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Psychedelics & Healthy Relationships with Danny & Vanessa Velez-Panzella | Ep #50
58 Plays2 years ago
Danny & Vanessa are hosts of the Sovereign Lovestream, a love, sex, and psychedelics podcast.
Years in a toxic relationship they healed themselves and their relationship using plant medicines, meditation, and other healing modalities to create a beautiful marriage filled with love, joy, and gratitude.
Vanessa and Danny share those techniques and healing modalities with their audience and also offer relationship coaching and intuitive readings. They love teaching individuals how to achieve spiritual sovereignty and how to bring centered balanced energy to their relationships.
In this episode you'll learn:
- Red flags to look for in toxic relationships.
- Why it’s important to have both people committed to healing.
- How working with plant medicine can accelerate healing.
- The messy process of transitioning from an unhealthy to a healthy relationship.
Links
Host: Josh Cearbaugh
Website: https://joshcearbaugh.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshcearbaugh/
Course: https://www.jumpstartyourlife.com
Guest: Danny & Vanessa Velez-panzella
Website: https://www.sovereignlove.nyc
Podcast: https://www.sovereignlove.nyc/lovestream
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sovereignlovebrooklyn
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sovereignlove.nyc/
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Transcript
Introduction to Love and Psychedelics
00:00:00
Speaker
Today we're gonna talk about love, sex, and psychedelics. Well, okay, maybe not the sex part, but our guest from today, they have a podcast that dives into those three topics in detail, I may say. So make sure to check out the show notes for their podcast and information on how to follow them. Today we really focus on the love and the psychedelic side of things. How plant medicine can actually impact your relationship
00:00:30
Speaker
positive way, in a deep and meaningful way. And just a little precursor actually, my partner, we did a hero's journey together, and that is going to be one of many episodes that we're going to be diving into and sharing more about. So if you haven't already, I would encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. And as I've said
Technical Difficulties and the Importance of Conversation
00:00:51
Speaker
several times, I want this podcast to be really a format for conversation.
00:00:55
Speaker
and you are part of that conversation so please leave a review and share your thoughts not just how maybe the podcast itself is impacting you but if you have thoughts about a certain episode or you want to give feedback then please take a few minutes let me know how this is affecting you and impacting you because
00:01:15
Speaker
the feedback that i'm getting is selfishly encouraging but also i think that it all it gives permission to other people to lean into some of these topics that may seem a little bit taboo or a little bit unknown or a little bit scary now one thing to point out is we did have a little bit of technical difficulties when it came to the audio side of things so
00:01:38
Speaker
Please bear with me when it comes to the audio. It's not the best that we have put out by any means, but I think it's also an important conversation. So we went ahead and published it without further ado.
Exploring Masculinity Beyond Stereotypes
00:01:50
Speaker
Let's get into today's episode.
00:01:53
Speaker
Men, we are not simple, chest-thumping, rock-smashing, fire-starting barbarians. We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared, yet brave. We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving. We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
00:02:24
Speaker
Alright, so today I'm actually
Meet Danny and Vanessa: Overcoming a Toxic Relationship
00:02:26
Speaker
really excited about the guests that we have. We met at a conference. It's called the Exodus Build and we have some mutual friends that kind of run that.
00:02:39
Speaker
met and started talking back in the green room and one thing led to another and it was like, I got to get these guys on to share their story because the guests that we have today, it's Danny and Vanessa, they're hosts of a podcast called The Sovereign Love Stream where they dive into things that I love to have more people talk about, which is love, sex, and psychedelics. If you've listened to more than one episode of mine, you know that that's right up my alley.
00:03:08
Speaker
What i think is really unique in their senses a little bit of background for them is they had a really toxic relationship for years. And they use plant medicine meditation like we'll get into all those things but really have it in their relationship fundamentally at its core.
