332. Healing Trauma and Improving Wellbeing: The Therapeutic Powers of Psychedelics with Paul F. Austin

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00:00:47
Paul Austin. So excited to have you on today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation because it's a topic that I'm very interested in learning more about. So I'm just gonna let you introduce yourself, and, yeah, tell us how you got, you know, what was the impetus that made you start getting into the work that you do today? Was it a big moment in your life?

00:01:13
How did that happen? So, I grew up in West Michigan and outside of a small city called Grand Rapids, which historically was known for its furniture industry. Herman Miller, Hayworth Field case, and in more recent times is known as Beer Town USA because there's a ton of great microbreweries. And Grand Rapids has a more, I would say, traditional family environment. I grew up in a small suburb, and church was really at the cornerstone.

00:01:45
Religion was really at the cornerstone of our family. My parents were, and continued to be both, I would say, more progressive, meaning they voted, for example, Democrats for the Democrats over the last 30 years, but still have very traditional values. And so every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life, until I left to go to undergrad, it was basically an obligation to be at church, at Sunday school. That was really the cornerstone. At the age of 16, I started to experiment with cannabis, marijuana.

00:02:22
And soon after my experimentation began, my parents found out that I had been experimenting with cannabis. And as you can imagine, they weren't too happy or too pleased. They really saw all illegal drugs as bad, very harmful, potentially addictive. My mom's sister had actually had some addiction issues with certain illegal drugs, so it was very concerning for them, and I. They sat me down one Sunday after church, and my dad looked at me and said, you know, I haven't been this disappointed since my brother passed away in a car accident.

00:02:56
So that's how impactful my experimentation with an illicit drug was to them. So from that point in time, I came to realize, oh, if I'm going to continue to explore, we could say, altered states of consciousness. I'm going to have to keep this part of my life quite a. And so that same friend who introduced me to cannabis a few years later introduced me to psilocybin mushrooms. And at the age of 19, I had my first experience with psilocybin mushrooms.

00:03:25
Not a micro dose, but also not a huge dose. Sort of around 2 grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms, which is enough to feel it, but not so much that it's overwhelming. And then soon after that, I started to experiment with LSD. And LSD, for me, was really the substance that woke me up, turned me on, brought me into the state of transcendence, awareness of interconnectedness, a deep love and reverence for nature and the natural environment. And so at the age of 19, 2021, I took higher doses of psychedelics, maybe 15 or 20 times, as a sort of form of experimentation and also personal development.

00:04:10
And one of the core takeaways from that experiment was, I really want to live in an unconventional way in my twenties. I don't want to just follow the same path that others have followed. I think if there's any time to be free in a free spirit and do as I want, as I wish, you know, when I'm 2122-2324 that's the time to do it, when else to do it? And so at the age of 21, I moved to Turkey, where I taught English for a year, and soon after that, became a digital nomad, where I lived in Thailand, Budapest, Lisbon, Oaxaca, in Mexico, and basically lived and worked remotely. And I've been doing that ever since.

00:04:52
And my first project was a teaching English educational platform building off of that first job that I had in Turkey. But my second project was third wave. And so in 2015, I started third wave as an educational platform around psychedelics. My read on the base was that it would follow cannabis. So just like cannabis became destigmatized and eventually legalized in many places, my assumption is that psychedelics would follow a similar trajectory.

00:05:21
And so I just started a public educational platform to ensure that people could make informed decisions about whether or not they wanted to use psychedelics. Because when I started to really dive into the scientific literature and the background of the substances, I came to realize that they were unnecessarily stigmatized, that the reason they were illegal was not because of science, but because of politics, and that if folks learned how to use these in very intentional and responsible ways, it could be highly beneficial for their overall health. And so that's been my mission the last ten years, now that I've started multiple projects in the last ten years that are specific to psychedelics. But the thread that keeps me focused is just. I really believe we're at a interesting moment in time, at a sort of precipice as a human species, and that psychedelics can just.

00:06:12
It can really help us to navigate the next year, five years, ten years, with a little bit more calm and presence and courage is what I really believe. I love that. Wow. Because we are in a space right now where things are changing so rapidly that I don't even think it's possible for the human race to even keep up with it. And when you have a society where so many people are so stressed out, it amplifies, you know, what's going on around just amplifies.

