EP117 Tripping without Guides: Best Practices for Psychedelics without a Sitter with guest Daniel Shankin

Psychedelic therapy has become widespread in the US. While many recommend using a guide or “trip sitter,” the vast majority of people simply use psychedelics on their own or with friends. On this episode of Shaping Fire, host Shango Los talks with psychedelic integration specialist Daniel Shankin about preparing for your psychedelic experience, best practices for tripping by yourself or with friends, and how to integrate the lessons you received during your experience so you can use them in your everyday life.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
It's really something, isn't it? How people are
talking about psychedelic mushrooms, like, simply everywhere now?
And sure, many of us had lots of
mushrooms in our subcultures growing up, and it's
nothing new. But we're talking about mushrooms being
discussed on CNN and daytime talk shows. It
really is something.
Some folks are talking about microdosing and others

(00:27):
are talking about macrodosing.
But everyone seems to feel much more free
to discuss mushroom use and benefits nowadays.
It's very common for the media to talk
about the importance of using mushrooms in a
clinical setting or for psychologists to suggest the
importance of having a guide or trip sitter.
Because of this, there is a creeping assumption

(00:47):
that everyone should have a psychedelic safety coach
involved with their self discovery.
I'm not of that opinion.
Certainly, some folks should definitely seek these types
of support, and it is very good that
they exist.
But the vast number of people don't actually
need a guide. There are records of human
beings using psychedelics for over 9000 years.
Our species has a long and positive relationship

(01:09):
with the psilocybin mushroom. And if you follow
some simple but important best practices,
you or you and your friends can engage
engage in psychedelic exploration safely and on your
own. That's our topic for today, taking psychedelics
without a trip sitter.
If you wanna learn about cannabis health, cultivation
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(01:31):
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(01:51):
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prize drawings.
You are listening to Shaping Fire, and I'm
your host, Shango Los.
Welcome to episode 117.
My guest today is Daniel Schenken.
As the founder and director of TAM Integration,
Daniel offers radically accessible and inclusive support and

(02:12):
education for people who are wanting to transform,
heal, and grow.
TAM's integration circles and online conferences
enjoy a worldwide audience and much acclaim.
He also leads the year long Mt. Tam
Psychedelic Integration Coaching Program,
training emerging leaders in the facilitation of transformational
engagement.

(02:32):
I know Daniel as having incredible insights about
psychedelic integration,
the use of psychedelics,
and a keen sense of the importance of
psychedelics
as both recreation and for self discovery.
I came across his social media channels and
started getting some really good perspective from him.
Then Daniel Morford from Heart Rock Mountain Cannabis
introduced us, and we quickly chose a date

(02:55):
to pull together this episode for you.
During the first set today, we will consider
the differences between having a trip sitter or
guide and going it alone or with friends.
And then we will discuss best practices for
going into your psychedelic trip with good mindset
and setting.
In the second set, we'll offer some tips
on preparing for your trip, locations, and things

(03:15):
to do while you're high.
And during the 3rd set, we will discuss
psychedelic integration,
what that is, and how to make sure
that you're able to bring your lessons in
healing from psychedelics
back into your daily life.
There are two important notes about today's episode.
1st,
I recently upgraded the Shapingfire Studio so all
the episodes will sound even better than they

(03:36):
already do.
Alas,
I thought that I had all the settings
dialed in and tested, but I did not.
At some point before we recorded, I hit
the gain and threw it off significantly.
Because of that, my voice was recorded too
boldly
and now clips a great deal throughout the
entire episode.
Daniel's voice sounds perfect though, but I don't

(03:57):
sound so well.
Our ShapingFire sound engineer did an excellent job
making my voice listenable,
but, yeah, you'll hear my voice sound crappy
this episode.
After a 171
podcast episodes of being my own sound technician,
I was bound to make an error sometime,
and and that is today.
We have adjusted the gain and taped it

(04:17):
in place now, so we shouldn't run into
this again. So thanks for your patience with
the sound of my voice today.
2nd, neither Daniel or I are doctors, and
we certainly are not your therapist. This information
is offered to add to your own research
and discussions with your doctors. Please don't take
today's episode as permission or instruction.
Similarly,
consult your local laws about any plans you

(04:38):
may have when considering psilocybin therapy.
Shaping Fire has a global audience and you
are responsible for understanding the laws in your
specific area.
Welcome to Shaping Fire, Daniel.
Thank you so much for having me. It's
great to be here. I really appreciate you
joining us. I know your time is valuable
and I've been excited about doing this episode

(04:58):
for a while. Now, before we get into
it, let's go ahead and repeat some of
the disclaimers
that I already mentioned in the introduction because
we want to make sure that we're all
on the same page.
My dear listener,
we are not your doctor or your therapist
and we don't know your personal situation. So,
we're going to be speaking in generalities.
So, don't be taking our insights as, you

(05:19):
know, permission to do something at all. We
encourage you to do your own homework, talk
to your own doctor, talk to your own
spiritual
leader,
and be aware of the legality
wherever you live. Because I know that, you
know, the audience is all around the world
at this point, but here in the United
States,
you know, the psychedelics we're going to be
talking about today are Schedule 1 drugs in

(05:42):
most places or everywhere.
So, you know, be really aware about the
laws in your particular area.
So, okay. So with that,
so, Daniel, I wanna start with,
kind of the kind of the opposite of
what the episode about is about today. You
know, today's episode is is primarily focusing on
people who choose to do psychedelics

(06:03):
either by themselves or with friends
and not using a counselor or a facilitator
involved. But I wanna make sure right off
the bat that that we make sure people
know that that we're not saying don't use
a facilitator.
For many people and for many goals, using
a facilitator
is exceptionally helpful, maybe even vital to their

(06:25):
healing process. So, you
know, you are a trainer
of psychedelic
facilitators.
So so let's start out with that question.
What are some of the good reasons to,
to engage a psychedelic
facilitator
when someone chooses to do psychedelic healing?

(06:46):
Well, you
well, you might want
a certain level of care.
Right? You might want a certain level of
safety and care that maybe isn't available with
just
friends or family or by yourself.
You might also
want,
when I say safety, I mean, of course,

(07:08):
like physical safety. We don't want you running
off into traffic,
but maybe you want a
like a psychological
or emotional safety.
As we know,
psychedelics can really
occasion catharsis.
Right? People
have emotional releases. They might have

(07:29):
old memories resurface.
And that might not be the kind of
thing that you feel comfortable talking about with
just like your buddy.
But when you're with somebody who you've worked
with for some time, you've built up kind
of a therapeutic relationship and a certain amount
of of rapport and you've already started to
kind of like open the doors to the
stuff that's, you know, in your closet,

(07:51):
it might
do you really well to go deeper into
those places and that can allow a lot
of
stuff to come up and to be released
and to be processed and to have somebody
who's trained who knows how to hold space
for that and knows how to reflect back
and sort of guide you into
like a proactive

(08:11):
direction,
can really come in handy.
For sure. We don't want to be in
this situation where all of our
walls are down and we're being very vulnerable
and we're ready to do work on something
that's really important to us, but we happen
to be with somebody who isn't the sort
of friend that we actually want to share
those kind of intimate details with because,

(08:33):
you know, if we're approaching these psychedelic
modalities
to heal, sometimes
the healing
looks like, you know, bringing up our
some pretty sensitive secrets.
Yeah, it can be messy. Yeah.
And that and it can even
make things go weird.

(08:54):
Like, I don't know if you've ever I'm
sure your audience knows what it's like to
sit on an uncomfortable secret. Mhmm. Right? Or
to kind of have stuff that wants to
come out and wants to be seen, but
you don't feel safe. And maybe there's shame
or maybe there's anxiety or whatever it is.
And you can't share it and
things can go sideways. Like, people are like,

(09:16):
what's wrong with you? What's going on? Like,
the whole vibe gets weirder and weirder and
weirder.
So that can happen, right, if you're holding
things back. On the flip side, I've talked
to folks
who
have a lot of experience with, like let's
just MDMA. Let's let's talk about MDMA, for
example.
And they've partied with it. They've gone to

(09:37):
shows. They've gone to concerts. They've gone to,
you know, good times with their friends in
front of the fire.
And it was just always a chill and
a sweet time.
And then they decided, hey, maybe I wanna
do some more work. I'm already familiar with
this molecule. I know how it acts
and then you take them out of the
one setting
and you so we should probably talk a

(09:58):
lot about set and setting tonight.
So you take them out of this kind
of friendly recreational setting and you put them
in a therapeutic setting where the space is
there for them and it's an entirely different
medicine.
And then all of a sudden this person
can access
things that again have been wanting to be
seen and you know, things that have wanting
wanting to be acknowledged and loved for years

(10:20):
years years, it can finally come out because
the space and the setting is there for
them. Excellent. And, yes, we will be we
will be talking a lot about, set and
setting here just in a little bit. The
other thing I wanna hit before we move
on about the good reasons, just some of
the good reasons to use a facilitator,
is that, a lot of people who are
drawn to psychedelics have, you know, pretty serious

(10:40):
preexisting issues that they're trying to sort out,
whether it be, you know, schizophrenia
or anxiety or psychosis
or or a history of things that
if you're going to try
to go on a healing path such as
this,
it can get complex and perhaps even mentally
dangerous quickly, and so you might want to

(11:01):
have someone trained in these areas present instead
of putting that weight
of helping you in a crisis situation on
your friends or just yourself. So I'm sure
there's a host of those as well.
There's that. And then also,
you know, we have the renaissance
happening. Yeah. Right? Like, you know, like, come
up is is going on. And

(11:23):
what this means is that there are a
whole lot of new people who may have
never considered psychedelics before. Right? And so I'm
guessing, you know, from from what I know
about you and your audience and you know
our mutual friend,
Yeah. Daniel Hartrocks.
Shout out Daniel Hartrocks.

