What Psychedelics Taught Glennon

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

And today,

Abby can't go that fast.

So as long as you go super, super, super, super fast, you can beat her.

I'm sorry, just faster.

I needed an introduction.

Welcome, you guys.

I love you.

I love you, too.

Thank God for you and your introjection of a little bit of fun.

A little bit of fun.

I'm becoming a little bit of fun.

Oh, you had no fun.

No.

Yeah.

No.

She said, oh, you are, like it was in news, like not something that had been.

Oh, you are.

Hey, you know what?

You want to be?

I'll try to pay attention.

But you want to wait your turn.

No, it's totally.

No, listen, it's totally okay because in posts, they can slit little, they can slow down.

Also, we're having fun.

This is okay.

Hold on.

This is fun.

Hold on.

I do want to tell you something.

You want to know what our oldest child said about you the other day?

What?

Oh, he always says this, but what?

That you're like the funniest person.

Funniest person that he knows.

Yeah.

Yes!

That, like, that's how he thinks of you.

Like, Mandy is just always so on the comedy, on the bites, or the bits.

I was like, damn, that's a good compliment.

And I need to say that.

Do you know the other random thing he told us last night?

Is that what?

When he was little,

he heard,

like okay you i think or my mom somebody

he tells this story we were sitting in reedville at bubba and tisha's house and he thinks it was when you were announcing that alice was going to be born when you were pregnant okay and

mom said something at the table oh she went

because she figured out what was going on and bubba goes

just be careful don't take up all the air in the room

And Chase, for his whole life, until he was old enough to know better, thought that there was a limited amount of

and that we, that Bubba had just said the quiet part out loud, and that we all knew that one day we wouldn't have enough oxygen.

And he was just biting his breaths.

That's what he felt, secretly believed for like years.

Well, it's true.

It is true.

There's not going to be enough oxygen.

It is true.

We didn't have the heart to tell him that last time.

We were preparing him for life.

Yeah, you're right.

Shit.

He was right.

Okay.

I can't believe we're doing this episode.

Me

neither.

Because

I told myself two years ago when I did psychedelic drugs as a therapeutic

method that I would never tell these stories publicly just because I just could not be

another white lady from LA whose life was changed by psychedelics.

So to the point where

Even in our last book, In We Can Do Hard Things,

you will see sections where I'm like and then I had a thought and then I had this vision and they are from trips, but I just couldn't bring myself to be therapeutic journeys therapeutic journeys, however

I Actually did tell the stories of

My psychedelic experiences on tour because I was like oh, this is just our family meeting like nobody will right so I just asked everybody It's just a small group of our closest It's just like a kind

number of

we can do hardware.

Ten cities of tens of thousands of people.

And so it's just intimate.

But but okay.

What I will say though about our community is that over the last 20 years, because we've been doing versions of these town halls or tours for 20 years where we gather everybody in their communities and we just sit and talk for hours.

I have said amazingly private things in those rooms over the years and I have said to thousands of people, y'all, this this is going to stay between us.

And it does.

How the hell does that work?

Because our community is freaking amazing.

Really, we really trust them.

I know.

And they actually listen to private stuff.

It's cool.

I know.

I'm like, this is between us.

It's 5,000 people.

And they're like, gotcha.

Yeah.

Okay.

Gotcha.

So that's what happened with the psychedelic story.

But I just felt like

the rest of the pod squad needed to know.

Deserve to hear this too.

Needed to know.

I'm so excited.

I'm I'm so excited that you're telling them.

So, let me set the stage.

This last round of recovery, which everyone knows about, who is a part of this community, where I got the anorexia diagnosis a couple years ago and then went into intensive treatment.

Okay.

There were people,

experts, doctors,

throughout the process who kept saying to me,

We really think that you should try psychedelics as part of of your therapy, as part of your treatment.

I was hell-bent against it because

mostly because I didn't understand the whole genre.

And because you're an addict who has

figured out that maybe drugs don't work with you.

Exactly.

But that's why I didn't, but that is related to not understanding.

I didn't understand at the time that this is actually a method.

Psychedelics are actually a method of treating addiction and treating.

And so if you've never, I'm going to give

a poor explanation that won't be exactly right.

Don't at me.

I'm just going to try to tell you my version of

why psychedelics

are so effective and prescribed often to people with anorexia or other

thinking.

diseases, which

in some ways, that's not exactly the right words, but anorexia is a thinking disease.

It's that

when it's about rigid thinking, it's about not being able to see outside of one tiny neural pathway.

It's about every time there's a trigger, every time I get scared about the world or the family or anything,

I go to, okay, I can, I know how to keep myself safe.

I know, and I go to food.

It is a disorder of rigid thinking.

And so, if you think about like a mountain where a bunch of skiers are going down, Okay.

And there are pathways

kind of smushed into the snow.

Ski slopes.

Ski slope.

Is that okay?

So there's slopes.

I thought the slope was the whole mountain.

It is, but you're grooving.

You're putting ski grooves.

And yes.

Okay, so there's like ski paths where

you wouldn't you track that your you put your skis and you're gonna naturally go down a path because it's well worn.

Okay, you're not gonna like forge your way through a a new fresh snow because that doesn't make any sense.

That it's like the least resistance is the path that's already created.

And that's what your brain does.

Okay.

