September 22, 2025 • 39 mins
Leslie Draffin shares her expertise as a women's microdosing and somatic guide, helping women tap into body-held trauma through various modalities including psilocybin mushrooms and embodiment practices.
• Microdosing psilocybin involves taking tiny amounts that don't cause intoxication but improve mood and brain function
• Psilocybin calms the default mode network where deeply ingrained habits live, allowing better pattern recognition
• Unlike pharmaceuticals, microdosing is used for a season rather than long-term, without addiction potential
• The womb holds trauma for many women, serving as an "energetic junk drawer" for unprocessed experiences
• The SHIFT method (Sensation, Honor, Inhale/exhale, Flow, Take stock) helps regulate emotions in just 9 minutes
• Somatic healing means decoding body sensations to understand what emotions are trying to communicate
• Women can work with cyclical awareness even after menopause by aligning with moon phases
• Sexual healing often requires addressing underlying blocks to receiving pleasure, safety and vulnerability
• Psychedelic work can be particularly helpful for treatment-resistant depression
• Those with conditions like bipolar disorder should only explore psilocybin with professional guidance
Grab Leslie's free guides for microdosing and the SHIFT method by visiting lesliedraffin.com or finding her on Instagram and TikTok.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesliedraffin/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thewombmystic
Website: https://www.lesliedraffin.com/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-light-within/id1554915881
Free Microdosing Guide: https://lesliedraffin.myflodesk.com/microguide
Free Somatic Healing Guide: https://lesliedraffin.myflodesk.com/shift
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Mental Health Warrior and
NeuroSpicyMama.
Today we're talking with LeslieDraffin and let me tell you a
little bit about her.
She's very interesting, shedoes a lot of unique things and
I wanted to bring to theforefront the work she's been
doing.
She is a women's microdosingand somatic guide and a
(00:23):
mindfulness mentor and menstrualcycle educator.
So that's a lot there, Leslie.
Tell us what you do, what allthat?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
means yeah.
So basically what that meansand also, amy, thanks for having
me on the show.
What that basically means is Ihelp women, with a variety of
interesting modalities, tap intothe trauma that's locked in
their body, overcome mentalhealth struggles and really
start to align with theirfeminine energy, and I do that
through menstrual cycleeducation or support.
(00:53):
I do that through psychedelic,microdosing and somatic
embodiment practices as well.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Okay, I'm very interested in this psychedelic
microdosing.
How does that work?
Very interested in thispsychedelic microdosing.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, how does that work?
So, psychedelic microdosing, andthe way that I do it is with
psychedelic mushrooms, so that'salso called psilocybin
mushrooms and when you microdoseyou're taking a teeny amount,
so small, you are never high,you're not intoxicated or
hallucinating.
However, you're still gettingthe benefits of things like
improved mood, improved brainfunction, improved energy and,
(01:29):
the way that I see it, theability to really start to look
deeply at your patterns.
The way that psilocybin worksin the brain is it calms a part
of the brain called the defaultmode network, and that's where
our deeply ingrained habits live.
So for me, my story is I hadsuffered with anxiety my whole
life and I was deeply programmedto be an anxious person.
(01:50):
So when I began to experimentwith tiny doses of microdose,
tiny doses of mushrooms, what Isaw is I was better able to
pause, better able to sort ofzoom out from a situation and
not live in the trigger, andreally be more present to
connect the dots between why Iwas the way I was and how I
could move forward in a positiveway.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
The other thing.
Sorry, I was going to say thatsounds less traumatic than
traditional therapy and thatkind of thing.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
We can definitely talk about that.
But I do want to say one morething about microdosing.
Microdosing is something thatyou invite into your life for a
season.
Right, it's not something thatyou're going to do the rest of
your life.
It's not like a pharmaceuticalpill.
You microdose a few times a weekfor a few weeks at a time and
then you take a break, andthat's what I find truly magical
about the process is it becomesan ally and a helpful catalyst
(02:44):
in your healing journey, withoutit being like the
pharmaceutical drugs out theremany of which I was on which, to
me, felt like a bandaid over,in some cases a bullet wound and
never really staunching theactual problem.
Microdosing is completely theopposite.
It's not something that you getaddicted to.
It's not something that you Idon't know how to say this
(03:06):
really politely but it's notsomething that you can benefit
from if you're in like a user'smindset, like you really need to
be in an integrity at least inmy opinion, in a space of
integrity, in a space ofreciprocity, to benefit from it.
Sure, there are cases of peoplewho misuse these medicines, but
that's what I would say aboutmicrodosing, and we can
(03:27):
certainly talk about traditionaltherapy too.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Oh yeah.
Well, I want to know where doyou get this psilocybin Mm?
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So that's not that.
Yeah, so that's not a questionI love to answer just out there
in the public, but there arecompanies that are doing this
legally in some of the states inthe US where the laws are very
gray.
That's a question that I answerin my free microdosing guide,
so I'd love to give that to yourfolks.
You can put it in the shownotes.
Maybe the question is answeredthere.
But I will say there's a coupleof other places you can start
(03:58):
to look for this.
If you're interested.
One search your localpsychedelic society.
It might be your state.
It might be your state.
It might be your town.
If you live in a big city likeDallas has one.
New York City clearly has abunch, but Texas has them.
Most regions will have sometype of a psychedelic society.
You can just join those forfree.
Start to mingle with the people.
(04:19):
If you go to a farmer's marketand you ever see somebody
selling any types of mushroomslion's mane, cordyceps, reishi,
anything become their friend.
They will know because the lawsvary based on where you live,
and for me I had to really takethat into account.
I had to ask myself is the riskof this being quote unquote
(04:40):
illegal too much for me, and itcertainly might be for you.
You may not want to embark onthis process.
I'm hopeful that in the nextfew years we'll see some of the
laws change and again you couldjourney to somewhere like
Colorado, where it'sdecriminalized, or to Oregon,
where they have legalized it, orthere are a bunch of cities
around the country I thinkMinneapolis maybe just made a
(05:01):
change, so there are places thatyou can find this very legally
and you can go there if youwould prefer.
Again, there's places that youcan get it on the internet that
are safe too.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
The reason I was asking is because I wondered how
safe it is, like do people addstuff to it, or do you need to
make sure you get it from areputable person?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah for sure.
So every time I post on certainplatforms there's like a bot in
the chat that's always like getit from fungi guy 275.
Absolutely not.
You're never going to order itfrom somebody, you see in the
comment section.
And so I have done a reallydedicated, like focused job
(05:42):
vetting sources which is whythey're in that guide so that
I've either communicated inperson with the person who's
behind the company I've talkedwith them like in a Zoom or on
the phone or through email or Ihave worked with their products.
So there are some companies thatI highly recommend.
They're highly safe.
But you're right, you don'tknow what you're getting
sometimes on the internet andmushrooms are, you know, I think
(06:04):
a lot of mystery surroundsmushrooms in general.
So even though these grow wild,please don't just go eating
some mushrooms you find on a cowpatty, which that's like
typically where you getpsychedelic mushrooms is off of
cow patties.
Don't do that.
You want to just find areputable company and I have
done that, and if you have thatquestion and you want that
answer, just grab that guide.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Good advice.
So talk to me about the womband the trauma that women have.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Okay, so what I have found in my work and it
certainly is something that I'vealso validated and verified in
my own life is that the womb formany women is a deep source of
held and stuck trauma.
So we know that the body holdson to trauma.
We've heard the big book theBody Keeps the Score.
It's not my favorite.
(06:52):
I prefer Waking the Tiger by DrPeter Levine, who is the
founder of Somatic Experiencing.
But we know that the body iswhere sensations happen, and
those sensations lead to ouremotions, lead to the stories
that we tell ourselves.
When we look at the womb itself,anatomically it's in the pelvic
bowl, and so we hold a lot oftension in the hips, we hold a
(07:14):
lot of stagnant energy in thehip area and the bowl of, like
your pelvis, including where thewomb sits.
I like to say it's like yourenergetic junk drawer.
You're going to stuff thingsthere that you don't want to
look at anymore or look at yet.
So this could be negativeself-talk, it could be eating
disorders, it could beaddictions, it could be abuse,
(07:35):
it could be violence and,because women are so often
victims of violence, right whenwe look at the species, a lot of
that violence has to do withsex, and sex and the womb are so
interconnected.
