And that's all there is to it. Lots of people know that. Some people don't. The people who don't know that they're gonna get their ass kicked on day one, irrespective of how many black belts they own, they'll show up because they're unaware. They're unaware that there's going to be a conflict with their sense of identity and the sense of reality. So those those people show up easy peasy. The people who don't show up to jujitsu are the people who think that they're a big deal, and then that first day they realize they're not. It's a it's a challenging thing, the ego in this moment. The ego drives a lot of our decisions, as we've already stated. But on this one, on psychedelics, I think one of the issues that causes immense problems for or keeps a lot of people away from psychedelics, is the fact that the word on the street is it's gonna be a freak show. It's it's gonna it's gonna break you so bad that you won't even know which way is up. And to some degree, I think that uh has to be said. But I would like to apply a not a cautionary note, but uh a contrary opinion, and that is it doesn't have to be that way. It isn't obligated to be a freak show. In fact, just like jujitsu, your first time on the mats, as you shake the instructor's hand and say, I don't know anything, thanks for guiding me through this first night, which is the appropriate way to enter into jujitsu, you can do the same same with psychedelics. Now, just like on the mats, no matter how you enter into your very you shake the hands, you're very cool to get along with. Ten minutes on the mats, now you're upside down and you don't know how it all works and you're being armbarred. Well, at least you're in a safe space that you entered into feeling like everyone was cool around you. But with psychedelics, there's a a certain sense out there that it isn't a safe space, and it is gonna be uh arduous and adverse and perhaps villainous at times. And so it's that it's that uh fear for some for some men who feel like they are the biggest badass in the world, that they don't want to face an even bigger badass, which is themselves on psychedelics. And so it's that reluctance to face reality that holds back a lot of men who think that they're a badass in reality. But it isn't like that. We're all just infants to some degree, and we're all trying to figure it out. And anyone on this panel who you may identify as someone who is living a good life or has figured a few things out or has taken themselves and put them back on the path, or however you see this panel, there are moments in all of our lives where we've been that toddler on the mat who was clueless, and we've been that person who was freaked out as we're about to step into that maybe psychedelic thing. So it whatever fears you're you're holding, it isn't just you. It's all of us to some degree, but getting perspective on what it'll mean to you before you step onto your first mat. So pre-during and post, that's what we've been talking about in this episode. And I think we should get back to that little bit of pre-during and post sequence of events of psychedelics so that the listeners out there can maybe get some context as to stripping away some of the myths that all the dragons will be attacking you during your psychedelic session. So maybe, Chance, can we do a pre-during and post sort of sequence of events?

SPEAKER_05 1:26:58

100%. You're going right down the lane I was gonna hit on next, which was the uh, because we talked about, you know, day one. What what what do we do? We're gonna have that conversation, right? Uh the next step is I want to talk to you guys. You've all been facilitators, you've all watched people go through this. So, like Sean said, I'd love to hear what you guys have seen in terms of uh uh facilitating and allowing people to have these journeys and have these times. And CS sometimes are gonna be uh kind of horrific and sometimes are gonna be great, depending on your set and setting, as you said earlier, Sean. Um it brought forward the memory of the fact that when I first started jujitsu, I was one of those guys. I thought I was I've done a few things and I studied martial arts and I can do blah blah blah. And I walked in there and I got beat up by a 16 year old girl for 45 minutes, like straight. And that was a realization for me, but it made me sit down and go, Oh, wait, this actually works, like the the skill set. Obviously works. So it led me into that next step. But not all, not there's a number of dudes that I know that have done that first day and then walked away from it going like no, this is garbage, and I'll never let and like immediately gotta put that ego shield back up. So I do want to hear you guys from a facilitator point of view. What are you guys bringing forward? Dave, I'm gonna hit you first.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:21

I've got a wicked jujitsu analogy for this, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:25

I'm sorry, Sean. I do. I feel like I'm to blame for this, and I apologize. This is my fault.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:30

No need to apologize. It's it's not it's not just you, man. Uh granted, I'm a bluebelt, so take this analogy with a grain of salt, right? But I look at a macro dose, whether it's mushrooms, ibogaine, ayahuasca, whatever, it's like going to a week-long seminar with the best instructor possible. Insert whatever jujitsu idol you have. They're gonna show you your weak spots, they're gonna show you all the things you've been doing wrong, you're gonna learn wicked new techniques. To make the most out of that, you're gonna prepare, you're gonna analyze your game, you're gonna look at what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, what are my preferences, what do I want to learn? So you're gonna show up there with a plan. And those are the intentions that you set in that preparation phase, where ideally you're taking stock of things and you're honest with yourself and you know what you're there to do. And ideally, you've tried to work on things yourself. So you're not just putting all of that onto the medicine or onto this instructor. And then once you're there, you might show up with a plan. You're like, hey, I want to learn inverted armbars. And they're like, Cool. Well, your guard actually sucks. So we're gonna do guard retention drills first. You have a choice. You can say, Yes, master, thank you for the correction. Let's do that. Or you can say, No, I'm paying for this. Teach me what I want to learn. And that's called letting go during your psychedelic experience. That's called the medicine is gonna show you what you need to see. It's gonna answer your intentions, but often not in the way that you thought it would. And if you hold on so tight to those, if you're attached to those expectations, you're not gonna have a good time. And then the integration phase is where cool, you learned all these things, you got shown all these sweet techniques. How are you gonna apply them in training back at your home academy next week? Are you going to still put your foot in the wrong place because you've been putting your foot in the wrong place for 10 years? You got shown where to put your foot now by a master, you know what's the right thing to do. Are you going to act in the right way, or are you gonna follow those habits? We talked earlier of the default mode network, the opportunity that the psychedelics give you. So you by nature might be less likely to put your foot there again, so to speak. But what other factors in your environment are going to contribute to that? My analogy breaks down here a little bit, but like when you're back at home and you still have beer in the fridge, you don't want it, but it's there. Are you gonna go drink it? So, how are we gonna uh update your environment? I gotta work on that element of my analogy. I'm realizing now, but I think you guys get the gist.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:53

