From Mexico to Tea Empire: How Paola Huffman Transformed Her Life Through Psychedelics, Meditation & Self-Inquiry

In this powerful episode, Paola Huffman shares her remarkable journey from Mexico to building a thriving tea business rooted in authenticity, spirituality, and deep self-inquiry. What began as a personal search for meaning evolved into a life shaped by meditation, plant medicine experiences, and a profound reconnection to purpose.

Paola opens up about her experiences with psychedelics, including Bufo, and how these moments became catalysts for healing anxiety, understanding family dynamics, and cultivating inner peace. She also shares how meditation and mindfulness became daily anchors that reshaped her nervous system, relationships, and approach to entrepreneurship.

At the heart of this conversation is a story about integration—how spiritual awakening is not separate from business, family, or motherhood, but woven into every decision and relationship.

Key Topics Covered

• Paola’s journey from Mexico to entrepreneurship
• Building the New Mexico Tea Company from passion and purpose
• Psychedelics as a tool for self-discovery and emotional healing
• Meditation, mindfulness, and self-inquiry practices
• Transforming anxiety into awareness and guidance
• Integrating spirituality into business and family life
• Navigating cultural identity, intuition, and life transitions
• Teaching values and emotional awareness to the next generation

Key Takeaways

• Psychedelics can surface deep inner truths that support emotional healing and clarity.
• Meditation and self-inquiry create lasting peace when practiced consistently.
• A business built on authenticity naturally aligns with success and impact.
• Personal storytelling and spiritual integration can deeply inspire and connect communities.
• Compassion toward self and others transforms family dynamics and relationships.

Notable Sound Bites

• “Deep surrender and peace was just so profound.”
• “My anxiety is my friend, it guides me.”
• “Life’s polarity teaches us what love truly is.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How are you doing? Good, good. I've been doing so much lately. My whole spring has been insane. It started with that yoga retreat that I went to, and it was a three-week yoga retreat. I had never traveled by myself ever, because Cody and I have been together since we were 16. It was an experience. It was a learning experience in all levels. Was going in there to learn how to stretch, and I didn't realize everything that yoga was about. So it was beautiful. And then after that, I got home and then I was here for a month. And then we went to China and Thailand. And so it's been crazy. I feel like now I'm like ready to settle and kind of like really metabolize everything I've learned. Wow. You really you need time for that. How long were you in China and Thailand for? Three weeks. Three weeks. So we were we were in China and China for two weeks with two of my different suppliers. And then from there we went to Thailand is three hours away from there. So we just decided to hop on a plane and just do a week. My mom was watching the kids, and so she's like, Yeah, enjoy, you know, go go on vacation. So China was vacation, but it was a lot of work. It was a lot of traveling and you know going through the provinces. China's just so big, you know, and so much learning and things I'd never even heard about before. That's amazing. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

So, Paola, tell us about yourself. Tell us your full name, what you do, and then we'll go into how we met and all those good things.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Okay, so my name is Paola Huffman, and how did we meet? We met through a mutual friend, a doctor, a doctor friend. He introduced us because my husband and I work a lot with uh mushrooms, and then we also work with some shaman friends uh with Booth Valverious, so uh a form of DMT. We were both kind of in that world, and so we met and I feel like we clicked it off really, really quick. We uh talking to you was so easy. And I remember you came over to my house and we talked, and then my husband had an appointment and we stayed and talked longer.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So yeah, it's wonderful. And when I found out that um you were the owner and the founder of the New Mexico Tea Company.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It's the only tea company we go to. And New Mexico Tea Company is great too. I actually always tell people that you know, just because I own a tea company, a lot of people are like, Oh, you're my favorite. You can like all tea, just like you can like all beer, all wine. Um New Mexico Tea Company is great too.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

They are great too, but you are our favorite. For years now, and once we met, I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, oh, this is amazing. And your story is so cool. Like, cause you just don't find a lot of females, young females especially, who early on get into figuring out um entrepreneurship and owning a business and finding a business based on a passion that they have. And I found that fascinating about you right off the bat. I'm like, I want to know this chick, she's awesome. And um, tell us about that journey of how you got into the tea business.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

