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The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction
Vision:
To eradicate crystal meth addiction and chemsex misuse, especially among the gay male population.
Mission:
Using the power of social media, The AfterMeth will increase awareness around the characteristics and effects of crystal meth and chemsex on the community of men who have sex with men, provide stories of hope to inspire struggling users and produce a repository of tools to be used by the loved ones of men who want to break free from the addictive patterns of chemsex.
Join Dallas Bragg every other week. You can find The AfterMeth Podcast anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Find answers to:
How can I stop relapsing?
How can I heal my addiction?
How does crystal meth addiction affect gay men?
How can I get sober?
The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction
EP 3:45 How To Stop Repeating Patterns in Chemsex Recovery with Juan
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/repeating
Host Dallas Bragg welcomes Juan Galan — spiritual teacher, identity alchemist, and life coach for gay men — to tackle one of the most common questions in chemsex recovery: "Why do I keep doing this?" Juan explains that repeated patterns aren't character flaws but nervous-system responses — trauma-formed survival mechanisms that have lived in the body for years and can't simply be thought away. He walks through his "remembrance method," a four-stage path: the trance (identity fused to the pattern), the witnessing (seeing yourself repeat it but unable to stop), the descent (the hardest stage — going within to face shadows, shame, and exiled parts through shadow work and breathwork), and the return (reclaiming your true essence and purpose). A recurring theme is that "every collapse is divinely orchestrated" — that addiction, relapse, and heartbreak are initiations happening for you, not to you.
Both host and guest share personal stories of separating mind from body — noticing the urge to reach for validation, Grindr, or substances, then pausing, breathing, and staying present rather than numbing the feeling. Juan offers practical anchors like the "window of tolerance" and the "90-second rule" (a trigger, if you name it and stay with it, passes in about 90 seconds). The throughline is compassion over shame: patterns once protected you, healing is a spiral rather than a straight line, and progress means reacting the old way less often while forgiving yourself when you don't. The episode closes with an invitation to go deeper through Juan's "Five Days to Come Home" mini-program and a reminder that lasting recovery means descending into the body — not just quitting the substance.
Contact Juan:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingwithjuan/
Free Private Podcast Experience: https://juangalan.co/private-podcast-experience/
5-days to Come Home Challenge: https://juangalan.co/coming-home-challenge/
1:1 Mentorship: https://juangalan.co/coming-home/
The AfterMeth:
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Dallas Bragg
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You're still maybe repeating the patterns.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Most likely you are still repeating the patterns. That you're aware of it. It's not like you're not asleep anymore. You're aware that it's happening. You can't stop it because you're still here. Right? You haven't really descended into the body. So it's still very much a nervous system response with insight, with awareness, which is chemsex.
SPEAKER_01Sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men, typically involving methamphetamine, methadrone, and GHB, among others. Chemsex misuse is a worldwide epidemic that needs attention, dialogue, and hope for those lost in it, which is the purpose of the Aftermath Podcast. Please note the views expressed by the host and guest on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice, and the content around sex and drug use can be triggering. Welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. I'm your host, Dallas. Thank you for being here. Thank you for tuning in. Really, really appreciate it. And just a reminder, you know I have to say it. Please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. Like it, share it. I would love to see somebody share it on their Instagram story. I have not ever seen that yet in our over three years. Um but yeah, let's do that. But I appreciate you helping the algorithm pick up the podcast and get it to where it needs to go. Thank you for helping AI pick it up. That's actually where I'm hearing more and more and more still. Um AI is telling people to come listen to the podcast. So thank you, AI, whoever you are out there, really appreciate that. Um, today we're talking about something that I think is going to be extremely helpful for you and your recovery, and that's breaking away from repeated patterns. I get asked so many times, why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep finding myself back in the same, doing the same thing? Uh why do I keep dating the same guy? Why do I keep doing this over and over and over like Groundhog Day? And our guest today, Juan, has all the answers. And I'm really excited to introduce you to Juan. Juan Galan is a spiritual teacher, identity alchemist, and life coach for gay men navigating transformation. Through his coming home coaching program, he guides queer men through deep identity work and spiritual reclamation. He's also the founder of Mystic Misfits Society, a spiritual community exploring consciousness, shadow work, and what it means to live as a remembering being. Juan is also an Adobe ambassador and AI content creator. Hey. And he believes God is his CEO, that every collapse, every initiation, every pivot is divinely orchestrated toward wholeness. I vibe with all of that, Juan. Thank you, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored. I want to stop for a second. And you know, I I try to read the the bios before I do the before I read them, but I didn't this time. I just want to say I didn't send it to you, so you're I could have proofread. I could have proofread. Um, but I just want to say for you listening, listen to this that every collapse, every initiation, every pivot is divinely orchestrated toward wholeness. If we could just encapsulate that, if we could just embody that, if we could just lay that over our our chemsex experience and understand that it is an initiation. You know, we we've we've done we've I've talked about a dark night of the soul on the podcast. I've talked about making making sense and making meaning of our experience. Like whatever it was was divinely orchestrated for you to find wholeness. You had to go through that to get to where you're destined to be. But you won't find that if you continue to place a negative, horrible meaning on the experience and on yourself. And so what listen to really what Juan has to say here, and I'm just so excited to dig dig deep into this. Thank you, Juan.