A neuropathway is basically the road most traveled, the thought that you've gone to the most times over and over again until it feels and looks like and actually is experienced as the only path possible.

You don't even look up enough or know that there's fresh snow everywhere, that you could actually go a different way with your thoughts and create an entirely new path entirely new experience and so what

One thing that psychedelics do and why they're prescribed to rigid thinkers is because it's a way to create new paths that suddenly the fresh snow is everywhere and you can like somehow

Find new ways to think, new different ways to get down the mountain that might be less destructive you're like skiing in powder is what they call it Meaning like you're laying down new tracks.

Right.

Laying down new tracks.

And so this is the science of neuroplasticity, the idea that your brain is adaptable and you can think new things and your brain is still kind of able to

adapt.

But if we don't do new things, we don't unlock that adaptability.

Right.

So even though these things have been presented to me as actual,

I mean, the success rate for eating disorder recovery is not good.

This element, adding this element, does seem to increase the possibility of recovery.

Meaning, recovery meaning new ways to think, new ways to survive, new ways to deal with stress that don't

all relate to body control.

Okay.

I said no for a very long time and then had a plateau where i couldn't figure out how to move forward and got pretty hopeless and finally said okay

i will

try your situation

um my backstory is that i've done every drug in the world like i'm not there's not a lot i haven't done i did a lot of shrooms in college let's just say it wasn't like a therapeutic okay

recreational yeah just because it was self-medicating doesn't mean it's therapeutic.

Right.

So it was hard for me to imagine that in a different setting with a different intention.

Okay.

One doctor that I was working with said to me one day, okay, we're great.

This is great.

You're going to try it.

Now,

one challenge with you doing a journey.

So a journey is when a doctor or therapist or someone with credentials

prescribes a psychedelic experience for you.

And then there is a lot of lead-up preparation that has to do with identifying intentions, wishes, questions, goals.

A lot of therapy goes beforehand.

Then there is the actual journey.

Then there's a lot of integration post-meetings where you talk about what you experience and how it might apply to your life and how you might integrate it into your thinking in your life to start afresh.

Okay, so basically what you're saying is that you don't just show up one day and you sit with a doctor and they give you some drugs and you do drugs with somebody watching.

That wasn't my experience.

What you are saying that is your experience is that it was weeks of prep, months of prep talking to this therapist who was going to be facilitating the journey, getting you to the journey, taking you through the journey, and then also facilitating integrations post-journey.

Right.

Got it.

So

the first thing the therapist says is,

and I'm going to be paraphrasing everything.

I'm a storyteller, not a doctor.

Okay?

So just don't correct me.

If it's not clear so far.

Right.

So

the therapist says

there are some challenges.

We're going to get through them together.

One of the challenges is that we have to find out if the psychedelics are going to break through your antidepressant.

because you have been on antidepressants since you were a toddler.

And that was paraphrased.

So, in, I'm not on them anymore, but at the time I was on them,

that can create a bit.

Basically, you're just like one big human lexapro.

So, we have to see if this is going to be able to break through enough the barrier of that to have an experience.

I say, okay.

Can I ask you a question about that?

Does that mean are

SSRIs

always a block to, or maybe maybe you don't know, but it that chemically they like don't allow

the

psychedelics to do their thing?

Sometimes, and that's what she told me.

Sometimes SSRIs will block the psychedelics from doing their thing.

So, there needs to be some sort of experiment beforehand to see if it's going to break through.

Right.

So,

she says to me, what we're going to do is I am going to, you're going to take a micro dose

of the psychedelics

just to see if we have any reaction.

And she said, What that will feel like is I will give you some micro doses and you will take them.

And basically, you will feel nothing.

Like, if we're really lucky, you might feel like some tingling in your toes or something, and then we'll know, but that this is going to work.

However, don't

worry because this is not going to be like consciousness altering.

You're going to be absolutely fine.

You might feel some sensation.

Right.

So I say, okay.

So I say, well, how am I going to get these micro-dose things?

And she says, you have to come and pick them up.

And I say, well, I'm not going to do that.

That sounds scary because that is drugs.

And this sounds very shady and scary.

So I send Abby to pick up to do the drug deal.

Okay.

And

she comes back.

You go and do it.

And it was fine.

It was totally fine.

Totally normal.

Right.

She comes back with two envelopes.

Okay.

And she puts them in my top underwear drawer.

Now.

Were they envelopes or the Ziploc?

I think they were envelopes.

Weren't they little envelopes?

I don't know.

I can't remember.

Okay.

Well, one of them said 0.1 and one of them said 0.2.

Okay.

And my job was to one morning, over the next week, take 0.2.

Then an hour later, take a a point one

and see if my toes tingle at some point that day.

That was my job.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

So I wake up one morning.

We have a full day of meetings.

And I actually forgot to tell Abby that I was going to try it that day, which I probably should have in retrospect.

However, I was assured that nothing dramatic was going to happen.

Okay.

Right.

I don't tell her every time my toes are tingling.

That's fine.

Yeah, but hold on a second.

This was a big oversight.

I agree now.

I couldn't.

In retrospects, we all know.

It was a big oversight.

It wasn't even the biggest oversight.

I mean, it's so weird because we don't, we tell each other everything.

I know.

It's such a weird thing.

I think that I felt still a little bit of shame to be doing drugs.

