Psychedelics, Micro-dosing and Menstrual Cycles, with Leslie Draffin

Introduction:
Hosts Amanda Golightly and Kate McDowell talk with Leslie Draffin, a somatic psychedelic guide, sensual embodiment coach, and menstrual cycle educator. Leslie shares insights on emotional imprints stored in the fascia and healing methods like breath, sound, and massage. She introduces her women-specific microdosing protocol, aligned with menstrual cycles, and explores the connection between the womb and mycelium network. Leslie also shares her journey from TV news anchor to guide for midlife women and veterans, emphasizing the balance of masculine and feminine energies. Tune in for practical tips on joy lists, small pleasures, and veteran support, as well as insights on psychedelics, microdosing, and emotional healing.

Next Steps:
Connect with Leslie today to learn more!
Website: https://www.lesliedraffin.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesliedraffin/

Resources:
Free Microdosing 101 Guide: https://lesliedraffin.myflodesk.com/microguide
5-day Cyclical Microdosing Course: https://lesliedraffin.myflodesk.com/cyclicalmicromethod
Book a free 1:1 Call: https://calendly.com/lesliedraffin/book-a-call


Connect with Kate & Amanda at Aligned Natural Health:

Resources:
website - https://www.alignednaturalhealth.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/alignednaturalhealth/


Guest Bio:
Leslie Draffin, a former TV news anchor, now helps midlife women and military veterans heal through somatic guidance, microdosing, and breathwork. Her work, inspired by her own healing journey, focuses on reconnecting with the body, understanding natural cycles, and addressing deep traumas. She is dedicated to guiding others toward holistic healing and self-acceptance.

Timestamped Overview:
00:00 Psychedelics helped me heal and change careers.
05:02 Psychedelics help unveil and heal subconscious issues.
07:29 Psychedelics reshape rigid thought patterns, enhance receptivity.
12:38 Start with microdosing before full dose journey.
14:50 Psychedelics expand awareness and emotional resilience.
17:01 Intention, relationship with medicine, trust, self-healing.
21:22 Helping women understand emotions and hormonal health.
25:17 Understanding and respecting menstrual cycles simplifies life.
29:07 Constant work: Embrace body changes, especially for entrepreneurs.
32:40 Womb healing through self-massage and cycle alignment.
37:14 Microdosing protocol tailored to female hormonal cycles.
38:27 Symptoms improved; exploring mycelium-perimenopause connection.
44:22 Don't be obsessed with being healthy.
45:46 Contact me on Instagram, lesliedrafin, for details.

*** This podcast is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein, we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural regimen, it is advisable to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.  

*** This podcast is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein, we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural regimen, it is advisable to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.

Transcript

Amanda Golightly [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Limitless Health podcast. Today, we had the pleasure of speaking with Leslie Draffen, who is a somatic psychedelic guide, sensual embodiment coach, and menstrual cycle educator focused on helping women embrace their bodies, sex, and psychedelics. She supports conscious women and menstruators who want to heal themselves and connect more deeply with the divine through intentional microdosing, womb reconnection, pleasure activation, and cyclical living. Leslie believes sacred earth medicine has the power to bring us home to ourselves, awaken our authenticity, and heal the trauma locked within our subconscious. We believe in growth and continuous learning.

Kate McDowell [00:00:37]:
We believe in educating and sharing knowledge.

Amanda Golightly [00:00:40]:
We believe the body is miraculous and is able to heal with the proper nutrition and support.

Kate McDowell [00:00:46]:
And we believe the right mindset is key to your success.

Amanda Golightly [00:00:49]:
I'm Amanda Golightly. And I'm Kate McDowell. And this is Limitless Health. Live well, naturally.

Kate McDowell [00:00:56]:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Limitless Health podcast. Today, we have a really interesting guest to share with you, Leslie Draffen. And, Leslie, can you get us started? Can you tell us about your journey from becoming a news anchor to a psychedelic and somatic womb healer. That's quite the transition.

Leslie Draffin [00:01:18]:
Yeah. Very much quite the transition. Thanks so much for having me. So like you mentioned, I am a former TV news anchor, and now I work with women mostly around midlife as well as military veterans, to help them reconnect to their bodies, reconnect to their body's natural cycle, and heal disconnection, trauma, and these wounds that we often have in our subconscious. So I do that as a somatic guide and a microdosing psychedelics guide, as well as a meditation and breath work teacher. And so I really came to this work, like a lot of us, from my own healing journey. I really disconnected and punished myself for probably 20 plus years because I got diagnosed with herpes at age 18. I had a lot of sexual shame around that.

Leslie Draffin [00:02:08]:
I'm a preacher's daughter. And so for me, numbing out helped me avoid those uncomfortable feelings. And so I would drink copious amounts of alcohol. I would starve myself, and I got addicted to this achieving and hustling culture, trying to prove to everybody that I was worthy of love. And so the outside world really rewarded that. I was at the top of my game as a news anchor, making 6 figures. But internally, I felt terrible. I felt so anxious, really depressed, really disconnected.

