Create The Best Me

Inner Child Wounds Therapy Missed—Healed by Psychedelics

• Carmen Hecox • Episode 145

Share episode

What if the therapy you’ve tried falls short, and old inner child wounds remain unhealed? In Inner Child Wounds Therapy Missed—Healed by Psychedelics, I sit down with Alexis Leigh, author of Pain Is A Portal to Beauty, for a vulnerable look at the life-changing path she took when traditional trauma recovery and counseling left her stuck. We dive into Alexis’s firsthand Ayahuasca experience, the rawness of dissociation symptoms from childhood loss, and why she ultimately found hope and transformation in MDMA therapy and psychedelic practices.

Through Alexis’s story, you’ll learn how true inner child healing isn’t always accessible through talk therapy alone. We explore how codependency recovery, somatic healing, and embracing a purposeful grief journey can unlock creativity, connection, and authentic living. Plus, Alexis shares the importance of psychedelic integration, how a guide’s support and reflective practices helped her turn breakthroughs with MDMA, psilocybin, and ayahuasca into lasting change, offering wisdom for anyone feeling lost, numb, or disconnected.

5 Key Lessons

  1. Moving toward pain is essential for true inner child healing. Alexis reveals how confronting, not avoiding, emotional wounds unlocked new levels of creativity, presence, and joy.
  2. When traditional trauma recovery stalls, alternatives like MDMA therapy or an ayahuasca experience may offer a breakthrough. Alexis details her journey through multiple forms of psychedelic therapy.
  3. Understanding and addressing dissociation symptoms is a vital part of healing from early loss and grief. Plant medicine helped Alexis reconnect to her body and emotions after decades of numbness.
  4. Integration is everything. Psychedelic integration, supported by skilled guides and somatic healing practices, turned fleeting insights into concrete, lasting growth.
  5. Self-connection equals better relationships. As Alexis moved through her grief journey and codependency recovery, she discovered a more vibrant way of relating to herself, her child, and her community.

 📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep145 

https://www.alexisleigh.com/

Purchase “Pain Is A Portal To Beauty https://a.co/d/aJxcG86 

Disclaimer: This episode discusses psychedelics (Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, MDMA) for educational purposes only. This is not medical or legal advice. We do not endorse the use of illegal substances. Guest views are their own. Please consult a healthcare professional regarding mental health concerns.

 #AyahuascaExperience #InnerChildHealing #TraumaRecovery #MDMATherapy #PsychedelicIntegration #DissociationSymptoms #SomaticHealing #GriefJourney #CodependencyRecovery #AlexisLeigh #PainIsAPortalToBeauty 

📨 Newsletter:

https://createthebestme.com/newsletter/

👀 Connect With Me:

Website: https://createthebestme.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createthebestme

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carmenhecox/

TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@carmenhecox
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@createthebestme

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carmen-hecox

📽️ Video Request:

