Your Body Is the Medicine: Plant Medicine and Integration

In this episode of No One Is Perfect: Unfiltered Conversations on Life’s Messiness, we explore the deeper conversation around plant medicine, healing, embodiment, and personal sovereignty with our guest Erin Kinney.

Plant medicine is often spoken about as something that “heals us,” but what if the medicine is not here to fix us, but to reveal what is already present within us?

We talk about the importance of integration and how true healing is not just about having a powerful experience but about learning to embody what the experience showed us. Integration is the process of bringing insight back into the body, the nervous system, relationships, and daily life.

This conversation also explores the importance of creating a respectful relationship with plant medicine, seeing it not as a substance, but as a living intelligence, a guide, and a sacred ally. The medicine is not the guru. It is not something that does the work for us. It opens perception, amplifies what is already within us, and invites us into deeper responsibility.

We also discuss why starting with intense psychotropic medicines is not always necessary, and why, without embodiment, preparation, support, and integration, people can sometimes become overwhelmed or even re-traumatized.

At the heart of this episode is a powerful reminder:

Your body is the medicine.

Healing is not about leaving the body. It is about learning how to listen, perceive, hold, and direct your own energy with greater awareness. Sovereignty begins when we stop giving our power away and begin returning to the wisdom already living within us.

●      The reminder that your body is already a sacred doorway

Key Takeaway

Plant medicine does not take your power away, and it should never replace your relationship with your own body, intuition, and inner wisdom. The deepest healing happens when we integrate the experience, stay connected to the body, and remember that the medicine is not outside of us alone.