I don't know, cleaning the mats, cleaning the beer fridge.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:56

I like it, I like it. Thank you, thank you, Sean.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:00

We can definitely talk about jujitsu more, but Gordo, I want to hear about your thoughts. What do you got?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:05

Yeah, I think it's important to uh the verbiage here is really important because even I was getting this messed up for a while. So it's it's preparation, dosing, and integration. And that's like kind of the standard way that they speak about it clinically and non-clinically. You'll hear also I used to call it something, I used to call it something different. Um, but it's it's good just to know that I it goes preparation, dosing, integration. With preparation with my guys, girls, people, I start from the very beginning. History of psychedelics. I like to combine uh an educated person, like a research numbers tell, sorry, sell. So I like to bring in people that have done the medicine that aren't doctors at all. And then I also like to bring in doctors to be like, hey, this is what's happening in your brain. Give the person as much background as possible, good and bad, always, always, always, always. And I always leave with the bad because it's like get it, get it out of the way and make sure people are are real and realistic with what they're gonna get out from their uh from their trip. Oh, I lost my thought. That's fine. It's all good with dose is next, I think. Yeah, there was something else I was gonna hit on with integration, but that's fine. So dosing, breathe. That was it. I would say breath work is the number one thing I tell people. Um psychedelics with numbers tell, like literally, you won't die or overdose from uh friggin' still siblings. There's lots of studies and medicinal data to be like, oh, am I gonna actually die from this thing? Not a lot says you are. So guess what? That means you can get through this. You're totally capable of doing that. And how do you do that? Breath work. Breath work will carry you through your trip. So straight into dosing, breath work. That's it. Uh, my second thing with with it, it's hard to do when you are new to psychedelics during the experience. Lean in to the experience. If you're getting shown something, uh ask what are you showing me or why am I getting seeing this? Be interactive within the trip. Not as easy to do with your uh just starting off because you're just on a roller coaster and going, Oh my god, and you're just taking it. Once you get comfortable, and even if you can do this in your first time, if something's shown to you, interact with it, ask questions. What are you trying to show me? All of these things, you'll be very surprised what will come out from that kind of behavior during dosing. It's just like a roller coaster. Only rule don't get off in the middle. Shout out to Trouer because I stole that from him. And then integration. I can't, we've said it enough on this, and I don't need to repeat it. That is where psychedelics make its money. You want to make long-lasting effects, it's in the integration, and that means the work. Guys, don't you think you don't want to do it and you think it's just gonna it's just gonna pan out for you? It's not. You have to put the work in. You have this period of neuroplasticity where you can rewire your brain. You can rewire your brain on your own by reading a book and creating neuroplasticity by doing all the sorts of stuff like that. This is just this is the steroid to your brain that you can use to make new pathways. But it all comes down to the work that you put in. I take it. Josh, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:34

So I typically start off just asking what they know or think they know about psychedelics, uh, because it's it's interesting, you know, people have preconceived notions, and so getting a feel for where they're at, and then from there either validating or maybe shifting what it is they're thinking. And and surprisingly, a lot of people don't know a lot other than like, well, it's supposed to be good for me. And I heard so-and-so did it, and it changed their life, and you know, so so I try to get I try to get their expectation, um, in addition to their intention. And I think it's important not to conflate the two because you don't, I think we've said this before, you don't always get what you want, but more than often you will get what you need. But if we expect, okay, I take this and I'm gonna receive that, it's not that formulaic. This is where a lot of the mysticism kind of comes in of just like, dude, I don't, I don't know. I can't tell you what you're gonna see. Like, I can I can kind of map out the the phases of like, okay, man, at this point, you're probably gonna see things, you'll get some visuals. You know, at this dosage, the the the ground is gonna look like it's gonna start breathing. And then, you know, about the next step is you start to see things more geometrically and the colors get more vibrant, and you know, at a certain point you're gonna get here. And when we when we talk about that, the the the breath work comes in. And I think something that I realized that I did um that I did for a while was maybe not explain breath work as well as I could. Where when you say breath work, you know, it it has so many different meanings to so many different people. What are we talking about? Are we talking about Wim Hof? Are we talking about holotropic breathing? Are we box breathing? Are we what are we doing here, right? And and what I have found is especially under the medicine, trying to get someone to follow an elaborate breathing protocol that is understood as breath work, good luck. I I've been on both ends of it where someone's trying to get me to do it, and I'm like, get out of my face, man. Like, like I don't this, I can't follow. I don't even know what you're saying right now. Like, I know you're trying to help me, and I appreciate that. I want to breathe the way that I want to breathe, not the way that stop telling me what to do. Um, and and then other people are like, Man, you just gotta breathe. And they're like, I am breathing. I'm like, I'm watching you hold your breath. You're actually not. And so when we talk about breath work, I think uh um an understanding of just coming back to your breath, recognizing your breath, and feeling and experience your breath. Because under in in the experience, when things start to get difficult, and they they may very well, um, you're gonna feel you know, I tell people like, hey, you're probably gonna feel uncomfortable at some point. And that's okay, that's part of the process. Like you said, lean into it. But but when it starts to get difficult, do two things. One, ask for help. That's what I'm here for. I'll come, I'll sit next to you. Um, if you just need someone to like be in your close proximity, great. If you need someone to talk to you, if you need to share what what's what you're experiencing, awesome. But but when it gets hard, just pay attention to how you're breathing. Feel it, the inhale through your nose, feel your belly expand, all of the things like focus on that because what it does is it brings you out of your head and into the present moment. And that is is the the only way through it is through it. And and you have to be present to get through that. And so that's a big part of it. Going into the the dosage part, I think that for the person who is terrified, maybe we don't heroic dose them, right? Maybe you and I don't know, you can probably talk about this a little bit more, Dave. Um, you know, the difference between micro, macro, and heroic dosage. Like there, there are levels to to the medicine and the intensity that that you may, and again, it's not an exact science. Five grams for one person may present like two grams for someone else. Two grams might send you to the moon, depending on you. Like there is no way of knowing, but generally, I I if someone has no experience, I try to start with with what I would consider a manageable dose, which is anywhere between one and a half to two and a half grams of psilocybin specifically, so that they can bump onto that edge, but not be thrown off the cliff necessarily. And so it gives them an opportunity to kind of practice okay, this is what it feels like when things get really, really weird without it just going completely off the rails. You feel like you have a little bit more agency. And I love talking, you know, the the idea of conversing with the medicine, like, like, like treating it as uh, you know, it having its own identity because it kind of does. If you've been in it, you're like, oh no, there's there's something here with me. It's not just, oh, I took a drug and now this thing is happening. It's like I'm I'm communicating with something that's outside of me, and I don't know what that is, but but you know, let me talk to it. And I think that that that also helps as well. And then and then afterwards looking at, okay, you know, kind of a kind of a hot wash of like, all right, what happened? What did you feel? What came up? Um, and then what does that mean to you? You saw this, you felt this, you relived this, or you got, you know, more quite often guys get stuck in loops, right? The same rumination that we have in our everyday life, where you just think about the same problem over and over and over and over again, you'll find that under the medicine, you can get stuck in those loops as well, and you'll just relive this thing until you the medicine works through or you can breathe your way out of it. And so analyzing, okay, what was that? What was the medicine trying to show me? And then taking that and carrying it forward into the integration, which we've discussed. Um, that's kind of my post protocol there.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:44