00:03:26
Speaker
And from that, found themselves in a relationship that they really love and have joy and gratitude. And so, you know, they share their techniques through their podcasts, but also host and facilitate either coachings or readings and ceremonies. And so they're just, they're my kind of people. And so I wanted to
00:03:45
Speaker
get them on and hear more about their story. So we're gonna dive into really two areas of our conversation. It's really plant medicine and then the relationship component of it is because we've got both of them on. So without further ado, Danny, Vanessa, thank you guys so much for taking the time out to have this conversation first and foremost. Thank you for having us. We're super excited to be here and have this conversation with you.
00:04:13
Speaker
Absolutely. Just like you said, we're your kind of people. You're our kind of people. I listen to a bunch of the episodes of your podcast as well. I'm like, cool. Yeah. I resonate with this guy. I like it. So I was very happy when you invited us to come on.
00:04:26
Speaker
We tend to dive into topics, maybe not taboo, but it's like everybody experiences them in some form
Danny's Journey Through Addiction and Healing
00:04:35
Speaker
or another, but not a lot of people talk about them. And I'm sure that you guys have experienced just being willing to have those conversations gives other people permission to have those conversations.
00:04:47
Speaker
For me, I think as a starting point, I'm curious, not too much of the conversation because I really want to understand how plant medicine played the role in healing, but just for people to understand a little bit of your story, what did your relationship really look like before the journey with plant medicine?
00:05:11
Speaker
Well, this is my favorite thing to do is paint this picture because the contrast really tells the story. So a little bit of background information. I had a very tumultuous relationship with my mother and I later through meditation and plant medicine journeying, I figured out that I had a mother wound, which prior I had no idea what that was.
00:05:38
Speaker
And because of my mother wound, I was a sex addict. I was looking for validation through women. Specifically, if they were willing to have sex with me, I felt validation because I never felt I got validation from my mother.
00:05:50
Speaker
It's
Vanessa's Journey and Setting Boundaries
00:05:51
Speaker
not as simple as that it took me years to figure to go through the addiction and figure that out. But as you can imagine, while I was in my addicted vibration. I was cheating on Vanessa, I was gaslighting her.
00:06:08
Speaker
I was really, I mean, it was toxic masculinity. I wasn't physically threatening, although I guess we did have some, some fights did get physical, but it wasn't so much physical abuse, but it was certainly emotional abuse and a lot of narcissistic behaviors.
00:06:29
Speaker
that came out of that addiction. And so we had a honeymoon phase in the beginning of a relationship. I think we really fell in love. I know we really fell in love. But then once we moved in together, that's when everything started to come out. In the double line of cheating to get my fix was exposed once we were living together.
00:06:59
Speaker
And it caused all kinds of chaos and turmoil in the house. You know, it was very routine for us to be screaming at each other and throwing things across the room. And Vanessa can speak to her own experience in that relationship. Maybe she could, but I like to confess up front, like, this is who I was, but she doesn't feel embarrassed to say, yeah, Danny was cheating on, you know, I want to put it all up. She feels comfortable.
00:07:29
Speaker
I like
Turning to Plant Medicine for Healing
00:07:30
Speaker
to say that we got into this relationship and did everything that you're not supposed to do in a relationship. We did it upfront. We're like, all right, yeah, let's fuck it all up.
00:07:43
Speaker
So yeah, there was a lot of that me discovering that he was lying and cheating and not exactly knowing how to handle that. I didn't know my boundaries. I didn't know how to set boundaries. I didn't know that I could set boundaries. I would suppress a lot of my feelings. I guess in the moment I would confront him and be upset. But then he would gaslight me and I would think, okay, maybe I'm wrong here. Maybe I'm too close minded. Maybe I'm
00:08:11
Speaker
making something out of nothing. And even though my intuition was telling me something was wrong, I was allowing his gaslighting to
00:08:22
Speaker
you know, to suppress that and to push my intuition aside. And then what would happen is I would drink and then once I would get drunk, all of my anger would come out and I would see the nastiest things, the horrible things. I would tell him that I hated him. I would tell him I was done with him. And then the next morning it was the shame and guilt of getting drunk and causing all sorts of drama.