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Thank you for that beautiful introduction, and uh thank you for the work that you do. It's so necessary in our community. Um I talk to so many gay men that are still lost uh in the pattern, whatever the pattern is, whether that is through drugs or alcohol or sex or chasing unavailable people, there are so many different ways in which the pattern shows up. And maybe there there are and maybe there are multiple ways in which it shows up in you. So thank you for the work that you do. Um, because we really need it.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. Appreciate that. And we need you. I'm gonna put your Instagram page up here. We met on Instagram. You came up in my algorithm and instantly caught my attention. So I try to be I try to be a creator, not a consumer as much. Um, because I don't want I don't want to scroll that much. But you know, it's like on TikTok or Instagram, whatever, to to log in. Sometimes you just things pop up, you know. But but you popped up and instantly I was in it. And so you do really, you're just engaging. I think that to me, it feels like you are tuned in to something, something, something above infinite intelligence or something kind of divine, something, but you're tuned in because you're it comes through your content, and I just really appreciate that. And it's inspiring to me, and it's helped me step back and say, when are you making content that feels forced and obligated, or when are you making content that you're really channeling what needs to be said to those out there? And I think you seem to be totally tuned in when you make your content, I'm guessing. It's true.
SPEAKER_02I do feel like I um receive downloads and revelations from the divine. For well, for me, the divine is God, but not God as the white bearded daddy in the sky judging you. Maybe God is something else. But I do feel that there's this like download, well, after download, and it's very interesting that you pointed this out because I've been in the online space for five years, over five years. And when I first started, even though I did see some success, it was all very forced. And it wasn't until I went through this deep healing journey, which I know we're gonna talk about, what I call now the remembrance method. And the last step of this, uh or the last stage of this method was uh the return. And that's when I started feeling a connection to something bigger than me, and when I started shifting really my identity in, or not shifting, but really standing on my true identity on who I always was always meant to be, and that's when this started happening. I also, as you mentioned before, I also have a separate business, it's uh a spiritual community, and that part that works also exploding and bringing a lot of uh interest. So I believe that once you've truly find your purpose, things start shifting really fast. But to find your purpose, you really need to go through a deep healing journey first.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yes, that's right, that's right. Um, it it's hard to know that while you're in it, you know, it's hard to, you know, and it it it almost seems a little it almost seems a little um I don't know. Uh my brain's not firing today, as I said earlier. Um but to say that to somebody while they're in it sometimes can backfire.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. 100%. And um I see that this quite a lot. And uh, you know, I try to be positive and I I I share my story from you know, when you share a story, you you can share it from the open wound or from the scar. And most of the times I try to share it from the scar because once you have a scar, it means you've like processed everything, you've integrated everything, and you already learned something that you can share with people. So I always try to share it from the scar. Uh, but a lot of people don't don't take it like that, don't take it well, they take it personal as a personal attack. And um, some people can be really mean, and I understand because, as you said, when you are right in the midst of everything, like living in the chaos, in the pattern, like you can't see anything else. So um, I try to just have compassion for them and be like, I understand where you're coming from. I I've been there. I've been there, I was there for many years, so yeah, it's just really uh having a different perspective about the situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I remember though, there were times in my when I in my active use when I did think to myself, one of these days, I even had a vision once, and that vision has kind of now been um articulated into my logo, but I had a vision of me rising up out of this huge muck, right? And I was just had my hands up. I was coming down off, you know, a bender or something. But I I did always kind of know like one of these days, I'm going to make something of this, right? I'm going to help other people. I did have that thought um while I was going through it, but again, it's like it's hard to tell people that. But I just want to say you're you're talking about remembering who we are. Right. And and and I've always said like this chem sex recovery is not it's not learning something new, it's forgetting everything we thought we knew. Yes. About about ourselves. Yes. Right. And what the world has made us. And and that's not who we are. And so it really is a return to our soul self, our real self, our true self. Exactly. Yeah. And that's why I have alchemy, as you know, the title in my use, you're an identity alchemist, I think is what it said, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and that's what I think I I I see this vision this process as alchemy, as we have these impurities put on us from the world, the socialization, the conditioning of life, and it's alchemized, it's taken off through recovery to shine, and our light shines. The light that was always there shines, but we have to go through it. Yeah. Yeah. So healing with one, and just from the Instagram page, I had it up on the screen, and now uh we got sidetracked, but it's so you were high for the high achieving gay man stuck in the same cycle. Right? Yes. You know what's happening, but you can't stop it. We've all been there. Right. Right. So I want to talk about this if you if you're okay. There's so much on your page that we could talk about. Um, and I probably we could have another podcast or two because I really want to talk about the religious shame too. But I think it's the I I see this in the DMs I get in the clients that I have, is why do I keep doing this? Right. Like there was a there was a post yesterday or this morning in one of the chats, and he was the guy, you know, that he was like, I want part of I I have my clients say, part of me wants to use meth, not I want to use. Because the I you are does not want to use meth, or you wouldn't be in a program to stop. But there is a part of you that wants to use. So if we can say it that way, we can start to observe it. Yes. But you know, he was like, I've gone through this cycle now so many times. Why do I keep doing it? Um, and my guess is that if you're listening and you're stuck in a relapse cycle, you're also repeating patterns in other aspects of your life. Right? You're getting fired from jobs, or you're getting, or you're in jobs and making the same errors, you're dating the same man, you're going back to the same habits you didn't want to do, you know, you're you're back to eating shit instead of healthy food. You're all of that stuff. You're like you're back to watching too much porn. I mean, you know, it's like we veer back into the same patterns. And the age old question here in the million dollar question is how do I break free from that? And it looks like you have a remembrance method to help us crack the code.