December 3, 2025 • 27 mins
We explore how ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can quiet an overactive alarm system, reopen access to rest, and create a window where new habits take hold through integration. We share the science in plain language and the personal practices that helped changes last.
• stigma and misconceptions around ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapies
• how amygdala quieting and parasympathetic activation support safety
• interoception and reconnecting with the body
• neuroplasticity and loosening rigid thought loops
• integration practices that make insights stick
• shifting from collapse to restorative rest
• cultivating durable self-compassion
• two core takeaways on nervous system healing and choice
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the When Depression is in your
bed podcast.
Today I'm going to continueexploring ketamine-assisted
psychotherapy or CAP and how itcan do far more than just create
a temporary state of feelinggood.
I'll talk about how ketamineaffects the brain and the
nervous system in ways that canmake genuine healing possible.
And I'll share the benefits I'vepersonally experienced through
(00:23):
CAP and the neuroscience thathelps explain why it works.
I'm your host, Trish Sanders,and I am delighted that you are
here.
Let's get started.
Before I dive in, I just want togive you a quick message.
As I've shared in my previousepisodes about ketamine and
psychedelic assisted therapies,I am a licensed clinical social
worker, and in this episode, Iwill be talking about ketamine
(00:44):
and psychedelic assistedtherapies.
However, I will be sharing mypersonal experiences and my
professional learning foreducational purposes only.
I'm not giving medical adviceand I'm not making treatment
recommendations or suggestingthat anyone try any of these
substances that I mentioned.
And I certainly can't guaranteethat anyone will have the
desired impact or effect, orsince I'm sharing my own
(01:07):
experience, will have the sameexperience that I had.
But if you are thinking aboutketamine or psychedelic assisted
therapies, I do recommendconnecting with a healthcare
professional who can safelyguide you on your own journey.
I want to talk today about myown experience with CAP, which I
have been talking about over thelast several episodes.
And I want to focus today on notjust what my experience was, but
(01:29):
how the ketamine impacted mynervous system and brain that
allowed for the healing thathappened to occur.
And I do want to be clear thatat this point I'm not a CAP
certified therapist.
What I'm sharing today is basedon my own experience and
understanding that I havedeveloped through my own
research because I really wantedto understand how what happened
to me happened.
(01:50):
And that's really the frameworkthat I'll be sharing through
today.
So this is not a completeneuroscience lesson by any
means, but it is my intention totry to explain through the
science of it all what Iexperience, which really was
quite transformational for me.
And I think part of the reasonthis feels particularly
important to share is because Ido think that there's a lot of
misinformation out there aboutketamine and psychedelic
(02:13):
assisted therapies.
And I think in part that stemsfrom the fact that a lot of
these medicines have been usedat different times, either in
history or currently, as whatcould be considered a
recreational drug or a quoteunquote street drug.
And so I think that there'sstigma that can be attached in a
lot of different ways fromeither having a negative
perspective about thesemedicines or even just
minimizing them or writing themoff.
(02:34):
And I can certainly tell youthat from my own experience with
friends and family, personallyand professionally, when I talk
about CAP, sometimes peoplejokingly say something like, Oh,
yeah, of course you feel betteror you're on drugs or something
to that effect, and they don'treally understand the science.
And I also have to say that formyself, as someone who has lived
with depression for most of mylife, I absolutely have a
(02:56):
history of using substances totry to feel better or deal with
my depressive symptoms, which ofcourse is pretty common.
And it even took me a littlewhile to come around to CAP.
And I think looking back, a partof me just didn't believe it or
understand it.
I think I had this idea that itmust be a temporary relief kind
of experience.
And that didn't really appeal tome.
(03:16):
And it wasn't until I heardabout it many times that I
finally was curious enough toreally pursue it and look into
it for myself.
And what I found was thatketamine, while it's not magic,
a switch that can just turn offdepressive symptoms forever,
there is more than somethingthat is just temporary.
And that's why I want to sharemy experience with you today
because it's been over a yearsince my last CAP session.
(03:38):
And granted, I've been doing alot of healing in many different
ways.
So I can't say with absolutecertainty that all of my healing
is connected to my CAPexperiences.
However, I can tell you thatI've been in talk therapy for
decades and I've been on ajourney of healing.
I would say for most of my life,certainly the last 30, 35 years.
And my experience with CAP wasabsolutely a game changer for me
(04:02):
and it really shifted so manythings.
And while ketamine and otherpsychedelic assisted therapies
might not be for everyone, theycertainly are not for everyone.
As a matter of fact, I thinkthat if you have accurate
information, then you can makethe most well-informed decision
about what you want to includein your healing journey.
And as I've shared before, myoriginal reason for pursuing CAP
(04:23):
is because I kept hearing thatketamine could help people
cultivate self-compassion andself-love.
And as somebody who hasstruggled with depression for
most of my life, I quite oftenheld a pretty negative
self-concept or a self-view.
And even though with years andyears of therapy and a lot of
self-work, and I've talked aboutthis in previous episodes, I've
had more and more windows whereI felt more positively about
(04:46):
myself, but they would closemuch more quickly than I would
like for them to close.
And I seem to have an experienceof stumbling into the window
opening again.
So what I mean is that I wouldfeel good about myself for a
while.
I would feel clear, I would feelmotivated, I would feel happy,
joyful.
I would even say I feltconnected to my authentic self.
And then that window wouldclose.
I would go back into somenegative headspace, feeling
(05:07):
overwhelmed, feeling shut down.
And then the next time I feltbetter about myself, more often
than not, was something thatjust happened.
I wasn't quite sure how to makeit happen again.
So even though I had a littlebit more awareness of what I
needed to do to take care ofmyself, actually doing that
pretty much felt hard.
I would get back to whatever itwas that I was doing, meditating
or exercising or eating well orsomething like that.
(05:29):
And then I would be able to haveconsistency for a very short
while.
And then I would fall off theself-care wagon for a very, very
long time.
And when it came to rest, it wasvery, very difficult for me to
maintain healthy rest habits,slowing down during the day,
being able to go to sleep at adecent hour at night, getting a
full eight hours of restfulsleep.
Those were things that happenedvery, very, very infrequently,
(05:51):
certainly very inconsistently.
And CAP really was the beginningof changing all of that for me.
And it was not temporary.
It was not a temporary high.
It was not just a short-lastingeffect from being on quote
unquote drugs, which I'm happyto report.
It was really something that Iwas able to sustain.
And I'll talk today about howI've been able to sustain that
and encourage that and grow thepositive impacts that I
(06:12):
experience with ketamine.