00:08:47
Speaker
and then we would just kind of suppress it all. We wouldn't even really deal with it. We would just suppress it and carry on, okay, we can do this. And I think because we knew deep down that we loved each other, we felt that. We honestly truly felt that we were in love with each other and we're meant to be together. We just didn't know how to do that with all of our traumas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what brought you to, I mean, that's like a really unhealthy, toxic dynamic, right?
00:09:17
Speaker
How did, like, where did plant medicine even come in as a potential turning point? I mean, obviously we know in hindsight and you guys are going to get into it, that that's really what healed slash saved your marriage along with your willingness to do the work with it. Right. But, um, how, how did that even come? Like I'm always fascinated by, Hey, what if psychedelics could fix this marriage? Like how does that come up in where you guys were?
00:09:45
Speaker
Well, um, I think originally, uh, I, I shot a documentary on cannabis and cancer, so I had some awareness of the psychedelic space. I had kind of in the periphery just watched it happening. It being, you know, mushrooms being legalized, things like that, but I wasn't focused on it. And, um,
00:10:08
Speaker
It wasn't until we ran into an old friend, someone who I used to hang out in the kind of political activism spheres. We saw her at a spiritual conference and we hadn't seen her. I hadn't seen her in many, many years and she was completely unrecognizable to me. She had been transformed and healed through her work.
00:10:29
Speaker
Okay. And when we reconnected, she had just written a book about her experiences with plant medicines. And so she gave us a copy of the book. And I had
00:10:40
Speaker
You know, we were at a spiritual conference, right? So we were searching, we were looking. We wanted to heal, but we were stumbling through it. And she handed us that book and it was about her trip to Peru to sit with Ayahuasca. And I had been trying to convince Vanessa to go to Peru to Ayahuasca for a year or so. I was trying to do it from like a scientific perspective. We were trying to have a baby,
00:11:07
Speaker
So I said, look, there's a lot of research that ayahuasca resets your endocrine system. That could be the key that unlocks your fertility. And she was like, not responding to the science at all. So do you want to pick up? Yeah. I mean, I think for me, it was first of all, looking back at it now, I think that there was an aspect that was like, I'm not ready to have a baby in this toxic relationship.
00:11:30
Speaker
Why would I go to that, right? There was this part of me that had resistance to it. And then there was also the fact that a lot of these ayahuasca documentaries are terrifying. They show you things in the dark and it looks scary and it's like you're in the middle of the jungle and you're seeing swirly things and puking in buckets and
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, puking in buckets and people are in pain and crying and I'm like, are you insane? I'm not doing that at all. You're crazy. And then we ran, we run into this friend and I always like to talk about this meeting because we walked into an elevator at the same time. I was taking a break. I get very overwhelmed by being around too many people. So I need to like,
00:12:11
Speaker
my space and she was in the elevator and Danny didn't recognize her. We walk onto the elevator and we couldn't remember what floor we were on because we were staying in that hotel and all of the sudden she goes Danny Panzella always so lost and I was like
00:12:30
Speaker
It's the voice of God. How does she know that we're lost? You know, because I felt lost and I both lost as a couple and we turned around and he was so excited to see her and we were like, why don't you know, he was, I told him, I was like, invite her back to our room and maybe, you know, we can hang out. He, the way he spoke about her, I was excited to meet her.
00:12:52
Speaker
And I think it's all divine timing, right? It's all the way this happens. And she gives us a copy of the book and it's her journal. And it's all of her emotions, all of the fears she's going through, all of the things she's processing. And it spoke to me, right? I wasn't being called to do the medicine to heal my physical body. I was called to do the medicine for my spiritual healing.
