Surviving-ISH Podcast
"Surviving-ish" is a podcast with a unique and purposeful dual focus. The "Surviving-ish" is our way of creating a space for lightheartedness—it’s about the everyday, petty grievances that are frustrating but also a source of shared, human comedy. These are the moments we survive, like when the laundry pod explodes all over the clothes, your morning coffee isn't quite hot enough, or a passive-aggressive text from a relative ruins your mood.
The core mission behind "Surviving-ish" is to show our audience that while we may have been victims of serious circumstances, that does not mean people have to walk on eggshells around us. We believe in the power of laughter and the importance of finding humor in life's small frustrations. By blending serious topics with these minor, everyday grievances, we aim to normalize the idea that it's okay to joke and laugh, even after enduring significant challenges.
For further inquiries or to share your own story, please reach out to us at survivingabusepodcast@gmail.com. Together, we can create a network of support and healing for survivors.
Surviving-ISH Podcast
Phoenix Gould: Psilocybin Therapy and Embracing Vulnerability
What happens when you combine the ancient wisdom of psilocybin with the expertise of a trauma coach? Join us in a transformative conversation with Phoenix Gould, as we uncover the profound healing impacts of her recent psilocybin therapy session. Phoenix, a dedicated trauma coach, shares the raw and powerful journey of confronting long-held fears and trauma. Discover the life-changing insights she gained and how these sessions are reshaping her path to reclaiming joy and personal power.
In a compelling discussion, we explore the shift from being a fierce warrior to embracing vulnerability and self-acceptance. Phoenix shares intimate reflections on how growing up with a narcissistic parent has shaped survival mechanisms and self-perception. We dive into the heart of the struggle, examining the complexities of letting go of familiar strength and independence to trust and accept love and support from others. This conversation sheds light on why choosing a nurturing life can be so challenging for trauma survivors and how to begin this daunting transformation.
Our episode concludes with a deep dive into understanding and forgiving narcissistic behavior within the context of family relationships. Phoenix opens up about the painful yet necessary journey of empathy and self-care when dealing with a narcissistic parent. We discuss the importance of setting boundaries to protect oneself from ongoing abuse while exploring the potential for healing and forgiveness. Through Phoenix's insights and personal revelations, listeners will gain a profound understanding of resilience, empathy, and the transformative power of shared journeys.
In every dark tunnel, there's a glimmer of hope. In every painful moment, there's a strength to heal.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Surviving Podcast.
Speaker 1:The guest we have on today is a returned guest. You may have heard the episode previously released. She has become such a supporter of the show and going to be back on a regular basis to help us with some things. That is part of her expertise, Phoenix, I just I am so grateful that we cross paths.
Speaker 2:David, I feel exactly the same way. It's such a pleasure to work with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the relationship that, like that is one thing that I just really love about what I'm doing is I'm coming across people that I probably would not have met before had my life not went down this path. So, thank you, please reintroduce yourself to us and then we'll talk about our topic for the day.
Speaker 2:Sure, my name is Phoenix Gould and I grew up with a narcissistic mother. I am now a coach and I help clients take back their power from the narcissist by truly understanding who they are and by healing from narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 1:Taking back that power is so important. I think anybody that I've spoken with that survived trauma. One thing they say is I felt so powerless. I felt everyone had a narrative for my own story. I didn't have my own voice at the time, and getting back that power and reclaiming that is everyone's goal. I used to say my joy was stolen, and then I learned to rethink that it wasn't stolen. It might've been put on hold temporarily, but it wasn't stolen. After we recorded your first episode, we were having conversation and you mentioned this what we're going to talk about today and how it was just life-changing for you. So tell us about it, let's get into it. You mentioned this what we're going to talk about today and how it was just life changing for you. So tell us about it, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I had come to a point in my life where I was feeling that I had done so much work 26 years of diving deep into self-development and learning and healing and I was really, really curious to see what else there was left to heal. And I felt I wanted to take a really deep look and had heard about people who heal trauma through the use of psilocybin. And I met someone who does this work, who's a psychologist and who does psilocybin journeys after the Hopkins method, which is like this institute in the States, who have done research for many years to find the right dosage, the right treatment to help survivors of trauma to move through. And apparently after three sessions there's this big breakthrough for most people to where they feel that they're done with healing their trauma, and that to me it seems like a really cool idea. It never even occurred to me that I could be done with my trauma healing. I'm like you can be done Really, is that possible? Evening. I'm like you can be done Really, is that possible?
