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March 10, 2025 • 66 mins
In this conversation, Dr. Dan shares his transformative experience during a psilocybin journey in Oregon, detailing the preparation, intentions, and emotional revelations that unfolded. He discusses the significance of dosage, the importance of setting intentions related to direction, gratitude, and love, and the profound insights gained about repressed emotions, particularly anger towards family. The dialogue explores themes of shadow work, personal growth, and the emotional legacy passed down through generations, culminating in reflections on the journey's impact on his life and relationships.

In this conversation, Dr. Dan shares his transformative experiences with psilocybin therapy, exploring themes of self-discovery, emotional healing, and the balance of masculine and feminine energies. He discusses the importance of guidance during psychedelic journeys, the role of spirituality in personal growth, and the profound impact of group therapy. The dialogue emphasizes the interconnectedness of psychological and spiritual healing, advocating for a deeper understanding of these experiences and their potential to foster meaningful change in individuals' lives.

Takeaways
  • All intentions were answered in unexpected ways.
  • The max legal dose was chosen for therapeutic reasons.
  • Setting intentions is crucial for the journey.
  • Gratitude was identified as a lacking element in life.
  • The journey revealed repressed anger and emotions.
  • Family dynamics play a significant role in emotional healing.
  • Shadow work is essential for personal growth.
  • The medicine brings forth what needs to be addressed.
  • Integration of experiences is vital post-journey.
  • Emotional legacies affect current relationships. Each journey is unique and personal.
  • Men often repress emotions, needing healthier outlets.
  • Tea therapy can be a valuable alternative to traditional bonding.
  • Guidance during psychedelic experiences is crucial.
  • Embracing feminine energy can lead to healing.
  • Spiritual awakenings can enhance personal growth.
  • Integration of experiences is essential post-therapy.
  • Group journeys can be transformative and life-changing.
  • Psychedelics can facilitate deep emotional purging.
  • Science and spirituality can coexist in understanding healing.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hello, and welcome to the Meeting Project podcast. I'm your host,
doctor daniel A Franz, and I just did a boatload
of psychedelic mushrooms. Actually Nott just did. It was probably about, no,
not even about. It was almost exactly three weeks ago
to the time at which I am recording this introduction.

(00:40):
And it was meaningful. It was purposeful, and it taught
me a lot about my own resilience. But it wasn't
as I might expect either. It was an interesting experience,
completely legal part of my training and education with the
Integrated Psychiatry Institute and authorized by the State of Oregon

(01:01):
and oversaw by overseen, overwatched, supervised by four experienced therapist,
licensed therapist in this realm. As you know, I've been
studying this emerging well, this indigenous healing practice that is
now emerging in our modern times, and so I took

(01:24):
the past several weeks to work on integration to understand
the experience for myself and my own eyes, my own mind.
But I thought it'd be fun, to well fun and
quite honestly meaningful for me to spend some time with
another trained therapist whom I trust and appreciate and walk
through my experience to share with you, but also to

(01:48):
dive deeper. So this is a conversation with my good
friend and fellow psychonod and psychedelic assistant therapist, Rob Romonto,
as he kind of helps me integrate my experience. I
hope you enjoy.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And experience.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Oh my goodness, Rob, Welcome back for another visit to
the Meeting Project podcast. I have been looking forward to
this for quite a while. Thank you for taking the time.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, Dan, it's great to see you. And I have
not seen you or really spoken to you in a
few weeks, and I know you did your orgon psilocybin
practicunk and I have literally been dying to find out
how it went and how your journey manifested what you saw,

(02:56):
what you experienced. I'm like, I've been waiting with baited
breass man.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Wow, it was an experience. I've summed it up to
many people many times. This way, all of my intentions
were answered in none of the ways I expected. I like,
I was just kind of going back for those with
those people that might be watched on YouTube. This was

(03:24):
the last page of about twenty pages of notes. You
might recognize that logo right that is the uh Town
fungus logo. Hey yeah, yeah, yeah, where our mushrooms come
from Uptown fungus in Eugene, Oregon. So these labels from
the packages I was given, say, let's see whole fun guy.

(03:46):
Psilocybeu bensis mausitech is the strain I took and twenty
four milligrams and then ten milligrams of psilocybin.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
So you went for the max.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
I went the max lee go amount in the state
of Oregon. Right now, the cool thing was I this
was learning for me. Right. Everybody talks about well, you
know I've done five grams, I've done seven grams or
seventy milligrams. When you do this therapeutically professionally, what is

(04:20):
being measured is the psilocybin content. Right, So they tell
us like, you can do twenty four milligrams and a
ten milligram booster, or you can just go straight for
the thirty four right from the start. But that's the
content of psilocybin, the active chemical, you know, psychedelic chemical.
But depending on what strain of mushrooms you can have,

(04:43):
and we had probably three or four offerings. Some mushrooms
are more intense than others, and so you're going to
get a different amount of mushroom matter.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
So whereas some people my partner I worked with, he
took the He had had a lot of experiences in
his life. One of my favorite stories from him is
like he said, you know, he starts out with, well,
you know, on my first psilocybnment experience when I was
fifteen on a hillside in Australia overlooking the ocean, we're
just leg gone. He had so much to share, but

(05:15):
because he took an intense strain, he had less mushroom matter.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
All right.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
I went more traditional. I went with a mazitech, you know,
kind of going back to the heritage of the mushrooms
and how they were brought to the States, and so
rob I had like a full salad man. It was
a big bowl of mushroom, a lot of mushroom matter,
which might you know, I think it was like five
or six grams for the thirty seven milligram or thirty
four milligrams.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
You put it in the lemon juice or orange juice.
How did you decide to ingest it?

Speaker 1 (05:50):
I went with orange juice, and you know I was
I went day two, my partner Nick went day one,
and you know, I went in kind of nervous. I'm like, yeah,
and I forgot to pick up orange juice. You know,
I have I've had this cold probably since then. And
he didn't sleep all the night before, forgot orange juice,
and Nick being it just a great sham in that
he is, He's like, well, you know, do you want
some lemon juice? Orange juice? Yeah, let's let's get some

(06:12):
orange juice. And no kid like keeps manifesting orange out
of the air. I think it was in his pocket,
but he's like, here you go. So we slowly peel
the orange and I bring it into my mushrooms and
let it soak in and uh, which made it really easy,
just kind of a couple of two finger scoops and yeah,
down the hatch and went and uh, well, let's see
I want to make sure I want to catch some

(06:33):
highlights here meeting Nick. I've talked about him a little bit. Yeah,
I guess that was kind of the thing. Didn't sleep
all the night before because of this cold and because
of the nerves and so, uh, you know, I was
really like, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
I have just been asking you about you know, the
anxiety that often proceeds a journey. You it's usually, uh,
you're both feeling anxiety excitement. Piece you can go through
the gamut of emotions within a couple hours and then yeah,

(07:08):
I don't know, I'm wondering what your process was and
maybe what you were thinking. Were right before you ingested
the medicine, where you at peace or were you still
in that that scared state so to speak?