00:13:17
Speaker
And that spoke to me. And I was like, yes. As soon as I finished reading the book, I turned to him and I was like, we're going to Peru. Wow. And he was like, are you kidding me? It's all scribbles. It's a journal. And I was like, everything she says in here, I was crying. I was like, we're going to Peru. I've decided for doing this.
First Mushroom Ceremony: A Sacred Experience
00:13:38
Speaker
It was literally a reproduction of her journal. So she had like these scribbles and little drawings. I was like, I can't even read this.
00:13:47
Speaker
But wait a minute. So I'm curious, Danny. So you're saying, hey, let's do this for a year, right? Understandably from the scientific standpoint.
00:13:57
Speaker
She reads a book. I, it always makes me laugh because in the coaching and consulting that I do, especially when you're working with couples, right? It's the, the wife has been saying to the husband, Hey, you have a mother wound issue or whatever. And then the third meeting with me, we're working through mother wound issues. And he's like, Oh, finally I realized I have a mother wound issue. You know, they need to hear it from someone other than the immediate person. Like sometimes you just can't hear or see it. Right. Yes.
00:14:27
Speaker
But so after a year of trying to tell or not tell, but like convince her to go and then her response to the book, it what did that do for you? I guess is like internally, did you feel excited about it? Were you like, what the hell? Finally, you're seeing what I'm seeing or what was it for you?
00:14:47
Speaker
Oh, I mean, I was happy she was on board. I didn't understand what she connected to in the journal at the time. I was still much more in a masculine space thinking of science and logic. And so I didn't, I wasn't able to connect with the journal the way she was. So I didn't understand that aspect of it.
00:15:04
Speaker
I was happy she was finally. I knew that we were going to experience healing. So I may have thought and maybe it was really my higher self that that really had that sure knowing and my ego didn't quite recognize it yet, but I was very confident about the decision to go.
00:15:22
Speaker
but before we even got to peru is when our plant medicine journey really began because this friend of ours had us we sat with her for a mushroom ceremony as a way to introduce us to psychedelics beyond okay missed and um
00:15:39
Speaker
The first ceremony that we did, we took a very small dose. Honestly, I didn't really experience anything, but she took us through the process of ceremony and taught us about the sacredness of doing these ceremonies with these plants, which I feel like that was hugely important, even though maybe I didn't have any mystical experience. Although you did afterwards.
00:16:01
Speaker
I did. I actually, um, on the car ride home from her house for the first time, I was able to hear very clearly some, whether, whether it was my intuition or a spirit guide. I heard a very clear message telling me of something that I needed to confess to Vanessa. And I fought with my intuition for two weeks.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, as we tend to with us stubborn guys, right? I was excited that I heard my intuition, but then I was like, Oh, that's what you had to tell me. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. We actually, my partner and I we just did a hero's journey together this last Sunday. And it was the first time that we had done it together.
00:16:45
Speaker
We've done different things separately. I don't want to disclose too much because I don't want to share with you, but we're actually going to do a podcast record with two of us to share and decompress to a degree of what our takeaways were. But it's fascinating how it's still a side bit and you guys can speak to.
00:17:07
Speaker
psilocybin in ayahuasca i mean two very different animals or experiences at the same time similar in the sense of like helping you bring things to the surface to better understand you know it removes some in my opinion removes our
00:17:26
Speaker
our ability to try consciously or subconsciously suppress things. And it just puts it right there for you to either look at or later embrace whatever, then you have to do something with it, right? So I love that you guys had, how did you know your friend that kind of lay out that structure of the ceremony for you? I'm sorry, say that again. Oh, I said, how did you know your friend that you did the psilocybin ceremony before going to Peru?
00:17:55
Speaker
How were you connected to that friend? This is the same one we met in the elevator. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I have to share her book with us and we got back to her and we were like, yeah, we want to go to Peru. Now she's facilitating a trip to Peru. So when we did go to the trip,
00:18:15
Speaker
So as part of the dieta that she had us go on. Now, this friend is a sweet and beautiful, loving person, but she also has a drill instructor side. So she was very, this was not like going on vacation and, oh, I'm going to do ayahuasca. This was a bootcamp that started two months before we went. We did a very strict dieta.