So that's one reason why I havereally found that the womb is
so, so much of like a hotbed forstuck trauma.
(07:55):
I really believe, personally,that the other reason is because
we live in a patriarchalsociety where the women of the
world have been silenced becauseof the power that lives within
aligning with your cycle,understanding your feminine
energy and living from yourpower source, which is the womb.
You know, the womb is how webirth babies, it's how we can
birth creative projects After weno longer bleed.
(08:17):
It's how we become the wisewomen of our communities, when
we're living in a healed space,not a patriarchal world.
And so thousands of years ago,I believe, women were really
living more from this space.
We were in different types ofsocieties, more matrilineal
societies, and so, because ofthe suppression of this energy
(08:38):
and the subjugation of women allaround the world for millennia,
there's an additional ancestralwomb wound in all of us,
whether or not we have ever beenthe victim of violence or not.
And so those two main thingsthe real, physical aspects of
how the body holds trauma, andthen the energetic, ancestral,
generational traumas that arehanded down to us simply because
(09:00):
we're women.
Those are some really bigreasons why I find that the womb
holds on to trauma so, sobroadly.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Wow, and you have a special nine-minute shift that
you do to help with that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So I created the shift method, actually not
specifically for womb healing,but for emotional regulation,
which is certainly somethingthat happens or is necessary in
any type of trauma processing.
And so when my soulmate dogdied last year, I was in an
incredibly deep state of griefand I had panic attacks for the
first time in years after hedied and I was realizing this
(09:34):
dog was like my co-regulator.
I really relied on him.
He was a great Dane, he was abig entity in my life, a big
thing in my life, and when hedied I had panic attacks for the
first time in years.
I'm like what is going on?
So, with all of my training, Iknew well we're not going to sit
with mushrooms to deal withthis grief, because when we're
(09:55):
in an acute state of grief orsadness, anxiety, depression,
mushrooms can amplify that andmake those feelings even bigger,
and I don't want any more.
I don't want it to be bigger.
Mushrooms can amplify that andmake those feelings even bigger,
and I don't want any more.
I don't want it to be bigger.
And so I created shift toreally help me get out of my
head, to feel more of theemotions in the body and to
process and move those out.
So shift includes threedifferent things.
(10:16):
It's two minutes of journaling,three minutes of easy, gentle
breath work and four minutes ofintuitive movement, and so that
can look like bullet journaling,just like brain dumping.
What's in your mind?
I like to say, follow theacronym shift.
So start off by seeking out anysensations you might be feeling.
For me it was like I feel sotight in my chest I feel like
(10:38):
I'm going to throw up.
I have this racing heartbeatand my head is pounding.
I would have written those downand then honoring the feelings
that come up with thosesensations, this tightness
behind my eyes means I want toburst out crying because I miss
my dog so much.
That's an example For the nextthree minutes you're just going
to do the simple breaths of inthrough the nose, out through
(11:00):
the mouth, make a sound as youexhale, and so what this
naturally does is it bringsonline your parasympathetic
nervous system, which is yourrest and digest.
That's the peace and safetyelement.
Just by extending the exhaleand when you're making a sound
humming, sighing, exhale, andwhen you're making a sound
humming, sighing, moaning,yawning, growling, hissing,
(11:26):
yelling, whatever that alsostimulates the vagus nerve,
which is there in theparasympathetic nervous system
which runs the nerve runs fromyour head down through the
throat, chest and actually landsin the cervical region, so it's
womb connected.
For women, that humming or thatvibration of that nerve also
helps to show the body okay,you're safe.
And then the last part of shiftis flow.
So just let your body move inwhatever way you want.
(11:47):
It could be stretching, itcould be dancing, it could be
stomping, it could be making thestop sign, right.
I have really found, without alot of guidance you know I don't
like to tell people what to doin their shift but your body,
once you let yourself tap intowhat's coming up and then you
have the breath to bring in, youwill make like the weirdest.
(12:08):
It'll seem weird to you butit'll make a lot of sense.
These like weird movements withyour body that could really be
you finishing a trauma cycle,really be you finishing a trauma
cycle.
I did a lot of work with likeposture when I was dealing with
this grief, because I just feltso contracted and fallen in on
myself Right, and so I wouldkind of like stand up and let my
heart fall forward or comeforward.
(12:30):
And then the last acronym, thelast letter of the acronym,
shift is just take a pause, takestock.
What's happened?
What do I need now to continueto nourish myself?
And so that's how it was born,and I've seen it really help
people with ADHD.
Like people with I have ADHD,adhders like, typically feel
(12:52):
like they cannot meditate.
And I'm a meditation teacherand I got trained because I
wanted to do it right, but Istruggled so significantly
through that and what I found isthat, because shift is timed, I
have a free ebook I'd love tohand it to you for your show
notes and there are playlistsI've created.
So one song is journaling, thesecond song is breath, the third
(13:13):
song is flow, movement.
And you're done.
Your ADHD brain loves thatbecause you're like, okay, I'm
moving on to this and we'removing on to this, so it helps
you get in touch with the bodywithout that spinning hamster
wheel of shoulds and oh shit,I'm not doing this quite right
and oh, this thought is comingin this way.
And so I've had a lot ofsuccess with my clients who have
ADHD through the shift method.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I think that sounds great.
I'm going to be trying thatwith myself and my daughter.
We both have ADHD.
Okay, perfect, yeah, so tell mea little bit about the somatic
part of this.
What?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
is somatic.
So somatic really just means ofthe body, of the.
Soma is where that word comesfrom the Greek, and to me I
really see it as a whole bodyapproach to healing,
specifically really healing themind-body connection.
We've already talked about thefact that the body does hold
onto trauma.
It holds onto emotions.
(14:08):
You can experience stress inthe body and trauma in the body
through different physicalsensations, and so when we look
at somatic healing, it really islearning to decipher the
language of the sensations inthe body and then getting
curious about what thosesensations might be showing us.
So for folks who've experiencedanxiety, it's actually pretty
(14:31):
easy for them to understandsomatics, because when you have
an anxiety attack, how physicalthat can feel At least that was
my experience right Like, oh,the racing heart, the feeling
like your chest or your throatis constricting, maybe you have
like restless legs.
So the sensations are reallycoming online when those
feelings of anxiety are coming,the tightness of the stomach,
(14:53):
even, or the heaviness, and sowhat I like to say is that those
sensations are your bodytalking and somatics helps you
to get curious about whatthey're really wanting to say to
you and it might be reallyobvious to you why you're
feeling the feelings, why you'refeeling anxious, and it can be
really surprising too, like Ihave found working with clients.
(15:14):
One thing I'll do often is justhave them body scan and say,
all right, let your mind'sawareness travel through the
body.
Usually, your attention will bedrawn to a place that feels
uncomfortable.
Do you find an uncomfortablespot in your body?
Okay, I have a tightness in theback of my shoulder.
All right, let's look at that.
Let's let that speak to us.
Does it have a temperature?
(15:35):
Does it feel smaller or largerthan a fist?
Is it dull?
Is it sharp?
Does it have a color?
We ask these questions of thebody and sometimes not much will
come up.
But oftentimes what'll come upis I have a client I've worked
with and she I literally hadthis thing happen with her a few
weeks ago.
She felt that tightness in theback of her shoulder, feels like
(15:57):
I'm getting stabbed in the back.
Oh my gosh.
Yes, I've had this fight withmy friend.
This is where this is.
I feel like I'm going to getset work.
I'm about to lose my job.
It was these weird thingsconnected to that pinch, that
sharpness in her shoulder, andso what we did is we breathed
through it.
I let her feel those feelings,talk that out, and then we
(16:21):
traveled to another place in thebody.
Is there a place that feels theopposite of that?
And so that's really whatsomatics the way that I work
with them do is help to decodeplaces and sensations in the
body.
That might give you a reallygood clue into the patterns that
you have, the dullness,numbness you're feeling, the
depression, anxiety that you'refeeling, and really just
(16:44):
approaching all of this workwith this thought that your body
is really wise.
It really is wise, it has theanswers that you're looking for.
Unfortunately, we're just oftennot told how to deal with that,
and so we mentioned before, youknow, talk therapy.
I was in talk therapy for yearsand I was great at talk therapy
.