Speaker 2:And so I got really curious and I had one session a few weeks ago and I'd love to talk about the experience because it was life changing for me and I understood myself and my particular path and why I am the way I am in such a deep and profound way, and I also understood a layer of what the narcissist goes through every single day where I just thought, oh my God, I have to tell the world like people need to know this, which is some people call it magic mushrooms and there are different strains and there's some that are particularly developed to do this kind of trauma work and they have done very extensive research to find the right amount to where people go deep into their unconscious to be able to do some healing but don't have a bad trip.
Speaker 2:There's like that sweet spot that they found, and so I found someone who knows all about that work and who has been trained in doing this work. They tuck you into bed in a super quiet room, they blindfold you and they plug a headset into your ears or earphones where they play very specific music that is designed to move your brain into a specific wavelength so that you can go deeper and deeper into your unconscious.
Speaker 1:Wow, and is that the first step? Or is that what happens? All three?
Speaker 2:That happens in all three. Okay, so it's the same thing, but each time you go you move a big chunk out of the way, and so the next time you can go deeper and you can go further. So, I've only done one. I'm really curious to see what the third time might look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having the reaction and outcome just from that one is incredible. So I'm very curious. I went immediately is part of my PTSD is having things like in my ears or over my eyes being watched when I can't see? So do you have PTSD and was that a fear of yours?
Speaker 2:I have PTSD, but it's in a different space. It's not about having my eyes covered or my ears, but my experience was that once the psilocybin takes effect, you go into a different space altogether and nothing that used to bother you it bothers you in the same way, or it's exactly what the mushroom will address, and you will work through that problem and then come out on the other side having seen something that is so profound that now it's not a problem anymore.
Speaker 1:Wow, do you mind to tell us, as you were laying there and listening to the music, what was happening to you?
Speaker 2:Sure. So what happened for me was the very first thing is that I was caught in a cycle of fear that, in that moment, I was experiencing in all ways, like when we're in this life. We have fear and we can recognize it as a feeling, but the world around us still exists and so we can push it away. When I was in my first phase, I was living inside a container of fear which I've never really experienced before. So the first thing was, you know, a world of fear, and it felt like hell. To be honest, I think that I got to experience in that first phase, my own personal hell. I was in a room that was fear. I could see my fear, I could smell it, I could taste it. It was inside and around me. It was so intense In that moment. If I could have had a button that I could have pushed to make the experience stop, I would have been so tempted to do that because it seemed unbearable at first. And this world of fear was there At first. I was just in it and going, oh my God, wow, this is really intense. I needed to hold the guy's hand. Can you hold my hand? This is really strong.
Speaker 2:The mushroom, though comes and goes. There's phases where the mushroom takes over and you're in this world and then it fades and you come back into yourself and you're going this world and then it fades and you come back into yourself and you're going like, wow, that was pretty intense. And then there was another phase, a new phase of fear, and I was like, wow, what is this? I didn't know. I had so much fear inside of myself. And then came a moment when I got really pissed off. I was just like what is this? I don't want to go through another cycle of this fear. Like I'm done, like what the hell? I was getting really angry at this experience. And that's when things started to shift for me and all of a sudden I started asking the question what am I supposed to learn here? And all of a sudden, the experience started changing.
Speaker 2:So I think the way this mushroom works us through our trauma is that we experience it at first and then we recognize something. For me, it was that, wait a moment, I can see that this mushroom is taking me wherever my mind goes. So if I'm afraid of the next phase of fear, guess what? I'm going to have another experience of fear, which was the case, but I could recognize that now it's just ooh, actually I'm in charge. I'm in charge of what's going on here and I'm like, if I'm in charge, then what do I want? What would it be like to experience joy? Be like to experience joy All of a sudden, the next thing that came along was a phase of joy, like this beautiful garden full of flowers, and that was just like, ah, marveling at the beauty.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden, my next thought was what if it disappears again? Will this stay? Guess what? That was a thought of fear. All of a sudden, that garden started wilting and the fear theme came back in and again I was in that place. That felt like hell and I was like, oh, I'm in charge.
