All right. Welcome back to the heal with grace podcast. I have a special guest with us today. Mike, Mike Avril is a licensed clinical social worker, and he's going to talk to us today about working with mindfulness, working with psychedelics and. Just really opening up the world to helping us understand what all of that means when it comes to therapy, when it comes to, working with chronic pain and illness.

And before I go too far into it, I will just have you introduce yourself, Mike. So thank you so much for being here. Sure. well, Grace, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. mini, mini intro. So, so we all know who's speaking here. I'm, I'm Mike, Mike Averill. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I got my master's at USC, University of Southern California.

clinically, I specialize in Chronic pain. I, I also work a lot with anxiety and trauma, as we'll, we'll talk about more. I'm the founder of PNW Integrative Center. it's based in Portland, Oregon, and here we have a Oregon Health Authority license. To legally work with psilocybin, which is the, the active ingredient in what's sometimes called magic mushrooms.

so we'll, we'll talk more about that. I also sit on the board of directors of prison yoga and meditation, a nonprofit that takes mindfulness into,carceral, environments and Oh, you know, I was talking with my, my wife a little bit about this, and I think I'll end on, my goal is to help people become more connected human beings, connected with, with ourselves, the present moment, our loved ones, our environment, et cetera.

That's me. Wonderful. Thanks for that. how did you get started in this specialty when it comes to chronic pain, when it comes to mindfulness, psilocybin, like how did you get here? Yeah, I'll start on the mindfulness side, the meditation, the contemplative side. I Yoga and mindfulness has been a part of my life since my teenage years.

That's a different story, but sort of this awareness has long, long been a part of my life. And I, prior to becoming a clinical social worker and doing therapy, was doing a lot of yoga. In the mindfulness space as a, as a yoga, rather yoga and mindfulness teacher running studios, et cetera, all of this is to say, I developed nerve pain in my feet, while.

While practicing a lot of yoga, it was becoming prohibitive and complicated. At the time, doctors were telling me tarsal tunnel. So we have carpal tunnel. Many people are familiar with that. But there's a diagnosis for sort of the ankle situation, tarsal tunnel. There were some procedures that were recommended, et cetera, a whole bunch of complications, but this is a long winded way to say I found relief.

And when I say relief, I mean, the, the sensation is, is gone in my feet. It's, it's, it's 100 percent gone. I found relief through, mind body perspectives, and, and I'm sure we'll, we'll get into some of the details and this is before I really clinically understood what was going on, but it, but it had a lot to do with using, mindfulness and awareness and the somatic awareness perspectives to understand what was happening with me and experientially move through it.

And again, I'll emphasize by move through it. I mean, it's, it's gone. I don't deal with the sensation anymore. this In part led to me going back to pursue my master's degree. again, clinical social work, USC. I did a lot of work there with, Dr. Nair, who's now at Columbia University and, you know, presenting on mindfulness and how that's helpful with all sorts of, challenges as a human, some psychiatric, some sort of environmental.

After USC, I started my clinical career at the pain psychology center in Los Angeles, which, is associated with pain reprocessing therapy. So, you know, personal experience. And then that in a big arc of a way drew me into. Actually, practicing this clinically at the Pain Psychology Center, doing one on one work, doing some clinical training.

And, over the past several years, things have, broadened a little bit. And one of the, the major ways it's broadened is this idea of psilocybin as a tool. So starts personal, some of it serendipitous, some of it just really matching up with, how I, how I felt most able to, to help others. and yeah, several years later, now we're here.

Yeah, I I had a feeling there might be a personal component to it and there oftentimes is, especially with, especially with chronic pain work, honestly, you know, and I, I actually think that it's, it doesn't, you know, you don't have to go through it to help people. Of course. But it can really help you truly understand that confusing place that people get in where it doesn't make the pain doesn't make sense.

Or maybe it does because you're getting all these different opinions or diagnoses or whatever, but it just. When you really step back and look at it, it's really. It's hard to understand, and it's really hard to grasp and empathize with in a way, if you haven't felt that or been through that, so. Oh, oh my gosh, right, right.

The, the idea of, of having a very real experience, a real discomfort, that might be putting it mildly, experience, and yet Being told, is sensing the confusion about what's actually going on in this, this, dissonance that can emerge from there's a real thing I'm experiencing. Yet nobody seems to be able to tell me what's going on and what to do about it and how to solve it and how, and there's this dissonance, which is tough.

