Life, Health & The Universe
Life, health and the universe are all connected. In a world where we are more connected than ever, we have become disconnected from ourselves. In this podcast, along with guests, I discuss ideas in a celebration of life, an exploration of health and some wonderment of the universe.
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Life, Health & The Universe
Breaking Barriers: Harnessing Psilocybin Therapy For Mental Health
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Discover the transformative world of psilocybin therapy with our esteemed guest, Dr. JJ Pursell, an accomplished author, naturopath, and psilocybin facilitator. As we journey through her personal experiences and professional insights, you'll uncover the profound potential of magic mushrooms in addressing treatment-resistant mental health conditions. JJ's story is one of resilience and innovation, highlighting her shift from conventional medical practices to embracing a holistic approach that marries traditional methods with natural healing.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the historical tapestry and modern-day legal landscape of psilocybin. With Oregon leading the way in legalisation efforts, there are both exciting opportunities and significant challenges for facilitators and growers navigating this new frontier. We discuss the ethical considerations, regulatory frameworks, and the societal shifts that are reshaping how we perceive and utilise psychedelic substances for wellness.
To those intrigued by the nuances of psychedelic therapy, we offer insights into both the micro-dosing and macro-dosing experiences. From understanding the importance of preparation and integration to recognising the impactful role of facilitators, this episode sheds light on how psilocybin can enhance self-reflection and break addictive behaviours. We round off our discussion by addressing the critical need for accessibility and education, ensuring that these transformative therapies become available to those in dire need of alternative solutions. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration into the evolving role of psilocybin in mental health treatment.
You can find JJ's full profile in our Guest Directory
https://lifehealththeuniverse.podcastpage.io/person/jj-pursell
Welcome to Life, health and the Universe, bringing you stories that connect us, preventative and holistic health practices to empower us and esoteric wisdom to enlighten us. We invite you to visit our website, where you can access the podcast, watch on YouTube and find all of our guests in the guest directory. Visit lifehealththeuniversepodcastpageio. Now let's get stuck into this week's episode. Today, we're joined by Dr JJ Purcell.
Speaker 1:Jj is an author, naturopath and psilocybin facilitator. She specializes in botanical medicine and has authored many books on herbs, natural health and psilocybin therapy, and today we're going to be talking specifically about JJ's book Psilocybin Therapy Understanding how to Use Nature's Psychedelic for Mental Health. Jj, thank you so much for joining me. Oh my God, it has been one hell of a journey and I'm so grateful that we finally made it, because either of us could have pulled the pin and said this is just in the too hard basket, but we've just been kind of like trying to find the right time. And here it is, and it was just full moon yesterday and I was like, oh yeah, this is just like perfect. So thank you so much for for being here.
Speaker 2:Hooray thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation so much. I think that's what drove it forward. I was like I just I want to have this conversation. We have to make this work, so I'm so happy yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:um, it's uh gonna be really insightful and such an important conversation to have, something that I haven't talked to anyone about on the podcast before. Um, and I really love bringing like, bringing stuff up into like conversation, because there are so many powerful things available to us, um, and we're often like people don't. People just don't know about them, right, and that's the reason that you wrote this book and why you're doing this work. So, before we kind of get stuck into what it's all about, can you give us a brief history of JJ? Oh, sure, sure, sure.
Speaker 2:So I'm here in the United States, of course, and grew up, was born in Tennessee, grew up in Nebraska, always outside in nature as much as I possibly could, and really had a dad who encouraged that, and so my love of botanical medicine started pretty early.
Speaker 2:When I had my own health issues in my mid-20s and went the typical route.
Speaker 2:I didn't get an answer that I was too pleased about and I thought there's got to be more, and it really sent me off on this trajectory of natural health and wellness as my own body, as a guinea pig, and every thing I tried and did just amazed me and it really became this pursuit of everyone should know that there are options out there, and we live in this beautiful modern age where we have, you know, the medical model, the allopathic model, and we have all of the history and traditions of the past, and so we really have a plethora of tools to choose from. And so that's kind of been my life's work is showing people the way of all the options out there and helping them make their own choice of what feels right, because ultimately you know yourself best. And so when you're presented options and given the chance to really contemplate that and think about that nine times out of 10, if not 10 out of 10,. To be quite frank, the patient knows what's in their best interest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that we're not encouraged to do that. Enough, are we? Um, we, we often go to to a health practitioner for the answers and and it's like well, actually, you, you can feel in your body that there's something not right, but we're not taught to kind of follow that intuition. But you're obviously guiding people.
Speaker 2:We've been given this model so to speak, where we've been given this model that there's a system and there are boxes and you follow that path and it's, you know, very regimented and, uh, the doc, the doctor knows the. You know the best. And, and to some degree, of course, we want to trust the experts, but they're a guide more than they are a god yes, I like that.
Speaker 1:Did you have to train as a doctor as well to become a naturopath?
