April 14, 2025 • 66 mins
In this episode of the Meaning Project Podcast, Dr. Dan engages in a deep conversation with therapist Greg Liotta about the intersections of mature masculinity, psychedelic therapy, and personal growth. They explore the importance of surrendering to experiences, the role of psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT, and the significance of breathwork in healing. The discussion also touches on the societal pressures surrounding masculinity and the need for connection and understanding in mental health. In this conversation, Dr. Dan and Greg Leota explore profound themes of transcendence, emotional maturity, and the integration of spiritual experiences into daily life. They discuss the significance of 5-MeO, the role of anger in spirituality, and the importance of self-love and emotional regulation. The dialogue emphasizes the journey of ego dissolution, the healing power of connection, and the quest for personal growth and meaning.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- Mature masculinity involves embracing vulnerability and softness.
- Psychedelic therapy can facilitate personal growth and healing.
- Surrendering to experiences can lead to profound insights.
- 5-MeO-DMT is derived from the Bufo alvarius toad and has unique properties.
- Breathwork is a powerful tool for accessing deeper states of consciousness.
- Connection and community are essential for mental health.
- Societal pressures can distort perceptions of masculinity.
- Trusting nature and the healing process is crucial.
- Neuroscience supports the idea of seeking transcendent experiences.
- Healing involves both scientific and spiritual dimensions. Transcendence can be observed in the brain through practices.
- 5-MeO experiences can lead to profound self-realization.
- The universe is inherently loving and not conditional.
- Emotional maturity is crucial for spiritual growth.
- Self-love involves setting healthy boundaries.
- Anger can be a powerful emotion that needs healthy expression.
- Trauma responses can lock individuals in negative emotional states.
- Ego dissolution allows for a deeper understanding of self.
- Connection with others is vital for healing and growth.
- Finding meaning in life is a personal journey that varies for everyone.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hello, and welcome to the Meeting Project podcast. I am
your host, doctor daniel A. Friends, and as always, thank
you for this opportunity to bring a little bit of meaning,
purpose and resilience to your day. Today's guest is a
very special man, quite special to me. Mister Greg Wliota
is a therapist at a co occurring disorders treatment center
(00:54):
in Austin, Texas. He is also training to be a
psychedelic Assistant arapist. And he was my guide, my partner,
my sitter at our Ketymine Retreat, our Kedemine practicum back
in November of last year. So Greg and I spent
(01:16):
some pretty intimate time together getting to know each other
and working through each other's intentions and integration and sitting
for each other during the Ketemine journey. And since that time,
you know, that kind of work makes for fast friends,
and our continued work together as made for friends with
some depth, even in a brief amount of time. So
(01:40):
I've been meaning to have him on the show for
quite a while, and today we really it was kind
of funny. We just we connected in the beginning before
we even hit the record button, talking about grooming habits
and hair styles and you know which, of course, turns
into masculinity, toxic masculinity, mature masculinity, and how psychedelic assistant
(02:03):
therapy factors into that. So here is my conversation with Greg.
I hope you.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Enjoy Greg, my friend.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I've been waiting for this moment. I'm so excited. We
got to start early. Although now we're not starting early
because you and I have had an amazing conversation about
male grooming rituals and how each one of us has
this beautiful bald head in its own way. You showed
me about your shave butter, which I'm definitely gonna purchase
here sometime soon. Look, we literally just paused in a
(02:40):
beautiful conversation just so I could hit the record button.
Pick that back up. Let's talk about mature masculinity, man,
because so many dudes need to hear about that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
First of all, do you want to like maybe pump
up your viewership by doing a commercial for the shave
butter and letting the company not, hey.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Are they sponsoring you at all? Because I mean, if whatever,
if you if you're making a couple of bucks off
of it, Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, so you're right, you know it. It's all and
it's always a beautiful conversation with you. Dan. That was
the thing that I felt felt like divinely blessed when
we were put right next to each other at the
retreat with I p I and teamed us up with
each other, and I just found a resonance of the
(03:31):
two men entering into that you know, phase of mature elderhood,
you know, masculine elderhood, and and and and so we
get it, you know, we get We started talking about Greig.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I got I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in. I'm not ready.
I'm not sure I'm ready for that word that. Really
I have to be honest here for you know. I
know we're doing a podcast for the people, but all
of a sudden feels like therapy because you just put
me in an elderhood and I'm feeling some heart palpitations
and WHOA, what does that mean? Man?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
That's part of the initiation, man, what kind of an initiation?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I think ketamine with you is initiation enough. It's his
elderhood thing.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
You guided me, didn't you, and you showed up.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It was an honor and a pleasure, brother.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
My pleasure and my honor. And you do that for
people all over all over, right. So you know, I
have a teacher he's eighty years old, and he laughs
at me. He's like, you know, I'm sixty three years old.
He's like, you're young, You're no elder. He's like the
Navajo say, you're not an elder until you're like whatever,
(04:47):
ninety something years old. But we live in a a
in a society that is really suffering so deeply, you know,
from the lack of uh, of depth within you know,
within the masculine realm. And that's not only something that
(05:14):
that only men can can access. Right. And then part
of that depth, I think comes from as we get older,
we even get we begin to become softer, right, we
we we ripen, you know. I I see men that
as they get older, they get harder, they get more rigid.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I think, uh, some of the illnesses that so many
men get in in old days, hardening of the arteries, right,
hard of hearing, right, all all of this this is
this lack of flexibility, lack of pliability.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That was the word I was going to go with.
We we'd lack if we let it go that way.
We lack that flexibility in our thinking and in our
cognitive structure, and that that can be really problematic.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Exactly exactly, So I think that the the you know,
the natural process of evolution for a man is to
begin to pour more energy into the feminine aspect of
you know, receptivity and flexibility and the capacity to come
(06:33):
from an open heart, to be nurturing, to make space. Really,
I mean, women have been making space for us for
thousands and thousands of years. We should just apologize for
that up front, right, But it's like our job is
(06:54):
to make space for all of these these aspects of ourselves.
And so so it's like any other you know, if
a root, a fruit starts to get ripe, it softens.
So what I was, what I was was telling, was
telling Dan right before we came on here was it.
Before I gave myself permission to shave my head. I
(07:19):
had a story that the reason why we have we
have to lose our hair as men is because we
suffer from arrogance and nature wants to punish us, which
is a victim kind of thinking. Right. But then you know,
when I got to that place where I still had hair,
(07:41):
and I did wanted it. I wanted it to be
a little empowering to actually choose it before it was
it was chosen for me to go down and pick
up a razor and get some shave butter and turn
it into a self care ritual. And I was able
to let go of all of these ideas about my
(08:03):
worth and my loveability as being connected to my appearance,
how attractive I am, and that letting go led to
this incredible sense of freedom, like a lightning of a
load that I carried for you know, decades. Right, I
(08:23):
look good.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I gotta I gotta stay in shape, I gotta get
my hair right. You know, I gotta like, you know,
all of this stuff about my appearance because I'm judging
myself that way. I think my worth is all wrapped
up in that right. So I think that it is
a right of passage. And how you approach it, you know,
do you fight against it or do you allow yourself
(08:46):
to soften and become a more receptive and accepting of
nature as nature is unfolding and just you know, just
surrender to it.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And that's a you know, could sound like it is
a you know, very mundane, you know, type of conversation,
but we could be talking about psychedelics and it's the
same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
In terms of that softening, in terms of that opening
up to experience.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's the surrender, right, like you know what, you know,
people that are fearful of the space that you enter
within psychedelics, and maybe most people are, you know, to
some degree. And there are some that I have that
that fear about, like what's going to happen to me?
(09:41):
And but what I have found is is that when
when where I am able to surrender and just let go,
like take me, just take me, I surrender all of
who I am to you, take all of me. I
trust that I'm going to be okay. You that's get rewarded.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But you got to have that trust, right, much like
trusting in you know, going back to masculinity, you know,
having that trust that you are lovable, that you are worthwhile. Right.
We live in a world that has so many, for
men in particular, so many misplaced values of worth. And
when we challenge those and find those for ourselves, we
(10:29):
get to soften, We get to open up to that
experience of all, right, life, take me. And I think
psychedelic work is very much a microcosm of real life. Yeah, right,
And the important thing You're right, that trust. You have
to have the right set and setting. I know, for
me going into both of our practic comes, I yeah,
(10:52):
I was not comfortable. I was not ready. I was
you know, I went back to that very masculine quality
wanting to control the situation. So before ketamine, I went
and had my own experience, legal and local. I went
up to the local ketamine clinic. I got to know
the the nurse there and we kind of talked and
I said, all right, I want to I want to
try this, and was amazing. So by the time I
met you and Boulder and we journeyed together on opposite days, right,
(11:16):
I was ready, but then also somewhat nervous. And then
when it came to psilocybin. You know, never had I
done anything like that, only read the stories grew up with,
you know, Nancy and Robald Reagan telling me this is
my brain, this is my brain on drugs, and you know,
the egg cracking in the front. You know, I thought
my brain was gonna fry in a frying pan. But
(11:36):
having that set and setting, and I speak to this
to so many people, right, having the right people around you,
having the right situation, having trust and knowing that you're
gonna be taken care of allows you to allows you
to unfold and let it happen.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, yeah, you can allow if you if you if
you can work your mindset around. And this is a
process that I went through where I asad a question
why am I afraid of this? And most most of
my experiences with five E O D M T H,
(12:15):
which is you know, a radical a radical consciousness expanding experience,
instant ego dissolution, if you can allow that. But what
I what I had to do is work my mindset around, like, Okay,
why should I trust this medicine? Why should I not
(12:39):
trust it? Does it want to hurt me? Why would
I think that nature would want to hurt me? Why
would I think that? Right? That says something about me.
If I expect that it's going to hurt me, I
don't trust nature. Right. Maybe maybe maybe the man has
(13:01):
been at odds with nature for so long that we,
you know, we have a right to think that maybe
nature is mad at us. People walk around feeling like
God is mad at me, or God abandoned me or whatever,
you know. And when I say God, I mean whatever
your concept of God is, it's maybe it's nature. But
I had to work it around so that I began
(13:23):
to reason for myself that this medicine wants what's good
for me. This medicine doesn't want to hurt me. The
medicine wants to impart its wisdom to me. It wants
to dance in me. Right. That's that's sort of like
the way I began working with psilocybin. Right, It's just
(13:44):
like I could feel it dancing, and like I feel
it coming alive inside of me, and as if this
intelligence comes up from the earth and wants to just
enjoy experiencing the sensation of being inside of a human
body and then to say thank you to me by
(14:05):
then rendering you know, images and awarenesses and insights and guidance.