So tough. That is, is such a tough place to be in. And I'm wondering with that place and we're talking about how to become more present and mindful and you, you're saying how you moved through it, right? With somatic practices, can you speak to that place of dissonance and working with chronic pain and understanding?

How mindfulness helps with that and somatic practices. It's kind of a big, it's a big question, but, yeah. Well, okay, here, I'll start with where I'd like to land.there is a sense that discomfort equals wrongness.brokenness requires a solution and sometimes it does, like, let's, let's be very, very clear, right?

But, but again, I think we, we often launch into this response to discomfort that, okay, what do I have to do about it? so, so I'll get there in a moment, but I think, you know, if we're on this idea of what is mindfulness or meditation offer this type of challenge. I think a lot of your audience will be very aware of this, but in case they're not, I like to emphasize this idea and break down that anytime you have a sensation, any sensation at all, including pain, discomfort, itchiness, ringing in the ears, et cetera, You might think about it as two different things.

There is the neural input, right? and, and this is often nociceptive neurons. So there's pressure, there's temperature, there's toxins, there's, but there's the neural input that goes on up to the brain. Distinct from that, there is the, the brain's understanding, appraisal, contextual information of what's going on.

We don't experience pain or discomfort until those are combined.and, and again, so many of your listeners may be so familiar with this, but, but there's the, the neural input, there's the brain's job. On deciding what all that means, then we experience this discomfort, uncomfortable sensation, the discomfort that, you know, et cetera.

The reason I think it's useful to make these 2 distinctions is, you might think there's an event, and then there's our nervous system's response to it, right? Meditation and mindfulness helps us separate these 2. Right. So, so the, the first, and you know, some of your listeners, I think sometimes meditation gets, lofted into this confusing idea.

Often it's about slowing down and just being aware. Just being aware of what's happening. So, so meditation and mindfulness can lead us to really being able to perceive these two different things I'm talking about the, the event, the sensation, the experience, and then how we're responding to it.

Neurologically, psychologically, etc. Right? So, As I'm kind of talking about this, I'd love to mention, Dr. Laura Mermosley, who's, who's in Australia and, a scientist in, the reason I want to mention this is this is also backed by science, that again, this information comes through our nociceptive system up into our brain.

It is not until our brain adds the context that we experience sensation. Ah, so long winded way to say again, I, I think mindfulness helps us see this distinction and then can help us reduce the alarm appraisal the brain adds on to this neural input. which can reduce the sensations, reduce the intensity, reduce all sorts of things we want to reduce around this, this sensation experiment.

And again, this sort of lands us at this idea of discomfort versus wrongness, right? There can be input That is not comfortable, but how easy we can slip into this idea of labeling it as wrong or not good or needing a solution, which then spills us into more pressure, more anxiety, more stress. which feeds into these, these feedback loops, um, related to the sensation can increase the intensity, can increase the duration.

So what you're saying is when we're using mindfulness to help slow down and I, and I love that slowing down is, I think I talk about it so much more often time and time again, because it really is almost like the corner, the centerpiece to. Being aware to mindfulness, to meditation, to working with chronic pain, because when we can slow down, we can become aware.

And when we're aware, we can actually help move through or shift or, you know, desensitize ourself to that, help our brains desensitize to the danger. Right. What would you say? Cause I I've had this question from A few clients before, maybe more of a comment, to someone who says, I mean, I've tried meditation.

I've tried mindfulness. Like doesn't change my pain. Right. Maybe who hasn't, who haven't tried PRT necessarily yet. but as you're just talking about it, I can hear a few people being like, yeah, but I don't know. Yeah. I, I think the easiest way to understand this, mindfulness or meditation is, is very similar to working out.

It's very, very similar. I don't know many people that, that go for a run. And yep, it's the, it's the easiest thing in the world or go to lift weights and oh, that was easy peasy. No, no big deal. What I'd like to emphasize this is a practice. It's not an arrival place.And in fact, the, the whole framing of, of mindfulness or meditation is to, to, to bring us to this place where we, we start to explore that difficulty.