(11:44):
We've kind of grown up like these are
heads who have grown up with psychedelic people
and psychedelic friends and like you know, if
I needed a friend of mine to sit
for me, like, I can
call somebody who's who I've known for some
time, for years. And I'd be like, Hey,
you know, I just I kinda wanna do
this thing. Is it cool? Can you just,

(12:04):
like, make sure I have tea and the
music's playing and, like, I feel safe and
stuff? And my buddy will be like, Cool,
that sounds awesome. Will you do that for
me next month? Right? Because we've been through
it. But then you've got folks who are
don't have
that don't have that kind of community. They're
coming from like, you know, middle class wherever.
They're coming from 9 to fives. They're coming

(12:26):
from straight laced family life. Yeah.
And they're like, I don't know anybody. I
don't have I don't have any community like
that.
And so, they
kinda need some of that, you know, and
a facilitator can kind of fill that role
and also kind of, like, guide them into,
like, the world
of psychedelics, like the worldview

(12:47):
of psychedelics.
Right on.
So, my dear audience,
we are in favor of using a facilitator
when it's called for. But what we're gonna
focus on today
is,
when you choose to do psychedelics without
a clinician or a facilitator
because, you know,
we are in favor of facilitators, but often,

(13:08):
you know, sometimes the price is very high,
getting into the 1,000 of dollars. And sometimes
folks don't want to take a psychedelic in
a clinical
environment and they they're not able to find
a facilitator that does something not in a
clinical environment,
or perhaps they don't want to have the
facilitator's
energy
mingling with themselves

(13:28):
during the trip. And so there are, you
know, there are good reasons to want a
facilitator and there's also good reasons to choose
to not use a facilitator.
This little beginning of the show, the point
is just to tell you that even though
this show is about
going it alone or with friends, this does
not mean that we are

(13:49):
discouraging the other. So I think we've hit
that pretty well. Oh, do you wanna say
something else on that, Daniel?
Yeah. And I also, again,
you said the disclaimers. I just I wanna
use the term sort of harm reduction.
Right? And education
and
benefit maximization. Right? This is offered in the
spirit of harm reduction.

(14:11):
You know, this is and this is one
strange man's opinion.
So I I definitely suggest,
you know, checking,
you know, be like doing your homework and
things like that. I'm gonna show up for
you all the best I can. And and
I'm excited about this because this could we
can use this as like a resource in
the future about, like, sort of friends and

(14:33):
family or solo guide to
this sort of work. So That is that
is exactly the goal. The the the Shaping
Fire episodes are always quite evergreen
so that they people can continue to use
them over time. And, you know, sometimes we're
talking about, you know,
a handbook of growing cannabis or using cannabis

(14:54):
or making medicine. And today we're talking about
psychedelics.
So, let's get right into it by talking
about mindset and setting, which you have already
brought up.
It's pretty much the cornerstone
of drug usage.
And, I'd like to start with the first
part, mindset.
What are the some of the factors
in coming to the psychedelic experience with a

(15:16):
good mindset? We'll talk about setting in a
couple of minutes. But let's focus on mindset
first.
What what what what do we wanna bring
to the psychedelic experience for good for their
best practice results? Well, can I take a
step back and talk a little bit a
bit about the history of set and setting?
For sure. Go for it. So there was
a time, like, way back in the fifties,

(15:38):
when
there were researchers
who studied
LSD as
something that mimicked the
experience of having psychosis.
Right? They were like, Oh wow, this molecule
creates
a psychosis
like experience for people. And so if we
give it to them, they'll be psychotic for

(16:00):
8 hours and we can study that.
And sure enough, they would give it to
people and they would they would give it
to people and they would go psychotic
for 8 hours. And then they were shocked
to meet, like, the hippies of Hate Street
who had,
you know, their velvet couches and their paisley
shirts and their music and lava lamps and
what have you and that their willingness to

(16:22):
dance and to be groovy.
And those people weren't going psychotic. They were
having mystical experiences of love and oneness.
And it was confusing
and what the researchers realized is
that
this
is dependent these molecules are dependent on set
and setting like Advil
for example works the same if you take

(16:43):
it on the mountain or in the beach
or in an office or on a plane
and a train, you know, with a goat
in a boat. Right? Yeah. So they kind
of decided, oh, it probably just works like
that. It just works the same. But what
they found is that if you put somebody
in a hospital and you strap them to
a gurney and you put them under bright
lights and you tell them they're gonna go
psychotic and then you ask them really probing
questions with a clipboard for 8 hours, they

(17:03):
guess what? You get a psychotic person. I
might do that without I might go psychotic
in that situation without drugs. Exactly. Yeah. Right?
And so there has been
this
exploration
about what are optimal
set and settings
for particular results for for particular people. And
like you were saying,

(17:24):
that might freak me out even without drugs.
Certain sets certain settings
and certain sets are better for some people.
Certain settings are better for other people, right?
So there's no one size fits all. And
so this
journey, you know, hopefully if we're talking about
healthy use,
perhaps

(17:44):
over time.
Right? And that maybe we're going slow. Maybe
we're starting with low dosages
and and so on and so forth. But
back to
sentences, back to mindset.
You're going to bring
yourself with you into a psychedelic experience,
right? So you're bringing you,

(18:05):
right?
And what they call psychedelics,
for the most part, the true psychedelics,
nonspecific
amplifiers.
And what nonspecific amplifier
means is that it brings up the stuff
that's already there
in a lot of ways. And sometimes it's
smooth. Sometimes it does add that love and

(18:25):
connectivity, and that's really nice too.
But people say, oh,
it made
me anxious or it made me afraid.
Well,
not real like, you have that in you
already. It was bringing that up. It made
me feel like I was garbage and I
wasn't worth loving.
Well, no, you've been carrying that around for
decades. Now you get a chance to look

(18:46):
at it. So educating people at least about
that
is
a big deal. So people
are not so And of course, people forget
it, of course, all the time. But,
if you can sit with people and kind
of coach them on recognizing
that that's one of the things that can
possibly happen, that's important. So they're not so

(19:08):
surprised when they come face to face with
their own stuff, their own shadow, perhaps.
What's also important to recognize is not only
are you dealing with stuff that is potentially
very, very old,
but your recent
environment and experiences play a part. Mhmm. So
if you have been

(19:28):
watching
a lot of election news,
you know, you've been watching a lot of,
like, fear based news
before your trip, that's not gonna help.
If you've been watching
horror movies,
that's not gonna help. Although, if you watch
the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that actually

(19:50):
might help.
Right? The hero's journey. Right? So you're tuning
yourself you're tuning yourself into, like, archetypal forces.
So, you know, a good good thing is
that people often do to get ready
is not only they they do various diets
and so they might limit their food, they
might eat cleaner food so that you don't
have to process the food on the journey
and deal with that whole thing.

(20:12):
You might read
more
higher higher vibe literature,
whatever that means for you. I was talking
to
a student yesterday and she was
telling me that she really likes she there's
a graveyard near her house that has a
statue of
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
and she reads the Bible and she listens

(20:34):
to George Harrison.
And that's like she knows that works for
her. Mhmm. Right? And I'm not you know,
I I don't have opinions on other people's
religious. So that's just that's just her religious
beliefs. That's her story. Mhmm. And it's nice.
Right? Because it is certainly it's it's really
high vibe for her. It puts her in
a place of faith and it puts her
in a place of love and connectivity.
And for other people that might be,

(20:56):
Tibetan bowls,
right? Or or throat chanting or,
you know, Vedic chanting or devotional chanting or
things like that. But, you know, if we
if we start to turn down
the ordinary and the mundane
and we start to turn up
the
vibrations

(21:17):
that we want to resonate with, you know,
higher vibration things that are in alignment with
our intentions,
that usually goes pretty well for people.
Right? And this brings us to intention, perhaps.
And we can still table it if you
have more questions about sense setting.
Well, just one thing I wanna add too.
I love I love the idea of of,
you know,

(21:37):
creating a mental environment that that you think
is going to work for the kind of
work you want to do, but I also
generally like to point out to people to
to be doing the psychedelic because you want
to.
Over the course of my life. I have
certainly seen people be peer pressured into doing
psychedelics
because the rest of the group was and

(21:58):
to to make sure that you're doing it
for for the right reasons that are that
are your own in addition to, you know,
removing the immediate,
stressors that we were talking about. Right. Oh,
right. So, yeah, turn your phone off. Give
yourself a dopamine break from your phone for
sure.
But when we talk about mindset, one of

(22:19):
the key
tools for mindset is,
having a personal intention.
Right? So like you were saying, man,
know why you're doing it. Like, do it
because you want to and know why you
want to. Like, I'm doing this to heal
this. I'm doing this to look at that.
I'm doing this to become more in alignment
with
my romantic partner. I'm doing this to become

(22:40):
more in alignment with the divine. You know,
whatever it is.
And then what I usually recommend to people
is,
whatever that intention is, is
try to write it out sort of in
like
mantra form. And what I mean by that
is is like short and sweet,
right? You wouldn't want something. Oh, and I

(23:00):
kind of want this and maybe I want
that and the other thing that
You want something like short and sweet that
is gonna kind of cut through the noise.
Right? So that you can focus your mind
on it in a psychedelic state. Right? Some
of our our most well known mantras
in the West are psychedelically inspired.
Things like be here now, right, by Ram

(23:22):
Dass. Everybody knows be here now. That's a
psychedelic intention.
Let it be by the Beatles.
Right? There's a story that says that the
mother Mary that is referenced in let it
be was Maria Sabina,
the curandera from Mexico. Mexico. Right? Let It
Be. And then, of course, we all know
Doctor. Bronner is all 1 or none.
Right?
So these sorts of, like, short,

(23:43):
sweet,
like, poignant, like, cut through the noise
intentions
that we can use as an anchor that
will root us in our minds when everything
is swirling.
And if folks are hearing this and going,
I'm not gonna do this woo woo stuff.
I'm just gonna take the drug and go
for it. I wanna encourage you that

(24:04):
these types of intentional setups, they actually do
work. And while to many people, this kind
of internal awareness of intention
might be dismissible,
in this realm that you're about to play
in,
it
is essential.
And
by creating this intention,

(24:26):
you truly give direction
to your
mind and spirit
of the direction that you wanna go. And
having an intention
and giving your
mind and spirit a direction to go in
is going to be far more effective in
most cases
than just going into it without an intention

(24:48):
and just kind of like
riding the Bronco whatever random direction it goes
in.
We're talking about best practices today and having
intention is truly a cornerstone best practice.
Oh, yeah. I mean, do People can do
what they want. You know, if somebody thinks
that what we're saying is woo woo, I'm
surprised that they're still listening.

(25:08):
And I'm not I'm not really here to
I'm not I'm not trying to sell it.
You're right. Right. Alright. It's known. You know,
you guys and what I would even suggest,
my friends are
try it both ways.
You know? It's like
run run an experiment,
you know, and see how it goes. Report
back. I'd love to hear.

(25:28):
You know, do it a couple of different
ways. Come to our we've got integration circles
where people can come and talk about this
stuff every week. Let me know how it
goes. Right on. The last thing I wanna
touch on here in mindset,
well, good mindset anyway,
is,
I think it's pretty important to have faith
in your drugs.