https://forms.office.com/r/LvLV1AsBfv

If you die today, your life will have been a tragedy. This episode discusses the therapeutic use of psychedelics and may not be suitable for young listeners. If you are sensitive to this topic, please use discretion. What do Microsoft Excel and ayahuasca have in common more than you think. Today we're meeting a woman who went from spreadsheet wizard to soul seeker, Alexis Leigh, author of Pain Is A Portal To Beauty. In this conversation, she's showing us why moving toward pain and not away from it can actually unlock creativity, connection, and a life that actually feels like ours. Two things to listen for a single voice she heard in the woods that changed everything, and how golden light bliss on one journey turned into a gritty underworld in the next, and why both were exactly what she needed. If you've tried all the fixes and still feel stuck, this one's for you. Let's jump on in. Alexis Leigh, welcome to Create The Best Me. This is an honor and a privilege to have you on the show. Thanks for having me today. I'm so glad to be here. So, Alexis, before we get into today's important discussion, could you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who you are and what you do? Yeah, I spent most of my career in the finance world and I'm a master at Microsoft Excel. But I knew this was not what I wanted to do ultimately, I knew there was something else out there for me. And a few years ago, I had a life-changing moment that ultimately led to my writing a book called Pain Is A Portal To Beauty. So now I am an author, which was kind of a shocking, wonderful discovery, and, just out there sharing, you know, the message and the love that I have picked up in these last few years. Yes, and that is exactly why I invited you onto the show, because for some of the people that have not read; this beautiful, amazing book, you need to go grab your copy, because it was released on May 20th of this year, 2025. And so I wanted to dig deep into your journey in this book Mm-hmm. That was beautifully written. But first of all, what inspired you to write this amazing book? Yeah, I mean, this was such a fun discovery for me. I was actually in the midst of a period of deep grief, and I had become aware that there was a lot that I still needed to unpack from my childhood. So I was really working intentionally on that grief. And then one morning, I woke up and one of the first chapters just popped out of me, and I didn't know what it was. I always thought I was a terrible writer. Like I hated writing classes in college. I delayed the requirements as long as I could. And I jumbled words, and I rushed my speech. I just thought, I have nothing to share and I don't have a talent with words. So it was really fun to see this book flow through me and see that I had these talents and these gifts that I had buried along with the pain from my childhood. So it was really this gift of the period of grief was that I uncovered these other really beautiful things that I didn't know were there. And where did the title come from, Pain is a Portal to Beauty? Well, you know, just kind of as I was writing the book, I made my way through several potential titles, but this one really felt like, you know, it was such a shocking discovery for me to find out that you should go toward your pain. You know, there's a sense that we shouldn't be in pain if we're in pain, something's wrong. So I go to do lots of things to avoid those sensations. And when I found out that I needed to go toward my pain and we'll talk more about how I discovered that I discovered these gifts about myself. I discovered that I'm a writer and a singer and a dancer, all these creative outlets that I didn't know that I had. I was a math whiz and I liked Microsoft Excel, so to find out that I was creative beyond that was really such a joyful discovery. But also, there's so much in going toward my pain, where I found a different way to be in the world these patterns that had locked me up and made me a certain way in relationships and otherwise. Once I went toward my pain and addressed the core wound, that energy could be released. And I found that you know, life actually, it's really a beautiful place, and there's so much freedom and joy that I didn't think was possible. So it really opened up this beautiful life that I didn't think was, was in the cards for me. And so let's address, where did the pain come from? Yeah. So, you know, my mom, was addicted to drugs, and so she, you know, she was home with us for a while. She was depressed before she became addicted to drugs and ultimately went away to rehab and never came home. And so, for me, there's a series of losses that I wasn't equipped to deal with. And, you know, I think the biggest kind of dissociative moment was when we went to visit her in rehab. We thought she was just going away for three weeks, and we went to visit her, and when I left, I just knew I was 11 at that time and I just knew she wasn't coming home. So my body's natural defense mechanism stepped in and, and helped protect me, because I wasn't equipped to deal with that loss. So basically, at that point, I think my coping mechanisms had been in place, but this was kind of a big one that said, okay, I'm numbing; I can't handle this right now. I have to store this away until a time when I am resourced. So that's the pain that was locked up for years. And then, when I was in my late thirties, there was a moment when I realized my whole life was playing out from that pain that buried pain, and that numbing and I needed to make a big change. Otherwise, tragically, I would follow in my mother's footsteps. You know, find a life that's not worth living. And I have a son, and it was very clear to me that, of course, I deserved to have a life that was worth living, but I needed to change so that his life was not destined to follow this legacy of tragedy in our family. And I have a question to ask you. Are you the baby in the family? Yes. Mm-hmm. That's kind of what I thought. Why do you say that? I say that because I remember in the book where you talked about kind of like you shook yourself off and said, I followed in my sister's footsteps, and I knew that I needed to focus on my studies, I needed to go to university. It's just like, this was the road. And so when I read that, I thought, she had to have been the baby. Mm-hmm. And there were other things in the book that made me believe that you were the baby. And it was when you girls found out that mom had to go to rehab. Mm-hmm. You talked about you being broken and going to picture day and you couldn't smile, but your other sisters could. And so it made mm-hmm. me think that there was a maturity level there. Yeah, It's interesting we had very different experiences given our different ages, where so much of my life, the good times to the extent that there were good times, with my mom I don't remember them, right. I was too young. Whereas my sisters had more time with her when she was healthy. And so we had very different, you know, for me it was a much younger loss than what they experienced. When your mom went away, did your sisters sort of take on that motherly role toward you, or did they just kind of like, we're teenagers and you know, we're going to do what teenagers do? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think there's so many complexities there just in our family dynamics that, I won't get into. But certainly there was, we're now all having to figure this out together. Because I was the youngest, the older ones did have more to offer me in that way, where they took care of me in some ways. But we were all just kids still. And so, you know, we had people step in some, but we just overall didn't have the resources to deal with. You know, again, I'll speak about my experience I didn't have the resources, the safety. Like my grandmothers didn't step in to come care for us. And I think, part of it to everyone's defense, it was just was a confusing loss, right. I was losing my mom while she was home, and then when she became addicted, I was losing her and then she left, but she was going to come back. And then, a year and a half later, they discovered her body in a field. You know, there's just kind of like fading away over time, where it wasn't a moment in time where someone said, oh no, they just lost their mom, let's step in. And, of course, everybody had their own lives. And, you know, when you lose someone like that, then it's just a lack of resources. There's not a way to make it right. So we just were under resourced and dealt with it the best we could. And for me it meant waiting, you know, 25 years until I could actually look at what happened. You know, until I was resourced enough as an adult where I could go sit with those parts of myself that were so, devastated from that loss, from the many aspects of that loss. And I know that, you married your college sweetheart. Mm-hmm. And you folks lived the dream of marrying your college sweetheart. You know, both becoming entrepreneurs, buying your own home. Building each other's business independently. And I guess, from an outsider, you would say they have it all together. You know, they have the perfect life. But in reality, it really was not perfect. Yeah I mean, I also thought I had the perfect life. It's like, what else could I ask for? I have this wonderful husband, we had a beautiful son; still have a beautiful son. Like you said, we had a lovely home and a great neighborhood and great friends and family. I mean, just, we had all of the boxes that you are allowed to have checked, and yet I was still wanting more. I was wanting more connection and more love, and I thought that we could get there. You know, we were in therapy and I thought that ultimately if we kept working at it, we would get there. And then one day, I was walking in the woods and I heard a voice that said, if you die today, your life will have been a tragedy. And it was such a stunning, ominous message that said, you're not going to get there. You need to stop doing what you're doing because it's not working. And so do you think that, well, obviously; do you think that that all came from looking for that love and nurturing that you needed from your mom? Because even though she was in the home, she was dealing with her own stuff, and so she couldn't be available to you like you needed her to be. Right. And so do you think that that need kind of fell into your marriage? Absolutely. You know, it's, again, everything is so much more complex than a single slice. But for me, I looked to my husband; I wanted that love, I wanted that connection. And I looked to him to fill holes that I had from my childhood. And I didn't know I was doing this. And I think part of it is that, you know, we were in therapy, we were doing all the things. I was looking at all the resources. I was willing to look at what was there. And I got a lot of guidance that if he would just change these things, then we would be okay. And there was some support for that. Like he was late; you know, he would be late periodically, and that was really triggering for me, given my mom's departure. If someone doesn't come home, does that mean they'll never come home? There's this really drama to it. If he would just stop being late I would stop hurting. But the truth was that this actually was a gift to help me see, no, you're hurting because of some really deep pain that you've not worked with from your childhood. So there's an element of not only was I looking to him for things that were mine to provide, but also he was there as my teacher, and these things were there as my teacher to help me see, Alexis, you have to go inward for this. And not only you have to, but you; you get to, there's something to discover here; you're missing something. And so that voice in the woods, at the time, it gave me permission to just surrender to my loneliness and my grief. But of course, with time I can look back and say, oh, it wasn't that my life was the wrong life; it was that the way I was showing up and that life was not the way I want to ultimately show up. Was not leading to a life that I would feel really glad that I lived. So for me, you kind of pick up signals, and you learn from teachers and guides as you can along the way, and over time you say, oh, actually, that lesson had a different nuance to it that I couldn't pick up yet but now I can see it. Do you think that, 'cause I know that you said that you didn't know much about psychedelics; and you were also very afraid because of your mom's history. Do you think that that company that came to you to help them work on their proposal maybe was meant to be? Yeah, it's, it's hard to think of it otherwise because it was such a huge gift to me. So I do see these connections; you don't know what this conversation leads to, right? You don't know what these pieces in your life lead to and you look back and you go, oh wow, that one small piece led to something so huge for me. And so when as I look back, I do have a sense that things kind of come together and I was ready for that; you know, I was ready for the introduction at that time. And then ultimately when my life was falling apart, I was ready to actually explore some work with the medicine. And and like you said, I knew nothing about psychedelics. I didn't know there were multiple kinds of psychedelics. I didn't know how to spell the word psychedelics, like I just was not, it was not in my consciousness. So, to get that introduction and then be able to work with, with the psychedelics, the plant medicines and the way that I did, has been, has had such a huge impact on my life. I'm so grateful for it. So let's talk about the first time you actually did a form of psychedelic. Okay. What was that like? Yeah, I mean, again, for me, like you said, there were these barriers to doing psychedelics as my mother had been addicted to drugs and I just didn't know much about it. But also, when I heard this voice that said my life was a tragedy, it just kind of took down my defenses and I was willing to, to go for it. I needed to do something. I'd been doing all the things that I knew to do, you know, reading books, journaling, therapy, all the stuff, workshops, and it didn't lead to a life changing perspective. And so I kind of dove into psychedelics happily. I mean, I was excited. I just didn't, I