If I simply am willing to surrender and say take
me and thank you, and I come forward, you know,
from a perspective of thanks, like thank you in advance, right,
(14:30):
And that always yields in my experience, that always yields
a positive experience. I think people that have adverse experiences
with psych with not just with psychedelics, right, people get
adverse experiences with weed. People have adverse experiences with alcohol.
(14:52):
Alcohol people have adverse with food.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Very true. Yeah, and so man, you made so many
good points. I want to go back to that idea
of so many of the psychedelics we use in therapy
are derived or just purely naturally occurring. And here we are.
We've been taught for fifty years or so that those
are illegal and you should stay away from home, and
they're criminal even though they've been used for thousands of years.
(15:19):
But you know what, you should trust the big businesses
that are making billions of dollars off of giving you
a pill every day, and people living in you know,
MC mansions everywhere, those are the trustworthy people because it
went through an approval process by the FDA. Meanwhile, what
you're promoting only went through an approval process of you know,
(15:40):
medicine people men and women using them for thousands of
years and healing ceremonies with indigenous people. When you have
put it that way, not trusting nature, it's like, oh
my goodness, how how have we gone so far away
from you know, where we could be or should be. Okay, look, Gret,
you you are are far more the intrepid traveler that
(16:02):
I am. I realized that when we first met here.
You know, we meeting Boulder back in November. I'm getting
ready to have my second ketamine experience and I think
that was like your fourth of that week maybe or
something like that. Like I joke, but I know you
You've You've journeyed a lot more. Let's go back for
the audience's sake. Five me o d MT, which I
(16:24):
remember when I first started teaching this, I had to
like count on my fingers five and get all the
letters right. And now I love the fact that I
just I've studied this, so it's five medmt just rolls
right off the tongue and it's such an amazing substance.
This talk a little bit about where five meo d
mt comes from, and.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's the toad's psychedelic right, yeah, okay, so yeah, it's
it comes from the I think it's buffal alvirius toe
that come from the Sonora Desert. There are other I
think there are other toads around the world that are
(17:12):
of that same genus of toad that they don't have
the venom. What happens is is that the toad and
this is a unique, unique condition where normally you're only
going to find a toad in a pond, right they
live in water. This toad lives underground in a desert
(17:37):
for nine months before it emerges, nine months, soaking up
all of the wisdom of the earth for nine months,
the same amount of time it takes for a human
being to be born. And it comes out and then
you know, there are these glands like around its eyes
(17:59):
and head that secrete this venom when they feel endangered.
One of the things that I that I learned from
my medicine woman was that typically it comes out in
a sort of a rated format format, but when a
human being handles it, they dump it in these thick
(18:24):
gobs of goo and then they just scraping. They put
it on a glass and then it crystallizes and then
they break it up. The chemical compound is five m
e O d m T, So it's a it's a
it's a it's variation or a relation you know to
(18:45):
the d m T that we know from a ahuasca
or you know, od or psilocybin.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And d m T being check it out. I think
I've learned this to dimethyl trip to mean which chemically
I mean, like you said, there are so many variations
of it, one of which all right, listeners, if you
take nothing away from this today, take this DMT secreted
by the pineal gland in the human brain. Right, So
(19:15):
we have this in our brain already. It's not like
the old Beavis and butt Head episode where they're out
licking toads just trying to find something to get high
off of. This is an actual substance that, through different
mystical experiences spiritual experiences, we secrete ourselves. However, we also
recognize stress. Damn greg we didn't even know we were
(19:39):
going to go here. But what what does stress due
to the pineal gland hardens it? It crystallizes that pineal gland.
And when we stop having these experiences, when we don't
take care of ourselves, and so sorry, going back to
your d MT, ayahuasca, peyote, right, all derivatives of diamethotrisity VMT.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
So you know, just to to piggyback on something you
were saying about, how that they say that we have
it naturally produced in our pineal gland, but a tiny
little bit. And some of the theories that I'll be hearing
that for scientists are sort of bantering around, is like,
(20:27):
what's the point of it? Right. Well, one of the
things that I heard scientists speaking about recently. I can't
I can't remember which who he was, but he said
that they think that it's possible that when we are dying,
when we die, when people have a near death experience,
(20:50):
it's it's released. Now. Not only does it buffer the
transition from this life to the next life after this life,
but if a person doesn't die and they return from
the near death experience, d MT has a buffering or
(21:12):
protective quality to protect the neural the cells so that
they can return from that experience without the same level
of brain damage or maybe no brain damage.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I have not heard this hypothesis before. That makes sense.
That's why we pursue d MT and psychedelic assistant therapy
because it's got a neural protecting quality.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
So now that's right. So so and when when we
when we go back throughout history, we look at the
ancient scriptures, right, the the Vadis, the pont Shots, maybe
maybe the Bible, right, A lot of those, a lot
of those scriptures sound like a person who is under
(22:01):
the influence of DMT. Some people are like, well, you know,
this is evidence that the ancient prophets were they were
practicing with psychedelics, but maybe they were in caves where
it was pitch dark and they were exposed to nothing
(22:23):
but darkness for maybe weeks or months on end, and
breathing in certain patterns, which then allows the DMT in
the paneo grant to dump into the brain, and then
an individual experiences what we call somati, right or nirvana
right now. Christians call it heaven all right, enlightenment, that
(22:49):
experience that we always sort of like take it for granted.
And I even think, you know, the Judaeo maybe more
like the Christian. The Christian twist on all of this
is that if you want that, you have to work
really hard for that, right, because God's watching, and when
(23:10):
you're done with your life you get rewarded or you
get cast into a fiery hell. Right, so you got
to work really hard for it. I had an experience
about fifteen years ago when I decided to go get
off the grid. I went to live in an astrom
up in the mountains, and all I did for one
year was meditate, chant, pray, yoga and service for one
(23:38):
whole year. The thinking up there was the same as
the Christian Catholic theology that I was raised in, Like,
you can't experience somebodi until you work really hard, right,
and you got to put a lot of lifetimes in
(24:00):
And you know that's almost it's the same. It's the same.
It's like a work ethic approach to enlightenment. But maybe
it's not about work, right, Maybe maybe it's about what
we were talking about in the beginning. Maybe it's about surrender, right,
Maybe maybe, and maybe it's about like managing our bodies
(24:22):
and our breath. I mean, that's what yoga was designed for.
Yoga was specifically asana was designed to make it possible
for these guys to sit on a deer matt in
a cave for weeks or months at a time and
just breathe and go deep and deep and deep into
(24:44):
themselves and then come out with a scripture as beautiful
as the Upanishads. And if you leave this podcast with
any if you look for any reading, that's what that's
the one the pods. You open up any page and
it's like light bouncing off of the page. And I
(25:06):
supposedly came from these reshie's that we're in these caves
doing this, this this deep meditation.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So to make sure, you give me a link to
the best ways. I know you know the best ways
to find the Pawnee shods and where people can find them, Greg,
And I want you to continue there. But you know
what you're describing is what this realm you and I
are walking into is such a beautiful and I don't
(25:35):
want to say it is new in the way that
it is taking hard science research, but there's such a
spiritual component together. It's almost like we're finding this new
melding of science and religion in such a meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah. Absolutely that that's the meaning of yoga union, right,
And maybe it's one of the side effects of working
with these medicines, or not just the medicines, but these practices.
We're including these breathing, these breathing practices, right, whim hof
(26:16):
holotropic breathwork and DMT breathing, shamanic breathing, you know, all
of these breathing practices. I put them in the same category.
If you're a psychedelic practitioner, I don't think there's any
better integration tool than breath work. And if you're not
yet ready to or interested in diving into psychedelics, but
(26:41):
you are interested in having an experience of yourself that
is beyond your name and your identification with your form
and all of the things that you have. Breath work
can do that for you, right. I don't know if
they know if the breath work can actually release the
d MT from the pineal grand A land. I think
(27:02):
that's up. I think that's up in the air right now?
Did you get absolutely you can precipitate that experience within
your mind and in your body, right? So, uh, I
don't know. Did I just go on a tangent? Did
(27:23):
you ask me?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I think, well, I was just going to point out
learn that people have been engaging in these breathing techniques
again for thousands of years without psychedelics, and it's kind
of like we've missed so much of that. I remember
the first time I was ever introduced into any kind
of breath work. It was actually with the digitidos behind
me when I first moved to this area and I
was looking for something to do with my girls and
(27:44):
I see this flyer for did youurydo prom Like, what
the hell is a digerid And it looked like something
fun for the kids, And so I met this guy,
great guy. We're still friends today and that was probably
fifteen twenty years ago. But he was talking about and
he wrote this book about his anxiety and deep breathing
and the digital ado because the digital do an ancient
(28:07):
aboriginal instrument fosters this weird kind of breathing. Man, This
like circular. I can't even do it yet, this circular breathing,
but it accesses different parts of the brain. Why don't
we You know, we live in a time where stress
has made us such shallow breathers, is what I've read
and seen. Something, Right, we don't take deep breaths, and
(28:27):
when we do, it's in this like all right, well
you have to go sit and meditate for five to
ten minutes to take deep breath And it's like, man,
no you don't. There's so many other ways to do it,
but we're missing we're missing it. And so I want
to make sure we get a link. I want to
ask you for so many links after this. That DMT
breathing exercise you sent me, pretty cool stuff. We need
to share that with people too.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, you know, I think that we live in a
We live in a society today where most people are
breathing in a pattern that actually not only does it
support survival, survival, consciousness, but it produces it. I work
right now in an inpatient treatment center for people suffering
(29:12):
dual diagnosis, and I can tell you that all of
them that say they're diagnosed with anxiety, almost all of
them are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder PTSD, panic attack disorder.
They all breathe in a way that mimics survival, shallow, rapid,
(29:37):
shallow breathing. What happens is like the vagus nerve gets
the message I'm in trouble, I'm in danger. I might
die if I don't fight or get out of here, right,
And that's because of the way they breathe. Right. It's
like maybe we've learned to breathe that way because of
(29:58):
the society we've lived in. Right, But then nobody's actually
teaching little children. Maybe not enough people are teaching little children,
like here's how you breathe so that your brain and
your nervous system believe that you're safe, and that start
talking to you and giving you an inner narrative that
(30:19):
you're safe. Right, So what I get them A lot
of times I'm like, well, I don't really know if
you have a panic attack disorder or you just don't
know how to breathe so.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, I've caught myself saying that so many times in
the past decade, Like everybody's coming out I'm anxious and
I have panic attacks. I'm like, all right, tell me
what you're experiencing. Like no, that I mean, yeah, if
you obviously got on Google, you looked at the criteria
and you made your symptoms match the criteria. But you
don't have a clinical anxiety situation. You've got a lifestyle problem.