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, I I called it the remembrance method. Um, but before explaining a little bit about what that is, which is really it's based on my own healing journey and the path that I've walked and the path that I now help my clients walk. But the the thing with repetitive patterns is that they were created many years ago for whatever experience we went through. I mean, as gay men, we obviously, especially our generation, maybe younger generations, not so much, but as our generation growing up as gay men, we were basically forced to hide ourselves, to perform, to maybe, I don't know, maybe you had uh uh a dysfunctional family or a father who left, you know. So many things that happen that could have happened to you are the things that created that pattern in the first place. That so what you're living right now is really a body response, a nervous system response, a nervous system that has been living and reliving that pattern over and over and over again because it's what's familiar, right? So, what happens is that when we try to heal and we do therapy, we read books, self-help, you know, all of that is great. All of that gives us insight and it gives us awareness and helps us understand. As you were saying, your client is like, I know what's happening. A part of me wants to do this, but I don't want, right? That's because there's a dissonance between thought and body response. The pattern has been living in your body for 10, 20 years, uh for basically your entire life. It lives in your body, it's energy stuck. I've been reading a little bit about uh trauma, for example, and trauma is really something you experience as a child that is not allowed to move through the body and release, so it gets stuck as energy, and that is what creates the nervous system response over and over and over and over again. And until you don't understand that to release that, you can't just think your way through it. You need to go back into the body and do different types of body work. You're not gonna be able to release because what you're experiencing when you want to relapse, or when you want to hook up, or when you wanna uh drink one, have one more drink is not uh a thinking pattern, is a body response. So I wanted to differentiate that because that is key in understanding why we keep repeating the same patterns. Now, the remembrance method, it's uh uh a path that I created based on my own healing journey, and it consists of four phases or four stages. The first one is the trance, and when you are in trance, you are in like a different state of consciousness, right? It's like you're not aware of anything else, you are in a trance. So when you are in the trance, your identity is fused to the pattern, and this is when you think this is just who I am, I'm not gonna change, I can change, I have bad luck, I am broken, right? You are the pattern, but the reality is that you are not the pattern, the pattern was created for X, Y, or Z. It lives in your body, but it's not your true essence, right? It's not who you were born to be. So you keep repeating the pattern over and over again, you keep thinking it's who I am until something happens, right? And then for the first time ever, you ask why is this happening? What's going on, right? That first moment of conscious awareness is when you actually enter the next stage of this process that is called the witnessing. Okay, so it's when you are able to see yourself for the first time doing what you always do, but there's some sort, there's like a little gap, a little space where, like, okay, this is not me. But the pattern is still running the show, right? You're still repeating the same things, but you can now see yourself doing it, and that's where most people are living. Like, I'm assuming most of the listeners and your clients are like, I keep doing this. Why do I keep doing this? Right? It's like you you start becoming curious, but the pattern's still running. Then the next stage is when this curiosity grows, right? And you're like, okay, why do I do this? Where is it coming from? What is it protecting me from? I really want to understand, and that's the next stage, which is called the descent. And the descent is really the the hardest part for everyone, and is where most people um don't are not brave enough to enter, because to descend, you have to go within, you have to look, you have to really look at all your wounds, the shadows you've been carrying, the things that you've suppressed or repressed, the things that you've exiled since you were a little boy. And that is very uncomfortable. Maybe there is a lot of shame, maybe there is grief that was never processed, maybe there are fears that you were never allowed to let yourself feel. So going within is the hardest part, but is really where the transformation is going to happen. And uh, this is when you start doing more than therapy, you start doing shadow work, you you you could use other tools. For example, one thing that really helped me is uh psilocybin. So I did two psilocybin journeys um as a ritual that allowed me to go within. And for example, one thing that I discovered is that I had been for so long suppressing my softness, my feminine part, like my feminine energy. And if I didn't bring it back, if I didn't allow it to be part of myself, I was never going to be whole. So that's something that I'm reclaiming now and trying to like being more in tune with that. But I was not aware of that until I did that journey. Now, I'm not saying that you have to do psilocybin journeys if you want to uh to heal, but there are tools, you know, there are many different tools. Breath work is a fantastic tool for this, which I recommend I do it every day. And once you've gone within and you've you are facing your true self and with all the things that you've been carrying for so long, it's your time to return. Return to your essence. To once you've stripped yourself from all the masks, all the layers, all the conditioning, and you've brought these parts back home, you can return to who you've always been. And uh for me, that's when I found my purpose, and that's when I realized that I was I spent my entire life trying to find validation from strangers, trying to be chosen by strangers, most specifically masculine men, um until I returned to myself and I connected with this higher power, this divine intelligence got that made me remember that I had always been chosen. And when I remembered that I had always been chosen and that everything that I went through, everything, all the ups and downs, the challenges, the relapses, the heartbreaks, the shame, the the rich, all of that was actually a preparation for understanding my true purpose and for the work that I am doing now. So that's when I returned to my true essence. So the trans, the witnessing, the descent, which is the hardest part, and most people skip the part, and then the return. So that is the remembrance method.