So, what I really want to focuson today is explaining, to the
best of my knowledge and abilityto explain, how ketamine can
help support nervous systemhealing and how it can support
our brain's neuroplasticity orits ability to rewire and learn
new patterns, new healthierpatterns, I would add.
(06:33):
And how that really came intoplay in my own CAP experience.
One of the things I learnedabout ketamine very early on is
that it can help quiet theamygdala.
Our amygdala is sort of like ourbrain's alarm system that goes
off whenever there's danger.
And it's a good thing that ouramygdala does that.
However, when someone hasexperienced trauma or relational
wounding or attachment woundingor chronic stress, those sorts
(06:56):
of things, our amygdala canoverfunction.
And it can either be triggeredby very small things that aren't
really signs of danger, butbecause of how our brain works,
we have neural pathways thatconnect these seemingly small
experiences to cues of dangerand that triggers our alarm to
go off, or it doesn't kind ofever go off.
It's just on such high alert alot of the time.
And when we sit with ketamine,that part of our brain can sort
(07:18):
of relax and the alarm bellsstop ringing.
And this is incredibly powerful.
And this actually led not onlyto a greater ability to have
self-compassion and self-love,which was wonderful.
And in my very first session isexactly what my experience was,
but it also led to somethingthat I didn't realize would be
so incredible and would comefrom ketamine.
(07:38):
And as I mentioned earlier, Ihad a very difficult time my
entire life resting.
I used to think that I wasreally good at rest, but really
I was really good at shutdown.
And what I mean by that is ifyou think about coming home
after work, I would think, ohyeah, I could like sit on the
couch, let go of my thoughtsfrom a busy day at work or my
to-do list or whatever.
But I wasn't really going into arestorative rest.
(07:59):
I was going into what in nervoussystem language you could call a
dorsal collapse.
That my system, when I startedto slow down, which was
desirable, and being able to gointo a restorative, restful
place, being able to be renewed,I would bypass that very quickly
and from slowdown, go right intoshutdown, right into that
collapsed, withdrawn, numbed outkind of space.
So for me, a lot of the timethat looked like me watching TV
(08:22):
or movies or Netflix with aglass of wine or a beer.
And in retrospect, I nowunderstand that I was in
shutdown, even though I didn'tfully understand that at the
time.
So when I finally had theexperience with the support of
ketamine of having my amygdalabe at ease, I suddenly had this
space where I could breathe.
And I talked about this in oneof my previous episodes that in
(08:44):
my second cap session, Iactually had this thought of,
oh, I can breathe here.
And it was this embodiedexperience of my nervous system
not being on guard, which wasjust honestly not an experience
or sensation that I had hardlyever, because my system, as a
result of my life experiences,was either in that dorsal
collapse, that shutdown,withdraw, avoidance, numb going
(09:07):
through the motions kind ofstate, or it was in a
sympathetic fight or flightstate of striving, trying to do
as much as I can, feeling likethere was never enough time to
do all the things I had to doand feeling overwhelmed and
pushing and doing and having ato-do list that was a hundred
miles long and never feelinglike I was making progress.
And I pretty much fluctuatedbetween those two states for
most of my life.
And of course, I had littlewindows of what I would, again,
(09:29):
in nervous system language callventral safety, that grounded,
connected, pleasant feelingplace where my nervous system
felt safe enough that I could beat ease.
But I was very, very rarely inthat place.
And when I had that experiencebeing on ketamine, where I
wasn't on alert anymore, itopened up this whole other
possibility.
And I would say it really helpedme connect with my authentic
(09:52):
self.
Our authentic self is not ourself that's in survival.
That's an important part ofourself.
It's an important function ofourself, but our true self can
really only emerge, in myopinion, when we are not in
survival, when we are safeenough.
That's when who we truly are notonly begins to emerge to others,
but actually who we truly arebegins to emerge to ourself
(10:13):
because we can see ourselvesclearly and we can see the world
clearly and we can see othersclearly in a way that when we're
in survival, there's a filter oneverything, how we look at the
world and others and ourselves.
And when the amygdala calm down,all of this new possibility
opened to me.
And ketamine also can help toturn on or activate our
(10:33):
parasympathetic system, whichwhen it's feeling safe, is our
state of rest and digest.
It's known as.
And creating that space, theamygdala calmed down, the alarm
was turned off, and theparasympathetic calm ease,
groundedness was able to comeback online in a way that it
hadn't really been able to,because again, being stuck in
(10:54):
survival, you're not reallygetting that ease, that
restoration, that groundedness.
Like I said, in a way that itjust hadn't really been able to
do for most of my life.
In addition, ketamine can helpincrease our interoceptive
awareness.
And interoception is essentiallyhow we feel what's happening
inside of our body.
I don't mean feel as in we feelour feelings of sad, mad,
(11:15):
scared, glad, but I meansensations in our body.
I've been disconnected from mybody for many, many, many, many
years.
And the cues for my body I wasvery disconnected from.
And I was often numb to them,which is kind of interesting
because ketamine is ananesthetic, so it does make you
feel numb.
So I can't fully explain thebiology or the neuroscience of
this with my limited knowledge,but experientially I can tell
(11:37):
you that it didn't happen for meexactly while the ketamine was
in my system.
It was more in the daysfollowing that I just felt more
connected to my body and moreattuned to what the sensations
were.
I wasn't numb to them and Iwasn't overwhelmed by them.
And these new things started tohappen.
It was sort of like thesedoorways opened that had been
(11:57):
closed.
And I would say that as Iunderstand it now, and the
meaning I've made of myexperience is that I was always
so on guard that I was closedoff.
I was like sealed tight to theseexperiences.
I was ignoring my body, I wasdisconnected from my body.
I didn't want to feel thingsthat were painful.
And I was very stuck in thisshutdown collapse a lot of the
(12:19):
time.
And I would only come out when Iwas pushing and striving and
forcing myself to do whateverneeded to be done in life.
And then I would go back intothat shutdown.
And having all of these defensessoften allowed me to have this
greater new perspective.
And when all of this wasoccurring, I found I absolutely
was able to see myself andothers and the world with much,
(12:42):
much more love and compassion,so much more understanding.
I wasn't getting mad at myselfor shaming myself or blaming
myself.
There were so many moments overmy cap sessions where I would
laugh and say, Oh, of coursethat's how I handled that
situation.
It wasn't that there wassomething wrong with me or I was
bad or I should have been ableto do it differently.
Of course, that's how I handledthat situation.
(13:04):
That was the best I could do atthat time, or I was under so
much stress, that was a stressresponse.
So of course that that's how Idid that.