Speaker 2:Yes, so there are natural schools and then there are naturopathic colleges. So I earned a doctorate in naturopathic medicine and a master's in acupuncture.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. It just occurred to me, actually just when you were doing your intro, that I mean I'm I'm totally into natural medicine. I try not to take any kind of conventional medicine these days, but even when I was was like I had IVF um to have my first baby, and I complemented it with acupuncture all the way through, and I did with my second pregnancy, which was natural, um, but yeah, so, so like there's a place for for both as well right, very much, very much yes all right, so we're going to get into um your book, um, so I'm just going to go totally high level and ask you.
Speaker 1:So the book is um about psilocybin therapy, and so I'm just going to ask you, because some people might not even know um what is psilocybin?
Speaker 2:yeah, I know right so the reason we use psilocybin is because magic mushrooms, which is the big thing, has a lot of stigma.
Speaker 2:So anyone of our generation that grew up with the dare era, you know mothers against drugs don't do drugs.
Speaker 2:The fried egg, you know in the pan your brain on drugs, all of these things.
Speaker 2:It's created a lasting stigma to stay away from these things. And so when psilocybin, which is the Latin name for the fungus, used to induce the psychedelic state that we use primarily for healing and therapy in the mental health realm, which we'll get into when it was realized by those who were trying to push the legislature to make it legal that psilocybin would be the easiest one to get through LSD still is, you know, mdma and all of these others are still struggling to break through they decided well, we have to call it by the Latin name because nobody will know what that is and so it's easier to pass from a legal standpoint. So psilocybin is a fungus and typically what we use in therapy is psilocybin cubensis that's the Latin name. And then there are hundreds of strains of that. So when you know that's just going further down the Latin name trail, uh, but people grow and um crossbreed all sorts of psilocybin cubanses to create all of these different strains of mushrooms okay, so it's, it's magic mushrooms, people, that's what it is, but they are not evil.
Speaker 1:They are not evil, they're a gift. They're a gift. They're a gift, exactly. We're, we're, we'll get into, like, how you use them in therapy. But I I've got a bunch of notes I want to like there's so many different directions we could go in and your book really covers all of these like from the history of of using psychedelics in, not in therapy, but in ritual and, I guess, initiations and that sort of thing. Um, but, uh, I'm gonna try and check my notes and uh, okay, find out a little bit more about why we would use, start to use psilocybin therapy as a therapy. So, like, who's it for and why is it important? Like what, what are the benefits?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we can jump back in time just a little bit and do this, you know, again, kind of referring to what you were just talking about. So in culture and certain cultures and traditions this psilocybin was used, or magic mushrooms whichever is easiest for you was used from a cultural standpoint. A lot of times that could have been to initiation, you know, from childhood to adulthood, to initiate the rising of a leader in a certain culture or tribe. Also, though many times it was used for mental health struggles.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago or farther back, we didn't use these words like depression, anxiety. We didn't use these words like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, whatever it might be. It was just apparent there was a member of someone's tribe that was struggling and so these medicines were potentially used to help overcome whatever that struggle may be. Now, fast forwarding into the Western, modernized world, magic mushrooms were used in clinical trials and clinical therapy in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and traditionally they were used for many different reasons, various mental health concerns. They were used to drive a whole generation of youth into mind expansion to not be limited by previous ways of indoctrination in a society but to think for yourself, which of course caused major disruption, particularly here in the United.
Speaker 2:States disruption, particularly here in the United States. But continuing on that further, using it for specifically treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, addiction, terminal illness, coming to terms with one's diagnoses or better understanding the death process for oneself or releasing fears that might be accompanied with the death process of what it means these are all reasons to bring to the table. Some people are simply wanting more personal development and they can utilize the psilocybin for a better understanding of a particular problem in their life or a trauma in their life that they're feeling is really holding them back. The great thing about psilocybin therapy is so when we're around 12, if you need me to stop me at any time otherwise it's going to keep going.
Speaker 2:So when we're around 12 or 13, around that beautiful time of puberty you know, coming into play, we also are formalizing neuronal pathways in our brain, neuralizing neuronal pathways in our brain, so the way we think and feel about things becomes a little more concrete for us. To me, I think this is crazy because we're 12 and 13. I feel like that shouldn't happen until we're 30, but it does, and so that's why habits can be particularly harder. As we get older, opinions become more difficult, literally. When someone says, oh, they're so set in their ways, that is absolute truth, because our neurons have created these pathways and are firing over and over.
Speaker 2:When using a therapy such as psilocybin, what that does is it takes away all of those normal pathways. So if you are thinking about a trauma in your life, or thinking about something you believe, about death or religion or a person or the sky, whatever it might be, that neural pathway that fires to bring recognition or understanding in your brain is now gone, and so, instead of having that very specific thought, you're now able to see the whole horizon of potential thoughts, which gives us the opportunity to look at something very differently, or least consider it very, very differently, and that's the. The one of the greatest gifts of psilocybin therapy is that opportunity to take a break from what we are so locked into and see something different yeah, yeah, I've, I had a several different things.