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I love it, love it. It reminds me, it reminds me of the hero's journey almost. Yeah. You think you accept the challenge and you go into the darkness, you know, the cave and come out. Um, yeah. So I want to talk about these, if that's okay. I want to pick these apart a little bit. The trance, you know. Yeah. And this is what this is what I say also to my clients is that if you didn't go through this addiction, you might still be in this trance that so many people are in. And I th when I think of this trance, I think of what well, I don't know, some people call it um non-playing characters. You're like, you know, they're they're getting up, they're going to work, they're coming home, they make dinner, they watch Netflix, they go to sleep, they go back to work. Yeah. Yeah. Always thinking that that that everything around them is just happening to them. Right. Right. They just like they, you know, it's whatever. My job is terrible, and this and this, and this and this, and that, you know, they're asleep. They don't, they don't know. They don't they don't understand their shadows, right? And so some of some of us have the privilege of trying crystal meth and getting addicted to it, because through that, we break out of this trance real fast, right? Because we if we want to stop, we're forced to go through the recovery process, and that is the wake-up call. Do you agree with that?
SPEAKER_02I do agree with that 100%. Yeah, it's it's like, as we said at the beginning, every collapse is divinely orchestrated. And for some of so for some people, it's through crystal meth, for some people, is through sex addiction, from some people, it's something completely different. But I do believe that everything that happens to us is actually happening for us. It's it has a bigger purpose. And when you are able to pass through it and like be on the other side, as you said, like when you are outside, it's con you see it completely differently. And um, it gives you like a different sense of meaning and purpose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yes. One of the pillars of our program is everything is happening for you. Like my clients probably get tired of hearing me say that. But even with a relapse, you know, it's happening for you. It's happening here, here's here's a gift for you, a relapse, because it's going to show you your learning. It's going to show you where you're not, where you're missing the mark. It's going to show you what you're overlooking, right? Um, and so so in this, we're out of this trance, something breaks us. So for the listeners, maybe you know, a methodiction. And then we keep and then we try to stop and we keep relapsing, and we're asking, why is this happening? So I like that you use the word curious, because there's a big difference between asking why is this happening from a place of curiosity and why is this happening from a place of condemnation? Condemning ourselves.
SPEAKER_02100% shame.
SPEAKER_01Shame. Right. So your next phase is witnessing. So in the witness, you're still maybe repeating the patterns.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Most likely you are still repeating the patterns. But you're aware of it. It's not like you're not asleep anymore. You're aware that it's happening. You can't stop it because you're still here, right? You haven't really descended into the body. So it's still very much a nervous system response with insight, with awareness, which is again what where most people stay stuck in, which is what uh most of the self-help work stays at. And I'm not saying that self-help is bad. Therapy has been an incredible tool for me. Uh, but depending on the therapy that you do, it always stays in insight and awareness and like understanding, but it's not really going into the body where everything lives. But the body is so powerful, and our society has made us uh has yeah, made us be so disconnected from our body. Uh the body is is like the temple of God, right? Is we're and I always tell people, um if you want to get a little bit spiritual here, that I believe that God speaks through the body. And the devil, which I don't believe there's a devil, but if we wanted to say the the the enemy, which is really here, the enemy lives here, right? And it will like it will be here, your mind telling you all the things you do wrong, why you're not worth it, why you're broken. But if you're able to go down into the body and connect with it and feel that God is speaking to you through love, through expansion, through softness, it's such a different experience, and you're able to differentiate it. I want to share a story, if I can, about something that I experienced. One of one of my uh biggest triggers. So I I have uh anxious attachment style, right? So it comes obviously from my wound of being um feeling rejected from a very young age. My parents also got divorced for a bit, so when the masculine my dad left, for me, the masculine was abandoned. Me, so it created this really neat this need of reaching for the masculine to prove that I was that I was worth staying for, right? So it's been a big problem for me when I'm meeting someone and I get attached very fast, and then it's like mess I want to be messaging all the time to just reassure that the person is still there, and I tend to attract avoidance style, right? It's just it's just in the rule, it always works like that, right? So for the longest time that was an issue, and I would become super intense, and obviously that would make the people that the person uh pull away faster, and then that just confirmed my thoughts that I wasn't worth staying for, that I was broken, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so after I've been doing this work, I recently met someone that has the same thing, like very slow responding messages, sometimes takes days, and uh, it was a very interesting to very interesting thing to observe because for the first time I was able to separate my mind and my body, and my mind was telling me it's happening again, uh, it always happens to you. It should hurt because it always hurts. And I was like, okay, wait a minute. What is my body telling me? And my body was at peace, my body was expansive, my body was just soft. I was like, it doesn't affect me anymore. My mind can tell me all these stories, but my body's telling me another thing, and I trust my body more than I trust my mind. And it didn't affect me. I was like, okay, well, if he's not gonna reply, whatever is not the right one.