Like my therapist would saythings like well, it's like
(17:06):
talking to a peer yeah, no, I'man intellectual first eldest
daughter with perfectionism andADHD.
Like, of course, I'm going tobe acing therapy and all that
did was keep me stuck in thestory of the trauma.
It never helped me process it,and that's the difference
between talking about it andgoing through a somatic
procedure.
A somatic process like thatwhere, yes, you're talking,
(17:29):
because that's how we verbalize,but the speaking comes after
getting in touch with thesensation of the body.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Hey well, it sounds like you have an incredible
toolkit here, so I'm wonderinghow do you decide what to start
with with someone?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So I've been doing the work with clients on and off
for about four years and, yes,I've added to the toolkit year
after year and in the beginningI really I would go through like
mushroom.
First I was very like, let's do, let's get the psychedelics in
you first.
And I really shifted thatapproach in the last year
because I started to see, one,how crazy the world is and, two,
(18:09):
how much more disconnectedpeople are from their bodies
because of how crazy the worldis.
Right, we spend so much time onour phones trying to just like
zone out.
And so right now what I'vereally been focused on is
helping people to tap into thebody through the somatic process
and then, after a few weeks ofworking together if it's a
(18:29):
one-on-one person specificallythen introducing psychedelics
Because, like I said, they'reamazing allies in this process.
They're amazing allies in thisprocess.
I don't think that you have toeat mushrooms to heal.
And yet I love them and I'm sodeeply thankful for them because
they helped me get sober.
They've helped me with myanxiety and depression, my PTSD,
(18:50):
all these things.
But now it's one of thosethings where I know everyone can
benefit from somatics.
Let me get to know them alittle bit.
Let's see what your nervoussystem really is like and then
let's see if whether or notpsychedelics could be a tool for
you.
Almost everyone does come to aplace where, yeah, I want to at
least explore psychedelicmedicine.
But there are folks it's notthat safe for right.
(19:13):
There are people who have had adirect family history or
personal history of things likeschizophrenia or bipolar.
People on certain medicationsmight have contraindications.
With psilocybin it's very, very, very rare.
The risk is so, so low,especially compared to things
like SNRIs and SSRIs.
But again, just to cover my ownbutt, you got to say you know
(19:35):
this is the risk and this iswhat it is.
That's kind of how I deal withit.
The other thing I'll say is,because I work only with women,
I always love to includesomething about the menstrual
cycle, whether they're bleedingor not.
I've had some amazing clients.
In fact I would say half of myclients no longer have a cycle,
no longer have a bleed, andthere's still so much work that
(19:56):
can be done if you're no longerbleeding and even if you don't
have a physical uterus anymorewith the womb work.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I'm just trying to wrap my head around that, yeah,
so if you don't have a wombanymore, you work with the
energy of that space you stillhave.
I'm not someone who's trainedin the chakra system, but that's
a really like commonnomenclature at this point, like
root chakra, sacral chakra,solar plexus.
That's a common thing a lot ofpeople understand on a lot on
(20:29):
the internet.
But you do have that source,that power center.
You've got the pelvic bowl thatyou can still work with, and so
for women who don't have a wombanymore, a lot of what we're
doing is maybe work with thevulva, maybe work with the
vaginal canal, maybe workvisioning into the space where
the womb was and still seeing itas that power source, that womb
(20:50):
caves, and just allowing what'sstill there to come to the
surface.
Things like trauma from thesurgery of removing the womb,
Things like why did you evenneed a hysterectomy in the first
place?
So those things can be reallyhelpful.
But it is hard for a lot ofpeople to wrap their head around
like how do I do this work evenif I don't have that anymore?
I think the womb is a lot morethan just an organ.
(21:14):
So even if the organ isn'tpresent anymore, I think you can
still do energetic work withthat space to heal what the
that's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Does that when you were talking about going through
different energy?
Does that help with sexuality?
Yeah, can you talk about that?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, so it can help with.
So when you say sexuality, areyou meaning anything in
particular?
So I don't.
(21:57):
I'm sorry, I just mean, like alot of my listeners, are older
and you know, as women get older, they get drier, they get less
interested sometimes and it'spainful First of all.
Are you dry?
Are you using a properlubricant?
Are you doing other things inyour life, lifestyle-wise, that
are helping you to warm upenough if you are having sex?
(22:18):
But the pain, specifically, isso fascinating.
I've worked with people, youngand old, who have pain during
sex.
Vaginismus is one of the things, and I know that may not be
necessarily what we're speakingabout here, because pain can
happen in different ways.
But what I have found is thatwhen we do either tailored
breath work or, like I said that, somatic listening to the body,
(22:40):
or when we ask mushrooms tohelp with our sex life, to help
with our libido or our desire,one thing that happens is it
often pulls, it often shows uswhere something else in our life
is actually leading to the painrelated to sex.
So, for instance, in myexperience, I actually began the
(23:03):
work with mushrooms because Iheld so much sexual shame around
getting herpes at age 18.
I was so ashamed of that I'm apreacher's daughter.
It threw me into a massiveshame spiral that I was in for
about 12 to 15 years of usingalcohol, eating disorders,
adderall, all the things.
And so, after I'd alreadyembarked on the healing journey
(23:24):
and had worked with my cycle andI had been to therapy and had
tried all the medicines, I hearda woman on a podcast talk about
microdosing psilocybin forsexual trauma and sexual shame
specifically.
I'm like this is fascinating.
So I had her on my show and thenhired her the second we hung up
the call and I asked themushrooms to help me become open
(23:45):
to receiving pleasure, and whatthey told me was OK, well,
first you have to become open toreceiving anything you can't
receive at all.
You are so blocked from yourability to receive that we can't
give you the ability to receivepleasure.
When you can't even receivehelp, you can't even receive
safety and support.
And so they uncovered in me allthese ways.
(24:06):
I was white knuckling my life.
I was so stressed I was stillin TV at that point as a news
anchor, and I was so hell benton controlling things that I
could feel safe and so mushroomstore that away.
It was a very tumultuous sixmonths.
It was very much a dark nightof the soul.
(24:27):
Months it was very much a darknight of the soul.
But what I realized a yearabout a year, year and a half
later, as I'm walking in myneighborhood oh my gosh, wait,
the orgasms have been better.
Lately, I've been more orgasmic.
Okay, maybe I've finally gottenthrough to this space where I
can become open to receivingpleasure.
And so I share that, becausesometimes what I see in the work
(24:47):
is you're asking to have moreattraction to your partner or
better sex, and what themushrooms may point out to you
first it's not always stuff thatyou want to see is all right.
Well, how safe do you feel inthe relationship?
How vulnerable can you be withthis person?
How do you feel about aging?
How do you feel about your bodynow that you're postmenopausal?
What grief do you have thatyou've yet to embark on that
(25:10):
journey of processing?
And so sometimes we'll go tothese modalities with this ask
of let me have better sex, andwhat we first have to get
through is the mucky, nasty,uncomfy things that might be
secretly blocking your abilityto have the sex you want.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Do you find sometimes that women are actually
grieving not having their cycleanymore and not having the
ability to have children?
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I have found that, yes, I find they're grieving.
So, women I work with who arein their 50s to 60s, what I have
found a lot is they have cometo this season of life and
they're finally understandinghow beautiful it is to be a
woman and how wonderful it canbe to be in this female body,
and so they're grieving.
50 years of hating their bodiesor 50 years of period pain or
(26:04):
being on the pill for a reallylong time and not even having a
cycle.
So, yes, absolutely I see that,and what I do with those women
oftentimes is I let them fake it.
I let them fake it like they'vestill got a period and so we
work with the moon and I wouldsay to them in the new moon,
that's your period.
You're going to treat yourselfjust like you would if you were
a goddess bleeding.
(26:25):
You're going to go slow.
You're going to dress in I liketo have them dress in red or
scarlet or something that feelsreally yummy and eat the foods
that you would really want to beeating while on the cycle
Deeply grounding foods.
Rest, meditate, visualize.
Eat mushrooms right Like.
Really take the time right thenin those three to four days to
(26:46):
nurture and nourish.
And then, as the moon getsbrighter, that's the follicular
phase.
As the moon is full, that'syour ovulation.
As the moon goes back todarkness, that's luteal.
