Plant Medicine, Repeating Patterns & the Birth Trauma Nobody Talked About

What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't your circumstances, but a pattern so deep it predates your memory?

Heather Lindemenn has spent nearly 30 years as a healing facilitator, and for the last decade she's been working with two of the most powerful agents of transformation on the planet: psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA. Her story doesn't start with medicine, it starts on her knees, trapped in a marriage she thought she'd never escape, hearing a small voice say: "Maybe it's you."

In this episode, Heather and Dawn go deep (and we mean deep) into:

• The moment Heather realized the only way out of her marriage felt like death, and what happened next
• Her first encounter with a real shaman in the Yucatan jungle (not the "Instagram kind")
• Why the medicine isn't a magic wand, and what it actually is
• The dream that changed everything and gave birth to her concept of the "Inner Elder"
• How she discovered her own repeating pattern was written into her literal birth story (you won't see this one coming)
• The critical difference between psilocybin and MDMA, and how she decides which medicine is right for each person
• Why she refuses to journey someone who's never experienced growth or change
• The surgery analogy that finally makes plant medicine make sense
• What "bad trips" are really about (and why a good guide changes everything)

Heather has facilitated hundreds of journeys. She's part of a global network of healers. And she does not market herself — every single client comes by referral. This conversation will show you exactly why.

Whether you're plant-medicine-curious, deep in your own healing journey, or just trying to understand why you keep ending up in the same place... this episode is for you.

"We burden life with carrying the face of our wounds — until we don't."

🔗 Resources mentioned:

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine
• Ari Ashanti — Velcro relationships
• Carl Jung — depth psychology & dreamwork

If this episode moved you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. It genuinely helps more people find this work.

About Our Guest: 

Heather Lindemenn 

Drawing from over 30 years of lived, professional experience as a facilitator and guide, Heather has spent decades supporting individuals through both group work and one-on-one sessions.

Heather’s work includes CIRCLE facilitation, retreats (both domestic and international), psychedelic preparation, facilitation, and integration—alongside dreamwork, symbolism, breathwork, and somatic, body-based practices.

Heather has mentored individuals for over a decade, offering grounded, intuitive support shaped by years of being in the territory of professional healing with hundreds of clients.

While her early foundation is in traditional, and depth psychology, Heather’s path moved far beyond linear approaches decades ago—into soul-led, earth-based approaches to healing .

Heather’s work is rooted in care… Where you’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with the wisdom you carry.

Links:

Website: https://www.heatherlindemenn.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherlindemenn/

Substack: https://substack.com/@heatherlindemenn 

The All Within podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. The conversations, stories, and modalities shared by our guests are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition, and should not be taken as medical or therapeutic advice. 

Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your health or wellness routine. The views expressed are those of the individual guests and do not represent All Within or its founders.

Website: https://www.allwithin.com

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@all-within-1?si=--jCB8VNdL3Ex7Xr

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@all.within?_r=1&_t=ZT-95okFF2JYPG

About Dawn Elle Davis:

Dawn Elle Davis is a channel, healer, oracle, and transformational mentor with nearly 25 years of experience helping people come home to themselves. She is the co-founder of All Within and the creator of Eternal Self Embodiment™ — a methodology that goes beyond the mind to unlock the deepest layers of who you really are. Dawn is devoted to demystifying the world of healing and making it accessible, real, and deeply human.

https://www.instagram.com/dawnelledavis?igsh=ZDJtNjBidHF4cXdj&utm_source=qr

Transcript

— Welcome & introduction: Who is Heather Lindeman?

0:01

What if healing looked nothing like you were taught? Welcome to All Within. I'm Dawn L. Davis, and every episode I'm sitting down with the healers, the seekers, and the ones who found their way back to wholeness through roads you might not expect. Their stories, their modalities, and their hard-won wisdom. This is where healing gets real. Let's begin. Welcome. I'm so excited to be back again and interviewing someone who I have so much respect for and so much love for as well, and who has been a dear friend and mentor over the years through different ways and just watching her work evolve. And without further ado, Heather, I would love for you to introduce yourself. Ooh. Hi Dawn. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

— Nearly 30 years of healing work: from women's circles to plant medicine

1:00

And as always, because we've known each other for such a long time, it's just wonderful to see your face and to share in this time with you. Gosh, we're going on some years here, my friend. Yes, we are. My name is Heather Lindeman. I'm here in San Diego, California. I'm out here in. The mama yurt, which is the sacred space, the space that I work in, and work with my clients in. I have been facilitating healing work, lots of different styles of healing work over the years for almost 30 years now. Wow. And these days since 2014, I have been working with plant medicines. And the two medicines that I currently work with are psilocybin containing mushrooms are magic mushrooms and MDMA. my focus in my work is on repeating patterns. So I would say after all these years, and certainly because of my own healing, first, I have been working with. Material that repeats in people's lives. these days I seem to be working with lots of folks that are in there forties, lots of folks in their fifties, sixties, seventies. And I do have clients in their early eighties as well. But everyone that comes to me is coming because they're at a point in their life where they're wanting to move forward

— What draws Heather to repeating patterns — and why she focuses on people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond

2:30

and they're seeing something repeating. And I have learned for myself personally, that these two medicines that I work with are superpowers. Their superpowers are when we are working with intention. And I know we're gonna talk all about that today, but they want to amplify and resolve these patterns that have been repeating. And that's specifically why I'm so grateful that I get to do the work with these medicines

— Heather's origin story: trapped in a marriage she thought she'd never escape

3:00

now, and I'm really honored to actually have them as my own personal allies and allies in the work that I do. So that's me. I love that. And they are such sacred allies. I am so curious because even though I've known you for all these years, what drew you to the medicine? That's a great question. And my introductory to medicine work was actually, was working with my first teacher. So my academic underpinnings are in psychology and depth psychology. And in my thirties, I was really on my absolute literal knees in a relationship that I was in. It was in my first marriage. And I felt so stuck and so scared, and I couldn't get out of it, and I didn't know why. And. My blame gums, guns were out. And there was a lot of sort of proof that he wasn't the right person for me. Or maybe that he was a really bad guy or he was doing some bad things. But at some point I heard this voice inside of me say, maybe it's you. And not that maybe it's my fault, right? But maybe there's something inside of me that's informing my connection to this pain that I can't seem to get away from. And in that very same week where I heard that maybe it's you,