Leslie Draffin [00:02:41]:
And I really went the western medical model of what I was supposed to do. I went to the doctor, I got prescribed drugs, I went to therapy, and nothing really clicked for me until I started exploring psychedelics. They really seemed to be the thing that helped finally connect the dots between my present day symptoms and actions and wounds that were really, I think, lying within my subconscious. So I worked with them, and I worked with this wonderful coach and guide for a few months in 2022. Ended up leaving my job because it was not aligned anymore. My mental health was struggling pretty significantly. And at that point, I was already working in the menstrual cycle field, as a coach and an educator, And I eventually really turned my attention towards also working with psychedelics and plant medicine to help people, you know, who are really kind of sick of their shit get unstuck. Amazing.

Amanda Golightly [00:03:41]:
The one well, there are a couple of things that stuck out for me. But the one thing that I think many women I assume do you work with women specifically? Or I

Leslie Draffin [00:03:49]:
do work with I work with women specifically, and I'm I'm now pivoting slightly into the veterans, but I've had a lot of female veterans.

Amanda Golightly [00:03:56]:
Okay. So I just when you talked about your own journey with being worthy of love, I'm sure many, if not all women that you work with can relate to that. Is is there more that you could expand on?

Leslie Draffin [00:04:10]:
Yeah. You know, I think, like like you said, a lot of us have that worthiness wound. For me, it really hid behind like, my unworthiness hid behind, I think, my deeper wound, which was that I thought I was unlovable. And for me, psychedelics really helped me look at where that had come from. I couldn't consciously place within my life where that somehow became a belief of mine. And so with psychedelics, both at the micro level where you're not tripping and at the high level where you are tripping, I was able to piece together these wounds I think were put in me as a fetus as a in utero. I was adopted. And I think a lot of folks with adoption stories also have this internal wound of of lovability and worthiness.

Leslie Draffin [00:05:02]:
And so the folks who come to me may come to me because they have I'm just thinking, like, grief, or they have issues connecting with their body, or they've got menstrual cycle problems, or they can't attract a partner, or they don't love their job anymore. And so often, these things we think are the problem Mhmm. Are symptoms of something deep within our subconscious that we just can't consciously see. And so I think that's why microdosing and psychedelics in general can be really helpful. They seem to open the door to the subconscious and shine a light in there. And when we work intentionally with the medicine, we can really make these connections, and then create actionable changes to start to reprogram those beliefs because they live really deeply within us. They might be impacting us in a whole host of ways. And I think psychedelics can be really helpful to heal that.

Kate McDowell [00:06:03]:
Amazing. And some of the stuff well, all of the stuff that you mentioned as well, these are things, especially as women, where it's, like, taboo to talk about it. Like, oh, you don't talk about your period problems. You don't talk about these things. You just kinda suck it up and deal with it because especially with the whole, like, putting women in a place of power, which is great, but at the same time, it's, like, diminishing our feminine side of things, the ability to receive, the ability to not have to be the man in the relationship or at work because it's a sign of weakness to show, that you do need support or that you need love or comfort. Right? So I think that's really interesting. So the psychedelics, how does it work?

Leslie Draffin [00:06:51]:
How does it work? Okay. So I'm not a neuroscientist, so I'll give you the 2nd grade version of how psychedelics work in the brain. So basically, the way that psychedelics work is they impact something called your serotonin receptors. And those are in a lot of parts of your body, gut, brain specifically. And so psychedelics, and I guess I should say psilocybin mushrooms, that's the psychedelic that I'm working with primarily. They really work on those receptors that are inside this part of your brain called the default mode network. That's where your deeply held beliefs are. That's where your sense of self is.

Leslie Draffin [00:07:29]:
And so if you've got some negative thought patterns, if you're anxious, if you've got bad body image, if you have this story that's been looping in your mind forever that you're not worthy, it's in your default mode. So under psychedelics, there is a model called Rebus, relaxed beliefs under psychedelics. And when we're experiencing psychedelic experiences, we tend to soften and thaw out that very rigid default mode, almost tuning it down a little, turning down the dial, and turning up the dial in these other parts of the brain where we can start to naturally question, why am I like this? Why do I think this? Who told me this? Is it still serving me? And so we become really receptive to new information. We get out of that really rigid thinking and those patterns that are deeply ingrained within us from childhood, and we are often able to make really lasting changes. And you can see that even on a micro level, even when we aren't tripping on psychedelics. And so that's sort of the science behind it. But, you know, what I do a lot is work with the art, work with the spiritual side of it. And so for me, what I've noticed is mushrooms have helped me reconnect with this idea that we're all one, that you matter just as much as I matter just as much as that animal matters.

Leslie Draffin [00:08:57]:
And I think that when we think of the mycelium network, which is this, you know, superhighway underneath our earth that really helps earth support life because it helps earth be fertile. It kind of makes sense that mushrooms help us feel connected and help us feel 1 and part of something bigger. So when I'm in my anxiety, when I'm in my depression, when I'm in these internalized things that make me go inward, internalized things that make me go inward, mushrooms can be really helpful to help us see the big picture and give ourselves self compassion and grace, which in turn can help foster self love, can help us turn around those thoughts and feelings of unworthiness.