So I'll start by saying I am actually an immigrant. I was born in Mexico, and so I came here with my mom and my dad and my brother, and then um my parents got divorced, and uh, and then we moved to Deming, New Mexico. That's where I met my husband as a high school student. We were 16. I feel like it was just love at first sight. And it sounds so cliche, but it really I felt like I loved him right away, and I knew I was gonna be with him forever. And um, so we came to college here to UNM, and um, I got a degree in business. I worked in the business industry for a while, uh, and then I decided to do nonprofit organization. So I worked for the American Cancer Society and then Big Brothers, Big Sisters, which made me realize the love I have for kids. And so then I decided to get my master's degree in education. Um, and then I became a teacher, a dual language uh teacher. My mother-in-law was watching my kids while I worked, and then she wasn't able to for a while because she got cancer, and I just couldn't leave my kids in daycare anymore. So I decided to stay home. And while I was staying home, I really focused. I love to cook. I love, love, love to cook. And while I was staying home, I really focused on like just really cooking for my family, you know, being a housewife and being a mom, and I really enjoyed it. But after years of doing that, I did it for three years. I felt like I just needed to do something else. I love my kids to death, but the routine of just like waking up, feeding, nap time, like all that was just getting to be kind of boring for me. I just didn't feel inspired. And so I love tea. And uh because I grew up with my my grandma, um, my dad was in the picture on and off. And so I grew up a lot with my grandma. And in Mexico, you drink a lot of tea. And so I just decided to play with some ingredients, created some blends at home. And then um I remember the time my husband and I were out on a date, and um I started crying to him, telling him that I just needed to do something. I said, I feel really bad because I want to stay home with my kids, but I just feel like I just need to do something. And uh it's not going back to teaching. So then I don't know, I just had the idea of doing in-home tea parties just to test it out. And so I started doing small in-home tea parties with people I knew, and then those people would tell other people and so on, and it was a small business. But then I just decided that I really, really like that the tea industry, the path. And so um, I decided to open up a brick and mortar location. At that point, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law Bailey, my sister-in-law lives in Ridoso, she was looking at opening up a tea shop too. Um, because we kind of all grew up. I mean, I was 16 when I met my sister-in-law, she was 11. So we were like sisters. So we would share our tea together, we would hang out a lot. So it was just a weird thing that she wanted to do it too, and then I wanted to do it too. So when we opened up our Albuquerque location, she had a like a small tea shop in Ridoso. When I was opening up my Albuquerque location, she said, Hey, why don't we join forces and do it together? And so I said, Cool. So that's how it all started. We opened up the tea shop, and I tell people that I always try to inspire people to just open up their own business. I know it's super scary, and um a lot of people think that you need so much money and you know, we you need so much knowledge. But if you have the passion and if you work hard, um, you really and you you really have a product or a service that you really believe in, you'll do well. And so Cody and I had some cash. So we used all of our cash. I mean, we were we were young and we didn't have money for my family. And so we put a lot of it on a credit card. And it was like we either do it or we will go bankrupt. But we did it. And within six months, I paid that credit card back. And um, and yeah, the rest is history. Now we have uh 10 retail locations, we have an online store, a manufacturing facility here in Albuquerque. I oversee our manufacturing. So now I just oversee our manufacturing. It's impossible to see the whole business. My sister-in-law Bailey oversees um marketing. And then right before we opened up our third location, our other sister-in-law from Colorado asked, you know, she wanted to also be part of the business. And so now it's four owners. So it's myself, my two sister-in-laws, and my mother-in-law. So Nanada, she oversees all of our operations. She had a lot of experience working um in the restaurant industry and a lot of retail experience management. So she oversees all of our retail locations. Bailey oversees our marketing online, any branding, anything like that. And then I oversee all of our manufacturing. So any ingredient we buy goes through me first. And then all obviously all the recipes I love to cook. So it's really, really fun being able to um just taste something if I'm traveling or if I someone invites me over to their house, or if I'm somewhere and I'm like, oh, I can make this into a tea, and just make this almost like a time capsule of my sensorial memories of how I felt at that point, uh, the smells that I had and everything. And I kind of like put it into a tea form. And I don't think a lot of people really understand the backstory of my blends, but that's essentially what I do. So, like, for example, our butterfly uh garden tea, it's our charity. So our organization is separated into four charities. Each owner has a charity we work with. And so I work with um Mexican orphanages, and so around Christmas time, I give, I take the kids um toys and I spend time with them. And actually throughout the summer too, we'll go do like ice cream parties or we'll go play with them in Juarez, Juarez, Mexico. And um, so our charity tea, when I was thinking, okay, what's what does charity mean to me? And I was just thinking of kids and how much magic exists in kids. And you know, when you kiss their cheek, they smell like candy all the time. And uh lemonade stands was something that was like in my childhood, I remember a lot of like little lemonade stands. So our butterfly garden tea is a tea that has that's has a lemon base, so like a lemonade base, and it has a lot of different um like candied fruit flavors for the just the kissing the cheek, and then um it has butterfly pea flour, which is a flower that uh when you steep it, it's blue, and then if you put lemon juice in it, it turns to a different color, it turns pink.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