And so they can reallyreplicate a cyclical life, even
without a cycle anymore, andthat can be deeply healing for
someone who's never fullyaccepted themselves and never
fully accepted their cycle.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh, I can definitely see that I think it's a
beautiful process you're talkingabout, yeah, so how does it
help with depression when you'retalking about working with the
men, somatics, all this stuff?
I understand how it helps withanxiety, the breathing and all
that, but how does it help withdepression?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So usually when I work with people who have
depression, what we're lookingat first is what is the nervous
system state attached to yourdepression?
So, are you in a total dorsalcollapse?
Are you completely shut down?
Is this a symptom of burnout?
I have several clients who havewhat I would call functional
freeze.
In the week they're highlyfunctioning.
(27:51):
The weekend rolls aroundcompletely depressed, unable to
get out of bed.
Okay, so we're looking at what'sthe underlying root of this,
and then what we're often doingis prescribing things like
pleasure and prescribing thingslike joy.
And it's in a nine minute shift, right.
You can.
The thing that is really niceabout that shift method you can
(28:13):
tailor it to whatever your moodor your vibe.
And so if you need more joy ormore energy, you may do
something a little bit differentbreath, work, or maybe it's
sensual dance but you can reallystart to give yourself the
opposite medicine of what it isthat you are experiencing most
in the life.
I will also say for depression,as someone who has experienced
(28:33):
it, as someone who haddepression and burnout and
fatigue, there's this whole idea, when we are depressed, that we
have to fix ourselves, that wehave to get over this right, we
have to get back to our life.
We have to get to this placewhere, somewhere over there,
it's better, right, and that'swhere I want to be.
I don't want to be here.
I want to be there where it'snot here, where I don't feel
like this, and so, if you'relistening and you have those
(28:56):
thoughts, what I'd also say isone you don't have to go about
this alone.
I hope you have some type of asupport system, and the other
thing that you can also start tothink of is that you're not
broken.
This is happening for a reason.
Maybe the reason is reallypresent to you.
Maybe you fell into depressionafter your loved one passed away
, right?
Maybe you fell into depressionafter you lost a job, and so
(29:21):
looking at some of the rootthings can be helpful, but I'll
be really quite honest.
Depression is very tricky towork with, no matter what.
I think that's why we see somany different things being
tried.
Psilocybin, though, has beenreally beneficial for
treatment-resistant depression,and so, in those cases, too, you
could embark simply on apsilocybin routine with the
intention of sparking more joy,working with it intentionally,
(29:46):
letting the mushrooms help youthrough really conscious
decision making.
Move out of that space, I'dalso suggest for folks who have
depression, you may want to gowith a bit of a higher dose than
a micro dose.
Some of the studies are showingthat one to two, even one to
three grams of mushrooms, whichwill be a hallucinogenic effect,
right Like that's not like youare not eating those and then
(30:07):
going to work.
You're eating those withsomeone who's a trained
professional.
If you have, if you've gotdepression, you definitely need
to work with a guide, but you'reeating a bigger dose.
That is really showing to likeI don't even know.
It's showing to like almostjumpstart the brain, like
kickstart it out of the space,especially when you're getting
to this point, the place of aeuphoric, psychedelic experience
(30:29):
, the euphoria and the happinessand the joy that can happen
when you really do a good job ofprepping, a good job of
integrating afterwards, whenyou've got a guide.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's showing like months of success for folks who
had depression for years andyears and years okay, I know a
lot of my listeners also havemental health struggles and I
personally have bipolar disorder, so I heard you saying that
that's an issue.
Does that mean that's off thetable?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
with unmanaged bipolar, and so that's because
back in the 60s there was somuch BS rhetoric around people
like going manic and losingtheir minds, and those folks
were probably eating mushroomsat a high dose, likely mixing it
with LSD or acid, probablycannabis, probably alcohol,
right, like it was anuncontrolled situation.
The reason why bipolar istricky with psilocybin is
because psilocybin is anamplifier and it's what's called
a non-specific amplifier.
(31:32):
So I don't think necessarily itmeans that you cannot.
I know a lot of people who havebipolar and have had amazing
success with plant medicines.
I just think you absolutelyshould not do it without working
with a trained person.
If your bipolar is managed, ifyou are on maybe medications for
it or you haven't had anepisode in a while, I think
you'd be safer.
(31:53):
But it's hard for me to say isit safe?
It's just a little tricky.
The science is strange, right,the science is still really new
for this.
I think what I was readingbefore is that schizophrenia
bipolar 1, bipolar 2, theyreally have been showing.
There's even a.
There is a trial somewhereright now where they're looking
at schizophrenia andpsychedelics.
(32:13):
I know that.
So they're trying to figure outhow this might potentially help
.
Again, I really do think thatmushrooms are a sacred medicine
and if you are feeling called towork with them, no matter what
your diagnosis and this is goingto be an unpopular opinion, I
might regret saying this, but Ithink that it's a sacred
medicine and if you're feelingcalled to work with them, no
matter what your diagnosis andGod, this is going to be an
unpopular opinion.
I might regret saying this, butI think that it's a sacred
medicine and if you're feelingcalled to work with them,
(32:34):
there's a reason you're feelingcalled.
Does that mean go buy some offthe Internet and eat them alone?
Absolutely not.
It means you might want to findsomeone who is a clinically
trained psychedelic therapist.
I'm not a clinically trainedpsychedelic therapist right, you
may want to go to somewhere.
They have them in Canada.
They've got them in a couple ofthe bigger states, in the
bigger cities in the US.
(32:55):
I think there would be anavenue for you.
I just think you'd need to goabout it in an even more
conscious and do your duediligence even more so if you
have that history, okay, thatmakes sense.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, so you're making me think about where this
is done when you're saying youmight have to go somewhere and
find someone else.
What if someone wants to workwith you?
Can they do that on Zoom, yes,or does it have to be in person?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yep, no.
So I almost do all my work onZoom.
I find that it's really easy towork on Zoom, especially with
the microdose level.
Find that it's really easy towork on Zoom, especially with
the microdose level.
So I again, I'm only workingwith people who are eating teeny
doses of mushrooms and they mayeat up to a gram.
It just kind of depends on whatour agreement is, but I still
would be like on a Zoom withthem at that point.
You can definitely connect withme.
(33:42):
We can work no matter where youare in the States.
I can work with you if you'rein Canada, UK it's a little
harder to get mushrooms in theUK, but it's not impossible.
The EU easy peasy.
You can get them over there.
Spain, Portugal, great.
But yes, you can contact me.
If you grab one of the freeguides, you'll be on my email
list and you can grab or justreply back to any of those or
(34:05):
find me on Instagram or TikTok.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, you can work online.
I have learned so much today.
Is there anything that we havenot talked about, that you
really wanted to cover today?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
No, I think you did such a good job of covering a
little bit of everything.
I know we talked about the freemicrodosing guide.
It's called Activate your InnerMagic.
Find that in the show notes.
We also talked about the shiftmethod, which is, I would say,
if you're listening to this,start with the shift method.
It will help you immediatelyfeel better.
(34:37):
And I love that ebookspecifically because there's so
many yummy playlists in it.
There's a playlist for energy,a playlist for calm I have
created in my membership, whichis called the Inner Circle, a
playlist for sensual shift.
I'm not sure if I put that intothe ebook now.
I feel like I need to updatethat.
But, yeah, start with those twoebooks.
Email me or reach out to me onsocials if you want to find out
(34:58):
more about working together.
I have a one-on-one containercalled Unbound.
That is really about healingfrom sexual trauma, from womb
trauma, but it's beneficial foranyone living in a female body.
And then I also have a groupcoaching membership, which is my
low ticket offer it's about 77a month where you get twice a
month coaching in a groupsetting and a microdose assisted
(35:21):
ceremony.
So everybody eats microdosesand then we come together on
Zoom and we did a rage rituallast month.
We did very confronting mirrorwork the month before, which
doesn't sound good, but it wasreally, really, really lovely,
and there's a really beautifulsmall group of women in there.
It's about five women in itright now, so it's a good option
too.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, it sounds like it.
So what is your website?
Lesliedraffincom.
Oh, okay.
Well, that leaves you enough,and I'll put that in my show
notes.
Is there anything that you'dlike to leave our audience with
today?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
I would just say this is just something that I've
really been trying to tellmyself.