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I've seen it in relationships. Like, I really do believe that people are awakening and what's going to happen is either you're going to have a growth mindset and those are the people that are going to really succeed. Because when you have a growth mindset, you're capable of handling more and you have tools, right? Or you don't. And the people that don't are the ones that are just going to suffer, suffer and suffer and suffer.

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00:09:54
So for those that aren't really familiar with psychedelics, and I'm still, you know, I'm still educating myself because, you know, I want to make that informed decision. And so I really appreciate you coming on because I feel like, you know, knowledge is power. And I don't think people recognize that marijuana and psychedelics were made illegal because of politics. It had nothing to do, like you just said, it had nothing to do with the science. And that was such an eye opening thing to me when you hear the story and how it all took place, and we don't have time to get into all of that.

00:10:32
Joe Rogan has done multiple podcasts where they really dive into the whole everything that happened. What is it about having that altered state of mind? You think that helps people really improve their performance, calm them down? I've heard stories of extreme clarity. What is it about it that causes that to happen?

00:11:01
So I'm glad you brought up the growth mindset, because that growth mindset, that capacity to remember how capable we are of adapting and changing and creating, that's an essential and central element to the transformational potential of psychedelics. So typically, when I talk about the benefits of psychedelics, I focus on two things. One is neuroplasticity. Yes. So neuroplasticity is this idea that the brain is malleable.

00:11:36
It can adapt and change well beyond the age of 26. We used to believe that, oh, learning was done. The brain is fully formed. It's all downhill from here. And what we're learning is that there are practices like learning languages, playing music, going for walks, just being active and engaged in life that help to continue to facilitate neuroplasticity.

00:12:03
There's been clinical research that shows psychedelic use activates something called BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is a precursor to neuroplasticity what we're seeing with folks who have a psychedelic experience is after that experience, they tend to be a little bit more willing to cut out bad habits, stop smoking, stop drinking alcohol, stop engaging in toxic relationships, stop eating bad food, sugar, it could be fried food, whatever that is. There's a lot of things where it's just like, no, I'm no longer going to engage in this or do this. And that then creates a spaciousness to actually integrate new patterns and practices and behaviors. And what we see again and again and again is the core underlying issue. That drives a lot of disease, that drives a lot of unhealthiness, that drives a lot of just not being all that centered and present is stress, right?

00:13:09
That we, most of us constantly live in this state of fight or flight. Our autonomic nervous system is in sort of locked in a sympathetic state. And so when we start to actively work with psychedelics, all of a sudden there's insight that comes online in terms of how we can actually shift out of that sympathetic state into a much more parasympathetic state. Rest and digest. So a lot of what I coach people on, or what we train our practitioners on is how could psychedelics be used to shift the nervous system and integrate new practices and behaviors that the or a regulated nervous system?

00:13:46
Because I think it's really important to focus on the physical self. Sometimes, especially in the new age or psychedelic world or overly spiritual world, there's too much of an attachment to other realms or even the emotional body, but there's not enough focus on the physical body because everything really starts in the physical body. So let's start with how do we live healthier? How can psychedelics help us to do that? And then once we feel like we're equipped, we have resources that we need, we feel nourished, we feel rested, we feel ready to go.

00:14:22
The other great effect of psychedelics is its impact on courage. So it helps us to be more courageous, and that's also because of the something that's happening in the brain. So when we take a psychedelic, it down regulates the fear response from the amygdala. And so the amygdala is a tiny reptilian shaped size or tiny almond shaped size part of our brain. It's deep, deep, deep in the brain.

00:14:50
It's the oldest part of our brain, and that's where our fear response comes from, right? That fight or flight response. And because of our busy, modern, urban lives, for most of us that response has been hijacked. And so when you take a psychedelic, it down regulates that fear response and all of a sudden you get the Clarity and insight about what do you actually need to do. Build, create, go after.

00:15:16
Within this vein of the growth mindset that's really going to serve you. Even if it's difficult, even if it's challenging, psychedelics tend to provide a little bit of a healthy kick in the butt to get you out of that rut and really focused on a direction that's going to serve who you want to become. So typically growth mindset, that's a great anchoring the capacity for the brain to change and adapt. Psychedelics really help with that and the capacity for us to not be dictated and controlled by fear and overcome that. Psychedelics can also help tremendously with that.