— "The only way out was to end my life" — and the stranger who changed everything

4:30

and I will tell you, and I think you know this to be true, is that in that relationship I couldn't get out. And I really thought the only way to get out was that I would die. I really thought I'm never gonna be able to get out of this. and that the only way out was, to end my own life. So we're talking about, this was very serious. Yes. That same week I saw a friend out in community in my neighborhood and she looked different and I said, what is going on with you? You look different and really clear and centered and grounded. And she said, I went to the Yucatan and I worked with a teacher named Maria Elena. And if you wanna go deep and you wanna go fast, go work with Maria Elena. And there was something in me that was just like, it just struck me like a lightning bolt, like I should go talk to this woman. And so I had a conversation with her and within a couple of weeks time I was down in the Yucatan

— The Yucatan, a real shaman, and psychic surgery in the jungle

5:30

with her in a group of 14 people I didn't know. Now, to answer your question, what was the entry point in coming into medicine Work was Maria Elena is a, so what that means is that is an indigenous medicine person and she was also, someone that worked, she was a Jungian person, so she worked in the depth psychology and specifically had an expertise in dreamwork. So she was bringing this indigenous healing together with depth psychology, which I had a love and academic underpinnings, in depth psychology. And so she was bringing this piece that. I had yet to experience. And what we did with her is we would work together and we did dream work together. And she was preparing us, helping us to see what might be unresolved inside of ourselves that was appearing outside of ourselves. and she was preparing us to go out into the interior, into a town in the Yucatan called Felipe Calle Puerto. Deep in the interior to work with shaman. A real shaman, not a. Not a. Topanga Canyon Yoga pants Shaman. Not a poppy shaman, but like a real shaman. A real one. Not an Instagram one. No. His name was Don Gibino. And it, and this experience, and while we were not sitting with medicine, plant medicine per se, we were, experiencing something called psychic surgery. You should do a podcast on psychic surgery sometime. Oh, I should, yeah. but we were being introduced and experiencing psychic surgery, which was this modality that is really quite unexplainable in that we would. Go into kind of a space where, not dissimilar to what John of God was doing in his own way. another conversation too, but where the shaman would look inside of our bodies and see where the energy lines were being disrupted. And energetically he would go in like it was surgery and open up these energy lines. Now this was an incredibly painful experience, physically painful experience, although no one was being actually injured. Opened up. Yeah. No, yeah. Not like surgically opened up, but, so just for our listeners that are so new to this, it's, thank you. All energetic work. All energetic work, but you could feel,

— The concept of preparation, holding space, and integration — even before medicine

8:00

so you're saying you could feel it on the physical level though? Could feel it on the physical level. Oh. And, and where the intersection of that in medicine work happens or where. That was an actually an introduction for me, for medicine work was, it was I'd never experienced anything like that before. The environment was something I had never experienced before. 'cause we're in the middle of the jungle in this little hut, and it was at night and there was lots of different herbs being burned in the air so that the space could be a clear, clean space for us to be doing this work. And it was all under the guise of what's inside of us that's being held onto in some way, shape, or form that is creating a pattern in our lives. so it was all dramatic and a tiny bit scary because it was so unknown. and yet when we came out and we had some quiet time, we noticed that the hold that these patterns had on us started to soften. And part of the support of that was the preparation to have this experience. The exquisite safe space. Holding meaning there were people who were experienced around us to care for us while we were going through this. Yes. Kind of very new experience. And then the integration that was happening afterwards. And the integration was, okay, so we've had this experience and we're starting to see some benefits from it. How do we integrate what we've learned in our day-to-day lives when we go home? 'Cause we're gonna leave. The Yucatan, we're gonna leave the little jungle. Are you gonna go back to real world? You're gonna go back to your marriage, Heather. Oh yeah. That thing that, the one that you were so unhappy in. Yeah, exactly. And so when I was introduced

— Why Heather spent years judging non-indigenous medicine facilitators (and what changed her mind)

10:01

to, and I also wanna say to you and to your listeners, being someone who was, who had been fast forward here in the year facilitating women's circles, facilitating workshops, and retreats and such, before I started serving medicine, I had a lot of clients come through that had been held in these rituals or ceremonies that weren't held with love and care, and they weren't held by someone that was an expert. They weren't what I would call screened properly. So maybe they weren't a good match. The medicine. I know we'll talk about that today, but I had my own judgments against people that were here in the United States that weren't indigenous folks facilitating the medicine. So I had my own judgments because I'm such a protective person. We

— "You're getting your PhD in healing" — the importance of embodied wisdom vs. information

11:00

have such a huge responsibility as people that care for other people. Yes. And so my time with me, Elena and I worked with her for six or seven years, going back and forth to the Yucatan with the groups, working also, she lived in Arizona part-time working with her here. She used to say, you're getting your PhD in healing work and my, which my healing PhD meant that was my healing. Yes, your, for you. First, right? Yeah. And what that does for us, and that's another thing for your listeners, is when you're looking for different healers and different modalities, it's okay to ask them their own story because we wanna make sure that the people that we work with aren't just carrying knowledge of a training that they took, but that it's actually embodied. They have fully embodied, what does that mean? They're walking their talk. Yes. I agree. We wanna make sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's so important because right now, especially with ai, like you can basically look anything up and get information. And I was researching something about intuition recently and brainwave states, and I was like, oh my God, everything's right here. But that being said, if information is that readily available. I would think what people want right now is someone who holds the presence and the embodiment of what they've gone through in their life. Like they've crossed the bridge, they're not still stuck in the problem or the suffering, but they moved out of it and they learned, gained wisdom. Like you, you moved out of that marriage, like how, by the way, 'cause you spent all this time working with Ma Maria Elna, Maria Elena Cado. And how long after your Yucatan experience and realizing it sounds like some patterns came up for you, like that was when