So, so it's actually, I hear that in, in grace. I love that you bring that up. I hear that so, so much. Oh, I can't sit still. Oh, I can't sit still. Hello. I can't sit still either. Like I can relate to that very, very deeply. That's in fact, why this is good for us. Right? and it's not about any sort of, you know, certain duration or anything we're trying to reach.

It's about that process of getting in the practice of bringing ourselves back to present, back to what's happening here, back to, you know, What is this? And the, the, that neural input, that sensation I may be experiencing. And what is my response? What is the story I'm telling about it? What it, what am I thinking about in the future?

And again, this becoming aware of all this isn't comfortable.and I don't think it needs to be, I don't, I really don't think it needs to be. So I guess in response to your question, you know, you can start meditation or mindfulness. So, so small, it can be five minutes. Right. and if it feels difficult, that, that means we're practicing something important.

I mean, exactly. I mean, the, the way that we go through something instead of around it or avoiding it is the way to come out the other side. Right. And so, so important in something like meditation, I, I actually was just experiencing this, this morning. There's a certain meditation practice that I'm engaging in and learning more about and working with these days, but.

This morning I was like, I can't get it. I was stuck in that loop of, well, I'm not, but I'm not doing it well enough. I'm, you know, my mind's over here and I had to come back to practice, you know, and it's something new I'm learning too. I've meditated for years and years, but this is something different. yeah, yeah.

Well, and, and, you know, this is perhaps a little bit of a sidebar. and if anyone's familiar with PRT, they'll have heard about outcome independent. This idea of, of how we can get so gripped on what we're wanting to accomplish that it applies so much pressure to what we're doing that we don't ever get to what we were trying to accomplish.

Right. And I think meditation and mindfulness is the playground where we, we pick up. What does it mean to be? independent of elk, right? And it's a really hard thing to do. I want to like fully express that that this is it's easy to say it's easy to just get out of my mouth. It's very, very hard to do, especially with pain, especially when we have these biological responses, right?

This is a way to say, how can we be open to experience without launching into that problem solving, the appraisal, the stories, the stuff is why it's a practice. I love this emphasis. It's a practice and I believe it's, it's sort of a lifelong practice.

So I, yes, I love that you brought out the outcome independence because, it is so key, especially when we're working with chronic pain because we teach people and if you're working with chronic pain and you're learning how to. to be present instead of trying to fix what's going on, right? Do the practice to just do the practice instead of get out of pain.

So I've talked about this a little bit, but I'll just give a little, you know, a synopsis for people listening. that a lot of times when we're working with chronic pain and we're working, on mindfulness or really paying attention to the internal state, you're being present without trying to change it or fix it.

And that's what we're talking about here. But again, like, like Mike is saying, it's so hard, obviously, because you want to change the pain. Of course, you want to change the pain and get rid of it. But what I've noticed is when we can be present with what's happening, shift our perception from this is horrible.

I want this to be over to just noticing, right? When you notice, And then you can eventually maybe see something shift that pain shifts a little bit. You get this, confidence that you can do it again, right? And you can, and then I have clients come back and I'm like, well, it's not working anymore. And it just, it's a, it's a practice.

It's a cycle, right? Of coming back to understanding. Okay. Again, of course we want the pain to go away. Of course we want the disruption in our minds or the anxiety or whatever it is to go away. At the same time, we have to go through the woods. To get out of it, right? Amen. Well, and so much of what you're talking about reminds me of this idea of permanence, how we, we get very gripped and, and I fully understand the experience of chronic pain.

It sometimes adds to a pile of evidence that this sensation is permanent. I will say in, in, you know, anyone I've worked with that has been able to really step into mindfulness in this way. The idea of permanence in sensations gets challenged. You start to sense sensations change. They always do. They always, always change.

And then I think it's so lovely what you're talking about is sometimes there's this, hope that sprouts up when we first experience, oh my gosh, Sensations do change my, I come to it with this awareness, this ease, and I notice a change. And then there's such a common pitfall that people can slip into where, Oh my gosh, that worked.

That worked and made it change. It made it go away. And so we try it again and again and again. If it's not clear, this is outcome dependent. We're wanting a particular outcome, right? So there's this interesting thing with mindfulness where it can shepherd us into this way of relating to allowing sensations, but then it can do nice things, things that we want.