https://erin-kinney.com/

Transcript

0:00

Funny. Hello everyone. Welcome back to No One is Perfect. Today we actually have a second part, continuing our education with Erin. Today, our our conversation with Marty and Erin is about integration with plant medicine. And we are going to answer some questions that some people, some of you might have specifically around what is plant medicine, why does it matter? Why are people doing it? What should you be aware of? Because it's a really popular thing right now. I live in Salt Lake City. It's very prevalent and it helps a lot of people. And it can also create sometimes more confusion and harm if done in containers that are not held by someone who is very trained and able to hold that. And what I've seen, which is why I want to do here, Erin, what I've seen within the communities are as people leave, they're looking for another community, which we do, we naturally will want to belong somewhere else and sometimes heal whatever trauma that was from the one we left. And what I'm seeing are people going to these groups of plant medicine and seeing a little bit of fragmentation within that. Some are really good, some aren't. So I'm excited to have this conversation, to have questions answered and clarity. And you're a ceremonialist, you've been doing this for a long time. So we welcome you. We'll say hello, hello to Marty before we move to you, Erin. Welcome, Marty. Yeah. Hello. Welcome, Erin. Happy to have you again. It's good to be here. So, Aaron, I would I would like you to remind us. I know that you were on our last podcast, just a little bit about your history. How long have you been uh doing ceremony and kind of what is that? Because some people don't know what that means. Could you give us a breakdown of that? Yeah, definitely. Well, I've kind of been in the realm of medicine and ceremony since I was 18 years old. I mean, that was kind of my first um this exploration in the realm of ceremony itself, uh, not necessarily involving plant medicine in the beginning, but sitting in ceremonial spaces. And then about almost 14 years ago, I met the teacher that I still currently work with. And uh cacao was the first medicine that I started working with. And um, you know, it was a very difficult time in my life, and someone had recommended her just to work with, and I was working with her kind of one-on-one, and then she mentioned, you know, the medicine of cacao and ceremony, and I thought, well, I don't even know what that is. Like, what she's like, well, why don't you come and uh find out? I'm like, great, and I did, and you know, I I think in the realm of ceremony, the thing that I found when I walked into that room was you know, everyone sitting in a circle, and it was very warm and very inviting. And um, you know, there was an altar, people brought pieces that meant something to them and placed them on the altar. And, you know, I just loved how I felt in this space. I felt very at home. There was something about sitting in a circle that felt um uh depolarizing. It felt like we were all on equal ground no matter where we were coming from. And um, you know, I just felt a sense of peace in that space. And that was one of the first things I was I was drawn to. Um, but I think if I were just to describe what ceremony is and my experience over the years, is really a break in space and time. It's an opportunity to take a pause in our day-to-day life. So it's a break in the pattern, day-to-day routines. Um, you know, in a in a time of coming together in a space. And when we break up that day-to-day patterning and come together in that way and sit in a circle, there's so much possibility. It opens up possibility to um turn inward, to listen, to slow down together in community, uh, not just individually, but in community. And um, and I think as far as like sitting with medicine, I started sitting with it about 14 years ago and then felt with my teacher very called over time doing I started doing trainings and just felt called to train and holding space. It wasn't something that I felt like, oh, I want to do this. I I don't know that I ever really wanted to be a ceremonialist. I just felt very drawn to it. And I kept coming to ceremony because I loved the way I felt and I loved the way I loved the way it felt to sit in in community with others because I just didn't have a relationship to that, you know, when I was growing up. We were very much single unit family. I spent part of my childhood growing up in the country, which definitely had its um a lot of pros to that, but um yeah, I just didn't have a sense of of community. Um, you know, I didn't grow up in any kind of religion. So I just kept showing up and learning how to hold space and understanding more about relationship with plants and what that means and um understanding what medicine actually is. And so, and then I've been practicing and facilitating uh probably for the last like six years of actually facilitating and co-facilitating medicine spaces. Right. Yeah. And what have you noticed in in those years as you like from the beginning to today, what are you noticing like any trends or patterns that you're seeing that people are searching for? Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, and I don't think it's just medicine spaces. I've seen this in so many different containers and spaces that people are really looking for community, they're really looking for a sense of belonging. Um they're looking for answers, they're looking for healing. Um they're looking for something to support them in resolving whatever um conflict they're having or physical pain that they're having. Um so they're looking for some kind of support, and that's that's what I see in terms of patterning. They're just they're looking for something that's beyond maybe what they've been experiencing in their day-to-day life. Do you have any questions, Marty, that you want to ask? I interrupted you. Go ahead. Oh no, I honestly it's like poof, it's gone. That's okay. That's okay. So with that, with people doing plant medicine and what I've seen, because I can only speak on what I've seen, is there's