Speaker 1 (07:22):
In summary, I was at peace, but the way to
get there was just a fun part of the of
the journey. You know. One of the reasons I chose
to do the max legal dose was, you know, two
days before, we have this amazing circle of therapists right,

(07:42):
all of us journeying, all of our you know, peers
in the IPI class. We had four licensed professionals who
had I think they had estimated, you know, helping like
eight hundred people on their journeys at this point or so.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
So I'm like, if I'm gonna do something, this is
probably one of the best environments I'll have ever have
an opportunity to do it. And I was also faked
out a little bit too, because day one, you know,
I watched my partner go day one, and everybody else,
our good friend Lance went day one. And I looked
up at the board, and everybody on the board for
day one went full dose and they all seem to

(08:19):
have really peaceful journeys. And I'm like, wait, it looked
really lovely. I'm like, I'm going full dose. Then I've
got the place. I'm still a little hesitant, but I
knew again I was gonna be well cared for. Still
a little nervous going into it. This was the crazy part.
So Nick, you know, he kind of senses I'm trying

(08:41):
to meditate and deep breathe and prepare, and I think
he senses that. And you know, there's all kinds of
different meditative objects and different things in the room to
help us prepare. And some of them are decks of
cards with like archetypes and different animal spirits and things
like that. And he this one deck of cards to

(09:02):
choose from, and it was something called like Angelic Interventions
or something like that. And he brings it over and
he's like, hey, do you want to you know, you
want to pick a card just to kind of give
your mind something to look at. And I'll be honest,
I was like, not really, want to I want to
sit in my anxiety right now.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, and but I did.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
I'm like, yeah, I know that's what's going to be best.
And he shuffles it up and I picked one and
it was one called like well, I've actually saved it
on my phone. It was called It's crazy Man. It
was a card called bow Real Meath and it just
had this beautiful image on it. And he looks at
me and I look at him, and you know, during
our preparation phase, it's all about, hey, what are your intentions,

(09:46):
what do you want to get out of this? And
he noted it. He's like a lot of what you
talked about is trying to figure out how to move
on from certain parts of life, let it go. And
then he goes on to read from the kind a
book that this is about, and it was all about
I mean, we just both sat there going, wow, that's
kind of crazy. And so that was kind of one

(10:08):
of the last real discussions we had. Is this on
my mind, this idea of what does it mean to
kind of release myself from what might be holding me back.
One of the things Nick and I talked about we
both had as our intentions was this idea of what
do we need to let go of in life and
what do we need to move forward in this phase
of life?

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Right?

Speaker 1 (10:29):
And that was you know, my three big intentions related
to that or direction. And you and I have talked
about this, and I've talked about it a lot on
the podcast you know, where's the next phase of life
for me personally and professionally. I also recognized I needed
to experiment a bit with gratitude. And that's a word

(10:52):
that's thrown around a lot, but I was definitely feeling
a lack of it in my life, both my marriage
and with my child, and so recognized like I needed
to I needed to find that part and then love right,
So direction, gratitude, love and the reason love was you know,

(11:13):
right my own studio, the reason love came up. You know,
we are encouraged prior to flying out to Eugene. They
tell us like, hey, bring something important to you to
kind of put on our therapeutic altar, something to think
about as you go into this journey. And as I've
shared before at Arketamine Journey, I was quite haphazard with

(11:38):
that that really didn't think they're very well, just grabbed
something that was there. This time, I was much more intentional.
And I'm down to my office where I record often,
and there's this one of my favorite pictures of my
wife and I, like twenty five years ago. Rob. I
had a pretty decent head of hair back then.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Wow, I'd love to see that picture, by the way,
I'll share it with you sometimes.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
And of course she is as lovely as she's ever been.
And I looked that picture, I'm like, you know what,
I need to find those two kids. So I took
that picture with me and put it on the altar,
and you know, that was kind of the idea of
finding love again. And uh so, yeah, we read this
card and then we go about, you know, the whole

(12:21):
are our group leaders kind of like, all right, here
we go. Everybody has their mushrooms. We do a little
guided meditation and uh you know, then then it's time
and just kind of watching that room and everybody find
the different ways to you know, some people were just
ready and wanted mushrooms. Some are like these don't.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Taste that great.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
By the time I was ready, my orange juice had
kind of i don't know, soft them, softened them up
a bit. It's pretty easy. So so.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
It sounds like you and Nick, they they just put
us together in diads And so maybe I'm sorry if
you've already shared this with your audience. Before we get
to Oregon, we are not sure who we're going to
be paired with. But once you get to Oregon, we
end up getting paired with someone. And I always heard

(13:18):
from people that they just know that they end up
being paired with the right person. Did you feel that
way with Nick, that you like, this was the guy
I was supposed to do this with.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Not at first, but then within seconds. Absolutely. You know,
when we first gather, everybody's you know, meeting and greeting.
Everybody's got the same kind of nerves or going on
this kind of school environment to do, you know, hallucinogens
and you know Nick so. Nick is Australian born Greek,

(13:51):
so he's currently living out of Greek Island, about sixty
five years old. Studied astrology and psychoanalysis. He works in
Switzerland at a business school. I mean, this is just
a oh and he's been also been doing yoga for
like twenty five years. Such man, right, like the it's

(14:12):
the most interesting man. And and you just feel that
for me, he's got this big head of air going
all over the place. She walks in a room. You're
just like, that is a beautiful soul right there, and
you can feel. But of course since Ketamine, you know,
Lance and I have been talking back and forth. We
both knew we were going out at the same time.

(14:33):
We're like, oh man, how cool would that be to
work together?

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Ah?