(25:48):
If if if your, if your psychedelic comes
from a sketchy source
and you're not sure what you're taking,
that can come up at the worst times
right as the psychedelic is coming on and
you suddenly feel like it's brewing and it's
about to come on and then suddenly you
get this hit of adrenaline because now you're

(26:10):
second guessing your source. And of course, any
kind of drug, even if they're not psychedelics,
you should know your source. But with psychedelics,
since it's such
a momentous experience,
be sure to have faith in the quality
and cleanliness of the psychedelic that you're using,
because not only are there it's important for

(26:31):
your personal health, but it's also important for
your mindset.
You can just kinda, like, check that box
of safety off that that that that you
don't have to worry about the veracity
of of of the of the psychedelic that
you're taking.
This is an interesting point. Yeah. So test
your drugs, kids. Right? Go to DanceSafe. You

(26:51):
can you can get drug tests. You can
get test kits. I think if you go
to my link tree on Instagram, like, I
think,
with, role kit, like, I'm an affiliate for
role kit. You can you can get test
kits there too.
But we want to get as much sketchiness
out of the thing as we out of

(27:11):
the situation as we possibly can. Right? For
those of us who kind of grew up
under the kind of the shadow of the
drug war, right? We knew that there was
a lot of stigma.
There was a lot of fear.
We were worried about getting caught. We were
worried about what would happen if people knew.
There was all of this anxiety around that
and also that ends up internalizing

(27:34):
as self judgment.
Oh, am I doing something wrong? And maybe
on some level, we get off on doing
something that's a little taboo, but on another
level, like, it gets in there. And I
don't know if any of you have had
the chance to take psychedelics in Colorado
since it's been decriminalized,
but
it's kind of a whole different thing.
Because that kind of worry and those belief

(27:56):
systems that are kind of cultural and we've
been carrying them around in our in our,
subculture for some time, that's starting to get
cleaned up. And people are starting to be
able to have
freer experiences
where they are not
worried about being caught or being judged or
things like that.
But part of that means

(28:18):
is that you potentially have an opportunity
to cultivate relationships with people in a new
way where it's not surreptitious and it's not
under a bridge
and you can,
you know, I got pals who were on
Instagram saying, hey, please come learn how to
microdose. I'll give you a month's supply.
Right? It's it's wild. They're in Colorado. And

(28:39):
so, like, that's
hopefully gonna become more and more of the
norm where people can feel,
free and confident
and peaceful
around the fact that they are exercising their
cognitive liberty.
Right on.
So,
I want to touch on briefly
some of the factors that would constitute,

(29:01):
like, maybe a challenging mindset. Like, I already
mentioned one earlier,
the feeling of being pressured, like you're being
peer pressured to do it because, you know,
your other people in your life are doing
it and they're kind of dragging you into
it when you're not ready.
What might be another, you know, 1 or
2 mindsets that are challenging that you might
caution folks to take a psychedelics during that

(29:24):
period of their life?
Well, are you fighting with your girl?
Did you just lose your job?
Do you not have
housing? Do you not have safe housing?
Did your electricity get turned off?
Have you not been eating well?
These kinds of things.

(29:46):
Yeah. So,
you know, you would want there's like a
Maslow's hierarchy.
So you definitely want, like, your basic safety
needs taken care of. Right. So that kind
of thing.
You would want your
relationships,
you know,
relatively speaking, to be in a fairly good

(30:07):
spot. You know, you'd want a certain amount
of
space
in your work life, Right? You wouldn't want
to have to
be on the phone right up until you
took the medicine and then be on the
phone
right as it wears down.
Right? That would be
stressful, especially if it's a stressful thing Yeah.

(30:27):
Going on at work.
So these kinds
of pressure.
Right? So it's interesting because your podcast is
called Shaping Fire.
And I'm really interested in
the idea of shape.
Right? From, like, a somatic perspective. Mhmm. Right?
So you're you're familiar do you think your

(30:48):
people are familiar with the term somatic?
Sure. But not everybody. So go right ahead
and fill it in. So somatic is a
Greek term. It means the living body in
its wholeness.
And so it means that we're this holistic
organism, this mind, body,
nervous system
thing entity break personality,
whole this whole thing and this whole thing

(31:10):
is a whole thing.
And it is
expressed
through the body, right? So so one of
the ideas of of of somatic
kind of theory philosophy
is that your entire
your body
is a representation of your entire history.

(31:30):
Right? Everything that has happened to you is
smudged on your body like clay in some
ways. So the way that you walk, the
way that you hold yourself, the way that
you react under stress and pressure.
Right? This has been developed over years,
Right? Through,
through your experience. Right? And the way
people work in the world. And then what's

(31:51):
interesting is that once you're shaped,
you then shape the world that way and
then you shape your own experience.
Because let's say somebody feels like they're not
worthy of love. Like, they have that deep
belief. I'm not worthy of love. I don't
deserve it. There isn't enough love out there
for me. Well, you can imagine
how somebody who believes that deep in their

(32:12):
soul since they were, like, 5 years old
might walk through the world and hold themselves
in their body. Mhmm. It's gonna be very
different. Like, you could put 2 people and
somebody who's like, I'm definitely worthy of love.
Like, I'm full of love. I've loved to
give. I'm open to receive love. I know
it's it's the best stuff in the world.
Mhmm. I love my friends. I love my
family. They love me. I know it. And
you put those 2 people next to each

(32:33):
other and you tell them, just stand neutral.
You can tell who's who.
It'd be obvious. Mhmm. Right? And so then
the way those people move through the world
is gonna be different.
Right? And so the person who doesn't believe
they're worthy of love is going to act
in ways that reinforce that.
And the person who believes that they are

(32:54):
worthy of love is gonna act in ways
that reinforces that. And then they're gonna get
more of what they've been getting because they
keep doing what they're doing.
And so
what we are trying to do is,
what was the question? How did I get
to this? I love talking about this. Shaping
fire. We're shaping ourselves.

(33:16):
What was your I'm sorry. I'm paying. We
had started on
the factors that constitute a challenging mindset, a
time that you maybe wouldn't wanna do psychedelics.
Right.
So
relatively So like, hopefully, we're in in decent
relationships relatively speaking. Mhmm. Right? And we're able

(33:36):
to kind of show up
in a way that is present and available
to receive the medicine.
Right?
And I'm still trying to figure out what
that has to do with shape,
but
we are going to start to be able
to see our shape in a new way.
Right? And if we are constantly
tense
and stressed,

(33:57):
right, we're gonna wear that and we're gonna
have to spend time kind of like unwinding
that. Whereas, like, maybe if you've been doing
some yoga, you've been opening up your body,
you've been taking care of it. Like like
the body the the body set is as
important as the mindset, I guess, is what
I'm trying to get at.
And so,

(34:18):
yeah.
So when we're looking at
challenging experiences,
sometimes we do need a reset, I guess,
is what I'm getting at.
Right? So sometimes people like, I've tried everything.
I'm in a bad place
and I something's gotta change and something's gotta
change now. Yeah. Like, sometimes people have to
come to psychedelics like that, but hopefully, you

(34:39):
can still
carve out enough space. Right? That's another somatic
word. Space. So that you can embody the
space in its fullness and be present for
it, be open, and not have to worry
about the pressures of the world
shaping you in such a way that you
can't. You can't stand up straight in the
open.
Right on.
So that was the mindset and we've been

(35:00):
talking about the cornerstone
of psychedelcustis,
which is mindset and setting.
So, so now, let's talk a little bit
about setting, which is, you know, often a
little easier to make
good than the mindset part.
So,
since you are the educator in this area,
let's why don't we I'll start by sending
giving you a general question here. What are

(35:22):
some of the factors
in establishing a good setting for doing psychedelics?
It should probably be sweet. Right?
Let's just let's start let's let's
radiate out from the word sweet.

(35:43):
Right?
It should be sweet and nice and comfortable
and safe.
Right? And not too overwrought.
Although sometimes people, depending on the molecule, sometimes
people like overwrought.
You know, it's like we know what like
the LSD hippies of the sixties, how they
decorated their spaces,
right? They liked a lot of stuff that
was very vibrant and alive, and and that's

(36:04):
kind of fun. Sometimes it's a little bubblegummy
for some people,
but sometimes it's really fun.
Right? And then, you know, sometimes for
depending on the molecule, sometimes psilocybin,
people spend most of their time just inside,
Right? Like, with their eyes closed. Mhmm. Right?
If they're journeying inward, it makes,
it's less of an issue.

(36:26):
One thing we do know for sure, it
should be neat and clean.
Right?
So we want something that's neat and clean
and, you know, has a ceremonial energy to
it in some ways, depending on whatever that
means for you.
You know, a sense of perhaps sacredness.
Right? So you might want to think about,

(36:46):
again, like, where is your head at and
what are you trying to create?
Like, if you create more of a temple
atmosphere,
you might have more of a temple experience.
Right? If you have just sort of a
very,
clean, minimal
kind of experience,
well, there's maybe not a lot for the

(37:07):
mind to project onto, and it encourages the
mind to go inside.
But some of the things that I might
say is you decorate it however you want
and you talk to, you know, you talk
to your friends
about that. And, you know, maybe you want
a picture of
your kids. Maybe you want a picture of
your parents. Maybe you want a picture of
yourself as a kid,
depending on what you wanna work on. Maybe

(37:29):
you want people who are inspiring to you.
But, you know, what what is kind of
important is that it's a container.
Right? You kinda don't really want
strangers wandering in.
Right? You want it to be neat and
clean and, in many cases, simple,

(37:49):
in many cases, ceremonial.
And you want to kinda be sure that
you're not gonna be bothered
because that can be,
unpleasant. Right? Yeah. An intrusive, unexpected person suddenly
can really change the direction,
not only because we might have to, for
a moment,

(38:10):
try to present ourselves as,
you know, sober and regular when we're actually
having, you know, a pretty heavy duty breakthrough
moment and suddenly we have to fake it
for somebody, that can that can get messy,
especially if that person will be bothered if
they figure out that we're on psychedelics. So,
you know, being being in a good location,
a safe location that feels safe is pretty

(38:32):
essential
and and I would also include some of
the biological
needs too. You know, a source of water,
a bathroom,
somewhere where there's not gonna be any threats.
And some of the other things that I've
recommended to people include a notepad and a
pen, art supplies,
you know, soft blankets to soothe your nervous
system,

(38:53):
trippy items, and
sometimes movies that are your favorite.
For me, I have always been very focused
on nature. I'm not really an indoor psychedelics
person.
I'm a
get outside
where I know that there's not gonna be
anybody around
and then, you know, start looking at bugs
and mycelium and the weird the sun glistening