So then we can grip into this, Oh, I want it to work again. But what I would highlight is the reason mindfulness is helpful is because of how it encourages us to relate to sensations. Not the outcome it gets us to.yeah, that relationship. Yes, the relationship. Can you speak a little bit more on exactly what you mean between, about a relationship to our pain, relationship to our bodies?

You know, what does that mean? Yeah. well, some of this harkens back to that idea of, you know, we have these, these neurons pumping information up to our brain and then our brain appraises it. So, you know, the brain's relationship to that incoming information. But I also think it gets even more into the psychological, these personal stories realms.

By, you know, any time I go back to permanence because that's probably one of the more common ones I see with chronic pain is because this, then I know this is going to happen with my symptoms because, you know, this type of morning happened or this type of sleep or this type of thing happened, then this and what I'd love to just encourage is, you know, In any given present moment, there's sensation information coming up to our brain.

Our, how we relate to that either exacerbates or, or brings down the intensity of some of these sensations. And, and again, that's, that's. neuroscience. That's that's how we're built. This isn't sort of woo woo stuff, right? so broadly and with with PRT pain reprocessing therapy, a lot of what we emphasize is how are we relating to this horribly uncomfortable experience?

Whether it's pain, whether it's tinnitus, whether it's CRPS, whatever it is, how are we relating to it? And sometimes it's these broad stories we're telling about our life and ourselves and and where the prognosis, where things are going. Sometimes it's sort of in the micro moment. Like, I can't stand this.

How am I supposed to, oh my gosh, how am I supposed to talk to Grace? I have this recording coming up and, oh, I can't possibly do that with, you know, this or that or whatever. So it can be shrunken down, but it can also broaden out to these really big stories. And I think what I'd emphasize too in this part of the conversation is how we relate to the sensation broadly and even in these sort of like more micro moments has so much to do with how we experience the sensation.

And science supports that too, right? I'll emphasize that. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely does. such a big part of it because again, how could we not be frustrated. That we're having these sensations or pain, and it's taking us out of our life, and we don't know what to do about it. Makes total sense. Right. And so, yeah, I hear you.

I think what you're talking about is helping if we actually learn how to shift that perception or relationship, it can actually help shift the experience of what we're of what's going on in our bodies. Right? Well, you know. Little sidebar, I'll add many people I work with there needs to be an expression of despair, of frustration, of anger, of, of all that has been brought to to you because of these symptoms.

I work with many people that have sort of like, like, gritted their teeth and clenched their fists to make it through this. And I think sometimes there needs to be, you know, we're talking a lot about this, this response. How do you respond to the sensations with more ease, with more safety? Well, you know what?

I think sometimes you have to be really angry. You have to be really upset. You have to be really confused. You got to do that first and sometimes we don't have a place to put. So, so as a little sidebar, I don't, I say this because I don't, if you're out there and you're really frustrated with your symptoms, you're confused, you're, you're in despair.

that's not bad. That's your normal response. And, and I think that that has to get out. That has to be felt. We, we have to do that. Then we have to understand that different ways of relating to that experience, these, these, these actual sensations, the stories, the micro moments, the broad moments, that's what can lead us through this and out of it.

But sometimes we've got to be where we are first. Yes, thank you for saying that. That's so, so important. Gotta meet ourselves where we are. Yeah. Oh, well, and I worked with people that feel sort of like guilty or like, I can't figure out how to, I'm so, it's important to not be invalid, right? We got to validate where we are with it and then we can shift towards more empowering ways to relate to the sensation.

Yes, yes, there's both. Right. Yeah, totally. Okay. Okay. Let, let's shift and jump into, psilocybin psychedelics. I know that's a big part of this and eager to get there. I feel like we could talk about both of these things all day long, but I know we gotta, I gotta get going. So, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead.

Well, tell me about, you know, there's a lot. Well, I'll say this at least for I know where you are and where I live in Colorado. it seems to be almost getting to be the norm now working with psychedelics, or at least being gaining a lot more awareness and popularity, but there's a large part of population people country that.

That is not the case at all. So, what does it mean to work with, and you said psilocybin, what does it mean to work with that in terms of a therapeutic setting or even just in general? Why? Why do we want to do use that? Yeah. well, I'll start general and then I'd love to also bring in some of the, the, the relevant, concepts and research for chronic pain, please.