Speaker 2:This led me to this point, to where I realized I could see myself sitting the precipice and on one side was hell and on the other side was heaven. And I sat there and I knew that I got to decide my next experience Is it going to be hell or is it going to be heaven? And guess what? It was really hard for me to choose heaven. I couldn't choose heaven. I was afraid of moving into this place of heaven. This journey takes about four or five, six hours, and so you have a hell of a lot of things you can move through and understand. That was just the beginning. Maybe that was the first 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:Right then the insight and the wisdom started to pop in and I started to realize something about myself, and this is what I want to talk to you about, actually, because I understood why I and so many victims of narcissism get stuck in choosing that hell. Because we do find ourselves back in relationships where the same patterns are being repeated, right, and so now I have to think for a moment in where I will take you inside that journey to make it clear and as I'm talking about it, I feel myself almost shaking, my body's vibrating because this was so intense, and I can feel trauma actually still releasing as I'm speaking about it what I understood is that when we live, when we grow up in a space of trauma, when we grow up with a narcissist, we are surrounded by dark mirrors. We're being mirrored back from the narcissist everything that's bad about us. We're too sensitive, we're too demanding, we're too mediocre, we're too anything right All the bad things are being mirrored back to us. The bad things are being mirrored back to us and we actually survive that halfway saying by looking into those mirrors and saying, yeah, you're right, I am that I am not worth your love, I am too selfish, I am all of that which you say. But that allows us to build a home inside that darkness, inside that hell that we are surrounded with.
Speaker 2:And when we learn to walk that world, later on in our lives we get to find a way through that labyrinth of darkness by working on ourselves so hard and realizing, actually I am not selfish, I deserve love, I deserve these things, but we still navigate that space of hell. We haven't made our way over to heaven yet. We're still living in that hell and in those feelings because they travel with us always and we learn how to walk a warrior through that world. Mom's not there or dad's not there. I can do this on my own. I have to make it on my own. I will make my way through this darkness, and so that's what I realized about myself.
Speaker 2:I became a warrior in order to survive that world, in order to grow to the place that I've come now to, where I can walk confidently and I know myself and I can put down boundaries, but I'm still navigating. I still have my roots in that world, because that's why I was born. I had nothing to hold on to but that darkness. So I held on to those roots and when I found myself in the journey of sitting on that precipice on one side, that world of the experience of the darkness and the trauma and all the memories that are still there and knowing so much about narcissism and knowing how to deal with them and on the left side, that new land, that new world that I had no idea what that would be like. To have ease in my life, to have things come to me I don't have to go out with a warrior mode and get them and make it happen, to receive things with softness, to know that I don't have to work hard for anything For me that was like the idea of heaven.
Speaker 2:I was realizing in that journey that I would have to give up the warrior.
Speaker 2:I have to give up that strength that I can have to give up the warrior. I have to give up that strength that I can do it on my own. Because, guess what? That's a very lonely place. We're always on our own. In some way, heaven is not lonely, but I had no idea how to hold someone's hand, how to trust and how to have ease. When I realized, if I want to make it over to that side of heaven how it appeared to me in that journey I'd have to give up the warrior. And that's super scary. I could hear myself saying why is it so hard to choose heaven? I said that a million times. Why is it so hard to choose heaven and the beautiful and the ease? And I realized I had to give up that warrior and if I did that I would be like a child again, stumbling, not knowing how to live in heaven. I have no idea. I've never done it. I don't really truly know how to hold someone's hand or to let someone hold my hand, because I've always done it on my own.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful. You mentioned having a hard time choosing the heaven. You think that that would be the first place you would go to and the place you wouldn't want to leave, and that you even had the choice and you couldn't still not bring yourself to pick the heaven. What did you personally take from that?
Speaker 2:What I realized for myself. Sometimes we're still stuck in that hell a little bit, and I think we are because we want to understand. We want to understand that world. It didn't make sense in so many ways. How are we to comprehend what happened in there? And I think that is part of what keeps us stuck. And so I think there's different levels of making it out of that hell.