Speaker 1:I'll keep looking down because I'm looking at my notes. Several different things and directions and I kind of want to cover all of them and I'm like which one should I go with first?
Speaker 1:Let's do it all the how this therapy started to be legalized, right? So I don't know if anyone um in australia, or very few people, even know, but in 2023 I looked it up yesterday and I heard it briefly on the radio mdma and psilocybin were approved for the use by psychiatrists in treatment, and there was this kind of like oh, oh, you know, but it's going to be too expensive for most people, the people who need it most to be able to use it, right? So there's this whole thing about the legalization of it, and you're in one of the first states in America to legalize it as well. So can you talk a little bit about how that's all come about, right?
Speaker 2:So in the United States we have. Typically the first step is decriminalization. So decriminalization means that if you're found in possession, you know you're not issued any kind of penalty. So that's usually the first step in legalizing in the state. The second, what happened here in Oregon, is a small coalition of people got together and really drove the initiative to measure 109 here in Oregon to legalize the use of psilocybin for mental health therapy. That got voted on. And it got voted on with the understanding that after it was approved every county in Oregon would be able to decide if the county would allow it or not allow it, which I think helped drive the initiative because it didn't lock it. It gave the state the opportunity to do it in some places, but if you didn't want it in close to your home then you could say no.
Speaker 2:So I found that I think that might have been a really good driving factor. So, after it was approved, overall then became a two-year period of okay, now it's legal. Now we have to figure out all the rules and regulations for facilitators, the people actually holding space and therapy for the clients. What are the rules and regulations for the service centers? So here in Oregon you do have to work out of a licensed service center in order to dispense and have therapy. And then, third, what are the rules and regulations for the growers of the actual mushroom themselves?
Speaker 2:So that was an arduous process with a lot of public feedback and commenting available. And then, after that point and after that point, the first facilitators were licensed. And you know we've just completed our first year and updated new rules and regulations, which I see that continuing to happen for many years to come. It's a very challenging and liberating and exciting, exhilarating to be the first state, but it's also much like the wild wild west, where you realize you put one thing in place and then it's not going to work for something else and you need to tweak and adjust and do all of these things.
Speaker 2:So the benefit was now Colorado has passed licensure, and so the folks that are part of the initial team here in Oregon are now working with Colorado and saying this worked, this didn't work, and they're getting to skip all of the pitfalls that Oregon fell into. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:It's. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you kind of have to get the ball rolling, don't you, and then kind of go, oh shit, that doesn't actually work and this doesn't Right exactly. Are there challenges with like? So for here, for example, there's. I mean, it sounds quite different because obviously the approval is for the use by psychiatrists in Australia and you've got people that can train, as you have, as a psilocybin therapist and I'd love to talk about that. But the challenges of like it being a government initiative, like what comes up when I don't know what direction I'd kind of go in and I don't know what language to use, but like where they start to make rules and regulations about it or even start to produce synthetics of the same product or material gain.
Speaker 2:So we are state approved. We are not federally approved. Okay yeah, so the FDA has I mean, it is still considered, I guess, a federal offense.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But it is state approved and FDA is not bothered by what we're doing and my guess is because they're working very hard to figure out how they can get involved and get their hand in the pot of it all.
Speaker 2:So part of the rule and regulation process was working through all of that. So one of the key questions was are we going to use synthetic or are we going to use organic substance? And here in Oregon we did go to organic substance. We didn't want to do anything synthetic because we felt it just isolates too many important constituents that are necessary, and so every state will be able to make those choices for themselves until our larger government gets involved.
Speaker 2:I see it a lot, though, like herbalism. So, you know, I had an herb shop for many years, and my second year in business the FDA decided to regulate herbal products. So we had a 726 page document, you know, land in our mailboxes that we were all of a sudden supposed to comply, and it drove many people out of business because the financial impact of that was ridiculous. But what that does, then it creates, you know much of like much of our country. A few isolated few control the bounty. So it's hard to say what will happen in sure, but I do see it's a little ways off. For sure I we'll, as more and more states get on board then we'll see what happens yeah, yeah, okay, I might come back to that.
Speaker 1:Um, um, so can you tell us about how you personally like, like, obviously you're a herbalist herbalist, I love how you say it.
Speaker 2:I know, I know that's American. Oh no, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Like celebrate our differences, including pronunciation of words. How did you get into this particular treatment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I, as a teenager, I did experiment in psychedelics. And you know, as a teenager, experimenting with psychedelics it's often a very social experiment. You're with friends, you're at a party, someone's house, so on and so forth. What I found with psilocybin was, every time I wanted, every time I took psilocybin, I wanted to be alone.