I dig it. I got a question from an audience that I want to touch on here. Um, Dancy jumped in and said, Do psychedelics affect people with a neurodivergent diagnosis differently? Or is it even recommended? And I think this is a great question. So I'm gonna hit Gordo. Let's hit Gordo first.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:01

Yeah, my dog was just barking. Uh, I'm super unqualified to ask that question, and I would be very careful with who you ask those types of questions to. No offense to the other guys. But I do want to talk about the breath thing. Okay, you will be so out of control in your trip that the only reality that you have is your breath. So when you think about breathing, that is something that you can control because guess what? You will be bye-bye somewhere else. So when you breathe, that will take you back to reality because that's what is holding on to reality. But yeah, neurodiversion, I don't know. I get a lot of questions like that a lot of the times, and I it's the same answer every single time that I'm not qualified to answer that question, and I would speak to a professional about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:46

Okay, that's a great answer. Josh, you got any thoughts before I hit Dave?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:50

I mean, I I was I was hoping you would defer to the expert to the guy with the degree in it. But but but I would say, you know, as man, new neurodivergent is such an interesting um kind of catch-all term now. But and I think that there are specific you know, contraindications, right? Generally speaking, from a clinical standpoint, someone who someone with with bipolar schizophrenia, there are certain certain psychedelics, very specifically, that are just like, yeah, you definitely should not. Uh, my understanding is is uh DMT and and ayahuasca and and and those are generally not recommended. It is interesting some of the other psychedelics, uh there's studies are coming out that are showing that that actually can help with it, but now we're getting into like very, very clinical applications that is outside of my wheelhouse. As far as like, oh man, I have ADHD, can I take this? Um, I would say resoundingly, absolutely. I I would I would say that without any reservations, you know, am I autistic? You know, you have you have, you know, you're on the autistic spectrum. Um, that one gets for me, gets a little bit more gray, where it, you know, there's so many degrees of that, right? And and we we tend to throw around like, oh man, you know, I got a touch of the Tism so flippantly nowadays, it's it's really hard to to not knowing your specific situation to give a a definitive uh recommendation based off of that. So I'll I'll leave leave that one to you, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:34

Dave, what do you got? Guys, to to be clear, I'm not that kind of doctor. I just paid a lot of money for a doctor title, so I use it when I can, but I'm not this kind of doctor, not that kind of therapist. Uh, all that said, man, um, Josh, you're spot on. The concerns around things like uh bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality. There is new information that says some of those concerns may have actually been overblown early on. Clinically, you'll never see studies on that because it's always just contraindicated for safety purposes. I can tell you anecdotally, this is also why I love microdosing, man. It's so safe. Um, you can't, I don't want to say, I don't want to speak in absolutes, but someone with a tenuous grasp on reality, that grasp can be completely lost from a macrodose experience. Worst case scenario on a microdose, man, you stare at a tree for way too long. You're like, that's a nice tree, right? Like you're you're not gonna go too far with something like that. So I like that as a starting point. Anecdotally, also, man, I say this with so much love. Almost all the veterans I've known and worked with, they could probably get diagnosed with a touch of the TISM, as you put it. And then it's like, well, what symptoms are actual autism spectrum? What symptoms are, hey, I have a mild chronic TBI, what symptoms are mild CPTSD that affect my emotional regulation and connectivity. From my experience, a lot of people who do have autism or on the spectrum, they have a lot of difficulty accessing their feelings and communicating those feelings with other people and feeling like they're they're not being understood. And I've definitely seen microdosing make a difference in that. So, depending on what diagnosis we're talking about, definitely not medical advice, but I wouldn't be scared. And I sound like a broken record, but this is why I like microdosing, man. It's like dipping your toe in this and assessing the response. Great point. Josh, what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:22

Um so one thing I would say is a big part of this, and this is probably for anyone who is pursuing this, um, especially if you have those concerns, to like if you're considering it, you need to really trust the the person that you're with, not just like, oh, this is a reputable, whatever. Like they've got they've got five stars on Yelp or whatever. Like, like you need to be very, very like comfortable with that person. And that person needs to be really comfortable with you. And I think this is kind of the communal aspect. You hear this thrown around a lot, you know, holding space, right? We hold space for people, and and and that that is what facilitators do. But there's a difference between, you know, holding space for someone that paid however much money to come up to the thing, and then holding space to someone that like you genuinely care about. Like, hey man, I'm gonna sit with you. If you crap yourself, like, dude, we're gonna clean you up, we're gonna get you squared away, like, no harm, no foul. If you, you know, go off the rails for whatever reason and you say something that you thought you would never say, that's okay, man. We're you know, you need to be with someone that is that has that level of commitment um to helping, in my opinion. And then, and then Dave, if you I we might be taking for granted that that people know what you're talking about when you say microdose, because I think I think we use that term pretty much as a catch all. And so I have some concepts of it, but I'd love to hear, and I think it might be helpful for the audience to like just get specifically kind of what that looks like and what you're referring to.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:01