— The blame guns: why our mind's best pain management tool keeps us stuck

13:00

you just started to like delve into pattern work. How long did it take for you to leave that relationship? Probably three years, two to three years. And. Yeah. Yeah, because which is real, right? It's not, it, yeah, it's not. That's real. Just blowing a pattern and then going, okay, I'm gonna go back and I'm just gonna destroy my life. And no, you actually had to, this is the integration piece. This is the integration piece. And and we know each other so well. We know each other's stories so well. So I know you understand this. and this might be important for anyone else that's listening, is when we're in pain, the mind it's job is to get us out of pain. And one of the best suffering management tools to deliver us from pain is blame. Oh, you guys? Yes. Okay, let's hear that one again. It's blame, right? It's blame blaming the other. But I call it the blame guns, finger pointing blame guns and what Maria Elena did for me. And I will love her and honor her and respect her. And forever for this is that little voice that I had, maybe it's me. I was right. Wow. Dang it. I call it swallowing razor blades because I had to see

— Velcro relationships, Carl Jung, and "carrying the face of our wounds"

14:30

that what was playing out like a movie screen. Like my ex-husband, he was the perfect person A, there's a very amazing spiritual teacher named Ari Ashanti, and he calls them Velcro relationships. Oh. And so a Ashanti talks about, we find the perfect partner to Velcro us. And really the sacred agreement is that we will grow. Is that We'll? We have to do the thing and then grow out of it together. And where it gets stuck in the, where the pattern gets stuck is the blame is, it's it has nothing to do with me and I'm a victim, and I'm a victim of this. Now, that's not to say that people don't do things that they shouldn't and we shouldn't have boundaries. I'm not saying that. Yes. But Maria Elena said, because she was, the big Jungian, healer, she shared a quote by Carl Jung that said, he said probably differently. But this is paraphrase. We burden life with carrying the face of our wounds. we burden life with carrying the face of our wounds these days. I say until we don't, because I am watching people's patterns, dissolve, soften, soften the grip so they can get outside of this grip of a repeating pattern through medicine work. And be able to have a little perspective. So that's what happened in my first marriage is that I went home and I put myself in the driver's seat of my life. I wasn't letting, my blame of him drive me around. I was like, I'm in the driver's

— The dream that changed Heather's life: the baby, the grandmother, and the Inner Elder

16:00

seat of my life. but can I share something with you I think is important? 'cause this was a linchpin for me. I'm loving this. Please share. Okay. While I was with Maria Elena, my very first circle of many times down there, I had a dream. And this is before I understood really understood dream work. in this dream me that I know myself to be was driving a car. I'm sure we've all had dreams where we see ourselves doing things. My mother was driving a car. My mother was driving the car. My real mother. Okay. Who had since passed away. I was sitting in the backseat and my grandmother was in the passenger seat, and my mother's driving the car and she's two hands on the wheel, like looking forward. And I'm in the back and we're driving away from home. And in the dream I realized that we've left the baby at home. and I have this awareness that the baby hasn't been fed. And so I say to my mom, oh my God, we have to turn around. Mom mom, We've left the baby at home. the baby hasn't been fed. We have to go back. And my mother with these two hands on the wheel said, your grandmother will eat first. And kept driving. Oh, wow. And what the dream meant for me, and I've taught with this dream hundreds of times since then, is that. That the wisdom that we carry is the part of us that should be fed first and that our most helpless, most infantile part of ourselves. Now, while it shouldn't be ignored, it shouldn't be ignored. That, that it's if we're healing, if we're really after a healing, that we need to feed our own wisdom and recognize that we carry that. Because most of us, and in my relationship, I was act acting like a child. I was moving from my childhood wounds completely reliving my childhood with my ex-husband, which is not abnormal in relationships, by the way, for people to hear like it happens. No, it happens. No. So the fact that you could see it. It took me a minute, but I continually come back to that. And that's the thing with plant medicine, with both, both the mushrooms and the MDMA is that I see. Which folks now have

— The Inner Elder framework: how Heather uses it in ceremony work today

18:30

access to this wisdom that we all carry. I call it the inner elder because of that dream that I had Yeah. When I was 34. I'm 57 today. and so I also find that I'm working with folks who are right for the medicine, who've gone through proper screening. That once we get into how do we prepare, once we decide which medicine is right for them, I'm sure we'll talk about all these things. And how do they prepare for it is I make sure that they can, they get their eyes on their little. Their little child inside, they get their eyes on them because these inner children make themselves known during these ceremonies. Which really gives us this opportunity. Gives them, it's between them and the medicine and their own wisdom and opportunity for what I would call a retrieval of that part of themselves. Maybe if I were to extend that dream today, we might feed the elder and then circle back. And with the elder really fed and really, fuerte like strong and with the adult mother making the decisions, the adult inside of ourselves making the decision, we might circle back and get that child and say, we're in charge here. We've got you. We love you. You're cared for and keep driving and move on. What you call the elder, I call the future self. And I think it's, the same type of thought process of exactly what you're saying. That even if you haven't come into contact with that aspect of yourself yet, it exists. There is wisdom and there's a version of you that's already walked the path that you're about to go on. And so we can call that wisdom to us, right? And it's so powerful, but it's the noise and I have to say this blaming thing. I love what you're, the blaming guns. I think that's hilarious. Heather, you've been in my life for a long time. or our listeners, Heather was one of the first people that helped me see how I was doing something very similar. I was blaming in my life in the past, and I was, first to be like, okay, this is the problem and all this stuff. And it's like when we're in that situation. And we're blaming, it doesn't allow us to see ourselves in our own way that we're showing up. And I love how you said this.