Speaker 2:And it got to this place where my friends would get so mad at me because I would find the coziest couch and blanket and just cocoon myself into this lovely place. And what it did for me as a teenager was it reminded me that I am somebody. Teenage times are so tumultuous. We're trying to figure it out. We've got. You know, at least in the 80s you were expected to have it all figured out by the time you graduated high school. It's a lot of pressure to know what the hell you're doing. And then there's all the drama and everything that comes along with all of that.
Speaker 2:And when I would go into my psilocybin space, it reminded me that one, I'm a person with feelings and those are good feelings, and that I'm a good person and I'm connected, and that there was just meaning that I couldn't assimilate as a teenager on my own yet at that time, and I just thought, wow, this is like a life cord for me. So I not that I partaked a lot, but when I would do it, it was it. It was so healing for me to then resurface and be okay with everything that was happening in the world. And then you know, as most of us do, we go through life and we have all these things happen and it kind of takes a back burner. But I would often return every few years to psilocybin when I needed help, you know, whether I was having a difficult time overcoming something in my life or there was a junction point that I wasn't sure what was going on, and so I used it as a tool in that way.
Speaker 2:So then, of course, as things often do word, of course, as things often do word of mouth, friends of friends started to ask if I would sit with them and be there for their own journey. So I became an underground sitter and sat with folks to do this medicine and other psychedelic medicines. And then, when it came, the licensure piece came up on board. It was just a natural transition at that point. I am a naturopath, an acupuncturist, and so I do have to. I have a board that oversees me, and I really didn't want to put that in jeopardy.
Speaker 1:And so this became the right path to become licensed and, you know, move into that more professional taking of this work take from what I've taken from your book is that there's actually quite a it's quite a lengthy process, um, like the whole journey that you take someone on in in terms of preparing them beforehand, the actual experience and then the integration afterwards. And we're sure and you've had training in that, but you were kind of doing that anyway which is amazing.
Speaker 2:I do think before my medical training and before my facilitator training, I don't think I was doing enough. I think that a lot of just showing up and giving the medicine and sitting with the person, and then good luck, giving the medicine and sitting with the person, and then good luck, and you know, now I'm realizing, yes, there's so much work that needs to be done before and after, because that's I mean before is vitally important to cultivate trust between us. Not that you can do that on a super deep level, but you need to be able to feel safe and trust the person that is with you. And afterwards, that's honestly where the meat is of the whole experience, because it's when you get to reflect and tease apart and contemplate and integrate and process all that you experienced. And I find that to be the the true. Yes, I love it.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear more about that whole process, um, because, as as you've just sort of outlined, it is quite in depth and um. So someone might come to you when they feel like they have got no other option, or or is that generally?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's a lot of reasons people approach um, I literally just got off a call. Um, someone was referred to me and her reasoning or wanting to, because I always ask what you know, what brings you to this point. She is someone who has never done a psychedelic in her life and in her word, she was ready to to do something drastic and I said, well, I don't. I don't know that we want to use that word with this, but I understand where you're coming from. She's had mental health, depression, anxiety, different phobias, you know for over 20 years and her life is so limited that you can tell she's tired of it. And she's now at this point where she's like I will try anything just to try to break some of these walls down that I feel trapped in. So what that looks like.
Speaker 2:I always start with a 30 minute free consultation just to meet somebody. Why are you here? You know these are the basic questions that I answer, so on and so forth. Always talk about health, we always talk about medications. All of those things are the first, because sometimes, while I'm not someone who requires everyone to wean off everything, we're not finding that that makes too much neurotransmitter flux for people who are in need of stability. There are certain medications you know that we need to have a conversation about and maybe it's not a good fit. But after that 30 minute conversation I always tell them to think about everything we've said and if you'd like to move forward, then reach out and we'll get going, dive in like who are you, what's going on? You know what are your intentions, what are your deeper questions, what are your fears about this experience? Experience I outline how the whole day will flow from a, you know, just detail standpoint, not what they're going to experience. We talk about how they'll come out at the end, what we'll do at you know to close up, how we'll get them safely home, who's going to be their person that will stay with them overnight. All of that gets wrapped up.
Speaker 2:Then the after a session, we have the session. After the session, we meet the very next day. I think that's always very important. Just to touch base. I share notes with them about anything that they asked me to write down. They decompress, you know, whatever they want to share.
Speaker 2:Then, after that point, a requirement for me is that they have an integration therapist, and an integration therapist for me requirement-wise is someone who has experience with psychedelics personally. The terrain is important to understand your clients. It's just like you know someone who experiences racism most likely needs or wants to go to a therapist that understands that firsthand, or someone you know in the queer community. You can better understand those clients with personal experience, and psychedelics is no different. It's just a valuable skill to help your client through, to know what that is like. So then we'll meet, the three of us will meet. I'll be there just for five or 10 minutes to make sure the bridge has been formed and then I remove myself. But I do require my clients to commit to a minimum of three integration therapy sessions after, uh, the session, and then they can continue on with that therapist or their own therapist, or they can stop at that point. Okay, so it is.
