233. Finding Happiness through Psychedelic Healing - Conversations with Matt Zemon

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello everyone and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

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Thankfully, 33 years ago I got my act together and since that time I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no Matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice and the choice is yours.

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Today's episode is amazing and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at Coach Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

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Matt Zemon I'm so excited for this conversation today. How are you, Andy? I'm doing well, nice to be here. I'm excited as well. Yeah.

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I love in your bio you. Say entrepreneur to psychonaut. Psychonaut. Did I say that correctly? You said it correctly, yeah.

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Chief Experience office. Yeah. Chief experience officer and co founder of Happy Me. So of course I want to talk. To you because this is Happiness Solved.

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There we go. Yeah. Lots of ways to solve for happiness. Oh, yes. And this is a conversation and I've only had there's a couple of ladies.

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That have a podcast, okay, that is. All on the topic of psychedelics. And so I interviewed them.

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We're going to have that conversation and. I preface this in that episode and. I'll say it again here. This is just a conversation about how to another form, an alternative form of healing. We're not doctors saying that this is the end all, be all, everybody.

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You have to do your research, make. Decisions, be your own mental health advocate. And health advocate, as always. Anyway, so having said all of that, I want to know your backstory to. How you got to this.

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Point in. Your life where you're helping people release traumas with the use of psychedelics. Sandy I was a typical entrepreneur and I just had built a bunch of businesses and was just kind of living my life. And in 2019, some friends said, hey. We hired this guide who's going to do a guided Psilocybin journey, do you want to participate?

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I was like, no, I don't think so. They said, no, you do, you want to do this. You love learning, you love travel. This is like a journey within yourself. And why not do this?

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So I agreed and had very low expectations, thought it was a little bit woo woo. And it just completely changed my exceeded every expectation, changed the way I look at the world. I was able to reconnect with my mom, who died when she was 49. I was 22. I had kind of insight into insight.

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Into how I was living my life, and I finished it, saying, I need. To know more about what just happened. I went right back to school, got. A master's in psychology and neuroscience, hyper. Focused on psychedelics and how they work.

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And have been just doing my own deep dive now since 2019 in this world. It's been fascinating. I did not expect to be here. Wow. Yeah.

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Sometimes life shows up in a way. That we don't expect, and yet we're. Put on a trajectory. I mean, I never thought I'd be. Talking about happiness, and here I am, over 200 episodes in.

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Well, by the time this is released, it'll probably be a lot more. But at the time of this release, I think episode 204 is being released this week, and here we are in early May. So to give everybody a reference point. All right, so I have just a. Very high level understanding of psychedelics.

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It's something that has definitely piqued my. Interest, mainly because of all the trauma that I experienced as a child, really. Going back to when I was in. My mom's belly and, you know, I. Had a biological my biological father, who passed away when I was 18 months old, was extremely physically violent with my mother and my siblings.

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And then, of course, there's just lots of other things through the course of. Your life that happens that you experience these traumas. And while I've done alternative therapy and energetic work to help shift the vibrational. Frequency around the traumas that I experienced, there's so many layers there, right? When you say you're peeling the layers of the onion, I mean, that's such.

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An overly used example, but it's true, right? Because how else when we get to the point where I am in my life, I'm in my late 50s. That's a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff that has been built up over the years. So when you say it changed your.

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Life in ways that you never expected, can you just give us an idea of what things were like before you. Tried the psychedelic and what it was. Like after, just to give more of. A detailed experience that you had? I'm happy to do that.

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First, I want to just acknowledge what. You said and say, I appreciate you sharing that you've had these different traumas in your life going back all the way into while your mom was still pregnant, carrying you. And then I also want to acknowledge that you said that, as we all do. We all have trauma. And I think only somebody who is there's a number of people who I.

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Don'T think realize that that they just think it's life and they don't understand that. Okay, maybe that for me as an example. I knew that my father was a. Challenging father, being an alcoholic, having this. Rage that could snap, but I didn't.

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Look at how that played out in. Terms of how I react and then. What I tried to create in my life and the people that I thought I could. Why am I such a good peacekeeper? So that was a role I was playing for all these years.

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I didn't realize what the neglect, how. That manifested in my life and like. Okay, so a lot of the behaviors I've exhibited, whether it's being an entrepreneur was that to get their attention and to earn their love and to try. To keep them interested in me. Did that impact how I behaved in school?

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Did that impact, I mean, so many different things. None of them are things I thought about before. Psychedelic Matter was just living my life. And doing the best I knew how and knowing that I wasn't satisfied but. Not sure why or even how to start thinking about that there's another way to live.