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, So they're going through the list and we're like, oh, maybe,
and Lance gets partnered with somebody else and I'm like huh.
And then within a few seconds like all right, Dan
and Nick and I was just like, holy cow, I
just won the lottery. And most of the people in
the room are like, oh, oh, you lucky. And that's
not to say I mean everybody in that room was

(14:57):
lovely in their own way, but Nick definitely had a
lot to offer. So yeah, different, different from Ketamine. So
we ingest the mushrooms and then we have probably about
twenty minutes before they kind of come in, and so,
you know, Nick and I. He walks me to the restroom,

(15:18):
just keep an eye on me, checks in on me.
I'm like, yeah, I'm good, and the music is kind
of picking up, and so i'd phones on.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Did you option the headphones or were you're listening to
the Okay.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, so yeah, just for those listening, like, we have
an option. It's such a cool system, right, So all
of the headsets are synced up to the same playlist,
but if you don't want your headset on, you just
take it off and there's ambient music in the room
that's the same playlist. And that also helps the sitters
to know, like what what music is going on, you know,

(15:54):
as they're observing the person journeying. So yeah, at that point,
pardon me, you know, use the restroom, maybe take a
little sip of water, and I can just kind of
feel a little lightheadedness if you'll remember you you've done, Yeah,
you did your well before mind, there's that cool line

(16:16):
of windows. You kind of look like a snake skin.
So I'm kind of looking at those and watching the
sun come in and I look at it. I'm like,
all right, man, I'll I'll see it later, like here
it comes and I put the headphones on. Now. One
of my frustrations and one of my disappointments and myself
prior to Keademy and I bought my own imask right,

(16:36):
real cool one, like real you know, high tech a
whole fifteen dollars or something like that. You know, it's
kind of styrofoam and they're especially mate so you can
like open your eyes, but still there's darkness. So to
continue the journey, so not to bring sure, well, I
forgot them. They hit me on the plane. That was
the one thing I forgot to pack Rob, Thank goodness

(16:57):
I did, because I ride through their eyemasks at last,
that's your rate that I mean, I really felt like
I needed to ring them. Wow, Yeah, it was. That
was a powerful realization when I came to after my
first journey. My mine was definitely a tale of two journeys.

(17:20):
And when I when I started to come to after
about three hours of Journey one, I was just like,
oh my goodness, and I remembered like Journey one was
was anger and rage and there were tears of anger,
and I just remember feeling them and feeling this mask
of me and like, so, man.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Journey one, are we talking Kenney in our journey? Do
you feel like your psilocybin journey was split up into
journeys within journeys?

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Okay, Yeah, the psilocybin experience was like two journeys punctuated
by a restroom break and a funny little interaction with
our head therapist. True, Oh, let's say you, I'm gonna
hit the.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
So you know I'm gonna be asking you probated questions.
You know, that's a pretty big deal that you cried
through your your eyemasks several times. So what was coming
up as the medicine and slowly or maybe not so
slowly started to affect you and impact you. Was it
a visual experience? Was it a disembodied he felt like

(18:32):
you were a pure consciousness experience? Where was this? Was
it sadness? Was it gratitude? Like what talk to me?

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Beautiful questions? Journey one? What I drew afterwards from my
integration and grab some chalk and like for Journey one,
it was a lot of wax and red. And it
was also the experience was very physical for me, so

(19:03):
much so that there were times I would kind of
come to some consciousness and be very self conscious, like,
oh my goodness, am I am I disrupting any people?
Are the thoughts on it? Am I verbalizing these thoughts
as I hust out people important to me in my life?
And did I just say? Did I scream? That out loud,

(19:23):
and I felt like a lot of tossing and turning,
a lot of grinding my teeth, furrowing my brow, but
in very what felt like very strong ways, and again
that black and red image. I was strangely kind of

(19:46):
a little silver lining there. I don't know what was there,
but it was. It was rage, man, it was rage.
It was rage, and it was emptiness. And you know,
I went into this like, well, I'm a psychotherapist at
twenty five years, I'm a pretty well rounded individual. I
don't have anything that the mushrooms are going to reveal.

(20:07):
And you know, in those in those three you know,
time has no meaning. At that point, it felt like
five minutes, but it was. It was three islands. And yeah,
let's see very physical emptiness and anger silver lining we
talked about before. You know, I thought through my Ketemine journey,

(20:31):
I had kind of dealt with some issues of my
belated mother and there was a lot of anger at
her as well as and they'll probably hear this, and
this is going to cause some conversations at some point,
the gentleman who's been my best friend for thirty years,
you know, and I kind of raged against both of

(20:53):
them and yelled at them, where have you been where?
Well in that journey, I screamed, weren't worried. I don't
know why. I don't know where that was. And I've
been doing all I know. It's been three weeks tomorrow,
and I've been thinking about that a lot and trying

(21:14):
to wonder what that means.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
So, do you feel like you've had a repressed anger
for your your friend and your mom? Maybe things that
you've never have been able to articulate that you've you've
kind of stuffed down? And yeah, I always say with
the with the plant medicine, it's it's like a truth serum.

(21:39):
If you have things unprocessed, underprocessed, or needs to be processed. Uh,
the medicine giving you what you need, not what you want,
necessarily will kind of bring it to the forefront of
your consciousness. And then so it sounds like this was
a not so subtle way of saying, you're pissed and
these are the two objects of your of your anger.

(22:04):
So what Yeah, what were you making out of it?
I know in the moment, it's it's not so easy
to kind of understand that because is it metaphor? Is
this is this literal, So what were you? How did
that kind of unfold as you continue in the journey.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Well, from there, I think I became you know, the
focus changed to bits, and that might have been more
towards the end of journey on or it was somewhere
in the middle where somewhere in there. Again, time has
a little meaning, you know. I think if a few
hours in I just I was pretty well hydrated, and
I'm like, I just need to use the restroom. But

(22:43):
I'm in the journey, and so I became conscious of that, like,
oh my god, did I just wet myself? Right? Because
of course Drew puts it in our head the day before.
He's like, now, look, this has only happened once nobody,
but you should bring a change or clothes just in
case you soiled yourself. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be
that guy. But I think also I became fiercely protective

(23:05):
of my masculinity. You know, in the beginning, you're hot
and cold during the journey, so I'm like sweating, so
I'm getting a little cold in the room, but then
I'm hot. So I'm trying so trying to figure that out.
But to your point in your question. Yeah, man, it
was pretty obvious. I've repressed some frustration, some anger for

(23:28):
a long time now with mom, it's pretty easy. And
I think that came out for me in the group
integration because it came out of my mouth and it
kind of slid out way too easy, and I went
to grab those words and put them back and that
wasn't happening. But you know, when we talked about it
in our group integration, I said, yeah, she pretty much

(23:49):
you know, she smoked herself to death and then left
us six years ago. And I was like, oh, wow,
did I just did? I just said that? And so
I think that's been a lot of it is you know,
where have you been? Where are you right now? Well?
Still coming?

Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's me that's powerful Dan.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, yeah, you know, just when we think we're past
our grief, you know, it's it's six years, six years,
seven years now, especially this time of year, it's, uh,
it's definitely there. It's definitely there. So, you know, is
there work to be done there? I don't know. I

(24:31):
don't know if there's you know, what is work when
you talk about you know, grieving the loss of a parent,
that's a natural part of life. But she went unnaturally early,
and you know, my siblings and I are kind of
left to pick up the pieces with my dad.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, even though we're therapists and quote unquote
have all the answers right, we're not immune to the
human condition. And had a visit for my family last week,
which was both beautiful and challenging, and I was just
reminded because I had a lot of quality time with
my dad, who's you know, went through World War two,

(25:10):
came to the States for to give us a better life.
The man that he talked about a lot of trauma
and things that he didn't get. And I remember saying
to him during our conversation, he was really torn up
about his mom and his dad not giving him the
love that he needed. Right. So basically his mother and

(25:32):
my grandmother, his father, my grandfather ended up eight years
in Argentina fighting the war. And I said to him,
I looked at me in the eye and I said, Dad,
they didn't They loved you the best that they could,
but they they weren't able to love themselves, so they
couldn't give you the love that you needed. So because

(25:55):
he was apologizing for me because he was a he
wasn't not so nice man growing up, and there was
a lot of trauma and family. But when he was
apologizing to me, I said, Dad, no, thank you. I said,
I've done a lot of trauma therapy. I said, but
I've long since forgiven you. I said, you have nothing
to apologize for. And I said, I've known and I've

(26:17):
seen your humanity since my early twenties. And that was
incredibly cathartic for both of us. There was a lot
of tears. And you know, I don't know about you,
know you and your in your practice, but when I'm
with my patients, I always try to maybe share stories
like that because people people need to know, like our
parents aren't bad, right, Everyone's circumstances are different. But damn

(26:42):
if you don't have something, you can't give it to
somebody else. So again, I'm not assuming I know a
lot about your mom. We haven't spent a lot of
time talking about it. But I don't know. Does that
did that kind of resonate with you after or did
the journey kind of just go in another direction?

Speaker 1 (27:00):
No, that totally resonated with me and was fascinating how
many people in our group Integration had similar experiences, which
also coordinates with kind of some work I'm doing both
personally and professionally. A book I'm sharing because I'm reading
myself called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Right, what's that?

Speaker 3 (27:23):
I love it? That's great.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's a solid book, but it's fascinating because it's not
it's not really about specific parents, but it's almost a
generational thing. And to your point with your dad, like
we can trace this through a few generations of people
that you know, industrial revolutions, Great Depression to World War
two to baby boomers, like a lot of historically emotionally

(27:50):
I would say, ignorant, emotionally unintelligent people, emotionally unavailable that
like you said, didn't know to give it, right, rub
some on it and get up quit you know, boys
don't cry, you know, or I'll give you something to
cry about, right, Like you know, all those messages are
generational up until this point where we're trying to figure

(28:10):
out like, oh wait, we should be in touch with
our emotions and it's healthy to express them. And men
need more men like you and I together with each
other to kind of express these things. Which man, you're
good at this therapy thing. Have you thought about going
into this professionally.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
That's well, maybe once or so.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
So that brings me to a point about about my
best buddy. Now. It probably didn't help that we had
dinner together. So I left six am Monday morning. We
spent the weekend with him and his wife and two, three,
four other couples having dinner together in Indianapolis. So I

(28:52):
got ready to go into this. I'm tired from the weekend,
and then I catch something on the plane and he's
the heart because we've known each other for thirty years now,
and there was a time early in my in my
married life and my parents in life where he was
just a few years behind raising kids. You know, I

(29:15):
had some struggles that he couldn't be there for and
we talked about it at Lengate. But the funny thing
was that night we went to dinner, there was just
something off with him right, which definitely lodged itself in
my head. We joke sometimes he can be and he
knows this, so when he listens, he might, you know,

(29:38):
fall over as he's running. But he could be a
curmudgeon from time to time, and I think he was
being extra curmudgeonly that day and yeah, so this these
are the things I took into my journey, and I
think raging against mom he came to light as well,
and yeah, we had to have a conversation. So on

(30:00):
that rage, I became fiercely protective of my wife and
my family and my girls. And that was really interesting too,
like recognizing, you know, I think that was the gratitude
of what's important, Yill. I think also I had started
watching Game of Thrones from the treadmill and the exercise
bike a couple weeks before, so there's a there's some

(30:22):
weird Game of Thrones themes coming out, like my youngest daughter,
my my yeah wife, the one who has the most
strained relationship with me, she was on my left side,
she was my shield, and I mean some really weird images.
And you know, my my daughter closest to me, you know,
she's studying to become a therapist, Like she was my sword,

(30:43):
and my wife's the queen that we're protecting. I was like,
that's pretty messed up. It was kind of a fun
part of the journey of journey one. But yeah, a
lot of themes of anger and emptiness, of protection of rage,
as you said, the medicine man, if there are things
that you haven't integrated, it will serve it up to

(31:06):
you in ways you do not expect. I as I
walk around Wife's thinking like, yeah, I got my stuff
pretty well figured out, and the medicine said, oh you do.
But you know, here's here's some things you might want
to take a look at that are maybe making you
not so easy to deal with for your your wife
and your daughters on a day to day basis.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
You know, there's often a lot of talk and I
think you and I spoke to this last time we
connected on here that you know, we often talked about
shadow work in the context of psychedelic work and also psychotherapy.
People like, what the heck is shadow work? You know
if you go back, took me up the playo on

(31:51):
Socrates Day, and you know, like he was, you know,
a kay looking at a shadow and you know, basically
the shadow work is is those things that come up
in our lives that we really don't want to deal with,
then we kind of would rather file away somewhere and
make pretend they don't exist. And then look a lot
of people do that and they're like, Okay, it doesn't

(32:12):
affect me, until it does right, So you know, you
and I might be in a therapy session and someone
is stuck and they just don't know why. I don't
know why my best friend is annoying me this way.
And then sometimes you have to go backwards to go
forward and figure out, Okay, this is something, this is
shadow work that you weren't able to kind of address

(32:35):
back then. But this is a sign in the present
that that needs to be or processed or reprocessed or whatever.
To your point, with the medicine, it really doesn't care.
It's not going to have these pleasant conversations. And again,
I think depending on your own constitution and how you're wired,
it's going to come up differently, but the way it