there's tends to be a lack of integration work. And I would say pre and post from what I've noticed, uh, that people people have an expectation of what it can do and what's like that it's gonna it will be healed. Yeah. It's it is a it. It will go away. Yeah. And I think it it begins to open more possibility and more insight from the plant. And yet what I'm seeing is there's a lack of integration of education around personal responsibility of the work that needs to be done outside of the ceremony and then also before. So you're aware of what might you need to bring to the intention of the space. Yeah. So can you a little bit about that? Oh, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a difference between looking for support, needing support, and then looking to be saved. Uh yes. Let's speak more about that. Yeah. I mean, huge difference, right? Because and then I've had my own journey with it. I mean, it's yeah, there's a yeah, so huge difference between needing support, noticing, okay, I have a conflict or there's something going on, or we recognize something of like an issue or a problem, and then we're looking for support with that. And I think what I've seen more of is people coming to uh a plant medicine or a medicine space looking for support, but looking for the plant medicine or the ceremonialist or the teacher or the facilitator to fix whatever the problem or issue, or it, as you said, whatever that is. And so they're putting all of the power into trying to put all the power into the plant medicine or the ceremonialist or the teacher or facilitator, whatever you want to call it, instead of recognizing that um it's actually up to them. And the thing that I speak to quite a bit, and it's been part of my training in the realm of energy over the years and in the ceremonial space, and I think that a lot of people don't necessarily understand is that plant medicine is never actually doing anything to you, it's merely assisting you and opening up your perception of energy. So it's opening up your perception of what's already present and alive, and so I think having that understanding that the medicine is never doing anything to you, it's not going in and healing the thing necessarily, it's opening up the perception of what's present and it becomes a relationship with the medicine. And so it takes relationship and uh participation in the healing. So if I go to the medicine and say I have, you know, this problem, I keep I keep having this conflict come up. The medicine shows me something, I feel like I have some kind of euphoric experience, and then I go back to my day-to-day, and then I'm still dealing with the same issue. Well, it looks like it didn't change. And so I might think, well, I need to go back to the medicine again. It didn't heal, but I'm not actually showing up in my day-to-day life, going, what is the issue? Okay, what are the tools in order to navigate this pattern that I'm dealing with so that I can bring more awareness to it? What I'm seeing more of is that people just continue to go back to the medicine, go back to the medicine, go back to the medicine, which by the way, it's I don't want to say it's people's fault, it's part of culture because we've been taught to extract and take. And that's just part of the westernized culture. And so we we come to the medicine and go gimme instead of like, hi, medicine, how are you? I have this thing. Can we have a conversation about this um fear that I have or this pain that I have? And then how you know we can show up in a way that actually facilitates real healing. No, I like that. I I mean, I think I liken it to I always have to bring in my experience with tapping because I have no experience with plant medicine, like less than zero. So this is a great conversation for me, but I just see the golden thread. It's like if people don't understand when they tap, that strong emotions can really come up, and that's actually a really good thing. Because it means you're targeting some trauma that's been stored in the body and you're starting to release it. The keys you got to keep tapping on it. Um, if they don't know that, then they can be like, whoa, that was messed up. Like it caused me more problems, instead of like, no, it it opened, it opened the neural pathways, it opened the space for this to come up and the keys to keep tapping, you know, till you you feel soothed. So I really appreciate what you're saying, Aaron, because I mean, I, you know, it it's it's so easy to make the person doing it, the guru, the thing, and and that's its own trauma is oh, I'm gonna go do this now, and this is gonna save me instead of like, you know, I'm gonna try this and see how it works for me. And uh it's it's and you know, without guardrails and anything, it ends up a free for all. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, it's a I mean, what you said is so important, especially first just to address the piece about the feeling part, is so important because I think that really what's happening is, and this has just been based on my experience in the realm of embodiment and somatic work, and then also with you know, Christy with psychosomatic work, is that most of the time, I'd say 98% of it is are feelings that aren't being expressed, you know, the pain that we feel and the patterns are literally the repression of expressing ourselves in the world. And so most of us were taught not to express, and and it's not okay to express anger or grief or um, but then the other part of that is that I think people who are not used to expressing or expressing feelings, which could be pretty much all of us in some form or fashion, the thing that I see that's most common is that people fear actually feeling because they're afraid that if they start feeling it's never going to end. Yeah, for sure. And that's simply not true. And so what I see people going into plant medicine, they still hold back on expressing their feelings or actually feeling the feeling or the energy that's moving through them. And so they tend to go back into their mind and into a pattern that they're more familiar with as a form of protection. And so