(30:52):
Our our instructor doctor drew this past week, right, that
model last week, that integrative model he shared with us, Like,
before we start throwing pills in anxiety, let's start looking
at lifestyle. Let's look at the simple things like how
you're breathing and what your stress levels are. H And
do you remember he told us what vegas means, so
I forget.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
What it meant. Wandering Why why is that important? That
nerve wanders from the face through the brain, down the neck,
and then spreads out throughout the body. Right, And it
starts in the face because our very foundational requirement for
(31:34):
living and surviving and thriving is connection. And it doesn't
actually get disrupted until some form of trauma says this
is not safe. And so what's not safe is my
connection with the people and the life around me. Right,
that's it. When connection is threatened, the vegas nerve then
(31:56):
gets triggered and goes in, starts starts activating in different
parts of the body, sympathetic right around your heart where
you need it so you can fight or run, or
then it will shut or else it's shut. If you
can't do that, shuts down, goes down into the gut area,
and all he's doing is waiting for it. It's become
(32:18):
safe to be able to reconnect. Right. And that's and
that's why people do drugs, right I I.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
You know, Oh that's a big jump. Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well, okay, you know, so if you're coming from the
disease model, it's like you get high, you take drugs,
and you drink because you want to escape. There's even
some judgment in that, like, you know, like you don't
have the courage to be able.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
To have the will power.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
You don't have the will power, or you don't have
the you don't have the quote unquote the gift of
desperation to be able to face life on life's terms, right,
let me tell first of all, what I have found
is that most people that are stuck in a sympathetic
(33:10):
nervous system state fight flight, they want to drink. They
want to take depressants, downers, anything, opiates, anything to um
themselves out so they don't have to feel all of
that fight flight going on. And people that are stuck
(33:30):
in depression, apathy, hopelessness, all of these, all of these
parasympathetic emotional states, they want to take uppers, cocaine, meth
right speed. And people who have disorganized global activation intensity,
(33:51):
which is a combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity going
on at the same time, they mix upper and downers. Right.
And so maybe instead of like you don't have the
gift of desperation, or you don't have the willpower, you're
too afraid to face reality on life terms, maybe you're
(34:14):
trying to find a way to get yourself back into
a state of safety and social connection. And there's more.
A couple decades ago, I read another book, Well Why
God Won't Go Away, by these neuroscientists you can google that.
I don't remember their names, but these neuroscientists wanted to
(34:38):
They want to understand if we are neurologically, biologically programmed
to seek for transcendent experience. So they hooked up three
groups of people, Franciscan nuns, Tibetan monks, and transcendental meditators.
(35:00):
It hooked them up to these MRIs and then they
put a little string on their finger and they watched
a picture of their brain and they said, do your thing,
whatever your practice is, do it. When you reach that
point of union, transcendent union with all just tug your
(35:21):
finger and then we'll take a snapshot of what's happening
in your brain. And what they found was that it's
the same exact place in everybody. So maybe people are
getting high and drinking because we on some level remember
(35:41):
that we are more than just this. And you asked
me about five, here's how I think about five five,
five fingers, five senses, and m E me zero zero
(36:11):
the experience of transcending while under the influence of five EO.
If I am willing and able to become zero, I
am then rewarded with the remembrance of who I really am.
(36:32):
That's a state of Samadi, and that sort of thing
will drive a person to go back over and over
again and find all of the ways in which I
can access that state without the toad.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So how do you bring that intellect? How do you
integrate that into day to day without chasing the high?
Without chasing the toad?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
First, I think you you you you were going to
chase it, because if you know the I think if
our emotional development is such that would think, you know,
it's outside of me and the only way I can
get it is by chasing it. Or if one's emotional
(37:25):
maturity is not developed enough where you might even be
able to cultivate certain cities as as a result of
deep spiritual practice. But you wear it on your ego, right,
this is the topic of the you know, the enlightened ego.
(37:49):
Then you're going to keep doing it. When I went
to live in the Ashla, I met a saint. Ama.
You gave me a mantra, said do this mantra one
hundred and eight times a day, and says I was
living in the ashram and had nothing to do but meditate,
(38:09):
pray and chant and do Pranayama. I did the mantra
like two three thousand times a day, and after about
a month I began experiencing special effects and I really
felt like I had arrived, man, and I began using
(38:31):
it to get all my needs met. Right, I wasn't
emotionally I wasn't emotionally developed enough. I wasn't mature enough
to be able to have that access to that kind
of power. And I think maybe there's some mercy involved
in this that even though it's available to all of
(38:51):
us at all times to be able to transcend the
self and to become one with nature and become one
with the universe and access all of the power that
is available, we can't do it because if we do
it before we're emotionally prepared, we'll abuse it. So, you know,
(39:12):
when I first started experiencing DM five m EO, I
went after it like mad Okay, I lived four hours
away from Mexico. I can gain access to this all
the time. I went, and I went through an experienced
a couple of years ago where you know, I was,
(39:35):
I was experiencing states of SOMEBODI and ego dissolution that
went on for you know, like ten days, and I
learned how to appreciate my ego because like, I couldn't
do anything.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, that sounds like a lot, man.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I couldn't get anything I couldn't get anything done, but
I kept chasing it. And my first awareness was like,
this is who I really am, and I don't have
to work my fingers to the bone that it is
the nature of the universe to love us. The universe
is not withholding love and saying you can't have it
(40:16):
unless you work your fingers to the bone until you
meditate enough or kneelon rice, when you pray or master
the Asina or memorize the Quran. That's the universe is
not holding these conditions right, It's love right, It's here,
(40:36):
it's there, It's there for us. And so I got
to a point where where my drive came for wanting
to bring this into the world in the way that
you're talking about, how do you integrate that it is
becoming frustrated by having a Samadi experience and then hour
(41:00):
later I'm having a road rage attacking now.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So that I come back to real life.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
This petty, you know, getting into my pettiness and like
remembering my grudges and remembering the things that are that
I'm afraid of and all of the things that forced
me to shrink. And I started to look at the
stark contrast between like my remembrance of who I really
(41:28):
am in those glorious somebodie experiences inside of d MT,
and then when I shrink, I go back into like
Greg Liota with what lives in neuroses and complexes, and
that gives rise to Okay, what can I do on
(41:54):
a daily basis? What do I got to stop doing
and what I got to start doing? Right? There's habits
that I had, some of them I still have, but
a lot of them have fallen away. D MT five
MEO will take away a lot of cravings that you
(42:15):
have for unhealthy things. There are certain things I used
to that were part of my life that are just
like it's just a shadow of what I really want
and I know I can have, and they drop. But
then there are other things about like the breath work
and like it's physiology, like therapy, it's all it's physiology, right, sleep, diet,
(42:41):
What am I listening to? Right? Like I used to
be roll all up in Facebook and social media and
now you hardly ever see me on there right because
it's just a lot of toxicity and I have a
reaction to it and that's not good for me. So
what is self love? Self? Love is like I have
the boundaries to be able to say no, like first
(43:03):
hour and last hour of every day, I dedicate to
my emotional and my spiritual uplifting.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Right, And that sounds like such a small price to
pay one hour in the beginning, one hour at the
end of the day or not. And you make such
an interesting point, right, Being on the socials is either
toxicity or quick cheap dopamine burst. Right, But very rarely
is there much a great psychological benefit. Now, there can
(43:35):
be some connection, things like that it's not all bad,
but when we catch ourselves checking it regularly and compulsively,
nothing good about it.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Well, you know, like you have to ask yourself a question, right, like, uh,
am I am I so angry about about what's happening
in our country and so committed to social justice that
that I'm going on there every day and I'm raging?
(44:07):
Or am I just addicted to being angry and outraged?
But you know I started going is is this a
separate addiction that actually has nothing to do with what's
actually happening. M Let me take a look at that,
let me let me let me maybe step back from that.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I don't you know, I think going back to our
discussion about you know, mature masculinity. Man, that's a there's
something about anger that can be empowering and addictive and
not very healthy.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
You know, I'm not, uh, I'm not one of these people,
you know, that side you know takes this. I'm not.
I wouldn't call myself a pacifist or say you know that.
You know, anger is the problem that prevents a person
from experiencing deep spirituality. I think that anger, we have
(45:12):
it for a reason, and maybe developing a healthier relationship
with it is what's in order. But over indulging, and
you know, over indulging it is very unhealthy, you know,
for our physiology and for our mind, just as over
(45:33):
you know, over indulging sadness or over indulge fear.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, emotions should be a warning, a signal, an indication. Hey,
I got to I'm angry. What do I want to
do about it? I'm sad? What do I want to
do about it? You know, emotions are a motivating factor
for our behavior, and you know, if I'm angry, I
should do something about it. Not fuel more anger would
be a good place to start, but you know, to
find something constructive or you know, sometimes it needs to
(45:59):
be in destructive but even anger expressed and destructive ways
can be healthy, whether it's breaking down the body through exercise,
hard running, lifting, finding some deep breathing principles, going out
and chopping wood, whatever means right, But to find a
healthy direction for those emotions is definitely a sign of
mature masculinity, responsibility, mature femininity as well. Right, I think
(46:24):
we've seen some of that too.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, well, you know there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of anger, and there's a lot of
fear that permeating the world right now. And I believe
that it's it's just a trauma response. And if you
know we've been traumatized, the nervous system kind of gets
locked in. It keeps a person in sympathetic or parasympathetic mode,
(46:52):
and it's just locked. It's just there, like it's a
protective wall. I'm not going to let you get hurt.
This is what the nervous system is saying. I'm not
going to let you get hurt. We're gonna stay on guard,
We're gonna be vigilant, We're not gonna let anyone mess
with you, right, you stay angry, so you go online
and you automatically gravitate to fights and things that you know,
(47:12):
and and I am guilty of doing that, right so
and that seeing that, like seeing myself do that while
I was involved in all of these deep spiritual quests,
even to the point of having mm hmm, what a contrast, man,
(47:34):
what a contrast engage in a deep spiritual quest. But
then just like the contrast you know, rocked me, Like
I like I started like that. I give thanks to
Facebook for that because it made me, It made it
really real. It put it right in my faith. Dude,
Like who are you really? Right? What is this persona?
And uh? And then how is this behavior and this
(47:56):
person persona? How are they incongruent with each other? And
who are you really anyway? And you know, like I,
you know, this goes back to the this concept of zero,
like getting down to zero, like each identification you know
(48:18):
that I hold on to, like my name, there's one,
my gender, there's two, my you know, my personality, my trauma,
my job, and everything and all just kind of adds
up and we sort of we begin to like think
of ourselves in the terms of all of those numbers
when if you just boil it all down to zero,
(48:41):
you don't have to cling to any of it, and
then you can look at it and go like, wow, maybe,
you know, maybe I'm pretty incongruent. Maybe maybe I really
am uneven and in some areas, you know, in some
places at different times a more function than I am
other others. Uh, you know. And so like this experience
(49:05):
for me, you know, having these radical awakening experiences with
psychedelics has just illuminated for me. Here's this is a practice.