00:15:51
I talk about that all the time, Paul, because of that it's wired in our DNA. Right, right. And that fear can serve us. There are times and it does serve you, but for the most part because we're not running from bears or trying to catch our dinner and things like that, like we were doing thousands of years ago. It's just silly things come up, quote, silly things, right.

00:16:22
But they scare us. And that fear is so debilitating that it, I have seen it in my own life, how it has stopped me for years from pushing forward. Years have gone by and, you know, at the end of the day, there's only two states of being. You're either in consciousness or you're an ego. You know, consciousness is love and ego is fear.

00:16:45
And we have a choice. And what I love about the, you know, what I've read and have come to understand about psychedelics, specifically microdosing, is that it does really, really help in those states. I've read so many different examples of people that have really just changed their life, especially veterans. And I know that now many states. We're going to shift gears just a minute because I want to talk about the legality of it that some states are, and I don't know which one, I know what, Oregon has decriminalized it, I believe, but they're approving it for certain uses for treatment, especially for veterans.

00:17:38
What can you tell us about that and where you think we're heading in terms of the legality? Some people had thought by now that, you know, marijuana would be legal at the federal level and it's not. They're talking about it. They're talking about it. Right.

00:17:56
So, and that's psychedelics. And cannabis has some similarities. So some of the policy similarities are, for example, Oregon has legalized psilocybin mushrooms. They can be provided within a licensed service center by a licensed practitioner. You can go to Oregon currently right now, and you can legally work with psilocybin in the state of Oregon.

00:18:25
Colorado has also legalized psilocybin, as well as substances or medicines like ayahuasca, San Pedro, iboga. And so you can go to Colorado and you can work with these different substances. They're starting a license regulated market, I believe, in next year or 2026. But right now, it's just all possession of these plant medicines is decriminalized. And that's also the case in Oakland, Seattle, Detroit, Washington, DC, and then several other small university towns like Cambridge, Berkeley, and Ann Arbor.

00:19:02
All plant medicines are decriminalized, meaning they are the lowest priority for law enforcement. You can't get arrested or even get a misdemeanor for possessing these substances at this point in time. Now, probably the most exciting news to pay attention to is depending on the publication date of the podcast that we. That we're recording. In early August, the FDA is making a decision about MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

00:19:33
There's an organization called Maps, which is a nonprofit. They have a for profit branch called Lycos Therapeutics, and over the last many, many, many years, they've been doing clinical research on MDMA for PTSD. And so, in one month, the FDA will make a decision about whether or not they approve MDMA for PTSD. If it is approved, then MDMA is currently what's called a schedule one substance, meaning there is no medical value and a high addictive potential. Cannabis is a schedule one.

00:20:04
LSD is a schedule one. Solar seven mushrooms is a schedule one. I believe cocaine is a schedule two because some dentists use it for as an anesthetic. But the schedule one substances are largely these psychedelic drugs from the 1960s that were prohibited for not a very good reason. And so if MDMA gets approved by the FDA, it will be rescheduled from schedule one to schedule three, and then it can be prescribed for veterans and survivors of sexual assault and anyone else who has PTSD.

00:20:40
It can be prescribed that way. Currently, ketamine, which is a dissociative and an anesthetic, its antidepressant properties were discovered about 25 years ago, and so ketamine is currently legally available, medically available substance. Basically, anyone can access ketamine at this point in time. It's much shorter lasting than the classic psychedelics, but it is available, and it can be quite efficacious, especially if someone has suicidality, really bad depression, ketamine may be useful as well. So I would expect by the end of this decade, 2030, that the majority of Americans will have some form of legal access to psychedelics.

00:21:21
I would expect California to pass a ballot measure or bill in the next few years. I would expect Massachusetts, New York, a lot of these liberal states who are at the cutting edge of drug policy, Washington state, even Arizona has considered it. Michigan has also considered it. So I would say by the end of this decade, you'll probably see another four or five, six states that legalize it, much like Oregon and Colorado. And there will probably be another few psychedelics that the FDA approves, one being psilocybin, which is the active alkaloid in psilocybin mushrooms.