Speaker 1:It's a lot, there's a lot uh, to commit to yeah, because I reckon that a lot of people would probably go. I reckon that sounds like a good thing to do Just going to go take a trip. Do you call that psychedelic tourism? I've written that down.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean, and that's fine, you know, but not what you're about. Yeah, you're missing the boat, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the actual session. I watched a movie it's like an independent and you probably would have seen it Dosed. Yes, I've only watched one of them. I know there are two and I watched the one with the lady that had breast cancer. Yes, um, had that had breast cancer, yes, so she went through, uh, this process with um a psilocybin therapist and she had to go and buy the mushrooms and, like, she went through this experience, um, and she had some amazing um outcomes. And I can only assume that the other, the other movie, has a similar um flavor, um, in terms of the, the results, let's say Um, but it is quite a prep. The actual being in in the trip, in the experience, is like, like you said, a full day, isn't it? Yeah, it is so it's's gonna be pretty intense, I would expect?
Speaker 2:yeah, and let's you know before I explain the full day. Let's go to that because, um, the woman in that movie, if you recall, she did do more than one session and her first session was, in particular, quite brutal. For her, it was not enjoyable. She really struggled with the emotions that arose during that session and I think that's very important to mention, because it's not all. I feel one with God and everything is beautiful. That isn't. That isn't the way this usually goes. There's, there's flavors of that, for sure. But for whatever, you know, everyone is individual, but whatever anyone brings like is individual. But whatever anyone brings like, there can be a lot of tension internally when you're going through these sessions.
Speaker 2:And so we do allow for a full day. Someone comes in. We start in the morning for two reasons One, because I mean I have a family and and a life outside of work and so I need to treat it like a workday, like most of us. But two, also, we typically don't eat before a session, and so starting in the morning means that someone is not starving, and starting at one in the afternoon, so they'll come in about 830 and the dose is typically given around nine, and the dose is typically given around nine. And then it's about you know, 30 to 60 minute slow launch to the journey, true experience. And at that, you know, people are just kind of relaxing. Sometimes they're looking at you know beautiful books they brought in just to create calm or, you know, laying on the table and just kind of centering themselves.
Speaker 2:And then the journey itself is typically anywhere from two to four hours. Now that can be shorter or longer depending on certain medications, such as SSRIs, that people are on. Sometimes it takes a lot longer to launch, but overall it's. You know, typically I would I'd say four to five hours is the is kind of the whole thing. That's. That's pretty typical.
Speaker 2:There are people who it stays in longer and I've been there for eight to nine hours. Just that's just the nature of how it goes sometimes, but typically it's like a 8.30 to 3.00 kind of experience and then the person is picked up by their support person, or at times I've walked them to the hotel, which is two blocks from one of the service centers that I work at, or I've tucked them in an Uber. You know, told the Uber driver they don't want to speak to anyone, so please, no talking. And then they text me once they get home and then you know that night is just a quiet night and ideally the next day is as well. I'll can't take a bunch of time off work and so on and so forth in life, but if at all possible you should be creating space around the journey day so that you are able just to, to relax yeah, and so does someone um, put the, put an eye mask on and lay down for this experience.
Speaker 1:It's not like a physically active experience.
Speaker 2:So the reason that we try to limit external stimuli is when we're using our eyes and viewing the world, it creates a lot of sensory into our brains and while you're on, magic mushrooms, that can be lovely at times, for sure, but it's a completely different goal of what we're trying to attain.
Speaker 2:So the reason we do the eye shades and we do headphones or we pipe music into the room is that we're trying to assist you in having an interpersonal journey, and so when you take out the visual stimuli, you're looking on the inside and your brain is very active, and whatever your brain is deciding to bring forth is your journey, and so that is typically. Yeah, I've had a whole five hour sessions where I've just sat there and the person's laid in the couch and hasn't moved, and it's quite boring for me but it is. You're just holding space and and there's other times where there's been, you know, emotional release or physical release, vomiting or diarrhea or whatever it may be it can be screaming, it can be uncontrollable crying. I've had people go through the birth process, I mean, it can be all sorts of things, but sometimes it is someone just laying on the couch and going in their journey and then they come out five hours later and I help them home, and that's it.
Speaker 1:Wow, you have to be a pretty calm person. I would expect to not know what you're going to experience. As the facilitator, right, you have to be very open and available in whatever way they need you. Do they generally tell you what they need, like if someone does have a an emotional release, do they do they say you know what they need from you, or do you offer it? Like, how does that all work?
Speaker 2:so that's part of the conversations we have before the session. Yeah, we talk about touch, um. You know, in oregon we can touch shoulder, head, shoulders, feet, lower leg. Okay, uh, back, um, and so we talk about all of that beforehand.
Speaker 2:Some people like touch, some people don't like touch. But the thing is is once it's decided on, we cannot change it once the person has taken the mushrooms. So if someone's like I hate touch, and then all of a sudden they're in their journey and they're like, oh my gosh, please hold my hand, I cannot do that because that would be breaking consent. This person is now under the influence and I cannot offer them that. So I always say offer more consent. You can always say no in the session, but once you say no, we can't cross that boundary.