00:18:42
Speaker
Uh, no spices, no meat, no, um, heavy foods, no alcohol, no sex, no sex, no chocolate, no salt. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, no salt. Like this bland flavoring over and over again. And we, and we really, because of, we respected her and, and the healing and we, we really had faith that this was going to change us. We really, we adhered to the diet.
00:19:11
Speaker
for two months. But before we even went, in that two-month span, we started doing mushroom ceremonies at home, just two of us together.
00:19:23
Speaker
Okay. And now I'm really going to blow your mind because you're talking about the similarities between psilocybin and ayahuasca. Well, I don't know if Carla prayed over these mushrooms or what it was. She went through a period right before she took us to Peru. She was guided to sit with mushrooms every two weeks, I believe.
00:19:45
Speaker
and put all of the mushrooms on the altar and she would do her ceremonies with them and she was getting guidance and she was putting the trip together and basically the person that she was working with ended up they ended up splitting and so she had to build this this retreat on her own and so she sat with the mushrooms every two weeks and got the guidance on who to call in for the set for the trip and
00:20:11
Speaker
made everything happen. And so she was praying with these mushrooms. She brought us to her house. We did the ceremony with her. She gave us mushrooms and sent us home. So then we came home and about a month after that ceremony, we end up having our own mushroom ceremony at home. And this time we took a hero's dose by ourselves. Let me tell the first part. Yes.
00:20:40
Speaker
So during this ceremony, did it happen first? Did I get chokes first? Yes.
00:20:53
Speaker
All of that toxic masculinity, all of those behaviors, the cheating, the using women for validation, all of that stuff appeared personified as a demon. So what ended up happening was, sorry, I sat up all of the sudden and I looked at him
00:21:16
Speaker
And I felt like a completely different person. Like I was not me anymore. And I know that I was channeling the spirit of mother ayahuasca without never having drank ayahuasca before or connected to the energy of ayahuasca. I knew that's what
Transformations Through Plant Medicine
00:21:33
Speaker
was all of a sudden taking over. So I felt myself back here.
00:21:37
Speaker
And then another entity energy within me turned to Danny in a different voice in a different my face felt different my body felt different and I turned to him and I said you
00:21:51
Speaker
all you do is take and take from women. When are you going to give back? But it was like, I looked him right in the eye and I said that. And the look of terror on his face, the me part of me was like, oh my God, what is happening? Because I had to, this was my first like big psychedelic journey and all of a sudden this is happening. And so I'm telling him this and then,
00:22:17
Speaker
And then that's when I was like, oh my God, she's right. Now I knew, I also just intuitively knew I felt it was mother Ayahuasca. It was not her, the voice was completely different. It was really insane. And this is the story I like to tell people when they say, oh, well, psychedelics is just like, your mind is doing crazy things, but you're creating it all and whatever, there's no spirit, all that. And look, I'm not,
00:22:46
Speaker
claiming to know everything, but to me, if this is a delusion, how are we both having the same delusion at the same time? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that aspect of alone is pretty mind-blowing, but...
00:23:01
Speaker
I just, I started to cry and I started to try to apologize because the weight of all of it, all of a sudden I can feel it. I tried to apologize and this demon appeared and it was choking me. It was not allowing me to apologize. And I'm like literally gagging.
00:23:20
Speaker
And while this is happening, I feel the heaviness and the darkness and the evil that this demon represents of the behaviors I participated in. At the same time, I felt Mother Ayahuasca's presence and it felt like she was kind of standing behind me and I felt that peace knowing I'm safe. I'm not in any actual danger. She's letting me experience this so I can feel the darkness that I helped feed.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah. And that I have to I really believe that that real first psychedelic experience is even today all the psychedelics I've done since is still the most powerful life changing like that forever. That will be a turning point in my life.