— Dawn shares her experience of plant medicine and futuring work

21:00

You said something like, the medicine, lets you be the observer. When we're in our state of, survival and just going and we're, triggered and upset, we can't see so clearly. What's not saying The forest for the trees. You can't see the forest for the trees. But it sounds and I know because I've done medicine, when you do medicine, all of a sudden it's like you're out of this story in some way and you're like, wait a second. I see all these other parts. And it is the understanding comes through and it is amazing. Yeah, It's amazing. And I've done that futuring work with you. That is powerful, that futuring work for anyone who's listening and maybe you're like, Ooh, plant medicine is compelling to me, but I'm not ready to dive in, do some futuring work with Dawn because that is a journey. It is a journey. Through the hypnosis, through being in that hypnogogic state, feeling so safe because nobody tends to, nobody cares about people like you, and I felt so safe and so loved by you and I was in a pretty vulnerable place when you facilitated that for me. And I wasn't sure what I was gonna see. Just like people feel when they come to plant medicine. What am I gonna see? Is it gonna be scary? Am I gonna remember something that I didn't remember? Am I gonna come home and wanna leave my husband, or my partner or she was, ah, quit my job, change everything. I was like, ha, what am I gonna see? And what I saw was that felt that presence of my futures

— "Is it going to be scary?" — How Heather addresses the boogeyman fear

22:30

wise self that said, yeah look at what's here for you. Yeah. And I was surprised by it by some things, but certainly not scared. Oh, I'm so glad I'm yeah. And it, to your point, I think when people go to do medicine, they're. Terrified that some boogie monster within inside of them is gonna come out. So what do you say to people around that, Heather? How do you bring them a little bit of calmness around that? Yeah. I'll back that up a little bit and the folks that come to me and at this point, I don't, especially because I'm in service to something, that is difficult to market and I'm grateful that I don't have to do that anymore. So all my clients that come are referrals. So they've been referred by someone else who's had an experience and so they maybe in it like, understand a little bit what to expect, but your folks that are listening don't. So when clients come to work with me, I am orienting towards where are they suffering? So what I don't do is I don't journey people just so they can have an experience. Interesting. Which goes against what, how people are marketing. Oh, just come do this. Yeah. Say why? Yeah. Because, so it goes back to when I was learning how to wait tables. Like I waited tables all through college and when I was first waiting tables the, this older waitress that called everybody hun, and I was like a teenager,

— Why Heather never journeys people just for the experience

24:00

she said, hun, if you deliver the french fries, make sure you drop the ketchup off too. Or if you're putting pancakes down, make sure they're syrup too. So it's like they're gonna ask you for it anyways. They're gonna need it. Yeah. Anticipating. So make sure they have it. So we, I can't remember her name, but that I'm giving her creds now. But when I'm working with clients, I let them know that I am in service to these medicines for the sole purpose of their healing and. And the way that I was, so now you can take, you can go take psychedelic facilitator training in Colorado, Oregon. You can become certified. All of these things. When I was coming up, when you were coming up, there was no training. No. We were trained, I was trained to facilitate women's work, circle all the things by watching my teacher for years. For years. And so what I watched was the work that was being facilitated,

— The waitress wisdom that guides how Heather runs consultations

25:00

like when we were going out into the jungle, that wasn't for people that just wanted to have an experience. It was, she was in service to something. So yeah, I'm emulating that and it's important. I'm in service to their healing and growth. So where do they want to heal and grow? Where are they suffering? So to get to the boogeyman part is they're already experiencing the boogeyman in their life. So we uncover the boogeyman in their life and through whatever it is, wherever they're suffering, do they have a repeating pattern, in their relationship, like in the territory of intimate relationships, I always end up feeling like blink. That's my question. In the territory of finances, in the territory of how they feel about themselves or their self worth or what have you, in that consultation, in the distillation, we find out where is that pattern repeating, so that is the boogeyman. From there, then it's my turn to really educate them on the two medicines and why one might be better or safer or kinder than the other. Yes. Something else I wanna know, and I ask in consultation is where in their life have they experienced real growth and change. And when folks that are in their fifties or their sixties say, no, this teacher didn't help me and I did therapy, and they couldn't get to it, or they were intimidated by me, or they couldn't take me as far as I needed to go. If I'm seeing a repeating pattern I will call that out and I will say, there is no, I will wear the face of that wound within that there is a wound. And I'm gonna get to wear the face of it. If we don't bring it in to the forefront, like that's the boogeyman. Oh, that's so powerful. What's behind. Does that make sense? Yeah. You're calling it out because you recognize

— Who is (and isn't) ready for medicine work — the capacity question

27:00

the pattern of them feeling like nobody can help them, whatever their story is, and you're saying. I'm gonna be the person that's gonna be bringing this out if we don't distill this and talk about this in the consult, that's huge. Yeah. I'm gonna get to lay the face of that. And so with that said, and code word butterfly. Dawn, if I just keep, keep going and, and I'm not coming back to your question. is, is if someone is coming, if you, listener, are interested in medicine work and say you're in your thirties or you're in your twenties and you, if you're in your twenties, you probably haven't noticed that there's a repeating pattern or experience in your life, right? Yeah. I didn't see it until I was in my thirties. but it's good to be able to name. How you've grown or in what ways you have grown in your life. To say it was really hard and I did this and I did that and it created change in my life and I can speak about this change and I can stand on it. I can stand on it and say it was rough, but I grew. That's important to have in your basket when you're moving into medicine work because medicine work is powerful and it's big work and it requires that capacity in ourselves to do the work. Medicine work is not a magic wand. No, it is not. It's a collaboration. These medicines, all of them. All of them require a, it's a collaboration between you and your willingness to grow and your willingness to see yourself clearly and trusting

— The importance of a trained guide: what can go wrong without one

29:00

the medicine and being educated enough to know how to pick a guide even to pre-screen yourself. one of the reasons why, of all the people I know that are in the medicine world, I chose Heather because her level of professionalism is outstanding. And I think a lot of people go into with the availability of oh, I can get some mushrooms and I'm just gonna do a little weekend, thing, or whatever they're doing. Or they go with a friend who's like maybe watching over. There is so much that happens in the, I'm gonna call it the field, right? The field for our listeners is the space the energy between you and the medicine and what's happening in your life and so much, and hopefully a guide and so much can happen in that space. So having a guide that is trained