they don't actually go into the body and and and address what's actually there and present and alive. They just stay here in what I call the matrix of the mind, because that's what they've known to be um safe. That was it as a safety mechanism, and so but they still have this kind of euphoric visual experience, so they think something's happening, but they're really just kind of hanging out in this illusion of something's happening, but it's they're not actually in their bodies feeling. And so part of what I help people with is remembering how to stay and how to get reconnected to the body, be in relationship with the body, recognize energy, perception of energy, feelings, being able to, you know, name them, feel them, feel sensations in the body. So then when they actually step into a medicine space, they have some skills and some tools under their belt so that when things do happen, they they have, you know, they know how to breathe, they know how to ground, they know how to be in this dance of the intelligence of their bodies rather than going into the um habitual protection mechanism, if you will. Um and helping them understand what container actually is. You know, there's the container of the medicine space, but there's also the container of your own energy field. There's the container of your physical body, and so having relationship to what container is, and so that when someone's in their day-to-day and they want to practice, they have anger coming up or grief, you know, giving giving them simply their phone and setting a minute and 30 seconds on their phone and giving themselves permission to express whatever their anger is, and so that they have an ending to the the timer. Minute and 30 seconds, you're done. You practice completing so that you know, and your body knows and and your psyche knows that when the timer's done, we're complete expressing. So we understand that there's an ending to the feeling and emotion, and we're not so afraid of it when it comes up again. Yeah, that's awesome. Guardrails. That's a guardrail. Well, it's about creating container for ourselves, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and a lot of it's expanding your container, yeah, totally. Because everyone is so different in how they process and how they move energy, how they express energy. And I believe for sure that as we understand ourselves better and practice different types of expression that could be movement, dance, sound, breath, music. It doesn't matter what it is, but to be curious about how you express. So if you do a ceremony as well, you have some tools before going in to even play with it in there, let alone coming out and moving it, continue to move it through the body because it doesn't go away the minute you're finished with your plant medicine. Exactly. No, that's so important to know that ahead of time. I think that's, you know, set the expectation. And I think that's huge. Cause then it to me that that makes it much like so when something happens to someone in that experience, they're like, oh, oh yeah, oh, minute 30, you know, and they they can call on that and remember that so they don't like get lost in it. Yeah. Well, and it's interesting too because you know, and a lot of ceremonialists and facilitators work with intention. And you know, intention is like setting up your North Star or your roadmap, you know, in in ceremony of what you're going in for. Well, my intention is to go in and heal um, you know, this grief around my mother or my father or you know, whatever that is. And um what I have recognized over time is that again, there's this idea and projection that when we go in to sit with plant medicine, the medicine is going to do the thing so that I'm going to set an intention. And then in the ceremony, the thing is going to happen, and then I'm going to walk away from ceremony. Well, let me tell you, as we all know, we don't live in a linear universe. No, especially on the case. We really try, we really try to squeeze it into this. Like, if I do the ceremony, ceremony's over and I'm healed. Like uh I wish that were true. Right. And and it was interesting because I one of my deepest prayers and and intentions for myself was like, was to really heal my body and I was dealing with all this chronic pain. So let me tell you, I sat in a medicine ceremony and I I I had my intention of like, I'm ready. That's okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to finally heal this chronic pain that I've been feeling for five, six years. This will be the thing. I've tried everything. Well, I felt good, I felt great because medicine has a way of kind of making, you know, it's it can be like taking ibuprofen in a way, and you feel like, oh, I don't feel pain for 24 hours. And then the next few days, as I integrate back into my day-to-day, then slowly but surely the pain would start to come back. Now, what did happen is I got referred to the right people, Christy being one of them, with psychosomatic work. And I started working in a very different way with my body. And then I decided, wow, I really want to train in this. And so I started training, and then I got started going much deeper in my body, and I got exactly what I needed, and I got guided to where I needed to go. But it wasn't that the plant medicine actually came in and did the thing, I just got guided to the right people, to the right support in my life. And that took over a year and a half of work to get to a place where I was able to set some boundaries and address some things that I needed and to say no to some things in my life that were really impacting and causing chronic pain in my body. And the reason why it feels important to say that is because people really put a lot of power into the medicine and that projecting on the medicine does the thing. Well, it opened me up in a way that I was able to listen and it it just helped attune me to and guide me to the right people. Huge. Huge. Huge. Yeah. So it did happen. Just not in the way that I thought. Right. I did bring awareness. It brings a different kind of awareness to it. I know I've done a few different ceremonies, and I'm