The self-criticism just wasabsent, honestly.
It just wasn't there anymore.
And as someone who is intenselyself-critical, this was a really
new and very welcome experiencefor me.
And also, what I came to realizein time was that when my body
(13:27):
was feeling at ease and mynervous system was able to spend
more time in that ventral, safeenough, connected space, that
socially engaged space where Iwas able to connect with myself
and others in the world in amuch more profound and
meaningful way.
And also, when I was in thatstate, I was able to rest in a
restorative way.
I was able to pay attention tomy body cues and I was able to
(13:48):
say, I feel tired right now.
I'm gonna go to bed.
And I just went to sleep.
And that was something also verynew for me compared to my entire
life.
And something else that I findtotally amazing, uh, which is
very much connected to howketamine can help the brain and
neuroplasticity.
But we can only really learnwhen we feel safe enough.
And this makes a lot of sense ifyou think about it, because if
(14:09):
you're trying to protectyourself, your only objective is
survival.
And so you're not really open tothe learning process because
biologically it's not necessary.
You might figure out things outof necessity, but you're not
actually learning when you're insurvival.
And so I think that again, frommy experience, when I talked
about these doorways opening, Ithink that that was also a part
(14:30):
of it for me, that things feltavailable to me, doing things,
whether it was resting, going tosleep when I felt tired, or
sitting down and doing a taskthat felt really overwhelming to
me, or creating space in myschedule, which is still
something I'm working on.
But those things felt availableto me and possible in a way that
(14:51):
they just hadn't before.
And as I understand it, I feellike that is all part of the
learning process that I oftenfelt like I had no choice.
This is how I had to do things,not necessarily because I wanted
to do them that way, but becauseI didn't know how to do them
another way.
And my experience with CAPreally helped me say, oh, look,
there's another possibilityhere.
And by practicing that newpossibility, which I'll talk
(15:12):
about what integration is, andthat's essentially what
integration is practicing thesenew things that come up through
your academy experience, then Iwas able to create new neural
pathways where these optionsbecame available to me more and
more as I continued to practicethem.
And so basically, as I'm talkingabout neuroplasticity, which
just refers to our brain'sability to change, to grow new
neural pathways and adapt andcreate new connections
(15:36):
throughout our whole life.
And our brain can, in fact, dothis throughout our entire
lifetime.
We used to think many years agothat this only happened in young
children.
We have learned that that's nottrue.
Our brain can change throughoutour entire lifetime.
However, there are biologicalreasons that I won't go into too
deeply now, but as we get older,our brain does tend to use the
well-worn pathways more thancreate new pathways.
(15:59):
And part of that reason is justsimply it's efficient.
It's easier for our brain thatworks very hard, taking in a lot
of information all the time, tobe able to quickly categorize
things and do things in the sameold way, because it's just
easier to do it that way.
And that's really not a badthing.
It really helps our brainfunction.
However, if the way that we'vebeen doing something has been an
(16:20):
unhealthy or unhelpful thing,but we've been doing it for a
really long time, it's justfamiliar and there's a lot of
ease in doing it in that sameold repetitive way.
And certainly if there's trauma,chronic stress, relational
wounding, attachment wounding,the pathways that we probably
have been using and that arereally well worn are in fact
(16:41):
probably unhealthy andunhelpful, or at least a lot of
them are.
Certainly for me, that wasabsolutely the case.
And so with ketamine, thesepathways that we are so used to
using, those tracks that we havein our brain, the rigidity of
them starts to loosentemporarily.
And that is temporary.
But in that temporary littleopening, that space, we can
(17:01):
start to use new patterns andmake new connections.
And so there's moreaccessibility to these new ways
of acting or being or thinkingthat are also linked to an
embodied experience.
And I talked about this in oneof my last episodes when I
talked about my first CAPsession.
I had this thought that the mostbeautiful place in the world is
(17:22):
inside of me.
And it didn't seem like athought or something I was
trying to convince myself.
It just felt in my body true.
That's what so many of theseexperiences were like for me,
that it wasn't just thisconceptual thought, this
cognitive thing.
It was like this embodiedreality in a totally different
way.
And so all of these negativethought loops, the not good
(17:44):
enough, the not worthy, myfeeling incapable, or like a
failure, those are all very,very common thought loops that
I've held for a huge portion ofmy life.
They just sort of loosen theirgrip quite a bit.
Actually, when ketamine was inmy system, they just seemed
laughable.
Like I said, I laughed quite abit on ketamine.
It was like, that's ridiculous.
Like, of course I'm not afailure.
Of course I'm good enough.
But then in the hours and daysafterwards, I was able to really
(18:07):
integrate those experiences.
And that really allowed me tocarry those new thoughts with me
in a way that talk therapy justwasn't really able to help, at
least not in the samesustainable way.
You want to be very clear.
I'm not knocking talk therapy.
I love talk therapy.
It's a form of therapy that Iuse quite a bit.
And it can create changes in thebrain.
It just takes a really long timebecause without going into all
(18:29):
of it, when you create a newsafe relationship with a
therapist, you have what couldbe considered a disconfirming
experience that not allrelationships are painful or
that you can trust people.
And that can be reallybeneficial.
But again, it takes a long time.
And with ketamine and some ofthe other psychedelic-assisted
therapies, you can get thoseconnections much more quickly.
And then you do have to do workto maintain them.
(18:51):
This is not just fairy dust andmagic that is an on-off switch
that if you've been feeling notgood enough for your whole life,
you'll have a ketamine sessionand feel completely worthy.
It's not exactly like that.
You might actually feel reallyworthy in one session, but you
have to do work to be able tomaintain that afterwards.
And I've mentioned integrationquite a few times in each of the
episodes about ketamine, butjust really to dive into again
(19:14):
this idea of what integration isand why it's so incredibly
important is because of what I'mtalking about.
When you have ketamine in yoursystem, you have this small
window of time from when you'rewith the medicine to the hours
following and the daysfollowing, maybe a week, where
your ability to do activitiesthat help your brain rewire is
increased.
(19:35):
And so you have this beautifulwindow.
And if you take advantage of it,and this is what integration
sessions are talking to atherapist or a trained healer to
be able to support you in takingthese new embodied experiences,
these new knowings, if you will,because that's really what they
felt like.
Like I knew them to be true, andbring them into your life in a
(19:56):
way where they become thingsthat you practice daily.
So you don't have to stay stuckusing these old neural pathways.
You have a chance where the dooropens, where you have much more
flexible, accessible choice tobe able to do things in a new
way.
And so I was very intentionalwith my ketamine sessions.