00:21:58
And the other one that we could see is LSD for generalized anxiety disorder. So we're really just at the beginning stages at this point in time. It's still going to be a few years before it really gets rolled out. But according to recent research that was published a couple weeks ago, 8 million people in the United States took psilocybin mushrooms last year. So in 2023 alone, 8 million people took psilocybin mushrooms.

00:22:23
And about half of those people were microdosing. And so that's a really exciting potential. It's about 3% of people in the United States total who took mushrooms last year. And I would expect that to just continue to grow as people are looking for solutions for mental health, loneliness, isolation, and other things like that. Wow.

00:22:43
Very interesting. All right, well, let's talk about microdosing, because you have a book that dives into all things microdosing. I read most of it, and it was interesting that I have probably 50 books sitting there from people who've been on my podcast. I don't normally have the time to read a book before I interview somebody, and I'm just very interested in this topic. So talk about microdosing, because people think mushrooms like you're on this trip, like LSD and this and that.

00:23:27
And I do want to preface this just for some transparency here. I did try LSD when I was 19 years old, and it was a hysterical, fun time. Me and my girlfriend, we laughed. That's all that happened. I literally was laughing.

00:23:48
I remember we needed to get gas, and we were at the gas station for 2 hours trying to, trying to pump gas in the middle of the night. Didn't even realize it was even closed. I mean, that's how irresponsible.

00:24:01
But it was very interesting, and I never tried it again because I had just heard a lot of horror stories about people having the bad trips. Right. And I didn't want to experience that. But isn't it that, I know I'm jumping around a little bit. We'll get to microdosing.

00:24:16
But when people say the bad trip, what that's really doing is, don't they call it something like the death of the ego? And that's how you really grow by experiencing a lot of those fears that come up? Well, that can be the case. So there's probably three phrases. One is of what I would call bad trip, which means that usually the sentence setting is not ideal.

00:24:42
You may be out at a party, you may be out socializing, you may be out at a raid. You're mixing it with alcohol. Right. And that's when significant paranoia can set in. Significant anxiety or anxiety attacks can set in.

00:24:56
That's when people can do really stupid and irresponsible things. And that truly is there can be negative consequences for the weeks and months afterwards that aren't necessarily helpful or transformative. Almost all of that can be mitigated by taking it in a safe, comfortable, quiet setting with a friend or a couple friends or maybe a therapist or a guide. Now there are also things that I would call challenging experiences. And challenging experiences are when you're maybe in a safe container, a relaxed container, and it's a difficult experience, meaning there's a lot of what we call negative emotions that you experience.

00:25:33
Sadness, anger, grief, and there can also be the death of self. So we have this personality, we have the ego that we become attached to. And oftentimes the psychedelic at a very high dose, has these ego dissolving properties that totally basically destroys our personality. And what that does is it allows us to open up a higher state of consciousness, a transcendent state of consciousness where we feel connected to things that are much greater than our individual self. And this is what's often called a mystical experience, connection to God, source, oneness, the universe.

00:26:12
And that can be very challenging to navigate. It can be. It can be heaven that you're experiencing, or in some cases it can be hell that you're experiencing. And that's where that professional support to help you navigate it is so critical. Now there are also experiences, and these are just as valid.

00:26:31
Where people experience bliss, joy, love, transcendence, oneness. They experience the divinity of everything, a deep experience of awe. And they're just beautiful experiences without any bad, challenging stuff. But usually, if you're committed to this path, you're doing pretty consistent work with psilocybin. Mushrooms, lsd, ayahuasca, whatever it is, at some point there will be shadow work to navigate, right?

00:26:58
And that can be a really important part of the developmental process, is to confront and face our demons, our dragons, our shadows, the parts of ourselves that we don't want to look at. And that's, again, where I mentioned the impact that psychedelics have on the amygdala. They help us to become more courageous. That's why they're so effective, because oftentimes there's an emotion, a story, a narrative, a feeling that we've repressed or suppressed for potentially our whole life, maybe since early childhood, and allowing that to come up from the subconscious or the unconscious, allowing us to face it, to release it, to have that catharsis, that's where a lot of the healing potential with psychedelics. Flydenna.

00:27:44
Now, can you reach that point through microdosing? And I'll have you explain this. Yeah, let me let you talk about microdosing and why that differs so much. So a lot of the clinical research thus far is focused on high dose therapeutic experiences, meaning you're doing a very high dose of psilocybin or MDMA or whatever the psychedelic is. You're doing it once.