— MDMA vs. psilocybin: the key difference and how Heather decides

30:00

to support you and help you feel safe. Because if you have something come up and it's really challenging to see or deal with and you don't have somebody holding space for you, that's can be really, challenging. It can be very, very challenging. It's scary and scary. Let's be real. It's scary. I wouldn't want that to happen to anybody because they're very, you're right, they're very powerful agents of change and transformation when used properly. Yes. And here's where you just mentioned something, you named something that is really important, that word powerful and someone who's never sat with medicine before could be like, what does that mean? And the one of the ways that they are so powerful is their amplifiers. Oh yeah. Both the medicines that I work with MDMA and psilocybin, and those are the only two I can speak of, MDMA and psilocybin containing mushrooms, magic mushrooms, they are amplifiers. So in preparation together, the client and I are getting our eyes on this repeating pattern. There's lots of different inroads and the intention is very important. So many ways to get after an intention. One of them is, what do you want? What do you long for? I love that prompt. I long for 'cause it's different than what you need. And it's different than what you desire because longing can be like, err in here. What do you long for? What do you want? And what do you know that stands in the way of that? So number one is our own capacity to be self-aware. Yes. What do you know that stands in the way of that? We don't know, have to know everything. But we do need to be folks that can say, I know that this happened in my childhood and I know that I've adopted this idea about myself or the world, and I know that I've attracted partners that mirror that back to me. I know that I'm stuck. This is what I know that stands in the way. Healing can feel lonely, but it doesn't have to be on our website at all. within.com, we've created a community where you can feel truly met in your journey. Real people, real conversations, dedicated spaces for seekers, healers, and everyone in between. No matter where you're at on your path, there's a place for you here. Come find your people@allwithin.com. And then what I might imagine is that the medicine is listening. So when I'm preparing a client, I always say the medicine's listening. I'm taking furious notes because I need to know too, but the medicine is listening. And this amplification, what could potentially be amplified is

— Trauma, the amygdala, and why MDMA is backed by the VA

33:00

where I decide which medicine might be better than the other, or more beneficial. Okay. I really and truly believe that we've all had trauma in our lives. Yes. And to varying degrees, and the, yes, exactly. The, today's experts call it Big T or little T Trauma. Yeah. and, a culmination of little T trauma equals big T trauma. Little T trauma over time equals big T trauma. Yeah. So trauma isn't just one event. It's an exposure. It can be an exposure over time. So if someone comes to me and they have a history of trauma that they have worked with in therapy with a licensed therapist. Or they have worked with someone who's very capable to, has an expertise in that type of trauma that they sustained, but the trauma is still informing their life in some way. So they've grown, right? They're living their lives, but they can still see in some way, shape, or form, it's still hanging on. I would recommend that they work with MDMA. Okay. If someone comes to me and they have trauma that they've never worked on, I will refer them to someone who is a licensed. Clinical, like maybe even PhD psychologist that has that expertise in trauma to work with them first. I also know that's something that happens in consultation as well, is that I have an incredible network of amazing people, folks that are licensed, that are also working with these medicines and what we would call underground at this time that are so capable of working with folks that are outside my scope. So I'm always gonna be the first one that says, that's outside my scope of practice. Yeah, you deserve to be with someone who has an expertise in that. But let's say, okay, so I would say MDMA over psilocybin and here's why. MDMA redirects the blood flow from the amygdala, which is the fear center of the brain. MDMA is the medicine that, the VA is completely behind. Yeah. Completely behind. He, it heals PTSD MDMA and the clinical trials are in, I'm not just saying that. Yeah. that's incredible. The Yeah. The clinical trials are in. And so if someone, if the potential amplification could be very scary for someone very challenging, possibly could potentially retraumatize them. Yeah, I would and I feel like they've screened through and I feel like they're a, I'm a good partner for them. They're a good partner for me. Because by the way, it goes both ways. Yes. Whoever's listening to this, when you get far enough to actually be talking to a guy, you need to have a rapport. You

— Psilocybin and the somatic body: "where the body keeps the score"

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need to ask them all the questions about their training. Yes. About their harm re you know, what is their view on harm reduction? What is ethics boundaries? All we need to have all these questions. but with MDMA, then, because the fear center of the brain, it's, I'm gonna say it's shut down. It's not, it's just the blood flow has been redirected. The system is flooded with oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine. They feel safe because the medicine is going to amplify what stands in the way. And if what stands in the way of what someone wants could, is something that's rooted in trauma. I would much rather out of absolute and utter care and harm reduction, have them experience that or be with that amplification when they feel completely safe. Yes. Completely safe. Now when we're looking at psilocybin does not affect the amygdala in any way, shape or form. So when something's going to be amplified there, it's very somatic as well. And that's one of psilocybin superpowers is that it gets inside the nervous system. It's fully somatic where the body keeps the score. Where is that wound and that hurt or that material that stands in the way of what you desire. Where is that living in your body? Because it is living. Yes. It's in our bodies. Yeah. And there is a book that is the Body Keeps Score and that is a great book. Yeah. And Waking The Tiger by Peter Levine. Yep. great books. Great books on trauma and somatics. so that's kind, that's how I sift through, which medicine. Is going to, benefit them the most, which medicine is going to be the kindest for them? And what is their experience with healing and how resilient are they? something else I'm looking for too