Yeah, uh, for sure. Thank you for that opportunity and chance if that's okay. Uh when I'm talking about a microdose, man, I'm not I'm speaking on the order of like a hundred to two hundred milligrams, so like 0.1 grams of psilocybin. You spoke earlier of like a two-gram dose. I don't even play in the middle anymore, man. If I'm doing it, it's like 100 milligram microdose or five grams lemon tech method. That's that's me, not advice. But yeah, for our purposes, when I say microdose, I mean I used to call it subperceptual. That's not really true. There are effects there that you can perceive if you know what to look for, but you are still you, you can still pick up your kids from school. Allegedly, we've had active duty law enforcement guys microdosing, and they claim that it makes them better to deal with when they're interacting with civilians on the street. So you are still you on a microdose. So yeah, thank you for uh pointing that out.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:54

And and and I think you know, my understanding of subperceptual, what people typically use is like, yeah, you're not gonna see anything weird. I think most people's um qualification for like perception tends to be vision, right? And so, like, you know, around you know, at a at a museum dose, as they call it, like you can walk, things start to look a little bit funny, but you're not like totally just removed from your body. But but I think that that subperceptual, like, okay, you the perception is that you feel better, I think is what you're referring to. So, like if you know what to look for, like, man, my mood is elevated. But I think for people to understand that, like at that point one gram, like, yeah, you're not gonna see anything different than how you see the world. You just may feel better, and your thoughts and your mood might might be perceived, be able to be perceived differently if you are paying good attention.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:52

And there it is, the key word paying attention. So for me, a microdose is 0.2 grams. That's it, that's all. And a heroic dose for me is five grams, and then there's room to wiggle around in between the two, but whatever. That's how I simply categorize it for myself. Now, on 0.2 grams for the internet, um what I feel, I don't get vision distortion if I'm walking through a museum. I'm into the museum, but what I do do is I'm more connected to everything, in particular people. And I already feel like I've got like good empathic abilities. Like I walk into a room, I feel the room instantly, I I I pretty quickly understand who's who in the zoo, and I understand kind of where they're at. But on a 0.2 gram, like on a microdose, I just have more feel. And it's not feel like scary feel like I'm I'm freaking out feel. It's just I am more connected to the universe, to my planet, to my fellow man, to the moment, to the painting in the museum. I am just more there. And what does that mean? Well, that is the question, right? What is the point of a microdose? Is it to put on your police uniform and go out and and like quote unquote deal with the day? Or is it to take the microdose, put on your police uniform and go out, do your job and be more connected to it? Be more connected to the person who's in front of you. So is it trying to deal with life or is it trying to connect to life? And to me, that's what psychedelics at its root is all about. It can provide us lots of things, but are we just looking for the treasure or are we trying to share the treasure? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_05 1:50:42

I think it's a great way to put it. Gordo, you had a thought there a second ago?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:46

Yeah, just uh the neurodivergent thing. Like there is this is the reason why we need research to be conducted. And again, America's leading the way, Texas, $150 million last year for the IB gain for opioid use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. It's like they have specific programs with IBGI for any neurocognitive disorder. So my father has Parkinson's, and I'm he's a veteran with a TBI, and I'm begging him to go down and try their programming. Like, we need to do the research to figure out what's going on with these to how we can like better help people with neurodivergent or anything else that's going on in their brain. It it really is the wild west. And I don't understand why we're not leaning harder into it.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:31

Yeah, it it blows my mind too. I'm looking at not just the science, but the anecdotal evidence from other uh other nations veterans who have done these things under trial experiments or with uh the right group of people and the uh the benefits that they're that they're espousing is it just seems silly to not look it up, just look at it. And it seems almost what do you got, Sean?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:57

Okay, so one one thing that is important is we talked about the pre-during and post sequence of events. The post-sequence is actually what we're talking about right now, where someone goes through the moment and like maybe they don't have a support system or maybe they do, that's unimportant. The reality is that they're gonna do some sniffing around post-event. They're gonna like hit the interwebs, they're gonna, they're gonna start hitting Reddit, they're gonna start reading about what's normal, what isn't, what should I have done, what shouldn't I have done? Why didn't I see dragons? If I didn't see dragons, what does that mean about me? That's what we do. Post-event, we're trying to figure it out. And we're gonna figure it out. It's whether we figure it out right or wrong. And so if you're hitting the instawebs and you're doing all of your learning through that process, if Reddit is your post-event interpretation, good luck. And that's why you need facilitators and not facilitators who are Namaste holding the space for you because they're a hippie. They they they should have some experience, they should have some perhaps credentials, whether that's professional or not is unimportant. But they should have been in the game. They should have been aware, they should have been experienced before you showed up. Because without people to walk and talk you through the talk that they've already done themselves in a reasonable manner, then you're just back to Reddit. You're you're you're just learning about psychedelics through someone who held the space for you where they learned about holding space in Reddit. And so at its root, when you're looking for looking to engage in psychedelics, I do believe it's perhaps not about all of the science credentials that a person might have on their wall, but it's certainly about experience credentials.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:04

That's a great point. Yeah, so we're almost at two hours here. And I just want to say, first off, thank you guys. This has been awesome. And if you guys gotta run right away, we can shut her down. But if you guys are good to hang out for a little bit, I got a couple of questions I want to touch on before we go. Okay. Um, so Dancy responded to your guys' uh questions. He says I was diagnosed, diagnosed with uh as AUDHD and am just now starting to understand my entire life. I'm not sure what the AUD is. What do you got, Dave?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:32