Speaker 2:And then there are some people I talk a lot about also, what's it like for you to ask for something you need? And some people say it's really hard for me. And so we come up with we practice, you know, asking to hold their hand or asking for pressure on their feet, and we practice the words in the sessions beforehand so that they're comfortable. Some people that still is not good, so we come up with a numbering system, you know. So if somebody wants me to hold their hand, they'll hold up a five and then I'll come hold their. You know because, because everyone's different and so you just need to figure out where their meeting place is so that they are getting what they need.
Speaker 2:I say this a lot, so much that I think I need healing about psilocybin work. When someone is experiencing an emotional release, having the comfortability to let somebody comfort you in that moment and let them see you is so healing. I've just had more clients come out on the other side of just being like, just having you hold my hand while I was crying made me feel so seen, and I think that's really hard for our human race to show those vulnerabilities. We hide away and cry and and push all of our feelings down, but to actually, like you know, have snot flying out of your nose and tears are everywhere and you're shaking, like that's important to be seen during those moments.
Speaker 1:Yeah and to feel safe enough that you can have. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:What's okay. Back to my questions Okay, we've done that. Okay, what's the difference? So I've heard a bit about micro dosing and this is obviously what's the difference with micro dosing? Yeah, psilocybin, compared to one of these experiences that you have, because I've heard benefits of microdosing as well in more recent times for the same sorts of uh, things like anxiety and and, um, yes, focus and that sort of so you have microdosing, which is a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of a psychedelic mushroom, and you have macro dosing, which is the psilocybin therapy.
Speaker 2:A macro dosing is turning off that, turning off that default mode network, okay. And a micro dose is a neurotropic. It's a tiny bit of substance to create a I want to say physical reaction because it is more a little bit. So there's no psychedelic experience with microdosing. Okay, it's way too small. But what it does is it does seem to affect neurogenesis and the brain, so that laying of neurons, and it does create all sorts of potential benefits. So not potential documented benefits athletic performance, job performance, academic performance, anxiety is hit and miss. I will say some people do experience more anxiety, some people don't. So that one is one.
Speaker 2:I think it just depends on previous disposition mental health, depression, you know, in my uses of microdosing because I'm always a guinea pig for myself before I do any recommendations is it creates pause in our hurried life to take ourselves in account. So we're often so moving, so fast and on automation, you know one thing to the next. We have all of these responsibilities, whether it's family or job or home or you name it that we're just constantly moving from one thing, and the microdosing allows a little check-in. It's like a breath, you know, where we're not normally taking a breath to remember like, oh yeah, I'm JJ, I'm here, I'm doing this. Do I want to be doing this? I'm not sure I want to be doing this. Wait a minute, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that's that's where it's really beneficial.
Speaker 2:And James Fadman, of course, is, you know, the grandfather of microdosing and he has this just like unparalleled amount of documentation of what we call citizen science, of people who have offered in online their experiences, their dosage and experience and outcomes of what it was for taking these microdoses. And you know, I mean, I also kind of can kind of compare it to the functional mushrooms, the reishi and the lion's mane and cordyceps and the chaga. They, they are very, very good for you.
Speaker 2:You know, and I have a hard time believing that the, you know, the psilocybin isn't the same.
Speaker 1:On these microdosing levels, sure, Do people sometimes have a psilocybin experience with you, like the therapy session, and then try microdosing, or do they kind of go hand in hand?
Speaker 2:Not necessarily, but they can for certain. Often it's people have tried microdosing and then they want to do a macrodose. That's more of what I see, but a lot of people are very curious after, and so they'll. They'll contemplate it, but honestly they're. They're taken for two very different reasons. Yeah, one is just to improve daily life and mental health in that um, not not that gigantic way that uh uh resistant depression like that's not going to do that. Or, you know, chronic anxiety with panic attacks. Microdosing isn't for that. Microdosing is for, I would say, more of the type of person that has underlying melancholy, has underlying melancholy and depression that isn't dominating their life, or stress or um, habitual self-sabotage. Or, you know, more of those uh things that we do to ourself that are not healthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the, the macro dose is like coming to terms and uh, trying trying to grasp something that they can't grasp, trying to get over a hurdle that is limiting them in their daily life, um, whether that's uh, mostly, you know, just trying to live your life, you know, without having any joy, and there's an immense amount of suffering, and um, or, but then again some people come just because they want to solve a problem that they have in their life, so it's kind of counterintuitive, isn't it, that um want to solve a problem that they have in their life.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of counterintuitive, isn't it that the use of a drug psilocybin to treat addiction, Mm-hmm, but that's one of the main reasons that it can be effective. Is that because of that? What did you call it? The brain, yeah the default mode network, default mode network Exactly. Basically, when you're addicted to something, you're in the default mode network and you're kind of stuck in it and that psilocybin opens that up to other possibilities. Do you have a lot of evidence in your own treatment of patients that shows the effectiveness of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes. And the tricky thing is so addictive substances. So you have addictive substances and then you have addictive behaviors, correct, yeah, substances? And then you have addictive behaviors, correct, yeah? So, um, you have addicted substance. Substances trigger their reward center, that dopamine kick, kick, kick, kick, right. So that's a neuronal pathway, for sure, that's being fired. Oh, I'm gonna get that reward and then I can relax. But then it starts all over again. Then you have addictive behaviors, which is similar in that you have the neuronal pathway that has an end result.