(32:56):
needs to come up for you, so obviously, uh well,
I didn't want to speak for you, Like each each
journey is unique and it's your interpretation. It's not your
therapists or your your friends. But it sounds like that anger,
like your your high yourself so to speak. Your inner
person was saying, damn, mister Dan, you really need to

(33:17):
to bring up this anger with your you know, with your.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
With your buddy. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it said.
Like I said, going back to how I started this.
This journey answered all my intentions and none of the
ways I expected. And that was part of it too,
I had. I had no idea I had. You know,
we meant rumored to be really good at repressing emotions

(33:42):
and not dealing with them, and uh, you know, especially
in groups of other men, like, yeah, man, let's we'll
shove a beer and talk it out. No, we don't
talk anything out. We have a beer and watch sports,
you right, you know that's what we're really good at.
I've said, a mid time football therapy, right, football, you know,
I say it so much like and I can't remember

(34:02):
what book this is from, but the idea that men
historically gather at pubs or bars because we're sitting the
same way together, facing the same directions, we don't have
to make eye contact, and women are you know, having
tea across the table because they make eye contact and
communicate and talk to each other about emotions. Right. So
I think I think as men, we need to bring

(34:22):
more tea therapy into the world and less football therapy.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, or you know, doing as much tea therapy as
we do football therapy, because I think that mail bonding
thing that yeah, that's the thing, yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Or or or more psilocybin therapy apparently, so we'll figure
that out. Yeah, you and I are definitely working on
that one for sure.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
So was that kind of the wrap up for part
one or like, how did you kind of transition into
the next part of your Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
It was. That's a great question. It was an obvious
transition because I woke, I kind of came to and
I look over at Nick, and dude, Nick is sitting
there literally sitting kind of yoga style, hands all nama
stayed out, and he's got this, you know, beautiful sun
tan skin and he just looks at me and he's like,

(35:18):
how are you but in a beautiful Australian acting like yeah, yeah,
He's like, you're good. And again, through this entire three
hour period, I'm thinking like I'm disturbing other people or
upraging and telling screaming for people to f off and
things like that, and he's like, no, man, you're good.
All right. But I look at him with it and

(35:39):
I kind of come back in and out and uh like, no,
I definitely need to use the restroom, kwan, And he said, okay, cool. Now,
the rules in the State of Oregon. Is you probably
remembers you have to have a licensed therapist or escort you.
So Drew are you know, us military veteran with eight
hundred hours of watching other people journey on psilicide in

(36:00):
his own psilocybin journeys kind of comes in. I mean,
talk about just a mench right, He's got that warm
face and he's just also he kind of like a
curly haired you rob, just a guy that you're like, Man,
that guy's got something to you know, I want to
be around. And I kind of I'm really grinned at

(36:23):
it at this point. I'm kind of enjoying the little
fuzziness and then kind of the head buzz se. Yeah,
I think it's but I looked around the room and
again it's a big room. There's probably twenty twenty five
other people, half journeying, half being with others, and people
in different states of their journey. But everybody looked to
be having mostly a pleasant experience. And there's some difficulties

(36:44):
going on. And he escorts me out of the main
group room into and if you remember you were there before,
I was in like January, right that hallway, Man, that
is frigid it's old. Yeah, that hallway will wake you up.
So I was like I really felt like it that point, like, yeah,
I'm I think I'm done right. So it's three hours.

(37:06):
Oregon law is for the dosage I took, you have
to be on site and present and supervised for five hours. Yeah. Well,
I look at Drew and I'm like, can I I mean,
can I go back in if I want to? And
he kind of smiles, he looks at his watch. He's like, oh, yeah, man,
you've got two or three more hours. So okay.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
So I, you know, use a restroom and in that setting,
there's kind of the restroom and you walk out and
there's a sink to wash your hands, and I'm kind
of washing up and there's the fridge with the microwave
with the clock on it, and I look up and
wash my hands and you know, I dosed at ten
am Pacific time. It was one pm Pacific time, so
three hours. And I look at him and I'm like,

(37:48):
I'm trying to orient myself to time. And I'm like, true,
is that real? And he kind of looks at me
and Bury Therapeutic he goes, yeah, man, that microwaves been
there for a long time. That is very real. I'm like, no, man,
I'm not. I don't mean it's the microwave melt. Not
forget it, Joe. I'm just like, I'm just going back
to true prow you know, because and he was trying

(38:12):
to be therapeutic, but it was very you know in
my state. I'm like, don't patronize, it's I go back in.
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, you know, people respond differently, but the vast majority
of folks that do psychond elite journeys really feel like
time flows down. It feels like a lot of time
goes by, but ten minutes might go buyer. It might
be the opposite effect. So again, you never know what

(38:45):
you're gonna get.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
You never know. Yeah. Yeah, some people said they felt
like it took forever. Mine was it wasn't long enough.
But again I got everything I needed. So yeah, I
go back in and Nick's there waiting for me, all smiley,
and I kind of get in now. Journey one. You know,
we have all those blankets. Biased We've got kind of
a real light soft blanket and then kind of a

(39:07):
cool rough, you know, Southern blanket, and then I weighted blanket.
I don't know fifteen or twenty pounds weighted blanket if
you want it. And so Journey Too, I'm like, yeah, yeah,
I mean I kind of sweat pretty well, I'm a
little chilled. I'm like, yeah, let's I'm gonna go all blankets, Nick,
and we I get all covered up and I'm just
cozy now. Journey one, I forgot to mention this. Knew

(39:29):
I was feel a little warm, and uh, you know
I sometimes I get kind of hot feet and I'm like, man,
I want to be covered up. Well, my feet kind
of out there. And it's funny because when I witnessed
Day one, they were doing date I knew it right.
Sometimes the license therapists come around and they kind of

(39:49):
missed you a bit because they know there's a potential
to be warm, and you know, I could tell that
missing my feet. I'm like, oh, man, I got this.
Don't help, but it felt great. But there's this part
of me it's like, man, I don't I don't need
anybody's help. You don't go away. But I embraced it.
And so Journey Too is much more about accepting kind

(40:10):
of some of that guidance and help and assistance excuse me.
Whereas I recognize maybe a tendency to to you know,
very stoically, very you know, over masculinely be like, I
can take care of this myself. I had beauty, Oh, dang, Rob,