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It just was, this was a level of anxiety, this was the level of. Depression, this was the level of just averageness and yeah, I didn't know where to look. And what's been incredible is realizing, learning that I just had to look inside. Don't have to do anything, I'm worthy of love. I don't have to do anything to earn your love.

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I have plenty of love to give. Again, I didn't know any of this. Pretty psychedelic. It's been quite the journey of remembrance. Is what I'd like to say.

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That like oh, I forgot I could feel this way. Yeah. Does that make sense? Totally makes sense. So my first book that I published was a novel that I wrote for young adults.

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It was fiction and the second one was never released. It was supposed to be a series. And I'm finishing it up and I'm going to put it out as one book. But the second book was called Beginning. To Remember because we all have that knowledge within us, we've just forgotten about it because of society and being conditioned and life happens and you're thrown so many curveballs and people tell you can't do this or you can't do that.

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And you forget who you are. So how does a guided because I. Do believe that this isn't something that you just go and do on your own. It really needs to be a guided experience and we'll talk about that in a minute. But.

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How does the psychedelics work in terms of taking you back? I mean it's altering some sort of your brainwave function. Just explain that a little bit. So what we talked about is through the psychedelic process you're able to reclaim your true self. You're able to remember what life was.

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Like before you got into the thinking patterns that we all get into. We all get into these grooves of repetitive thinking. And some people it can be, oh. Everything'S negative, everything's negative or everything gray or victim or picture flavor. There's lots of patterns.

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Psychedelics gives us for that experience, a. Chance for different neurons in our brains. To fire together that haven't fired together in a while. It calms down. It's called default mode network.

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It turns off that inner narrator that's. Constantly just talking to you and saying things to you that you wouldn't allow a friend to say to you. Oftentimes very negative. It turns that down. These neurons start firing and all of.

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A sudden, instead of thinking just in the same ski track, you've been going down the mountain, this fresh coat of. Powder is laid and you can ski anywhere you want. And then it's like, oh wait a minute, I forgot I could feel this, or I could think like this. And then when the psychedelic medicine journey. Is over, you remember what that felt like.

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And then you can choose to take. All sorts of different actions to then. Integrate that experience into your life. So what I tell people all the. Time, there's no cure.

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This isn't a magic bullet, this isn't a panacea, this is not going to cure anything. It's a catalyst for change. And when you choose to take a psychedelic, you are entering into a biochemical, psychosocial spiritual experience. And this is going to impact all sorts of different things if you let it and if you just treat it as biochemical, like people have thought about. Antidepressants as an example, that you're only.

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Going to get so much benefit. But if you can let it wrap. Around your entire life and you can. Leave that and try to get into. A community that's going to be supportive.

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Or put some scaffolding up in your own community and you can look at. How does this connect you to a. Higher power and let the biochemical cycle things happen. It's incredibly powerful as a technology for change and for spiritual connection.

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It sounds almost too good to be true. But I know that people have been. Using this for very long centuries, really thousands of years. Thousands of years. There's cave drawings in Africa that are.

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9000 years old that show mushrooms. There's at least 1000 years of history. Here in the Americas. There's Siberian history. There's a lot of history with these plants.

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We go back into the Greeks and the Elusian mysteries. There's a lot of history of psychedelics being used for transformation. So we're not talking LSD like dropping acid like they were doing in the Guess. There's different types.

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What is it that you are suggesting? Let me just start there because I don't want to make any assumptions. I don't want to make assumptions. I just know I do remember. So you had asked me before we started recording my experience.

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So I'm an open book as all. My listeners know, I was 20 years old. I took a little bit of LSD and my girlfriend and I don't know. How long it lasted. We were up until all hours of the early morning.

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I just know that we were laughing. And laughing and laughing. We were probably at a gas station for about an hour trying to get a soda out of the machine. And it was moving around. We just couldn't even do it.

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And we just went back home empty handed because we couldn't physically put a. Quarter in the soda machine to get it out. And this was obviously just short of being a teenager. I think it was right after I turned 20 years old and I tried it. It was a fun experience.

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I never tried it again because I. Had heard so many people have really horrible bad experiences. And I thought, you know what? I'm good. I don't need to try this ever again.

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So I never did it again.

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I do remember my son coming home once, and he had tried mushrooms with his friends, and I sat with him, and it was an interesting experience watching. Him go through the range of emotions. Of course, this was before any talk of psychedelics. So I'm just watching him and I'm just like, just trying to be his mom and just be there with him and just like, oh my gosh, I can't even believe. And then he was completely fine.