I think I felt like

nervous about it.

I know, but you made me go get pick a muff.

I used to hide.

I'm an addict.

I'm used to hiding drugs.

Okay.

So.

Rule number one of doing drugs.

Hide your talk about doing drugs.

Exactly.

So I wake up one morning, take a shower,

take point two.

Are you sure you were supposed to take point two or were you supposed to take two?

Take point two first.

Okay, okay.

Okay, take point two.

We have a full docket of meetings that day.

Zoom, zoom, zooming, zoom, zoom, zoom, zooms.

Okay.

So Abby and I sit down at our little table in the corner in the family room, and we get on our first meeting.

And like,

which is insane now in retrospect, sorry.

No, it's okay.

So like 20 minutes into the meeting, I'm like, what is happening?

Like, I feel like all these boxes are kind of moving and people look weird, but I am very dramatic.

And I have, I can be psychosomatic as shit.

Like,

I am like,

no, give me any placebo pill and I will give you your result.

Like, I am, right, right.

My mind is

very powerful.

So.

You're like, look, it worked.

Yeah.

No.

So I was like, shut up, Glennon.

Like, I'm talking to myself.

I'm like, you're not, you're supposed to only feel your toes tickle.

This is not,

but then

the boxes a little bit start changing.

It's a little changing.

And so I say, I think I should tell my wife I'm on drugs right now.

I just think that I should mention this.

So I mute and I say,

I did the micro-dose thing this morning and I just,

I'm feeling a little bit weird, but I don't think it's anything.

I think I'm just going to carry on.

I'm going to keep the protocol.

I'm going to go take my point one because it's been an hour.

And now, hold on just a second.

I would like the pod squad to really think about what it might feel like to be, to work with your spouse, to be on work

Zoom meetings, talking about business and things and that and this episode.

What are we going to do here?

How do you know?

And then your wife mutes.

the call and says, so I did those micro doses,

that micro dose this morning,

and I'm kind of feeling something I think it's probably fine

what would you do under those circumstances well what you did I said I'm gonna go take my my booster my point one

and I started walking away very carefully I was walking very carefully and

I believed I was walking away

And I was, because the next thing I knew, I was in my bedroom downstairs, and Abby was right behind me.

So clearly she had stopped the meeting and said, I'm going to go.

I said, I got to go, you guys, off.

Yeah.

So she's behind me.

The next thing I know, Pod Squad, I am

I have the 0.1 envelope and I've poured all the point one in my hand.

And I'm

I have my water and I'm getting ready to pop

all the eight pills.

that are in my hand into my mouth and Abby lunges towards me, shoves my hand down so that all the pills fly over the room.

And this is a strange occurrence in the midst of an hour that has been a very strange occurrence so far.

I'm confused about what's going on and why my wife has just scattered my microdose boost about the room.

That you were specifically told to take that point one.

So then my wife looks at me and she goes, honey,

show me the point two envelope right now.

Show me the envelope.

So, of course, I show her the empty envelope, which had eight pills in it, but is now empty

because Pod Squad, I don't know if you're with me right now, but

I thought

that the point two meant that all these pills together equal point two.

I thought that the envelope

was one dose

of 0.2.

And so I took all eight pills before the meeting.

And now I'm

tripping balls.

I'm just like, you guys, okay,

those that are listening.

She kind of like walks kind of,

she nonchalantly says, I think that, you know, I took the microdose and I'm going to, I have to take another booster, so I'm going to go down.

And I was like, this doesn't sound right.

doesn't sound right so I walked downstairs she's got all of these pills ready to take them and I was like what is that what are you doing she's like I'm doing the booster and just like Glennon said I just like how many pills I was just thinking how many pills were in the point two how many pills were in her hand it is a lot to take eight pills yeah of something yeah I really did receive eight to that right so what is what is point two times eight it's a lot is what it is and so now she's talking to me about math.

And how could I think 0.2 is 8 pills?

And she keeps saying, at any point when you were taking all of those pills, did your mind say, this doesn't feel right?

And she's talking to me about math.

And all I can think of, is that my wife talking?

Is this my life?

Is this my beautiful wife?

Oh, my God.

Is this my beautiful home?

What is happening?

And so the next thing I know, now

I kind of come to and I'm laying on the bathroom floor.

I remember hysterically laughing on the bathroom floor while she tried to explain to me what I had done.

I do remember a flash of that.

That was one of the funniest moments of my life.

But you were scared too.

I do remember thinking she's scared and that's scaring me.

Your face looked a little scared.

I was concerned, not because I thought you were going to die or anything by any means.

Because what I was concerned was with was that the whole point of you micro-dosing was to make sure that these new chemicals that you would one day, in the week ahead, be adding something more into the brain chemistry, right?

And so with your SSRIs, and I just wanted to make sure we weren't going to have any adverse reactions.

Right, exactly.

So I didn't think you were going to die.

I just thought maybe you'd feel very upset or not good.

Right.

She's not qualified to go on a journey, is what she's saying.

She's, I am not, I am ill-prepared for a journey at this point.

So, so, but in fairness to you, 0.2?

In fairness to you, something is labeled 0.2.

You could think this cumulatively is 0.2.

Hold on, let me do the math on that.

It didn't say, just, it didn't say 0.2.