(40:31):
I had visions of some of what was behind you,
those real beautiful blues and greens. Maybe our past conversations
came into that journey, because I'm really envisioning a lot
of yeah in that journey too, mountains and streams.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
I didn't ask if you had visuals I get during
any or all points, do you feel like your ego dissolved.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
In some ways? You know, I kind of got to
become one with the mountains, flying over them, and it's
really kind of beautiful. A lot of those very vibrant
colors that were witnessing on near screen, it was kind
of cool. I tried to draw them and chalks one
during integration later and there was just no way. And
there was a part of me like, oh, I totally

(41:21):
need to recreate that vision. I'm just going to be
chalks and chalk draw all day long. I was like, nah,
I can stop doing that right because it's still it
still lives in me.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Man.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
I can still close my eyes and picture that. Yeah,
but there was also it was really kind of cool
because I was kind of embracing just being present and
being open, Like there was parts of me where I
would bring my arms out and really open my arms,
whereas Journey One I was very closed off, very tight.
I think interestingly, later that night or maybe the next day,

(41:50):
I was showering, like, why does my skin hurt? And
I recognized during Journey One, I might have been so tense.
I may have liked kind of dug into my shoulder.
It was really interesting. It was kind of weird, but yeah,
Journey Too much more open, much more. My heart was

(42:11):
more open, and I could reach out and there was
a plant on my right. I could kind of play
with nature a little bit, and then on my left
was Nick, and you know he would just kind of
grasp that hand every once in a while. It was
it was really kind of cool, but I also felt
a lot of.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Man.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
You asked some good questions about Journey More, and I think, uh,
maybe in Journey Too. You know, in Journey One, if
I raged against mom, Journey Too was kind of accepting
some feminine energy, some feminine blessings either, right, I just
felt this kind of sacred feminine presence. I'm on my

(42:50):
right side interestingly with this plant, So.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
So tell me about that. So how did that? Was
this a did you feel like maybe this is a
balancing to the first part or just another like reframing
or just another way to look at it? So how
did that kind of unfold?

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I've been saying I felt I needed Journey One to
open me up to Journey Too to have that beauty, right,
I needed to rage and feel that emptiness to recognize
the beauty of maybe what life's really trying to offer me,
what's really out there. It just occurred to me talking

(43:29):
to you that you know, maybe maybe accepting that kind
of feminine blessing in Journey Too was the antithesis to
my anger with my mom in Journey one, and maybe
a balancing of how I felt about my wife and
my girls as well.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
You know, sometimes we need you know a lot of
times when we have those breakthroughs with our patients and
there's a purging, right, it kind of it opens you
up and then you're able to kind of receive and
look at things differently. So, you know, wondering if that's
kind of what the universe throughout at you, and you know,

(44:09):
I'm sure you'll you'll be integrating and figuring that out
for the next six months.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah. Well, and and so interestingly, like as I showed
you in my in my journal, like man easily ten
pages of notes. Here's some of Nick's notes from when
I was journeying. I asked him at one point, I'm like,
just write down what you observed. And I haven't really
taken a dive into him yet because I wanted to
do this with you, right, and I knew I wanted

(44:36):
to share with kind of my listeners, but I'm like, oh,
what better way than to hang out with somebody that
knows and understands that we have a connection, Like this
will be cool. But now after this, like, yeah, I
want to go back in and really do some integration
for myself. And I think you've really asked some good
questions to help me stir up some of that. Like
the amazing thing is and maybe you can relate to

(44:58):
this too when you come up out of that experience.
For me, I felt I knew I knew some I
thought I knew some answers. I thought I you had
some definitive direction what I needed to do, and as
I let that experience soften and again we use that
word integrate, as I've kind of meditated on it and
thought of it as it's kind of come up at

(45:19):
just random times, like maybe those answers aren't so absolute.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
So maybe talk a little bit more about that. And
you said you were accepted and more accepting at the
Feminine Energy more it was a more acceptance kind of
lied compared to part one, So can you can you
explain that a little bit more how that showed up
in the journey, No.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Because it just kind of hit menef, thank you man,
you again, good question. I think it open me up
more to seeing maybe where my wife wants to lead
me in this quest for direction in our lives and

(46:12):
maybe investing more in her perspective. Again, that vision I
had on my right of this sacred feminine energy, maybe
that was you know, that my shadow, my psyche, my subconscious,
you know, trying to wake me up and be like, hey,
there's some beauty. There are mountains and evergreens and streams

(46:36):
and what she has to offer. Pay attention. You know.
That literally just occurred to me in the past couple
of minutes from low.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
It reminds me of how yeah, there's no coincidences in life,
and our partners are chosen partners, and you know, well,
maybe it's a lot more deep than you just meet someone,
fall in love, get married. Maybe you're meant to kind
of walk this journey with them and you know, so

(47:12):
this is I guess where it gets a little more
into what we called the woo woo or something. You know,
possibly you know, hey, there's somebody you have to learn
from each other. And maybe because there's no judgment here,
there's no good, bad, right or wrong. When you have
these journeys, there's more of a knowing and understanding of curiosity.
Like wow, so this really cool feminine energies around me,

(47:37):
and I get to take it in, I get to
bask in it, like this is this is the beauty
of my wife and you showing gratitude and appreciating that,
and then maybe you know simultaneously understanding that are you know,
at times we could be hyper masculine and I feel

(47:57):
like we have to control everything and head of how
sold and all that other stuff, and I almost feel
like and maybe I'm projecting my own journey, uh, just
my higher power God saying you need to chill that
back out and you're not on this journey by yourself.
And you know, in your case, you have a beautiful
wife and beautiful children and they love you, and hey,

(48:19):
it's all right, let them. Let's them take care of
you and enjoy basking that feminine energy.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, so true. And she's even commented since coming back, like,
you know, and maybe not so much the first week
or so, you know, you're still feeling it. You're still
vibing in, like, hey, the neuroplasticity and the mushrooms are
still they're pretty acted in you. Yeah, you know, and
after a week long trip in Eugene and work and flights,

(48:47):
like I came back just tired and chill, so trying
to bring some of that back in and on a
regular basis. So man, you make some strong points such
to they're definitely gonna have to be you know, spend
some time with them. That's kind of what we do
with this, right, Like, it's not, as I've said before,
and I know we've talked, it's not just about the

(49:08):
journey and the mushrooms in those hours you spend under
the influence of the medicine, but it's all the work afterwards.
It's the group integration. It's finding other trained professionals that
you connect with to be like, hey, have you thought
about this, maybe taking a look this way, talking about
shadow work things like that.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
Yeah. I always tell the folks before and during and
after their treatments just wrapped up. Well, one of my
patients have strapped up his eighth session of ketamine work,
and I have a really strange conversation for them in
the beginning before they even start strange house. So well,