00:28:12
You have preparation, support before and after. And the intention is on having this transcendent, profound mystical experience. According to clinical research, there are a lot of tangible benefits afterwards. People are more present, they're more connected, they're kinder, they have a better mood, they have more energy, they get better sleep, et cetera, et cetera. Microdosing is different.

00:28:35
So instead of a very high dose, microdosing is a very low dose. It's what I call a sub intoxicating dose of a psychedelic, most commonly LSD or psilocybin mushrooms. And the idea behind microdosing is that you do it once or twice or three times a week for a period of a month or two, and the focus is on what do you notice changing from day one to day 30 or day one to day 60, rather than what do I experience the day that I'm taking it and do a very high dose of the psychedelic. It's really what is the experience on the day that you're doing it? What does that facilitate?

00:29:13
What does that open up? With microdosing, we're looking at a longer trajectory. So the common parallel that I often draw is with meditation. When you start to meditate, you don't sit down on the cushion on day one and expect to be enlightened and less reactive and more present and less stressed, you're really committed to, okay, if I sit down on the cushion every day for 30 days, then by the end of those 30 days, I will notice some substantial changes in my disposition in the way that I'm showing up. Microdosing is very similar.

00:29:43
We're looking at what is that intention for the microdosing protocol? For some folks, it's how can I wean off SSRi's or ADHD medication? For other folks, it's how do I have a better mood and more energy and better sleep? For other folks, it might be I want a higher level of performance. I want to be more creative.

00:30:01
I want, you know, to be more productive, to access flow a lot easier. So it starts with, what's the intention then? How intention play out over the span of 30 to 60 days? Typically, my. The sweet spot that I coach people on is a 45 day microdosing protocol, where I'll say it takes a couple weeks to get your dosage right, because that's an important thing to emphasize.

00:30:20
Everyone has a different dose. The. The average microdose is about a 10th to a 20th of a regular dose. So 100 milligrams of psilocybin mushrooms, or ten micrograms of LSD. But some people go as high as 250 milligrams of psilocybin or even 500 milligrams of psilocybin.

00:30:39
So the first two weeks of a microdosing protocol need to focus on what I call calibration. You need to find your sweet spot. What is your microdose that you are going to work with? And once you land that in the first two weeks, then you want to consistently do it for four weeks, two or three times a week, to see how that's impacting you. So that 45 day window is fantastic for this.

00:31:02
And then typically, what I tell folks is take a couple weeks off, take a break, you know, assess. How did that go? What worked, what didn't, what did you notice? What did you observe? And then, if you are called to continue, continue another 45 day microdosing protocol.

00:31:18
The fantastic thing about microdoses is that they're not physically addictive, physiologically addictive. It's not like taking Prozac or Zoloft or Ritalin or Adderall, where when you start to take that every day, you will have withdrawals if you try to get off. None of that. You can do it two or three times a week. You know, I've done it for many months at a time, and I stop and there's no problem whatsoever.

00:31:39
And it's not the transcendent breakthrough, you know, connect with God type of experience. It's much more subtle, so it's much easier to weave in and integrate into our everyday life. That's what I tell folks. Usually you're looking at how can you combine microdosing with meditation, with yoga, with breath work, with cold plunge, with therapy, with coaching, with some other modality where the synergistic combination of the microdose plus that other modality has a one plus one equals three impact. And that's really where the magic starts to happen at these lower doses of psychedelics.

00:32:17
Wow. That you know this material so well. You're explaining it brilliantly. I really appreciate that. So do you have any examples of maybe a client that came to you and.

00:32:31
And what the results were or what they experienced, just to give kind of like a real life example? Yeah. So I could give a few examples that I think would be relevant for the audience. One is of a client that really wanted to drink less alcohol. So they had a high dose psychedelic experience.

00:32:49
And part of the insight and awareness is that they were way too attached to alcohol. Alcohol was slowly killing them. It was just not a good practice at all. They had known that before, but until they did that high dose of psychedelic, it didn't really hit them with the magnitude that it hit them when they took that high dose of psychedelics. And so they were looking to microdosing to help support that process as they were in the integration phase.