Speaker 2:So psilocybin does not work on the dopamine side of things at all. You're not doing the reward center. That's why psilocybin is non-addicting, because it's not triggering that part of our brain. And so that part is gone with psilocybin. And then this part is gone with psilocybin too, because you're no longer firing that behavioral neuronal pathway. So when we take both of those out of it so, for example, addiction from alcohol is a little heavier on the behavioral side than the dopamine side so when you take that out of it, it gives you a lens of wait, a minute, why am I doing this behavior?
Speaker 2:And then it starts to focus on that, yeah, and that when you understand why you're doing a behavior, it doesn't mean that that behavior is instantly gone. But what it does do is it begins to lay the foundation for you to have more, better understanding and perhaps strength to overcome that behavior. Yeah, okay cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, that behavior, yeah, okay, cool. Okay. Your own experience, like you've talked about your teen experience and that you sometimes have, um, you psilocybin when you've been at like a crossroads or something like that as part of your I'm just being nosy now as part of your, I'm just being nosy now as part of your own training. Do you have to experience it? Do you have to have another facilitator that takes you through a journey?
Speaker 2:You do now For a long time you didn't.
Speaker 1:Okay, long time you didn't.
Speaker 2:Okay, that was just um again, a real disservice. I don't believe that anybody should be facilitating psychedelics without a lot of experience. Honestly, I even think just one is not enough, but I do think you need a moderate level of experience now that with the legalization, that is a requirement that you do have to facilitate and you do have to be a participant and be facilitated as part of the requirement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty. It's a full-on commitment, isn't it?
Speaker 2:do you do it very often? Do I still do psilocybin very often? Yeah, yeah, I mean well, I don't know what you consider often three times a year three times a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah relatively often yeah yeah, I, the thing is, as of late, at least in the last several years and in the next years to come, I've been involved in all of these groups and programs that are heavily experiential, part of the ecstatic mysticism course with awe, spaced out of Columbia, and it's a three-year program of you know, self personal development and cross-cultural lineage and indigenous culture learning, and so we're utilizing many of the different medicines, whether it's ayahuasca, psilocybin, so on and so forth. So part of that is just being involved in these programs and groups. That it just kind of is always part of that experience. But even before that, on my own, yeah, I find it. It kind of brings for me personally, it brings me back to my and, as we get older, think that for me that's important.
Speaker 1:yes, yeah now you've got uh, kids, two, two kids and I'm like I'm not. I'm not trying to uh say, oh, you're a bad parent, and actually quite, quite the opposite. I'm really interested in, um, how you talk to your kids about it. I don't even know like how, how old they are, or anything like that um and how you navigate, like the potential in in their future that they might need it or ask you to have that experience. So, yeah, where are you sitting with all of that?
Speaker 2:well, um, I won't facilitate them. Unfortunately, that would be too much of a dual relationships for me, uh, and I don't think that that facilitator should be facilitating for their families or spouses. I think there's just too much, um, potential reactivity that could occur because you don't know what's going to arise, and so finding a safe facilitator for your loved ones is important. But I've always been very honest with my children. They are very aware. You know, my daughter was two when I wrote my first book and she was 13 when I wrote the psilocybin book. And then recently I went on a retreat for facilitators and she was like, yeah, my mom's going to do drugs in Mexico. And I was like you know, please don't say that to your friends, I don't know very many parents that would appreciate that. So she's like Mom, I'm just kidding. So she has enough awareness and intelligence, because I think I've just been very, very straightforward and very honest, and my son as well. But my son is also a mushroom hunter with me in the woods for all sorts of mushrooms, so he's very aware of that as well.
Speaker 2:But one of my personal interests is actually psilocybin therapy for teenagers, and I would love to cultivate a clinical trial specifically for this population, to support the rampant anxiety, depression and mental health crises that this population is facing. So, yeah, I, I think it's good for them to know and I think it normalizes it. You know, they see me and they see my profession and they see how I treat it, which is very professionally. Yeah, claiming to be a shaman and running around with my. I mean, we do say we do smudge here, but you know I'm not I'm not claiming to be anything and turn one of our spare bedrooms into this thing.
Speaker 2:You know it's.