(39:15):
off the waves and things like that. But
everybody has their own
their own style
of of what, you know, creates that that
vessel or that that safe space for them.
And and it's it is really worth thinking
about it in advance and writing yourself some
notes
and kind of like you're planning a vacation

(39:36):
for yourself
so that when you do,
when you do take the psychedelic, it's
like, Oh, somebody who really cares about me
planned this experience for me and the person
who cares about you is yourself.
Yes.
And I do want to just note that

(39:56):
it might be different depending on
your dosage.
Right. So
people might microdose and then just go about
their daily life. Right. Right. Because it's it's
sub perceptual.
And then there is
things that slightly up from there, you know,
is maybe sometimes called the hycro dose
where people are taking maybe,

(40:17):
you know,
a little bit more than a microdose to
kind of make the,
you know, the leaves shimmer a little, but
they're not their cognition isn't impaired that much
or sometimes called a museum dose. Right? This
kind of dose where you would
feel comfortable
going to a museum. Right? Maybe a little
bit. Maybe you take a little bit more

(40:38):
to go to a concert. Right? Or maybe
depending on how you roll, maybe you're taking
quite a bit more to go to a
concert And then maybe we're going towards something
approaching
heroic.
Mhmm.
Right? Where being out in public
wouldn't do it all.
Right? And maybe you could be in a
campground in nature or things like that, but

(40:59):
you would probably really want
someone to look out for you a bit.
Right? Like, if you're in a
again, depending on dosage.
And this is why the general wisdom says
start low and go slow. Yeah.
Right? So it's like, okay. I know that,
like, if I do like, I can pretty
much manage. I can make a fire and
not burn myself on this amount
of this.

(41:20):
But, you know, if I'm really gonna melt
down,
you know, maybe somebody wants to watch me
if there's
a river rushing by. Mhmm. You know, because
I might need them to tell me that,
like, I'm not a fish. Yeah.
This might not be the best time to
go for a swim, my friend. Why don't
we come on back over here for a
little bit and look at the water or
whatever? Yeah. And this is also this brings

(41:43):
us to,
you know, regardless of,
you know,
it's hard to do this by yourself, but
if you're gonna do this with with other
people, having some ground rules and agreements,
You know, that's also good that when we're
talking about containers,
right, it's sort of like ethical
and
relational containers

(42:03):
of,
you know, that we're all going to we're
all agreeing that we're staying
in this area. Whether we're staying in this
house or we're staying in this backyard, we're
staying in this campsite, we're staying here for
this time.
You know, we're we're gonna agree that for
this time, we're gonna keep our clothes on,
you know, or not depending on how you
party. Right? Right. But, you know, we're not

(42:24):
nobody's going to,
you know, there's a good nobody's gonna try
and sleep with anybody. Nobody's gonna cause any
physical harm to anybody.
One one of the popular ones in with
my friends is no one's going to turn
on their phone or make a phone call.
Yeah. Okay. Occasionally, we will need to use
our phones because
you're trying to tell a story and you

(42:45):
really need some data point that might be
on your phone, you know, like, Oh, what
was that place called? Or whatever. I wanna
show you this picture or whatever, which can
all be fun.
But for goodness sakes, you know, don't place
calls or answer calls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. So that kind of thing.
Alright. So, let's go ahead and take our

(43:07):
first break and when we come back, we're
gonna talk a little bit more about
preparing
yourself
physically and mentally
in advance of the psychedelic experience.
So,
you are listening to Shaping Fire and my
guest today is psychedelic integration coach, Daniel Schenken.

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(49:09):
Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire.
I am your host, Shango Los, and my
guest today is psychedelic integration coach, Daniel Schenken.
So during the first set, we talked a
lot about
the mindset
and the setting,
things that you definitely want to consider
in advance.
You know, we have we talked a lot

(49:31):
during the first set about how planning in
advance
is really a way to improve the likelihood
that you'll have
a good and valuable and meaningful healing psychedelic
experience.
And we're going to be talking a lot
about that again here in 2nd set, but
in a little different sort of detail. So,

(49:51):
let's start, Daniel, by I wanna
hit on something that you
touched on briefly, but I wanna I wanna
drive it home a little bit more,
the physicality of it. You had mentioned that,
you know, bringing a good calm body to
the psychedelic experience can be really helpful and
I totally agree.

(50:12):
But I also want to illustrate that a
little bit more.
For example,
you know, there are depending on which molecule
that you take, most of them will encourage
your body to void itself.
And so, one thing that
people that I've worked with, including myself, have
found value in over the years

(50:33):
is to take a little psyllium husk
the morning
the day before
in the morning
so that whatever you may have eaten that
is heavy, you know, maybe you had some
steak or a burger
or, you know, jalapeno poppers or something like
that
that can sit in your gut. And sometimes,

(50:54):
during the digestion,
that can take
your attention can come away from the work
that you're trying to do and start thinking
about, like, the functioning of your body.
And
so,
make sure you're really hydrated as well because,
so, I mean, very often when we're having

(51:14):
a psychedelic experience, we will actually forget
to drink water, which is one of the
good reasons
to do psychedelics with friends because
everybody can kind of help babysit each other
to make sure that you are,
you know, getting enough water and such. So,
in addition to the yoga and the two

(51:36):
things that I just mentioned, Daniel, do you
have any other physical things to kind of
round out that that that group of ideas?
I mean, that's pretty good. I mean, you
could also kind of just refrain from eating
jalapeno poppers for a couple of days ahead
of time. Mhmm. That could work.

(51:56):
You might want to oh, I was once
working with a guy who had his first
psychedelic
experience, on a camping trip, you know, and
he had a friend with him and they
had an RV.
And when he came back,
he said to me, in all seriousness,
good set and setting starts with clean socks.

(52:17):
Right? Because he had been out in the
woods, and he has he the clothes he
was wearing was were filthy.
And
it he really felt it. You know, something
that you might not notice if you are
just drinking a couple of beers
becomes very obvious on,
you know, 3 to 5 grams of mushrooms.
It is interesting how messiness and filth and
anything that's gross is gonna be usually really

(52:39):
gross.
And I'm not sure why. And it certainly
isn't, you know, for everybody. There are certainly
people who can get really curious about messy,
gross things as well. But for whatever reason,
the people I've interacted with and myself,
we generally want to be comfortable and clean
and

(53:00):
orderly and, you know, just generally happy of
body and spirit.
Yeah. Well, being curious about gross stuff and
being covered in gross stuff are definitely 2
different things. Yeah, that's a good point. And,
you know, we could
we could
make all kinds of
kind of cosmic, high woo ideas about why
that is. But, you know, it's it's pretty

(53:21):
much so.
Mhmm.
Let's talk a little bit about,
the kind of preparations
to make additionally,
if you're going to do this experience with
friends.
And for me, I'm I'm very grateful that
when I got turned on to psychedelics in
college,
it was in a peer group of people.

(53:41):
And so, you know, most of my first
experiences were, you know, 3 to 7 people
and
we had
a big forest next to my university
and off we would go. And we would
have these fantastic days and come back exhausted
and dirty and take showers and then, you
know, kind of have this afterglow period in

(54:01):
the evening.
The first the first thing with friends that
I'll get us started with is to,
you know, kind of work with everybody to
compare your plans and your locations because if
you all get together on the day of
your experience
and
you have different intentions,
either, A,

(54:22):
some people might have some hard feelings about
it, which isn't a great way to go
into an experience,
or which can sometimes be equally as as
detrimental,
your original
fellowship, if you will, of people who are
gonna
be together.
People wanna do different things and so they
split off. And so, your group of 6
comes off into a 3, a 2, and

(54:44):
a 1.
And, that's gonna be a very different experience
than if everybody
has a shared plan.
Another one is, and I'm hoping maybe you
speak to this a little bit, Daniel, is
we always had like an emergency
signal or word.
And not emergency,

(55:04):
meaning like there's danger.
It was usually a signal or word that
meant
I could
there is a moment that I really could
use you to pull your shit together for
a moment so we can talk about something
that's, like, somewhat relevant or serious for a
moment. Like, can can I get your attention?

(55:24):
And, you know, I've never really found a
really good way
to talk about that with people, to to
to delineate between,
like, a safe word for an emergency
and a signal that I need your attention.
How would how would you go about that
with folks? I like that. That's really interesting.

(55:45):
And before we get to that, because I'm
gonna think about that in the background while
I mentioned this. Alright.
There's been a phenomenon
recently.
Right? So you grew up with your friends
and they were your friends and you did
psychedelics with your friends and that's that works
because they're your friends.
So
recently, more and more people are coming into
the psychedelic space and they're not even kids.

(56:06):
They're grown ups,
right? So they're adults. You know, they're not
teenagers or college kids or whatever. They're they're
these adults
And there was a and they're interested and
they're curious and they're excited
about this.
Also,
then there was a pandemic,
right? Which means that people were kind of
isolated.

(56:27):
And it also meant that people were becoming
friendly
with people from all over the place on
Zoom that they didn't actually know.
Right? And then they think
because they've had,
you know, a half a dozen Zoom whatevers
with these people,
that their soul family. Mhmm.

(56:48):
And they get together and they take psychedelics
together and they realize really quickly that they're
not.
And
so, you know, people kind of take for
granted,
real relationship and real connection. You know, the
ability to kind of like
smell somebody, you know, to know what your
friends smell like, to kind of be there

(57:10):
when you are
weird together at a restaurant. You know, like
like all of these kinds of things that
are
really,
intimate relationship
things
that are missing because you just log in
with somebody for an hour or something and
you're on like a group signal chat with
them. Group WhatsApp group,
right? And that's different than

(57:31):
being in an intimate psychedelic space with people.
So you want to actually be
careful, perhaps about like
who you're doing this with. Like, are these
really
your friends? Like, is is there a container?
Are there agreements? Do you have a plan?
Like and that can help
create an intentionality
that can help build that bond.

(57:54):
Right? But to do it kind of
off the cuff and loose and pretend
do it like a pretend ceremony.
Because what I see sometimes is people like,
oh, I've been to ceremonies. I know how
they work and, like, it was good, but,
you know, we're we're just gonna be chill
and we don't actually need
to have the group agreements and we don't

(58:14):
need to kind of ring the bell and
set the circle or whatever it is because
we I've done that before.
We have to do it. You have to
do it every time. Yeah. Right? Like, it's
it's a practice. It would be like, I
don't need to breathe today. I breathed yesterday.
Mhmm.
And
so, you know, keeping in mind,
you know, are your friends really your friends?