00:33:13
And so they started to microdose with LSD, specifically twice a week. And they would align some of those microdosing days on days that they were going out and being more social because they noticed that LSD, even at lower doses, especially at lower doses, it helps with extroversion, it helps with vulnerability, it helps with being more social and outgoing. So a lot of the typical things that they may associate with drinking, these lower doses of LSD were really helpful to recreate some of those states. But there's no hangover the next day. It's not toxic on the body and the liver.

00:33:49
It's actually physiologically quite healthy, lower doses of LSD. And so they were able to slowly get off alcohol and be alcohol free for a significant period of time after that microdosing protocol, which really helped them to reset their relationship with alcohol. People will also do this with cannabis, people will do this even with caffeine, with coffee. And then people are also doing this with Prozac and Zoloft. So I had another client that I helped to support who had been on Prozac for 15 years was basically the last several years, had found no efficacy from it, but there were really no other options available.

00:34:29
They knew how bad the withdrawals were. They started to microdose with psilocybin mushrooms as they were taking the prozac, because there's no contraindication. That's something that's really important to know. You can microdose psilocybin while you're on Prozac, while you're on Zoloft, while you're on some of these SSR eyes. The key is to do so under the guidance of a medical professional.

00:34:49
So, for example, I'm not a medical doctor. I'm not a medical professional. When I work with clients who are on psychiatric medications, I collaborate with their psychiatric professional so we can ensure that we're doing what's best for them. And with that individual, we were able to help them wean off the SSRI. And as a result of weaning off the SSRI, they continued to take lower doses of psilocybin mushrooms for the next, basically year, two years, almost as a prophylactic against the depression.

00:35:20
So, once a week, they found a really good flow where they would take about a half gram of psilocybin mushrooms. That was plenty in order to help support them, and they didn't need to go back on the SSRI any longer. So those are, I would say, who are the most common reasons and examples? And then the third thing is, I help a lot of entrepreneurs, founders, creatives, high performers, look at how microdosing can help them become more productive, to access flow, to be more creative. There's a lot of examples that I have for that, but I also know how I'm very mindful of the time that we have, but again and again, what it comes back to is they're more focused, they have a better sense of attention, they're more motivated, and they're more creative when they're working on these projects with the support of low doses of psychedelics.

00:36:08
And so the key, from a coaching lens, it's just to keep them focused, because the trade off of working with psychedelics is they do create that more open mind, and so that open sense still needs to be contained and focused onto a goal or an objective in order to see the execution move forward. So, yeah, that gives you a little bit of insight into sort of the applied practice of, uh, microdosing. Interesting. Wow, that's really phenomenal, because, yeah, some of those, uh, SSRI's, they're. They're even saying there's research is showing in some situations, it doesn't even help depression.

00:36:52
Yeah. They're no more effective than placebo, basically. Right. And so we're looking for novel treatments. It's the same reason the FDA is on the verge of approving MDMA for PTSD.

00:37:03
The results, the outcomes for PTSD are no better now than they were basically, 30 or 40 years ago, meaning we've had absolutely no breakthroughs. And psychedelics, I think, represent that for a lot of mental health conditions. Yeah. And I think for veterans especially, it's so, you know, I mean, the veterans. But then, you know, really, PTSD comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes.

00:37:30
Right. Just like anything, and. But it. But, you know, the suicide rate for our veterans is just insane. I think it's twelve suicides a day at this point, maybe up to 20 sometimes.

00:37:44
It's awful. So, I'm glad that our FDA is kind of doing something responsible here. Right. So, the last thing I want to talk about, because I was really interested, I was looking at your. Your press sheet.

00:38:00
I didn't realize that you train coaches in the art of psychedelic assistant therapy. Can you tell us about that? So, the training program. So, as I mentioned, I've been professionally involved in this work since 2015. Prior to getting involved with psychedelics, I did a lot of coaching and training in helping non native english speakers pass a standardized test that they needed to pass in order to become pharmacists, teachers, medical doctors, get their MBA.

00:38:28
And so my background is in coaching training. And a few years ago, I noticed that there were a lot of programs coming out for practitioners or therapists in the psychedelic space that were really focused on trauma and clinical conditions. Meaning how can psychedelics help with, as we've talked about, PTSD, depression, addiction, et cetera, et cetera. However, there were no programs that really focused on what I call the betterment of the well. So, how can psychedelics help us to become better leaders, lovers, and listeners?