And the day of my ketaminesession, I always planned it in
(20:17):
such a way that it was reallylow stress.
I chose different thingsdepending on where I was at and
what my intention was, what Iwas working with.
There were some days that I didpaperwork because paperwork
could feel really overwhelmingfor me.
So I would take advantage ofthis time where my alarm system
wasn't going to go off and say,paperwork is so hard, I'm
overwhelmed, I'm an idiot orwhatever.
Old stuff would happen.
And I would sit down and say,like, okay, this is something
(20:38):
that has felt hard for me.
And I was able to sit withcompassion about that.
Say, let me just try a start andsee what happens.
And I would do the things thatfelt challenging for me.
I made sure that I would haverestful evening activities so
that I would be able to payattention to when I was tired.
I mentioned I would make surethat my schedule for the next
few days had some space in it,some space for me to take a
(21:01):
break, some space for mecertainly to meditate, certainly
to move my body even throughoutthe day, not just exercise,
although I did often includeexercise as something that I
wanted to incorporate in thedays following, but also just
time to get up throughout theday and move instead of just
sitting at my desk for hours andhours on end.
And so by doing these practicesand by having the support of
ongoing therapy with a therapistwho was trained in providing
(21:24):
cap, I was able to really keepthese new practices going.
And by practicing these newhabits that were much more
helpful and much more desirableand much more healthy, then I
was able to really keep a lot ofthem going in a way that was
very different than just talkingabout something, being like, Oh
yeah, I really wish I could domy paperwork, or I really would
like to go to sleep earlier andthen no change really happening
(21:46):
from there.
And as a result of my cap andthe integration, I definitely
have had the experience of beingable to cultivate and sustain
much greater experiences ofself-love and self-compassion,
which has been really, reallyincredible for me.
Again, as someone who's beendepressed for most of my life,
self-criticism and self-judgmentcan be extraordinarily high for
(22:07):
me.
That has not returned in thesame way as before at all.
And I can't say I never have amoment where I'm hard on myself,
but I catch myself so much morequickly, like almost
instantaneously.
And I've talked about this inother episodes, and I'll talk
more about my specific actualreal lived experiences around
some of these things to give youmore understanding on what that
really looks like.
But my capacity to be able tonotice and take care of myself
(22:31):
and my commitment to taking careof myself, honestly.
And it's still not perfect.
It's not like I'm always doingthe absolute best thing for
myself constantly.
I really can't emphasize enoughthat it's not magic that's
happening, it's opening adoorway that is allowing you to
walk through it instead ofhaving the experience of trying
to push open a door that's stuckshut or not even seeing the door
(22:51):
and walking past it.
I kind of have this image ofwalking around the hallways of
your mind and just walking downthe same hallways back and
forth.
And those are those samewell-worn neural pathways, and
you just keep walking by andwalking by, and it feels like,
well, where else am I supposedto go?
And you have this experiencewith ketamine or potentially one
of the other psychedelicassisted therapy medicines, and
(23:12):
doors appear that were alwaysthere.
You just didn't see them, theyweren't accessible before.
And when you open the door andyou walk through, all of a
sudden this new opportunityemerges.
And for me, definitely theself-compassion and self-love
came through.
I also really reconnected withmy body, which I've been very
disconnected from for most of mylife.
(23:32):
And I started to feel like I wasin my body, that I could listen
to my body.
I was more attuned to my bodyand the cues that it gave me for
being overwhelmed, when I neededto slow down, certainly when I
needed rest, things like that.
And I really was able to embodywhat in polyvagal theory, Deb
Dana calls safely still.
And it is this groundedexperience that I've talked
(23:54):
about.
Instead of when my system wentinto slowdown, falling into
shutdown, actually being able tobe in that beautiful,
nourishing, slowdown place whereI could be still and quiet, be
with myself, be in nature,meditate, sit on the couch at
night without having any urge ordesire to have a beer or a glass
of wine because I just feel okayand I'm just resting, or coming
(24:16):
home and not feeling soexhausted from a day that I
spent completely in sympatheticmode, going, going, going,
doing, doing, doing, because Ihad some spaciousness in my day
and being able to come home andsay, oh, you know what?
Uh, I want to work on this othertask for my business that feels
important to me, and being ableto have energy for that at the
end of the day, and then goingto sleep when I was done, or
reading, or doing something elsethat felt important and
(24:38):
meaningful and satisfying to meat the end of the day, instead
of just crashing.
So these are some of thebenefits that I've received
personally from ketamineassisted psychotherapy and
helping me understand what washappening to my nervous system
and my brain has really helpedme a lot and has really also led
me to be a real big supporter ofketamine assisted psychotherapy
and other psychedelic assistedtherapies as well.
And as I've said before, I'm notgiving you medical advice.
(25:00):
I'm not promising anything.
I guess maybe I'd say there aretwo main takeaways that I hope
you might take away from any ofthese episodes on cat.
One is that you're not broken ordefective or forever damaged,
but rather your experienceslikely have impacted your
nervous system.
And what you really need isnervous system healing.
(25:21):
And if you know how to work withyour nervous system and your
brain, then your capacity forhealing really increases.
And there's so much morepossibility there.
And so it doesn't have to beketamine or the psychedelics per
se, but I do invite you andencourage you to look into
healing modalities that have acomponent of nervous system work
in them.
And two, if you do choose topursue CAP or psychedelic
(25:44):
assisted therapy, it is notmagic, but it does perhaps
magically open a door if youwant to walk through it.
As our time comes to a close, Iask you to keep listening for
just a few more moments becauseI want to thank you for showing
up today.
And I want to leave you with aninvitation as you hit stop and
move back out into the world onyour own unique wellness
(26:06):
journey.
In order to move from where youare today to the place where you
want to be, the path may seemlong or unclear or unknown.
And I want you to know that ifthat seems scary or daunting or
downright terrifying or anythingelse, that is totally okay.
Know that you do not have tocreate the whole way all at
(26:27):
once.
We don't travel a whole journeyin one stride.
And that is why my invitation toyou today is to take a step,
just one.
Any type, any size, in anydirection.
It can be an external step thatcan be observed or measured, or
it could be a step you visualizetaking in your mind.
It can be a step towards actionor towards rest or connection or
(26:51):
self-care or whatever step makessense to you.
I invite you to take a steptoday because getting to a place
that feels better, more joyful,more connected than the place
where you are today is possiblefor everyone, including you, and
even when depression is in yourbed.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, please subscribe so
(27:13):
you can be notified when eachweekly episode gets released.
I encourage you to leave areview and reach out to me on
social media atTrish.sanders.lcsw.