just had no clue what to expect. And so the first journey was MDMA and I just was so, I just was blissful. Like I just, you know, as soon and I can even have the feeling in my body now where it's like, I just felt so relaxed and light. It was like my whole body was just golden; this golden light. And you know, I wasn't spiritual before doing psychedelics; but for me it was really like, oh, there's more than I have understood in my human experience and I am something other than just this human. So it really was just blissful. And I thought, gosh, why wouldn't everybody wanna do this all the time? And frankly, MDMA is, you know, the love drug. People do, do it recreationally. And I was like, oh, I understand now. So, I didn't quite know what to make of that, it just was a beautiful ceremony. And at the end of it, I just shared with the world, you know, everyone I knew about how I had done it and how wonderful it was. And so I expected then we moved on the school that I worked with, their philosophy is that you start with MDMA, ' MDMA, 'cause, MDMA lowers the fear response. So you can approach some of this ego level trauma, this human trauma that you've experienced, and then you move on to psilocybin, once you feel like you've uncovered what you need to there. And so we moved on to psilocybin pretty quickly since I didn't have anything big come up with MDMA. And I thought it'll just be another, another really beautiful experience and blissful and I can't imagine it, but how wonderful it's going to be; and it was so hard. It was immediately I was taken to the underworld. But the MDMA journey, I was just chatty and just everything's so beautiful. I'm beautiful. The world's beautiful. Everyone's beautiful. And the psilocybin journey, every time I went to speak, I just like, I was pulled back into the underworld, like I couldn't even talk. It was so painful. So I was really bummed about that one. But I I learned incredible lessons in it and, and the integration of psychedelics. That's where you learn what you learn during the journey. Sometimes you know what it is, and sometimes you have no clue. But then you go integrate it into your human experience, and what I learned from the mushrooms was that I just had so much more grief work to do. And so that's where I mentioned earlier how I realized I had to start going toward grief. So anytime I felt sad, I would clear my plate and just really dive into it instead of coping or saying I'll get to it later. I just said, no, this is what I've gotta do. And it was really, hard, but also immediately after a period of deep grief, I would go outside and the flowers; I had never seen flowers like that before. You know, the trees came alive. Like everything was, the color was so much more vibrant. Like everything was more alive to me. And, ultimately, like I said, in another period of deep grief the book came outta me. So for me, each time I went into the grief as the mushrooms told me to do, these creative outlets would be opened up, or I would find the world to be more beautiful than I realized. And it was quite astonishing. I know in the book you talk about when your mom passed away, so I'm gonna go back. When your mom passed away, you didn't cry. Yeah. There was no grief. So do you think that when you did the, I'm not even gonna try to say it because I can't like psilocybin. Oh, psilocybin. Yeah, mushrooms. Yeah. When you did the mushrooms, do you feel like you were releasing that, that grief that you didn't release when you were 12? Yes. I mean, really when I was in with the mushrooms, they really just told me I had more grief to do. So, I didn't do so much of the grief work with the mushrooms. But I ultimately found my way to another plant medicine called ayahuasca, and this is the one that I worked with the most. And in ayahuasca I worked with ayahuasca over a couple of years, you know, every few months maybe. And every time I went in I would just cry for hours. And so it was absolutely, my understanding is that now; and I do this a lot outside of the plant medicines as well. When I feel something I can go, gosh, why am I so sad about this? Or frustrated or disappointed? And now I realize, oh, this is the disappointment I felt as a kid, I just couldn't feel it. And so even though it feels like it's something happening today, it's actually an emotion that's in my body that's saying, hey, are you ready to feel me now?'Cause if I feel it now, then it gets to leave my body, and then my body is not, it's been packed with this dense pain for so many decades. And now what I'm doing is I'm feeling that grief. Like there was an ayahuasca ceremony where the medicine would call her Mother Aya, took me to the devastation I felt when I lost my mom. So it's what I would've been able to feel at the funeral if I had been resourced, but I wasn't, so I'd shut it down. And I felt that last year. And it was incredibly painful, so you understand why, as kids, if we're not resourced, why we don't feel these things, why we shut them away; because we wouldn't survive it. So yes, each time I go into this grief, it is for me, going back in time and being with that part of me and letting that part feel the deep pain they felt at that time. And then I get the energy gets to move and then I'm freed up. For me it was actually, I couldn't be in my body when my body was so filled with pain, and now I'm getting to come back into my body. And what that does I'm discovering these creative outlets, like I said, but also it lets me be in touch with my wisdom and my intuition. You know, for so long I didn't know what I wanted in life because I was so disconnected from my own body. Now that I'm back in my body, I know how to direct myself in a way that, again, felt impossible before. Do you feel that using these psychedelics allowed you to nurture or parent your inner child. Yeah, I mean, for me there's been a big partnership between the psychedelics and frankly; what the psychedelics taught me was how to go and find my pain. So now I'm doing that work without the psychedelics. But the deep kind of going toward the pain alongside internal family systems or parse work, that has been the biggest partnership for me. Where I go to the pain and then I hold that young part of me, right. And for me, there are, and for probably most of us, there are various ages where we experience these different traumas or these experiences that impact us. So it may be that I'm going to the 11-year-old who was driving away from rehab. And I had a moment before doing psychedelics where I was walking in the woods and that 11-year-old part of me woke up and realized my mom never came home. Right, she didn't know that, like it's, again, these parts of us go to sleep. So, it is going back and holding these little parts of ourselves that experience such, such terrible things. And for me, as an adult I recently, I had an experience where my son was with his dad and my partner was away, and I just was really quiet and I felt loneliness. And as an adult, I feel that loneliness and I go, oh, well what do I need to do? What's wrong? What do I need to do? What do I wanna do about that? But I realized that loneliness was the loneliness