Uh yeah, so I I I believe that means autistic and ADHD. Um so anecdotally, uh allegedly, I am on 27 milligrams of concerta, which is an ADHD medication, and 100 milligrams of psilocybin today. I just uh pursued getting diagnosed actually with ADHD recently, like within the last couple of weeks. And as this guy's saying, my entire life actually does make a lot of sense. And I was shocked once I started this medication. I was shocked that I ever did anything in my previous 31 years of life on this planet. Um for me, I was banging my head against a wall and I was pursuing it with the lens of shadow work, the lens of the psychedelics of like, why am I avoiding doing all of my work? What is it that I haven't looked at yet? What more work do I need to do? It's really changed my belief on SSRIs as well. That like I got this prescription medication and it has radically changed my life. So I'm actually a lot less, I'm more hesitant to denounce SSRIs now. I think that this stuff does have its place for some people. So, Dan, I don't know, man. I applaud you for getting that diagnosis. I'm glad things actually make sense to you now. Uh, just don't let the doctors put you in boxes and put labels on you because you can still have a freaking awesome life and do a lot of good things. But just wanted to share my personal experience there.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:50

That's a great and conversely, no matter what title you're given, it's not like I was gonna say a death sentence. We were all dying. Um, whatever title you're given, it doesn't mean that's who you are forever. It just means that's what someone told you today. And by tomorrow that could all be changed, by the way. And so, you know, whatever TISMs I've got or whatever acronyms I own, and I'll own 20 years from now or I should have owned 20 years ago. Whatever, man. I know so many people who've got so many acronyms attached to their name that, you know, whether they're aware of it or not, it's it's what are you doing with your life today to become a good person, to live your best life? If it's psychedelics or SSRIs or, you know, it's it's riding a mountain bike, whatever it takes for you to wake up and live your best life, that's really what this conversation is about. We're not exploring psychedelics because we've got free time. All of us have got free time today. We're exploring it so that we can all live our best lives. Am I wrong? Not at all. This this is all about living your best life. And if you if you're not living your best life, then address that. And if you've got a friend who you know isn't living their best life, that's what this is about. Have that conversation with them. Don't tell anyone, I listen to a podcast and you've got to start macro dosing psilocybin today, bro. But engage with a person who you can see who isn't living their best life or their full life, and start a conversation before diagnosing them or delivering the psilocybin to their front doorstep. This is great.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:34

Josh, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 1:57:35

Well, I was just gonna say, I was like, living your best life, I think, is is ultimately getting to a place of understanding that life is itself psychedelic without anything extra in. Like, like the the ideal state is to be in a place where it's like, man, I I can just experience everything to its fullest degree. The good, the bad, whatever it is. I don't, you know, I don't have to run, I don't have to hide, um, I don't have to walk in fear of you know what if and what if this is. I just I just accept what is coming and I move through it. And I think the psychedelics give you the opportunity to practice that. But the goal isn't to spend the rest of your life chasing this peak, right? Of like, oh man, I gotta, I gotta blast off and I have to leave my body and do this thing. I and and there's nothing wrong with people who explore that because you know I think there's there's value in in people going and mapping that that world out, right? Like, like, yeah, man, I need we need guys to go and and and really get an intimate understanding of the medicine. But I don't think everyone has to do mushrooms a thousand times in their life, right? And and I don't think there's a limit to like, okay, you get three turns and then that's it. It's not a hard, fast rule, but the goal I think is that each time you interact with the medicine, you know, it it it is healing for the sick and it is teaching for the the well. And every time you bring something back, you bring a piece where you kind of walk in that state in your everyday life to the point where where your whole life is just in you're in the medicine, you're never not in the medicine. And you can still take the medicine, right? But but there's never a time where you're out of it. You're it it is you and you are it, and that is part of the oneness that you experience. And I think you know that if there's any kind of uh I don't want to even call it a destination, but if there's a pie in the sky ideal, it would be understanding that that you have all the medicine you need inside of you already. It is there, you are the medicine itself. Um, sometimes you just need a little help to have that revealed to you, and this is what the psychedelics and a good guide uh can can allow and and give to you.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:54

I take it. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:56

I uh Gordo, what are you gonna say? I was just gonna say that the more I do psychedelics, the less I need psychedelics, which is like weird to say. And before anything else, I think because we've spoken a lot about like uh what Sean was saying in the integration, and I I think this makes sense. So you study it, you look it up on Reddit, you're trying to figure out oh, I saw the dragon, I didn't see the dragon, why I didn't see the dragon. Maybe just maybe think about it that if you are trying to relate your trauma to your trip and you're like, hey, what did that dragon mean? Or how come I didn't see the dragon because I wanted to figure out what happened to me when I was little and all this other stuff, what you don't realize is happening while you're looking and trying to figure out what the trip meant is that you are touching that trauma and that difficult situation over and over and over and over and over again. And that is getting you more comfortable and desensitizing you to that to that trauma, right? And getting you more comfortable with it. So, as much as we think we need an answer, just the exercise of trying to figure out what it is is healing in itself.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:07

We see this in uh equine therapy all the time. Just when you first start it and you first start working around horses, it uh it can be very, like I was saying, emotionally uh driven at first. But like you said, the more times you go do it, the more effective you can be in its work, which then means that you can integrate it more. And then the funny thing is you have more people coming back to just hang out with the horses than they are to do the like work anymore, right? Because it becomes a uh um what's the word for it? Almost a comfort to just be in that that realm. Uh, I think this is just fantastic. And I want to get these comments out here before we uh shut her down for the day. Uh Sandy Baker jumped in here and said, Love this conversation today, gentlemen. Very powerful, very informative. What a panel. Uh Littlefoot says Sean has the terminatorism, which definitely is a thing. Uh Dan C says it's a life-altering medication. I'm on concerto as well. Thank you, gentlemen. Uh Bundes jumped in here and said, uh, I have tried five MEO over 15 times during my life. Uh during during my trips, life was boiled down to the basics breathing, health, family, protection, all the BS stripped away in an instant. I think this is a fantastic point. And then uh question, little foot says, if Sean doesn't mind, how often do you microdose?