Speaker 2:I think the first one is to realize that, thank God, I chose to accept hell, because then I could at least make my home in it and I'll talk about that in a little bit because the narcissist chose differently, which turned them into a narcissist. Actually, they made a different choice at that moment. Thank goodness, I chose to bear the pain, because that is what keeps me safe every day. And then it's about finding that radical self-love, like creating those positive mirrors for ourselves, creating experiences to where we can see something else but that darkness, but where we experience I'm good, I'm loved, I'm funny, I'm cherished, and that makes us into that warrior. I think we need those warrior feet to walk out of that hell or to make it to the precipice so that we can see that there is another world. But if we don't have feet to walk out of that place, we're not going to make it out. So our first part of our journey is to become that warrior, because if we continue to wait for approval from other people, we'll still be stuck in that hell. We don't have feet, which is that first phase of oh my God, I want someone to love me. What can I do for someone to love me? And so the first step is to realize that, hey, I have to be the one that approves of myself so I can grow those feet and that warrior, the warrior inside of me, then I can make it out of hell. And then we can come to that place and realize, okay, there actually is a choice. I could live a completely different life, but then we have to be willing to give up the warrior and we have to be willing, in my experience, to be a baby again in a new world, so that we can create a new home to where our experience becomes that of love about other people. We know we can have our self-love. Now the work can be okay. How do I experience to have others hold me up so I don't have to do all the work? How do I experience the love and appreciation from other people, which is heaven, which is that new place.
Speaker 2:And I cry in my process, I let go of that warrior. There was a moment of thanking the warrior and I cried like I've never cried in my whole life, having to let go that part of me, that strong pillar, because I know how to do this. It's very hard to give that up and say, okay, I'll let it go, I'll start all over and see what is happening, even though I'm a baby and I'm going to be stumbling and I have no idea where to go. I don't even know where to start, but I'm going to be willing to stumble and be incredibly vulnerable because I know, if I need to, I can pull out that warrior shield again. But I'm safe now. I don't have to be afraid.
Speaker 1:So when you experience the hell and then you experience the heaven, is that when you started having the realizations of the curiosity of understanding the narcissist.
Speaker 2:The first part for me was really just heaven or hell. Phoenix you get to pick after every cycle is like heaven or hell. And I'm like why is it so hard to pick heaven? Whoops, another round of hell. This is. I'm going to go through this again and again and again.
Speaker 2:And it was when I realized that I had to give up the warrior. When I went through okay, I'm right, I'm okay now to let go of the warrior that thing started shifting and I started asking. At some point I got really curious and I said why didn't I end up like my mom? And, of course, wherever your mind goes is where the mushroom takes you right. That's the unconscious part you dive into, and so I got to experience what makes the difference. So this is something I knew before that many people go through trauma, through the same trauma, and some of those people turn into narcissists or end up with another personality disorder, and some don't. And psychologists never understood why they're like we don't know why, but people can go through the same trauma. Some of them end up with a personality disorder, like we don't know why, but people can go through the same trauma. Some of them end up with a personality disorder, some of them don't.
Speaker 2:And when I asked that question, I experienced what my mom is going through, and so what I felt was that I was in that hell. I was back in that hell and my personal hell, full of fear, and in it, and I knew at that moment I was my mom and I was drowning in that hell. It felt like I was in an ocean of fear and pain that was so unbearable that I thought I was going to die, and I could feel myself paddling the water, just trying to stay afloat and out of that terrible place, and I could see other people on the top, like our world, in there, but to me they were just lifeboats. I just hung on to them, just pulling myself out of the water, and I had no concern for them in that moment. It was just I can't die, I need to survive, save me. And so I hung on and I used them to pull myself up and in that moment I understood that narcissists find this so unbearable and it feels to them like they're going to die and they want nothing but out and they can't even see people for who they are, but only as a life raft, as a rope hanging in the water that they can hold on to not drown in this misery, which explained to me at that moment why they need the fuel. They're going for the fuel just to stay out of that incredible darkness they have inside of themselves that they cannot bear.