(49:51):
I say, look for the purposes of this of these treatments,
It's almost like all psychological regular rules are are off,
and then they start to look at you like you
have a third eye. Yeah, I'm going to say, look,
there's this thing called the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire thirty which

(50:12):
has some very trippy woo woo kinds of questions. You know,
did you feel like you were outside of your body?
Do you feel like you experienced the divine? This unity?
So things that are more really spiritual really goes to
speaks to existential anthological kind of things in life. So

(50:33):
and I often share that when I had my journey
in Costa Rica where I did a big dose like
you did, I kind of felt manic without being manic,
and I felt psychotic without being psychotic, and but I
had the grounding, I had the support where I kind
of knew like that was just part of the process.
But anyway, long story short, for our patients going through

(50:55):
this who don't know, who have maybe never had an
experience like that, I feel like I'm protecting them from
potential trauma just to inform them, like, hey, not everyone
has this experience, but enough people have come out of
these journeys reporting things like that. So if you do
experience it, this is a safe space. And look, you

(51:15):
know you and I know because we've been doing this
for a while. There's a difference between that journey, media journey,
psychosis and air quotes and when someone is legitimately suffering
from a mental health issue that needs to be addressed
and it's nine one one you. Yeah, So I tell people, listen,
I have your back. I'm not going to going to

(51:37):
go offline with my training, but for this purpose, don't
be afraid to be honest and real about what you experienced,
because it a lot of times it's the ineffable, the noetic,
and people get scared, and hey, that's the whole point
of doing this stuff is to kind of experience some
of that and feeling safe to talk about it your therapist.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Man, that is beautiful that right there. You just summed
up the difference it was. I'm challenged from time to
time people are like, why do I have to come
to your office to do this? I can just go
get a massive dose of mushrooms and sit on my
couch and watch Netflix. Like yeah, what Rob just described man?
That you know you're gonna watch Netflix and you're gonna
have some visions and maybe see funny things. But it's like, no,

(52:24):
do you want to make this therapeutic. Let's work with
the therapists that's trained in it then, because there are
now he's I love that word. I love learning that
using them every chance I get to use the word ineffable, right, unexplainable, unnameable, unimaginable,
combined with you know, mystical experiences Like yeah, that's the
magic of it for me, a therapist who thought he

(52:45):
kind of had everything figured out. I literally went into
that journey. As I said, I just wanted a nice
nap and some funny dreams. Man, that's you know who
I thought I was going and the mushrooms were like, no, no,
you got some stuff to deal with. Brother, question for you,
do you give the mEq thirty before the first journey
or after with kedemaide.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
So what I will do because again I'm trying to
prepare them but not set up expectations. So if you
go too far in the weeds with that, they might
set up expectations that these are the things that are
supposed to happen. So I give them a sampling. Depending
on who the the client is, I'll I'll pull maybe

(53:27):
one or two, you know, maybe surrounding the unity, like
you might feel like you're a part of a bigger hole.
You might feel this six streme piece that you've never
felt before. Some people are described seeing sacred geometry, so
these weird kind of shapes and colors, and I'm like,
if it happens, you know, I'm trying to normalize it,

(53:49):
and a lot of times it does happen, and they're
all get the feedback after like, yeah, thank goodness we
had that conversation because I've never experienced anything like that before.
Like maybe I spoke in high school and like I
would freaked out. So yeah, so it's kind of like
it's walking that it has to be balanced, right, knowing
you're patient meeting them where they're at. Some people might

(54:10):
need a little more of that for preparation. But if
someone is really seasoned in their spiritual walk, like they're
yo like a yogi or a yoga master, or they
have a rich spiritual life, you can probably go more
into the woo woo with that because there's a lot
of cross there's there is crossover, and they'll they'll get
it and they'll they'll be like, wow.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Yeah, yeah, we could so go into the wo woo
of sacred a try. Oh yeah, man, I like that
stuff has been happening across cultures throughout history for thousands
of years and just to think that, you know, you
can be a part of that and see these things,
you're like, not, wait a second, why do we have
why do these things mean this in culture? It's like, man,

(54:55):
that's that's the ineffability of sacred geometry and things like
that that apps into our collective unconscious and the archetypes
and all that amazing stuff.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
So yeah, it's so Look, I always ultimately think and
now I'm commits more than ever, and it's not just
because I was I've been a spiritual person most of
my life. These are spiritual awakenings, right, And it looks

(55:25):
people have spiritual awakenings in a more gentle fashion. But
you know, I think about the biblical story about Saul
of Tarsus, who became Paul the Apostle. He was stricken
down on the road to Damascus, right, and God blinded him,
and yet that was not a pleasant experience for him
for sure, But then look, he ended up becoming an

(55:47):
apostle and ended up being crucified, you know, sure for
the faith. So it happens the way it happens. And
you never know what's going to happen during these journeys
until you take it. And what a beautiful story. And like,
I look, I'm with you, and I'm sorry, I'm jumping
around a little bit. I'm still processing things from February
of twenty twenty three in Costa Rica, so a little

(56:11):
over a year ago. Yeah, so twenty twenty four. Yeah,
it's just things are so much stuff comes up in
that in those journeys where yeah, you have to this
is where the humility to the medicine and just understanding
the sacredness of it, because yeah, it's it's mind blowing.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
It's it's really like really yeah, absolutely, that's I mean,
that's where we get the word psychedelic, firm right, mind enhancing.
Mind Yeah, mind blowing. But you know, you bring up
the spiritual awakening journey, and it's kind of like what
came first, the chicken or the egg, the spiritual or
the psychological when we accept that they are so intertwined

(56:54):
and that these this kind of work can influence that.
To bring up the shadow work I have to do.
You know, it doesn't mean I need to go take
you know, prozac on a daily basis for the next
six to twelve months, but to take the time and
reflect on these things and become a better person like man.
You know, I wish more people would invest in this

(57:14):
kind of work, and I think they will. I know,
you and I have been talking about that, and it
seems in a few minutes we get to go talk
about that some more right class today is on MDMA
here in a little while.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, one thing I wanted to
bring up just going back to my conversation with my
dad last week. So what I was really, you know,
because I'm all psychology geeked out. But I'm also I've
studied philosophy and theology and seminary and stuff, and people
want to take one side or the other. And I said,
science wasn't created to explain away God. It was basically