I can't even it's like you're bringing like your magic into like tea. That's amazing. Yeah, and what kids would love I mean, I love that. You know, you're just describing that to me. But I am a big kid.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, yeah, we're all kids. We act like we're adults, but really we're we don't know anything.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

No, no, we act all serious and life gets boring, and you're like, oh, that sucks. Being an adult kind of sucks. Let me go back into like my childhood and be excited about things and do a bunch of different things and like experiment and have fun and explore. Um, but you're what you're bringing is just pure beauty, and there's so much thought and sparkle, and there's a depth to it. I always say that psychedelics are here for us to recognize that there is this beautiful magic and mystery, right? And for us to bring that into our life now. What am I doing in life today, right? How am I walking this earth today? How much fun am I having with it? It's not about staying in those spaces of being disconnected from this world. It's about that connection. Like, what am I bringing here? Um, and you're doing that.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah. Um, I tell people that my first experience, I don't know if you want to jump into the my first experience with like a strong psychedelic experience was was Bufo Alvarius, which is a DMT that's extracted from a toad um the desert of Sonata. Um, and I had my first experience with because I was really struggling with uh anxiety. I had horrible anxiety. I grew up with my mom, was in was a single mom, so she was always a very independent woman. And uh so I grew up with like I can do anything, which is great, you know, like it got me to where I am now. But that um anxiety just became overwhelming. I couldn't sit because I just had to do, do, do, do, do. And my mind would just never relax. I didn't understand what peace was like. And so um I was able to get this contact for these shaman and I'm in Mexico. And I attended my first ceremony, and I was so nervous, so nervous. I didn't even know how to inhale at that point. Like I had never inhaled before, so I was so nervous to drive all the way over there and not be able to inhale for this ceremony. So um I I remember showing up and like being super nervous. We first did at the Mascal, which is like a sweat lodge, and it was a crazy experience. They put rape of my nose, which is like some people call it happe, which I had never tried. They didn't even explain what it was gonna be like. So imagine going into that. But I just decided to trust. I said, okay, what I am doing in my life now isn't working, so I need to open up to something else and just allow whatever needs to come in to come in. And so I just went in in a state of like surrender. Like I've had enough of my bullshit, like I need to do something with life with my anxiety. And so I did that at the mascot. And then the next day we did the buffo ceremony. And I tell people, it's so hard to explain buffo because it's just like beyond words. You just cannot explain what happens in your mind. But I tell people it's like I was reading like a 10,000 page story of how of all the things that I just was not doing correctly in my life in a uh how do I explain that? Like someone was telling me, but I wasn't getting my feelings hurt, you know, because you can get if someone tells you you're doing something wrong, you can say, Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm doing this and this and this. And so I was able to hear myself and be able to experience. Uh, I remember the first time I woke up from my first bufo experience. I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. And I remember Arturo, the shaman, was just like looking at me and uh he just kind of knew what happened. I just said, I'd never experience peace. People had said, be peaceful. And for me, I had so much anxiety, so much needing to do that it's like telling people cook Mexican food without ever trying Mexican food. How? How do you do that? You don't know. And so just that like single experience of peace, just like deep surrender and peace, was just I remember cried and cried and cried and realizing for the first time how much damage I had been doing to myself and worrying about things that I wasn't needing to worry about, and just like knowing myself at this deep level, like I am not just this body, I am not these these names. I'm more than that, you know? And no one can take that away from me. No matter what happens, there's I have this beautiful core inside. And so that was the beauty of psychedelic of that experience. And so I came home and I um I got so curious and I just felt like I needed to do something. And in my head, um, just silent meditation came up. Silent meditation. And so I started Googling. I remember I was at the Grove eating and I was I started Googling like silent meditation retreats. And one popped up and I looked at the reviews and I was like, okay, I'm going. And I had never done anything like this in my life. I I would have never just gone to a retreat. I trusted it, and um actually one of my friends ended up coming with me. Anna, you know Anna, my friend. She ended up coming with me to the first uh silent meditation retreat, and um they taught us how to meditate, and um, and I just was able to meditation was able to connect me to how I felt um at the at the retreat, like give me a little bits and pieces. I mean, obviously, meditation is really difficult. People say I'm not a good meditator, I'm not meant for meditating. Meditating isn't good, isn't easy for anyone, it's hard. You're dealing with yourself, and sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it's not. You just have to sit through it, you know. And so, yeah, I'm I just got a little tiny bit of that peace that I felt in the buffo retreat. And I decided to come home and just continue to meditate. And it's been years um since that. And um yeah, now I just I do my own little ceremony every morning. Um, I wake up, meditate, do yoga, I do a lot of flow writing and uh drink some tea, turn on some candles, incense. I do a little buffo ceremony, not buffo ceremony, but my own ceremony every morning. And I there's no need for for being alive, right? Yeah, being alive, yeah. Yeah, and feeling, feeling everything I have to feel. I feel like I was just trying to like hide everything, and it's like, okay, this is me. I'm perfect, I'm beautiful. That's just life.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Can I ask you how old you were when you had your first experience and you came to these realizations, and then you had your silent retreat.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