(58:36):
Like, are you setting the stage properly? And
do you have the agreements?
So as far as this thing where you're
having,
safe words
and things like that,
I mean, this comes back to, like, do
you do you know your people?
Because I sort of feel like,

(58:56):
with my friends who are really my friends,
I can communicate an awful lot with a
cough, a pause or a side eye.
Right? Like if I need something
like I can just,
you know, I can kind of look out
of the corner of my eye at my
buddy and go like.
You know, and he'll be like, hey, Dan,

(59:17):
you know, I let let me show you
something over here in the kitchen. Yeah. You
know? And then and then we can have
a thing.
But, you know, I like the idea that,
like, it just introducing
that is a great idea. And I think
the really the theme here
is,
making things explicit. Mhmm. Right? We all have
a very transparent

(59:37):
Yeah.
Yeah. Clear, transparent, explicit. We all have a
lot of assumptions about how the thing was
supposed to go.
And, you know, are they the same
assumptions?
Yeah.
And, you know, as we have talked about
where, you know, your ceremony is your ceremony,
Marni, that you designed

(59:57):
and and and your environment is your environment.
The same thing would be the safe word
or the signal.
And since I have some experience with this,
I will also take it a step further
and say,
in my experience, we have found that safe
words are easily forgotten
and sometimes
a safe hand signal is more easily remembered.

(01:00:18):
And one of the ones that I used
to use back when I was a young
man was we decided
that thumbs up was not a good one
because we did thumbs up often just to
be happy. And thumbs down, well, that's not
really good because that kind of sets off
your adrenaline.
And so, what we would do is we
would actually do

(01:00:38):
like, horizontal
thumbs pointed out and we just put like
the sides of our hands together.
And it's kind of a fun hand motion
to make
and anybody in the group who saw it
knew exactly what this hand
motion meant.
And,
a good example of it where where I
was not trying to well, actually, it wasn't

(01:00:59):
me who was giving the sign, but in
in this is my story.
We want to get attention and we want
people to pay attention, but we don't necessarily
want to give people the idea that there's
something dangerous
and and maybe influence their trip. And and
a good example was that,
one of our friends stepped on was barefoot
and she stepped on some glass.

(01:01:22):
And she needed just some basic first aid.
And it was something that we could provide
within our group
because
we were all kind of outdoorsy people. Right?
So
we all had our 10 essentials with us
when we were out in the forest.
But we wanted to come together
to heal our friend. We didn't want our

(01:01:42):
other friends to drift off in the forest.
And we kind of wanted to work together
to apply the first aid. Right? Because, you
know, when you're on psychedelics, things are a
little odd to think through.
And so, she gave us the hand signal
and we all came together and we're like,
Hey, what's up? You know? And then she
showed us and we were all kind of
like a moment like, Oh, blood.

(01:02:03):
Which and so, but then we all just
kind of sat down together and we we,
you know, went through the steps. We cleaned
the wound. We bandaged it. We chatted with
her so she understood that this was not
the end of her good trip and things
were still fine and she was safe and
we were with her. And we were gonna
slightly change our plan about how far we

(01:02:23):
were gonna walk so so she didn't feel,
you know. But it was all
as soon as we all saw the hand
motion, we all understood that, Oh, we all
need to come together for, like, a little
meeting.
And, and I recommend that people include that
when when they're working with a group. I
dig it. I dig it. And what you're
reminding me of actually

(01:02:44):
is Disney World.
Oh.
There's a there's a non sequitur. This should
be good.
Yeah. It's,
so what they have now, like, I
I haven't been to Disneyland
in forever since I was a little guy.
But now they get to give you like
these wristbands with microchips in them.

(01:03:04):
Right? Until I get on the rides and
to get in everything, you just kind of
swipe your wristband.
And then what they realize is like
like if the wristband works,
right, like it flashes green. It's like, okay,
you paid for your meal.
Green.
If the wristband isn't working or like you're
trying to go somewhere you're not supposed to
go,
it flashes
blue, I believe,

(01:03:26):
because
red is too dangerous.
Oh.
Like, they don't want they feel like they
decided that red would harsh people's mellow too
much. I I grok that. Yeah.
And,
I just say I think it's really funny
that, you know, you don't want the hand
signal to be too
Alerting. Intense. Yeah. Too alarming.
Alarming. Yeah. That's a better word. Yeah. We

(01:03:46):
just want your attention. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
it's like, sure. We know how to, like,
bandage a simple wound. This is the most
natural thing. We're just friends taking care of
friends. Yep. And that's
an attitude that, you know, and if there's
any, you know, guides listening as well, that,
you know, we wanna take an attitude of,
like, this is the most natural thing. Things
are okay. We're just folks hanging out.

(01:04:09):
And honestly, it ended up being a very
beautiful experience. I mean,
the there were 5 of us on this
day, and,
it was
the 5 of us working together to heal
one of the 5 of us
and all kind of gently speaking with each
other
and doing the first aid

(01:04:30):
and giving her
healing, like, conversation at the same time. It
probably was healing things in us at the
same time as we were giving her first
aid. Like healing us in the sense of
we're doing a psychedelic experience to heal emotional
wounds or whatever.
Us coming together, I'm sure we were all,
you know,

(01:04:51):
getting good stuff out of that. I mean,
to the point that I remember it now,
like what, 40 years later. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, just to know, like the
experience
of competence and care,
Right? Of like I can we can do
this. We are people who take care of
each other and love one another and we

(01:05:12):
show up for each other and do what
needs to be done. You know? Because like
it's a it'll it's a little thing. It's
a little band aid, but you know, on
the right molecule
like that's an epic quest.
You know, even though we're saying, oh yeah,
it's chill. Everything's cool. Like you know, we
make things big in our minds. Yeah,
and you know, healing our friends.

(01:05:32):
You know, is a big deal. Like it's
the most, it's the biggest deal there can
be really. Yeah.
It's like at the core of being human.
Yeah. 1
of the other things that tends to happen
is, you know, very often people will get
separated
one way or another.
And,
it's kind of a toss-up with who the

(01:05:54):
people that you're doing it with because we
all have cell phones. And so, if we
get separated, it is easy to go grab
your cell phone and say, Hey, I lost
you. Where are you? Right? But at the
same
time,
I've been with people where everyone's decided we
want to turn off our cell phones
so that people who might harsh our vibe
don't call us and interrupt

(01:06:15):
what we've got going down. Right?
And so,
in the situations when we don't have the
phone,
I usually work with folks and say, Hey,
if you get separated from the group,
we will meet at this whatever location.
And when we realize you're not there,
we will all head to that location and

(01:06:36):
then we will continue our experience from that
location.
I'm sure this has come across your plate
many times. It's a story as old as
time.
I'm serious. Can we do history again? Yeah.
Do it. Do it. So should we do
kind of modern psychedelic history or archaic
tribal history? Archaic sounds more fun. Let's go

(01:06:57):
there. Alright. We'll start there. So,
when you go through places like the Altai
Mountains and Siberia
and just places where there are vast
fields and steps and hills and mountains,
you often come across
big stones
that are vertical,
like, just plopped in the middle of a

(01:07:17):
field.
Right? These sort of like obelisk karen kind
of things. Mhmm. And
you know, the the scholars believe like this
is how people oriented.
Right? Like if you needed to meet
nomads, like you're a nomad,
right, in in the Siberian mountains,
right, and you need to meet people, we're
like, okay, on the solstice, I'll meet you

(01:07:39):
over 3 hills at that stone. Yeah. At
the stone, that looks like a horse or
whatever. Yeah.
And so people were have been orienting themselves
forever,
right, to try and find their place in
space, right, which is good because again, you
know, like
so our minds
we're we're taking our minds out into space.

(01:08:00):
Right? We're we're intentionally
disorienting
ourselves. Right? And this is one of the
reasons why having a good intention is key.
Right? We're talking about that mantra intention. You
can think of that mantra intention
kind of like a stone in a field.
Like, I'm lost in the in in Siberia.
Where's my stone? Right? And then to have
something like that for the group is it

(01:08:22):
only stands to reason.
I don't know if you've ever have you
ever
seen a dead show at the spectrum?
Not at the spectrum.
So back in the day,
there was a Rocky statue
at the spectrum in Philly. Right? There was
the movie Rocky, the boxer. Yeah. Sure. And
they,
you know, they made a statue for him

(01:08:43):
in the movie,
but then the statue also existed in real
life.
And so they
put it at the spectrum for a while,
which is, you know, a Philly place where
the dead would play. Mhmm. And so that's
where we'd meet our friends. If you get
lost, we'll meet you at the rocky statue.
That's great. So we would not you know,
it's natural in our

(01:09:05):
bodies. You know, it's natural in our community
spirit
to say you know, we say it to
kids. You know, if you get lost, this
is, you know, meet me here by this
thing.
You know, find an adult. Find another mom.
Yeah. And tell her to take you to
this place.
Right?
And
so, you know, that that is the most
natural thing in the world that we have

(01:09:27):
been doing for
1000 of years is picking,
meeting places.
A corollary to that that,
you know, really applies differently in different situations
is
letting somebody know what's going on who isn't
gonna be with y'all.
So, if you're going to do a psychedelic
and stay around the house, well,

(01:09:48):
that may not be as important.
But if you're going out in the forest.
Right? Or I live on an island, so,
you know, it is not uncommon for people
to decide
that that we're gonna get in a boat
and go to one of the lesser populated
islands near me in the Puget Sound or
which is, you know, much more of a
trip,
pun intended.
And

(01:10:10):
if you are doing anything where you're going
to be leaving home
and it is a good thing to let
somebody know who's not going with you that
y'all are doing this
And even if you're sure nothing's really gonna
go wrong
where that person would need to know, there's
almost always somebody in the group

(01:10:33):
who is a little uncomfortable
with some aspect and they're just happy to
know
that there is somebody who's not with the,
you know, 4 or 6 or whatever of
you
on the outside who isn't,
you know, tripping or isn't experiencing the psychedelic.
Sometimes people need to have a sober person
on the outside that they can call if

(01:10:54):
they start to kind of slide off
and start to potentially have a troubling experience.
So, you know, they can be used in
lots of different ways, but I'm a strong
proponent
of having there be a, you know, a
phone a friend out there just so there's
somebody who isn't on a psychedelic
in case they are needed.