Yes. Okay. Well, first I'll start, It's important, anyone listening, please review the legal landscape of where you are. I'm in Oregon,Grace, you're in Colorado. I know Colorado is right around the bend. Certain states and municipalities are offering, legal regulated use. of psychedelics. Broadly speaking, I, I just want to encourage listeners, you, you should be aware they're illegal in, in many jurisdictions.

So I think that's, that's super, super important. Yes. okay. With that aside, psychedelics in general, I would encourage people to understand them as a catalyst for change.they are not the change, They, they don't actually offer the, the change neurologically or psychologically. but they, they opportune, they open these windows for change to, to occur.

and it's so very interesting to, to me, and, and this is all sorts of like dynamics that, that, you know, I don't even fully understand. And we'd need 10 podcasts to get into. Mm-Hmm. . but. Like, for example,microdosing psilocybin is very likely safer than SSRIs. That's what the research is starting to show.

So I, I just want to share that with your audience, that some of these carry some baggage with them. And, the, the baggage isn't based in factual information. now, it's very important, I think, to think about these ideas when it comes to psychedelics, like satin setting. How safe do we feel? What is our mindset?

Who's going to be there, right? There's, there's a lot of infrastructure around it that can influence whether or not, psychedelics and, specifically psilocybin is,likely to be therapeutic or, or not. So, so what I'm kind of laying out here too is the distinction between like taking some mushrooms at, you know, Coachella or stagecoach or something like, you know, with friends.

I'm not going to dispense any judgment on that, but that is different. That is 100 percent different than a safe contained. educated environment, a therapeutic environment. Yeah. and there's a lot of research emerging around this, this therapeutic environment. when we, when we get into the chronic pain side of it, I'll talk more about neuroplasticity.

I'll talk about the reduction of inflammation. I'll, I'll talk about some of that there, but. I think the main idea I'd add in here is, or from the start is psychedelics offer An enhanced ability to change, to change our nervous system. I think that's also in part why, you know, if any of your listeners have been reading headlines, we see, you know, psilocybin for depression, we see psilocybin for anxiety, for OCD, for chronic pain, for Wait, hold on.

How does it fix all those things? I get the suspicion it doesn't fix all those things. It opens up the window for, for neurological change, which then can lead to, to actually changing some of these experiences I just described. That's so helpful to understand, to, to distinct. I love, I mean, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

It can help get us to the place that we can, that we need to move through. I, I'm assuming, and I guess you tell me, What you're saying is, it can maybe bring down some of the defenses that maybe our unconscious or brain already has, right? And sometimes we have really strong runs, strong ones, especially when we're dealing with things like chronic pain, deep depression, things like that, where it's been there for years.

And yeah, our brain is, you know, really protecting us and doesn't want to, doesn't want to drop those, those defender defenders down. That's right. And, and, you know, if you've ever done IFS work or other types of work, bringing down these defenses is, is challenging. This is another tool to help with that.

Okay, so how does it specifically help with chronic pain? okay, so anytime I talk about psychedelics in relation to chronic pain, I think it's useful to go through four different things. the first thing And we we've been through this a little bit. I'd reference Laura Mermose Lee and a lot of his research in regards to this.

The main idea with this first point is pain is generated in the brain. this is also true for, you know, tinnitus for itchiness for for many, Symptoms and responses that sort of fit into this mind body world, okay? They're generated in the brain. The nervous system plays a major pivotal role in all of this.

Okay, that's point one. The second idea I'd love to share is, and some of this may be sort of self evident. Okay, so if the current, if pain is generated by the brain, what do my psychological patterns look like? Have to do with that. And what I want to emphasize is there's cold, hard evidence that psychedelics, in particular psilocybin, can reduce psychological rigidity in stuck belief systems.

So if you want to see this research base, look at Carhartt Harris and his Rebus model. that was, I think, published in 2019, okay? So again, one, we started with this idea that pain is generated in the brain. Two, there's this idea that psychedelics can reduce the rigidity, the stuckness of these neural patterns in our brain, alright?

The third point of consideration here is how psychedelics Increase neuroplasticity, this, this tendency for neurons to,adjust the connections they've made, connections that are less helpful, reduce those and, and lean into connections that are more helpful, you know, There's a Vegas, or rather Vargas paper 2013, Calvin Lai 2018.