So I was 32. Yeah, and since then I've attended many silent meditation retreats. Um 10 day, I the first one was a three-day silent meditation retreat, which I highly suggest people try in the three-day first, because a 10-day is like so hard. Beautiful, but very hard. Yeah, and then I've done um I've done a dark room, which was also beautiful. You're just um in a dark room by yourself. I did it for four days, and that was talk about like meeting your fears and your darkness. You're just in there and just having to deal with yourself. And then um, and then this last thing was the the yoga uh retreat, the three-week yoga retreat. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Wonder and did you see a um this is more of a rhetorical question, the shifts that happen with life, right? So now you're able to manage the anxiety, or so many years later, um, you see it coming and you're like, oh, it's not mine, or I know how to manage it. And what does that mean to you in your life, in your family life, in your business? How did all of these experiences, these deep inner workings that you engaged with? How did that translate into your everyday life?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Meditation or the style of meditation that I was taught really introduced me to the concept of self-inquiry. So who am I? And you just like can go into this rabbit hole of like just self-inquiry, why am I feeling this way? What is this? Instead of just being like, I'm angry. Like, where does that come from? Where is that rooted? It's like a constant self-inquiry in my mind all day. Like, why am I feeling? I feel my heart like noticing where the body scans in yoga, noticing, you know, where you're holding tight. And um, and then throughout the day, if I notice I'm tight, I'm like, okay, where why am I tight here? What about this situation is frustrating or is making me feel sad or whatever? Yeah, that just allows me to know myself more and um and and just have a little a lot more clarity. And once you have that clarity, um, you can just allow everything in. And with anxiety, I tell people that in the beginning of this journey when I did uh my first retreats and or my first uh Buffalo experience, I was really um kind of running away from my anxiety, like I don't want to go there, back there again, I don't want to go back there again. And then through the experience of meditation and yoga and flow writing, I realized that my anxiety is it's uh, I call her, she's there to help me. Like she's there to tell me when I'm going off my path. And so I definitely don't have anxiety like I used to before. I woke up with anxiety, I would wake up in the middle of the night, but now I can feel it in my chest when I could say, okay, there's something that I'm doing wrong or something that I need to adjust within me, or I maybe I just need to sit down and close my eyes and uh and relax a little bit. Or and so she's my friend. My anxiety is my friend, and she tells me, like, hey, hey, hey, like, wake up, wake up. And sometimes I I tell people, I I imagine her walking into my house and um slowly throwing stuff off the ground, slowly, slowly. And then if I don't pay attention to her, she will start making bigger messes and bigger messes until I can't ignore her anymore. And then finally, until I welcome her in and I'm like, okay, anxiety, can you tell me I'm here to listen to you? I love you. You're my friend. What do you have to tell me? Yeah, and then she tells me, and then I feel like I could just have a lot more clarity in projects um with my family. I'm a lot more of a patient person. I'm a lot more open to understanding others' per perspectives and um and then just like knowing that um that sometimes I don't need to have an answer quick or I don't need to um do something, you know, like when you just sit and wait, things just start coming to you. Revelations, my anxiety, my friend. I would have never thought five years ago I would have never named her my friend.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

How fascinating, how fascinating. And it it's the being. Your being is successful, your being is open to receiving it, open to giving. And um, there's just so much beauty that is created from that. And look, you know, with your business, what I find fascinating when you say, you know, we have now 10 locations, and then now you have family members who are working within the company, and there's um there's this beautiful exchange that I feel within you with them, there isn't a oh, I'm the boss, you know, I created this. No, it's a collaboration, it's a partnership, it's this um exchange that happens, and there's been such an uplift within your own family community that because you've tapped into your own essence and continue to, it's not like the work is done ever, you know, it's how it's continual. And at such a young age, Paola, it's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