But it didn't say 0.28 of each.

No, it didn't.

It just said 0.2.

So what are we, pharmacologists?

What am I?

I don't think so.

So then that would be 0.025 per pill.

Does that make sense?

Well, anyway.

We don't know things.

We don't know this.

I don't think I should have to do math in my drugs.

Like, I just break.

I don't.

I never had to do that.

Okay?

That wasn't a part of the experience before this moment.

Okay.

So

math is something separate that shouldn't be interjected into this.

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Anyway, the next thing I remember is Abby has

walked me up the stairs.

So she put me out on this little deck that we have on the front of our house.

It's like on the street.

We live very, very, very close to our neighbors.

So it's kind of like two feet from our neighbors.

She sits me in the corner and she says,

in a timeout.

I'm in timeout.

And she says, stay here.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I just want to be clear.

I want the folks who are listening to understand my thought process during this time.

Right.

I have also experienced with psychedelics in my lifetime

as a recreational shroom doer.

And being put into an enclosed space where nobody's watching you

is not something that I felt very comfortable with.

So I couldn't, I needed to call the doctor.

I needed to call her therapist.

You did need to do that.

And so I needed to also be able to have eyes on Glennon while I was talking to her therapist.

So this was the only see-through door, glass door.

So I put her on the patio.

It's enclosed, totally safe.

She's sitting there.

To think about what she had done.

Yes.

Continue.

I just needed people to understand, like, why would you put her on the patio?

It's the only place in our house that has a glass door.

So I remember thinking.

This is nice to be in the fresh air.

Then I remember staring at my neighbor's roof.

That doesn't even make a lot of sense.

I don't know how, actually, as I say this out loud, I don't know how I'm staring at the neighbor's roof because that feels like it should have been higher than where I was.

But I do remember staring at my neighbor's roof.

And then I remember my neighbor's roof

was Paisley.

And

rolling.

Rolling Paisley, rolling hills of Paisley.

And I remember thinking, that's not exactly right.

And then I remember.

I would have remembered that.

Yeah.

And then I remember hearing as if I had supersonic hearing, because Abby was all the way on the other side of the kitchen

talking to the doctor and sounding like it was going to be okay.

And then I remember thinking, thank God Almighty, the children are at Craig's.

I just thought that I don't know what's about to happen to me right now, but I know it shouldn't involve children.

That's all I I know

and so thank God for that now

pod squad

I'm sitting there enjoying

confusedly the paisley roof

vistas the next thing I know

I turn to my right

And Tish is sitting next to me.

Okay, now I'm not even sure at first that Tish is actually sitting next to me.

It takes me a minute to be like, are you just more Paisley?

Or is this for real?

Because this can't be happening.

Tish walks in.

How did she get there?

How, how,

has it been six hours?

Has it been one hour?

Who am I?

Who is she?

Where am I?

How did she get there?

It's a good question.

I don't know.

She also kind of just appeared out of nowhere.

She just walked upstairs,

saw you outside, and sat down right next to you.

And I'm inside talking to the doctor about how you're tripping because you didn't micro-dose, you macro-dosed.

And

I am now like, oh, fuck, I got to get out there because

I got to get out there.

Because I didn't want Tish to be scared and feel like

she's witnessing her mom.

This was supposed to be done in private.

That's why, you know, next time we talk about this kind of stuff before we do it.

yeah.

So that's the backstory there.

So, Amanda

sits next to me, and I look at her, and now I'm understanding that she is real and this is really happening.

She has a laptop in her lap.

She says the following to me: Mom, can you edit my college essays?

And she picks up her laptop and she puts it in my lap.

I,

that's worse than math.

I've now been asked to do math

and now I'm being asked to do literature in the first 20 minutes of my trip.

I don't remember how, I don't remember what computers are or like what paragraphs are or what college is or what,

but I do remember words, words, and I can't find them.

It's making the words are moving, everything's moving.

But I do remember in my smart little brain something, which is that oftentimes I think

when I'm remembering back to my previous life before I was on so many drugs,

I do think I remember from that realm

that when people are reading something, or experiencing something that people they love have made

that they make noises Oh my gosh.

Remember this?

That they go

so.

I just sit there next to Tish with the little computer open in my lap, and I do not look at her.

No, I just look at this, the white thing with the black things in front of me, and I just go,

oh,

and I just do that for a little while.

I think I'm pulling it off.

I don't see her.

I mean, she doesn't really pay attention to me anyway.

I feel like it's going all right.

Right.

It's going all right.

It's going pretty good.

And as long as I don't have to say anything specific about what's happening.

Right.

Don't change any punctuation.

No.

So the next thing I know, Abby comes,

she swoops Tish away in the computer that's on my lap.

and then she puts me in a room.

You just said to Tish, though, just keep going.

Is that what I said?

Just keep going.

Just keep going.

Good advice for a writer.

That was smart of you.

You're on the right track.

Keep going.

Keep going.

And then I think somehow you made Tish leave the house, right?

Some, oh, you got her out.

You got her out.

You got me safe.

Well, I think that I was like, what are you up to today?

And she's like, oh, I got to go do this thing.

And I was like, awesome.

That's great.

So then I awesome.

Do it now, please.

Yeah, then I corralled you in the bedroom.

Right.

Well, the best part of this is that when you told this story for the first time on stage, we didn't know you were going to tell it.