It's not an identity. I'm not enlightened. My intelligence or
(49:30):
my knowledge isn't wisdom. My wisdom isn't mine. And like
all of these like things like when you just like
look at it, honestly, it's it's not that romantic, and
it's not that impressive. It's and it's not unimpressive either.
(49:53):
It's just it's just like, wow, look at all of
these stories you know that that I've made up, including
like I'm more enlightened because I've done this, that and
the thing. And maybe that's part of the softening and
the ripening that comes with moving into elderhood.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
I think also one of the things you're talking about
reminds me a lot of our conversations of ego dissolution, right,
And I think that's a big phrase. You know, what
does that really mean? I think you simplified it really well,
taking all these constructs that we use to describe ourselves
and reminding us, you know, bringing that back down to
zero and just being human and focusing how that was
(50:37):
beautiful about the vegas nerves starting in our face. Right.
It is so important to do what we're doing here,
to do what we do when we get to have
coffee together, you know, to do and add in a
live space, and to connect with other people.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, yeah, to connect with other people. Yeah, And that's
what you know. I'm so grateful today really just for
the chance to be able to have an hour with you,
connecting with you. You know, we throw around and we always
do these lofty concepts that we were always bantering around about.
(51:14):
But like, really, like when I think about you, I
just think about how it feels to be in your presence.
You know, how loving you are, how caring you've been
with me at times. That's the connection. That's what counts.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Greg. I certainly appreciate our connection. Again, it was so
amazing like, you know, we get together. They put us
together for ketamine. This was kind of cool. The school
is so so so well planned out and thoughtful in
their absolute avoidance of planning and thinking things through right
(51:56):
and right. They're so well planned and thoughtful. They're chaos
like for Ketamine practicum. They let us know about each other.
What a couple of weeks in advance. They email us
and you and are email and back and forth, and
we get to meet each other and we have an
amazing connected time together. Golly man, I'll never forget how
you took care of me after my journey and just
(52:18):
you were in a process and it was awesome, right,
and then me trying to take care of you is
you were busy taking care of everybody else. Yeah, so awesome.
You're such a caregiver.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Well you know what part of it was was was that,
but you were really the caregiver because like, and when
I came out of that, I was not an easy
client because here's what, here's what happened. I came out
(52:53):
of that. And by the way, Ketamine. I really I
love I really really love I love ketamine. Hey hey, hey,
can you put this on pause? I love I love
(53:13):
ketamine as as a as a therapeutic medicine. And what
it does is it really opens my heart. And the
moment I came out of it and I could feel
my heart was wide open. I didn't want to save it.
I wanted I wanted to pour it out there so
immediately again like thinking about people that I care about
(53:36):
that were in the building that I wanted to just
give give my love to, right, because.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
You had peers from from your practice with you, Yeah,
so these were just these were people you just met,
Like these are people you've known for a while that you, yeah,
that you wanted to go connect with.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
There were people here that you know, I cared about,
and my my heart, you know, really opened up. And
rather than the need to sit down and process what happened,
my need was to share it, to pour it out
of my heart, not even really so much to care
(54:12):
take anybody, but so much as to share what had
like opened up in my heart. And you, I think,
in a way, demonstrated more skill than a lot of people.
Hold on a second, Hold on a second. Yeah, you
(54:39):
demonstrated more skill, I think than than than most in
that moment because it takes a lot of skill too
like lean back and like let the client choose how
they want to unfold after coming out, right, and you
never I know how a person's going to come out.
(55:01):
Sometimes a person comes out of a journey, they're extremely
vulnerable and they're very sensitive and they really need to
be held. And in my case, you know, I wasn't
feeling that way. I was feeling more exuberant, and you
just kept coming back. I'm for about an hour, you
just kept like coming over to me. You okay, you
need anything, you know, You're okay, you need anything. And
(55:25):
I felt incredibly taken care of and held by you.
And I think that's the mark of a skilled practitioner.
That's a great sitter. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
I appreciate that. You know, it's interesting I've had to
put that into practice now in recognizing that you trained
me well in that. You know, some people come out
a motive and ready to express and want to talk,
and others need time, need time just come to and
to process what they experienced. And we still process, but
(55:58):
it's just different. And again I love that, you know,
and when you went in, I mean you were prepared,
you had some great intentions, but also some experience too,
So this. You know your intentions were I believe really
prepared in a way through your past experience and watching
you first, I mean watching you, doctor Roheeney. I mean,
(56:19):
come on, what an amazing soul to have with us,
What a blessing that was.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
That was a real gift. I I think that she
is a rare soul on its plans.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
I agree somebody I know I would want to just
have in my life constantly, right like much like d MT. Right,
doctor Roheeny is the d MT of people.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
You just want her around all the time, so amazing
and just connected.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Let me let me, let me, let me share this.
I think you'll appreciate this. After that experience with Rohini,
I started using her as an anchor point for me
when I journey. H I breathe in like a mantra
three times, Rohini, Rohini, Rohini ex hell, Rohini, Rohini, Rohini
(57:09):
in hell, Rohini, Rohini, Rohini ex heal Rohini, Rohini, Rohini.
See her eyes, a big brown eyes and her face,
and that has actually carried me through quite a number
of journeys since the.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
Beautiful that's beautiful. All right, brother?
Speaker 2 (57:31):
What do we want?
Speaker 1 (57:31):
I know you've got to get to session, right, you
got sessions today.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
I got a session in fifteen minutes because.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I'm totally ready to like go make a big old
pot of tea and just continue to sit here and
talk to you. But we we have work that has
to be done. What do you what do you wanna?
What do you want the people to take away here? Man?
We talked about masculinity's psychedelics. Your experiences are journeys together.
What do we leave the people with?
Speaker 2 (57:57):
You know, the the the the impulse is to want
to wrap it up in a bow. H But I
think we just gave people a smortgage board, and so
I think my hope really is free person that's just
listening to revisit what what was the spark that was
(58:23):
letting you from this conversation? Was it shave butter? Was it?
You know? You know? You know we we you know,
mature masculinity, the rights of passage, moving into elderhood, you know, opening,
you know the heart ah, you know, enlightenment. You know
(58:47):
whether or not we need to work for it or
or you know, just surrender and allow it to be
you know, the I have this tattoo too comes from
Yoga Sutra of Potangeally. I put it around my risk
because I wanted to never forget it. This is a
(59:10):
chapter two, verse forty five, I think, and what it
says is in the moment of total surrender to whatever
God is, the moment total surrender to the moment somebody
is attained in that moment, right, So I you know,
(59:35):
I carry that around. But one of the things that
we you know, we elaborated on and here is like,
that's not the point of life experiencing somebody, right, And
so you know, just whatever you know you were able
to pick up from this that can help you to
(59:57):
walk through your day in a way that aligns you
you with that you know, highest vision of yourself. No,
I would actually love to hear what it was, you know,
I'd love to hear what people took from this, you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Know, because this started out as a podcast about logo
therapy and the psychology meaning I'll tie that in there,
but you really hit that well, right, What did you
find here that will help you discover meaning in your day?
What string I love that? What string do you pull on?
What word do you hold on? What becomes your mantra.
What do you dive deeper into? What do you learn
(01:00:31):
about and how do they get to find a way
to tell you? Where? Where do people find you besides
in your office out there in Austin.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Oh yeah, I have a Websitegoda dot com, I have
a Psychology Today profile, or you just google my name,
just punch my name in Regulaota.
Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Do we talk a little bit about how people can
find your amazing art?
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Oh my goodness, I can't believe you've never told me
about that, man, I just happened. I don't even remember
how I found it. Maybe it was in the signature
of an email. I'm like, what is this link? Holy cow? Greg,
some talent there.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Brother, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
I'm an artist and I have my own site. It's
not it's a Fine Art America site. So if you
punch Greg Liota Fine Art America, it'll take you to
my page. Most of it is digital. I started out
working with pastels and acrylics, but when I was living
(01:01:37):
in the West Indies, I all of my pastels got moldy,
they all got ruined, and I just like was actually
literally I was laying in a hammock and one like
wondering like what if I could My heart was closing up,
and I was wondering what can I do? Like how
(01:01:57):
can I open my heart? Maybe I can painted open?
What if I start painting again and open like? And
so I went and I got an iPad and I
downloaded an app that lets you create art, and I
started painting hearts. That's all I did, dozens and dozens
(01:02:19):
of open hearts and playing with different colors and different effects.
And that led me into a whole nother dimension of
the art world. And that's what you're seeing there. And
that's why I don't want I don't try to sell it.
I put it up there if anyone wants to buy it,
but I don't. I just feel like, you know, we
(01:02:40):
need you know, they say the opposite of depression is expression,
Like expression is the elixir, and I needed I still
do need something, some form of expression that I'm not
trying to make money doing, but just opening my heart
(01:03:01):
and allowing me to sort of be be in this
in this world. So I hope you go to there,
like punch in Greg Leota, find Art America and enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
It is fun to look at. Yeah, so many different
possibilities I want to put in all my offices, and
then I've got this stack of prints over here that
I haven't even framed yet, so I'll get some and
I feel like Greg, you certainly did that here today.
You are a masterful healing professional and hearing just your
passionate and just kind of talking through these topics. I'm
(01:03:36):
I'll be honest, I'm a little jealous of the person
that gets your next hour, man, because you just seem
on fire with the ability to help and heal. So
hopefully I'm sure it'll be an amazing session.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Well, thank you, Dan, I think that your your your gift.
I want to thank you on behalf of everybody you know,
for these beautiful podcasts that you've been giving giving the world,
for your your energy and your spirit and just the
(01:04:07):
you know, the kind of man that you are. We
need to We need more more men.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Like that like you, Noll, you and I keep talking
about that with our peers, and we're going to keep
growing men like this and men that are out there
to help and transcend the self and do good things.
So thank you, brother, I appreciate you. I love our
time together. Thank you so much. And hey man, Uh,
let's we've got so much more to talk about you
and welcome back anytime right on.
Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Thank you, Dan, I love you too, brother. Thank you
for giving me the opportunity to come and speak uh
with you about all these great topics today. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
My pleasure, all right. What a truly beautiful human being.
I love that man. I love my time I get
to spend with him, Love hearing his stories. I mean,
and an astron just praying and meditating and trying to
find himself doesn't sound.
Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Like a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
I don't know. Maybe I'll have to get the address
of that place and plan a year away. We'll see
how that goes. I'm not sure how the rest of
the doctor Dan family will see that, but maybe some
days they would like for me to go. Who knows.
But please take a look at Greg's art org. He
gave you the website there. Check out some of the
(01:05:29):
other links he sent our way. That DMT breathing is
pretty interesting. Yeah, have a look at his work. And
as he said, and we kind of meandered through quite
a few topics there. If there's anything that interested you specifically,
contact reg or. Of course, you know how to get
a hold of me, please send me your feedback. You
(01:05:51):
can find out more about what I'm up to, including
this year's Fall Ketamine Retreat, at Danielafrance dot com. That's
DA n i E L A f R A n
z dot com. As always, thank you for this opportunity
to bring a little bit of mental health, meaning, purpose,
resilience and psychedelics to your day. Thank you
Hello, and welcome to the Meeting Project podcast. I am
your host, doctor daniel A. Friends, and as always, thank
you for this opportunity to bring a little bit of meaning,
purpose and resilience to your day. Today's guest is a
very special man, quite special to me. Mister Greg Wliota
is a therapist at a co occurring disorders treatment center
(00:54):
in Austin, Texas. He is also training to be a
psychedelic Assistant arapist. And he was my guide, my partner,
my sitter at our Ketymine Retreat, our Kedemine practicum back
in November of last year. So Greg and I spent
(01:16):
some pretty intimate time together getting to know each other
and working through each other's intentions and integration and sitting
for each other during the Ketemine journey. And since that time,
you know, that kind of work makes for fast friends,
and our continued work together as made for friends with
some depth, even in a brief amount of time. So
(01:40):
I've been meaning to have him on the show for
quite a while, and today we really it was kind
of funny. We just we connected in the beginning before
we even hit the record button, talking about grooming habits
and hair styles and you know which, of course, turns
into masculinity, toxic masculinity, mature masculinity, and how psychedelic assistant
(02:03):
therapy factors into that. So here is my conversation with Greg.
I hope you.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Enjoy Greg, my friend.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I've been waiting for this moment. I'm so excited. We
got to start early. Although now we're not starting early
because you and I have had an amazing conversation about
male grooming rituals and how each one of us has
this beautiful bald head in its own way. You showed
me about your shave butter, which I'm definitely gonna purchase
here sometime soon. Look, we literally just paused in a
(02:40):
beautiful conversation just so I could hit the record button.
Pick that back up. Let's talk about mature masculinity, man,
because so many dudes need to hear about that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
First of all, do you want to like maybe pump
up your viewership by doing a commercial for the shave
butter and letting the company not, hey.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Are they sponsoring you at all? Because I mean, if whatever,
if you if you're making a couple of bucks off
of it, Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, so you're right, you know it. It's all and
it's always a beautiful conversation with you. Dan. That was
the thing that I felt felt like divinely blessed when
we were put right next to each other at the
retreat with I p I and teamed us up with
each other, and I just found a resonance of the
(03:31):
two men entering into that you know, phase of mature elderhood,
you know, masculine elderhood, and and and and so we
get it, you know, we get We started talking about Greig.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I got I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in. I'm not ready.
I'm not sure I'm ready for that word that. Really
I have to be honest here for you know. I
know we're doing a podcast for the people, but all
of a sudden feels like therapy because you just put
me in an elderhood and I'm feeling some heart palpitations
and WHOA, what does that mean? Man?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
That's part of the initiation, man, what kind of an initiation?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I think ketamine with you is initiation enough. It's his
elderhood thing.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
You guided me, didn't you, and you showed up.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It was an honor and a pleasure, brother.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
My pleasure and my honor. And you do that for
people all over all over, right. So you know, I
have a teacher he's eighty years old, and he laughs
at me. He's like, you know, I'm sixty three years old.
He's like, you're young, You're no elder. He's like the
Navajo say, you're not an elder until you're like whatever,
(04:47):
ninety something years old. But we live in a a
in a society that is really suffering so deeply, you know,
from the lack of uh, of depth within you know,
within the masculine realm. And that's not only something that
(05:14):
that only men can can access. Right. And then part
of that depth, I think comes from as we get older,
we even get we begin to become softer, right, we
we we ripen, you know. I I see men that
as they get older, they get harder, they get more rigid.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I think, uh, some of the illnesses that so many
men get in in old days, hardening of the arteries, right,
hard of hearing, right, all all of this this is
this lack of flexibility, lack of pliability.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That was the word I was going to go with.
We we'd lack if we let it go that way.
We lack that flexibility in our thinking and in our
cognitive structure, and that that can be really problematic.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Exactly exactly, So I think that the the you know,
the natural process of evolution for a man is to
begin to pour more energy into the feminine aspect of
you know, receptivity and flexibility and the capacity to come
(06:33):
from an open heart, to be nurturing, to make space. Really,
I mean, women have been making space for us for
thousands and thousands of years. We should just apologize for
that up front, right, But it's like our job is
(06:54):
to make space for all of these these aspects of ourselves.
And so so it's like any other you know, if
a root, a fruit starts to get ripe, it softens.
So what I was, what I was was telling, was
telling Dan right before we came on here was it.
Before I gave myself permission to shave my head. I
(07:19):
had a story that the reason why we have we
have to lose our hair as men is because we
suffer from arrogance and nature wants to punish us, which
is a victim kind of thinking. Right. But then you know,
when I got to that place where I still had hair,
(07:41):
and I did wanted it. I wanted it to be
a little empowering to actually choose it before it was
it was chosen for me to go down and pick
up a razor and get some shave butter and turn
it into a self care ritual. And I was able
to let go of all of these ideas about my
(08:03):
worth and my loveability as being connected to my appearance,
how attractive I am, and that letting go led to
this incredible sense of freedom, like a lightning of a
load that I carried for you know, decades. Right, I
(08:23):
look good.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I gotta I gotta stay in shape, I gotta get
my hair right. You know, I gotta like, you know,
all of this stuff about my appearance because I'm judging
myself that way. I think my worth is all wrapped
up in that right. So I think that it is
a right of passage. And how you approach it, you know,
do you fight against it or do you allow yourself
(08:46):
to soften and become a more receptive and accepting of
nature as nature is unfolding and just you know, just
surrender to it.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And that's a you know, could sound like it is
a you know, very mundane, you know, type of conversation,
but we could be talking about psychedelics and it's the
same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
In terms of that softening, in terms of that opening
up to experience.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's the surrender, right, like you know what, you know,
people that are fearful of the space that you enter
within psychedelics, and maybe most people are, you know, to
some degree. And there are some that I have that
that fear about, like what's going to happen to me?
(09:41):
And but what I have found is is that when
when where I am able to surrender and just let go,
like take me, just take me, I surrender all of
who I am to you, take all of me. I
trust that I'm going to be okay. You that's get rewarded.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But you got to have that trust, right, much like
trusting in you know, going back to masculinity, you know,
having that trust that you are lovable, that you are worthwhile. Right.
We live in a world that has so many, for
men in particular, so many misplaced values of worth. And
when we challenge those and find those for ourselves, we
(10:29):
get to soften, We get to open up to that
experience of all, right, life, take me. And I think
psychedelic work is very much a microcosm of real life. Yeah, right,
And the important thing You're right, that trust. You have
to have the right set and setting. I know, for
me going into both of our practic comes, I yeah,
(10:52):
I was not comfortable. I was not ready. I was
you know, I went back to that very masculine quality
wanting to control the situation. So before ketamine, I went
and had my own experience, legal and local. I went
up to the local ketamine clinic. I got to know
the the nurse there and we kind of talked and
I said, all right, I want to I want to
try this, and was amazing. So by the time I
met you and Boulder and we journeyed together on opposite days, right,
(11:16):
I was ready, but then also somewhat nervous. And then
when it came to psilocybin. You know, never had I
done anything like that, only read the stories grew up with,
you know, Nancy and Robald Reagan telling me this is
my brain, this is my brain on drugs, and you know,
the egg cracking in the front. You know, I thought
my brain was gonna fry in a frying pan. But
(11:36):
having that set and setting, and I speak to this
to so many people, right, having the right people around you,
having the right situation, having trust and knowing that you're
gonna be taken care of allows you to allows you
to unfold and let it happen.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, yeah, you can allow if you if you if
you can work your mindset around. And this is a
process that I went through where I asad a question
why am I afraid of this? And most most of
my experiences with five E O D M T H,
(12:15):
which is you know, a radical a radical consciousness expanding experience,
instant ego dissolution, if you can allow that. But what
I what I had to do is work my mindset around, like, Okay,
why should I trust this medicine? Why should I not
(12:39):
trust it? Does it want to hurt me? Why would
I think that nature would want to hurt me? Why
would I think that? Right? That says something about me.
If I expect that it's going to hurt me, I
don't trust nature. Right. Maybe maybe maybe the man has
(13:01):
been at odds with nature for so long that we,
you know, we have a right to think that maybe
nature is mad at us. People walk around feeling like
God is mad at me, or God abandoned me or whatever,
you know. And when I say God, I mean whatever
your concept of God is, it's maybe it's nature. But
I had to work it around so that I began
(13:23):
to reason for myself that this medicine wants what's good
for me. This medicine doesn't want to hurt me. The
medicine wants to impart its wisdom to me. It wants
to dance in me. Right. That's that's sort of like
the way I began working with psilocybin. Right, It's just
(13:44):
like I could feel it dancing, and like I feel
it coming alive inside of me, and as if this
intelligence comes up from the earth and wants to just
enjoy experiencing the sensation of being inside of a human
body and then to say thank you to me by
(14:05):
then rendering you know, images and awarenesses and insights and guidance.
If I simply am willing to surrender and say take
me and thank you, and I come forward, you know,
from a perspective of thanks, like thank you in advance, right,
(14:30):
And that always yields in my experience, that always yields
a positive experience. I think people that have adverse experiences
with psych with not just with psychedelics, right, people get
adverse experiences with weed. People have adverse experiences with alcohol.
(14:52):
Alcohol people have adverse with food.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Very true. Yeah, and so man, you made so many
good points. I want to go back to that idea
of so many of the psychedelics we use in therapy
are derived or just purely naturally occurring. And here we are.
We've been taught for fifty years or so that those
are illegal and you should stay away from home, and
they're criminal even though they've been used for thousands of years.