If you are on a healing journey, if you listen to podcasts like
this because you feel stuck ora little bit lost, I just want
you to know there's no need torush, like rushing on this
journey is actually going to domore harm than good, and I know
you want to feel better.
But if you can get comfortableand letting yourself cut that to
(36:18):
do list in half really honorthe spaciousness of being in a
space where you're able to rest,then maybe the thing you add is
play, maybe the thing you addis joy, some creativity, bake
some cookies, something that'sgonna excite you.
That's also a restful activity.
That would be what I would say.
The world is wild right now andit's really uncomfy and
(36:40):
divisive, no matter what sideyou're on, but I think we all
can benefit, as women, justslowing down and embarking on a
season of joy.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I love that.
All right, well, thank you somuch for joining us today.
Thanks so much for having me.
Welcome back to Mental Health Warrior and
NeuroSpicyMama.
Today we're talking with LeslieDraffin and let me tell you a
little bit about her.
She's very interesting, shedoes a lot of unique things and
I wanted to bring to theforefront the work she's been
doing.
She is a women's microdosingand somatic guide and a
(00:23):
mindfulness mentor and menstrualcycle educator.
So that's a lot there, Leslie.
Tell us what you do, what allthat?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
means yeah.
So basically what that meansand also, amy, thanks for having
me on the show.
What that basically means is Ihelp women, with a variety of
interesting modalities, tap intothe trauma that's locked in
their body, overcome mentalhealth struggles and really
start to align with theirfeminine energy, and I do that
through menstrual cycleeducation or support.
(00:53):
I do that through psychedelic,microdosing and somatic
embodiment practices as well.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Okay, I'm very interested in this psychedelic
microdosing.
How does that work?
Very interested in thispsychedelic microdosing.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, how does that work?
So, psychedelic microdosing, andthe way that I do it is with
psychedelic mushrooms, so that'salso called psilocybin
mushrooms and when you microdoseyou're taking a teeny amount,
so small, you are never high,you're not intoxicated or
hallucinating.
However, you're still gettingthe benefits of things like
improved mood, improved brainfunction, improved energy and,
(01:29):
the way that I see it, theability to really start to look
deeply at your patterns.
The way that psilocybin worksin the brain is it calms a part
of the brain called the defaultmode network, and that's where
our deeply ingrained habits live.
So for me, my story is I hadsuffered with anxiety my whole
life and I was deeply programmedto be an anxious person.
(01:50):
So when I began to experimentwith tiny doses of microdose,
tiny doses of mushrooms, what Isaw is I was better able to
pause, better able to sort ofzoom out from a situation and
not live in the trigger, andreally be more present to
connect the dots between why Iwas the way I was and how I
could move forward in a positiveway.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
The other thing.
Sorry, I was going to say thatsounds less traumatic than
traditional therapy and thatkind of thing.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
We can definitely talk about that.
But I do want to say one morething about microdosing.
Microdosing is something thatyou invite into your life for a
season.
Right, it's not something thatyou're going to do the rest of
your life.
It's not like a pharmaceuticalpill.
You microdose a few times a weekfor a few weeks at a time and
then you take a break, andthat's what I find truly magical
about the process is it becomesan ally and a helpful catalyst
(02:44):
in your healing journey, withoutit being like the
pharmaceutical drugs out theremany of which I was on which, to
me, felt like a bandaid over,in some cases a bullet wound and
never really staunching theactual problem.
Microdosing is completely theopposite.
It's not something that you getaddicted to.
It's not something that you Idon't know how to say this
(03:06):
really politely but it's notsomething that you can benefit
from if you're in like a user'smindset, like you really need to
be in an integrity at least inmy opinion, in a space of
integrity, in a space ofreciprocity, to benefit from it.
Sure, there are cases of peoplewho misuse these medicines, but
that's what I would say aboutmicrodosing, and we can
(03:27):
certainly talk about traditionaltherapy too.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Oh yeah.
Well, I want to know where doyou get this psilocybin Mm?
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So that's not that.
Yeah, so that's not a questionI love to answer just out there
in the public, but there arecompanies that are doing this
legally in some of the states inthe US where the laws are very
gray.
That's a question that I answerin my free microdosing guide,
so I'd love to give that to yourfolks.
You can put it in the shownotes.
Maybe the question is answeredthere.
But I will say there's a coupleof other places you can start
(03:58):
to look for this.
If you're interested.
One search your localpsychedelic society.
It might be your state.
It might be your state.
It might be your town.
If you live in a big city likeDallas has one.
New York City clearly has abunch, but Texas has them.
Most regions will have sometype of a psychedelic society.
You can just join those forfree.
Start to mingle with the people.
(04:19):
If you go to a farmer's marketand you ever see somebody
selling any types of mushroomslion's mane, cordyceps, reishi,
anything become their friend.
They will know because the lawsvary based on where you live,
and for me I had to really takethat into account.
I had to ask myself is the riskof this being quote unquote
(04:40):
illegal too much for me, and itcertainly might be for you.
You may not want to embark onthis process.
I'm hopeful that in the nextfew years we'll see some of the
laws change and again you couldjourney to somewhere like
Colorado, where it'sdecriminalized, or to Oregon,
where they have legalized it, orthere are a bunch of cities
around the country I thinkMinneapolis maybe just made a
(05:01):
change, so there are places thatyou can find this very legally
and you can go there if youwould prefer.
Again, there's places that youcan get it on the internet that
are safe too.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
The reason I was asking is because I wondered how
safe it is, like do people addstuff to it, or do you need to
make sure you get it from areputable person?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah for sure.
So every time I post on certainplatforms there's like a bot in
the chat that's always like getit from fungi guy 275.
Absolutely not.
You're never going to order itfrom somebody, you see in the
comment section.
And so I have done a reallydedicated, like focused job
(05:42):
vetting sources which is whythey're in that guide so that
I've either communicated inperson with the person who's
behind the company I've talkedwith them like in a Zoom or on
the phone or through email or Ihave worked with their products.
So there are some companies thatI highly recommend.
They're highly safe.
But you're right, you don'tknow what you're getting
sometimes on the internet andmushrooms are, you know, I think
(06:04):
a lot of mystery surroundsmushrooms in general.
So even though these grow wild,please don't just go eating
some mushrooms you find on a cowpatty, which that's like
typically where you getpsychedelic mushrooms is off of
cow patties.
Don't do that.
You want to just find areputable company and I have
done that, and if you have thatquestion and you want that
answer, just grab that guide.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Good advice.
So talk to me about the womband the trauma that women have.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Okay, so what I have found in my work and it
certainly is something that I'vealso validated and verified in
my own life is that the womb formany women is a deep source of
held and stuck trauma.
So we know that the body holdson to trauma.
We've heard the big book theBody Keeps the Score.
It's not my favorite.
(06:52):
I prefer Waking the Tiger by DrPeter Levine, who is the
founder of Somatic Experiencing.
But we know that the body iswhere sensations happen, and
those sensations lead to ouremotions, lead to the stories
that we tell ourselves.
When we look at the womb itself,anatomically it's in the pelvic
bowl, and so we hold a lot oftension in the hips, we hold a
(07:14):
lot of stagnant energy in thehip area and the bowl of, like
your pelvis, including where thewomb sits.
I like to say it's like yourenergetic junk drawer.
You're going to stuff thingsthere that you don't want to
look at anymore or look at yet.
So this could be negativeself-talk, it could be eating
disorders, it could beaddictions, it could be abuse,
(07:35):
it could be violence and,because women are so often
victims of violence, right whenwe look at the species, a lot of
that violence has to do withsex, and sex and the womb are so
interconnected.
So that's one reason why I havereally found that the womb is
so, so much of like a hotbed forstuck trauma.
(07:55):
I really believe, personally,that the other reason is because
we live in a patriarchalsociety where the women of the
world have been silenced becauseof the power that lives within
aligning with your cycle,understanding your feminine
energy and living from yourpower source, which is the womb.
You know, the womb is how webirth babies, it's how we can
birth creative projects After weno longer bleed.
(08:17):
It's how we become the wisewomen of our communities, when
we're living in a healed space,not a patriarchal world.
And so thousands of years ago,I believe, women were really
living more from this space.