And Tish had just opened the show

for us and was sitting in the audience.

And I was watching her face

watch you tell the story.

And it was so amazing.

And then when she came backstage for the first time after the show, she was like, you were high when you edited my college essay.

It was so funny.

I know.

It's like we forgot that she was there or something like that.

Exactly.

Thank God she still got into a college.

Anyway, I know.

So, the good news

was that it did, in fact, break through.

Okay?

Indeed.

Indeed, it broke through.

So, that experiment, while not flawless,

was complete.

And we could move forward with the journey.

Okay, I recovered from that.

It was a lost day.

A lot happened.

I watched Friends for a long time because I thought this is something I can understand.

I couldn't understand it.

I couldn't understand Friends.

That's another story.

That was a difficult time.

I was like, why is Joey like that?

Like, what, why is Monica,

she was like, stop.

I was like, is this a play?

I kept saying, is this a play?

Anyway, anyway.

I mean, if you all knew how much we this family has watched friends over the years it's like tish's go-to we've watched it five iterations yeah it's a comfort show so so for her not to understand friends

it was a difficult time for me i still feel confused about it anyway um

it broke through so now what we have to do is plan the actual journey day because that wasn't enough of a journey because I had no guidance.

So

we decided on the journey day.

That was going to be like a couple weeks later or something, right?

Yeah.

And so we have it planned now.

Like we are clear that the kids, we have made lo so many

really sketchy things that we've said that make it clear that no children will be allowed in the house.

for 24 hours, which was okay.

They were at Craig's.

Now,

some people do this at a place,

they go to their therapist's office.

I felt like, since I'm really only comfortable in my house, like to an nth degree, that it's probably best for me.

My favorite journeys are ones that I take from my living room always.

So I thought, we'll stick with that.

Right, right.

So I needed to, we made all kinds of arrangements.

And Abby had a speaking event the day before, so she was going to make sure she was home the night before she could handle the dogs and all the things.

It was all arranged.

Yeah, I just, you needed somebody else to help

manage the surrounding area.

Exactly.

So it's supposed to be like Friday, okay?

Abby's coming home Thursday night.

So the therapist is supposed to be there at 8 a.m.

Friday, something.

We'd be good.

So on Thursday morning at 7 a.m., when the children are still here, the dogs are still everywhere, Abby is still out of town, I get a text from my therapist that says,

So excited today is the day.

I'm going to be there in an hour.

So I have now once again fucked this up.

I

really planned the entire life.

I did such good organizing just around the wrong thing, which is a theme of my life.

I tried so hard and really nailed it for the wrong situation entirely.

So now...

You're so prepared for something that wasn't happening that way.

Exactly.

Yes.

It's like one of my favorite.

quotes is that adulthood is crossing both ways before you know looking both ways before crossing the street and then getting hit by an airplane.

That's how I constantly feel.

I did the thing.

I looked both ways.

It's just, I didn't.

So

I think this is not ideal.

My wife's not here.

The dogs are here.

The kids aren't, whatever.

So somehow I figure out the kids.

I call Abby.

She's like, holy shit.

Okay.

We're going to make this work.

We're going to make this happen.

You're going to be okay.

I'm going to get on an earlier flight, but you're going to be okay.

And walks me through through it.

Now, because I had like a few jobs to do before the therapist came for the journey and I had planned the day Thursday to do those things.

So now I had to do them very, very quickly.

Okay.

Some of those, which I actually think in retrospect that all of this happened the way it was supposed to happen.

Of course it did.

Because I get so anxious in preparation for things that I might have worked myself up into a nauseous tizzy by the next day.

I really think that's possible.

For an example, I have to like surprise you.

We're going to the dentist right now.

That's right.

She just picks me up.

For an example, she says we're going to lunch and then we go to the dentist.

That is actually a tip that Craig passed down to her in the owner's manual that was moved from Craig to Abby.

No.

Don't let her know.

Wait, so wait, the work that you're supposed to do, were those jobs for work or were they jobs in preparation for the journey?

Okay.

So they were things such as, and these were just mine.

Other people might have different experiences.

I was supposed to come up with three

intentions, can be in the form of a question

that

was tied to my therapy and to my recovery,

that were something that

I would want to be explored and answered in this journey, that I thought, I and my therapist thought would be helpful.

for my recovery if some new light was shed on that particular question.

So I I was supposed to come up with three of those questions and then some little things that would comfort me

during the journey and then set up a little space.

Yeah, like pictures, an altar,

things that you want to be looking at during the journey.

Right.

You know what?

It just occurred to me as you're talking about those questions.

It feels like, you know, the chapter of Untamed where the necklace is so tight and like it's in all its knots is the chapter.

And like, it's all so tight that I feel like another analogy,

the ski slope one, but another one is that like when you just have a thing that you just can't undo and you just can't work with it, it's like this is just

this journey stuff is supposed to just loosen it a little bit so you can get started.

Like you still have to do the work, you still have to unknot it, but it has that first loosening where you could actually start the work.

That feels exactly that to me, that's a little even better than the ski slope.

That is how it feels.

Do you want to know my metaphor for it?

Please.

So the way that I think about psychedelics is like, for example, we have lights that are shining on us right now.

To me, what psychedelics are is that they actually explore all this unexplored space.