SPEAKER_04 2:02:30

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:34

As often as I need, or as not often as I need. Whatever. You know, like I'm not gonna give a number, and and I can't actually give a legal answer here in Canada. At the moment, all I can say is when I need it. And I suppose maybe the follow-on to that answer is how do I know when I need it?

SPEAKER_04 2:02:56

Chew on that.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:57

Bam. I love this. So uh we are just a little bit over two hours right now, so I want to get some some final thoughts. But before I do, I want to say thank you again because Gordo, Dave, Josh, John, this has been super informative. And I can't thank you guys enough. This has just been fantastic. We're gonna do another one uh just down the road a little bit to keep hammering on this subject because I think it needs more conversation, uh, conversations like this out here. And uh Littlefoot says, good answer.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:25

Sorry, the only answer. Hey, before we wrap up, by no chance, usually you're you're launching straight into uh, you know, your closing uh sentence, etc. I don't know if we're gonna do final uh performance. Okay. Um I just wanted to state that this topic as a whole is is not an easy topic to cover, and we've all done our best, as we always do, over here on the show, to literally do our best. But there's gonna be gaps in the material we didn't cover today, or there's gonna be questions in your mind right now that we haven't answered, and that's a good thing. What it should mean to you is you have follow-on research to do. You have follow-on answers that you're gonna have to seek to the questions that you have now. I would recommend that as a follow-on to the show, you follow up with the troops that are on the panel. There's someone here on this panel for you, someone you're resonating with, someone that you thought, ah, that guy gets me, or I think I get him, or I think we could get along. Whatever it is, this is a great opportunity. This is not Reddit. This is a great opportunity for you to feel the vibe of a person and then reach out to them with some follow-on questions. I just want to get that out of the way that a podcast doesn't end the moment that the screen goes blank. Your head is the podcast. You should be thinking about this and following up with it after the fact.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:56

Yeah, I mean, that's the the title of this this episode, Psychedelics and Reality. It's really not an and, it's just psychedelics reality, I think. Um, but I want to get your guys' final thoughts. Anything that is still bubbling in your brain or you want to get out, and I want to ask this question as well. Uh, going back to the intention that you guys had when you first started, do you think that you've succeeded in that intention in terms of what you wanted to bring forward in this conversation? And then any other final thoughts you still got uh boiling in your brain. Gordo, I'm gonna hit you first.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:28

What do you think? I think, yeah, I think we did a great job. This is honestly one of the best podcasts I've ever been on. And I appreciate you guys for letting me hold the space with you. And if I ever get to work with you guys or uh trip with you guys, I'll be more than happy. I can tell that this has been just honestly a fantastic conversation that I'm gonna be able to point everyone that I that has questions about psychedelics too. So great job, Sean and uh chance for putting this together. We need support, guys. And I'm not asking to take away anything from the menu. SSRIs work. I'm not asking to take it off the menu. I'm asking to expand the menu and give people options. And I think we're here as a nation, as human beings, we're ready for the next step. And I truly believe within within five years, this is going to be normal practice for a psychotherapist to be able to prescribe this stuff, depending on which one. I don't know, but like we're right there. So we need as much societal pressure as possible to put onto our government and the uh health establishment to get research done that will make them feel comfortable with it. But it all starts with research. So please talk about it, be a champion of it, don't be afraid of it, and just know that it's not for everybody, but it could be for someone.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:47

I love that. It it almost there was a statement a long time ago, and it was something along the lines of like, um, it's not for it's for anybody could do it, but it's not for everybody. Does that make sense? Josh, you got any final thoughts? Any anything to do?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:03

I I think I I think that was pretty comprehensive, and I'm I'm you know, honored to be amongst such distinguished gentlemen that that you know it's cool to see that there's there's people out that that care this much, that are exploring, they're asking the questions, and and that are like digging into this thing and and and genuinely truly wanting to to help others. And I think that stems from how much this practice has helped each one of us, right? I don't think any of us would be here if it if it wasn't profoundly beneficial, and and so much so that you know guys are willing to stick their neck out and potentially take some risk by by having conversations about a thing that is still taboo in a lot of circles, and I think that speaks volumes to it. So I'm I'm really grateful to share space with you guys and in the chat and looking forward to having more conversations and getting hopefully getting to know you all better, and and that I hope that the audience you know is able to take away some some new perspective and that yeah, I don't know that we gave any answers, but hopefully we were able to help them ask better questions.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:15

I take it. Dave, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 2:08:19

Man, a lot of uh a lot of thoughts. I'll echo the gratitude of being on here. You guys rock. Uh Josh, I'm having my first son, so that's why I was watching videos of you chopping down a tree. Because I'm like, bro, I gotta be more manly. I could I could be a girl dad all day, but I feel like being a boy dad is gonna ask a lot more of me, which is also why I'm working on myself so much right now. That's the cool thing about your wife being pregnant, is you got nine months to figure some stuff out. It's not like the baby gets there the next day. Um, if there's one thing I do just want to come back to, just because I'm I'm worried that uh we might give someone the wrong impression because we've now contributed to this body of knowledge online that someone can research and look up and listen to this whole conversation and kind of confuse the map for the territory, right? I don't want people to be scared of what we just talked about or contribute to building up these grandiose expectations in their mind. A lot of veterans and first responders, they're used to fighting. They think that everything's a fight, everything's a struggle, they have to fight their demons. I hate when people say that. You're trying to move beyond fighting when we are on this healing path. Um, I won't I won't share his name, but a dude came to Peru with us and he did night one of ayahuasca, and then I'm talking to him in the morning and he goes, Okay, I met Mother Aya, I'm ready to wrestle with her now. I'm like, bro, who said that you're gonna wrestle with her? Like, can you guys have a nice, pleasant lunch date? Like, how about that, man? So I I don't want this to contribute to just the building up in people's minds that it has to be hard or it's gonna be terrible, you're gonna relive all these things. It can be fun, man. It can be awesome. It's love. Let it be fun, let it not be a struggle. Move past that view. So I'm off my soapbox. I just wanted to make sure that we had that perspective so that things didn't come out wrong. Um, I got I got more thoughts, but I'll quit hogging up all the time, man.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:09