Amanda Golightly [00:09:38]:
I love how your everything you're describing is all about getting to basically the root cause of what is affecting someone, which is what we work with as well. And you described, I may get this not entirely correctly, but like the microdosing from not tripping to tripping, like what's the range there and how do you make use of that?

Leslie Draffin [00:09:57]:
Sure. So there are many different dose levels that folks can play with when we're exploring psychedelics. At a microdose level, that's usually a 1 tenth to 1 20th of a dose that would make you trip. So, like, we're talking numbers. That's usually 0.1 to 0.5 grams or a 100 to 500 milligrams. That's a microdose. And everybody's dose is individual. It doesn't have anything to do with how big you are.

Leslie Draffin [00:10:25]:
It's usually more about, like, your sensitivity to caffeine or your sensitivity to light and sound. At a higher dose, so at a dose where you would hallucinate, where, like, the walls would be breathing and color has sound. You're looking at things like 2 grams to 4 to 7 grams, and there are things known as hero doses where you are likely to experience what's known as ego death. That's 5 grams or above. And so what I want folks to know about, psychedelic and the dose around mushrooms specifically is that you can really experience profound changes at many different doses. But think of it like you're washing a cup, like you're washing this glass. If you turn that faucet on like a fire hose, it's gonna wash that glass. It's gonna blow shit everywhere.

Leslie Draffin [00:11:17]:
It's gonna be potentially break the glass. That's a hero dose. That's a big dose of psychedelics. If you're turning on the faucet in your kitchen, like, a medium range, sure, it's gonna take longer to clean out the glass. By the way, you're the glass. But it's still gonna happen. It's gonna be a lot more gentle. So that's the microdose.

Leslie Draffin [00:11:37]:
Right? Both incredibly effective at helping get to root causes and and helping you see why you are the way you are. And so for some folks, that gentle dose can be more effective. For other folks, they like to just turn it on full blast and go ham. And a lot of people that I work with do experience and explore both types of dosing because they can both be really powerful. One other thing is, you know, when you're turning that dose on super high and you accidentally break your glass, like, that's where things like the media's portrayal of psychedelics can happen, that idea of losing yourself losing your mind. And so with a microdose, it's primary it's it's safe for a lot of people, but I'm not gonna say that it is completely risk free. But that's kind of the difference in the doses. Okay.

Amanda Golightly [00:12:30]:
Is that individual dependent as far as how they wanna address things or where they wanna start? Or do you just kind of guide them through that? How does that

Leslie Draffin [00:12:38]:
Most people come to me having had some type of a tripping experience already at least some point in their life, maybe explored as a teenager. And and it's because that's what most folks do. Most folks go for that experience where things are intoxicating. Right? But I have found it both in my personal journey and for the folks that I work with to be really helpful to start at a micro level, to start slowly cleaning out the glass. When we identify something that we're like, a That's a book in your subconscious library that, like, we wanna go dive deeper into, that can be richly helpful to turn up the hose a little bit, go with a full dose journey, and then come back and integrate, where we make, you know, the message out of that mess with more microdosing. So it's kind of a collaborative effort, cumulative and collaborative. That makes sense.

Kate McDowell [00:13:32]:
That's neat. Can you discuss briefly, like, how microdosing is a tool for emotional regulation or trauma release?

Leslie Draffin [00:13:40]:
Yes. So for me, the way that I see this is when we become aware of our emotions, that can be really helpful for, 1, that regulation. But, also, I find that awareness is key in whatever we're doing. Right? While I don't think we have to know what it is that created our trauma or what it is that is creating our our issues specifically, it can be really helpful to start to explore those areas, right, and start to explore it via microdosing, which, like I said, has this beautiful way of opening us to seeing what's really in there. And it's tricky to explain to folks because it's almost this like esoteric experience. It's ineffable. It's very hard to explain how and it's hard to explain how exactly it happens. And then you're working with someone and they'll have an 3 weeks in about their anger or about their grief or about this unprocessed betrayal or about why they can't put themselves out there.

Leslie Draffin [00:14:50]:
And so for me, I really think that because microdosing and macrodosing psychedelics helps to expand our awareness, helps to expand our consciousness by softening and thawing out that rigid part of our brain where we really get locked into these beliefs. Mhmm. It can help us sort of loosen those top level brain systems enough so that we do become more open to seeing parts of ourselves that we might not like to see. Because looking at your emotions doesn't feel good sometimes, like, not at all. The other thing that I have really found and why I practice somatics along with psychedelics is that when we set the body up to experience sensations in ways that feel not necessarily good all the time, but, when we set ourselves up for a little bit more resiliency with practices like breath work or meditation or grounding and pair them with microdosing, which is opening that subconscious, it feels safer in our body to go to these things. And so I think that's where I've seen a lot of benefits. I've seen folks be able to go into things like sexual assault, where beforehand, even in cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, it was really too much to go into. When you are working with those sensations in the body and you're allowing yourself to trust the medicine of psychedelics, you can feel really held to go into things that beforehand you might just didn't feel safe enough to do.