(01:11:15):
Yeah. That's great. And again, you know, back
to the idea of sitters, that person might
even
be with you in the house.
Mhmm. Like they might be they might be
traveling with you at the concert. You know,
there there is,
you know,
the idea of sort of like the mom,
you know, you know, the the the the

(01:11:35):
dead mother of sorts. Mhmm. And, you know,
it could be it not to gender anybody,
but, you know, it could be whatever. But,
you know, somebody who is there and they
are, you know, making tea and they're
sort of
there if you need them. And is everybody
have a blanket and Okay, it's hard for
you guys to pick the music right now.

(01:11:55):
I will do that and that sort of
thing. Yeah. The way you just described it
sounded really nice, actually.
I might actually like that in my regular
life.
Yeah.
And it doesn't mean that the person needs
to be right there because very often when
people are having a psychedelic experience,
it becomes very intimate and they really only

(01:12:16):
want the people who are high there.
But it's, you know, if you're gonna have
somebody, it's it's perfectly fine that they're in
another room reading or something. And if and
if you need them, they they're there. And
if not, maybe they just, like, go through
the room, you know, every half hour and
just, like, make sure everybody's doing good, you
know? It really just depends
on on everybody's comfort level. You can really
design this however you want. This is this

(01:12:38):
is your adventure. This is your experience.
And and all Daniel and I are doing
are are pointing out a whole bunch of
best practices
that work for lots of different kinds of
people.
Sometimes
I like to think of a sitter
as kind of like
Alfred from Batman.

(01:12:59):
Like you are I like that. Yeah. You're
in the dark. Right? You're it's like you
imagine you're laying there with your eyes closed.
Right? You're in the dark,
saving the universe
and then you come out of the dark
and you open your eyes, and he's there.
And he said, would you like some tea,
sir?
And the thing is he's been there. Like,
if you follow the history of Alfred, like,
Alfred used to go on missions with Batman.

(01:13:21):
He would like he was the driver for
a while. Oh.
You know? He knows how it goes. Like,
you know, he can
he can, stitch up like you're saying, like,
Alfred one of the things Alfred does is
he stitches up Batman. Right. He fixes his
wounds
and offers him counsel,
you know, if he needs it.
So I've got 2 more topics before we
go to commercial. And and one is,

(01:13:44):
there are some classic
foods
and beverages
that just seem to work well with psychedelic
experience for,
So, you know, water,
coconut water,
fruit is almost always fun, especially like bright
citrus fruit. Oh, my goodness gracious. What are
some in your experience that are you know,

(01:14:06):
low hanging fruit for being a good, good
thing to have along?
Yeah, I like a nice fruit plate. Mhmm.
I I generally like
Yeah, I like a nice fruit plate and
and so often berries
and citrus. And I I like berries a
lot. You know, they're they're bite sized.
You have to check because not everybody likes

(01:14:27):
every berry.
I like dark chocolate a lot. Mhmm. I
think dark chocolate is great.
I like
cashews
personally quite a bit.
So, you know, these I I really like,
the presentation
as well.
So, you know, there's there's a difference between

(01:14:50):
having just a plastic bin of berries,
like over by the sink
versus like taking a really nice plate and
array making a mandala
Mhmm. Of treats. Honestly, if if you could
spend your entire trip making that mandala of
snacks.
Well, it's nice. Well, actually, we were talking

(01:15:11):
about preparation. Yeah. Sure.
It's a it's a really nice preparation activity
Mhmm. Because it's creative
and it's nurturing
and it's focused.
Right? And it's intentional.
So you're starting off your journey by, okay,
like, I'm here to I'm taking care of
my future self. Yeah. And, you know, I'm
just kind of bringing my attention, you know,

(01:15:31):
whatever I was doing in the world.
Now I'm creating this kind of little work
of art,
this little edible work of art, and there's
okay. There's the chocolate.
And then, you know, maybe there's olives. I
don't know. Some people like that. You know,
sometimes it's it's nice to have something that's,
like, a little
incongruous.
Mhmm. Well, because then you can hit all
the flavors. Here's my sweet. Here's my citrus.

(01:15:52):
Here's my salty olive, whatever.
Yeah. That kind of thing. Mhmm.
You know,
mushrooms
seem to like,
well, you know, you might have, like, a
drinking chocolate
as well. Like, cacao could be nice.
You know you you'd wanna know if that
would disturb somebody's stomach, but,
cacao is nice. Ginger tea is really nice.

(01:16:15):
Crystalized ginger is really nice.
You know, you certainly don't want to have
to
do much prep. I found it. Not in
the moment. Exactly. You wanna do it well
in advance.
Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, with most
psychedelics, most psychedelics in the short term are
appetite suppressants
too.

(01:16:35):
And so,
you know, when you're going up and up,
that's not usually when you're going to get
hungry. After you have
some time, you might get a little snacky,
which is what we're kind of talking about
here. But
while it's not never, it is atypical in
my experience that

(01:16:56):
when you're in the throes of a psychedelic
experience that you'll be very hungry. Now, when
you come down,
you will often be hungry. And I think
it's a good idea to
plan in advance what your,
you know, end of trip meal is gonna
be like. So, at least you know where
the food's gonna come from.

(01:17:16):
Because
when you're when you're coming down, you might
be tired and you might be feeling glowy.
You might not wanna be making,
you know, like, serious food decisions that time.
So maybe maybe you already have it,
or maybe you have a plan that, oh,
at the end, we're gonna order
delivered food from our favorite place or whatever.

(01:17:38):
Like most everything we've been talking about, you
can do it however you want.
But it's good to plan this out ahead
of time, especially
if it's one of your first times
so that the whole thing just goes well
for you. Right. And people do you want
to be mindful that
and this goes with setting I'll go back

(01:17:59):
to setting as well, that what is appetizing
to you in your regular life might not
be. Good point.
Whereas, you know, you might be a person
like,
psychedelics have have
minted many vegetarians.
Yeah. You know, who were
who were very comfortable just eating whatever
and then they tried to eat whatever

(01:18:20):
and
it wasn't working for them anymore.
It was like, oh, that's that's that's not
that's not it.
So, you know, in general,
one of the really cool things about psychedelics
that I think a lot of people don't
recognize, you know, with all the stigma and
stuff is that in many cases,
they make people kind of more wholesome

(01:18:42):
in a lot of ways.
Right? They make people kinder and
more gentle and more attentive,
and perhaps wanting to
have fun in simpler ways. Right? Eat simpler
foods.
Not always, of course, but you know, that
that's one of the things. Mhmm. And, you
know,

(01:19:02):
on that note, we're going back to setting
is sometimes the things that people think are
trippy when they're sober
are not trippy when they're trippy.
Also true. Yeah. Like, you know, like like,
sometimes they'll be like, you know, cheap plastic
crap with flashing lights in it
is not as interesting as, like, a smooth

(01:19:22):
gray rock. Yeah.
Well, it's odd too because very often you
see the plastic and you're all like, this
is an unreal thing, you know? It's it's
it's you just don't really know how you're
going to
interpret things. And I don't know. I think
that there are reasons why people tend towards
natural things when they're on psychedelics.

(01:19:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a
really there's a cool book called Psychedelic Prayers
by Timothy Leary.
He
had, I think, like, 7 copies of the
Dao De Ching and a vial of acid.
And I think he was in India. He
fled the country.
And he read the Dao De Ching and
he took the acid and he wrote psychedelic

(01:20:08):
prayers.
And one of the things that it talks
about in there are the things that are
nice to have around.
You know? And he, I'm seeing if I
have it nearby.
We can put it in the show notes.
I know I don't have it nearby.
But, you know, something like
handwoven
cloth.
Right? Uncarved wood.

(01:20:29):
Right? Raw rocks.
Right? He said in in his poem, he
he says
bread bread, cheese, and wine. Mhmm. Right?
Anything that is over 500 years old.
Right. When you have like like an ancient
artifact, that could be really fun. Yeah. And
then of course he ends by saying, of

(01:20:49):
course, it's best to be secluded in nature.
Right.
But just simple natural
things, you know, can go a long way.
Yeah.
Handmade.
Mhmm. Right? Things that have care in them.
You can see. That's an interesting thing. It's
like one of those superpowers, you know, in
the shows that sometimes there's a superhero and

(01:21:10):
they can touch a thing and they know
its history. Right. Yes. Like, a tripper knows
if there's care in a thing.
So the last thing I wanna touch on
here is, is just the preparation of the
drug itself.
I think it's always good,
whether you're on your own or with a
group,
to be really clear well in advance on

(01:21:32):
what your dosage is and to pre make
it so that you're not
debating on your dosage or preparing it right
there at the last moment. Because,
you know, some of these molecules, they, you
know, you really have to do it with
care and slowly if you're going to be
making a capsule or, you know, you want
to be clear if you're going to do
it with friends. Are we going to make

(01:21:52):
a tea or are we going to eat
the mushroom fruit itself?
I I discourage people from leaving that to
the last minute.
Yeah. I mean, I
am cautious about answering this too much because
I don't want it to seem like too
much
advice about, like, that kind of stuff. Mhmm.

(01:22:15):
But,
you know,
test kits are available.
Scales are available.
You know,
guy Arrowid is available.
Right? You know, there are many
reference materials so that you can know what
a thing is supposed to do.
Right? You can decide based on the effects
that you want that some things lean more
towards one thing or lead towards another.

(01:22:36):
Right? Guideline dosage guidelines are online.
Right?
So
yeah. Right on. So let's go ahead and
take our second break. We'll be right back,
my friends. You are listening to Shaping Fire,
and my guest today is psychedelic integration coach,
Daniel Schenken.

(01:22:57):
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was pleased. The patients had beautiful female plants
and didn't have to cull half of their
garden as males.
The folks growing for the fun of getting
high grew colorful flowers with exceptional bag appeal
and great highs. And breeders had 7 out

(01:24:41):
of 7 females in a pack which gave
them a lot of phenotypic choices.
Take a moment right now and visit humboldtcsi.com.
You'll find an up to date menu of
both feminized and regular lines along with photos
and descriptions.
That's humboldtcsi.com.