(15:19):
But you know what, you should trust the big businesses
that are making billions of dollars off of giving you
a pill every day, and people living in you know,
MC mansions everywhere, those are the trustworthy people because it
went through an approval process by the FDA. Meanwhile, what
you're promoting only went through an approval process of you know,
(15:40):
medicine people men and women using them for thousands of
years and healing ceremonies with indigenous people. When you have
put it that way, not trusting nature, it's like, oh
my goodness, how how have we gone so far away
from you know, where we could be or should be. Okay, look, Gret,
you you are are far more the intrepid traveler that
(16:02):
I am. I realized that when we first met here.
You know, we meeting Boulder back in November. I'm getting
ready to have my second ketamine experience and I think
that was like your fourth of that week maybe or
something like that. Like I joke, but I know you
You've You've journeyed a lot more. Let's go back for
the audience's sake. Five me o d MT, which I
(16:24):
remember when I first started teaching this, I had to
like count on my fingers five and get all the
letters right. And now I love the fact that I
just I've studied this, so it's five medmt just rolls
right off the tongue and it's such an amazing substance.
This talk a little bit about where five meo d
mt comes from, and.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's the toad's psychedelic right, yeah, okay, so yeah, it's
it comes from the I think it's buffal alvirius toe
that come from the Sonora Desert. There are other I
think there are other toads around the world that are
(17:12):
of that same genus of toad that they don't have
the venom. What happens is is that the toad and
this is a unique, unique condition where normally you're only
going to find a toad in a pond, right they
live in water. This toad lives underground in a desert
(17:37):
for nine months before it emerges, nine months, soaking up
all of the wisdom of the earth for nine months,
the same amount of time it takes for a human
being to be born. And it comes out and then
you know, there are these glands like around its eyes
(17:59):
and head that secrete this venom when they feel endangered.
One of the things that I that I learned from
my medicine woman was that typically it comes out in
a sort of a rated format format, but when a
human being handles it, they dump it in these thick
(18:24):
gobs of goo and then they just scraping. They put
it on a glass and then it crystallizes and then
they break it up. The chemical compound is five m
e O d m T, So it's a it's a
it's a it's variation or a relation you know to
(18:45):
the d m T that we know from a ahuasca
or you know, od or psilocybin.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And d m T being check it out. I think
I've learned this to dimethyl trip to mean which chemically
I mean, like you said, there are so many variations
of it, one of which all right, listeners, if you
take nothing away from this today, take this DMT secreted
by the pineal gland in the human brain. Right, So
(19:15):
we have this in our brain already. It's not like
the old Beavis and butt Head episode where they're out
licking toads just trying to find something to get high
off of. This is an actual substance that, through different
mystical experiences spiritual experiences, we secrete ourselves. However, we also
recognize stress. Damn greg we didn't even know we were
(19:39):
going to go here. But what what does stress due
to the pineal gland hardens it? It crystallizes that pineal gland.
And when we stop having these experiences, when we don't
take care of ourselves, and so sorry, going back to
your d MT, ayahuasca, peyote, right, all derivatives of diamethotrisity VMT.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
So you know, just to to piggyback on something you
were saying about, how that they say that we have
it naturally produced in our pineal gland, but a tiny
little bit. And some of the theories that I'll be hearing
that for scientists are sort of bantering around, is like,
(20:27):
what's the point of it? Right. Well, one of the
things that I heard scientists speaking about recently. I can't
I can't remember which who he was, but he said
that they think that it's possible that when we are dying,
when we die, when people have a near death experience,
(20:50):
it's it's released. Now. Not only does it buffer the
transition from this life to the next life after this life,
but if a person doesn't die and they return from
the near death experience, d MT has a buffering or
(21:12):
protective quality to protect the neural the cells so that
they can return from that experience without the same level
of brain damage or maybe no brain damage.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I have not heard this hypothesis before. That makes sense.
That's why we pursue d MT and psychedelic assistant therapy
because it's got a neural protecting quality.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
So now that's right. So so and when when we
when we go back throughout history, we look at the
ancient scriptures, right, the the Vadis, the pont Shots, maybe
maybe the Bible, right, A lot of those, a lot
of those scriptures sound like a person who is under
(22:01):
the influence of DMT. Some people are like, well, you know,
this is evidence that the ancient prophets were they were
practicing with psychedelics, but maybe they were in caves where
it was pitch dark and they were exposed to nothing
(22:23):
but darkness for maybe weeks or months on end, and
breathing in certain patterns, which then allows the DMT in
the paneo grant to dump into the brain, and then
an individual experiences what we call somati, right or nirvana
right now. Christians call it heaven all right, enlightenment, that
(22:49):
experience that we always sort of like take it for granted.
And I even think, you know, the Judaeo maybe more
like the Christian. The Christian twist on all of this
is that if you want that, you have to work
really hard for that, right, because God's watching, and when
(23:10):
you're done with your life you get rewarded or you
get cast into a fiery hell. Right, so you got
to work really hard for it. I had an experience
about fifteen years ago when I decided to go get
off the grid. I went to live in an astrom
up in the mountains, and all I did for one
year was meditate, chant, pray, yoga and service for one
(23:38):
whole year. The thinking up there was the same as
the Christian Catholic theology that I was raised in, Like,
you can't experience somebodi until you work really hard, right,
and you got to put a lot of lifetimes in
(24:00):
And you know that's almost it's the same. It's the same.
It's like a work ethic approach to enlightenment. But maybe
it's not about work, right, Maybe maybe it's about what
we were talking about in the beginning. Maybe it's about surrender, right,
Maybe maybe, and maybe it's about like managing our bodies
(24:22):
and our breath. I mean, that's what yoga was designed for.
Yoga was specifically asana was designed to make it possible
for these guys to sit on a deer matt in
a cave for weeks or months at a time and
just breathe and go deep and deep and deep into
(24:44):
themselves and then come out with a scripture as beautiful
as the Upanishads. And if you leave this podcast with
any if you look for any reading, that's what that's
the one the pods. You open up any page and
it's like light bouncing off of the page. And I
(25:06):
supposedly came from these reshie's that we're in these caves
doing this, this this deep meditation.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So to make sure, you give me a link to
the best ways. I know you know the best ways
to find the Pawnee shods and where people can find them, Greg,
And I want you to continue there. But you know
what you're describing is what this realm you and I
are walking into is such a beautiful and I don't
(25:35):
want to say it is new in the way that
it is taking hard science research, but there's such a
spiritual component together. It's almost like we're finding this new
melding of science and religion in such a meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah. Absolutely that that's the meaning of yoga union, right,
And maybe it's one of the side effects of working
with these medicines, or not just the medicines, but these practices.
We're including these breathing, these breathing practices, right, whim hof
(26:16):
holotropic breathwork and DMT breathing, shamanic breathing, you know, all
of these breathing practices. I put them in the same category.
If you're a psychedelic practitioner, I don't think there's any
better integration tool than breath work. And if you're not
yet ready to or interested in diving into psychedelics, but
(26:41):
you are interested in having an experience of yourself that
is beyond your name and your identification with your form
and all of the things that you have. Breath work
can do that for you, right. I don't know if
they know if the breath work can actually release the
d MT from the pineal grand A land. I think
(27:02):
that's up. I think that's up in the air right now?
Did you get absolutely you can precipitate that experience within
your mind and in your body, right? So, uh, I
don't know. Did I just go on a tangent? Did
(27:23):
you ask me?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I think, well, I was just going to point out
learn that people have been engaging in these breathing techniques
again for thousands of years without psychedelics, and it's kind
of like we've missed so much of that. I remember
the first time I was ever introduced into any kind
of breath work. It was actually with the digitidos behind
me when I first moved to this area and I
was looking for something to do with my girls and
(27:44):
I see this flyer for did youurydo prom Like, what
the hell is a digerid And it looked like something
fun for the kids, And so I met this guy,
great guy. We're still friends today and that was probably
fifteen twenty years ago. But he was talking about and
he wrote this book about his anxiety and deep breathing
and the digital ado because the digital do an ancient
(28:07):
aboriginal instrument fosters this weird kind of breathing. Man, This
like circular. I can't even do it yet, this circular breathing,
but it accesses different parts of the brain. Why don't
we You know, we live in a time where stress
has made us such shallow breathers, is what I've read
and seen. Something, Right, we don't take deep breaths, and
(28:27):
when we do, it's in this like all right, well
you have to go sit and meditate for five to
ten minutes to take deep breath And it's like, man,
no you don't. There's so many other ways to do it,
but we're missing we're missing it. And so I want
to make sure we get a link. I want to
ask you for so many links after this. That DMT
breathing exercise you sent me, pretty cool stuff. We need
to share that with people too.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, you know, I think that we live in a
We live in a society today where most people are
breathing in a pattern that actually not only does it
support survival, survival, consciousness, but it produces it. I work
right now in an inpatient treatment center for people suffering
(29:12):
dual diagnosis, and I can tell you that all of
them that say they're diagnosed with anxiety, almost all of
them are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder PTSD, panic attack disorder.
They all breathe in a way that mimics survival, shallow, rapid,
(29:37):
shallow breathing. What happens is like the vagus nerve gets
the message I'm in trouble, I'm in danger. I might
die if I don't fight or get out of here, right,
And that's because of the way they breathe. Right. It's
like maybe we've learned to breathe that way because of
(29:58):
the society we've lived in. Right, But then nobody's actually
teaching little children. Maybe not enough people are teaching little children,
like here's how you breathe so that your brain and
your nervous system believe that you're safe, and that start
talking to you and giving you an inner narrative that
(30:19):
you're safe. Right, So what I get them A lot
of times I'm like, well, I don't really know if
you have a panic attack disorder or you just don't
know how to breathe so.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, I've caught myself saying that so many times in
the past decade, Like everybody's coming out I'm anxious and
I have panic attacks. I'm like, all right, tell me
what you're experiencing. Like no, that I mean, yeah, if
you obviously got on Google, you looked at the criteria
and you made your symptoms match the criteria. But you
don't have a clinical anxiety situation. You've got a lifestyle problem.