— Heather's framework: consultation → journey → incubation → integration

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is how are they regulated? Is their nervous system regulated? What's their state? if they're going through crisis, I don't often journey clients that are in crisis. This is what your level of professionalism and how you really work with your practice or your clients is always so amazing to me. Your level of care and not pushing for an agenda. Like really seeing, okay, where is this person at? Can they actually handle this? Because so much of your work too, is integration. Yeah. Is after the journey, and I know you in particular hold your clients through an integration process for I think at least a few. Is it a couple months? Yeah, it can be up to two months just depending on how they're spaced out. And so I know there's just so many spaces in between of what we're talking about, but when I work with clients, we do a very complete consultation where in preparation then they come for journey. The day after the journey is what I call incubation. And I think it's one of the most missed places in the medicine space is that once. Someone, it's like having a baby. It's you don't come out of having a baby and decide my baby's gonna be the president of the United States, or My baby's gonna be a lawyer, or my baby's gonna save the world. It's like we're incubating this experience. We're holding our child close. We're, we don't even know yet, and then we go into integration. But the point I think you're making is that, yes, I'm holding my folks in what I would call a container. Yes. It's a container for about two months. and afterwards the integration is like when I would come back from Maria Elena's and come out of the jungle from having psychic surgery and doing all the work with her in the groups of I call it capturing the gold. These journeys offer so much information and guidance and I'm so grateful to my experience with the dream world because psychedelics, and even though MDMA is not a traditional psychedelic it does have psychedelic qualities and psychedelics often communicate through symbols Yes. And metaphor. in the integration we're, sifting through and amplifying these symbols, giving them voice and making meaning for our day-to-day lives. And yes, they're beautiful experiences and, but I'm yay if someone's oh, I saw these fractals and these colors and it was so beautiful. That's wonderful. And what did we learn and how are we going to, what are the implications for our lives if we're actually to apply this learning because. The medicines will make things easier, but they always end us up at a choice point. They always end us up at because there's the absence of that magic wand is okay, this is the place that I was suffering before and now I'm face to face with it. Usually within the first week or two. As after a journey,

— The surgery analogy: pre-op, surgery, post-op, PT, and rehab

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you get face to face with the thing that you came to work with, and whereas before when you were in the pattern, you didn't have a choice. Now we have a choice and we have a new way, but we actually have to choose it, which then buoys up the neurogenesis that's happening in the brain. All these new neural pathways are being connected and by, by having a new choice and making that choice, we're reinforcing these new pathways that we have for living our lives. That's where the healing happens with both medicines, and I'm a guide. Along the way. I wanna say one thing that might be a really practical way for folks to think about medicine is like surgery. So we, when you're gonna go have surgery, your pre-op is the same as preparation. So in pre-op, say you have bad knee, pre-op is x-rays, blood work, MRIs, maybe it's ultrasounds so that we can, so the surgeon can get really clear on what are we doing surgery on? Yeah. What exactly is the problem? That's preparation. Then the day of the journey, that's the surgery. Okay. The surgeon is the medicine. The client is the patient and I am the surgical assistant. Oh, wow. I'm also the gargoyle at the door. Maybe a conversation for another time. It's or the midwife. Or the midwife. And then the day after the surgery, the days after the surgery is post-op. And it's really good, I think, for folks to think about what can you expect from yourself post-op. Some folks I've heard, when they were doing, had done medicine before, they've sat with me, they came out of their journeys and expected their lives to be completely different the next day. Yeah. Nobody comes out of a, his hip replacement. Ready to run a 5K walk. Yeah. Like just ready to go. Yeah. You need your post-ops, so you need rest. And then the next phase is pt, and PT is integration. Okay. Where we start to walk differently. We're learning how to move differently while we're healing. Some folks that come out of these experiences, they're ready for pt. Some folks come out of these experiences and they need full rehab. And when folks that come out and they need full rehab, and I talk to my clients about this before we begin, okay, is that I'm a great PT person. I'm great, super good, dabble in a little rehab in certain territories, but if someone comes out and that part was really opened up and it needs expert level of care. I'm I am an expert in some ways and not always, we will have already agreed and possibly oftentimes identified

— Real transformations: Heather shares her own pattern and how medicine dissolved it

44:00

who they will go work with in this space of needing rehab. That's a good, wonderful resource. I love the analogy and I think it's important for people to hear what you're saying, especially healers. your boundaries. Like you're not trying to be a one-stop shop for everybody. You're like, okay, if this is rehab for somebody, then I have the best resource I have, the referral I'm gonna send you to. That is so powerful because that way everybody's, it's working in such a flow and everybody's getting the support that they need. So I think that is incredible. But the analogy itself of how you describe that, it makes it simple for me to understand. And I'm sure our listeners too, because, yeah. I'm like on the edge of my seat because everything you're saying is so interesting and I'm I'm, I bet the listeners are wondering like, what are, 'cause you said that people are going into these experiences, you're helping them identify their pattern or kind of what's showing up. So what is some of the transformations that you see after some time with some of these, Clients I'll use myself as an example. First, I had a repeating pattern in my life where it, it was landed in the territory of my career. And every time I tried to like, grow in my career, say I would get an idea and or I just had an experience. And I had done some healing from that. And I was like, gosh. 'cause my agreement always with my clients was, whatever's worked for me, I'll share with you. Yeah. And I think the same is for you too. Same. Yeah. yeah, because then it's embodied. But I don't think that's what we're thinking. We're just thinking, yeah, help me. So I wanna help them. So I would get excited and then I would write a program or something and then I would feel stuck. Like I would have this momentum. You Dawn, I know you love me so much. You've been listening to me for years about this. but I would get so far and then I would feel like I was stuck and it was like physically painful. And I would describe it as saying I feel like I'm gonna die. And I would talk to some of my mentors about this and be like, what's happening with me? I don't understand. I knew a lot about my childhood something very significant happened to me when I was 18 and I was kinda like getting ready to go away to college. My mom was diagnosed with cancer, it was terminal, so I always thought it was that, is it like, because I was getting ready to launch and then I couldn't and I was held back is that what's inside? And in the early days of. Of trying to decide if I was gonna serve medicine here in the United States, because before I did, I took groups to Mexico for many years to work with, with me, plant medicines with, my mentor, abuelo Antonio. But I'm here and it was in during COVID anyways, so as I was trying to decide if I was gonna do medicine, work with medicine or not, I went