It's yeah, and my hope with our kids, our kids know everything we do and we tell them it's medicine. I don't think it's fair. Some people can say these psychedelics are are drugs, but I'm just like, how are people able to take antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication and call and call what we do drugs? And so we're very open with our kids. There's a lot of clarity and they know what we do. And actually, we've taken them to Damascalas before because my hope is um actually this year we homeschooled them. And my hope is that they know that there is not one way to be happy to live life. There's so many ways, there's so many ways. And I tell people I love to travel because every country I go to teaches me something new and just like opens my heart and makes me a little bit more malleable to the life experience. Um I feel like before I was on this path, I was very stiff in my ways. I am this, I believe this. And now I'm just like, I don't know anything, you know, and whatever comes my way, I'll change my mind. Like, what is it? You know, why, why can't I change my mind? And um, and so that's kind of what we're teaching our kids, um, hoping that, you know, maybe they could even learn younger than us and um just be happy, just be happy with who they are because we are all really, really, really, really beautiful inside. I just feel like life experience sometimes throws like costumes and things at us. Um, but like deep in our core, there's just so much love in there. And yeah. Yeah, it's they're so fortunate. How old are they now? They're 14 and my daughter's gonna be 12. Yeah. Mateo is gonna start, he's gonna be a freshman next year. Are you guys gonna continue the homeschooling or no? So we we wanted to do it for one year because we traveled a bunch. We were in Europe for a month, um, traveling. I mean, throughout, honestly, throughout the whole year we've been traveling, just teaching them different ways of being, different foods, different cultures. And uh, we we told them at the end of the year we can continue doing this, or we you can go back to school. And Mateo's at the age where he wants to have a girlfriend and have more friends and everything. And so he's really excited to uh to go back to school. I um oh it was it was such a beautiful experience to just um be with them 24-7. It was it was hard, I'm not gonna lie, be with them 24-7. But um, then to understand like what we do every day, what how we wake up, what we do, you know, just them seeing how we work, um, how we communicate, seeing our morning routine, you know, before we would take them to school and then um start our morning routine and just seeing the importance of that and how everything we do to be to be happy. I feel like some people are just like, I want to be happy, but they don't want to change anything in their life. And it's hard work. It's hard. It's hard. But it's beautiful work too. It's beautiful work. I I feel like when I feel like I'm deepest into my healing, and when I'm like really, really struggling through something, I I feel more closest to my soul than than ever before. So it's hard work, but it's also beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

So you say it so beautifully, it's so true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, true. So um and so you also hold space for others, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, yeah. So um my husband um and I uh work a lot with mushrooms, with magic mushrooms, and uh we feel really comfortable with them. Yeah, I uh I also do sound baths and meditations, but um, yeah, we hold space for people um in different in different ways. We meet them at where they're at, um and uh and then let them decide how deep they wanna they want to go into their journey. And sometimes it's just like a little tap and then they get curious and they're like, okay, I want more. Or sometimes it's just like I'm so tired of my bullshit, kind of how I was. That's when the most transformation happens. I'm like, I'm done with the bullshit. Take it. Yeah. I love my favorite thing with um, I mean, I've had so many beautiful experiences with mushrooms. I've also had really hard experiences with mushrooms where I've like, Cody has it's, you know, you usually when we go deep, it's just Cody and I going deep together. And and um we he's witnessed me laugh and then cry and then get frustrated and then want this journey to end and then feel passionate and then just like it's like a roller coaster of emotions and then event, and then at the end you're like, okay, I got it all out. That was all that was in there. Okay, I'm it's out, it's out, you know? Because I feel like we have those that mushrooms just kind of like put a spotlight on your emotions, right? Like those mushrooms don't make you feel a certain way. I feel like you have those emotions like buried in you. Sometimes they're like in little dusty corners in your subconscious mind, and then the mushrooms will kind of just be like, hey, let's do a clean sweep in here. Like we're not leaving any dusty corners. And so uh, yeah, with people, I I always tell people like sometimes you'll have beautiful experiences where it's just like you're in awe and you're in bliss. And sometimes you have to go through some shit, and um, and it's fine, you know, like it's beautiful because it I actually sometimes even prefer to go through the hard, the hard stuff because that's where the growth is. You realize, like, oh my god, that was in there. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