Speaker 2:And at that moment, when I realized the hell that my mom lives in every single day, I cried for her. I've been so angry these last years and I've come to a place of forgiving her for what she's caused me and having empathy for her, but I could never quite forgive her for what she continues to do to my dad. But at that moment, when I felt that incredible pain she swims in every single day and is afraid to drown, and I could understand and I wept for her, I cried and I came out of the experience having completely forgiven her, because now I understand that hell, oh my God. And then I realized that I could see myself and her in the same place, in the same trauma in our childhood, and I made the choice to say yes, I am all of that, that dark, I am that useless, I am that unlovable, I am that selfish, I am all these things that you're showing me and I will bear that pain Saying yes to that allowed me to keep myself whole, to keep my soul.
Speaker 2:My mother, in the very same situation, could not bear those dark mirrors and she said, no, that's not me. But she could never make a home in it, she could never find root and she denied herself, she gave away that part of her, that darkness, and we all carry that darkness. It's all true, right, we are selfish at times, we are all these things and so much more. But at that moment, when she said no, she turned away from that and she found herself in that ocean and that fear of, oh my God, I can't be that, that's not me, no, and being afraid to see that darkness inside of her which kept. I think that was the deciding point Do we keep our soul and we can live as a human being, or do we become a narcissist who is constantly drowning in that terrible experience and they try to stay out of it by abusing other people just to get that fuel just hanging on, not even seeing us as human beings. Which is life rafts, which is lifeboats?
Speaker 1:You had said that it brought you to a place of forgiveness with your mother, which is something that you've been battling with for quite a while. Forgiving someone and excusing their behavior or trying to justify their behavior are several different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting goes through every single day and not just knowing it in theory, but experiencing in myself and going, oh my god, gave me such empathy for her that I thought that poor woman, oh my god, and understood why she couldn't even see me. She just sees me as a life raft. It doesn't occur. She doesn't see me as a human being. She sees me as a rope to hang on to, and same for my dad. And so, of course, she's going to do that right, because I did it in that moment too. I would grab on If I was drowning. I would hang on to anything I wouldn't have the time to think about. Oh, that's a human being, it's an automatism. It becomes an instinct in that moment.
Speaker 2:So I think I realized that my mother's acting out of instinct, and so for me, forgiveness feels like this I have a great understanding for her suffering and I know why she's doing it, and so now it's not personal anymore. It's not like she hates me, she hates my dad. How can she do such a thing? All I see is a drowning woman trying to stay alive, and so there's that letting go of. Oh, I get it. I know why she's doing it and it doesn't mean that I'm saying go ahead, do it. I would still love to jump in and save my dad and say get away, but there isn't that anger anymore. There used to be such anger about her, against her, where I wanted her to stop. Now, just I want her to stop. There's a difference. There's like a different emotional investment and, yeah, I could stop her. I could just say no, that's it. But there's not that rage anymore. That's completely gone.
Speaker 1:I have always been a firm believer in absolutely we can forgive and all those things that are great for us. But the battle that I've run into is, at some point the bad guy and this is generally speaking right, but at some point the bad guy they this is generally speaking right, but at some point the bad guy they've got to be proactive in helping themselves as well. For instance, in this case, you now understand the narcissistic behavior, but what have you experienced, or have you shared this experience with her, and is she wanting to explore options and becoming a better mother and helping your all's relationship?
Speaker 2:Thank you, that's a really wonderful question. I know that narcissism can't be helped as of now. They don't know the cure because they have built such a strong wall between seeing that they would have to see their pain to actually deal and heal it. They're not willing to because they find themselves in that health. They think they're going to die pain to actually deal and heal it. They're not willing to because they find themselves in that hell. They think they're going to die. Of course they don't want to die. They've made that choice.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's any going back. So she will be who she's going to be. For me to share this experience with her wouldn't change a thing for her. There's nothing I can do to change her. I know that. You know. I'm actually now curious. What if I want to see her again? I haven't seen her for seven years because I decided to be that removed from her so that I could heal more and I've become curious now. Would I feel differently when I go back? What would I feel differently? And honestly, I don't know. But yeah, I don't think there's anything I can do to help her heal. There is no way. I think that chance is long gone. She's made that choice. I don't think there's any going back, and so I may have to stay away from her for the rest of my life, so that I don't get hurt again, so that I can take good care of myself and say no, I will not endure this abuse. And of course, it would happen if I went forward with it, right? So then what would I do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, before your first treatment with this were you dead set on I will never go back, I will never see her again. And then now, after one treatment year, but I wonder what would be different now. So it makes me wonder by the time you get to that third treatment, are you going to be and I guess you'll let us know, but is it going to be one of those things where it's I want to test this. I want to now go and see for myself. Do you even think that would be a possibility? Or is it nice knowing that you now have your answer and you're regaining that control and you're understanding things you've never understood before? And that's what you needed.