It's like turning the lights on in places that you didn't know existed.

And so creating more expansiveness, more understanding, showing that there are maybe like maybe the ski slope.

Maybe like the lights are only, you're only seeing like the specific slope that you've been going down, but showing that there is a broader mountain or even a broader world.

That's good.

So it's like the, it's like illuminating more

space.

I love that.

That's right.

That's right.

So, you know, for example, one of the questions that I went in with, which seems silly, but actually was really important to me at the time and tied to everything, was, why am I so scared?

Like, why am I so scared?

Like, what?

And that encompass

encompassed a lot of things.

Of course, it meant, like, why do I have all this anxiety?

Like, what,

what, um,

what happened?

Why is my body like this?

Why is my mind like this?

Why am I hyper-vigilant?

Why do I experience life

so differently than it seems like a lot of other people do?

Right?

And

that was like a question that was kind of at the

center of

everything.

And then I had a couple other questions, but I'm just going to focus on that one for the purpose of this story.

Okay.

Yeah.

So

what happens is that the therapist comes.

I have my questions written out.

I have my little thing, which is just like some flowers.

And I have a picture of my sister and me and Abby and me and then the kids in front of me.

And then

I lay down.

In my particular case, I took MDMA

and then

Waited an hour, nothing.

I didn't feel anything from that.

And then I took the

I drank a mug of tea Which was the psychedelics psilocybin, yeah, right

Now what I will explain is that at first I was like nothing I don't feel anything and then I was like oh shit, okay, I had a feeling of oh shit

and I

Don't know how I transitioned to this situation, but I was laying on the couch and I had like she had given me a mask thing And the next thing I knew,

I was,

I guess, from the outside, I looked like I was just laying there with a mask on.

I think how it appeared was I was laying there with an eye mask on.

But what really happened was

what felt like it was happening to me was that my

consciousness was that I was in a very strange, scary, dark

world

that I couldn't figure out where I was

or what it was.

And it felt like kind of dragony.

And you also had headphones on.

Oh, I had headphones on, right?

Which had some music in it, which was all a part of this strange, scary.

And so for a long time, I just was frozen and very scared.

I did not think

of anything else to do, but to just lay there and be frozen and paralyzed and scared.

So that's what I did for a very long time.

It turns out, like a couple hours.

Okay.

Were you aware that you were laying there,

believing that you were in a strange realm, or did you believe you were in a strange realm?

I believed that I was in a strange realm.

That is my retrospective understanding of what was happening.

Otherwise, why would I have just stood there?

I would have taken off the mask.

That was my first question.

The door wasn't even locked.

It felt like it was.

It felt like I was in this scary, scary realm.

I was drenched with sweat.

Two hours in, I finally say,

I think it's a very interesting parallel to life for me is like

not asking, like just being like, I'll just be terrified and alone for a long time, even though there's someone sitting there who I'm paying to help me.

I guess this is my lot in life.

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I sit there for hours.

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So finally I do

apparently say out loud I'm really scared.

I just say I'm really scared because I'm still in this realm with the dragons and the darkness and I don't understand why I'm there or how I'm supposed to get out.

I hear the therapist from some other realm, which is still in my living room,

saying,

Okay, why don't you ask the medicine why you're so scared?

Now it's getting fucking weird because that was my intention.

And now we're

and I and I'm asking the medicine, what the hell does that mean?

Okay,

I guess I'll ask the medicine.

I don't know who I am to talk because I'm in a realm with dragons and darkness.

So went in Rome.

so

I just say

medicine

why am I so scared oh

okay

now is when I try to explain something that's really hard to explain to the pod squad in a way that I feel like you will understand even if I don't say all the exact words

okay

the next thing I know

right after I've I've said, medicine, why am I so scared?

I am no longer in the dark dragon realm.

I am sitting on the floor in a cold basement.

I'm my age now.

I'm an adult.

You, Amanda, are sitting down there with me.

And there is a child in the middle of us.

Amanda's her current age.

Amanda's your age, a grown-up.

A one-grown up up Amanda.

You're both grown-ups, okay.

Yeah, but in

we're both grown-ups in the basement with a child.

We're both in the grown, we're both grown-ups ourselves, versions of ourselves right now.

But we're sitting in a cold, dark basement, and there's a child between us.

Okay.

Without getting into any specifics,

what I want you to know is that the child that was sitting between us

is a relative of ours,

and what we were experiencing with this child, the child was very scared.

The child was like holding the child's self and was scared and we were comforting this child.

This child was

a relative of ours who had

suffered abuse as a child.

Okay, what we were doing in the basement with this child was waiting for the child's parent to come down the stairs and beat the child.

You and I,

when I asked the medicine, why am I so scared,

the medicine took me to some moment in time where someone in our family line

was waiting to be beaten.

And that

fear in that relative's body that that relative

embodied as a child to deal with the abuse

is what was passed on in our lineage

because when a person is abused

that person's nervous system

talk about needing to be hypervigilant, right?

Like that person

becomes a certain way in their body, and then that is passed on generation to generation.

And even if the abuse stops, which God bless our family line, that physical abuse stopped, there is still an anticipatory fear in the body that something terrible is about to happen, and we must brace ourselves.

That is a family legacy.

Why am I so so afraid that something terrible is always about to happen?