You didn't even know. You didn't even know it's been like tucked away nicely in the subconscious, and for whatever reason, and then here you go. You have to now examine it, move through it, and it and the medicine also shows you all of that, and it shows you how you describe all of the emotions that you feel, just like mushrooms come and go, right? They in nature they are they bloom and they some for a day, some for a few days, some, but then they go and they're in all parts of nature. They could be on a compost, it could be on a rotting thing, it could be out of spores or the mycelia that's you know in the ground. They are such a big part of change. And they show us that everything is changing within us, and that that's one of the guarantees in life, right? That everything is changing all the time. And our resistance to change is also that rigidity you were describing that brings on the anxiety or the depression or whatever, because the natural state of things is that change is a part of life, and your essence stays the same, that's where you connect to, you know, source connection, and that reminds me more of like a rock, you know, of a gemstone or a rock that has a particular frequency and an energy. That's where we connect to. We're like, let me remember. And then the medicine is like, ooh, here you go. Like everything is changing, and life is a quick moment of time. Yeah. What are you gonna do with this miracle that you're given on this earth? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna have fun with it? Are you gonna be serious and rigid about it all the time?

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yeah. And I think that medicine, like for me, I would have never been able to meditate in my life, or maybe I would have, but it would have taken longer. Um, and so I feel like the first experience that I that I had really showed me like a different dimension and a different part of me. And I was able to carry that through meditation and just kind of understand that there's these like subtle realms. You start trusting your intuition a little bit more. And instead of like being distracted by shiny things in your exterior world, you can kind of like um kind of like hone in into your interior world and notice these like subtleties and this like magic within. I have an example. For example, I was in a meditation retreat last year, actually. A backstory of mine is uh my dad, he was, he was gone for seven years of my life, and I never understood why. Um, my mom always just told me he was an alcoholic, and I just like never understood. And I actually think that that's part of where my anxiety, I know that's where my anxiety stems from. Her um, her explanation of where he was just never really made sense. So I just created this reality within me of like, okay, this doesn't make sense, but this is how it makes sense. So I just created this story of like my life, right? And so I was in this retreat, um, and then suddenly at this point I had talked to my dad already, and we just had like an okay relationship. He would call me every once in a while, but never really close. And I was sitting in meditation, and I mean, after hours, because you meditate like eight hours a day. Um, I was sitting in meditation, and then suddenly I just like started crying and crying, and I had this like just sadness within me. And then I had these questions pop up, and I didn't even know, like, I just had these questions that I had to write down. And so as soon as the meditation was over, I wrote these questions down. And um, something within me told me, You have to talk to your dad. You have to talk to your dad. And so I came back and it was actually his birthday, like two days after I came back from my retreat, and and um I called him and um and I said, and he just the same, like, how's the weather? How's he was asking me just like very surface level conversations? And then I eventually told him, you know what, dad? I am so sick and tired of like this surface level relationship. I have some questions that came to me in a meditation I'd like to ask you, um, would you be okay with that? And um he said, I've waited all my life for you to ask me these questions. And he didn't even know. He didn't even know what I was gonna ask him. He didn't know. He had an idea, and so I just asked him, I said, I've been drunk and I've drank before, and I'm a parent now. And I just could never imagine leaving my kids over alcohol. Never in my life. Where were you those seven years? And he admitted that he was super addicted to like meth and just like strong drugs. And when he told me this, my the reality of my life was just like, oh my god, now I get what was happening. Like my poor mom, I feel like I was a typical teenager, you know, just arguing with her. I know you're lying. And she just like knew that I wasn't ready to face that. And so my dad just opened up and he said, I was super addicted to drugs. I uh and I didn't know I couldn't get out of them. I was an alcoholic too. And um, your poor mom just, I mean, they're divorced, obviously, at this point. Your mom just tried to hide it all and try to be like that stability with you guys. And it made me feel so much compassion for my mom. I remember calling her and telling her, like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And my entire family, they could have easily slipped up and told me, even like as an adult, I learned when I was 36 about this. They could have easily, okay, you're old enough, I'll tell you. But they they wanted me to find out at the perfect time. And um, yeah, my dad had like really specific memories of like, do you remember when you were close to the bathroom and you'd knocked on the door? And I couldn't remember a lot of these things, but he could because he felt horrible about himself, you know? And uh and I said, No, no, I don't remember. And he just like went on and on with memories. Um, and then I just I was able to ask him, like, why? Why did this get started? And he was able to go back to like his childhood and um explain to me everything. And it was just so beautiful to be able to get to know him at that personal level. Like, yes, I'm your daughter, but I also know you're a human. And I know that you're trying your best. I know that we're all trying our best. And um, so tell me your story. Like, I want to understand why you got the way you you got why you became addicted to drugs. So yeah, just understanding that. And I remember the first time I told my mom I was gonna do buffo and she was terrified, pow, I don't want you to be a drug addict. I was like, Where why would I ever be a drug addict? And she just didn't understand the medicine, obviously, but she had this in her like, oh no, I don't want her to do this. And so it was like when my dad told me that, so many realities opened up in my head of like, okay, now I understand why my anxiety was the way it is, because my mom created this world that didn't exist so that I wouldn't find out my dad was a drug addict. And it brought a lot of compassion to my mom and just in people in general. Like we are all trying our best with what we have. And and my relationship with my mom is a lot closer now. And with my dad too, psychedelics were able to show me like this magic, this core that I have within, and all this that exists more than within my body than my external, like to really look, really look inside. And I feel like if I would have been meditating and maybe those questions would have been popped up, but I wouldn't have known what to do with them. And I was just like, no, I need to ask my dad this. No one told me to ask him these questions. I don't know where they came, but I just had to know, and um, it was it was so beautiful, so so much clarity.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Wow, and this is news for me since we we hung out last yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