Your feedback will help guidefuture episodes, and I love
hearing from you.
Also, please share this podcastwith anyone who you think may be
interested or who may getsomething from what I have
(27:34):
shared.
Until the next time we connect,take care of yourself and take a
step.
Hello and welcome to the When Depression is in your
bed podcast.
Today I'm going to continueexploring ketamine-assisted
psychotherapy or CAP and how itcan do far more than just create
a temporary state of feelinggood.
I'll talk about how ketamineaffects the brain and the
nervous system in ways that canmake genuine healing possible.
And I'll share the benefits I'vepersonally experienced through
(00:23):
CAP and the neuroscience thathelps explain why it works.
I'm your host, Trish Sanders,and I am delighted that you are
here.
Let's get started.
Before I dive in, I just want togive you a quick message.
As I've shared in my previousepisodes about ketamine and
psychedelic assisted therapies,I am a licensed clinical social
worker, and in this episode, Iwill be talking about ketamine
(00:44):
and psychedelic assistedtherapies.
However, I will be sharing mypersonal experiences and my
professional learning foreducational purposes only.
I'm not giving medical adviceand I'm not making treatment
recommendations or suggestingthat anyone try any of these
substances that I mentioned.
And I certainly can't guaranteethat anyone will have the
desired impact or effect, orsince I'm sharing my own
(01:07):
experience, will have the sameexperience that I had.
But if you are thinking aboutketamine or psychedelic assisted
therapies, I do recommendconnecting with a healthcare
professional who can safelyguide you on your own journey.
I want to talk today about myown experience with CAP, which I
have been talking about over thelast several episodes.
And I want to focus today on notjust what my experience was, but
(01:29):
how the ketamine impacted mynervous system and brain that
allowed for the healing thathappened to occur.
And I do want to be clear thatat this point I'm not a CAP
certified therapist.
What I'm sharing today is basedon my own experience and
understanding that I havedeveloped through my own
research because I really wantedto understand how what happened
to me happened.
(01:50):
And that's really the frameworkthat I'll be sharing through
today.
So this is not a completeneuroscience lesson by any
means, but it is my intention totry to explain through the
science of it all what Iexperience, which really was
quite transformational for me.
And I think part of the reasonthis feels particularly
important to share is because Ido think that there's a lot of
misinformation out there aboutketamine and psychedelic
(02:13):
assisted therapies.
And I think in part that stemsfrom the fact that a lot of
these medicines have been usedat different times, either in
history or currently, as whatcould be considered a
recreational drug or a quoteunquote street drug.
And so I think that there'sstigma that can be attached in a
lot of different ways fromeither having a negative
perspective about thesemedicines or even just
minimizing them or writing themoff.
(02:34):
And I can certainly tell youthat from my own experience with
friends and family, personallyand professionally, when I talk
about CAP, sometimes peoplejokingly say something like, Oh,
yeah, of course you feel betteror you're on drugs or something
to that effect, and they don'treally understand the science.
And I also have to say that formyself, as someone who has lived
with depression for most of mylife, I absolutely have a
(02:56):
history of using substances totry to feel better or deal with
my depressive symptoms, which ofcourse is pretty common.
And it even took me a littlewhile to come around to CAP.
And I think looking back, a partof me just didn't believe it or
understand it.
I think I had this idea that itmust be a temporary relief kind
of experience.
And that didn't really appeal tome.
(03:16):
And it wasn't until I heardabout it many times that I
finally was curious enough toreally pursue it and look into
it for myself.
And what I found was thatketamine, while it's not magic,
a switch that can just turn offdepressive symptoms forever,
there is more than somethingthat is just temporary.
And that's why I want to sharemy experience with you today
because it's been over a yearsince my last CAP session.
(03:38):
And granted, I've been doing alot of healing in many different
ways.
So I can't say with absolutecertainty that all of my healing
is connected to my CAPexperiences.
However, I can tell you thatI've been in talk therapy for
decades and I've been on ajourney of healing.
I would say for most of my life,certainly the last 30, 35 years.
And my experience with CAP wasabsolutely a game changer for me
(04:02):
and it really shifted so manythings.
And while ketamine and otherpsychedelic assisted therapies
might not be for everyone, theycertainly are not for everyone.
As a matter of fact, I thinkthat if you have accurate
information, then you can makethe most well-informed decision
about what you want to includein your healing journey.
And as I've shared before, myoriginal reason for pursuing CAP
(04:23):
is because I kept hearing thatketamine could help people
cultivate self-compassion andself-love.
And as somebody who hasstruggled with depression for
most of my life, I quite oftenheld a pretty negative
self-concept or a self-view.
And even though with years andyears of therapy and a lot of
self-work, and I've talked aboutthis in previous episodes, I've
had more and more windows whereI felt more positively about
(04:46):
myself, but they would closemuch more quickly than I would
like for them to close.
And I seem to have an experienceof stumbling into the window
opening again.
So what I mean is that I wouldfeel good about myself for a
while.
I would feel clear, I would feelmotivated, I would feel happy,
joyful.
I would even say I feltconnected to my authentic self.
And then that window wouldclose.
I would go back into somenegative headspace, feeling
(05:07):
overwhelmed, feeling shut down.
And then the next time I feltbetter about myself, more often
than not, was something thatjust happened.
I wasn't quite sure how to makeit happen again.
So even though I had a littlebit more awareness of what I
needed to do to take care ofmyself, actually doing that
pretty much felt hard.
I would get back to whatever itwas that I was doing, meditating
or exercising or eating well orsomething like that.
(05:29):
And then I would be able to haveconsistency for a very short
while.
And then I would fall off theself-care wagon for a very, very
long time.
And when it came to rest, it wasvery, very difficult for me to
maintain healthy rest habits,slowing down during the day,
being able to go to sleep at adecent hour at night, getting a
full eight hours of restfulsleep.
Those were things that happenedvery, very, very infrequently,
(05:51):
certainly very inconsistently.
And CAP really was the beginningof changing all of that for me.
And it was not temporary.
It was not a temporary high.
It was not just a short-lastingeffect from being on quote
unquote drugs, which I'm happyto report.
It was really something that Iwas able to sustain.
And I'll talk today about howI've been able to sustain that
and encourage that and grow thepositive impacts that I
(06:12):
experience with ketamine.
So, what I really want to focuson today is explaining, to the
best of my knowledge and abilityto explain, how ketamine can
help support nervous systemhealing and how it can support
our brain's neuroplasticity orits ability to rewire and learn
new patterns, new healthierpatterns, I would add.