There I am on the floor with a little kid who is absolutely positive that something terrible is about to happen because it is, and has learned as a family survival skill that we will brace ourselves, we will be ready, we will be prepared, we will survive that.

So,

wow.

When I explain to you, I don't understand, I don't begin to understand what the hell psychedelics are.

What the hell this story is.

I don't even know.

But what I'm telling you is I have read 70,000 million, gazillion, trillion books about this.

I could have told you in my brain this.

I knew this.

And I never knew this

until I was sitting in that.

I knew it in my body then.

I knew in my body that this fear is actually not mine.

It's not, it's not native to me in my spirit.

It is a survival technique that is passed on, like skills are passed on in families, like beauty is passed on in families, like legacies are passed on in families.

This anticipatory anxiety, readiness, warrior, love warrior, carry-on warrior,

this armoring up, this

rigid fear

is a family legacy that was a survival technique.

And

I don't know how to explain how it changed everything for me.

I don't even know even know if changed everything is the right word.

I don't feel like

all I know now is that I have a bodily understanding of where the fear is and what it is and what it's from, and that I can see it now.

I can see

and feel the familial armoring up and the fear and the nervous system.

And I can have, like,

I think one of the things it does is it really

adds

all kinds of compassion.

Like, I

have so much, I have spent a lot of time being really angry

about why didn't things weren't more perfect?

Why didn't people get their shit together?

Why didn't this get worked out?

And that didn't get worked out.

And why did, and I still feel some of that, like that's not, but, but I feel like this huge compassion around

what every generation goes through and what we pass on and what we don't.

Yeah.

I remember because at a certain point during the day,

you get to like when you, when, when you were on like the

the come down

the landing as the therapists like like to call it um you can call in your people right to be there for you so that we can we can walk into um coming off of these drugs into sobriety together and I just remember when I first got in there

you're not you you're not the kind of person that like is

um how do i say this that is like cliche lovey dovey

in fact it makes you feel it makes you get the ick at times i think when i get too lovey dovey like that kind of vulnerability and like i don't know how to say this in the how would you classify yourself i should ask i know what you mean like i'm not like mushy gushy like yeah you're not mushy gushy i i do i feel like i am but it's like once a year yes yes yeah yeah and you're suspect and distrustful and ick of it.

There, there is something there, too.

I, I, that is a family thing too, where it's like, what are you trying to pull?

Yes.

Yeah.

And if it happens, it's happening very briefly and it's one time a year, right?

Right.

And it's like, don't get used to that.

That was your allotment for the day.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I walk into this room and she was a puddle, like a puddle of love.

And she was looking at all of the pictures she brought and explaining to me me how much she loves everybody and how much she loved me and how much she, like, how much all of it, all of it, all of it, all of it.

And so I just,

and I'm not saying that I like that person better, but I thought it was very interesting.

Yeah, it is.

That it could open you, like crack you open in a way that your consciousness was like letting you tap into more understanding and love.

And I do think that this experience while you're sitting there seeing this younger person and your sister, and you, and there was like kind of an unlocking in that experience.

Yeah, because I think the not being mushy and the not talking about love all the time are not being that's just a defense mechanism, it's just a like a protection thing because that's that is how I feel.

I know I feel like a very big love bug on the inside, but there's all these like things that block it, and I think this is just an unblocker, right?

Um,

and then after

that,

it was lightness and beauty, and no more scared was the whole journey.

It was like the dark dragon thing turned into this like forest.

It felt, and the rest of the day, the rest of the journey was utterly beautiful.

And I'll tell you a little bit about it.

But what was cool about that for me in retrospect was the idea of like, that's what we talk about all the time.

It's like first the pain, then the rising, like, go to the fear thing, face it, there it is,

and then freedom is how the journey felt.

So after the

basement experience, the only way I can describe it is that,

well, Sinead O'Connor came,

one of the notes in my therapist's thing.

I mean,

well, my therapist said in her notes that she's never heard anyone in the history of the universe all combined together talk about Sinead O'Connor as much as I did during my eight-hour journey.

Sinead O'Connor was like my guide throughout the whole thing, and I have you two know I have very deep feelings and love for Sinead O'Connor for a million different reasons, but I am slightly obsessed.

I have slight jealousy about Sinead.

So that was

interesting.

Also, Sinead's whole, you know, so much of her work was about abuse and

generational trauma and Irish families and religious trauma and oppression and all of it.

I'm in the forest.

It's a new realm.

Okay.

I am now, I've gone through the thing where I figure out why I'm so scared.

And then now I'm a different version of myself.

I'm not an adult.

I'm a kid again,

which I loved.

because suddenly I was like a fresh, unafraid version of myself.

So it was like, it was like now you're going to look at yourself had you not had that fear.

Okay.

It was a fearless childlike version of me.

And I was walking through the forest and I was a little kid and I

had a little notebook.

Okay.

I had a little notebook and I was delightedly writing down.

all the things that I saw.

Just look at the trees.

Look at the butterflies.

oh my god, the cloud, like just writing down all the things I saw.

And then

this crazy shit happened, which is

my little girl observer self, delighted observer self,

started to ask why.

I was writing down what.

I was writing down what I saw, what I heard, what I felt, what I, and then I started to say, why?

Why am I here?

Why is this like that?

And everything would go dark.