Speaker 1:It's a very professional outlook and presentation and it creates a respect and I guess so much of that like potential for, like my mom's, going on a retreat to do drugs. That's that, that all that underlying messaging, that that you know, us adults experienced when we were going through our childhoods, and that whole um yeah, perception of things being bad for you, which, unfortunately for for many of us, sent us down the uh. Well, if it's bad for you, I'm gonna go and try it in secret. Right, exactly, exactly. You'd rather your kids and I have a 10 and an 8, so they're a bit younger but you'd rather have open conversations where they understand the implications but also, if they do decide to use them, that they use them safely, in the right kind of environment and not like out at someone's rave like exactly yes, it's like my niece when she was 13.
Speaker 2:I was like just promise me, if you want to do anything, you'll call me first. I was like just just call me, you know. And she at that point she was like. She was like what do you mean drugs?
Speaker 1:I was like you'll find out soon enough yeah, yeah, I do I think?
Speaker 2:it's. I think the more you normalize it, the less it is appealing, honestly yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:I think it's a really important um. Yeah, as we're getting close, close to the end of our hour, and so I sort of just want to wrap up with a couple of things, but I do think that the, the work you're doing, is obviously really important. This is a, this is a um method that's been proven to help support people that aren't the the um. Conventional therapies aren't fixing and I know no one needs to be fixed but, yeah, it just starts to give people a deeper understanding of who they are and connection to a bigger picture.
Speaker 2:There's no reason not to have another tool to try.
Speaker 1:And I would encourage anyone from in australia, as especially if they are in a situation where they're already in a in a, you know, psychiatric setting, to ask if it's available. This treatment is available or if they can get a referral for it, because this is going to have, you know, a massive impact, positive impact. Okay, this is a big question to finish with, but I reckon you'll be down with it. Um, so I've written it down. There's a big collective process going on, um around healing trauma at the moment and do you think that, um, the psychedelics and the use of psychedelics and that kind of the more awareness around them and more people using them, is part of an evolutionary process for humanity?
Speaker 2:That's just a big one to finish on at all, actually, no, I totally do think it is. I think there's so much happening right now that, um, we are unaware of, and I think this is one of those interjections into our lifetime. Uh, that is going to have profound effects on how I mean. They say that, stumbling across the mushroom as an a thander, that they're all taking them. Evolution changed our brain you know, and so you know, I think it's the exact. We're just having another coming of age.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting, isn't it, when, you, like, you were talking right at the beginning about, in the 60s, how people started to use it and experiment with it and there was stuff going on and then it was like hang on a minute, yeah, it got shut down real quick.
Speaker 1:Shut that down, yeah, real quick but there's this like um rising up again of of like the possibilities that it offers us and like hats off to the people that have been there since the 60s, like really um fighting in a very peaceful way about the importance of of this, yeah, self-illumination and the the uh positive evolution. Unfortunately, there is, as you said, there's a lot of um. There are a lot of troubled younger people at the moment, and so um being able to offer them something that can change that and heal that is, yeah, really important. The younger, the younger generations are where it's at Availability let's finish with that Like, how does someone do this? Is it expensive? Is it readily available? Does someone? Obviously it's going to be different here to where you are, but does someone need a referral from?
Speaker 2:no, no, need the referral no, no, that's so good, find it. Um, you know, I know that we're trying all of the facilitators in oregon, we're trying desperately to make it as accessible as possible. Having the the service center is a huge problem with that, just because you have to pay the service center, which is hundreds of dollars, and then you have to buy the mushroom from the service center's dispensary which is another hundred dollars.
Speaker 2:So we all do, I do sliding scale for that and then I take a portion of every fee and I put it in a special fund. So if someone cannot afford it, I'll just draw from that fund. Um, colorado now is, like I mentioned, um uh, licensed and they do not have to have service centers, which is great, um, cause it takes that out of it. So it really will just come down to the cost of the mushroom and what the facilitator is charging. Right, okay, ideally it should be a huge fill of the gap for that accessibility piece. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You've got a whole bunch of information on your website. I highly recommend that, if anyone is curious about this like no one's forcing you to take magic mushrooms If you're curious about it and the benefits of it, read the book. Psilocybin therapy um, it's easy to get hold of on amazon and um, yeah, I think that it's a really interesting and, uh, progressive and progressive thing thing, therapy that you're doing, and, yeah, I hope that, with messages like yours and with the processes that seem to be happening and the approvals from more and more places, that it will grow and, yeah, help to heal lots of humans fingers crossed.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, um, for joining me. It's been really insightful. I hope I wasn't too uh, waffly it's not at all.
Speaker 1:Pleasure, absolute pleasure yeah, I'm so glad we were able to make it happen. Thank you so much. Thank you, take care before you go. Much Thank you. Take care Before you go. Can I ask you a small favor? If you've enjoyed this show or any of the other episodes that you've listened to, then I'd really appreciate it if you took a couple of moments to hit subscribe. This is a great way to increase our listeners and get the word out there about all of the wonderful guests that we've had on the podcast. If you'd like to further support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash, life, health, the universe. You can find that link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.