00:24:07
Speaker
where I really was able to internalize and integrate all the pain I had caused other people. And I can have compassion for myself and forgive myself because I know I was just searching for connection as well. I was lost and hurt and looking for love and in all the wrong places. So I can have compassion for myself at the same time, I can hold myself accountable now and be like,
00:24:32
Speaker
you did all that and now you have to, um, maybe not at home for forgiveness, but embody a healthy masculine as your tone. Yeah, man. I love so many things about what you just said. I just, cause I, I think there's a couple of things to distill from what you just shared. And that is one, you know, there, there is this. Fear. I mean, mostly propagated by, you know, war on drugs, et cetera. But,
00:25:01
Speaker
the whole bad trip, right? Fear that people are often like they use that as a means of going, well, I'm not, I don't want to lose my mind or I don't want to open myself up to the demonic or all these other things that are keeping them away from, from leaning into it. And I mean, even just what you shared, I think that like it's a great example. And I've heard so many of them and I have them myself where
00:25:29
Speaker
in the moment is a quote unquote, bad trip, but there's actually these amazingly beautiful things that you can take away from it. If you choose like you did, did you choose to say, okay, this is eyeopening. This is now it's on me to actually do the integration part of it and change my behaviors and change my day to day, et cetera, and do the work.
00:25:53
Speaker
But a bad trip is not, you know, whether it's with iOS or psilocybin or whatever. Now I do think that you can get locked into an anxiety driven spiral with things. And if you don't have somebody there and you're by yourself that, you know, you can kind of get trapped in that and not be able to, if you don't know how to reground yourself or things like that. I think there is wisdom in not just being a vigilante and dropping 10 grams of mushrooms and just seeing what happens, you know, like,
00:26:22
Speaker
So there are practical steps you can take, but that whole aspect of like, mother Aya was letting me experience this, so I felt safe, even though it was so gut-wrenchingly painful. Sometimes we need to feel that pain or that anxiety or that reality of what our inner world has done for us to, like you did, to pivot, to change, you know, moving forward. So, um,
00:26:46
Speaker
I think that answers the next question that I had, but I would be curious. I mean, I feel like we could do like a five-hour podcast, right? You'll probably have to come on a couple of times so we can dive into specific ceremonies and experiences. But just in general, I mean, we haven't even gotten to Peru, but I'm curious, Andy, for you, for the men that are listening, can you just unpack a little bit of how
00:27:13
Speaker
working with plant medicine other than what you just shared obviously as far as pivoting, but how has that changed kind of your role slash ownership of healthy masculinity since having those experiences with plant medicine? I think
00:27:35
Speaker
I think one of the biggest lessons that I learned from plant medicines is how to empathize, which I would say was the beginning of my journey to self-love. I couldn't empathize with myself. I was very harsh and judgmental of myself, and therefore I found it hard to empathize with Vanessa and with anyone really. So I think,
00:28:04
Speaker
I think it was really, I had too much masculine. I needed a little bit more feminine, at least in certain areas, in the compassion area to balance the logic, right? I was never an aggressive person. I've never been a real physical person. Actually, that's one of the lessons I've been learning in the past year is learning how to be, Vanessa calls it calm, confident,
00:28:33
Speaker
Is it com-confident? Yeah, com-confident. That Caesar Milan calls it com-confident. Oh, Caesar Milan calls it com-confident. Got it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fierce serenity. Fierce serenity. It's like the idea of being willing to defend, to be the protector, but not to go deep into anger where you have to... Or aggression. Or aggression, right, exactly. And I'm learning how to balance that now. Even just the last couple of days, I've had a few lessons on that.