Leslie Draffin [00:16:27]:
Interesting.

Amanda Golightly [00:16:27]:
So part of that is kind of creating a safe space for ourselves to take that journey,

Leslie Draffin [00:16:33]:
I guess? Yeah. And I think for me, a big part of it is trust. Right? Mhmm. Trusting that, you know, the medicine is going to support you. And, obviously, you have to do things to earn the trust and to build the trust. Right? Like, doing your research or working with a guide. Going to therapy first, excellent choice. And and yet creating for me, safety means knowing a lot about what might happen and and really doing the research.

Leslie Draffin [00:17:01]:
So I think that's part of it. The other part, though, like I said before, you've got the scientific side, and then you've got the spiritual, the art of it, the, like, the thing you just can't put your finger on. That for me is where the trust in the medicine really helps and really can hold you itself. So I hold space for folks, and I think the medicine holds space for them too. But again, that's why I place a lot of importance on intention, and really looking at where this medicine comes from, how it's been used by indigenous peoples across the planet for millennia, and and really looking at it not as this thing that's gonna get you somewhere, this magic fix, this pill that's gonna, like, solve all your problems Mhmm. But something you can build a relationship with and ally with on your healing journey that's really gonna be a catalyst to help you do your work. Because I can't do the work. The medicine's not gonna do the work for you.

Leslie Draffin [00:18:02]:
You're the one who ultimately has to do the work.

Kate McDowell [00:18:05]:
Yeah. Totally. Taking personal responsibility is such an important part of any healing journey, any journey of transforming transforming yourself in any way. Right? It's like no one can do it for you. Yeah. That's awesome.

Amanda Golightly [00:18:19]:
Mhmm. Do you have another one?

Leslie Draffin [00:18:23]:
No.

Kate McDowell [00:18:23]:
You go ahead. Sorry. I jumped in. How do you guide clients through their own microdosing journeys? And do you have any results you can share?

Leslie Draffin [00:18:32]:
Doctor. Yeah. So when I work with clients, I like to see them weekly. I usually work with them for 8 weeks at a time. And that is a really nice chunk of space to let the medicine do its work. Some key things to know, and this is across anyone who's gonna microdose, is that we don't microdose every single day. We set up what's called a protocol. And so you might choose to ingest the medicine 3 times a week, 2 times a week, up to 5 times a week, but not daily.

Leslie Draffin [00:19:02]:
And then you also are going to be sitting with that medicine for 2 months, you know, my 8 week program, maybe even up to 3 months, but then you need to take a break. And that's just simply because while this isn't addictive, we as humans tend to have psychological dependence on things that make us feel good. And, while microdosing doesn't always make you feel good because it can bring up some things that feel kinda shitty, it is something that we have a tendency to become psychologically dependent on because when we see these massive changes. So that's why we don't do it daily, and we don't do it forever. It comes into your life for a cycle. And so that's the first thing I help clients with is I help them set up what their protocol is gonna look like. We look at what their life is like, what are their current needs, what are their current responsibilities. I've worked with, you know, ER nurses.

Leslie Draffin [00:19:52]:
I've worked with busy moms. I've worked with teachers. They need a different protocol than someone who's an entrepreneur. So first, we set up what's it gonna look like for you? The second thing is, what's your intention? Why are you inviting the medicine into your life? And I help guide folks to, an intention that's based on body feedback. So we'll go into meditation oftentimes after doing some journaling on their own. And we'll sort of ask ourselves, like, okay. And does this feel good? And what's underneath that? And that's where I've really noticed folks coming to me with, like, I wanna be more connected to my body. Had a client recently.

Leslie Draffin [00:20:31]:
This was their their intention when we first came in. That's what she'd written in her intake form. After we did the somatic into, the somatic intention meditation, it shifted into show me I'm not alone.

Amanda Golightly [00:20:44]:
Wow. Big shift. Mhmm.

Leslie Draffin [00:20:46]:
Big shift. And so and I just got chills because it's like, you think it's this. And after we ask, and we ask, and we ask your sensations, and we ask your body that and and we were both crying at that point. Right? Like, that broken open part really becomes able to be heard. Other things that I work with folks around, and it's so hand in hand, are inner child wounds. That's often, like, the 2nd or third session after we, you know, get that intention. Mhmm. Let's look at the parts of ourselves that might be blocking it.

Leslie Draffin [00:21:22]:
Let's look at the parts of ourselves that might be begging to be heard. And then, because I do work primarily with people who are in female bodies, we're looking at the womb. We're looking at their cycle. We're looking at their hormones and and helping them figure out, you know, is this mood swing really just your inability to voice the way that you really feel, or is it something deeper? Success stories, you know, the one that I love to share seems so small, but it was, I was working with a woman who is a nurse in, like, a psyche psychiatric facility. And the sweet spot seems to be week 6 for my clients. She was like, you know, my husband had left all of these dishes in the sink, and I went to wash the cast iron. And I just noticed, like, how good the suds felt and how happy I was and how I wasn't pissed off at him for leaving these behind. And 2, 3 weeks ago, I would have flipped my shit on him.