Speaker 2:It's definitely what I needed. It feels wow. I'm curious to see what the second treatment, where we will go there Maybe I can choose heaven this time Wouldn't that be something I think that is. I would consider myself done if I could fully choose heaven or who knows what else is beyond that, but yeah, I'm curious to see where this goes. I am fascinated with the idea of would I be able to go back and see my dad, Cause I really want to see him and deal with my mom and not be affected. Is that possible to not be affected? I'm totally curious. Wouldn't that be amazing to just be there and hear her say things and I'm just going, hmm, and I would not feel any physical discomfort or mental discomfort. To me it would be ultimate freedom.
Speaker 1:When you're coming out of that journey, when you're at that physical place, do you just do they give you a hot tea? Do you just relax and come together and then get in your car and drive home? What is that?
Speaker 2:They let me stay for as long as I wanted and in truth, the first part is really intense and there's hardly any break in between when you go through these cycles. And then the end there's a milder cycle which gives a lot of insight and you can ask specific questions and retrieve the answers, and it just keeps going for another two hours in a very light way, to where you come completely out of the experience in between and you think, oh, I might be done. And then whoops, there comes another little journey. So they had a beautiful little garden where I was and I was able to just lie on the grass and she offered me a meal and something to drink and we talked for a little bit afterwards and she took notes of everything I said. She had 10 pages written down and then there was a debriefing session to where we met again and we talked about my experiences and how I was integrating them, because it is such a huge thing to integrate. It took me a long time. I'm just feeling now it's been about three weeks that I'm starting to get it all together and integrate it into my life.
Speaker 2:Afterwards I experienced myself without any fear of anything For three days. I was inside that glow. Three days I was not concerned, worried about anything, and I was just going wow, for the first time in my life I'm getting an experience of what it's like to live in a body without fear. My eyesight came back, my brain fog disappeared, any kind of physical problems I had were just. It was like a suspense in time and I realized, oh my god, it's a state of mind, it's a state of being I can see clearly and now it's like, through the time, my eyesight keeps coming and going and I'm realizing it's. And now it's like through the time, my eyesight keeps coming and going and I'm realizing it's not my eyes, it's the state of mind that I'm in that affects my eyesight and it affects my sleep and it affects everything. It even affected my dog.
Speaker 2:My dog usually will be off on their own and I'm a little worried. I let her go without a leash in the city and sometimes she will go too far ahead and I'm a little concerned. Is she going too far? And I'm worried about the cars. In those three days when I had no fear at all, I walked her. She was by my side the whole time, always looking at me, checking on me.
Speaker 2:It was like oh my God, I have an influence on my dog when I'm not in fear, and I realized that so many physical issues I have might be caused from a life of living in fear. And now the question is what would it be like to live in a body that doesn't know fear? I would not have gotten to this point in this lifetime. When I came out of that journey, I said to myself oh my God, thank goodness, I'm working extremely hard. I've worked for 26 years on my healing, but I would not have reached that point in this lifetime if I hadn't done this.
Speaker 2:It's incredibly powerful. It was so impactful that I'm going to take the training so I can do that for other people as well. I would say that it has profoundly changed my perception of so many things. You could work a lifetime to get that kind of insight or and with insight comes freedom right when we see something really clearly for the first time, that alone can provoke such a transformation. And this is definitely a place where we can't escape the experience right In life.
Speaker 1:I want to extend my deepest gratitude to our incredible guests for sharing their transformative journey with us today. Join us next week as we dive into the healing process and share more incredible stories of triumph and resilience. Outro Music.