00:29:04
Speaker
So for me, it's really, to me it's really just about balancing masculine and feminine. And I think that that really,
00:29:13
Speaker
We have to temper the masculinity with some femininity, with some gentleness, compassion, grace. These things help us from going too far in the masculine direction where then it metastasizes into anger, which causes all kinds of health problems, emotional problems. I mean, it gets us out of balance. So really, I just think that the number one lesson of plant medicines is balance. Yeah.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, I actually have a tattoo on my arm of a king and a queen just because of exactly what you're talking about. We all have an inner king and an inner queen.
00:29:52
Speaker
And what those relationships look like within ourselves, if one is lopsided or abused or things like that, that's when you get exactly what you're talking about. So that's finding balance, right? Or it's funny because for the longest, my personality is more of the all or nothing personality in certain things.
00:30:14
Speaker
which can actually work really well as an entrepreneur and different things like that, but it can be a double-edged sword as well, right? As a manifestor, it works great. Exactly. And I used to hate the word balance because I'm like, oh, show me one person who did anything.
00:30:30
Speaker
you know, made an impact in life that was balanced. So then this friend of mine who was kind of a mentor at the time, he's like, all right, fine. If you can't use the word balanced, then look for the radical middle. I'm like, oh, I can do that. But it's just hung up on words. So Vanessa, I'm always curious. So we've had one female guest on, and I want to have more of the feminine voice on this podcast.
00:30:59
Speaker
For you, obviously, you guys painted a pretty clear, toxic picture as far as what the relationship was like before. How have you experienced, like actually in the day-to-day, in the relationship, in the emotional availability, et cetera, how have you experienced Danny's masculinity after working with plant medicine?
00:31:24
Speaker
Um, I think that one of the biggest changes was, like he said, empathy. Um, I struggled a lot because I'm an empath. So I'm very quick to empathize with everybody.
00:31:39
Speaker
So I was always confused when I would bring an issue to him or share something I was going through and he would either dismiss it like, oh, that's not a big deal or just do this. Like here's the solution. And I was like, I don't need a solution. I need you to empathize with me. I need you to empathize with what I'm going through. And he was like, I am, I'm giving you a solution because I understand what you're going through. And if you just have a solution, you won't have to feel that anymore. And I was like,
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, totally. So it was really frustrating. And now we're in a place where it's a lot easier to get into that place. I'm not gonna lie, it's not always perfect. But I think I'm not always 100% empathetic.
00:32:27
Speaker
um but we we have this ability to speak more openly um also i feel like he's he is my protector whereas before i didn't feel protected by him when he was lying to me and gaslighting me i wasn't protected i didn't feel safe
00:32:47
Speaker
I feel safe now and that's a huge difference, right? My nervous system is calmer. I feel more at peace in my home. We have, you know, we are constantly, we've also worked with MDMA and MDMA has this love experience where you tell each other all the beautiful things and
00:33:08
Speaker
more and more each day, we speak to each other like we're on MDMA. I'm so happy that we're together. And this is just everyday random moments where we're just saying these things to each other and we feel it. I feel it because in the moment that it happens, I'm like, oh my God, it feels like I'm on MDMA right now. And that's such a beautiful experience that I didn't have before.
00:33:33
Speaker
and yes i knew that he loved me but there was also this this like okay i have to protect myself from him because he's not safe and i think to change from him being a masculine energy that i was in in partnership with were
00:33:52
Speaker
partnership and quotations because it wasn't a true partnership back then. Now he is my king and I am his queen, you know, and we work together. We are in a true partnership and we have each other's back and we support each other and we're there for each other when we need it. And there are times where he needs my support and there are times when I need his support. And it's
Building a Strong Partnership with Boundaries
00:34:14
Speaker
a beautiful balance where I'm not over giving
00:34:17
Speaker
as i was before because he would do these things and then he would tell me oh i don't know why i did that this and that and i would empathize and comfort him and after a while i would be like i'm comforting him he hurt me
00:34:33
Speaker
where's the part where I get comfort in this situation and so I was over giving to the point where I felt empty, I felt depleted and now we fill each other's cup and we help each other grow and it's a partnership and we open our days with ceremony. Every morning we have a cacao ceremony or a tea ceremony and we're together in it.