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I mean, I don't know that we. Never talked about it afterwards. Like, well, did you have any so. That'S the casual partying kind of use. Of these, which I certainly do not.

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Promote in any way, shape, or form, because I think that it does need to be guided. So how is it can you walk. Us through what a guided experience is. Like and how that? Because it's a structured environment.

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Absolutely right. Yeah. You brought up a bunch of things here, so let's just unpack a little bit. So there are multiple ways that people. Find their way to the psychedelic medicine these days.

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One path is the medical path. So in America, the only legal psychedelic. Is ketamine, and people are finding their way to ketamine. In addition to ketamine, there are clinical. Trials that have been going on on psilocybin or mushrooms.

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MDMA is a big one. That one just finished the phase. Three clinical trials for post traumatic stress. Disorder with incredible results. Just a quick side note.

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This was on treatment resistant PTSD. So picture first responders, veterans, victims of sexual assault where nothing's worked. Tried therapy, they've tried the existing medications, nothing's worked. Three sessions with MDMA, with therapy, 67% no longer have PTSD. Oh, my gosh.

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Wow. It's that big of a number. Wow. Just again, perspective. So that's MDMA.

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Psilocybin is the mushroom. Johns Hopkins is doing things with end. Of life cancer patients, smokers, alcohol, all sorts of things. So maybe people found their way in a clinical trial. Those are kind of the medical options.

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Colorado and Oregon are both creating frameworks. For a legal medical model in their state. They've decriminalized some of the psychedelics. So that's kind of one way people to get there. Second way people get there are through.

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Kind of psychedelic tourism. They're flying to the Netherlands, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, and they're. Partaking in a psychedelic ceremony or retreat. Could be kind of just depends on the flavor and that's kind of the psychedelic tourism. And then the third way is through.

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What I'd call some of these psychedelic. Churches, the religious freedom perspective. So they found their way to a psychedelic ceremony. They say, hey, I have a sincere. Religious belief, this church agrees with me.

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And they found their way. And that could be the Native American church. There's a couple branches of this ayahuasca. Church and then there's a couple hundred other churches.

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The best result. So you talked about the challenging experiences. That you've heard people have and in a party setting. Yeah. When you're in an altered state, people you don't know can be scary.

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Noises you're not expecting can be scary. You're very vulnerable in alternate state. So whether you go in the medical or you go for the religious or. You go for the medical tourism, psychedelic tourism, you're in a safe environment. That's one of the most important things that these things do is they create.

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A container where, you know, there's ground rules, nobody's touching anybody, there's no sexual. Contact, there's no other medicine besides this. Everybody's gone through some type of medical intake. The sound is controlled, the food is. Controlled, everything is controlled for your comfort, that's a big deal.

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Okay. And then depending again on what you do, the medical model is typically a. Little bit more clinical, as you would expect. Now some of them have gone to. Have these living room environments and they've.

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Tried to make it more comfortable, but it's still a little bit medical. The ceremonial model is more ceremonial. So you're talking about musicians and candles. And smells and songs and things like that. But what they both have in common is they're trying to create a container for you, to meet you where you're at and to help you on this path of transformation.

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So for those who are more comfortable going, the medical model, great. There's ketamine available and there's these tourist experiences. And for those of you looking for more of a ceremonial, there's again tourist experiences in an underground world with psychedelic churches for you as well. Does that make sense, Mandy? Yeah, completely.

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So I've heard a lot of talk. About how and you mentioned the PTSD study and that is absolutely phenomenal because amazing, we need that just desperately with my gosh, probably I would imagine a lot of the folks that are homeless probably have homeless veterans, suicide, all of that can be transformed. What I'm curious about is I have heard or read, I may have been. Listening to Joe Rogan talks about it multiple times on his podcast. So I've listened to some of his.

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Experts that he's had on his when it comes to addiction or like I've heard that that's been really and the. Ladies that I had on my podcast, that was their experience with family members of using this to. Get over their alcoholism. Yeah, the results with alcoholism and smoking are again, phenomenal. Bill W is one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.

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That's right, yes. I remember really wanted Alex D to. Be a part of the program and. His organization disagreed at the time.

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There's actually some really interesting correspondence between. Him and Carl Jung about them. And his take was when you look. At the Alcoholic Anonymous and other twelve. Step programs, they have this premise of you have to hit rock bottom.