We were in different types ofsocieties, more matrilineal
societies, and so, because ofthe suppression of this energy
(08:38):
and the subjugation of women allaround the world for millennia,
there's an additional ancestralwomb wound in all of us,
whether or not we have ever beenthe victim of violence or not.
And so those two main thingsthe real, physical aspects of
how the body holds trauma, andthen the energetic, ancestral,
generational traumas that arehanded down to us simply because
(09:00):
we're women.
Those are some really bigreasons why I find that the womb
holds on to trauma so, sobroadly.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Wow, and you have a special nine-minute shift that
you do to help with that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So I created the shift method, actually not
specifically for womb healing,but for emotional regulation,
which is certainly somethingthat happens or is necessary in
any type of trauma processing.
And so when my soulmate dogdied last year, I was in an
incredibly deep state of griefand I had panic attacks for the
first time in years after hedied and I was realizing this
(09:34):
dog was like my co-regulator.
I really relied on him.
He was a great Dane, he was abig entity in my life, a big
thing in my life, and when hedied I had panic attacks for the
first time in years.
I'm like what is going on?
So, with all of my training, Iknew well we're not going to sit
with mushrooms to deal withthis grief, because when we're
(09:55):
in an acute state of grief orsadness, anxiety, depression,
mushrooms can amplify that andmake those feelings even bigger,
and I don't want any more.
I don't want it to be bigger.
Mushrooms can amplify that andmake those feelings even bigger,
and I don't want any more.
I don't want it to be bigger.
And so I created shift toreally help me get out of my
head, to feel more of theemotions in the body and to
process and move those out.
So shift includes threedifferent things.
(10:16):
It's two minutes of journaling,three minutes of easy, gentle
breath work and four minutes ofintuitive movement, and so that
can look like bullet journaling,just like brain dumping.
What's in your mind?
I like to say, follow theacronym shift.
So start off by seeking out anysensations you might be feeling.
For me it was like I feel sotight in my chest I feel like
(10:38):
I'm going to throw up.
I have this racing heartbeatand my head is pounding.
I would have written those downand then honoring the feelings
that come up with thosesensations, this tightness
behind my eyes means I want toburst out crying because I miss
my dog so much.
That's an example For the nextthree minutes you're just going
to do the simple breaths of inthrough the nose, out through
(11:00):
the mouth, make a sound as youexhale, and so what this
naturally does is it bringsonline your parasympathetic
nervous system, which is yourrest and digest.
That's the peace and safetyelement.
Just by extending the exhaleand when you're making a sound
humming, sighing, exhale, andwhen you're making a sound
humming, sighing, moaning,yawning, growling, hissing,
(11:26):
yelling, whatever that alsostimulates the vagus nerve,
which is there in theparasympathetic nervous system
which runs the nerve runs fromyour head down through the
throat, chest and actually landsin the cervical region, so it's
womb connected.
For women, that humming or thatvibration of that nerve also
helps to show the body okay,you're safe.
And then the last part of shiftis flow.
So just let your body move inwhatever way you want.
(11:47):
It could be stretching, itcould be dancing, it could be
stomping, it could be making thestop sign, right.
I have really found, without alot of guidance you know I don't
like to tell people what to doin their shift but your body,
once you let yourself tap intowhat's coming up and then you
have the breath to bring in, youwill make like the weirdest.
(12:08):
It'll seem weird to you butit'll make a lot of sense.
These like weird movements withyour body that could really be
you finishing a trauma cycle,really be you finishing a trauma
cycle.
I did a lot of work with likeposture when I was dealing with
this grief, because I just feltso contracted and fallen in on
myself Right, and so I wouldkind of like stand up and let my
heart fall forward or comeforward.
(12:30):
And then the last acronym, thelast letter of the acronym,
shift is just take a pause, takestock.
What's happened?
What do I need now to continueto nourish myself?
And so that's how it was born,and I've seen it really help
people with ADHD.
Like people with I have ADHD,adhders like, typically feel
(12:52):
like they cannot meditate.
And I'm a meditation teacherand I got trained because I
wanted to do it right, but Istruggled so significantly
through that and what I found isthat, because shift is timed, I
have a free ebook I'd love tohand it to you for your show
notes and there are playlistsI've created.
So one song is journaling, thesecond song is breath, the third
(13:13):
song is flow, movement.
And you're done.
Your ADHD brain loves thatbecause you're like, okay, I'm
moving on to this and we'removing on to this, so it helps
you get in touch with the bodywithout that spinning hamster
wheel of shoulds and oh shit,I'm not doing this quite right
and oh, this thought is comingin this way.
And so I've had a lot ofsuccess with my clients who have
ADHD through the shift method.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I think that sounds great.
I'm going to be trying thatwith myself and my daughter.
We both have ADHD.
Okay, perfect, yeah, so tell mea little bit about the somatic
part of this.
What?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
is somatic.
So somatic really just means ofthe body, of the.
Soma is where that word comesfrom the Greek, and to me I
really see it as a whole bodyapproach to healing,
specifically really healing themind-body connection.
We've already talked about thefact that the body does hold
onto trauma.
It holds onto emotions.
(14:08):
You can experience stress inthe body and trauma in the body
through different physicalsensations, and so when we look
at somatic healing, it really islearning to decipher the
language of the sensations inthe body and then getting
curious about what thosesensations might be showing us.
So for folks who've experiencedanxiety, it's actually pretty
(14:31):
easy for them to understandsomatics, because when you have
an anxiety attack, how physicalthat can feel At least that was
my experience right Like, oh,the racing heart, the feeling
like your chest or your throatis constricting, maybe you have
like restless legs.
So the sensations are reallycoming online when those
feelings of anxiety are coming,the tightness of the stomach,
(14:53):
even, or the heaviness, and sowhat I like to say is that those
sensations are your bodytalking and somatics helps you
to get curious about whatthey're really wanting to say to
you and it might be reallyobvious to you why you're
feeling the feelings, why you'refeeling anxious, and it can be
really surprising too, like Ihave found working with clients.
(15:14):
One thing I'll do often is justhave them body scan and say,
all right, let your mind'sawareness travel through the
body.
Usually, your attention will bedrawn to a place that feels
uncomfortable.
Do you find an uncomfortablespot in your body?
Okay, I have a tightness in theback of my shoulder.
All right, let's look at that.
Let's let that speak to us.
Does it have a temperature?
(15:35):
Does it feel smaller or largerthan a fist?
Is it dull?
Is it sharp?
Does it have a color?
We ask these questions of thebody and sometimes not much will
come up.
But oftentimes what'll come upis I have a client I've worked
with and she I literally hadthis thing happen with her a few
weeks ago.
She felt that tightness in theback of her shoulder, feels like
(15:57):
I'm getting stabbed in the back.
Oh my gosh.
Yes, I've had this fight withmy friend.
This is where this is.
I feel like I'm going to getset work.
I'm about to lose my job.
It was these weird thingsconnected to that pinch, that
sharpness in her shoulder, andso what we did is we breathed
through it.
I let her feel those feelings,talk that out, and then we
(16:21):
traveled to another place in thebody.
Is there a place that feels theopposite of that?
And so that's really whatsomatics the way that I work
with them do is help to decodeplaces and sensations in the
body.
That might give you a reallygood clue into the patterns that
you have, the dullness,numbness you're feeling, the
depression, anxiety that you'refeeling, and really just
(16:44):
approaching all of this workwith this thought that your body
is really wise.
It really is wise, it has theanswers that you're looking for.
Unfortunately, we're just oftennot told how to deal with that,
and so we mentioned before, youknow, talk therapy.
I was in talk therapy for yearsand I was great at talk therapy
.
Like my therapist would saythings like well, it's like
(17:06):
talking to a peer yeah, no, I'man intellectual first eldest
daughter with perfectionism andADHD.
Like, of course, I'm going tobe acing therapy and all that
did was keep me stuck in thestory of the trauma.
It never helped me process it,and that's the difference
between talking about it andgoing through a somatic
procedure.
A somatic process like thatwhere, yes, you're talking,
(17:29):
because that's how we verbalize,but the speaking comes after
getting in touch with thesensation of the body.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Hey well, it sounds like you have an incredible
toolkit here, so I'm wonderinghow do you decide what to start
with with someone?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So I've been doing the work with clients on and off
for about four years and, yes,I've added to the toolkit year
after year and in the beginningI really I would go through like
mushroom.