SPEAKER_01Next. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that. That's if you're listening, I mean, I keep saying if you're listening, for those of you who are listening, go back and listening. Yeah, I hope they're listening. Paying attention. Oh, God. Uh rewind, rewind and listen to that, because this gap that Juan is talking about between the thought and the body response, so important. And it comes with loneliness, it comes with rejection, any of these strong feelings that we we want to get hurry up and cover up with meth instead of instead of feeling going into our body. And feeling it, we run from it, right? We avoid it. Um, we numb it with the substance or with the activity, with the with the habit, right? Um yeah, it's just there there's something about that too. I read this book already free, and it's kind of um Western psychology and Buddhism, and we're finding like a way to put them together. But she in the book, or he says in the book, when that feeling comes that you're talking about, which I I am also anxious attachment. I'm also like, why isn't he texting me back? I'm also like it feels like life or death, you know? Um, in that, look, you feel there's a rejection feeling right now, and it you you will feel rejected on and off for the rest of your life, probably. Right? And but what do you feel in your body? Your body is just having a sensation. That's it. Caused by caused by those thoughts, like you said, the enemy, the ego.
SPEAKER_02Um, the the the adversary as really uh the adversary is the English word for the Hebrew word for Satan. Yeah. Satan. Yeah. So it's actually an adversary that lives here. It's not an entity following you trying to make your life miserable.
SPEAKER_01I would love to go through and talk about the Bible sometime and what it really means with you. Um, because I think it'd be very helpful for for all of us too. Yeah. So this thing about the the gap between the thought and the body response, too, is that chemsex is known as a full body takeover. It's very much in the body because it's fused to your libido. You know, the meth and the sex get fused together. So when you have horniness, when you have libido, it's a trigger in the beginning. Yep. And and there's no stronger, really, there's no stronger energy than sexual energy than libido. 100%. And that's your trigger. You know, here's the other, here's the other benefit of a chem sex recovery is you have to connect with your body. You have to be in the body. You have to learn how to control this body if you want to stop using math.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yep, 100%. I love that you mentioned that sexual energy is the more powerful, the most powerful energy we have, because that's something I also talk about a lot, and it's part of the work that I do with men is not to control our sexual energy, but to transmute it, to turn it into something more beneficial, I guess, for not only for you, but also for the people around you. And that's a beautiful work as well. It's called sexual transmutation.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. We've talked about that. Yeah, it's in the I have a free course and I go through what I did early was use breath work that I found to transmute that sexual energy from down here. I moved it up my body.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love that. It's insane. Like the changes that you experience and the the presence and this yeah, the clarity. I've actually um already, this is my second time doing uh 90-day semen retention. So it's actually it's been like 97 days already. And nice, I do this work every day. Every morning, I transmute my energy. Yeah. And it's it's been transformative.
SPEAKER_01Agree, agree, agree. Thank you. Thank you for mentioning that. I think we should do a whole podcast on sexual transmutation too. And semen reading.
SPEAKER_02So we need like two or three more podcasts then.