And I tell people this because I feel like sometimes we just try to hide our life, and it's just like we all have stuff, all of us have stuff. And I'm like, if you say your life is perfect, you probably have more than more stuff than I do because we we all have our stuff. And so just like finding the beauty, that's life. It's like the polarities of life. If we were always just happy, if we were always feeling just love, then we wouldn't know it was love. We wouldn't know it was happy. You need to feel sadness and sorrow and anger and jealousy to then understand, like, oh wow, this is love, this is happiness, this is joy. Um, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. It's like um when we were traveling to in Hawaii one time, my husband and I was we were just like in um in Hana and and it was just a beautiful uh there's waterfalls and it was just like a beautiful like rainforest. And I was telling my husband, I don't think these people realize they live in paradise. Um, and that's how our life is. I feel like we're just so used to this life and there's just so much to it, but we're in it and we don't realize all the beauty that's that's around. If psychedelics are like that, me, that person looking out and being like, whoa, this is beautiful, and they can show you, they can show you what's important. They don't do magic, but they show you a path and you can choose to follow it, and it's gonna be a hard, um, hard uh adventure. You're gonna have to put in some work because some people think, okay, I'm gonna do this this uh trip, this medicine, and everything's gonna be fixed. That's not the case. Psychedelics will just show you this path, and then you it's up to you to kind of like go in there and hike and get all the weeds out and uh wake up every morning uh with the stamina and like I'm going to get better, and it doesn't have to happen now, but little by little celebrating this the little uh steps in life that get you to be happier.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

100%, a hundred percent, and it's really doing the work. And I love that you described your journey and as it was with Bufo, and then it was meditation, and you listened, you listened, and you took your intuition's hand, and you're like, lead me, and I will come and I will take action as you tell me to do so. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even the questions, right, for your dad. Well, fascinating. Fascinating. We have we have everything we need. We came uh onto this earth having everything we need, our our experiences and ourselves that get in the way. That want has to be there to change the path and to see more clearly, and then the path shows itself, but you gotta do the work. You gotta do the work.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