I felt as a kid. And as soon as I had that shift to see that it was a part of me that felt lonely, it's so much easier to be sweet to these young parts of us than it is to be to ourselves as adults. And ultimately I hope that we can be sweet to ourselves as an as adults too. But there's a really, I think it helps bridge that capability to say, who wouldn't be sweet to a sad little girl who lost her mom right? It is a harder connection to make as an adult.'Cause as an adult, you have all these responsibilities, you think you should be a certain way. Not as a kid, not as an innocent kid who went through something that they couldn't control. So for me, going back and doing these parse work has been a critical, a critical piece of my healing. Do you feel like when you heard that voice in the woods, you realized that you didn't know who you were, you weren't authentic to who you were supposed to be? Yeah. And so it was a, 'cause you kind of did what your big sisters did or did what you, you thought dad wanted you to do, or what mom may have wanted you to do when you grew up. But Alexis never got to ask herself, who am I and what do I want to do? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think all of that dawned on me in that single moment, but, but it has been a process of understanding who I am, you know, again, part of that is releasing this pain, and that lets me know who I am. But part of it also is, realizing how, how deep it went that I tried to make myself lovable, right. When my mom is depressed and addicted and absent and I just get crumbs of love from her, then I'm going to do whatever I can to package myself in a way that gets me those crumbs.'Cause I needed them. I needed that love and that support. And so it has been, I mean, even just recently, I've had even more and more uncovering of how deeply that went of am I really who I think I am or am I this package that I put together as a young kid to say; okay, if I'm kind and if I'm charming and if I do well in school and if I perform in athletics, if I do all of these things, then, I'll get the attention and love that I need. So it has been, it's a little bit unsettling to go through that process as an adult where you go, oh, which parts of this, what's really me? And what is something that I put forth in a way to protect myself, to make sure that I wasn't left behind or that I could survive. Yeah, and I only bring that up because I remember you talked about doing ballet as a child and how much you didn't like it, but then you signed up for a ballet class as an adult and you're kind of like, Hmm. And then you signed up for bur, what is it, burlesque, Burlesque. Yeah, And you were, you liked it. Because it brought out a certain part of you that you didn't know you had, but you had a or that you didn't know was there, but you longed for it. A part of you to be seductive and sexy and just out there and just expressing the body. Yeah, it was. Yeah. And not for anyone, but for yourself. Exactly, and that's, I think that's such a great example of, right, as we're going, who, which parts of this are me authentically, and which parts of this are what I put together to please somebody else? The parts that light you up, you know, even just as you're talking about, I'm like, oh yes, burlesque is so incredible. So the parts that light you up, are you right. Like those those are the parts that you can; and, and what a neat thing after having numbed for so long, or having performed for others for so long, when you start to discover burlesque or whatever it is that lights you up, that you can do more of that. And then as you do more of that, you know, for me, I found that as I became creative and dance and I became creative and singing, you know, like these things, they blend to these various creative outlets and it's so incredible. Because you feel alive and because you feel so authentically right in your essence. Yeah. And then you also talk about feeling disconnected.'Cause you really didn't have, I mean, I guess you did have girlfriends, but maybe you weren't authentic in those relationships Yeah. Because you said I didn't really have any friends. And so it's during COVID and so you decide, I've taken so many classes in bar, I'm gonna invite a couple girls over to do it on my porch. Even though you had that unsettling feeling, that nervousness. But when people took you in, it almost seemed like another portion of you came to life. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think this is what people find on this journey, right. Is also there's the risk taking piece where, if safety is my number one goal, then I'm never gonna be able to step outside and discover these things about myself. And, for me, I was kind of waiting for that community to just fall into my lap because there was no other way for me to find it because it didn't feel safe to take those risks. And when I found out my life was a tragedy, it was like, oh, screw it. You know, like, everything's on the floor in pieces anyway, so why not take these risks? You know, I didn't have as much to lose, frankly, when my life started to unravel. And so I was willing to take risks and then, you know, I realized, oh, I've been waiting on somebody else to create what I want, but I have the power to create that. So I had the power to create the community that I was longing for and that I thought I was destined to not have. Instead of realizing, for me it's like there was this feeling that I was destined for loneliness and aloneness. And what I realized was these feelings that I had weren't telling me that I would always be alone, they were telling me, go out, you can do this, you can go do this. You are destined for this, but you're the one that has to do it and can. Right, we're empowered in that way. So yeah, these discoveries were pretty special to me. You know, you talked about not being able to feel connected because of your codependency. You felt like codependency was impairing your ability to get what you really wanted, which was connection. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, I mean, I think, again, this is where, you don't know how else to be until, until things shift. And so the way I was was that, I would do everything perfectly. I would control other things, I mean, I didn't think of myself as a controlling person, but in our marriage, you know, I, I demanded that my husband change things so that he wouldn't trigger me. And I took responsibility for things that were in his court because I wasn't willing to relinquish that control. And all of this, of course, was to keep me safe because I had such an unsafe environment growing up. And, and when I moved to control his actions in all of these ways that didn't leave any space for love. And so it wasn't until I started to learn about codependency to realize, oh yeah, I do all those things. And there's a little bit, when I read Melody Beattie's, "Codependent No More," at first, I'm reading through the list and going, well, yeah, I do those things, but they're not bad. You know, like, it's not wrong. And, and I don't mean to say they are bad or wrong, but it took me this kind of letting go to realize that there was