Again, what I'm, I bring all that up to, to drive home. this isn't like woo woo idea that, oh, mushrooms might help with that. No, indeed psilocybin sort of seeds neurons to be ready to lean into neuroplasticity. Okay. Okay. So, so again, kind of going back, pain, pain is generated in the brain, right? Then we have these, these psychological constructs that are needed, that are part of the experience of pain, right?

And we know psychedelics can reduce the rigidity there. Third point, we know psychedelics can increase neuroplasticity. So this likelihood that we're gonna, we're gonna pivot or turn or lean into, to neural connections that better support us, right? The fourth point has to do with inflammation, and, and I gotta say too, I, recently in a training, I, I felt like I had to pick my jaw up off the ground.

There's some evidence that, psilocybin has anti inflammatory impacts that are hundreds if not thousand times more impactful than ibuprofen. Right. So, so now we're, we're talking about inflammation in the body. And, and right, there are all these responses locally, right? We've been talking about the brain a lot, but indeed locally, there can be responses that relate to inflammation.

Turns out, psilocybin has this homeostatic effect with inflammation. It draws us more towards balance, right? So, so overview, right? one pain is generally in the, the, the brain. Two psychedelics can help adjust those, those rigid psychological beliefs. Three, an increase in neuroplasticity and four, a reduction or a balancing of inflammation.

So when you're, I mean, yeah, that's fascinating. And by the way, if you're listening, we will definitely, list out some of those resources. it's. It's fascinating how much can really come from this. And so I'm wondering. in a, in a therapeutic setting, like you're saying, you know, that is a very different than recreational use when, if you're, if you're engaging in it and it's breaking down some of those, defenses, then what, how does it shift?

What do you do as a therapist? What is the client experience? And I recognize this could probably be a whole other episode, but that's where my mind goes. Okay. Well then what, if this is happening, how, how does that actually happen in a therapeutic setting? Yeah. Oh gosh, this could be a whole other podcast.

So I guess the framing here is you might think about there could be a large dose. So somebody comes in, behind me too, I'm in again in a licensed service center in Oregon. So we can do this here with the Oregon health authority. We have a, a bed behind us and, and, you know, acoustic paneling. And we're talking in, in these rooms, you know, a six to eight hour session.

So a big experience what's wild is there's evidence that for three plus weeks afterwards, there's this, this, the window is special, special window to influence neuroplasticity, to influence the inflammation. there's, there's some research,Oh, her name is, she's a researcher at, Johns Hopkins, Will Dolan.

she talks about these critical window periods for learning with neurons and how psychedelics affect those. And, and again, so there's this special period afterward. And I'm mostly talking about the larger doses right now. We're talking maybe three weeks afterwards where you have a better ability to influence change in the nervous system.

So After a larger experience like that, I typically work with clients on, you know, if we're dealing with chronic pain, how do we want to relate to uncomfortable sensation? So what does that look like cognitively? Like literal thoughts that go through our head? What does that look like in practice? Are there certain behaviors?

Are there certain, often, and this may surprise no one, right, talking about my, my yoga and mindfulness background, often I will have, yoga practices with people that I will walk them through in their periods afterwards. So again, with chronic pain, how do we engage with our body? Even experience uncomfortable sensation, but not tack on the appraisal that this is bad.

This is alarming. This is unsafe. This is all the things that spiral that that cycle back up. Right? And the idea here is there's that special plasticity. in the nervous system. So you have an enhanced ability to make change, right? So, so there's cognitive things, there's practical things that can happen. and sometimes this is referred to as the integration period during a psychedelic experience.

Separate from that is microdosing. So micro dosing is when you take a very small amount. usually it's according to a protocol. So there's the, there's the stamina stacks, there's the Fadiman protocol, there's some, some different protocols out there, but it's typically not every day. It's, it's some sort of a structure and it's for a distinct amount of time.

Now, to be clear, when we're talking microdoses, these are very, very small, like a 20th of the sort of, typical psychedelic dose. So you're usually not feeling that. And, and I'm actually also excited in this realm too with chronic pain, and there's more research coming out. Might this be just enough over maybe a month or two to help shift the nervous system.