It's all good. I I really like uh I really like what you said there. And you know, I don't think it can be stressed enough that it is not all doom and gloom. It's all not all absolutely amazing, it's not tree melting, universe exploding. Not to say that it can't be, but it is a very personal experience in any regard. I just love that. Sean, you got any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 2:10:34

Yeah, I've got lots, but I'm gonna keep it simple for me and maybe for everyone else by just not building off of what Dave said, but staying in that same lane. And interestingly enough, if you look at his t-shirt, chance if you can flash to David's uh t-shirt, uh Warrior in a Garden. Seb LeVois and I have been working on a book for four years now. It's so close to being written. And the title of the book is called A Warrior in a Garden. And the reason we titled the book as such, uh, shameless plug not to be confused with my book that is now in publishing, which is called A High Fidelity Mind. Uh, the book, A Warrior in a Garden, was titled based on the duality of life. You can be a warrior, but you can also exist in a garden. The warrior can exemplify your external, but the garden can exemplify your internal. And I think that the two have to work together simultaneously, forever, constantly. So the idea that psychedelics is going to be good or bad, well, that's the duality of life. It'll be what it'll be, and you'll coexist with it in the moment. And if you are a warrior, you will find a way to live in that garden. You will find a Way to be cool with who you're gonna become rather than trying to be cool with who you are right now.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:09

Sean's always got the greatest philosophical points to end the shows on. I I love it. You know what I think I might do is just give you the final send-off every time, and you can just dive into it from there. Um, some comments here. Dan C says this was amazing. Thank you, gentlemen. Have a great weekend and play safe. Uh BTOS jumps in here, says, Yes, I appreciated all the dynamic discussion, and there was lots that I hadn't thought about before. Thank you for doing this topic the way you did, and continues on. Maybe use this topic for the next one. I'd like to know how we can be advocates for psychedelics, our psychedelic research, and safe administration here in Canada. That's a great question. Maybe we will. Maybe we will. Uh Littlefoot definitely said, definitely look at all the way clothing, awesome quality. And uh Bunsey says, uh, wearing my all the way shirt right now. Great. I love it. Everyone's just like pumping up their shirts and putting it in the camera, and this is great. And I mean, that shirt that Dave's got on is from uh Chad McLean down doing um uh mental Joe apparel. Mental Joe, thank you very much. Um, so there are lots of people out there. If you guys are looking for information, by all means you can hit us up.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:11

And so there are lots of people, and and you are on a roll chance, and I can you please like uh give everyone sort of a quick spotlight, Gordo, Josh, and Dave, on what they could offer after this podcast is completed.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:26

Bam, let's hit it up right off the top, Gordo. What can you offer for the world out there?

SPEAKER_03 2:13:31

Wow, okay, so because we had a guy uh pass away by his own hands a couple weeks ago, uh time has come to stand up a program here in Canada. So we're gonna do something called uh program Full Circle, where a veteran comes in crisis, they immediately get course-loaded into a community setting where it's gonna be community calls once a week that you get plugged into. But not only that, you will be plugged into psychotherapy network. And based on your scores, uh, we will be taking confidential information about uh your depression and PTSD and stuff to tell us where you are at in the spectrum of uh suicidality, I guess. Suicide is the best metric. Like, I'm it's that is not a scientific term I'm going with, but I don't care. Hey man, how close are you to thinking about killing yourself? And then that is gonna put them in ranking for uh retreat globally. So becoming on, I'm gonna talk with you guys after this. And uh same with you, Josh. But I have uh connections now, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, America. We have access to this. I don't have money for you to go to these things, but uh we will find a way to make this happen. And it's we get a good rate, we can make Canadian cohorts, but right away you'll be slotted into community calls. You'll have uh peer support coming around you, and you'll have psychotherapists that are all trained in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. So be on the lookout for that. I'm hoping to launch it at the end of next month, and uh we gotta we gotta do something, guys. So it clearly has to come from the floor, and it's not coming from our overload uh overlords. So this is my solution to it. Um, there's a bunch of resources that are gonna be put behind it, and uh it's got my heart. So just be on the lookout. Hold on, man. Do not do it, guys. Do not do it. It is the most final thing you could ever do. If you think you will win a fight with it, it is not worth it, dude. Just pump the brakes, slow down, we'll get you squared away. Josh, what can you?

SPEAKER_02 2:15:37

Yeah, I mean, I just want to that that's such a important thing that that I just want to follow up and just say that like people do care. You've got you've got a panel of people who care. I maybe I've never met you, but I care, right? And and it doesn't matter where you're at, who you are, or whatever, like you were put here for a reason, like and the by virtue of your existence, like you are supposed to be here. I don't know why, I can't tell you why, but like there's a point where you won't be here, and that that's fine, but right now, as long as you are, it means you're supposed to be. And so don't take that for granted, don't take that into your own hands. Um, find somebody because because people care, like you you there is still a mission for you out there, even if it's not apparent. Um as far as what I can do to to help or offer people, um that's a I wish I had a a more succinct answer. Uh I I guess if you are on a quest and you are in need of a wizard in your party, then um if if you're King Arthur and you need Merlin, if you're uh Aragorn and you need uh uh Gandalf, then that that seems to be the place that I that I find myself. Um the ability to just guide to to walk with you. Like again, I can't I can't solve anything for you, I can't give you the answers, but but I but I can walk with you and I can show uh a different perspective, which is often really all that we need. We we just need to see things through a different lens. And what I what I can help people with who are ready to take a look is I can hold up a mirror um and allow you to see yourself for how who and what you truly are, um, which is probably not the story that you're telling yourself in your head, especially if you're struggling with things. And so the way that I do that is is just by interaction. Um, I work with guys one-on-one. I also have groups of guys that I work uh with. Um, and then we have people coming out and we we spend time together doing doing man stuff for guys that are like, man, I need to figure out some things before this can awesome, cool man. We're gonna cut down trees.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:53

We're gonna we're gonna freeze because of bad internet. That's exactly what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:01

Entering more manly stuff. We're gonna wrestle sharks.