another way to be. And frankly, that I can keep myself safe, that I can give myself love. Once I find the way to do that for myself, then the need to control others just naturally falls away because I'm not looking outside myself for those resources. And frankly, that's what psychedelics did for me is over and over it said, come back to you. Come back to you. Don't send your love and healing elsewhere. You know, you've gotta start with the grief inside of you. Everything was about coming back to me. And at first, that felt really like you're not allowed to focus on yourself. You're supposed to always be caring for other people. I didn't really understand why that was okay, but what I've realized is that the more I've come back to myself and healed myself, the more love just naturally flows from me. So for me, it was actually, I think, an unlearning of codependency. It was like, stop, stop helping other people because the way you're helping other people actually isn't love. It's from fear, it's from obligation. So stop doing that. Come back and get clear about it in yourself. And then when you come together with others, you'll come together with a different energy. And I think that's something that as a woman, we, it's almost like we're just naturally coded to not give to our, or not focus on ourselves. Or fix things within ourselves because we're so busy doing for others. We don't realize that when you fix what's going on in here, what could be broken, you are so much better for the people around you. Right. Yeah. I mean, I was depleted and so I'd give whatever little I had to give, so it felt like I can't, I can't take away even the little that I have to give from these other people. But what happens is when you're filled, you're overfilled; it just flows out. And the access that I have now is so much more than what I could give from a self-sacrificial place. Here's a question that I'd like to ask and I hope it doesn't sound offensive. Did you share what you were doing with your family, with your dad and your sisters, that you are going through this journey of psychedelics to help heal some stuff that therapy couldn't heal? Right. And how did they feel? I mean, it's an interesting question. I did share, but I think I mentioned in the book at the same time that my co-parent moved out, my relationships with my family blew up too. You know, there was a lot of codependency in our family. We were all desperately trying to keep each other alive after what we had been through. So I think we all kind of got tired of that at that same time and took space. So, at the time that I was going through all of this, I was by myself. When I first did my intake form for the psychedelics, it was like, who do you have to support you? And I had some people, but by the time I did the psychedelics, even those relationships had fallen away. So for me, this was really a time of letting go of everyone and everything, and then going through this journey really by myself with the support of my guide who was incredible. But really going through it alone. Until I had done enough work where I could emerge, like I was saying, in a healthier way to be with other people. I needed to pull away the unhealthy patterns that I had with others so that I could start to form healthier patterns. So that's a kind of answering a different question they asked. But yes, I did tell my family ultimately, and they were really supportive. You know, we are all searching for healing. We're all trying to find a better way to be in the world. There weren't any negative reactions from really anyone in my life. I mean, I think the person I would be most concerned about telling was my co-parent. I would want him to feel comfortable that I was, you know, showing up for our son. But he trusted me too. It was a very painful divorce in the sense that I lost someone that I loved and I lost this relationship that I loved. But we really trusted each other and had that gift going into the divorce. I guess, he knew you well enough; he was sort of like a friend. He had been with you and he knew that you would never endanger yourself or your son. Right. He trusted my judgment there. Mm-hmm. You talk about the guide. How does the guide work with you as you are working through the psychedelics? Well, the way it worked was that we did a few preparation sessions. So it's basically saying, let me tell you all the stuff that I've got going on and that might come up. Right, so that they can be adequately prepared when something comes up. They'll have the background, they'll know the emotions that we have. They'll have some sense for how to direct us. And, so we did a few preparation sessions and then ultimately did the guided journey. And then we have integration sessions on the backside. So more therapy sessions, more, okay, here's what I experienced, or here's what, here's some of the stuff that came up for me this week that was new. Because what happens with the psychedelics is a lot of time; you go through things and you don't know at all what it's trying to tell you. You know, sometimes the mushrooms would tell me something directly and with the ayahuasca I would have conversations. But there's so much that you don't know what's going on. They're kind of working in your body rewiring things. So you don't know what it's about until four weeks later you're having an interaction with someone and something clicks and all of a sudden those boundaries that have been really hard for you to set are just natural. Like, right, there's this kind of thing where we can intellectually try to understand something like setting boundaries. But then you go and have psychedelics and it, they take you to your body's wisdom and they kind of help shift the energy so that all of a sudden that wisdom is embodied instead of something that intellectually you're trying to think through. So for me, you know, it would be like that, like, oh, hey, I, I was talking with, you know, Joe today and I didn't feel fearful like I did before, or I didn't feel frustrated like I did before. You know, I'm just noting these changes that we have in our reactions to the world. So, again, my guide was a trained therapist, very skilled at trauma, so she could really hold my experience with a lot of expertise. And had so much compassion and understanding what the plant medicines that she could hold me in that way too. But I understand that everybody's experience is so different and so you know, all I know is mine. And I think for me I didn't need a whole lot for my guide during my journeys, but it was really comforting for me to know that she was there and that she knew me and could take care of me. When you take the medicine, there's a time when it's time to let it take over and you kind of have to surrender to it. And that can be a really scary moment where, you know, there was one time when I was doing a psilocybin journey, and I was like, I'm so worried about my body. And she said, I've got your body, you go. So there's these silly things where it's like, if I'm not present with my bodily functions, what is my body going to be doing while I'm gone? And she was like, you don't have to worry about it. So just having