(06:33):
And how that really came intoplay in my own CAP experience.
One of the things I learnedabout ketamine very early on is
that it can help quiet theamygdala.
Our amygdala is sort of like ourbrain's alarm system that goes
off whenever there's danger.
And it's a good thing that ouramygdala does that.
However, when someone hasexperienced trauma or relational
wounding or attachment woundingor chronic stress, those sorts
(06:56):
of things, our amygdala canoverfunction.
And it can either be triggeredby very small things that aren't
really signs of danger, butbecause of how our brain works,
we have neural pathways thatconnect these seemingly small
experiences to cues of dangerand that triggers our alarm to
go off, or it doesn't kind ofever go off.
It's just on such high alert alot of the time.
And when we sit with ketamine,that part of our brain can sort
(07:18):
of relax and the alarm bellsstop ringing.
And this is incredibly powerful.
And this actually led not onlyto a greater ability to have
self-compassion and self-love,which was wonderful.
And in my very first session isexactly what my experience was,
but it also led to somethingthat I didn't realize would be
so incredible and would comefrom ketamine.
(07:38):
And as I mentioned earlier, Ihad a very difficult time my
entire life resting.
I used to think that I wasreally good at rest, but really
I was really good at shutdown.
And what I mean by that is ifyou think about coming home
after work, I would think, ohyeah, I could like sit on the
couch, let go of my thoughtsfrom a busy day at work or my
to-do list or whatever.
But I wasn't really going into arestorative rest.
(07:59):
I was going into what in nervoussystem language you could call a
dorsal collapse.
That my system, when I startedto slow down, which was
desirable, and being able to gointo a restorative, restful
place, being able to be renewed,I would bypass that very quickly
and from slowdown, go right intoshutdown, right into that
collapsed, withdrawn, numbed outkind of space.
So for me, a lot of the timethat looked like me watching TV
(08:22):
or movies or Netflix with aglass of wine or a beer.
And in retrospect, I nowunderstand that I was in
shutdown, even though I didn'tfully understand that at the
time.
So when I finally had theexperience with the support of
ketamine of having my amygdalabe at ease, I suddenly had this
space where I could breathe.
And I talked about this in oneof my previous episodes that in
(08:44):
my second cap session, Iactually had this thought of,
oh, I can breathe here.
And it was this embodiedexperience of my nervous system
not being on guard, which wasjust honestly not an experience
or sensation that I had hardlyever, because my system, as a
result of my life experiences,was either in that dorsal
collapse, that shutdown,withdraw, avoidance, numb going
(09:07):
through the motions kind ofstate, or it was in a
sympathetic fight or flightstate of striving, trying to do
as much as I can, feeling likethere was never enough time to
do all the things I had to doand feeling overwhelmed and
pushing and doing and having ato-do list that was a hundred
miles long and never feelinglike I was making progress.
And I pretty much fluctuatedbetween those two states for
most of my life.
And of course, I had littlewindows of what I would, again,
(09:29):
in nervous system language callventral safety, that grounded,
connected, pleasant feelingplace where my nervous system
felt safe enough that I could beat ease.
But I was very, very rarely inthat place.
And when I had that experiencebeing on ketamine, where I
wasn't on alert anymore, itopened up this whole other
possibility.
And I would say it really helpedme connect with my authentic
(09:52):
self.
Our authentic self is not ourself that's in survival.
That's an important part ofourself.
It's an important function ofourself, but our true self can
really only emerge, in myopinion, when we are not in
survival, when we are safeenough.
That's when who we truly are notonly begins to emerge to others,
but actually who we truly arebegins to emerge to ourself
(10:13):
because we can see ourselvesclearly and we can see the world
clearly and we can see othersclearly in a way that when we're
in survival, there's a filter oneverything, how we look at the
world and others and ourselves.
And when the amygdala calm down,all of this new possibility
opened to me.
And ketamine also can help toturn on or activate our
(10:33):
parasympathetic system, whichwhen it's feeling safe, is our
state of rest and digest.
It's known as.
And creating that space, theamygdala calmed down, the alarm
was turned off, and theparasympathetic calm ease,
groundedness was able to comeback online in a way that it
hadn't really been able to,because again, being stuck in
(10:54):
survival, you're not reallygetting that ease, that
restoration, that groundedness.
Like I said, in a way that itjust hadn't really been able to
do for most of my life.
In addition, ketamine can helpincrease our interoceptive
awareness.
And interoception is essentiallyhow we feel what's happening
inside of our body.
I don't mean feel as in we feelour feelings of sad, mad,
(11:15):
scared, glad, but I meansensations in our body.
I've been disconnected from mybody for many, many, many, many
years.
And the cues for my body I wasvery disconnected from.
And I was often numb to them,which is kind of interesting
because ketamine is ananesthetic, so it does make you
feel numb.
So I can't fully explain thebiology or the neuroscience of
this with my limited knowledge,but experientially I can tell
(11:37):
you that it didn't happen for meexactly while the ketamine was
in my system.
It was more in the daysfollowing that I just felt more
connected to my body and moreattuned to what the sensations
were.
I wasn't numb to them and Iwasn't overwhelmed by them.
And these new things started tohappen.
It was sort of like thesedoorways opened that had been
(11:57):
closed.
And I would say that as Iunderstand it now, and the
meaning I've made of myexperience is that I was always
so on guard that I was closedoff.
I was like sealed tight to theseexperiences.
I was ignoring my body, I wasdisconnected from my body.
I didn't want to feel thingsthat were painful.
And I was very stuck in thisshutdown collapse a lot of the
(12:19):
time.
And I would only come out when Iwas pushing and striving and
forcing myself to do whateverneeded to be done in life.
And then I would go back intothat shutdown.
And having all of these defensessoften allowed me to have this
greater new perspective.
And when all of this wasoccurring, I found I absolutely
was able to see myself andothers and the world with much,
(12:42):
much more love and compassion,so much more understanding.
I wasn't getting mad at myselfor shaming myself or blaming
myself.
There were so many moments overmy cap sessions where I would
laugh and say, Oh, of coursethat's how I handled that
situation.
It wasn't that there wassomething wrong with me or I was
bad or I should have been ableto do it differently.
Of course, that's how I handledthat situation.
(13:04):
That was the best I could do atthat time, or I was under so
much stress, that was a stressresponse.
So of course that that's how Idid that.
The self-criticism just wasabsent, honestly.
It just wasn't there anymore.
And as someone who is intenselyself-critical, this was a really
new and very welcome experiencefor me.