SPEAKER_00 2:18:07

We're gonna chop trees down on crocodiles.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:11

Um, that is amazing. Dancy says amazing. Uh, from a survivor's perspective, absolutely F an amazing initiative. Yeah, 100%. The uh the the thing that kicked in here, there he is, he's back. Sorry, all good. Uh you were just in the midst of telling us how the all the manly things, and then you froze up, and I was like, I froze up.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:31

It was too manly for the for the interim, I guess. Sorry, I broke the internet. Um, and and so yeah, so so I do host people and we get together and they're very small groups. Um, I'll have 12 guys coming out and spending a weekend this this coming this following weekend, as a matter of fact. And we I don't put this on the flyer because of obvious reasons, but quite often we do integrate medicine into the experience at some capacity. Um again, it's it's the way the world is, you can't just announce that. But but if this is something that you're interested in exploring, um you know, feel free to reach out and ask whatever questions, and I'll do my best to to steer you in the direction you need to go in.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:17

I love this. It uh you know what it reminded me of, you know, the the old uh tombstone line of uh I'll be your Huckleberry. I'm just picturing you as like I'll be your wizard. All right, let's do this. David, you got neat what can you uh offer up?

SPEAKER_01 2:19:31

Yeah, man. Um Tyler, I or uh Josh, sorry, Josh Tyler, my brain. Uh I like you, dude. You seem like a very sweet guy. You're just every answer, it's coming from like caring about people. And um, I briefly considered becoming an orthopedic surgeon and I chose the physical therapy route because I cared about people and I wanted a relationship with them over time. And that's also why we work with folks for six months instead of just hey, come to a weekend retreat. So I I like that starting with somebody who actually cares. I feel like that's the secret sauce sometimes. Like that's all somebody really needs is to know that another person actually cares about them. And so, Gordo, thank you for this initiative that you talked about, man. Because when people are in crisis, I'm not the guy for them. So I love that I now have a better place to turn people to. So thank you. Um, as far as what I do, I mean, we talked about the microdosing. So if you've got your eyes set on a bigger experience, but you're maybe on SSRIs right now, so that's kind of a barrier to getting access to that stuff. We can talk about it. If you know that you need a little bit of extra help and support on the integration side, that's what we do. So if everything I shared about microdosing interested you, um, check us out on Instagram. If you follow me, I will send you a message. That's me or someone on my team that's a real person. I hate AI chatbots. So if you follow us, I will talk to you. So talk to me back if you want more info on all that.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:54

I take it. This is awesome. Sean, you got any uh anything that we can do as the collective? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:20:59

We are. I mean, we we do every single show. And what we are doing or what we do is we care. We care enough to run a podcast to have conversations like this. And I would just like to remind everyone that like just over four years ago, the only reason that I appeared back on the grid is because some friends from back in the day, my first career in the military, asked me to get rid of my businesses and come and do this. So I threw away all my or gave away my businesses. I volunteered to do what I'm doing right now, and I've been trying to crack this nut ever since. And granted, I haven't done a great job along the way, but this is important for everyone to hear. I've been doing my best. As I look at every single dude on this panel, we're all doing our best. And we're doing our best not against a nebulous problem. We're directing our energy at a mission, at a purposeful mission. And I feel like it's given me not not a not a third life, it's given me enough purpose that I feel like I've got a different life now than I did four or five years ago. And that's enough for me. Just just enough to know that I'm helping someone else now is a good thing. And I would say that would be the case for everyone else on the panel. The feeling of being helpful for your fellow man is good. And so not everyone can start there. You can't come out of your hurt locker hole and jump onto the instawebs and start telling everyone how to do it well or how to do it poorly. You've got to baby step your way into these things just as I have been doing, just as we all have. And through the years, eventually, maybe you can tell people about all of your mistakes and some of the things that you did well. But until that point, there there's just people that you should listen to. And so I'm gonna highlight Gordo just because you know he's a great example of this right now. I've watched Gordo go from zero to 60 over a period of time that is trackable in my mind, where I can see him building 10 miles per hour, 10 miles per hour until he's doing 60 miles an hour. And that didn't happen overnight. It was all hard-earned. And the beautiful part of the hard-earned journey is that when you get to a point where you feel that you can help others, you feel like you really can, because you earned it, because you ground your way to it. So I'm highlighting Gordo because I've watched him do that. But the the crunch of my point is this it's the only way to do things, Gordo. What you've done is the only way to do it. But now that you're in it, you're feeling the sting, you're feeling the friction, you're feeling like it's not moving fast enough for you. It's normal. You're doing a great job. Don't let all of the frustrations of the foolios that are dragging you down, or the systems that aren't working well with you, or people who don't want to play the game with you because they don't see the righteousness of your path. Don't sweat those details. Just keep on grinding and doing your thing, and it's gonna play out the way it's supposed to. So that's my attaboy, and that's my prop you up, bro. So keep on keeping on.

SPEAKER_05 2:24:44

Dig it. Uh, I don't have a ton to add to add. I have one little thing, uh, a couple comments here. Bunsey says, uh, do peptides next. We could do a conversation on that one for sure. Peptide pods, which could be interesting 100% from Dan C. Um, the only thing I have to add on this whole conversation is something my doc told me when I was struggling with uh training a horse, actually. Uh and she said, They are the teacher, you were the student. And so I've taken that just that little line into kind of everything I do in life. When I look at jujitsu, I look at it as they are the teacher, I am the student. Even if I'm teaching someone else, even if I'm trying to facilitate someone with a horse, even when I'm trying to manage my own issues, that issue is the teacher, I am the student. And if you can come at it from an angle of uh learning, I think it's gonna help you immeasurably as you start to uh uh develop and become a your better self. I really think that's true. So as we all continue to learn, build and grow. We'll see y'all next time.

unknown 2:25:44

Bye.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:47

Thanks everybody for watching and being part of the collective. If this has sparked any thoughts or resonated with you, let us know in the comments. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. Your support helps us grow and keep the conversation going. See you all next time.