It's it doesn't just Yeah, and you have to also stay humble and just kind of like be. I always tell people, be a student of life. Like, I don't want to be an expert. That's too much pressure on me. I'm just a student, I'm here to learn. And uh yeah, just be open to learning new things. Um like my most recent trip to China, everyone was um so worried about us going to China, this communist country, our politicians don't get along. And uh, are you sure, Pao? You want to go to China? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to go. And so I went with my two suppliers. We buy, we import tea from from from China, and uh and uh one supplier took me to the Fujian province, and the other one took me to the the Yunnan province. And it was like I stepped into another world. Like I tell people that I loved China. I loved it because the whole world has bridges to the Western world, the whole world. But China, I mean, the internet is different. There's no social media, the food is so different. I mean, we were in these places, these little towns in China, where people had never seen a tourist before. They had never seen an American before. They were taking pictures of us. It's almost like being in an altered state of consciousness, like in this new world. It's and so I was just like, okay, teach me what you know. Like what this is a whole new world, new culture, new food, new everything. And it was just, it was just so beautiful to experience it. There's no Western thinking, no Western restaurants. The food is all the um, well, at least in the places we were in, because we were in very rural areas and the people, the culture is just so different. And um, but what we did notice is that um the kids loved to stare at us. You know, kids, they can't hide what they're thinking. And so when people, adults would look at us and take pictures, but kids would just be like, just staring at us. And we realized we're like, okay, these adults are different than than Westerners, like they act differently, they're a little bit more quiet, and um, yeah, they're just they're a little different more, they act differently than we do, but these kids are the same. They are the same, they throw fits, they are loud, they make messes that we were watching these kids throughout a whole trip. They play, they laugh, they do everything. And then I was just telling, I was telling Cody, my husband, they're in a different world and they're still like our kids. So what does that tell us? My kids are like closest to source, to who we are, to that beginner's mind. And then it tells us that we're really all the same, you know, like we were all born the same, we're all really the same. But through our life experience, we kind of just like added costumes and veils. And so that just kind of helps you like just have a lot more compassion for people and be able to relate more to people, even if they're not in the same situation you're in. We all kind of think the same. Once you talk to someone, you're not like, Oh, yeah, I think that too. And so, um, just having a lot more compassion, understanding, and knowing that we're all just trying our best.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Yes, I love it, I love it. Thank you so much, Paula, for being here for taking time with us and sharing your journey. It's wonderful. And we have to grab a hot beverage soon. Yes. Um, and you know, it's so wonderful that you do what you do and you are who you are, and you have chosen to really tap into that and um not just be pulled or weighed down by the culture around or your past. Um, and you're just moving forward and you're like, no, I I am gonna stay humble and I'm gonna stay who I am and connect and um do the difficult things because that's where the gems are. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me. Um this was fun. I miss you. We'll definitely have to grab some tea.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Yes, yes, we were just at your shop yesterday um with my daughter, and you were at your uh at Old Barrel Tea Company, and she loves she's like, I could just live here, mom. Like you could. Um and she it's it's wonderful for her to know that a woman did this, and not that you know, and also we're just beings here experiencing things, but our cultures have created this division, right? Because of religion and whatnot. There's a difference between male and female, and we're changing that, of course. But it's wonderful for a young female to see that you know it this is possible, and um you can follow your your passion and your heart, but you gotta also understand the business world, you gotta understand how to connect with yourself in a beautiful way and listen to your intuition and to connect with others. Because the business side of things is also very much about relationships and having beautiful relationships. At least that's what I'm experiencing as I'm moving along in my path right now. So, yes, you're an inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, yeah. I think staying true to yourself and um and then you can just find like with Old Barrel Tea Company, you know, usually tea is like very ceremonial, very serious, and we were able to kind of like I was able to f make these travel to places and make these creations where it's like almost like this little like ceremony I have within me. All this that I imagine from an experience that I've had, I can put it into tea form to hope that like these people when they're at home drinking a cup of tea, they might not know the whole story, but they maybe will get some sort of like little sparkle in there, like this tea makes me feel good. And there's so much more from that. Like the tea leaf itself is just so awesome to be able to, trees are so wise, and we're able to drink, ingest this tea leaf from a tree. It's like they're passing on their people wonder like, why does tea make me, why does tea make me uh feel more at peace or bring more comfort? Why is it so soothing? And it's just like, well, these trees are, I mean, they are leave living organisms and they they do have a lot of wisdom and they do communicate with mushrooms actually underneath. And and then we get to have this cup of tea, and uh we get to have some of the tree in there and and we get to ingest it. And that was another beautiful thing in China that I was able to sit with the trees and just like really thank them for providing me the career that I have. And like I really sat with them and meditated with them and just like thank you for giving me all that you give me and for all the hard work that you put in to create these really tasty leaves, and for all the farmers that are learning the art of creating tea, and there's just so much. Like sometimes you just be like, Oh, it's tea, but really like there's so much to it. It's this tree. Who planted that tree? And then this tree had to survive, and then the farmer had to pick it at a certain time, and then um, and then you know the the person that had to process it, they had to learn. How did they learn? There's just there's a whole story in one cup of tea. Yes, yes, yes, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Yeah, my daughter, she just started a candle making business on Etsy, and I use her candles in ceremony. It's it's a similar thing, and the energy that goes into that, I'd rather buy it from her than from someone I have no idea what what kind of energy is being put in there. And being in in um in your shop yesterday, that's what kept coming up for me. Holding um the bottles full of tea and the glass jars and the different containers that you have. And of course, knowing you gives it a whole different dimension. But the energy in your tea is you feel it, you feel the love that you put into each bottle and each everything that you have in that shop is wonderful. It resonates. There's a vibration that's um conscious, that's harmonious, and really appreciate that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Well, that makes me really happy because that's honestly like, yeah, every time I make a blend, I just hope that the the whoever's drinking the tea could at least feel the tiny little bit of love that I feel whenever I'm making this blend. The tiny little bit of magic.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Yes, it comes through.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

So much love to you, Paula. Uh yeah. Well, have a good day and um I'll talk to you soon. Talk soon. Bye.