amazed at the level of openness that is there for a few days. And then, like you said, it comes back to, oh yeah, this is my life. And however, what I love about working with the body is okay, yes, this is my life. And what's the choice I can make now to continue to create that sense of freedom? Because to me, it gives a sense of freedom and access. And I think it can be done with or without that. Um, what I'm hearing you say though is especially where you've done it for such a long time, the wisdom of Mother Nature, I don't pick your plant, I don't care. If you're walking every day, being outside with the plants, with Mother Nature, that is our reconnection to what we came from, which is the guidance. Absolutely. And I think that's what we I truly believe that's what we are forgetting because we we're stepping further and further away from it. And so we want to take this small surge to connect back to what we already know, but we've forgotten. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I I think one of the ways which I'm kind of feeling into how to say this or how to describe this. But in my experience, when I'm talking about perception of energy and how the plants as the intelligence of the plants assist us in opening up our perception, is we have this big opening of perception and what I call like an opening and sort of like an expansion of consciousness. And so it it there's and I think people who've sat with medicine can probably identify with this, is there's this idea of like, oh my gosh, okay, now I remember here I am, there's my heart. Okay, this is what it means to be like, you know, a human being, and I can feel my body and I feel the truth of who I am. However, you want to describe that, there's many ways to say that. And we're like, oh, thank you. I remember, and we're constantly in this sort of like forgetting and remembering, forgetting and remembering. But what I see is that it's it's a it's an opening of perception and consciousness, and our day-to-day routine and patterns are what start to make that opening kind of do this. Okay, so it's a it's an opening is we have all these filters of culture and um patterning and our day-to-day, which we need, by the way. I mean, I I don't pretty sure that how I have felt in plant medicine ceremony, I do not need to be getting into a car and driving. Like I need to understand, right? That there's yeah, here's some walls, and you know, here's nature, and here's me and my partner, and this is how we relate. And so it's it's there for a reason, but that opening of perception, the difference that I find in the realm of embodiment is when I talk about perception, what I mean is perception through the body. So we don't just perceive through here, which is what we've learned in our culture, is that we perceive from here and we focus from here. When I talk about perception of energy, what I mean is we perceive and feel through the body. So perception is feeling. So I can be perceiving through the bottoms of my feet, I can be perceiving through my hands, I can be perceiving through my breath. And so there's this embodied perception and experience of life. And so when we're practicing, if we have the tools, when we leave a medicine space and we go back to our day-to-day, we have our tools and things that we practice so that that perception over time, we come out of ceremony and it's here and then it goes back here. And then the next time it's here, and then it only goes to here, and then it's here and then it and it stays here. There's a way that when we're practicing, you know, through our breath, through embodiment and all of those pieces, it becomes a little bit easier to perceive our life and our bodies and our experiences and our feelings in a much more whole way, if you will. Um, so it is possible to have more sustained experiences in our day-to-day, but it takes showing up and participating and participating in the tools and the practices. Yeah, it really speaks to me of this quick fix, because our to me, our culture is quite toxic in so many ways. And that quick fix, and you know, tap three times and your life's gonna change, and you know, all that stuff. And it's like, I mean, to me, it's a it's a lifelong journey, you know. It really is. It just is a lifelong journey. And if we know that, then this um I went through that same thing, especially when I was younger too. Oh, this will be the thing that'll fix me. This is the thing that'll handle this, and then I'm like, no, they're all just tools that help me. And that's why I think it's so important. Like, I I you know love what you said, Ernie. Like, I we need, like, I don't need to be driving when I'm doing this. That's really honest. And you know, because I'm out here and I need to bring it in this way. It's just so important again, back to the the guardrails and being responsible in anything. I mean, in the tapping world, you can have people that unravel someone and you're like, whoa, wait, like you need to like bring that back into place. And and I think it's uh it comes back to like make sure it's if you get a weird feeling about a practitioner or anything, to me, it's trusted, you know, or you know, um, finding when all of a sudden you're like, oh, I feel safe with this person. I mean, to me, that is absolutely huge. I mean, absolutely huge. Yeah. I would call that practicing discernment. Discernment is so important, and I do think that that's lacking quite often. And and not because I uh I think more because um part of that is culture and we have been taught to put our power in something outside of ourselves, and so there's a lack of really trusting our knowing and intuition, and I've also been in spaces of like where they're even talking about the trusting our knowing, but I'm still you know, I still feel like there's the energy of yes, but you still need to follow what I say and how I'm saying you should do it. And so there's a you know, a teacher or power figure saying, like, this is what we're doing, and you're learning how to be in your power, but it's like, oh, but still under how you think I should do it or what you think it should look