(57:49):
science is here to explain God's creation. And then kind
of that was my segue into speaking to my dad
about that. I'm like, the more you get to know
yourself psychologically and you're able to purge and talk truths
and then process it with another human being, that frees
up all the baggage. And it's just like when we

(58:11):
go into into the medicine and we have the ego
dissolution and that crap gets pulled out and we have
we restore that that connection right from the vertical right,
it's re established. I'm like, but you don't have to
do that with psychedelics. Doing a lot of good psychotherapy
with someone that you trust and has your back, you

(58:32):
can clear yourself with that dunk on the planet, in
this regular state of consciousness, not in an altered state
of consciousness. And look, I'm gonna be so bold to
say that that's what God, divine source, however you frame
that wants us to do he wants he sheet it.
They are trying to be respectful because whatever wants us

(58:56):
really to experience that in our day to day life,
you don't need to necessarily the psychedelics. You don't necessarily
need to do this stuff. But you know, we know
when we meet our clients who is holding on to
a lot of that gunk and it's keeping them stuck
and grounded and then pain.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Obviously, even a therapist who thinks he's pretty well grounded
is only out to some gunk that needs some time
to to you know, evalue weight, or to talk to
somebody about to bring that up. You're absolutely right, And
of course, because this is a podcast about logo therapy,
I do have to come out and the fact that
you know, the great Victor Frankel one of the first
to say, hey, it's not just my body but mind

(59:40):
body spirit as well. And you know, spirituality is a
key component to be in a healthy, well rounded human being,
and that's a lot of what we see through these
different journeys.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Yeah, you know, I think my parents, being good Catholics,
were concerned that I was going to go well, you know,
find some devil worship rap. You know, I was like
and look, you know, surprise, surprise. What happened after my
every journey is if anything, my my spirituality was enhanced,

(01:00:14):
increase more connectedness to self, to my higher power. And
I just you just want to spread the love. I
know that sounds so hippy sixty stuff, but man, I
just every time I come off the love fest, I
tell home friends, I'm like, look, I'm gonna be extra

(01:00:34):
super league, super disgustingly positive and loving and just coming
to shut up if you want. But I'm like, I
just like, yeah, it doesn't last forever. You get grounded.
But listen, hey, love this came up in my first journey.
Love is free, give it away. Stop being so damn
cheap with it beautifully stated.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
And that's like, I get the hippie thing now that
I've been there, now that I've done a mass sib
doose of psilocytmin and it's like, Okay, I could talk
about it all day long, but then I experienced it,
I'm like, I get it. Like that group you spend
that time with you only know each other three or
four days, but there's some connections that people share of
their soul, positive and negative. Like it's one thing to

(01:01:17):
have this kind of journey solo and to come out
with these spiritual awakenings. But man, I I will share,
I will preach it from the mountains. Man. Doing this
in a group is this isn't hyperbole. This is it's
life changing. It and truly be life changing. And I
saw a lot of lives change up. I stay in
touch with a lot of people I journeyed with. You know,

(01:01:39):
Nick and I will meet for coffee every once in
a while. While I have coffee, he's I don't know,
it's six o'clock in Greece or something like that. But uh,
it's amazing stuff. And if more and more people open
up to these historically traditional indigenous forms of medicine and
we let go of all the big you know, the
joke in our circles, right, if we just you know,

(01:02:00):
gave all of these politicians a little bit a lot
of mushrooms, man, things could be a things could be
a little different, a lot different. So yeah, hey, I know,
we got class in a little bit and we've got
other things to talk about. You. You've wrapped up so
many beautiful ways. I just hey, thank you man. I
really appreciate you and being willing to jump into this

(01:02:24):
blindly and to do what you do so masterfully as
a therapist, Like thank you honestly, as the person that
was your client for the past hour, I truly appreciate you, Rob.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Dan, You're getting be choked up because I'm a softy
at heart. Listen, I feel privileged and blessed every time,
and I always ask why the hell did people even
feel comfortable talking to me and being vulnerable, but know
they mean so much to me, And ever since we
met just a couple of short months ago, I feel
like I've known you for years and not a couple

(01:02:57):
of months. It's been a tremendous blessed and I've loved
each conversation more than the last. And I'm so happy
to hear about your journey and I can't wait to
hear more because I know as the days and weeks
and months progressed, there's going to be more and more
and more stuff that's going to come out. So I'm
gonna be hitting me up my friends.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
I can't wait. I can't wait, Man, take care of all.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
So that was my journey or what we could fit
into in our podcast slash Integration slash Psychotherapy, session. As
you heard me say several times, I literally have twenty
pages of notes I took during that week and my
experience and after that week as well. And for a

(01:03:49):
five hour experience or a four day, four day, four
and a half day retreat, three and a half day retreat,
boy is, as one of my teachers, IRV Yallam is
known to say, that is a lot of grist for
the therapeutic mill. I've got some things to sort through

(01:04:09):
and figure out. I've got some shadow work to do,
and it's this experience really opened me up to that
and a lot of other things. Was I closed off
prior to that? Did? I just not know? I'm not sure,
but it was powerful. In the end, it was positive.
But I can tell you even those that may have
experienced difficult what we call challenging journeys, as we still

(01:04:34):
communicate today with just communicating this morning, are finding new
rays to grow and evolve and make these experiences a
part of their life. So I'm a believer. I Well,
if you've been listening to the podcast for a while,
you know I'm not a big fan of modern medicine,
and sometimes not even of modern mental health. But what

(01:04:57):
I see emerging, the way we are going to be able,
the way we are currently able to help people with ketemine,
and the way I will be offering with my peers
psychedelic psilocybin assisted retreats in places where it's legal. I
think we have some powerful opportunities for healing, for growth,

(01:05:22):
for evolution, to change ourselves and to change our communities.
So hey, I hope you enjoyed that podcast. If you
have any questions or are interested whatsoever, you know where
you can contact me. It's Daniel Afrans dot com, d
A n I E L A F R A n

(01:05:44):
Z dot com. And what you know it, I'm gonna
go talk to somebody right now about about their first
preparation conversation about ketemine assistant therapy. So maybe we've talked
about that at some point, but again, if you've listened
all the way to this point, you obviously have some interest.
Let me know, let's work together, or let's.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Look at what a retreat might look like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
As always, thank you for this opportunity to bring a
little bit of meeting, purpose and resilience to your day
and just a little bit of psychedelic That's what take.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Journey Okay, now, fucking

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
And he
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