— Her most shocking journey: birth trauma, a cartoon machine, and being born

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and got facilitated by a couple. I'd been facilitated a few times here, and I went and got facilitated by a couple up north. And during that journey, as soon as I came onto the medicine, I felt I was being, I felt like I was being suffocated during when I got onto the medicine. And I'm not saying that to scare anyone because no two journeys are alike in this, telling you anybody that's listening to this. This was my experience alone. And you'll find out why. I felt like I was being suffocated and I also felt there was this like cartoon machine was trying to get me. And I kept saying to the facilitator like, none of this is relevant for my life. Why am I having to experience this? None of this is relevant for my life, but I felt like I was going to die. Oh. And I also felt like my facilitators weren't helping me. because they said, raise your hand if you need help. 'cause my husband was also in the space and I kept raising my hand and my experience was they weren't helping me. The experience was very challenging and it was amplifying something that I couldn't get away from. and after the journey was over and my husband and I left and we went back to our hotel. So this happened overnight. I was floating in this pool and all of a sudden I remembered that during my actual birth I was jackknife and I was bottom first and I was stuck in the birth canal. Oh my gosh. I knew that about my own birth. But my parents, I was born in 1968. Nobody was talking about birth trauma. No. And what were they using to get me out a machine? Oh boy. They were trying to get me out of the machine. So let's, here's this experience where I feel like I'm being suffocated to death and this cartoon machine's trying to get me out. This experience is so somatic. 'cause I was sitting with psilocybin. I had taken psilocybin. I was on a psilocybin journey. It was totally somatic. I was feeling it in every cell of my body. But this repeating pattern in my life that had me on my freaking knees was that every time I tried to birth new life in my own life, in my career, I felt like I was stuck and I felt like I was gonna die. Okay. And it was, yeah, because literally when you're a little baby experiencing that, wow, that's, so these two things. But what happened was at first, what did I do? Blame guns. These people gave me too much medicine. They weren't there to help me. They were incompetent, right? Like I was mad cat. When I came outta that journey, I was mad about it. I was pointing fingers left and center. And now I've, been holding space for journeys for so long. It was, I was just like, no. And I let

— How everything shifted in her career after that one journey

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them know how I felt. But it wasn't until later that I understood a couple hours later what the medicine was actually doing was. So when these amplifications happen, and I'm giving you in a very extreme example, people that are listening, your experience will be yours. But when I came out into my world, because I was on the precipice of making a very major decision in my career, and Dawn was right there with me, yeah. I was like, Dawn, I'm not sure if I should do this. I'm scared. So I came back from that and I had so much energy and there was so much movement in my life and in my career that I physically didn't know what to do with it, because I had been feeling that presence of stuckness for so long. And that stuckness created a pattern of every time I tried to birth new life in my life, birth an idea, birth of creative expression, I would get stuck. And that pattern is completely gone. And from that point forward, right in my career, I have never had to market again. I stopped using social media, I stopped sharing on social media. But you don't have to. The whole point of it, and I don't have to. And I think this is a really defining moment for our listeners. I want them to understand something that you're saying. What you intellectually thought it was like this, where you were stuck and, oh, I'm stuck because and your brain's like thinking very logical and very linear. Well when I was going to go to college, my mom got cancer. Okay, that must be it. That must be it. But what we don't understand is there's much more that's what your logical mind wants to make sense of is trying to connect the dots. But when you go deeper and what this medicine

— "Bad trips" — what they actually are and why set & setting matter

52:00

does, and it's just so incredible. 'cause I've had an experience like this as well. It takes you into the places that you can't quite see and it shows you and it reveals to you the exact place. And at first also, like you're saying, it may not make sense. In the moment, you're like, it took a couple hours to process it. I can visually see you floating in the pool and probably just that act of being in the water and it like triggered the womb. Okay oh my God, I was in the womb. But once you uncovered that, and I have witnessed you since you've told me briefly about that experience and I have witnessed your business just skyrocket. I know before that what you were telling me, oh, I feel stuck. And it's so incredible to see what the medicine can do in the right kind of container and format and all of it. It's just, yeah, it gives me chills. that's an incredible story by the way. and so folks will say, people talk about bad trips. Sure if you're journeying yourself and you don't understand dosage and you maybe have some mental health challenges where you shouldn't actually be sitting with certain medicines or not, they're not safe for everyone. bad trips can be because of set and setting. It can be because of lack of education, but if you are with a good guide and your expectations, so expectations are a big, gosh, there's so many places we could go, and I know we're probably running out of time, but it's like expectations are a big thing too. Or if you have a pattern of being disappointed, no matter what, I always end up being disappointed. Your trip your journey, and you have an expectation that your journey's gonna be great. Your journey might disappoint you, and if disappointment is amplified, or maybe even your guide might disappoint you or something along the way, there's that part of you that's looking to be disappointed is gonna get amplified. You need a good guide who can help get that in the front seat. Help us see ooh, what's being amplified right now? That disappointment. What part of you is disappointed? What, who, how old is that part of you? What does it, what does that disappointment protecting? Those conversations with psilocybin don't necessarily happen during the journey with MDMA. They do. Which is so great. Yes. But certainly afterwards as well. I have hundreds, I have, I've journeyed hundreds of people at this point. It's I can you believe that Dawn, since those early days, like I'm impressed. I remember when you were scared to do it, like to really to claim the path. 'cause the medicine was just calling you so deeply and all the training and everything that you've done to really fully be in this space to hold for this medicine is I just love it. It's beautiful to see. But yeah, thank you. I've even done stuff with you and what you're talking about, this