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And one of the things you do. Is you have to acknowledge that there. Is a higher power that you're going. To have a relationship with and you're going to give yourself to that higher. Power and move forward.

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Beautiful. Bill W's thesis was, for a lot of people, that's hard to do with one LFD session. They can have a transformative spiritual experience. And understand that they're not alone. They're connected into this greater universe and.

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That the root of that trauma. What's causing them to drink or to eat or to sex or to whatever. Again, Twelve Step program, you can start to look at it without shame, blame and guilt. So you've connected to a higher power, you start to look at this trauma and then you can move forward. And that to me is more than a biochemical experience.

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That is, again, the psychospiritual social experience that I think is the power of. Is one of the powers of this particular technology. But yeah, we're seeing tremendous results in. The research for people who've been addicted to a number of things and psychedelics often because again, it's all about repetitive thinking and trauma. You put those two things together and okay, my behavior, my manifestation of the trauma is I'm going to drink too much, I'm going to eat too much.

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I'm going to whatever, work too much, gamble too. And psychedelics can help you unwind that. Wow, it's just phenomenal. So what types of services or programs do you offer for your clients? So I'm associated with a company called.

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Happy, and Happy is a telemedicine company that works with Ketamine so people can come online. In our case it's Florida. They can come online, they can meet with a can. If they are eligible, they can get a prescription sent to their home and. Then we connect them with a guide.

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Who will help walk them through the preparation process. What's your intention? Help them set that. We give them music, we give them journals, and then they can go through. Their experience in the comfort of their.

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Own home with a sitter there with them and then afterwards that guide comes back and helps them unpack what we call integrate whatever that experience was. That's how the company I'm associated with works. But there are other companies that do. Telemedicine that are larger than others. So if you're in other states, those.

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Would be ones to look into Mind Bloom and New Life and better you. Are example, there are people who prefer. Not to do the in home model. They want to go into a clinic. And I would recommend to them, great, just ask a couple of questions.

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What is your philosophy of what am I getting? Am I just getting an IV hooked up to my arm and then you're. Sending me on the way? Or are you giving me some type of preparation and intention setting and some type of integration? Not saying anything is wrong.

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Just if you're looking for kind of a whole package, you may have to piecemeal it together. If your provider doesn't do all that, some do, some don't. I would encourage you to try to find providers who look at the Ketamine experience like a ceremony and bring that into it. Some of the research from Johns Hopkins says that that helps make it a more enriching experience. And certainly the integration, the research shows.

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That if you just do Ketamine by. Itself, it is beneficial. But if you do it with this. Whether it's therapy or coaching, it's even more beneficial. So just something for people to think about.

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Yes. The actual medicine is the same from one provider to another when you're talking about Ketamine. But the way they deliver, it varies. And it's worth asking those questions as. You'Re making whatever decision is right for you.

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Yeah, for sure. Because the integration I mean, I've been a life coach for certified since 2004, but have been doing it much longer. I can't imagine without that integration, people are going to be left well, maybe not. They would be left a little ill. Prepared to really benefit fully from the experience.

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And also, if you're going to do it, you want the full package, right? If you're going to take this step. To do this, you want to get. The most out of it. And that integration seems like a really.

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Key component to make sense of it all. It really is. Sandy, what is happening? At least what I've seen. There are people who come to these retreats and these medical practices, and they just do the medicine and they don't have an.

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It just it quickly becomes just another experience. I did this. I went to Japan. I did mushrooms. Okay, great.

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When you have an integrator or a coach of some sort who can work. With you, that person can help remind you. You told me you were done with this. You told me this is what you wanted to do. I'm not seeing the behavior.

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So now did you change your mind. Or are you stuck trying to figure out how to get out of this rut. I'm stuck. Well, great, let's talk more about that. How do you be done with the past and how do we start nudging towards the future?

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But you know what's right for you. And this is what's great about a great coach. As you know, she's been doing it for 20 years and then some. It's that ability to help the person. On their own realize or remember, oh, I want to get here, I can do this.

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I am smart enough, I have the. Skills and if I'm aligned with my purpose, I can get there. I just sometimes need a little bit. Of reminding, a little bit of coaching. I'm a huge fan of coaches in this world.

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So something just came up for me and I wanted to see what you think. So behind me I've got this little sign. You won't be able to see it, but it's a quote that I said on a friend of mine's podcast and he packaged it up and sent this to me and it was just so sweet. But it says in order to grow. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

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Do the psychedelics put you in that. State of being uncomfortable? Right? Very much can. Yeah.