SPEAKER_01We do. We do. Um, okay, so we're in the witnessing, which is like you said, where a lot of people are, you know? Yeah. Like a lot of people will say, Oh, I just keep doing this. You know, well, I'm just this, or you know, and they they do accept it as they become aware of it. Here's the thing I I'd say to my clients a lot, too, is look, you're aware of what's happening. You are a level above most of the rest of the world here. The awareness is the big hump to get over. Yeah. You're far much farther along than you could ever imagine. So you know, let's let's get keep going, which you say the next level is the hardest. The next level, the next stage is the descent, the shadow work, the descent into into what you the things we're avoiding, yeah, into the body. Exactly. So, how would you define we had a a whole podcast on shadow work, but how would you talk about and explain shadow work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I uh base my work a lot on Carl Jung's work. I'm a huge fan of his work, and basically shadow work is understanding the parts that you exiled from a very young age, understanding what was exiled, understanding what was it protecting you from. And uh instead of feeling shame about it, to try to face it with more compassion. And what one thing that I love to do is to really look at your inner child and really feel love and compassion for this little boy or this little girl that had to exile all these parts, all these parts that were actually part of their beautiful essence, right? As I was telling you before, for me, it was my softness, it was my my my feminine aspect. And when I talk about masculine and feminine, I'm not talking about genders, it's more about the energy that we all carry, we all carry masculine energy, and shadow work is also being able to integrate both parts, the masculine and the feminine, to create wholeness. Um, so that's the work that I do. Like the the shadow work that I do, it's really focused on um Carl Jung's work. Um, I actually have uh an entire course that I did with my business partner for my other for the spiritual community that is called Jung and Jesus, and it's a six-week initiation into shadow work and Christ consciousness, and it was a beautiful experience to to host. Yeah. Wow, love that.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Thank you. Yeah, and it so for the listeners, what was it protecting me? What is it protecting me from? Like, so these these patterns that we try to demonize actually saved us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they were 100%, right? They saved us. That's why compassion is needed instead of shame. That's right. They were protecting you. And and the thing is that the nervous system turned that into something familiar. So if you think about it, when you have these compulsive behaviors or these these patterns are taking over, for your brain, this is actually still a protective mechanism. It's like your body is still trying to protect you, where in reality, it's actually not protecting you. But this is, you see, like the the irony there. It's a protecting protective mechanism.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. So this just like any, just like any spiritual growth or mental growth or emotional growth is about perspective shifts. Yeah. You know, right? Um, are you familiar with Of Course in Miracles? I'm guessing that you are. I am, correct. Yeah, I guess you are. Yeah, it's a perspective shift, is the miracle, right? It's just shifting the perspective. And so, okay, I've I'm repeating this pattern. It served me at one time. I'm okay. It's pretty it was protecting me. And my poor inner child had to had to have safety somehow, had to find safety at some point, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I and I've told this story before, but you know, when I was little, my mom caught me walking on my tiptoes, acting like I I guess I was acting like Dolly Parton or something. I don't know. But uh, you know, I was on a stage, I was performing, right? But I was in high heels, you know. I mean, not in my mind. But I was just penalized and brutally like yelled at. And she she's told me later that she was afraid my dad would see me, is why she she acted in such a way. She was trying to protect me. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01But I at that point, that's what I remember when I exiled that part of me. Yeah. That that feminine part of me, that act like a girl part of me, that gay part of me, right? That's when I rejected him. Yeah. And that's where shame came from.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is so common for for gay men, like rejecting or suppressing that feminine part.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. For most of us. Okay. So when we're going within, we're looking at these parts, we're accepting them with compassion, we're looking at our shadows. You use psilocybin. Um, I've talked about it on I've talked about it here. I've also I also use psilocybin for the same for the same purposes. Um, I had a Valent let recently had a Valentine's date with psilocybin. Amazing. As a week you need one as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's such a it's such a again, good way to just shift perspective on my life, you know, and see things from a different angle and then in a new way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, really is it opens up your mind.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. Okay, and then so your last phase is the return. This is when we're returning to our true self, right? Correct.
SPEAKER_02Um, and I have And there for uh and for me, sorry, there there is uh there has to be some sort of spiritual component because when you return, um you realize that you've never been alone, right? So I'm not telling you that you need to believe in one thing specifically, but there's a sort, there's some kind of surrender that is needed for you to be able to return to like let go of all the control, of all the fears, let go of all the things that you've been clinging on to for so long, so that you can actually return to your true essence as uh as a soul.