First I was very like, let's do, let's get the psychedelics in
you first.
And I really shifted thatapproach in the last year
because I started to see, one,how crazy the world is and, two,
(18:09):
how much more disconnectedpeople are from their bodies
because of how crazy the worldis.
Right, we spend so much time onour phones trying to just like
zone out.
And so right now what I'vereally been focused on is
helping people to tap into thebody through the somatic process
and then, after a few weeks ofworking together if it's a
(18:29):
one-on-one person specificallythen introducing psychedelics
Because, like I said, they'reamazing allies in this process.
They're amazing allies in thisprocess.
I don't think that you have toeat mushrooms to heal.
And yet I love them and I'm sodeeply thankful for them because
they helped me get sober.
They've helped me with myanxiety and depression, my PTSD,
(18:50):
all these things.
But now it's one of thosethings where I know everyone can
benefit from somatics.
Let me get to know them alittle bit.
Let's see what your nervoussystem really is like and then
let's see if whether or notpsychedelics could be a tool for
you.
Almost everyone does come to aplace where, yeah, I want to at
least explore psychedelicmedicine.
But there are folks it's notthat safe for right.
(19:13):
There are people who have had adirect family history or
personal history of things likeschizophrenia or bipolar.
People on certain medicationsmight have contraindications.
With psilocybin it's very, very, very rare.
The risk is so, so low,especially compared to things
like SNRIs and SSRIs.
But again, just to cover my ownbutt, you got to say you know
(19:35):
this is the risk and this iswhat it is.
That's kind of how I deal withit.
The other thing I'll say is,because I work only with women,
I always love to includesomething about the menstrual
cycle, whether they're bleedingor not.
I've had some amazing clients.
In fact I would say half of myclients no longer have a cycle,
no longer have a bleed, andthere's still so much work that
(19:56):
can be done if you're no longerbleeding and even if you don't
have a physical uterus anymorewith the womb work.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I'm just trying to wrap my head around that, yeah,
so if you don't have a wombanymore, you work with the
energy of that space you stillhave.
I'm not someone who's trainedin the chakra system, but that's
a really like commonnomenclature at this point, like
root chakra, sacral chakra,solar plexus.
That's a common thing a lot ofpeople understand on a lot on
(20:29):
the internet.
But you do have that source,that power center.
You've got the pelvic bowl thatyou can still work with, and so
for women who don't have a wombanymore, a lot of what we're
doing is maybe work with thevulva, maybe work with the
vaginal canal, maybe workvisioning into the space where
the womb was and still seeing itas that power source, that womb
(20:50):
caves, and just allowing what'sstill there to come to the
surface.
Things like trauma from thesurgery of removing the womb,
Things like why did you evenneed a hysterectomy in the first
place?
So those things can be reallyhelpful.
But it is hard for a lot ofpeople to wrap their head around
like how do I do this work evenif I don't have that anymore?
I think the womb is a lot morethan just an organ.
(21:14):
So even if the organ isn'tpresent anymore, I think you can
still do energetic work withthat space to heal what the
that's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Does that when you were talking about going through
different energy?
Does that help with sexuality?
Yeah, can you talk about that?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, so it can help with.
So when you say sexuality, areyou meaning anything in
particular?
So I don't.
(21:57):
I'm sorry, I just mean, like alot of my listeners, are older
and you know, as women get older, they get drier, they get less
interested sometimes and it'spainful First of all.
Are you dry?
Are you using a properlubricant?
Are you doing other things inyour life, lifestyle-wise, that
are helping you to warm upenough if you are having sex?
(22:18):
But the pain, specifically, isso fascinating.
I've worked with people, youngand old, who have pain during
sex.
Vaginismus is one of the things, and I know that may not be
necessarily what we're speakingabout here, because pain can
happen in different ways.
But what I have found is thatwhen we do either tailored
breath work or, like I said that, somatic listening to the body,
(22:40):
or when we ask mushrooms tohelp with our sex life, to help
with our libido or our desire,one thing that happens is it
often pulls, it often shows uswhere something else in our life
is actually leading to the painrelated to sex.
So, for instance, in myexperience, I actually began the
(23:03):
work with mushrooms because Iheld so much sexual shame around
getting herpes at age 18.
I was so ashamed of that I'm apreacher's daughter.
It threw me into a massiveshame spiral that I was in for
about 12 to 15 years of usingalcohol, eating disorders,
adderall, all the things.
And so, after I'd alreadyembarked on the healing journey
(23:24):
and had worked with my cycle andI had been to therapy and had
tried all the medicines, I hearda woman on a podcast talk about
microdosing psilocybin forsexual trauma and sexual shame
specifically.
I'm like this is fascinating.
So I had her on my show and thenhired her the second we hung up
the call and I asked themushrooms to help me become open
(23:45):
to receiving pleasure, and whatthey told me was OK, well,
first you have to become open toreceiving anything you can't
receive at all.
You are so blocked from yourability to receive that we can't
give you the ability to receivepleasure.
When you can't even receivehelp, you can't even receive
safety and support.
And so they uncovered in me allthese ways.
(24:06):
I was white knuckling my life.
I was so stressed I was stillin TV at that point as a news
anchor, and I was so hell benton controlling things that I
could feel safe and so mushroomstore that away.
It was a very tumultuous sixmonths.
It was very much a dark nightof the soul.
(24:27):
Months it was very much a darknight of the soul.
But what I realized a yearabout a year, year and a half
later, as I'm walking in myneighborhood oh my gosh, wait,
the orgasms have been better.
Lately, I've been more orgasmic.
Okay, maybe I've finally gottenthrough to this space where I
can become open to receivingpleasure.
And so I share that, becausesometimes what I see in the work
(24:47):
is you're asking to have moreattraction to your partner or
better sex, and what themushrooms may point out to you
first it's not always stuff thatyou want to see is all right.
Well, how safe do you feel inthe relationship?
How vulnerable can you be withthis person?
How do you feel about aging?
How do you feel about your bodynow that you're postmenopausal?
What grief do you have thatyou've yet to embark on that
(25:10):
journey of processing?
And so sometimes we'll go tothese modalities with this ask
of let me have better sex, andwhat we first have to get
through is the mucky, nasty,uncomfy things that might be
secretly blocking your abilityto have the sex you want.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Do you find sometimes that women are actually
grieving not having their cycleanymore and not having the
ability to have children?
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I have found that, yes, I find they're grieving.
So, women I work with who arein their 50s to 60s, what I have
found a lot is they have cometo this season of life and
they're finally understandinghow beautiful it is to be a
woman and how wonderful it canbe to be in this female body,
and so they're grieving.
50 years of hating their bodiesor 50 years of period pain or
(26:04):
being on the pill for a reallylong time and not even having a
cycle.
So, yes, absolutely I see that,and what I do with those women
oftentimes is I let them fake it.
I let them fake it like they'vestill got a period and so we
work with the moon and I wouldsay to them in the new moon,
that's your period.
You're going to treat yourselfjust like you would if you were
a goddess bleeding.
(26:25):
You're going to go slow.
You're going to dress in I liketo have them dress in red or
scarlet or something that feelsreally yummy and eat the foods
that you would really want to beeating while on the cycle
Deeply grounding foods.
Rest, meditate, visualize.
Eat mushrooms right Like.
Really take the time right thenin those three to four days to
(26:46):
nurture and nourish.
And then, as the moon getsbrighter, that's the follicular
phase.
As the moon is full, that'syour ovulation.
As the moon goes back todarkness, that's luteal.
And so they can reallyreplicate a cyclical life, even
without a cycle anymore, andthat can be deeply healing for
someone who's never fullyaccepted themselves and never
fully accepted their cycle.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh, I can definitely see that I think it's a
beautiful process you're talkingabout, yeah, so how does it
help with depression when you'retalking about working with the
men, somatics, all this stuff?
I understand how it helps withanxiety, the breathing and all
that, but how does it help withdepression?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So usually when I work with people who have
depression, what we're lookingat first is what is the nervous
system state attached to yourdepression?
So, are you in a total dorsalcollapse?
Are you completely shut down?
Is this a symptom of burnout?
I have several clients who havewhat I would call functional
freeze.
In the week they're highlyfunctioning.
(27:51):
The weekend rolls aroundcompletely depressed, unable to
get out of bed.