(30:52):
Our our instructor doctor drew this past week, right, that
model last week, that integrative model he shared with us, Like,
before we start throwing pills in anxiety, let's start looking
at lifestyle. Let's look at the simple things like how
you're breathing and what your stress levels are. H And
do you remember he told us what vegas means, so
I forget.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
What it meant. Wandering Why why is that important? That
nerve wanders from the face through the brain, down the neck,
and then spreads out throughout the body. Right, And it
starts in the face because our very foundational requirement for
(31:34):
living and surviving and thriving is connection. And it doesn't
actually get disrupted until some form of trauma says this
is not safe. And so what's not safe is my
connection with the people and the life around me. Right,
that's it. When connection is threatened, the vegas nerve then
(31:56):
gets triggered and goes in, starts starts activating in different
parts of the body, sympathetic right around your heart where
you need it so you can fight or run, or
then it will shut or else it's shut. If you
can't do that, shuts down, goes down into the gut area,
and all he's doing is waiting for it. It's become
(32:18):
safe to be able to reconnect. Right. And that's and
that's why people do drugs, right I I.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
You know, Oh that's a big jump. Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well, okay, you know, so if you're coming from the
disease model, it's like you get high, you take drugs,
and you drink because you want to escape. There's even
some judgment in that, like, you know, like you don't
have the courage to be able.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
To have the will power.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
You don't have the will power, or you don't have
the you don't have the quote unquote the gift of
desperation to be able to face life on life's terms, right,
let me tell first of all, what I have found
is that most people that are stuck in a sympathetic
(33:10):
nervous system state fight flight, they want to drink. They
want to take depressants, downers, anything, opiates, anything to um
themselves out so they don't have to feel all of
that fight flight going on. And people that are stuck
(33:30):
in depression, apathy, hopelessness, all of these, all of these
parasympathetic emotional states, they want to take uppers, cocaine, meth
right speed. And people who have disorganized global activation intensity,
(33:51):
which is a combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity going
on at the same time, they mix upper and downers. Right.
And so maybe instead of like you don't have the
gift of desperation, or you don't have the willpower, you're
too afraid to face reality on life terms, maybe you're
(34:14):
trying to find a way to get yourself back into
a state of safety and social connection. And there's more.
A couple decades ago, I read another book, Well Why
God Won't Go Away, by these neuroscientists you can google that.
I don't remember their names, but these neuroscientists wanted to
(34:38):
They want to understand if we are neurologically, biologically programmed
to seek for transcendent experience. So they hooked up three
groups of people, Franciscan nuns, Tibetan monks, and transcendental meditators.
(35:00):
It hooked them up to these MRIs and then they
put a little string on their finger and they watched
a picture of their brain and they said, do your thing,
whatever your practice is, do it. When you reach that
point of union, transcendent union with all just tug your
(35:21):
finger and then we'll take a snapshot of what's happening
in your brain. And what they found was that it's
the same exact place in everybody. So maybe people are
getting high and drinking because we on some level remember
(35:41):
that we are more than just this. And you asked
me about five, here's how I think about five five,
five fingers, five senses, and m E me zero zero
(36:11):
the experience of transcending while under the influence of five EO.
If I am willing and able to become zero, I
am then rewarded with the remembrance of who I really am.
(36:32):
That's a state of Samadi, and that sort of thing
will drive a person to go back over and over
again and find all of the ways in which I
can access that state without the toad.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So how do you bring that intellect? How do you
integrate that into day to day without chasing the high?
Without chasing the toad?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
First, I think you you you you were going to
chase it, because if you know the I think if
our emotional development is such that would think, you know,
it's outside of me and the only way I can
get it is by chasing it. Or if one's emotional
(37:25):
maturity is not developed enough where you might even be
able to cultivate certain cities as as a result of
deep spiritual practice. But you wear it on your ego, right,
this is the topic of the you know, the enlightened ego.
(37:49):
Then you're going to keep doing it. When I went
to live in the Ashla, I met a saint. Ama.
You gave me a mantra, said do this mantra one
hundred and eight times a day, and says I was
living in the ashram and had nothing to do but meditate,
(38:09):
pray and chant and do Pranayama. I did the mantra
like two three thousand times a day, and after about
a month I began experiencing special effects and I really
felt like I had arrived, man, and I began using
(38:31):
it to get all my needs met. Right, I wasn't
emotionally I wasn't emotionally developed enough. I wasn't mature enough
to be able to have that access to that kind
of power. And I think maybe there's some mercy involved
in this that even though it's available to all of
(38:51):
us at all times to be able to transcend the
self and to become one with nature and become one
with the universe and access all of the power that
is available, we can't do it because if we do
it before we're emotionally prepared, we'll abuse it. So, you know,
(39:12):
when I first started experiencing DM five m EO, I
went after it like mad Okay, I lived four hours
away from Mexico. I can gain access to this all
the time. I went, and I went through an experienced
a couple of years ago where you know, I was,
(39:35):
I was experiencing states of SOMEBODI and ego dissolution that
went on for you know, like ten days, and I
learned how to appreciate my ego because like, I couldn't
do anything.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, that sounds like a lot, man.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I couldn't get anything I couldn't get anything done, but
I kept chasing it. And my first awareness was like,
this is who I really am, and I don't have
to work my fingers to the bone that it is
the nature of the universe to love us. The universe
is not withholding love and saying you can't have it
(40:16):
unless you work your fingers to the bone until you
meditate enough or kneelon rice, when you pray or master
the Asina or memorize the Quran. That's the universe is
not holding these conditions right, It's love right, It's here,
(40:36):
it's there, It's there for us. And so I got
to a point where where my drive came for wanting
to bring this into the world in the way that
you're talking about, how do you integrate that it is
becoming frustrated by having a Samadi experience and then hour
(41:00):
later I'm having a road rage attacking now.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So that I come back to real life.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
This petty, you know, getting into my pettiness and like
remembering my grudges and remembering the things that are that
I'm afraid of and all of the things that forced
me to shrink. And I started to look at the
stark contrast between like my remembrance of who I really
(41:28):
am in those glorious somebodie experiences inside of d MT,
and then when I shrink, I go back into like
Greg Liota with what lives in neuroses and complexes, and
that gives rise to Okay, what can I do on
(41:54):
a daily basis? What do I got to stop doing
and what I got to start doing? Right? There's habits
that I had, some of them I still have, but
a lot of them have fallen away. D MT five
MEO will take away a lot of cravings that you
(42:15):
have for unhealthy things. There are certain things I used
to that were part of my life that are just
like it's just a shadow of what I really want
and I know I can have, and they drop. But
then there are other things about like the breath work
and like it's physiology, like therapy, it's all it's physiology, right, sleep, diet,
(42:41):
What am I listening to? Right? Like I used to
be roll all up in Facebook and social media and
now you hardly ever see me on there right because
it's just a lot of toxicity and I have a
reaction to it and that's not good for me. So
what is self love? Self? Love is like I have
the boundaries to be able to say no, like first
(43:03):
hour and last hour of every day, I dedicate to
my emotional and my spiritual uplifting.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Right, And that sounds like such a small price to
pay one hour in the beginning, one hour at the
end of the day or not. And you make such
an interesting point, right, Being on the socials is either
toxicity or quick cheap dopamine burst. Right, But very rarely
is there much a great psychological benefit. Now, there can
(43:35):
be some connection, things like that it's not all bad,
but when we catch ourselves checking it regularly and compulsively,
nothing good about it.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Well, you know, like you have to ask yourself a question, right, like, uh,
am I am I so angry about about what's happening
in our country and so committed to social justice that
that I'm going on there every day and I'm raging?
(44:07):
Or am I just addicted to being angry and outraged?
But you know I started going is is this a
separate addiction that actually has nothing to do with what's
actually happening. M Let me take a look at that,
let me let me let me maybe step back from that.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I don't you know, I think going back to our
discussion about you know, mature masculinity. Man, that's a there's
something about anger that can be empowering and addictive and
not very healthy.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
You know, I'm not, uh, I'm not one of these people,
you know, that side you know takes this. I'm not.
I wouldn't call myself a pacifist or say you know that.
You know, anger is the problem that prevents a person
from experiencing deep spirituality. I think that anger, we have
(45:12):
it for a reason, and maybe developing a healthier relationship
with it is what's in order. But over indulging, and
you know, over indulging it is very unhealthy, you know,
for our physiology and for our mind, just as over
(45:33):
you know, over indulging sadness or over indulge fear.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, emotions should be a warning, a signal, an indication. Hey,
I got to I'm angry. What do I want to
do about it? I'm sad? What do I want to
do about it? You know, emotions are a motivating factor
for our behavior, and you know, if I'm angry, I
should do something about it. Not fuel more anger would
be a good place to start, but you know, to
find something constructive or you know, sometimes it needs to
(45:59):
be in destructive but even anger expressed and destructive ways
can be healthy, whether it's breaking down the body through exercise,
hard running, lifting, finding some deep breathing principles, going out
and chopping wood, whatever means right, But to find a
healthy direction for those emotions is definitely a sign of
mature masculinity, responsibility, mature femininity as well. Right, I think
(46:24):
we've seen some of that too.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, well, you know there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of anger, and there's a lot of
fear that permeating the world right now. And I believe
that it's it's just a trauma response. And if you
know we've been traumatized, the nervous system kind of gets
locked in. It keeps a person in sympathetic or parasympathetic mode,
(46:52):
and it's just locked. It's just there, like it's a
protective wall. I'm not going to let you get hurt.
This is what the nervous system is saying. I'm not
going to let you get hurt. We're gonna stay on guard,
We're gonna be vigilant, We're not gonna let anyone mess
with you, right, you stay angry, so you go online
and you automatically gravitate to fights and things that you know,
(47:12):
and and I am guilty of doing that, right so
and that seeing that, like seeing myself do that while
I was involved in all of these deep spiritual quests,
even to the point of having mm hmm, what a contrast, man,
(47:34):
what a contrast engage in a deep spiritual quest. But
then just like the contrast you know, rocked me, Like
I like I started like that. I give thanks to
Facebook for that because it made me, It made it
really real. It put it right in my faith. Dude,
Like who are you really? Right? What is this persona?
And uh? And then how is this behavior and this
(47:56):
person persona? How are they incongruent with each other? And
who are you really anyway? And you know, like I,
you know, this goes back to the this concept of zero,
like getting down to zero, like each identification you know
(48:18):
that I hold on to, like my name, there's one,
my gender, there's two, my you know, my personality, my trauma,
my job, and everything and all just kind of adds
up and we sort of we begin to like think
of ourselves in the terms of all of those numbers
when if you just boil it all down to zero,
(48:41):
you don't have to cling to any of it, and
then you can look at it and go like, wow, maybe,
you know, maybe I'm pretty incongruent. Maybe maybe I really
am uneven and in some areas, you know, in some
places at different times a more function than I am
other others. Uh, you know. And so like this experience
(49:05):
for me, you know, having these radical awakening experiences with
psychedelics has just illuminated for me. Here's this is a practice.
It's not an identity. I'm not enlightened. My intelligence or
(49:30):
my knowledge isn't wisdom. My wisdom isn't mine. And like
all of these like things like when you just like
look at it, honestly, it's it's not that romantic, and
it's not that impressive. It's and it's not unimpressive either.