(01:25:02):
After you've caught up on the latest Shaping
Fire episodes, do you sometimes wish there was
more cannabis education available to learn? Well, we
got you. Shaping Fire has a fabulous YouTube
channel with content not found on the podcast.
When I attend conventions to speak or moderate
panels, I always record them and bring the
content home for you to watch. The Shango
Los YouTube channel has world class speakers including

(01:25:22):
Zoe Sigman's lecture, understanding your endocannabinoid
system. Kevin Jodry of Wonderland Nursery talking about
breeding cannabis for the best terpene profile.
Frenchy Cannoli's lost art of the Hashisian presentation.
Nicholas Mammood on regenerative and polyculture cannabis growing.
Doctor Sunil Agarwal on the history of cannabis
medicine around the world. Eric Vlowski and Josh

(01:25:42):
Rutherford on solventless
extraction.
And Jeff Lowenfels on the Soil Food Web.
There are several presentations from Doctor. Ethan Russo
on terpenes and the endocannabinoid system too. While
there, be sure to check out the 3
10 part Shaping Fire session series, One with
Kevin Gaudry, one with Doctor. Ethan Russo, and
one with Jeff Lowenfels.
And even my own presentations on how to

(01:26:03):
approach finding your dream job in cannabis and
why we choose cannabis business even though the
risks are so high. As of today, there's
over 200 videos that you can check out
for free. So go to youtube.com/shangolos
or click on the link in the newsletter.
Sometimes the topics I want to share with
you are far too brief for an entire

(01:26:24):
Shaping Fire episode.
In those instances, I post them to Instagram.
I invite you to follow my 2 Instagram
profiles and participate online.
The Shaping Fire Instagram has follow-up posts to
Shaping Fire episodes,
growing and processing best practices,
product
trials, and of course gorgeous flower photos.
The shangolos Instagram follows my travels on cannabis

(01:26:46):
garden tours, my successes and failures in my
own garden,
insights and best practices from personal grows everywhere,
and always gorgeous flower photos. On both profiles,
the emphasis is on sharing what I've learned
in a way that you can replicate it
in your own garden, your own hash lab,
or for your own cnabidopathic
health. So I encourage you to follow at

(01:27:06):
shapingfire
and at shangolose and join our online community
on Instagram.
Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire
and I am your host, ShangoLose.
And my guest today is psychedelic integration coach,
Daniel Schenken.
So my friends, here we are at the
final set and we are going to talk
about integration.
Integration is actually the first reason why I

(01:27:28):
became interested in your teaching
because integration is a part of the process
that I am least familiar with.
And by watching your,
your TikTok and Instagram accounts,
I started really getting a good sense of
the integration I was doing right and the
integration I could be improving on.
And the quality of the advice that I

(01:27:49):
was offering to others has absolutely
increased since, since I started
listening to your insights. So so let's That's
amazing to hear. Thank you. Oh, good. Excellent.
So so let's start with with just asking
you to kind of give us an umbrella.
Integration,
is it's probably a pretty vague term for
most folks. And so why don't we start

(01:28:10):
with that, like, what is integration and what
are we looking to get out of it?
Right. Okay. So
and we can look at this from a
lot of different levels, like, depending on
how we view
who and what we are.
But on a most basic level, you might
say,
hey, you learned some stuff. You learned some

(01:28:30):
stuff about yourself. You got some messages. We
we like to call them downloads these days
sometimes,
and maybe marching orders.
And so, it was like, okay, maybe you
should start doing this, be nicer to people,
say you're sorry, clean your room, and maybe
you should stop doing this, smoking,
drinking too much, whatever.

(01:28:51):
And maybe on the long term you want
to kind of move towards this in your
life. You want to become a chef. You
have to go to culinary school. Right? And
so,
figuring out how to
get those done.
Like, what might what is it like
to genuinely be kinder to people? What is
it like to be more humble and say
you're sorry when you mess up even though

(01:29:13):
sometimes it feels like you might die if
you have to say you're sorry, that it's
the most vulnerable thing in the world? What
might it be like to quit drinking when
that's what you know? Right? And that's how
you interact with people.
And then what does it take to actually
get yourself
to and through culinary school?
Right? All of these kinds of

(01:29:34):
dreams and upgrades that are available
and what is it gonna take to kinda
make this happen. Right? So that's part of
integration.
And what often happens
is
people
start off with good intentions and then it
drops off, life gets in the way, they
don't have any accountability, they don't have anything
anybody,
to support them. Right? We just kinda forget

(01:29:55):
our lessons.
Yeah. We can forget our lessons. And then
you know what happens when we forget our
lessons
is our vibe drops.
Right? So also, this is my favorite. I
really like integration of transcendence
and mystical experience.
So this is what keeps me coming back
is I have these experiences

(01:30:17):
of bliss, oneness, connection,
God, love,
all of that stuff.
Right?
And
I like that and I like that feeling.
And I can feel it speaking about shapes,
like, being in that kind of ecstatic
con connected state shapes us in a certain
way.
Right? We get shaped by bliss and joy

(01:30:39):
and the spiritual experience,
which is awesome. And then perhaps we vibrate
in a certain way or we show up
for the world in a certain way,
depending on whether or not, you know, whatever
you think of vibes, but we show up
different. And we feel amazing and we wanna
hold on to that.
But then the thing is is that that
starts to downgrade too. And it starts to

(01:30:59):
downgrade
because we stop practicing humility. We stop practicing
kindness. We stop practicing truth. And we drink
too much, and we eat the wrong stuff.
Right? So it's like the lessons
kind of correlate
the doing and the being.
We start to see a connection. If I
wanna be the person that I wanna be,
it means I have to do the things

(01:31:20):
that I know I'm supposed to do. Yeah.
Ain't ain't that the rub?
Yeah.
And, you know, if you wanna stay connected
to one of the things I I say
to people, like, if you wanna stay connected
to source, you have to serve the source.
Mhmm. Right?
And so there's that.
Integration might also mean
that there are
kind of parts of you

(01:31:42):
that
you haven't been embodying or living.
Right? Maybe kind humility parts, but it's like
sometimes we discover that there are
that we maybe are a more creative person
than we gave ourselves credit for. And so
there's, like, again, this kind of integration of,
being our our full potential.
Like, letting our full potential
really have a chance instead of just squashing

(01:32:04):
it down and saying it doesn't matter and
and putting it away.
There might also be,
like, integrate like, healing might have to happen.
Right? We might need to heal from, like,
some really
difficult stuff. We might have, repressed memories come
up of abuse or something like that, and
we have to kind of integrate our own

(01:32:24):
personal history
in a new way so that we can,
be a whole healed healthy person.
So we can look at it from, like,
a lot of different angles
and depending on who you are and what
you're going through at any particular time in
your soul's journey, it might mean different things.
Mhmm. So

(01:32:45):
let's say that, you know, somebody just had
the psychedelic experience
and they wanna do integration because they want
to really embrace the lessons that they learned.
And, you know, if this person already has
a therapist,
chances are very likely that they will do
this integration with the therapist they already have.

(01:33:06):
But lots of people who are doing psychedelics
don't actually have a relationship
preexisting with a therapist.
What kind of advice do you have for
those people?
Well, get one if you can afford 1.
Mhmm.
And it's, of course, cool if you find
you know, there's an increasing amount of therapists

(01:33:26):
who are willing to talk about psychedelics with
you.
So that's cool.
You can
find an integration circle. You can find an
integration coach or an integration circle.
An integration circle is kind of halfway between,
like, a meditation group and a support group.

(01:33:46):
Mhmm. Right? So it's like it it kind
of might look like a support group on
the outside, but
it doesn't necessarily mean anybody's broken or wounded
or anything.
I mean, we all are, but it's not
it's not like
a survivor type support group. Sure. Not necessarily.
It's just a slightly different vibe. People are
just kind of like really

(01:34:06):
growing. Right? So it's got that kind of
thing to it, as well as healing in
some cases.
And that is a place where you can
talk about, you know, what's important to you
and what you got out of your experience
and how you wanna keep it going with
a group of people who are,
you know, semi regular.
And
you kind of form a relationship with folks.

(01:34:26):
And sometimes, you know, we have
3 a week,
you know, on our on our website. They're
all on Zoom. And then depending where you
live in the world, there might be one
in person. Mhmm.
You know, it just so happens that I
have an online a little online
course on how to make your own. You
can you can start your own integration circle.
It's not rocket science.

(01:34:48):
So,
you know, some community support is a big
deal.
Some of it you have to do on
your own, of course.
Like nobody can nobody cannot drink for you.
Mhmm. Right? Right. You know, nobody can journal
for nobody can journal and meditate for you.
You have to do that on your own.

(01:35:09):
So,
yeah. I don't know if that answers your
question. Sure. It does.
And the next question would be,
I know that there are some independently
minded people who are listening
and,
you know, people who have got, you know,
always seeking autonomy like I am and we're

(01:35:30):
thinking, Oh, well, I can just do that
on my own.
And,
you know, I just I have this belief
without any real evidence
that doing integration
with others
who are not who have got a different
perspective and are a little more objective and

(01:35:51):
especially if they've got therapy training,
that it just seems to be more effective
to do integration,
along with someone else if if if only
to have someone to bounce stuff off of.
What are your thoughts about that?
Yeah. You can't We can't see ourselves.
You can't see your own eye.
You know what I mean? Like, you just

(01:36:13):
We just can't.
And
Because I'm in the Skinner box. Right?
So, me looking me observing myself
is incredibly subjective. So, we need it's helpful
for us to have somebody who's looking at
us on the outside. Is that the idea?
Yeah. Yeah.
Your strategies of evasion are highly sophisticated.

(01:36:34):
Yes, they are. I'll say that one's more
say that for those of you in the
back. Yeah. Your strategies of evasion are highly
sophisticated.
Right? And so there
you know, one would
I don't want to say need but I
will. You know, we need to have a
little bit of willingness and a little bit
of humility sometimes
and to recognize that we are relational beings.

(01:36:56):
And you've just been talking this whole time
about oh, I I did the psychedelics with
my friend and friends and it's good to
have a group.
It's good to have a group. Mhmm. Right?
Like, you could meet. You know, what would
it be like if you and your your
party people
said, okay, like, we're gonna meet
once a week at the same time,
right, for

(01:37:17):
an intentional meeting, much like that intention that
you all brought to fixing your friend's foot.
Mhmm. Right? We're gonna meet for 4 weeks
before our journey for an hour and a
half.
We're gonna have a conference call or we're
gonna meet at the coffee shop or whatever.
We're gonna get on Zoom
and we're gonna rap about
what we want and we're gonna talk about

(01:37:38):
we're gonna listen to the Shaping Fire podcast
and we're gonna make our own checklist. We're
gonna set it up And we're gonna talk
about our hopes and our dreams and our
desires. We're gonna be vulnerable with each other.
Right? And then after the trip, we're gonna
meet for 4 to 6 weeks for an
hour and a half, and we're gonna talk
about how our experience is unfolding and we're
gonna hold each other accountable
and we're going to focus on what's important

(01:37:59):
and we're going to reflect back what we
saw from each other in our journeys
and we're going to see what we learned
about ourselves and each other and we're going
to be there if somebody is confused about
something and offer them
support
and
good fellowship
without, again, laying our trips on each other
or offering each other a lot of advice,

(01:38:21):
but just kind of recognizing that we're growing
together. Like how would that change the journey
if it was exactly changing? It would wildly
improve it. Hearing you describe it, I'm like,
Man, I've never done that. I wanna sign
up for that.
Like, that level of integration would
really expand the healing that any particular psychedelic
experience has.