Okay, so we're looking at what'sthe underlying root of this,
and then what we're often doingis prescribing things like
pleasure and prescribing thingslike joy.
And it's in a nine minute shift, right.
You can.
The thing that is really niceabout that shift method you can
(28:13):
tailor it to whatever your moodor your vibe.
And so if you need more joy ormore energy, you may do
something a little bit differentbreath, work, or maybe it's
sensual dance but you can reallystart to give yourself the
opposite medicine of what it isthat you are experiencing most
in the life.
I will also say for depression,as someone who has experienced
(28:33):
it, as someone who haddepression and burnout and
fatigue, there's this whole idea, when we are depressed, that we
have to fix ourselves, that wehave to get over this right, we
have to get back to our life.
We have to get to this placewhere, somewhere over there,
it's better, right, and that'swhere I want to be.
I don't want to be here.
I want to be there where it'snot here, where I don't feel
like this, and so, if you'relistening and you have those
(28:56):
thoughts, what I'd also say isone you don't have to go about
this alone.
I hope you have some type of asupport system, and the other
thing that you can also start tothink of is that you're not
broken.
This is happening for a reason.
Maybe the reason is reallypresent to you.
Maybe you fell into depressionafter your loved one passed away
, right?
Maybe you fell into depressionafter you lost a job, and so
(29:21):
looking at some of the rootthings can be helpful, but I'll
be really quite honest.
Depression is very tricky towork with, no matter what.
I think that's why we see somany different things being
tried.
Psilocybin, though, has beenreally beneficial for
treatment-resistant depression,and so, in those cases, too, you
could embark simply on apsilocybin routine with the
intention of sparking more joy,working with it intentionally,
(29:46):
letting the mushrooms help youthrough really conscious
decision making.
Move out of that space, I'dalso suggest for folks who have
depression, you may want to gowith a bit of a higher dose than
a micro dose.
Some of the studies are showingthat one to two, even one to
three grams of mushrooms, whichwill be a hallucinogenic effect,
right Like that's not like youare not eating those and then
(30:07):
going to work.
You're eating those withsomeone who's a trained
professional.
If you have, if you've gotdepression, you definitely need
to work with a guide, but you'reeating a bigger dose.
That is really showing to likeI don't even know.
It's showing to like almostjumpstart the brain, like
kickstart it out of the space,especially when you're getting
to this point, the place of aeuphoric, psychedelic experience
(30:29):
, the euphoria and the happinessand the joy that can happen
when you really do a good job ofprepping, a good job of
integrating afterwards, whenyou've got a guide.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's showing like months of success for folks who
had depression for years andyears and years okay, I know a
lot of my listeners also havemental health struggles and I
personally have bipolar disorder, so I heard you saying that
that's an issue.
Does that mean that's off thetable?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
with unmanaged bipolar, and so that's because
back in the 60s there was somuch BS rhetoric around people
like going manic and losingtheir minds, and those folks
were probably eating mushroomsat a high dose, likely mixing it
with LSD or acid, probablycannabis, probably alcohol,
right, like it was anuncontrolled situation.
The reason why bipolar istricky with psilocybin is
because psilocybin is anamplifier and it's what's called
a non-specific amplifier.
(31:32):
So I don't think necessarily itmeans that you cannot.
I know a lot of people who havebipolar and have had amazing
success with plant medicines.
I just think you absolutelyshould not do it without working
with a trained person.
If your bipolar is managed, ifyou are on maybe medications for
it or you haven't had anepisode in a while, I think
you'd be safer.
(31:53):
But it's hard for me to say isit safe?
It's just a little tricky.
The science is strange, right,the science is still really new
for this.
I think what I was readingbefore is that schizophrenia
bipolar 1, bipolar 2, theyreally have been showing.
There's even a.
There is a trial somewhereright now where they're looking
at schizophrenia andpsychedelics.
(32:13):
I know that.
So they're trying to figure outhow this might potentially help
.
Again, I really do think thatmushrooms are a sacred medicine
and if you are feeling called towork with them, no matter what
your diagnosis and this is goingto be an unpopular opinion, I
might regret saying this, but Ithink that it's a sacred
medicine and if you're feelingcalled to work with them, no
matter what your diagnosis andGod, this is going to be an
unpopular opinion.
I might regret saying this, butI think that it's a sacred
medicine and if you're feelingcalled to work with them,
(32:34):
there's a reason you're feelingcalled.
Does that mean go buy some offthe Internet and eat them alone?
Absolutely not.
It means you might want to findsomeone who is a clinically
trained psychedelic therapist.
I'm not a clinically trainedpsychedelic therapist right, you
may want to go to somewhere.
They have them in Canada.
They've got them in a couple ofthe bigger states, in the
bigger cities in the US.
(32:55):
I think there would be anavenue for you.
I just think you'd need to goabout it in an even more
conscious and do your duediligence even more so if you
have that history, okay, thatmakes sense.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, so you're making me think about where this
is done when you're saying youmight have to go somewhere and
find someone else.
What if someone wants to workwith you?
Can they do that on Zoom, yes,or does it have to be in person?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yep, no.
So I almost do all my work onZoom.
I find that it's really easy towork on Zoom, especially with
the microdose level.
Find that it's really easy towork on Zoom, especially with
the microdose level.
So I again, I'm only workingwith people who are eating teeny
doses of mushrooms and they mayeat up to a gram.
It just kind of depends on whatour agreement is, but I still
would be like on a Zoom withthem at that point.
You can definitely connect withme.
(33:42):
We can work no matter where youare in the States.
I can work with you if you'rein Canada, UK it's a little
harder to get mushrooms in theUK, but it's not impossible.
The EU easy peasy.
You can get them over there.
Spain, Portugal, great.
But yes, you can contact me.
If you grab one of the freeguides, you'll be on my email
list and you can grab or justreply back to any of those or
(34:05):
find me on Instagram or TikTok.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, you can work online.
I have learned so much today.
Is there anything that we havenot talked about, that you
really wanted to cover today?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
No, I think you did such a good job of covering a
little bit of everything.
I know we talked about the freemicrodosing guide.
It's called Activate your InnerMagic.
Find that in the show notes.
We also talked about the shiftmethod, which is, I would say,
if you're listening to this,start with the shift method.
It will help you immediatelyfeel better.
(34:37):
And I love that ebookspecifically because there's so
many yummy playlists in it.
There's a playlist for energy,a playlist for calm I have
created in my membership, whichis called the Inner Circle, a
playlist for sensual shift.
I'm not sure if I put that intothe ebook now.
I feel like I need to updatethat.
But, yeah, start with those twoebooks.
Email me or reach out to me onsocials if you want to find out
(34:58):
more about working together.
I have a one-on-one containercalled Unbound.
That is really about healingfrom sexual trauma, from womb
trauma, but it's beneficial foranyone living in a female body.
And then I also have a groupcoaching membership, which is my
low ticket offer it's about 77a month where you get twice a
month coaching in a groupsetting and a microdose assisted
(35:21):
ceremony.
So everybody eats microdosesand then we come together on
Zoom and we did a rage rituallast month.
We did very confronting mirrorwork the month before, which
doesn't sound good, but it wasreally, really, really lovely,
and there's a really beautifulsmall group of women in there.
It's about five women in itright now, so it's a good option
too.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, it sounds like it.
So what is your website?
Lesliedraffincom.
Oh, okay.
Well, that leaves you enough,and I'll put that in my show
notes.
Is there anything that you'dlike to leave our audience with
today?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
I would just say this is just something that I've
really been trying to tellmyself.
If you are on a healing journey, if you listen to podcasts like
this because you feel stuck ora little bit lost, I just want
you to know there's no need torush, like rushing on this
journey is actually going to domore harm than good, and I know
you want to feel better.
But if you can get comfortableand letting yourself cut that to
(36:18):
do list in half really honorthe spaciousness of being in a
space where you're able to rest,then maybe the thing you add is
play, maybe the thing you addis joy, some creativity, bake
some cookies, something that'sgonna excite you.
That's also a restful activity.
That would be what I would say.
The world is wild right now andit's really uncomfy and
(36:40):
divisive, no matter what sideyou're on, but I think we all
can benefit, as women, justslowing down and embarking on a
season of joy.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I love that.
All right, well, thank you somuch for joining us today.
Thanks so much for having me.
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