And also, what I came to realizein time was that when my body
(13:27):
was feeling at ease and mynervous system was able to spend
more time in that ventral, safeenough, connected space, that
socially engaged space where Iwas able to connect with myself
and others in the world in amuch more profound and
meaningful way.
And also, when I was in thatstate, I was able to rest in a
restorative way.
I was able to pay attention tomy body cues and I was able to
(13:48):
say, I feel tired right now.
I'm gonna go to bed.
And I just went to sleep.
And that was something also verynew for me compared to my entire
life.
And something else that I findtotally amazing, uh, which is
very much connected to howketamine can help the brain and
neuroplasticity.
But we can only really learnwhen we feel safe enough.
And this makes a lot of sense ifyou think about it, because if
(14:09):
you're trying to protectyourself, your only objective is
survival.
And so you're not really open tothe learning process because
biologically it's not necessary.
You might figure out things outof necessity, but you're not
actually learning when you're insurvival.
And so I think that again, frommy experience, when I talked
about these doorways opening, Ithink that that was also a part
(14:30):
of it for me, that things feltavailable to me, doing things,
whether it was resting, going tosleep when I felt tired, or
sitting down and doing a taskthat felt really overwhelming to
me, or creating space in myschedule, which is still
something I'm working on.
But those things felt availableto me and possible in a way that
(14:51):
they just hadn't before.
And as I understand it, I feellike that is all part of the
learning process that I oftenfelt like I had no choice.
This is how I had to do things,not necessarily because I wanted
to do them that way, but becauseI didn't know how to do them
another way.
And my experience with CAPreally helped me say, oh, look,
there's another possibilityhere.
And by practicing that newpossibility, which I'll talk
(15:12):
about what integration is, andthat's essentially what
integration is practicing thesenew things that come up through
your academy experience, then Iwas able to create new neural
pathways where these optionsbecame available to me more and
more as I continued to practicethem.
And so basically, as I'm talkingabout neuroplasticity, which
just refers to our brain'sability to change, to grow new
neural pathways and adapt andcreate new connections
(15:36):
throughout our whole life.
And our brain can, in fact, dothis throughout our entire
lifetime.
We used to think many years agothat this only happened in young
children.
We have learned that that's nottrue.
Our brain can change throughoutour entire lifetime.
However, there are biologicalreasons that I won't go into too
deeply now, but as we get older,our brain does tend to use the
well-worn pathways more thancreate new pathways.
(15:59):
And part of that reason is justsimply it's efficient.
It's easier for our brain thatworks very hard, taking in a lot
of information all the time, tobe able to quickly categorize
things and do things in the sameold way, because it's just
easier to do it that way.
And that's really not a badthing.
It really helps our brainfunction.
However, if the way that we'vebeen doing something has been an
(16:20):
unhealthy or unhelpful thing,but we've been doing it for a
really long time, it's justfamiliar and there's a lot of
ease in doing it in that sameold repetitive way.
And certainly if there's trauma,chronic stress, relational
wounding, attachment wounding,the pathways that we probably
have been using and that arereally well worn are in fact
(16:41):
probably unhealthy andunhelpful, or at least a lot of
them are.
Certainly for me, that wasabsolutely the case.
And so with ketamine, thesepathways that we are so used to
using, those tracks that we havein our brain, the rigidity of
them starts to loosentemporarily.
And that is temporary.
But in that temporary littleopening, that space, we can
(17:01):
start to use new patterns andmake new connections.
And so there's moreaccessibility to these new ways
of acting or being or thinkingthat are also linked to an
embodied experience.
And I talked about this in oneof my last episodes when I
talked about my first CAPsession.
I had this thought that the mostbeautiful place in the world is
(17:22):
inside of me.
And it didn't seem like athought or something I was
trying to convince myself.
It just felt in my body true.
That's what so many of theseexperiences were like for me,
that it wasn't just thisconceptual thought, this
cognitive thing.
It was like this embodiedreality in a totally different
way.
And so all of these negativethought loops, the not good
(17:44):
enough, the not worthy, myfeeling incapable, or like a
failure, those are all very,very common thought loops that
I've held for a huge portion ofmy life.
They just sort of loosen theirgrip quite a bit.
Actually, when ketamine was inmy system, they just seemed
laughable.
Like I said, I laughed quite abit on ketamine.
It was like, that's ridiculous.
Like, of course I'm not afailure.
Of course I'm good enough.
But then in the hours and daysafterwards, I was able to really
(18:07):
integrate those experiences.
And that really allowed me tocarry those new thoughts with me
in a way that talk therapy justwasn't really able to help, at
least not in the samesustainable way.
You want to be very clear.
I'm not knocking talk therapy.
I love talk therapy.
It's a form of therapy that Iuse quite a bit.
And it can create changes in thebrain.
It just takes a really long timebecause without going into all
(18:29):
of it, when you create a newsafe relationship with a
therapist, you have what couldbe considered a disconfirming
experience that not allrelationships are painful or
that you can trust people.
And that can be reallybeneficial.
But again, it takes a long time.
And with ketamine and some ofthe other psychedelic-assisted
therapies, you can get thoseconnections much more quickly.
And then you do have to do workto maintain them.
(18:51):
This is not just fairy dust andmagic that is an on-off switch
that if you've been feeling notgood enough for your whole life,
you'll have a ketamine sessionand feel completely worthy.
It's not exactly like that.
You might actually feel reallyworthy in one session, but you
have to do work to be able tomaintain that afterwards.
And I've mentioned integrationquite a few times in each of the
episodes about ketamine, butjust really to dive into again
(19:14):
this idea of what integration isand why it's so incredibly
important is because of what I'mtalking about.
When you have ketamine in yoursystem, you have this small
window of time from when you'rewith the medicine to the hours
following and the daysfollowing, maybe a week, where
your ability to do activitiesthat help your brain rewire is
increased.
(19:35):
And so you have this beautifulwindow.
And if you take advantage of it,and this is what integration
sessions are talking to atherapist or a trained healer to
be able to support you in takingthese new embodied experiences,
these new knowings, if you will,because that's really what they
felt like.
Like I knew them to be true, andbring them into your life in a
(19:56):
way where they become thingsthat you practice daily.
So you don't have to stay stuckusing these old neural pathways.
You have a chance where the dooropens, where you have much more
flexible, accessible choice tobe able to do things in a new
way.
And so I was very intentionalwith my ketamine sessions.
And the day of my ketaminesession, I always planned it in
(20:17):
such a way that it was reallylow stress.
I chose different thingsdepending on where I was at and
what my intention was, what Iwas working with.
There were some days that I didpaperwork because paperwork
could feel really overwhelmingfor me.