Leslie Draffin [00:22:23]:
And so we kept calling it her pan moment. This ability to notice where in the past, it may have triggered something like an argument, triggered a mood swing, triggered just like a feeling of being taken advantage of. And instead, we're shifting it and looking at it in this way that felt nourishing to her, felt exciting to her. She had she liked cleaning the pan. And so sometimes where because of the nature of psychedelics, sometimes within the 8 weeks, we get these little hints, and we don't see huge ahas. And then 6 months later, they'll call me, and they'll be like, you are not gonna believe this. This is what has shifted. I left my job.

Leslie Draffin [00:23:04]:
I understood that I needed to leave this relationship, because it wasn't serving me. So what's important to look at or to remember about it is, you know, this is a cumulative layer by layer. We're layering on the healing. And so sometimes, if you're exploring this on your own, you may not even notice the pan. Right? You might not notice that little pan moment. I'm trying to think of any other big the you know, there was another person I worked with last year, and her, like, testimonial is so beautiful. She was basically saying that she'd done all this work for so many years with all of these therapists and was constantly looking for answers outside of herself. She left her corporate job.

Leslie Draffin [00:23:44]:
She worked in DC, and she was like, what do I do next? What do I do next? Working together helped her understand that she actually had all the answers within herself. She had just forgotten how to listen. And so reconnecting to the intuition and reconnecting to that power within her sovereignty, like, Kate had mentioned earlier, like, really was for her that beautiful transition that microdosing gave her.

Kate McDowell [00:24:08]:
So interesting. There's so much that's coming up in my mind. Go ahead, Amanda.

Amanda Golightly [00:24:14]:
You've already kind of touched on the menstrual cycle and connecting women, connecting back into that. Why would you say it's really important for us to

Leslie Draffin [00:24:24]:
really connect back to to our cycles? Oh, Goddess. Like, our cycle is our superpower. It is it it has the potential to completely rule your life in the shittiest of ways. Mhmm. And that's what the society wants to focus on. And yet, if you let it rule your life by aligning with it, you will have better relationships. You can do your work better. You're a better parent.

Leslie Draffin [00:24:49]:
You are healthier. You're happier. And so for me, I started working with my cycle in 2020. Like I've mentioned, I am a preacher's daughter. I'm adopted. My mom was not having a menstrual cycle as I grew up, and so I never really learned about the cycle. I'm also from the deep south of the United States where we've got trash reproductive education. And so at 33 years old, I came off of the pill after 16 years and didn't know anything about my cycle.

Leslie Draffin [00:25:17]:
So I had to do a ton of work to figure out even what it was. And as the, like, generator in human design that I am and the one three, I love to I love to research, and I love to learn. So I dove head first into how do I perfectly align with my cycle. And all that got me was more problems because I was trying to do the right thing. Right? I was trying to force it. I was taking all the supplements, seed cycling, cycling out my work, my food, my workouts, like, masculining the menstrual cycle, and you just can't do that. So what I had to learn was that you gotta do a lot less. So I think that why aligning with the cycle is so wonderful and essential is that when you understand this central part of yourself, everything in your life gets better, gets easier.

Leslie Draffin [00:26:10]:
And not only, like, will you see those benefits in really tangible ways, But for me, it finally helped me understand what it meant to be in a female body because I lived 95% in my masculine energy. I was hustling and achieving constantly. My relationship with my husband was completely lopsided. I did not understand how to become open to receiving. I saw that as weakness. I saw the things that women were told to do in my religious faith and the way that my mom was as, like, signs of meek submissiveness, and I'll be damned. That's not gonna be me. But here's the thing.

Leslie Draffin [00:26:48]:
When you truly understand what it is to be in the feminine, it's not weak. It's not submissive. It's not like, those words that we give it are, first of all, born in patriarchy, but, that's a whole separate podcast. But but, like, when you truly understand the essence of what it means to be in the feminine and you align with your cycle, you become magnetic. You become so self resourced. You're you're lit from within when you see that womb space as your creative center, because we know it births life, but it can birth all types of other creative projects. You seem to just live like nothing can mess with you. Like, you've just got this person, this backing of this, like, solid foundation of the feminine that can really change and shift your life.

Leslie Draffin [00:27:40]:
So what's interesting is I actually started working with psychedelics to become open to receiving pleasure because of my sexual shame, because of the herpes diagnosis. And mushrooms will give you what you need, not necessarily what you want. And so they heard me say, I I need to become open to receiving. So the whole 1st year I worked with this, they were like, alright. We're gonna teach you how to stop white knuckling life, how to stop grasping and pushing and striving, which is so wounded masculine, and how to just let go. Because if you open your hand, that here come the blessings. You can't feel the blessings when you're punching everything. Right? Yeah.

Leslie Draffin [00:28:19]:
So that was what the that lesson of the mushrooms showed me. And I think it really just reinforced how essential for me cyclical living and cyclical awareness is for anyone who has a menstrual cycle, whether you're going to microdose or not.