(01:38:41):
Right. And I say it and it's almost
like, duh. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it
is. But honestly, I, you know, I don't
know about how psychedelics are done in the
rest of the world, but, you know, I've
been involved with the psychedelic world for 35
years and integration is not historically
a part of the, you know, every person's

(01:39:05):
psychedelic experience.
And my God, it should be.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And it's
almost like keep in mind that,
you know,
in Peru, like the Ayahuasca people of Peru,
Shipibo tribes and such,
don't really do integration circles. They live
very different lives.

(01:39:27):
You know what I mean? Like, they live
like a slower paced life. Right? Their society
in a lot of ways was built off
of people doing Ayahuasca.
If you were a try If you and
your friends
had the wherewithal to start a society
based on your journeys together,
what would that society look like? And then
that's what you have in Peru in many

(01:39:48):
ways.
So so it's built into some cultures. It's
not built into our culture. And and, you
know, vulnerability
and community is not necessarily built into our
cultures, at least not like a vulnerable
kind of community thing. Right. Like, it's it's
more
like it's more external.
You know, it's exoteric and in a lot

(01:40:09):
of ways,
you know, still built around, like, what what
the individual can get out of it.
On a real mechanical level, if if somebody
wants to do integration
with a professional,
what would you recommend
they look for? Like, what are the attributes

(01:40:30):
and what are the things that they should
think of when choosing
who to work with? I mean, you've
taught so many
facilitators and integration specialists, you probably have got,
you know,
a good list of best practices for choosing
1. Right. Well, I mean, you should start
with me. Right? Reach out to me.

(01:40:51):
You know, you would probably want somebody who
was very familiar with the territory.
So,
you know, I don't have an advanced degree.
You know, I I I don't like I
don't like traditional schooling. You know, I've
taught and trained many people with advanced degrees.
But, you know, I as soon as I

(01:41:12):
got out of college, I just I found
a yoga mat and I hung out in
yoga studios and meditation halls and stuff like
that. That's kind of where I did a
lot of my training.
So you have to decide, like, is
the degree
important? Like, to what extent is the degree
important and to what extent is the experience
important? And if you can get both, that's
great. Yeah. You know, especially if there's rightness

(01:41:33):
of fit. So you wanna be working with
somebody who you feel seen and not judged
and held by. Right? And they're clever.
Right?
So,
so you wanna be that's what you're kinda
looking for. You know, if somebody is kind
of just out of school and they've, you
know, they've done a little bit of a
ketamine training

(01:41:55):
Maybe, maybe not. Mhmm.
You know?
But, you know, you can vet people. You
can ask people stuff.
And, you know, in the realm of social
media, you know, there's there's people out there
sort of like,
you know, blabbing about
how smart they are all the time
and maybe you find one that resonates with

(01:42:15):
you.
I think that's the very important part is
is to find somebody who's got a communication
style that that I feel blends with my
own because we're gonna be talking about, but
intimate and subtle and,
you know, I think subtle is the right
word, things. And I want somebody where we're
already kind of speaking the same language so

(01:42:37):
that we can get to the core of
the matters
swiftly.
Yes. Effectively.
Yeah. Right. So somebody is one of the
best compliments I've gotten
was disarming.
Right? Which almost sounds kind of you know,
I always had to be like, wait, what
do you mean? And they were like, well,
you just you make me want to, like,
put down my weapons, my defence my defensive

(01:42:59):
structures.
You know, I can drop my defences and
be myself. And I was like, oh, okay,
that's nice. Mhmm. You know, you want to
feel like you can
take your armor off.
So now that we've been talking with integration,
about integration a little bit because I I've
been learning as you've been talking,
I think that I would probably summarize it
like if I were to be talking with

(01:43:21):
somebody else later on today about integration.
I think I would describe it as,
so we learn lessons when we're on psychedelics.
And we, you know, those of us who
have done psychedelics, we've all had the experience
of
forgetting our lessons and leaving them behind in
the psychedelic experience.
And so,

(01:43:41):
what
an integration
coach
or similar will
do is help you bring those lessons from
the psychedelic
experience
and help to integrate them into your non
psychedelic everyday
life so that the good things that you
have discovered during the psychedelic experience,

(01:44:03):
you actually get to use those to improve
your life instead of just having a psychedelic
experience and having these thoughts and then
having them slip away. Is that a fair
assessment? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great place to
be with all of that. Right on.
Well, thank you for explaining that. So,
so let's wrap up there, Daniel. So,

(01:44:25):
I'm going to put you on the spot
a little bit, but in a way that
you're probably very used to. Lightning round? Yeah.
Lightning round. Awesome. So so what would be
your what would be your last advice
for somebody who has never done psychedelics before,
They have found a good source for the
psychedelic of choice that they want to use.

(01:44:46):
And they're just trying to, like, rev up
the moxie or the gumption.
They know they want to do it. They
they have it. They're good to go. But
it sounds like it sounds like, you know,
taking the step off of a cliff or
something to them and and and they don't
know what it's gonna be like. And and
so they've got a little hesitation.

(01:45:07):
Maybe they've even maybe they've even had the
psychedelic in their pocket for months and they
haven't, like, taken the next step.
What would be your advice
for them to to to help them in
this next step?
Oh, I don't I don't know.
I don't I don't love this question.
Well, if you don't love the question maybe

(01:45:28):
speak to that and we'll learn from that.
Well,
it's, you know,
it's it's not for me to
to you you can lead a horse to
water. Right? Like it's not for me to
push somebody off,
you know, to push somebody into the pool.
Mhmm. Right? I mean, I would just

(01:45:49):
be really curious
if if I was coaching them. Right? So
it's if I was coaching them, it's it's
not a performance coaching. It's not like,
Glengarry Glen Ross. You know, this is not
coffees for closers. Right? Yeah. Yeah. This is
this is what we call development coaching. And
so I just wanna hear
about your anxiety.
Right? I just wanna know what's

(01:46:11):
coming up for you
and what is
holding you back because it's entirely possible it's
highly probable
that that trepidation
that you're feeling has served you really well
throughout your life.
Right? Like that trepidation, there may have been
times when that trepidation was the difference between
life and death.

(01:46:32):
Right? And so I wanna honor like, I
deeply honor
people's hesitancy.
Right? It's it's a display as far as
I'm concerned. It's a display of wisdom
and discernment.
And so I, you know, I I bow
to your
trepidation.
And I want you to know that it
is safe and acceptable

(01:46:52):
for you to be hesitant and anxious.
Right? And, like, let's
learn more about that.
How has it served you in the past?
Right? What is its aim?
How is it held in the body?
What does it make possible for you? Does
it limit you from things sometimes?

(01:47:13):
Right? It's like, what can we learn about
our this is their shape. Right? Coming back
to it. Your person is showing up and
that's their shape.
Right? They're bracing, perhaps. I'm I'm just picturing
in my head, you know, as I picture
this person whose headset sits in, I'm picturing,
like, a musculature, like, attention,
almost as if they're bracing for impact. Right?
I'm picturing like like, oh, like I'm hand

(01:47:35):
like if somebody would be handing them the
mushroom and they're like,
right? And their hands go out, like they're
pushing away, like, oh, like I I like
it's I fear I'm not safe. It's dangerous.
Right? And so there's that tension there. And
that's their shape. And they can't
do anything else. They can't not do that.
That's
the thing that has been keeping them

(01:47:56):
in as good a shape as they are.
Right. And so let's explore it. Let's learn
about it. Let's see if there are
other ways to practice being in a different
shape that is more in line with your
higher intentions and value and purpose.
Well,
I really like how you took the question
that you weren't a big fan of and

(01:48:18):
turned it into a powerful and liberating answer.
So
I appreciate that in you, Daniel. And I
also appreciate,
that a couple of the different questions I've
asked you today,
you kinda you kinda shook off
as being not the right question, if you
will,
and kind of working with me to mold
so the right things could be shared. So,

(01:48:40):
I appreciate that level of assertiveness in our
conversation today.
And,
so so thank you for your time and
and thank you very much for sharing your
breadth of experience
and,
your
your your gentle self. Right? I think that
a lot of people who are approaching this,
it can be a pretty bombastic

(01:49:03):
topic area for a lot of people. But
your approach is
so accepting and genuine
and
soothing
that,
I appreciate that you you brought that to
us and and shared that with us today.
Yeah, man. Thanks for letting me, you know,
share the message. I think this is really
important work.
I also really think the work that you're

(01:49:25):
doing is really important work.
And,
yeah, it's an honor to collaborate
with you. And, you know,
I'm I'm deeply grateful that we we got
connected in such a sweet and divine way.
Yes. Thanks for holding space, man. Yeah. Thank
you. You're doing really well. Right on. Thank
you.
So my friends, if you would like to
know more about Daniel and his insights and

(01:49:46):
his teaching and his business,
there's a couple great places for you to
go.
The first place to go is on Instagram
and that's where I got turned on to
Daniel. And that's at TAM Integration.
So that's
T AM,
integration.
And, you know, you can absolutely enjoy his
social media clips, but there is also his

(01:50:09):
his link tree there on the profile
and you can, you know, find everything,
all the different ways to connect with Daniel
all in one place.
The second place is on
his website, which is, again,
tamintegration.com.
And you can, you know, on on on
Instagram and on TikTok, you will you will

(01:50:30):
get, you know, one flavor of Daniel. But
on on on the website, you can find
out more details about his his staff and
the services they offer and how they can
be helpful
to you in your integration
or training or coaching.
There's a wide range of good things for
you to check out there on the website
tamintegration.com.

(01:50:52):
And,
and finally,
Daniel wanted me to point out that there
is, right now,
a psilocybin
bundle of educational services available,
special right now at tamintegration.com/
psilocybin

(01:51:12):
bundle.
So, thank you, my friends, for joining us
and you've been listening to Shaping Fire.
You can find more episodes of the Shaping
Fire podcast and subscribe to the show at
shapingfire.com
and wherever you get your podcasts.
If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate
it if you would leave a positive review
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Your review will help others find the show

(01:51:32):
so they can enjoy it too. On the
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On the Shaping Fire website, you'll also find
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That's at shapingfire
and at shangolos on Instagram.

(01:51:54):
Be sure to check out the Shaping Fire
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