SPEAKER_01And and one of the things she says, I have been chosen. Like this is preparation to understand my purpose, right? Yeah, and I think this is uh again where that everything has happened for me comes into play, right? Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Even as we were talking it before, remember that you told me that um it seems that I'm really good at content. And I was like, well, actually, my first business was content and Instagram coaching. Um but then if I think about all the because I have pivoted so many uh so many times, I am the king of pivoting. And uh now that I look back, I'm like actually every single step of my journey, if we're talking like my business journey, let's say, was preparing me for this thing that I'm doing right now, for this one thing that I'm doing right now, which I truly believe is my my want purpose in this life and is to work with gay men.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's it's it's just this really highly individualized curriculum, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That we could never really understand. Mm-hmm. But we just have to have certainty that it is. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so in this return phase, what do we do? Like, so if if I've gone through this, these phases with you, and let's say I find myself, maybe this pattern is showing up again. You know, maybe I see it kind of rearing its head. What are some what what are some ways to respond to that? And what would you say to somebody who said, now wait a minute, I thought that I I thought you helped me get rid of this. You know, why how why is it coming back? What's wrong with me, or what's wrong with the process? You know, what would you say to that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the truth is that it's very likely that the patterns are still going to trigger because, as I said before, your nervous system, your body has been living in this constant um drive over and over again. And you cannot destroy that or change that from one day to another. What you do is that you become conscious, right? And then there's something that's called the window of tolerance. So the window of tolerance is where you stay in um homeostasis state where like you are relaxed where you are, you know, in your center, and then you have hyper-arousal or hypoarousal. The idea is that you expand this window of tolerance and you create your own set of tools. What there's so many different tools, again, like breath work, uh, movement, um, sound, whatever works best for you to help you stay in this window of tolerance. So when the pattern comes, when it triggers, you have that extra moment to consciously choose. Okay, this is happening. I know where it's coming from, I know it's protecting me for, I know what it's caused me in the past, I can feel where it's in my body, I know what to do now. Right? So you consciously choose, okay? There is this rule called the 90-second rule that says that every single trigger that you experience will go away in 90 seconds if you really stay with it, right? So if you there's something that has happening to you that's triggering you, you name it, you feel it, and you stay with it for 90 seconds. And after 90 seconds, it's gone. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So there's different tools that work for some people, other tools that work for other people. The idea is that after this process, you know, you've really come back to yourself. And again, healing is not a destination, healing is a process. Healing is a remembering over and over and over and over again. So you now get to consciously choose how to react. And again, you might react in the opposite way, and that is fine as well. At the end of the day, we're humans, and uh we should remember that part of the human experience is making mistakes. And uh, if you make a mistake, then there's gonna be a new lesson there. So um the idea is to kind of like reduce the number of times you react in the way that you used to. It's a process. Uh I always say that's that healing is more of a spiral, right? Sometimes you're up here, sometimes you spiral down, and your goal is to consciously know how to bring yourself back here, and it's always going to be like this. Without shame, always the most important thing is to let go of shame because with shame healing cannot happen.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. So this this idea, this is where I think a lot of people are are stuck, and sometimes it's hard for me to try to articulate, is that feeling it, right? When you when it comes, you're saying to to be with it, to feel it, reduce it. I'm sorry, I I can't read my writing now. Um, but when it comes when it comes back, let's say it is loneliness, right? Or or let's say, yeah, you're you're responding again to why am I why am I so alone? Right? And all that kind of thing. And that that emotion comes up. And so the re the repeated pattern for me would be, I'm gonna go use so that I can feel like I belong somewhere, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How do I feel that loneliness for 90 seconds, but not not accentuate it, not help it? Uh yeah, how do I not activate it? How do I keep from being in it? Like to observe it, but not of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm gonna answer by sharing another story if that's fine. Sure. So one of the other compulsive behaviors for me was uh my addiction to grinder, and I was in grinder a lot, and again, looking for validation, looking for my worth on other people, other people's bodies, uh, looking for that masculine to finally choose me. And uh what I really wanted was just to be seen, was just to be chosen, right? So I made the conscious decision a couple of months ago that I'm not gonna be in the apps anymore. I do want to meet someone. I am open to you know, to to receiving whatever is coming, but I wanted to be real, organic, not through the apps. And this is just a personal choice. I'm not saying that people are can't find a partner in the apps, right? But for me, it was a problem. So it's been fine. I actually, and I think the the semen retention part has allowed me to, you know, to really be present in my body and and not relapse for in that specific sense. But recently, last week, I was in gay pride in Madrid, and obviously, well, there was a lot of really good-looking guys, and I was with a group of friends that they were all coupled up, they were all in in relationship. I was the only single gay guy, and it was really nice to see them like you know, uh celebrating love together and witnessing each other and you know being intimate with each other. But there was a part of me that started feeling this, this, this longing, because that's what I want, and I feel that's what we all want at the end of the day, right? So um I was walking back home with my friend, it was 3 a.m. and I started feeling it. I was like, uh, in a moment like this, this is when I would reach for grinder and just find anyone to hook up so that I feel chosen, right? Yes. Uh but I didn't have grinder, so I was like, okay, I'm just gonna let it go. But then we got home and then she went to sleep, and I was like, it was getting stronger and stronger. This really, this urge. Uh, so I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna download it and just