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We talk about so people use the language of good trip, bad trip and I don't agree with that. It's good trip, challenging trip. But when you're getting ready for a. Psychedelic experience again, doesn't Matter if it's. Medical or religious, doesn't make a difference.

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You're told you very well are going to see things that you don't like. Hopefully you're seeing them without shame, blame and guilt. But that doesn't mean you're not scared. Of whatever it is you're seeing and. You'Re supposed to breathe into it.

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You're supposed to ask whatever it is. Show me what you're here to teach me. So the example that I would give. Is on a psychedelic journey. I found myself back as an early.

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Teenager with a family member ten years older who had had, I had had some inappropriate sexual contact with. This was something that I had buried. Deep inside of me. So deep that it wasn't even on my intention list. It wasn't even on my radar to even think about bringing it to a ceremony.

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It was so tucked away and all of a sudden I'm there. I was like, oh my gosh. And I could without having to forgive. The action, I could look at this person and say, okay, what was going on? They were rejected from their father.

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They were competing and losing their sibling. They were having substance use challenges. They were rejected in all these different. Areas and they just wanted to be loved. So again, I don't have to forgive the behavior, but I can understand the human and I could forgive the human and this would be over 30 years later, a long time.

00:30:01
And all of a sudden because I was no longer mortified or embarrassed about my behavior in them. I was able just to let it go and now I can talk about. It without my cheeks getting red and. My ears burning or that pit in my stomach. But yeah, I was definitely uncomfortable to go through that and I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to go through that and in one session to.

00:30:28
Relieve like I didn't even realize how. Heavy of a burden it was until it was gone. Now was that something that you didn't have any recollection of because you had buried it so deeply or was it. Kind of it was there, it was there. Okay.

00:30:44
Yeah. I just wouldn't talk about it or somebody would make a joke or something would happen. That's got to be shameful. Of course it is. As a man especially.

00:30:53
Of course. Well, thank you for sharing that with the audience. It's these types of conversations that really help others. Yeah, I hope so. I hope that all of these, like what you're doing, Sandy, and these types of conversations, just normal applies.

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Whether it's your story at twelve, walking. Up the steps and finding out about. Your brother sound hugely traumatic. It is a memorable, life changing conversation. But we all have our things and it's not a competition, it's just the things that make us who we are and talking about and normalizes it talking about the feelings, especially again, as a.

00:31:42
Guy, we have feelings for a reason. We've evolved for all these Louisiana years. And we have tear ducts. They're there for a reason and there. Are happy tears and there's sad tears.

00:31:51
And then we're supposed to have these emotions of human existence experience. I appreciate what you're doing and having. These conversations and I think more of these are good. Thank you. Oh my gosh.

00:32:04
Is there anything else you want to share with the audience that we haven't. Talked about before we finish up? I'm happy. I don't know, I think we've covered a lot of ground. You talk about a happiness solve.

00:32:20
I think I'd encourage people if they're. Thinking about psychedelics or are there cases. Of it that can lead to happiness? Yes, but it's also about just a rich full life and knowing that you don't need anything external to have that it's all inside.

00:32:45
Again, you can do years of therapy. Or years of meditation and in a. Single psychedelic journey you can make a lot of progress for those who it works for and for those who are. Working other paths, that's wonderful too. Meditation and breath work and churches and exercise and all sorts of other paths.

00:33:05
And those are all great too. This is just another technology that for. Those who are being called to it, it's something not to be respected, but. Not nearly as scared as what we. Grew up being told that these are very dangerous medicines.

00:33:20
If you look at the harm of alcohol and tobacco compared to mushrooms. It's not even in the same zone. Not even in the same zone. We just grew up in a prohibition. So we were just fed to just.

00:33:33
Say, no, danger, danger, danger. And it's hard to get past that. But make your own decision. Do some reading. There's a lot of resources out there for you.

00:33:42
All right, well, Matt, where can people find you if they want to get more information? Mattzeman.com is my site. There's a bunch of little videos and there's a free guide to microdosing, and I'm active on LinkedIn and Instagram. And whether it's me or somebody else in the space, just ask the questions. We're all here to serve, and I'm happy to help any way I can.

00:34:07
All right, well, Matt, thank you so much. This has been such a great conversation. And for all the listeners out there, like you said, do your homework, do your research, and again, this is just another way. There's so many different paths you can take, and this is one of them. Thank you so much.

00:34:26
Thank you, Sandy.

00:34:40
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe. And that your lives are filled with. Peace, joy, and happiness.

00:34:56
Take care, everyone.