like, instead of true empowerment, instead of providing spaces for people to really find their way, as you were saying, Christy, you know, the way that they receive information, learning how they perceive energy, how they perceive information, and learning to be in relationship with that. And so discernment to me is a is a is a huge practice in learning to listen to our own knowing and intuition and and and learning to trust that, which I think that's part of why there's so much lack of discernment because people are are trying to remember how to follow their own knowing. And part of that is being in relationship with our bodies. That's what I'm speaking to here is that there's just so much disconnection from our bodies and not enough talking about it. And I've been in some very well-intentioned spaces where they're still bypassing the body and listening to that and understanding that it's it is an individual experience, person to person, so huge and very important. And I would say that to anybody, even coming to sit with me. I would be like, you know, I may not be the right person for you. And that I'm okay with it. That's a great practitioner. That is a great practitioner, right there, Aaron. It's like it because and I also think like that's abundance. You're like, no, you want what's best for this person, not what's best for yourself. And I mean, there's there's all kinds of people out there doing all kinds of things, and um, I was talking to someone earlier today. It's so amazing we're having this conversation about um disengaging from a practitioner that that this person came to realize was like, oh, I you know, I I was being told to trust myself, but at the same time, to your point, Aaron, but do it this way, and that's like, wait, what? You know, yeah. So it's so blurry in some ways because, and you know, this could just be another conversation for another day, but again, this is the well-intentioned, you know, facilitator, practitioner, or teacher, is you know, I think because of patriarchal culture, because all of us have grown up in that in that particular paradigm, it's so important for teachers and facilitators to continue doing their their work and to continue taking responsibility for their own healing process. Because I again I think that person, you know, whoever the the practitioner they were working with, again, there's like this sort of lack of consciousness or awareness and having the right people in your life to be able to reflect back to you. I mean, the teacher that I trained with, I mean, I mean, she's my accountability person. I mean, I can I will okay, look, I'm tracking this and it and she'll reflect to me. Oh no, this is your stuff. Okay, great. So really helpful to have someone honest. Yes, but I've also been in spaces where there was some confusion around what was being projected, you know, and so I think again, that discernment and really learning to trust ourselves and knowing that you're with someone who's really doing that deeper inner work. And again, it doesn't mean okay, nobody's perfect. And I do think that teachers and facilitators all need space to continue healing, and part of that is showing up and taking responsibility even with your students or you know, with your um clients and taking responsibility and uh like wow, you know, I I realized after this session something, something, something, and I want to take responsibility for this. And I think that shows I think that's um I think it's I think it's really good for uh students and for clients to experience that for people in leadership too. Because it and it's not it, there's a lot of responsibility on the leaders, but I think there's also an equal responsibility on students and clients to practice um to practice their full participation and um practice paying attention to what they project onto leaders as well. Like I think it's yeah, there's an equal um absolutely yeah, there's just an equal give and take in that respect. Because I I feel like Yeah, there just needs to be a there needs to be equilibrium, I think, in that place, which requires all of us, requires as a facilitator in ceremony to be willing to look at how we might pedestal ourselves, but also recognizing as a student or client when you pedestal the teacher or facilitator. So there's there's so much learning that can happen, you know, when we're all taking responsibility for our part and things. That's so so well said, Erin. And I do think like in group settings, I think people forget, like, and especially in a healing group setting, your stuff's gonna come up. That's part of the healing journey. And to know, like, I mean, I remember the first time I got in the tapping world, and when I started to discover, I'm like, wow, there's people that actually don't give a shit. Like, you know, I was just like, what? You know, and I'm like, that's the healing profession. It's like, Marty. They're all over the world in every profession. So just like, you know, and and and that I think to your point, it's like, where am I projecting my stuff onto this leader? And then as the leader, where am I projecting this onto them? And I mean, anyone that's you know, um doing their own work is gonna continues to is gonna be more able to go, whoa, that's that's going on in me, you know, yeah projecting out here. And that's massive. And people trust that then, you know, they trust that. I mean, you hope so, because I mean, I've also recognized that some people really do just want someone to do it for them. Oh, that's so true. Uh yes. So, and I I feel like it is important to talk about because I know people that are very integral, and you know, part of uh some of the issues I've seen that they have of just they do their work and they show up. And I think that people because I think there's a that thing in the culture of like, I really want someone to do it for me, which I've had that journey too of like I've had to really own the part of me that says, no, I really want someone to come and save me. Please tell me that Sky Daddy's gonna come and save me, and I don't actually have to show up to my life and and really do what it takes. I