somebody there to reassure you that you're going to be okay, was a huge part of what made me feel safe. Yeah, 'cause I didn't know if it was like, you know, like when you go see a therapist, you might say, as a child, I got pushed off the swing. And they would say, oh, how did you feel when you were pushed off the swing? You know, if that's the role of the guide is to ask questions when you say things. Yeah, I mean, I think both in the preparation and integration sessions, it is just like that. It's a therapy session with somebody who just has the context of the plant medicines in what you've been working on. And during the journey, I'd wanna talk to her a lot, I'd wanna say, what do you think about this? Or I've been, you know, I just really loved chatting with her. And she would often say to me, that's a great question, ask the medicine. You know, she would kind of help direct me back into myself and say, you know, it's great for us to chat, but the reason you're here is to go deeply into this work with the medicine. So she would gently take me from my chatty session; I mean, she was happy for me to do whatever I needed to do. But she would help remind me that these questions that I had, I had this wisdom, this opening to wisdom in my body at that moment that I could go in and, and try to find out more. I think it's interesting, when I was reading your book, you know how like sometimes you'll say, geez, I got this problem and I don't have the answers. And some people will say, well, the answers are inside you. I almost felt like as you described, your different journeys through these psychedelics and some of them that were very dark. It was almost like you were going down deep, deep, deep into your body or into your heart or into your soul, searching for answers for that pain. That pain that was so unbearable. But the harder you dug, the more you found answers. Yeah, yeah. And that's what, that's my understanding of these medicines is they just take you to your own wisdom. They take you to what you already know. Which is really heartening; you know, I learned so much and it's like, oh, I learned that from myself. But again, I think that until we are more practiced at coming into our body. And you know, the book is called Pain Is A Portal To Beauty, I think it's really surrendering is how you find beauty. It's just, for me, I had to surrender to a lot of pain 'cause I'd had so much, you know, stack up. But I also will say with ayahuasca, which was the one that I did the most; and I had a ceremony in February of this year. And on the second night of the ceremony, the medicine told me that I didn't need to come back. And I was really sad about that because I thought this would be a lifelong practice. But the medicine said as long as you continue to look outside yourself, you'll never access all of who you are. So for me, there's been a real challenge that I've accepted from the medicine that, I don't need, like the medicine's really taught me how to do this, but now I know how to do this and so I can go inside and find this wisdom on my own now. I can go find my pain, I can go find the pieces that are ready to be looked at. And I have the skills and the ability to, you know sit with that by myself now. And again, there's something, there's a grieving. Any season that you leave behind, there's always grief about leaving that season behind. So I miss it. But there's also an appreciation for this was never about the medicines; this was always about my wisdom. And the medicines just lead you there. Just as a teacher or a book, you know, all of these things are helpful for a time, and then we don't need that teacher anymore. It's almost like you outgrow it. Yeah, and I, say that with, I mean, the medicine is so powerful and so incredible. So I might understand this differently someday, I would love to go back and do more ayahuasca. So I'm not saying that is where I end up, but for now, the lesson for me is to access more of who I am by myself. And that has been a really meaningful practice this summer. What role do emotions play in helping you grow? Well, I mean, I think that's, you know, one of my, psilocybin journeys, we pulled an oracle card before the journey, and that card was emotions and it said that I should pay attention to my emotions. And I thought it was the silliest card because it's like, that's all I do is pay attention to my emotions. Like I'm a very feeling person. Everything I do is about my emotions. But what it helped me realize is that there were so many emotions, so many layers that I had not been acknowledging. And what I know now is that; I mean, we talked about this a little bit at the beginning. When I feel something it is a light. You know shining a light on something that's ready to be seen in me. And so much of what I think I feel is today and what's going on in my external life today. But really, I think those situations, like you said, what's meant to be with my finding the psychedelics. I think these situations come into our lives to show us that what there is to see. And so for me, if I feel disappointment, like I was saying earlier, using that one as an example, then I can go to avoid it. I can go to to change my circumstances and there's value in that, knowing that you're powerful enough to do that. But for me lately it's been, can I just sit with the disappointment? Can I imagine how disappointed I must have felt as a kid who never got to do what she wanted to do? Who was taking care of her mother, who was on drugs, who was alone? Like all the disappointment I must have felt at that time. At that time, I numbed the disappointment. I watched TV and I, you know, ate sugary stuff. Like I did stuff to get through. But now it's time to feel it. So for me, if I sit with these emotions, if I really sink into them, what happens is that then they just naturally start to move through, and then I discover something else. Then I discover what I'm wanting to do. What consciously, what I wanna do, burlesque, right. Like what brings me to life? So instead of living my life to avoid these emotions, can I stop avoiding them? Can I sink into them? Let them free, you know, let my body be free of them, and then I get to find you know more aliveness in myself and the things that really I want to do with this one life that I have. Do you think that you could be where you are exactly right now, had you not taken the psychedelic journey? I mean, I think the simple answer is certainly no.'Cause I am exactly where I am from the steps that I have taken. But could I have achieved this level of growth? I don't know. I mean, it was so powerful. So I, it's like, I can't say no. I don't know what that alternate, you know, path would look like. But these journeys, you know every time I would have one, it blew my mind. It would change the way that I saw the world. So people talk about how it's 20 years of therapy in a few hours and it really felt like that every time. And so every time you go back in, you think, surely I can't have another 20 years of growth, but you do. You know, in ayahuasca, you go around after the ceremony and everyone shares their experience from that night. And it's, tonight was so