00:38:58
Better leaders, lovers, and listeners. And so I started a practitioner training program three years ago. We've now enrolled and graduated about 300 people through that training program. Wow. And the focus is on the overlap of psychedelics and the betterment of the well.

00:39:17
Meaning how can psychedelics help us have better relationships? How can they help us to become better leaders? How can they help us to be more healthy, to make better decisions about the food that we eat and the way that we move? How might psychedelics help us to find our purpose, to better understand and have clarity on what is our path and what are we meant to do, you know, here in our precious time on earth? And so we focus on what I call the skill of psychedelics.

00:39:46
That if we look at psychedelics like we look at writing, Orlando cooking, or martial arts, that it's a skill that is developed with practice over time. And just like martial arts, where when you go and you learn jiu jitsu or you learn kung fu or you learn karate, you're in a community of practitioners. You're going to a dojo, right? And you're learning with other people. And psychedelics, in the practice of psychedelics, that is just as essential that we're learning in community with a community of practitioners who are actively practicing this and looking to become better with a teacher, right?

00:40:20
Because the teacher then helps with mentorship. They help with guidance, they help with perspective, all these sorts of things. And so in our program, we really focus on what I call the five key elements of any transformative psychedelic experience. Assessment. So how do we assess clients to understand if they're a great fit to work with us, to understand if they can be helped with psychedelics preparation, right.

00:40:46
Once we've made the decision that, okay, they could be supported through psychedelic work, how do we help prepare them for that experience? The experience itself, what medicine are we using? What does that experience look like? Who are we working with? Integration.

00:41:01
Meaning after we have that high dose experience, how are we integrating that? And then microdosing? How can microdosing support and elongate what's called the critical learning period? So the critical learning period is, is that date of the brain, you know, a month after a high dose psychedelic experience where it's more malleable, you can make changes easier. It feels like life is just a little bit smoother.

00:41:25
Microdosing can elongate that when you do it intentionally and with a certain level of skill. So we train our practitioners in those five elements, assessment, preparation, experience, integration, and microdosing. And then the center point of our training program is we have a week long retreat in Costa Rica where psilocybin mushrooms are legal. And so we bring about 40 people down to Costa Rica, and we do an in person intensive. Because what I believe to be true of the psychedelic space in particular is that we really have to walk the walk if we want to help other people navigate psychedelic territory.

00:42:02
And so it's really important that we do our own work, that we go through our own transformative experiences, that we notice and observe and recognize how we shift and change as a result of those, because that's a great anchoring for when we step into a space to support other people on a similar path. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah. Without question. Without question.

00:42:22
Wow, this has been such an incredible conversation. And for those that want to learn more about microdosing, you can check out his book, mastering microdosing, how to use sub perceptual psychedelics to heal trauma, improve performance, and transform your life. Great read. You break it down very, very clearly. Lots of incredible information in there.

00:42:50
And I really thought of it as a manual. It was kind of like, I don't know if that was your intent, but I was like, wow, this is really cool. This is kind of like a manual. Like a good how to book a resource book. So if you start to do it and questions come up and you need to help with anything, it's a great book to support you on that process.

00:43:12
Yeah. Is there anything else, Paul, that you'd. Like to share that maybe I didn't ask you about? Or. I would say just if folks want to get more involved, if they want to learn more, go to third wave as well.

00:43:23
The third Wave Co. We have a private community there where you can start to connect with other people all around the world who are interested in this work. It's a free community to join. Then if there are any practitioners or coaches who are listening to this who are potentially interested in working with psychedelics, we usually start cohorts every few months for the training program. So go to our website, thethirdwave Co.

00:43:46
Check out our practitioner training program there. And then if folks have any questions, they can reach out directly to me on social at Paulaustin three w. I'm on Instagram and Twitter. Or just contact our team through our website and we'll be happy to support people wherever they're at on their journey. Fantastic.

00:44:03
Thank you so much for joining us today. And I just appreciate the work that you're doing and just being a trailblazer, really, you know, because it's an area that people need to be enlightened about and not be, you know, take that stigmatism and put it on the shelf and then really look into the science and what it can really do to change people's lives. So thank you so much. Appreciate you. And thank you Sandy.

00:44:37
Thank you everyone.

00:44:51
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