mean, yeah, I I had to really deal with the fear of like and that facing, like, oh, it actually is up to me. Yeah, because not everybody wants that. A lot of people do just, but it's it is so true. There are these people that just want to be a follower. Fix me, yeah. They just want to be a follower, yeah. Massage therapist that I hear them say that they're like, they I walk, I walk and they're like, fix me, and they're like, Oh, this is a journey. Well, and I think as long as we know that it's a a life process, and I tell students and especially people that I work with that we don't get rid of it. No, that's that word. This podcast needs to be called getting rid of it. Yeah, but we don't get rid of it, we bring awareness to the piece, and then we integrate it and we move with it as it move as life happens, those pieces come back, and but they won't be as strong and as big, and then we work on again. It isn't negative. There's I think when we start putting labels on, I need to get rid of it, I need to not have this, it creates polarization in the energetic field, let alone in the body, and it always comes back. Yeah. And I think to that point, Christy, it's is the duration shorter, is the intensity shorter? Is it like, yeah, I mean, you see that, you're like, wow, I I got through that faster than I have before, you know, a week instead of two years. Exactly. And I think that is such an important point too, because otherwise, I mean, we've talked about this. Uh I think we did on the podcast we did together. It's that there's part of the personal development world that I'm like, oh my God, really? Where it's it is like, you know, uh this thing's gonna save your life. And and when they use that extreme language, like never feel jealous again. Not possible. Okay. Not possible. Sure. Well, there's something in our culture too. I mean, this is part of the Western, westernized culture, the colonized mind, is this constant chasing of the carrot. Yeah. So one day it's the it's the one day I will be something. There's the next level, there's the something, something, which I I think it's part of it is part of our human conditioning of like we want that feeling of accomplishment, or we've gotten to the next level. I mean, a lot of that to me is conditioning. And so again, we were talking about, I think it was before we started started the recording about boredom, you know, like what is it like to simply be and be with the feelings and be and and just be with like you know, getting to this place of observing the energy that's moving through us, which is basically nature of like, oh yeah, interesting. I had this feeling, or because I mean at the end of the day, it doesn't it doesn't matter, like at some point we have to have the hard conversations. Yeah, eventually. Yeah, we have to get to the place where we can say no. Yeah. I mean, most of my journey, like I've been recognizing recently. I was just in a workshop yesterday with uh one of my somatic teachers, and we we were talking about the simplicity of like the entire journey that we've been on. He was like, Okay, especially now, if not more than ever, we're all gonna have to learn to say no more often. Yeah, so true. And I was like, Oh my god, my whole journey has been learning how to say no, because that is what has given me the freedom and the sovereignty that I've been looking for and the power that I've been looking for. Yeah. But getting to the place to say no actually gives me more of the things that I'm a yes to in my life. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's so true. And I think particularly for women in the patriarchal culture, because be nice, be pleasing, be kind, you know, dee, dee, dee, dee. Yeah, and then it's like yeah, no. And that's easier said than done, of course. It is, yeah, it is, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a process, and it is. I think to remember the reality that our life is about learning and growing, and there's not perfection in it. We're gonna screw up, we're gonna do stupid things, and yeah, come back and continue to show up for ourselves and what the relationship is internally. Yeah, yeah. Can we show up a little bit more today? And that can be as simple as being present and showing up to how am I feeling today? Yeah. Can I connect with nature today? I don't think it needs to be as complicated as media would make it sound. Right. There's well, and what we've been talking about too, just even in the realm of medicine, was this realm of relationship. Because when you say that, what I hear, Christy, is just simply being in relationship with what is. We're being in relationship with our bodies each day and being in real but this like deeper relationship of what is present, what is alive, what is moving through me. Nature observing and you know, feeling and feeling through the body and connecting, and it's so much more simple than we make it. There's like all of this noise. I mean, I had this therapist I've I've had since I was 18 years old. I feel like I've been so blessed. I know she's in her 80s now. Oh wow, go her, right, totally, and she's awesome. Talk about just someone who has known me inside and out through it all. And um I remember one time, I don't remember how old I was. I was probably late 20s or early 30s or something, and she said, Well, you know, Erin, she's like, most of everything that you see out here, all this stuff out here, is she's like, it's just hype. She's like, it's all hype. She's like, it's it's in the day-to-day. It's the simplicity of doing your laundry, of making the meal, of going on a walk. And I I've noticed as I've gotten older, I've been like, oh, I'm like, that just sounds like heaven. And but we're taught all of the intensity and hype. And that's part of also what I see that disturbs me in the medicine world is that people are constantly looking for the next intensity. Well, if it's not intense and we're not getting a big light show, and you know, I'm not in this big huge euphoric experience, then nothing happened. Yeah. Meanwhile, we're missing, you know, the the butterfly, you know, that just passed by and the sound of the