(49:53):
It's just it's just like, wow, look at all of
these stories you know that that I've made up, including
like I'm more enlightened because I've done this, that and
the thing. And maybe that's part of the softening and
the ripening that comes with moving into elderhood.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
I think also one of the things you're talking about
reminds me a lot of our conversations of ego dissolution, right,
And I think that's a big phrase. You know, what
does that really mean? I think you simplified it really well,
taking all these constructs that we use to describe ourselves
and reminding us, you know, bringing that back down to
zero and just being human and focusing how that was
(50:37):
beautiful about the vegas nerves starting in our face. Right.
It is so important to do what we're doing here,
to do what we do when we get to have
coffee together, you know, to do and add in a
live space, and to connect with other people.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, yeah, to connect with other people. Yeah, And that's
what you know. I'm so grateful today really just for
the chance to be able to have an hour with you,
connecting with you. You know, we throw around and we always
do these lofty concepts that we were always bantering around about.
(51:14):
But like, really, like when I think about you, I
just think about how it feels to be in your presence.
You know, how loving you are, how caring you've been
with me at times. That's the connection. That's what counts.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Greg. I certainly appreciate our connection. Again, it was so
amazing like, you know, we get together. They put us
together for ketamine. This was kind of cool. The school
is so so so well planned out and thoughtful in
their absolute avoidance of planning and thinking things through right
(51:56):
and right. They're so well planned and thoughtful. They're chaos
like for Ketamine practicum. They let us know about each other.
What a couple of weeks in advance. They email us
and you and are email and back and forth, and
we get to meet each other and we have an
amazing connected time together. Golly man, I'll never forget how
you took care of me after my journey and just
(52:18):
you were in a process and it was awesome, right,
and then me trying to take care of you is
you were busy taking care of everybody else. Yeah, so awesome.
You're such a caregiver.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Well you know what part of it was was was that,
but you were really the caregiver because like, and when
I came out of that, I was not an easy
client because here's what, here's what happened. I came out
(52:53):
of that. And by the way, Ketamine. I really I
love I really really love I love ketamine. Hey hey, hey,
can you put this on pause? I love I love
(53:13):
ketamine as as a as a therapeutic medicine. And what
it does is it really opens my heart. And the
moment I came out of it and I could feel
my heart was wide open. I didn't want to save it.
I wanted I wanted to pour it out there so
immediately again like thinking about people that I care about
(53:36):
that were in the building that I wanted to just
give give my love to, right, because.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
You had peers from from your practice with you, Yeah,
so these were just these were people you just met,
Like these are people you've known for a while that you, yeah,
that you wanted to go connect with.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
There were people here that you know, I cared about,
and my my heart, you know, really opened up. And
rather than the need to sit down and process what happened,
my need was to share it, to pour it out
of my heart, not even really so much to care
(54:12):
take anybody, but so much as to share what had
like opened up in my heart. And you, I think,
in a way, demonstrated more skill than a lot of people.
Hold on a second, Hold on a second. Yeah, you
(54:39):
demonstrated more skill, I think than than than most in
that moment because it takes a lot of skill too
like lean back and like let the client choose how
they want to unfold after coming out, right, and you
never I know how a person's going to come out.
(55:01):
Sometimes a person comes out of a journey, they're extremely
vulnerable and they're very sensitive and they really need to
be held. And in my case, you know, I wasn't
feeling that way. I was feeling more exuberant, and you
just kept coming back. I'm for about an hour, you
just kept like coming over to me. You okay, you
need anything, you know, You're okay, you need anything. And
(55:25):
I felt incredibly taken care of and held by you.
And I think that's the mark of a skilled practitioner.
That's a great sitter. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
I appreciate that. You know, it's interesting I've had to
put that into practice now in recognizing that you trained
me well in that. You know, some people come out
a motive and ready to express and want to talk,
and others need time, need time just come to and
to process what they experienced. And we still process, but
(55:58):
it's just different. And again I love that, you know,
and when you went in, I mean you were prepared,
you had some great intentions, but also some experience too,
So this. You know your intentions were I believe really
prepared in a way through your past experience and watching
you first, I mean watching you, doctor Roheeney. I mean,
(56:19):
come on, what an amazing soul to have with us,
What a blessing that was.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
That was a real gift. I I think that she
is a rare soul on its plans.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
I agree somebody I know I would want to just
have in my life constantly, right like much like d MT. Right,
doctor Roheeny is the d MT of people.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
You just want her around all the time, so amazing
and just connected.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Let me let me, let me, let me share this.
I think you'll appreciate this. After that experience with Rohini,
I started using her as an anchor point for me
when I journey. H I breathe in like a mantra
three times, Rohini, Rohini, Rohini ex hell, Rohini, Rohini, Rohini
(57:09):
in hell, Rohini, Rohini, Rohini ex heal Rohini, Rohini, Rohini.
See her eyes, a big brown eyes and her face,
and that has actually carried me through quite a number
of journeys since the.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
Beautiful that's beautiful. All right, brother?
Speaker 2 (57:31):
What do we want?
Speaker 1 (57:31):
I know you've got to get to session, right, you
got sessions today.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
I got a session in fifteen minutes because.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I'm totally ready to like go make a big old
pot of tea and just continue to sit here and
talk to you. But we we have work that has
to be done. What do you what do you wanna?
What do you want the people to take away here? Man?
We talked about masculinity's psychedelics. Your experiences are journeys together.
What do we leave the people with?
Speaker 2 (57:57):
You know, the the the the impulse is to want
to wrap it up in a bow. H But I
think we just gave people a smortgage board, and so
I think my hope really is free person that's just
listening to revisit what what was the spark that was
(58:23):
letting you from this conversation? Was it shave butter? Was it?
You know? You know? You know we we you know,
mature masculinity, the rights of passage, moving into elderhood, you know, opening,
you know the heart ah, you know, enlightenment. You know
(58:47):
whether or not we need to work for it or
or you know, just surrender and allow it to be
you know, the I have this tattoo too comes from
Yoga Sutra of Potangeally. I put it around my risk
because I wanted to never forget it. This is a
(59:10):
chapter two, verse forty five, I think, and what it
says is in the moment of total surrender to whatever
God is, the moment total surrender to the moment somebody
is attained in that moment, right, So I you know,
(59:35):
I carry that around. But one of the things that
we you know, we elaborated on and here is like,
that's not the point of life experiencing somebody, right, And
so you know, just whatever you know you were able
to pick up from this that can help you to
(59:57):
walk through your day in a way that aligns you
you with that you know, highest vision of yourself. No,
I would actually love to hear what it was, you know,
I'd love to hear what people took from this, you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Know, because this started out as a podcast about logo
therapy and the psychology meaning I'll tie that in there,
but you really hit that well, right, What did you
find here that will help you discover meaning in your day?
What string I love that? What string do you pull on?
What word do you hold on? What becomes your mantra.
What do you dive deeper into? What do you learn
(01:00:31):
about and how do they get to find a way
to tell you? Where? Where do people find you besides
in your office out there in Austin.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Oh yeah, I have a Websitegoda dot com, I have
a Psychology Today profile, or you just google my name,
just punch my name in Regulaota.
Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Do we talk a little bit about how people can
find your amazing art?
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Oh my goodness, I can't believe you've never told me
about that, man, I just happened. I don't even remember
how I found it. Maybe it was in the signature
of an email. I'm like, what is this link? Holy cow? Greg,
some talent there.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Brother, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
I'm an artist and I have my own site. It's
not it's a Fine Art America site. So if you
punch Greg Liota Fine Art America, it'll take you to
my page. Most of it is digital. I started out
working with pastels and acrylics, but when I was living
(01:01:37):
in the West Indies, I all of my pastels got moldy,
they all got ruined, and I just like was actually
literally I was laying in a hammock and one like
wondering like what if I could My heart was closing up,
and I was wondering what can I do? Like how
(01:01:57):
can I open my heart? Maybe I can painted open?
What if I start painting again and open like? And
so I went and I got an iPad and I
downloaded an app that lets you create art, and I
started painting hearts. That's all I did, dozens and dozens
(01:02:19):
of open hearts and playing with different colors and different effects.
And that led me into a whole nother dimension of
the art world. And that's what you're seeing there. And
that's why I don't want I don't try to sell it.
I put it up there if anyone wants to buy it,
but I don't. I just feel like, you know, we
(01:02:40):
need you know, they say the opposite of depression is expression,
Like expression is the elixir, and I needed I still
do need something, some form of expression that I'm not
trying to make money doing, but just opening my heart
(01:03:01):
and allowing me to sort of be be in this
in this world. So I hope you go to there,
like punch in Greg Leota, find Art America and enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
It is fun to look at. Yeah, so many different
possibilities I want to put in all my offices, and
then I've got this stack of prints over here that
I haven't even framed yet, so I'll get some and
I feel like Greg, you certainly did that here today.
You are a masterful healing professional and hearing just your
passionate and just kind of talking through these topics. I'm
(01:03:36):
I'll be honest, I'm a little jealous of the person
that gets your next hour, man, because you just seem
on fire with the ability to help and heal. So
hopefully I'm sure it'll be an amazing session.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Well, thank you, Dan, I think that your your your gift.
I want to thank you on behalf of everybody you know,
for these beautiful podcasts that you've been giving giving the world,
for your your energy and your spirit and just the
(01:04:07):
you know, the kind of man that you are. We
need to We need more more men.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Like that like you, Noll, you and I keep talking
about that with our peers, and we're going to keep
growing men like this and men that are out there
to help and transcend the self and do good things.
So thank you, brother, I appreciate you. I love our
time together. Thank you so much. And hey man, Uh,
let's we've got so much more to talk about you
and welcome back anytime right on.
Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Thank you, Dan, I love you too, brother. Thank you
for giving me the opportunity to come and speak uh
with you about all these great topics today. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
My pleasure, all right. What a truly beautiful human being.
I love that man. I love my time I get
to spend with him, Love hearing his stories. I mean,
and an astron just praying and meditating and trying to
find himself doesn't sound.
Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Like a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
I don't know. Maybe I'll have to get the address
of that place and plan a year away. We'll see
how that goes. I'm not sure how the rest of
the doctor Dan family will see that, but maybe some
days they would like for me to go. Who knows.
But please take a look at Greg's art org. He
gave you the website there. Check out some of the
(01:05:29):
other links he sent our way. That DMT breathing is
pretty interesting. Yeah, have a look at his work. And
as he said, and we kind of meandered through quite
a few topics there. If there's anything that interested you specifically,
contact reg or. Of course, you know how to get
a hold of me, please send me your feedback. You
(01:05:51):
can find out more about what I'm up to, including
this year's Fall Ketamine Retreat, at Danielafrance dot com. That's
DA n i E L A f R A n
z dot com. As always, thank you for this opportunity
to bring a little bit of mental health, meaning, purpose,
resilience and psychedelics to your day. Thank you
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