So I would take advantage ofthis time where my alarm system
wasn't going to go off and say,paperwork is so hard, I'm
overwhelmed, I'm an idiot orwhatever.
Old stuff would happen.
And I would sit down and say,like, okay, this is something
(20:38):
that has felt hard for me.
And I was able to sit withcompassion about that.
Say, let me just try a start andsee what happens.
And I would do the things thatfelt challenging for me.
I made sure that I would haverestful evening activities so
that I would be able to payattention to when I was tired.
I mentioned I would make surethat my schedule for the next
few days had some space in it,some space for me to take a
(21:01):
break, some space for mecertainly to meditate, certainly
to move my body even throughoutthe day, not just exercise,
although I did often includeexercise as something that I
wanted to incorporate in thedays following, but also just
time to get up throughout theday and move instead of just
sitting at my desk for hours andhours on end.
And so by doing these practicesand by having the support of
ongoing therapy with a therapistwho was trained in providing
(21:24):
cap, I was able to really keepthese new practices going.
And by practicing these newhabits that were much more
helpful and much more desirableand much more healthy, then I
was able to really keep a lot ofthem going in a way that was
very different than just talkingabout something, being like, Oh
yeah, I really wish I could domy paperwork, or I really would
like to go to sleep earlier andthen no change really happening
(21:46):
from there.
And as a result of my cap andthe integration, I definitely
have had the experience of beingable to cultivate and sustain
much greater experiences ofself-love and self-compassion,
which has been really, reallyincredible for me.
Again, as someone who's beendepressed for most of my life,
self-criticism and self-judgmentcan be extraordinarily high for
(22:07):
me.
That has not returned in thesame way as before at all.
And I can't say I never have amoment where I'm hard on myself,
but I catch myself so much morequickly, like almost
instantaneously.
And I've talked about this inother episodes, and I'll talk
more about my specific actualreal lived experiences around
some of these things to give youmore understanding on what that
really looks like.
But my capacity to be able tonotice and take care of myself
(22:31):
and my commitment to taking careof myself, honestly.
And it's still not perfect.
It's not like I'm always doingthe absolute best thing for
myself constantly.
I really can't emphasize enoughthat it's not magic that's
happening, it's opening adoorway that is allowing you to
walk through it instead ofhaving the experience of trying
to push open a door that's stuckshut or not even seeing the door
(22:51):
and walking past it.
I kind of have this image ofwalking around the hallways of
your mind and just walking downthe same hallways back and
forth.
And those are those samewell-worn neural pathways, and
you just keep walking by andwalking by, and it feels like,
well, where else am I supposedto go?
And you have this experiencewith ketamine or potentially one
of the other psychedelicassisted therapy medicines, and
(23:12):
doors appear that were alwaysthere.
You just didn't see them, theyweren't accessible before.
And when you open the door andyou walk through, all of a
sudden this new opportunityemerges.
And for me, definitely theself-compassion and self-love
came through.
I also really reconnected withmy body, which I've been very
disconnected from for most of mylife.
(23:32):
And I started to feel like I wasin my body, that I could listen
to my body.
I was more attuned to my bodyand the cues that it gave me for
being overwhelmed, when I neededto slow down, certainly when I
needed rest, things like that.
And I really was able to embodywhat in polyvagal theory, Deb
Dana calls safely still.
And it is this groundedexperience that I've talked
(23:54):
about.
Instead of when my system wentinto slowdown, falling into
shutdown, actually being able tobe in that beautiful,
nourishing, slowdown place whereI could be still and quiet, be
with myself, be in nature,meditate, sit on the couch at
night without having any urge ordesire to have a beer or a glass
of wine because I just feel okayand I'm just resting, or coming
(24:16):
home and not feeling soexhausted from a day that I
spent completely in sympatheticmode, going, going, going,
doing, doing, doing, because Ihad some spaciousness in my day
and being able to come home andsay, oh, you know what?
Uh, I want to work on this othertask for my business that feels
important to me, and being ableto have energy for that at the
end of the day, and then goingto sleep when I was done, or
reading, or doing something elsethat felt important and
(24:38):
meaningful and satisfying to meat the end of the day, instead
of just crashing.
So these are some of thebenefits that I've received
personally from ketamineassisted psychotherapy and
helping me understand what washappening to my nervous system
and my brain has really helpedme a lot and has really also led
me to be a real big supporter ofketamine assisted psychotherapy
and other psychedelic assistedtherapies as well.
And as I've said before, I'm notgiving you medical advice.
(25:00):
I'm not promising anything.
I guess maybe I'd say there aretwo main takeaways that I hope
you might take away from any ofthese episodes on cat.
One is that you're not broken ordefective or forever damaged,
but rather your experienceslikely have impacted your
nervous system.
And what you really need isnervous system healing.
(25:21):
And if you know how to work withyour nervous system and your
brain, then your capacity forhealing really increases.
And there's so much morepossibility there.
And so it doesn't have to beketamine or the psychedelics per
se, but I do invite you andencourage you to look into
healing modalities that have acomponent of nervous system work
in them.
And two, if you do choose topursue CAP or psychedelic
(25:44):
assisted therapy, it is notmagic, but it does perhaps
magically open a door if youwant to walk through it.
As our time comes to a close, Iask you to keep listening for
just a few more moments becauseI want to thank you for showing
up today.
And I want to leave you with aninvitation as you hit stop and
move back out into the world onyour own unique wellness
(26:06):
journey.
In order to move from where youare today to the place where you
want to be, the path may seemlong or unclear or unknown.
And I want you to know that ifthat seems scary or daunting or
downright terrifying or anythingelse, that is totally okay.
Know that you do not have tocreate the whole way all at
(26:27):
once.
We don't travel a whole journeyin one stride.
And that is why my invitation toyou today is to take a step,
just one.
Any type, any size, in anydirection.
It can be an external step thatcan be observed or measured, or
it could be a step you visualizetaking in your mind.
It can be a step towards actionor towards rest or connection or
(26:51):
self-care or whatever step makessense to you.
I invite you to take a steptoday because getting to a place
that feels better, more joyful,more connected than the place
where you are today is possiblefor everyone, including you, and
even when depression is in yourbed.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, please subscribe so
(27:13):
you can be notified when eachweekly episode gets released.
I encourage you to leave areview and reach out to me on
social media atTrish.sanders.lcsw.
Your feedback will help guidefuture episodes, and I love
hearing from you.
Also, please share this podcastwith anyone who you think may be
interested or who may getsomething from what I have
(27:34):
shared.
Until the next time we connect,take care of yourself and take a
step.
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