— How the field plays out: Dawn shares a journey she witnessed

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amplification. Heather and I had an experience where we took some people through. So I hired her to help me and it was with some of my clients and even just one of the instances that we had where one of the gals wasn't trusting the dosage. It was so much deeper and it was about her learning how to say no. And so this whole, it was almost like a play was just totally, and I'm just thinking, oh, it's just part of the thing. But in retrospect, it was the exact medicine, I'm talking about the experience that she had with, what was going on that helped her heal. And the psilocybin, of course, was instrumental in that. But everything, it's like this cosmic play that's happening. And that's why it's so important to have a guide because then you can talk it through and go, oh my gosh what was that? Because it is easy to get mad and just see like very 3D oh, I don't wanna take this much, but it's, there's more going on that meets the eye. Oh, it's like a big puzzle. Oh. And it does play out. It does play out. and we don't always see it in the moment as guides. Yeah. We can't always see that in the moment. But then, and because again, we're like I say to my clients like, we're linking arms to we're in this together. Yes. Because we really are. 'cause chances are a guide, is gonna get to wear the face of someone's wound. It's called projection. and it's great when people are projecting the ancient grandmother on me. That's fantastic. I just journeyed someone who I got to wear the face of their mother that neglected them and for the whole journey. And the way that it amplified out was, He got to a place where he was wanting comfort and he wanted some mint tea. And so I brought my husband in. 'cause sometimes it's, the two nervous systems are better than one in a room as guides. And, I stepped out to go get this tea that the client wanted. And when I left, he became a little boy and his mother, who

— Guides wear the face of wounds: the mint tea story

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used to abandon him and leave him home alone or leave him with people he didn't know. So he's now, what he's experiencing is he's standing, he was standing at the door, but he was seeing it. I'm standing at the window and I'm waiting for you. I'm waiting for you to come back. Every single thing I did was he re saw his mother. It was a reenactment. Yeah. When we got to the other side, it was a very challenging journey for everyone. And I, and the next day I said, we started to work to see where was that happening in your life. Yes. That was your experience in the journey. That's the question. And where was that happening in your life? Let's take it back to the root to where it really belongs. Sure. I'm gonna take responsibility if for anything that I did wrong, always, but going to get mint tea at your request. I don't think that's something I did wrong. But all of a sudden, to your point, what played out through his perspective, and that's the most important part. Yes. It's not my job to convince him otherwise. What my job is to help him stay with those feelings. Because they wanna move out. They wanna move through and out. And the way that the mind is circling all the way back to beginning of a conversation is it wants to protect us from harm. It wants to protect us from those hurt feelings. So good, bad wrong, past, future and the medicine gives us this capacity to be with the hurt. And to be with the part of us that where or originated so that, that original root dude, that's all I'm interested in. Yeah. The root, that's all the medicine's interested get on the root Yep. Get it. Or to the much, as much of the root as the system can handle as you can handle this time. And anyways, so yes, the but guides need to be able to, guides need to be trained to see that. And I think

— How to find someone you can trust in the medicine space

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that for me is where the dream work really comes in. Yeah. Is oh yeah, some something's playing out. It's symbolic, it's. yeah. Woo. It's so important how everything is framed and how your training has led you to see the whole picture. I wanna say this, I don't know if listeners would understand this unless they've been in a role like yours or been a healer. It takes a lot of, strength and resolve to hold this type of space. It's not for the faint of heart because, no. When, which, you know how they're saying the amplification, that means if somebody's trigger their trigger is gonna be like even bigger. And so it takes a lot of strength and training and compassion and love to like really just hold that I call it like mad space, like that tight container. Yeah. And I know, yeah. That in my times with medicine, it has been life changing, life affirming. And I had to do the work. I saw things about myself and if I hadn't, been in the right situations and spaces, it would've been a lot. But for me, thank God I was in the right energy and was supported. And so if people are looking to do this, I know Heather, that you are by referral, but if they can work with you or if you have resources, I would love for you to share. Yeah. Yeah. when people do consultation with me. They're either we're deciding if we're gonna work together or if someone is in Florida. My medicine mentor lives in Florida. She's incredible. I've east coast people, I have Midwest people, I've got, folks on the west. If I'm not, the right fit for someone, then I have lots and lots of resources. I think what I'd like to do is give some thought to maybe some different links that we could put in the show notes. Yes. For if people are looking for other resources as well. I wanna

— Resources, referrals, and Heather's global network

1:01:00

make sure I get them right and also get permission first before doing that. But I'd love to be able to do that. So pe 'cause there are places and certainly you guys are creating that as well. Yes. Which is, it's so needed. It's so needed because oftentimes, this isn't legal. Very many places. And there are a lot of folks that are facilitating this work that should not percent, and you can percent get with someone that you trust and you're, and you don't wanna travel. Because right now, like 90% of my clients travel here. And of course that takes extra, resource, financial resources to do that. if you don't wanna travel, it can be really important to just find someone you trust that has trusted resources and can help you find someone close to you. Because chances are there are good people close to you. There're just needle in a haystack. They're hard to find. Yeah. I'm part of a network. it's actually a global network, so

— Final wisdom: what do you long for? What stands in the way?

1:02:00

I just had a client, a referral from Spain. Oh wow. And I'm like rather than you coming here, let's find you someone. Close to you maybe. Maybe it's Portugal. Yeah. And we did, we found her somebody, which was great. Which was great. So yeah. Amazing. God, Heather, I feel like I could talk to you forever. There's so I feel like we just touched scratch the tip of the surface. Yeah. I was like, oh my god, there's so much. So I'll have to have you back on again and just thank you for bringing so much awareness around how the medicine can help, how the container is so important. And even to this whole concept of patterns, because I think for some of our listeners, that might be a new thing for them, but we all are operating from those patterns. So going into any healing journey like you said, and really helping those questions that you asked earlier, even how you frame your consult and all that. Those are great questions for somebody just in general to think about. Absolutely. I, gosh, I couldn't encourage people more is to really get close, as close as you can to what you need. Yeah. A lot of times people are just hurting and they're not sure. No matter what, I always end up feeling like dink in this territory of my life. What do I know about that? What do I want? What do I know stands in the way? And take that to your futuring session, take that to your coaching work, take that to therapy, take that into plant medicine work, if that's aligned. yeah. Thank you so much, Dawn. Thank you so much. Love to you. And I know our listeners are gonna so enjoy this conversation. Wow. Thank you. To be continued.