songbird and the feeling of the soil against the bottoms of my feet when I walked out into the yard to water my plants. The smell of cooking onions and garlic. And oh, it just makes me emotional, just like saying it because the simplicity of that, you know, and so I think we're chasing that we're missing something. And if it's not intense and we're not having these big experiences, well, I must not be living. And that's such a lie, you guys. It's such a lie. Yeah. That be more, do more, bigger, stronger, all that. And uh even what I call extreme athletes, it's like there's still that drive. I mean, to me, the bottom line is it boils down to the egos running the show, then. I mean, I can't say how like speak to that enough. It's like, yeah, who's running my show? Oh, my ego is telling me that I and I call it the bully in the brain, too. Like, you should have said it differently. And it's like, whoa, wait. Yeah. And I so told simplicities. Well, and of course, the ego's not going anywhere, right? It's it's like that's you know, again, that's just another, you know, false lead on, you know, like let's get rid of the ego and some spiritual crap in the world about getting rid of the ego. Yeah. What I well good luck. I mean, good luck. I know. Good luck. I'll be over, I'll be over here in my garden. Have fun. So I mean, but what I have found is a is a remedy to all of that, it uh honestly has been the slow day-to-day uh work of participating in my own life and participating or uh facilitating that relationship with my body and remembering. Um, one of my teachers, uh Cass, which I was just speaking of earlier in the realm of somatic work, he said one day, and I was like, Oh my god, like there's so many amazing things. I had this journal of like all the amazing things that would happen in uh in these calls and experien and somatic experiencing. And you know how it's like the one little thing that someone says that just kind of sticks with you forever, and it kind of seemed insignificant, but at the time it was like, you know, yeah, and he said, There's nothing more real, nothing more real than the creation that's moving through you right now in this moment. That's beautiful, that's really is beautiful, and I'm like right, where I'm constantly looking for the next big experience, and there's energy that's moving through me. There's creation, there's magic, there's energy, there's aliveness, there's wildness, there's this, all of this that's moving through me right now. If I could if I just slow down enough, focus on my breath, listen, feel through my body, there's absolute magic happening in this moment. And that also goes to there's nothing more real that's moving through me right now. And that also means like when I go into my head and a story, and I'll be walking around the house in some sort of dialogue and story about whatever, what's going to happen in the future, what happened five years ago, I would remind myself there's nothing more real than the energy that's moving through me. It would take me out of my head and go, Oh, what am I feeling? What sensation am I feeling in my body? Because it there's nothing more real than that. All of this up here, that's just entertainment. Yes, such a good practice and awareness. I love that. Yeah. Well, I used to tell people, I'm like, I don't need to scroll on social media. I'm like, I got all kinds of things to scroll through in here. Like right. You know, lots of memories and snapshots. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And stories. Stories, yes. So helpful, Erin. Yeah, it's so great talking to you, and it's awesome to have you back. I have a feeling we'll be doing another conversation eventually. Because I know you're uh going to another embodiment weekend, and I would love to catch up and just you know, in a month or so, what your insights are again. Absolutely. It's because I think the more that we learn as practitioners about ourselves, let alone others, our our lens expands, and I would love to see and hear about the expansion of that for you. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Oh, sure. Well, I love talking about this stuff, as I've said before. I'm a nerd for it. So I just want to get on calls and nerd out. So well, thank you so much for being with us today, Erin. Appreciate it. You're so welcome in the conversation. And then at the in the show notes, Erin, we will put your contact info and your website because I know you do do a lot of online work. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, um, are a great resource for people that are needing someone to even have a conversation about Erin. How could I integrate after ceremony? Yeah. I'm having like there's not a lot of people that I'm aware of that I could refer people to that understand that world that also understand the integration of the body on a very rounded level. Yeah. Well, that's definitely my realm of expertise for sure. Um, and it's one of the things I love doing. I mean, I I I love medicine work, but I love helping people reconnect with their bodies. And I'm I'm good at offering very practical tools and day-to-day practices and you know, creating a kind of container for people to be able to integrate their experiences and put language and um coherence, I think is the word, to what they were experiencing. Um, I think the preparation for sitting with medicine is just as important as the integration so that people can have a true embodied experience and an empowering experience, one where they're not you know projecting onto the medicine or the facilitator ceremonialist, so that they can feel really empowered in their day-to-day to make the changes that they're really wanting to make. Um, and that can be very different from person to person. And I'm very good at tailoring, tailoring that kind of container for people. I bet you are. Yeah. Well, thank you. I think it's always lovely to speak with you. I love learning about how other people do it and their experience within those kind of containers. So thank you so much, Erin. Yeah, thanks. You are so welcome. Such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.