Kate McDowell [00:28:37]:
So interesting. I'm a generator too. A 3.5, I think, say a generator. And it's true, though, as and you mentioned burnout. There's so many things you've talked about in here, and it's like I can see how it's all connected. And we are conditioned to believe that it's weak as a female to take time for your cycle, to take time for yourself, and how it's just like you just need to push through and go go go go go go all the time. I was a Crossfitter for a long time, and it was like, no. No.

Kate McDowell [00:29:07]:
No. I don't take days off. I go every day and just pushing, pushing, pushing, and things start to happen and you just kind of blame yourself because we're in such a a get shit done society where it's like do, do, do, do, do, do, do, which, yes, is such a masculine versus just being. And the receiving that comes with that is huge. And especially entrepreneurs, especially for women who are we work with a lot of kind of perimenopause women who are like, why is all this shit happening in my body? And it's like, because you're in a different body than you were in when you were in your twenties and starting to open your mind and accepting that. And there's so much beautiful things that come from that versus just hating your period, hating menopause, hating the world for making these things happen to you versus realizing that it's actually a superpower in a sense. Right?

Leslie Draffin [00:30:01]:
For sure. And and what I'll say too, which I found really interesting, is when you start to track your cycle Mhmm. And, again, I was doing this religiously, every little thing for, like, a whole year. What I started to notice is that I actually am very consistent, very consistent, but it's just over a month versus day to day. And so I have a podcast, and when I don't do things around my cycle for the podcast, I'll get behind on things. I I'll, like, find that Sunday night when my podcast is supposed to drop on Monday, I'm scrambling to get those things done. And yet and this is an advice that I've recently remembered and retaken. When I use the last little bit of my luteal phase, which is when we're very focused on fine tune details, when we're really good at, like, the minutia of things.

Leslie Draffin [00:30:55]:
When I use that to edit everything, I'm, like, a month like, I'll get it done a month in advance. When I use the follicular surge to do interviews, which BTW, that's what's happening today. When I use the follicular surge of energy to put myself out there, it's no it's so natural. I don't get drained. And so when you can know yourself, you will find your consistencies. The other thing I wanna say though is about perimenopause. When I started doing research about where perimenopausal symptoms and where problems with menopause really arise worldwide, there are countries where they don't have these issues. And why is that? Because in those countries, they're much more balanced with their masculine, their feminine energy.

Amanda Golightly [00:31:41]:
Yep.

Leslie Draffin [00:31:42]:
So like, there are there are totally places in the world where women don't experience the issues that we have here in America and these Western worlds. And for me, that was such a shocker because it's like, this isn't a written in stone thing that you have to experience these issues that we so often associate with the cycle. You get to choose what you're going to allow. And when we work with the cycle early, you know, because I work with folks even as young as teenagers, like, we can really put these wonderful beliefs into place that can keep us hopefully from experiencing some of the, you know, maybe not all of it because our food system is pretty trash here, but, like, some of the big issues that folks are experiencing.

Amanda Golightly [00:32:24]:
Yeah.

Kate McDowell [00:32:25]:
I was gonna say it's also a lot more toxic here. But Yeah. Yes. Carry on.

Amanda Golightly [00:32:30]:
Covered. Yeah. You've mentioned also that you deal with womb healing. Like, what does that involve, and why is that important for women and their empowerment?

Leslie Draffin [00:32:40]:
So there's a lot of ways that folks do womb healing. And the way that I do it is I really help people reconnect to the womb through self massage, which starts with just loving on your belly. As someone with 20 years of eating disorders in my past and body image issues from the time I was probably 12, touching the belly, triggering AF. So allowing that to be one of the first places we go to start letting your belly be soft, to breathe into the belly, what's helpful. That's where some of the breath work that I teach can be helpful. Then really starting to live in alignment with your cycle, understanding the power of the womb. And I'll do these meditations where I'll take people, both who are microdosing and maybe who aren't, into their own womb to help them see what's in there. Now sometimes and usually, I don't, like, plan these.

Leslie Draffin [00:33:37]:
It'll just kind of go with whatever. But common common themes that arise within the womb are feelings of stuckness, feelings of loss, feelings of body image, and sexual issues. Right? So that's, like, a big one. And so we will, you know, allow the womb to speak and journal afterwards about what's come up. There is another thing that, I found really helpful, and I don't teach to anybody. But, there are places that you can learn this if you like. I really recommend Yoni Pleasure Palace, which is an Australian company that creates crystal and glass sex wands, because silicone can be kinda crappy for your, pH balance down there. So she the woman who started it has a membership called go the Golden Yoni membership.

Leslie Draffin [00:34:34]:
I started doing this after I quit birth control because my libido went away completely. This was also 2020 when stress was at an all time high. And so there's something that you can do called internal vaginal massage or cervical de armoring. And for me, I was doing this practice where I was using this glass wand to massage in a trigger point massage type fashion my vaginal canal. Thinking of it like a clock, 12, 3, 6, 9, and I would do these massage sessions where, you know, the lights were dimmed. I had candles. And so with pressing onto that fascia, breathing into that space, I was releasing parts of trauma that were in there. Now the thing that was so wild to me is I get to this one space in my vaginal canal, and I feel this pinch, like, almost like pins and needles.