profound, tonight was so profound. Person after person, after persons says they had an earth shattering experience. So it can feel like that can't be possible, but somehow it is. And I think I've gotten to a place where it's like everything is okay. So even if I hadn't had that growth and I was still struggling with whatever I was struggling with, there's value in that. There's lessons in that, right? Like when we stay where we are, it can feel really frustrating to be stuck, but then there's the stuckness is teaching us something or it's accumulating that energy so that we can burst forth and do something else. So, I'm really grateful for those experiences and I think that there's lots of ways that all of us can tap into these emotions and into this wisdom if we're willing. I think I just had a lot of pain to work through. And it, and it was part of my, purpose here to share how to go toward emotions and how to stop numbing, and how to take some of these coping mechanisms away so that we can start feeling and start being more alive. Yeah, and the only reason I ask that is because I remember you talked about going to Maui with your son by yourself. You know, he's like rushing, mom, mom, mom, you know, how long is it gonna take you to eat this sandwich? And so you're a different person there. And then it, seems like after you went through this whole healing, you are playing, you're running, you're active, you're, you're a different mom. You are like fun mom. Yeah, yeah, I am. And you know, and, and what that tells me and what it does for me is just, it's so much more fun for me. And it's still, you know, when you're wired a certain way for your whole life, it takes time to rewire. So there's still times when I'm thinking, oh, I should be doing adult things, and then there's a voice that goes, Alexis, no, get on the floor and play Legos. You know, like, we get to just have fun. He's showing us joy and magic right now. So, the more I can sink into that, the more the people I'm with can sink into it too. Like it's this kind of, it feeds on itself this magic and this, this joyfulness that we have together. Alexis, what advice would you give that woman who is either watching or listening right now who feels so stuck in her life and has says, you know what I tried therapy. I've gone to different therapists and I'm still stuck. How do I get unstuck? How would you help her get unstuck? Well, I would say a couple things. Number one, I would just say, can you just love how frustrated you are with your stuckness, right. Like, first it's just to really acknowledge exactly where you are. And, you know, give yourself compassion for that. And then if you are wanting to make a change, what I have found to be the most effective is that I turn off all the coping mechanisms. And sometimes we don't even know what is a coping mechanism. But for me, you know, it's screens, it's time with other people. It's you know flavorful foods, sugar, you know, the things that are comforts to us. If you can find a time where you can shut down, you know, social media, whatever it is, if you can shut down some of this noise then, and the quiet is where our parts are going to start to be able to get through to us. Like, if we're stuck, if we're frustrated, there's something that's trying to get our attention. So it really is to love every emotion that comes up. And as you go to turn off these coping mechanisms, if that's something you'd wanna try; you will have parts that protest that. And you love that protest. Like every step of the way, if you start to just love what your emotion is, what your reaction is, and finding quiet is the best way for me to let those voices start to get through to me. Because, you know, these coping mechanisms are really, they're benign, they're socially acceptable, they're not super disruptive; but they do help us get through. And so if you're wanting to stop stopping stuck, that really means stop getting through. And that really means starting to wake up to more of what you're here to do and what, what your body is trying to guide you. So whatever you can do to kind of come back into your body, which for me was a willingness to look at some pain. And then once I looked at it, once I felt it, it moved out of the way, and then I could be back in my body and guided by my own internal compass. And then I don't need the therapist like I did. And of course, if we're starting out, we absolutely should have every resource we would want on call. So it may be that you do have that therapist on call. It may be that you do have a friend on call. It may be that you, you know, turn on comedy. You spend time in nature. You do all the things that support you as you start to look at some of these things that are uncomfortable. But that you're strong enough to look at. I think that's my, probably my favorite thing is to realize that after so many years of feeling like I was weak and a victim; I'm so powerful and looking at my pain is what helped me realize how, how much I can handle. And based on the conversation that we have had here today, what is the one thing that you would want that listener or viewer to hold close to her heart and know that there is hope? I mean, this is where I just, you know I can only speak about my journey in terms of where I just really honor where everybody is; but I know, so if you wanna believe me or borrow this from me, I know that every one of us is so incredibly powerful and deserves to be exactly where we are. So if you can love yourself and start to understand how powerful you are, I think that would be such a wonderful thing for everybody. That's beautiful. Alexis, where can people learn more about you or connect with you? Well at my website. So my website is alexisleigh.com. And then you can learn more about me in this book. It's all about me. So my book is, you know, available everywhere online. But I would love to hear from anybody who'd like to reach out. All right, Alexis, again, thank you for this beautiful signed autograph, copy of Pain Is A Portal To Beauty. I agree with your title. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here today. Alright, thank you very much. I will make sure to include links to the book and your website so that people can connect with you and learn more about you. Awesome. I am grateful. Alright, thank you. Okay, so what do Excel and Ayahuasca have in common? For Alexis spreadsheets were about control and a neat formula. And the medicine taught her to surrender and inner wisdom. And the voice in the woods I teased about at the top, if you die today, your life would have been a tragedy. That wake up call led her toward grief, healing, and the creative connection life she's living now. If you want to learn more about Alexis Leigh, read, Pain Is A Portal To Beauty, or connect with her, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep145. Everything we mentioned is there. If this episode helped you share it with a friend who needs a little hope today and come back next week for another amazing episode, created just for you. Until then, keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself. And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.