So again, this isn't the medicine that changes the body. This is a substance that allows and opportunes us to change how we're relating to experiences. Yeah. Okay. I, I see. I see. Yeah. I mean, if we can, if we can get that support and help to open up the, defenses and really help change that relationship to our bodies, to the pain, right.

It's a facilitation of that. Right. Right. Yeah. And, you know, as many people are probably picking up, this means for many people. We in psychedelic experiences, we confront difficulty, sometimes traumatic or challenging memories come up. Sometimes, a challenging psychedelic experience is not necessarily correlated with bad outcomes.

Right. Sometimes it's moving through the storm that, that gets us through it all. It gets us through the storm and closer to those, those outcomes we're really wanting. Yeah. Okay. Who would this not be for? Who would want to be, take caution before engaging in psychedelic therapy, assisted therapy? Yeah.

so some, some major contraindications, there's some cardiovascular risk. So, if you have, anything major going on cardiovascularly, you that's something to keep it. I'm talking, you know, like, like transplants or major heart attack risk or, so, so cardiovascular in general, it'd be worth talking to your doctor about all of this, but there's, there's some cardiovascular risk.

there is also a thought about if there's a strong family history or personal history with psychosis. then maybe this, this could be a little destabilizing. I will say with that, there's more research emerging and there may be some challenges around all of that. but. That's a little bit of a cautionary area as well.

and then, you know, we've worked with a couple of people that have,fungi allergies and that complicates things a whole bunch. So, so there's not a whole bunch of contraindications. but I would, I would talk to doctors beforehand. I would make sure you have support, be it therapeutic, be it community.

Before you, you engage in things like this, and then make sure you're talking to educated professionals. Okay. Is there anything else around this that you feel like is important to note, that we haven't talked about? Oh, gosh. well, I, I think I would reemphasize the idea that, psilocybin or psychedelics broadly.

is not some magic silver bullet. I think sometimes headlines out there make it seem like that. I think if anyone is presenting it that way to you, you might be cautious. Psilocybin is a tool. It's a tool that can enhance what you're already doing. So if that framing doesn't make sense, well, and I think in general, I would encourage anyone who's going to engage with this, make sure it makes sense to you, right?

Make sure it makes sense to you. If you'll safe enough for you. there is an element of the psychedelic experience of relinquishing control. Which for the mind body space is, is very, very challenging. so make sure you go into it feeling like you're educated, you're safe, you know, you know what you're doing.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.okay. Where can people, we said this a little bit in the beginning, but where can people find you and, and how do people work with you if they're interested? Oh, amazing. I run a center, a P N W integrative center. So you can check that out, P N W I N G. T E V R A T I V E dot com.

there's a center in there as well. We'll have it linked. We'll have it linked. Okay. Not the best. But, so check it out there. Um,you can reach out, any way possible. We have micro dosing programs. We have, larger dosing programs. So if you'd like to come visit us, additionally, we offer some coaching too.

So, if you're, you know, just interested in exploring this from wherever you are, we, we can offer some, some frameworks and support there as well. Wonderful. Okay. And one last question I like to ask every guest, just kind of a fun little question. what are you enjoying right now in your, in your life and your, we call it a wellness journey.

Just. What you're interested in. It could be literally anything from a new book to a practice to a huge aha in your life. Anything. Oh, good question. I, I don't know if this is a flashy answer, but, balance. I'm, I'm leaning. I think I mentioned, I don't think I know. I mentioned, you know, I had some mind body challenges myself.

learning to feel comfortable in safe. In in balance has been, such a beautiful and interesting and challenging development in the past several years of my life, how to balance family life with work life and and, you know, I have a daughter just starting in middle school, how to balance letting her have space, but also, you know, trying to offer supportive frameworks for her, It's, it's tempting sometimes to just lean into intensity.

and, and I think this idea of balance has been, has been so lovely for me this, these past several years. You're speaking my language. That is beautiful and challenging for me as well. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much, Mike, for coming on. I think this is a really wonderful episode and I know, I know everyone will really appreciate it.

Well, I'm, I'm grateful for you for, for this opportunity. I'm grateful for anyone. I I'm, it's not lost on me. Psychedelics are a little taboo in some spaces, so I'm grateful for open mindedness and people for just exploring, exploring tools that help people feel better. Exactly. Well, Grace. You're welcome.