Leslie Draffin [00:35:28]:
And I immediately hear the voice of this dude I dated after I got divorced call me you fat b. Like, I had not thought of that man in years. But his that that word was stuck there. That part was stuck there in that fascia. And so I share that, you know, not as, like I said, someone who teaches that to people or does hands on wound work, although I have lots of friends who do that. If you need someone, you can always reach out, and I'll help you find them. But to show that the imprints of the energies of our lovers, the imprints of bullies, the imprints of our bullying self talk can live in this really, like, spongy space within our body. And we have the beautiful ability to also access that region.

Leslie Draffin [00:36:13]:
You know, we can't go in and touch all over our stomach or touch all over our liver, but we have this beautiful ability to, through breath, through sound, through massage, go in and start to work in that area to clear things out. And as those things get cleared out, we, save up space to create new beliefs and create new practices that can be really nourishing.

Kate McDowell [00:36:36]:
Interesting. I love how you've touched on beliefs a lot today and also a lot of the kind of stories that we tell ourselves in our minds that loop over and over again. And I think it's interesting too, how you mentioned that the mushrooms, the microdosing has been really helpful for kind of, like, breaking that down for people so they can look beyond it versus just staying stuck in that loop. I think that's really cool. Is there anything else that you would like to share that you think our listeners should know about microdosing or the, kind of, feminine cycle?

Leslie Draffin [00:37:14]:
Well, I created a microdosing protocol based on the cycle. So, you know, the protocols out there are all created by men who don't have female hormones. And so when I first started doing, my training, I had written well, actually, I should say, when I started working with mushrooms myself, I had written this part in my journal that was like mushrooms in the menstrual cycle question mark. And then, like, a year later, I come back to it while I'm microdosing, and I kind of have this that if our cycle impacts every area of our life, which we know it does, then it would clearly impact our microdosing protocol. So why are we not thinking about female hormones when we're thinking about microdosing? So I have this free 5 day course if you wanna learn more. It's way easier for me to just tell you to go take the course than explain everything to you here. It'll get delivered straight to your email, 5 videos, 10 minutes or less, but it'll explain to you, 1, how to microdose, and 2, how to cycle sync so that you can really start to intuitively live in tune with your cycle and microdose in tune with your cycle if you so choose. I've used this with about 2 dozen people.

Leslie Draffin [00:38:27]:
We're seeing cramps lessen significantly, like, from an 8 to a 5. We're seeing mood swings go down drastically, and overall mood just be elevated. Right? And I think for me, while I don't have any, like, scientific data, however, there is a company in the UK doing work around this right now, perimenopause and microdosing. So I'm excited to see what they come up with. The anecdotal evidence for me is so powerful that it does prove that there is this symbiotic relationship I feel between the womb and the mycelium network. Like, when we think of the womb of the earth and the womb of our bodies, they're kind of, like, hand in hand. We go into this darkness, like, we're born out of darkness. Mushrooms grow from darkness.

Leslie Draffin [00:39:14]:
We're able to really transmute all of these things. And so together, they're just so potent and powerful. And I think that might be one of the reasons why that cyclical microdosing method's working so well.

Amanda Golightly [00:39:28]:
Okay. I have 2 other questions. There was, do you work just virtually or you're more in person with people?

Leslie Draffin [00:39:35]:
So I work virtually with psychedelics, and I work in person with folks who obviously live in Central Texas, and want either breath work or meditation. Eventually, I'm sure I will hold a retreat. Haven't gotten around to that quite yet, but yes, most of my work is virtually. And I work with folks, all over the world, but primarily Canada and the US.

Amanda Golightly [00:39:57]:
Okay. And I've also been curious, because you mentioned that you work with veterans. Is there a certain special place in your heart for them? Or where is the connection there?

Leslie Draffin [00:40:06]:
So my husband's a veteran. My 2 brother in laws are veterans. I was a military reporter for years, and I have a separate job as a media consultant for a company that works with the military. So, you know and and my grandfathers were veterans. For me, what's interesting is that's definitely the generator respond vibe. Like, I just keep getting asked to work with them. And we are seeing so many 1,000,000 of dollars we put into research, even here in Texas where I live, around psychedelics and veterans. So I know this is an emerging field, and I know because I love veterans.

Leslie Draffin [00:40:44]:
I love a veteran. These people desperately need the feminine. They desperately need to understand how to balance their own. Because no matter if you're born in a female body or a male body, you've got both of those energies. And if it's imbalanced and you can't be open to receiving no matter what gender you are, you're not gonna live a life that's full. You really aren't. Right? We have such an imbalance of wounded masculine in this society, and and so veterans, I think, are some of those who feel that so intensely, even though I highly doubt they know that that's probably one of their issues. But just other things I'm seeing with veteran population that is also a big trigger for my midlife women.