The forest would go dark.

When you asked why,

and I couldn't figure out why it kept going off and on.

And then

something in me

said,

I was in the why place of my brain.

I was like stuck in the why.

And so there was no more forest, and my little girl self was all stressed.

And then I suddenly just go out loud, because it's written down on the notes, i go i don't know

the realm of the forest comes back to life and not only did it come back to light and life but

there were fireworks there were um

flowers exploding confetti you explained it to me yeah it was like

the the words i don't know were magical words that made the entire realm celebrate that this little girl was just back in the i don't know.

And so then I go back into the forest.

I'm still in the forest.

The celebration dies down.

I'm walking, I'm writing, all these beautiful things.

And then I go, why?

Darkness, I don't know.

Celebration.

I can control the realm

by staying out of the analytical mind,

staying in the awe and the observing mind.

And every time I go towards the analyzing or insisting on understanding,

I stop myself and go, I don't know.

And the realm goes, oh, we love you.

Yes, honey.

Yes, you don't know.

Of course, you don't know.

Stay in the I don't know.

That's really cool.

I know.

So, no, you don't, you don't know.

I don't know.

I don't.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Anyway, that is.

I want to do this again because I'd love to tell you, because this is about psychedelics, and then of course it's not about psychedelics.

It's about like our fears and our

heritage and our trauma and our joy and all of it and

our subconscious, our psyche, our unknown, the different realms, what the hell is this?

And exploration.

And I think staying curious as to

the wonderment of not knowing what the fuck is going on.

Yeah, it was like the realm was like, that why is my responsibility.

You get back to your little girl joyful.

Your job has always been here.

Just

be amazed and write down what, what is the Mary Oliver thing?

Instructions for a life.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Like, that's what the realm was saying to me.

Like, you're always above your pay grade, honey.

Like, just

be astonished and tell about it.

And let us handle the why.

But it's very it's very um

It feels like both because I feel like you can only be astonished and tell about it when you can release

this kind of cage of fear that you're in, you know, like that the cage of fear keeps you

out of awe and into self-preservation.

and so I think it's beautiful that it was able to show you

that

why

you're afraid because that is basically like

you are afraid for very, very good reason, and you are afraid biologically, and you are afraid because of the way that you were raised.

Like, I think that

it reminds me of the episodes

that we did not only with

Galit Atlas with the emotional inheritance.

It's like that scientifically, you know, what

people who

survived

famine,

even, I mean, people who survived famine, their descendants have

in their bodies biologically

effects of famine.

Like, not because

of anything that happened gestationally or in pregnancy, but because your actual

DNA expression

changes because of the trauma that someone experiences.

So it's like biologically, and then

when you're raised

by someone who is legitimately

afraid and has based their whole survival on their ability to navigate that fear,

it is

a difficult thing

rendered less difficult by the fact that you don't have to face that particular

trauma, right?

That they had to, but you are still facing all the fears together.

Like, and you are confused because you're looking around and saying,

I don't, there must be something wrong with me because I don't see anything to fear here, but we're all so afraid.

And I know we're supposed to be afraid.

And I'm raised to be afraid.

And I can sense the fear, but I don't even know where it is.

And so

not only is our wiring, our actual biological wiring that.

biological inheritance, but the way we're raised to be like, this is how, this is what I can pass down to you to help you be safe from what?

Is

a burden, right?

And so we're constantly trying to figure out where it is

and make it

make it make sense.

And

that will make you

will be really exhausting and make you feel a little crazy when the whole world is telling you there's nothing to be afraid about, but you're very sure that it is.

And

then so to be able to see that and be like, oh, that makes so much sense.

And then to also be able to like when you first told me that story it was devastating to me and also

so beautiful because it was it made me feel like

the

the

giver that I thought

was of

the hardest parts of me

had actually given their best

to give me the best parts of them.

Yeah.

And that had suffered a lot

and had worked really hard to shield me

from the particular inheritance that they had and that they couldn't choose but to pass down part of it

and

that

I

can't choose but to pass down part

of mine

but it will be smaller

just like it was smaller to me it will be smaller to my people and then it will be smaller again and that like that is

the generational work is like I'm gonna do what I can

to make this, to protect you as I can and burden you the least that I can.

And you're putting it into language.

Just that is such a gift for the next generation.

We're not even getting it right necessarily with all this language.

We're all just adding stories to things.

But this is an important

version of a story of our family and

telling it to the next generation.

You know, my children understand that I'm scared.

And they understand that it's not that it's in my body and not necessarily out in the world, that it's something that I'm need to deal with internally.

I don't need them to be as hypervigilant as me, and they know the story of why my body's like this.

So putting language around it for the next generation is a key that gets them out of that cage too.

You know?

Yeah.

So thanks for listening, you guys.

And

we love you so much.

Thanks for being the people that we feel like we can share these complicated, tricky stories with and know that you will hold with love and curiosity and understanding.

And keep it just between.

Just keep it between.

And by no way do we

do we present ourselves to be medical doctors or know what the fuck we're talking about.

Just want to say that.

We don't know.

We don't know.

I think it's pretty fucking clear.

We have no idea what we're talking about.

We just want to be clear.

We don't know.

We don't know.

Bye.

We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media.

Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human.

And you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram and at We Can Do Hard Things Show on TikTok.