just crawl for a bit for a bit and see what's out there. So I downloaded it, right? And that was scrolling, and at this while I was scrolling, I could see myself, I could witness myself, I could understand, okay, this is not what I want. But it was like a very strong pull. So what did I do? I put my phone down, I took a couple of very deep, slow breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth, and then I went and I took a cold shower. And in the meantime, I was okay, what's happening? I went to Pride, I saw a lot of people uh in relationship in couples, it made me made me feel this longing because this is exactly what I want and this is what I've been looking for. Their reaction is a typical reaction that I've had in the past. Is it going to give me that that the what I need? That feeling of of being seen and chosen by someone special? No, okay, fine, okay, it's not gonna give me what I need, it's gonna make me feel worse. And I was able to bring myself back to to center, back home. And uh I deleted the app and I didn't do I didn't accidentate. But it was this process, you know, like I could be the observer from the moment it started until the moment I was able to calm myself down and be like, this is not what I want.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Because when I when I say to people, feeling is healing, right? In terms of feeling it, observing it, but not being but not letting it take you away, not like being of it. It's it's hard to ar it's hard for me to articulate that that that what you're saying, what you're describing here helps because it also isn't just sitting with the feeling, it's asking some questions of curiosity. Curiosity, you know, what is it you really want right now, and why is it your back? You know. Um something similar like this happened to me recently, where I found myself on sniffies. And um, and I was on, you know, in it. Like when I get on it, I become that uh that sniffies character, right? And not me, but you know, I was I was I was uh reflecting on it later and I was like, what? Let me let me retrace my steps here. Why why are you doing this, right? And it all started when a date canceled on me. Um and that date canceled, and it just then then this happened, then that happened, and then I then I started noticing, oh, wait a minute, he didn't text me back either. Wait a minute, I haven't heard from that person. Like I was in that mode all day, which led up to I gotta get somebody's gotta, like you said, choose me. And and so when I was able to see that, I was like, oh, so this is the pattern, right? If I could just observe it and be curious, I can see like next time I need to put something into place, I'm gonna be more aware of it. I'm gonna be aware. Now, again, hey, I might repeat that again. Yeah, and it's fine, right? No shame, no shame, no shame.
SPEAKER_02Like if I would have if I would have if I would have not deleted the op and ended up meeting up someone and having sex with this person, I would have had compassion for myself because I understand where it's coming from and no shame. No shame.
SPEAKER_01No shame, no shame. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Well, I don't it it's hard to go into, I would say, this dissent phase on the podcast. Um, I would think, you know, if you are listening and it sounds vague, you know, what does it mean go within? What does it mean go with my body? What does it mean my XL parts, my shadow work? So all of that I think could be answered if you take Juan's program. Yes. Right?
SPEAKER_02They're also mini version. I also have a mini version of the program because the program is deep. It's one-on-one, like the support for 90 days. Yeah. I actually released a challenge that's called Five Days to Come Home. And it's a mini version to give you like a taste of what it is to get out of your mind and into the body into all these parts. So that's something if if you are inter if you're listening and you're interested, um, I'll share the link with you as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great. Yeah, because this descent just kind of if you think about it, you're descending into maybe a darkness, the shadows. It it would always help to have somebody to to be your guide, right? To be your guide. Back to the hero's journey. You know, the the hero always has a guide, you know. And then they the guide steps back when it's into the final challenge so that he can show himself he can do it, but the guide helps him through that cave. And so I think having you as a guide would be would be ideal for anyone wanting to go through this process. Thank you. Yeah. So what did I leave out today, besides all the other topics we want to get to? But in terms of what our subject is today, was there something that you wish we would have covered or something that I missed or didn't understand?
SPEAKER_02No, I think you did an excellent job, to be honest.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I'm surprised, to be honest with you. Uh, the way my my brain was firing before this happened, but uh, I didn't get a lot of sleep either. Um, but anyway, we we are connected.
SPEAKER_02We are connected to the field, so we're both downloading right now.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. I you know what? That's just that's so true because sometimes I I stop a podcast, I'm like, I don't know what the hell I said or at or what was said at all in that podcast because something else took over and asked the questions. It wasn't me. Um I go back and listen to it, I'm like, oh wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First time I've heard that as well. Um yeah, for so for you listeners, this is this is it. Like we we can repeat this. That this is what what Jan is saying is is a lot of what we've covered in different segments in different parts, but it's kind of it's kind of reconciled into one process. But listen, you you're looking and looking, looking for a quick fix when it's really this this descent is where is where it it is. That's what it takes. And it's it's setting in with those emotions and figuring out what they are wanting with compassion, observing, uh, finding out more about yourself. That's what this is all about. And like, and like Juan said, some people never go into the descent, and you see them in recovery. They're they're in recovery, quote unquote, in terms of they've quit the substance, but they're not, they're still repeating the same patterns over and over and over, and they're not growing, they're not getting anywhere, they're buffering in life. And this is where this is what it takes to get out of that. So I hope that you can benefit from it and hope you'll listen to it again and again. And thank you, Jan, for being here, giving us your time. I know you're a busy man, you have a lot happening. You're all busy, but I it was a pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me. Good. Thank you. All right, guys, that's it for this week. If you want to engage in the conversation, you can comment on Spotify, you can comment on YouTube. If you want to DM me, I'm on all social platforms at all times. Just give me a ring. We'll talk about the subject. And also don't forget we do have a Facebook group, the Aftermath Podcast Facebook group, where we talk about the podcast on there too. Hope you'll join and see you next time.