Leslie Draffin [00:41:26]:
Anxiety, depression, PTSD, loss of community, not knowing what they're doing with their life. Lots of synchronicities between both of those communities, and so I'm really excited to be hosting some in person veteran breath work first. Nice. And then, and I live right on the doorsteps of the biggest army base in the country. So I know they're here. But that's kind of why.

Amanda Golightly [00:41:50]:
Perfect. That's Amazing. That's awesome to hear. And it's just people so desperately need the support and then guide through their journey. Because it's to, we all have something special to give. And I think when people find the right connection to be able to get there, it's so amazing.

Kate McDowell [00:42:05]:
What's one piece of advice you'd like to give to a either the veterans and also to the women who are feeling disconnected with their bodies?

Leslie Draffin [00:42:15]:
Oh, let me think. I would just say do less. Do less even when it comes to healing. I think that sometimes when we feel like crap, we wanna do so much to feel better fast. And and I get that. Right? That's that's been me. And just be aware that while I understand you really want to feel better, there can be worse things that happen to you because you're trying to rush or do too much. And there's so much beauty in rest.

Leslie Draffin [00:42:54]:
There's so much beauty in the pause. I had to learn that. If you'd told me this piece of advice 5 years ago, I would have been, like, absolutely not. But there's just so much beauty in the pause. And so if you're resistant to rest, if you're resistant to doing less, then I invite you to make a list of everything that you love to do, everything that brings you even the light lightest little morsel of joy. Make this list, and then once a day, pick something from the list to do. And this can be teeny teeny. Like, I used to always shower, and so I stopped showering.

Leslie Draffin [00:43:26]:
I just always took baths. It was took more time. I still got clean. It was more fun. But that was the thing that for me was like, okay. That's one little tangible thing I can do to slow down and to bring me more joy. Maybe it's drinking your coffee outside versus, like, rushing and having it in your car. Maybe it's changing up what you're eating.

Leslie Draffin [00:43:48]:
Maybe you want maybe you don't like. I used to be so into macro counting. Like, maybe you don't like brown rice. K? Like, maybe try quinoa. Maybe try something that is a little tastier, and and just let yourself find even the smallest little piece of joy in order to help you bring in that rest. Because I think that we have this idea around rest as laziness, but if we can turn it into a way that makes it feel like pleasure, makes it feel fun and playful, I know that helped me really gravitate toward rest much more often.

Kate McDowell [00:44:22]:
It's awesome. I heard a quote a while ago that I thought was really powerful because I was someone I had MS, and so I went through a health journey of I will do everything that I need to do. But the quote I heard that really stuck with me was there's nothing healthy about being obsessed with being healthy. And it's very true. Right? It's what we can be so fixated on. I need to do all of the things, but sometimes just being is a really, really powerful, really big part of it. I love the list you gave too, of just little things that people can do. I think that's awesome.

Amanda Golightly [00:44:57]:
Yeah. Just simple things. Just what's one thing you can pick out of that list and change your life, basically.

Leslie Draffin [00:45:03]:
Yeah. And put everything on the list. Like, I should I should go back and find my list and post it on Instagram because it was everything from, like, getting a certain type of coffee that I knew I liked versus this one that was cheaper. It was like watching my comfort show versus, like, feeling like I needed to watch something new. That's also born out of anxiety, but that's a whole other topic. But, like, every little tiny thing, I I have some emotional support hummingbirds that live outside my house. They are my tiny thing that I love to watch and and check them, and then I name them. And so it can be the tiniest of things, but just make a list and and let it grow.

Amanda Golightly [00:45:40]:
I love that. Where is the best place that people can get ahold of you and get in contact with you?

Leslie Draffin [00:45:46]:
Yeah. The best place to get ahold of me right now is on Instagram at lesliedrafin. I also have a podcast, The Light Within. If you're listening and you're interested in finding out more about microdosing, I have a free guide I would love to send you. It's called activate your inner magic. This is gonna answer all of your questions, including the ones that you're too afraid to ask. Includes journal prompts to help you uncover the intentions behind why you want this medicine in your life. There's a guided meditation, and there's also a link for you to book a free one on one discovery call with me if your questions aren't fully answered or if you feel like working together would be something that felt really nourishing to you.

Amanda Golightly [00:46:26]:
Fantastic. Well, I know I speak for Kate and it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today and just all the little, bits of advice that you've passed on for anyone listening. Because it's sometimes it's just the smallest thing that can make the biggest shift. And just, yeah, it's been, as I said, I can't say it enough. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And, well, I hope everyone enjoyed the episode. And if you've got any feedback, please put it in the comments and reach out to us. And I guess we'll catch you on the next episode.

Amanda Golightly [00:46:55]:
Thanks everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Limitless Health podcast. Your support means the world to us. If you've enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful on your health journey, we'd love to hear from you. Leaving a review not only helps us improve but also guides others seeking similar insights. Together, let's spread the knowledge and empower more individuals toward healthier lives. Don't forget to subscribe for future updates. Live well naturally, and until next time.