00:34:57
Speaker
always. Yeah. When we're struggling through something, we're in it together. Whereas before, I felt we were both battling our demons separately. And then sometimes those things would come together and we would fight over it, we would clash. But now when we have something going on, we work on it together. And that's a huge, huge difference. Yeah. Yeah, there's I mean, there's so many things in that like,
00:35:23
Speaker
What's interesting to me is that you, you said that you were, you found yourself over giving, but at the same time having to be guarded, right? And because there was the lack of trust and at the same time, the desire to essentially wrapped up in a really unhealthy, codependent relationship, right? Where if he's not okay, then I'm not okay. So I have to give him myself until he is okay, regardless of the circumstances, et cetera. And, and, and missing each other. And I mean, I,
00:35:51
Speaker
my partner was in a really unhealthy codependent relationship for a while and so we've talked through that and there was aspects even in my former marriage as well and so like I know all that dynamic and it's it what I think a lot of people don't um
00:36:07
Speaker
appropriately understand is how the draining energy that comes with that dynamic, right? The tit for tat, the needing to, the wanting to give of yourself and at the same time the need to be guarded. Those two dichotomies when they're fighting one another in your heart, it's just an absolute energy suck within the relationship. And so
00:36:36
Speaker
I mean, I love hearing all the changes. And the biggest thing, I think life is made up of a lot of experiences, right? I mean, even us meeting at the event, like that was a shared experience. It wasn't super intense. We got to know each other. And now we're having another little experience in the sense of recording a podcast together. In my opinion, and correct me if I'm wrong in this, or I'd love to hear your thoughts, but
00:37:02
Speaker
To me, when a couple, like you guys have, choose to work with plant medicine. You're choosing to dive into the deep end of life's experiences as far as what can be offered.
00:37:15
Speaker
and the byproduct more times than not. I've often said, I love my partner and she is my queen and I am her king and we use that verbiage all the time. But I can't help but ask myself, could my marriage, my previous marriage have been saved if we both chose to explore medicine? At the time, we were
00:37:38
Speaker
diehard Christians and that wasn't on the table and life and the universe just didn't play out the way that that did. But I can't help but ask myself that question sometimes because of exactly what you're talking about when you have two people who are willing to go into that metaphorical deep end.
00:37:57
Speaker
and share those experiences, it creates this unique and powerful dynamic of, hey, we can go through hell together because we're together. Yes.
00:38:09
Speaker
We did go through hell together and we came out and now that's how we know our love is unbreakable. Now we know we face anything because we face everything. But I think the key word that you said earlier in all of that is that both
00:38:29
Speaker
partners have to have the willingness to do that. And that's not always the case. So we were both previously married and I know at least for me and my previous relationship, my partner didn't have the willingness to do anything. Like I asked, let's go to therapy. And that was like a big no, I'm not going to therapy. I'm not crazy, blah, blah, blah. And so there's this resistance to diving in, like you said, deep into the darkness. I have no problem with the darkness.
00:38:56
Speaker
I, in my Aztec birth chart, I am the Jaguar. So darkness is my place. I'm totally okay with the darkness. And, and you know, even Danny, Danny was not comfortable with the darkness.
00:39:13
Speaker
But you know, that's I like to be out in the light partying. But that's connecting with people. That's also part of the feminine and the masculine. Right. The masculine is the sun. The feminine is the moon. So it's all about the underworld, the darkness.
00:39:28
Speaker
And so, but we had this, this, I knew the reason that we could survive was because we were both willing to do the work. We went to therapy together and that didn't work. And you know, like Danny said, we were at the spiritual conference. So we were searching, we were always searching for something.
00:39:46
Speaker
We just didn't know what and we didn't have the guidance at the time. So when we ran into Carla at that conference, she became our guide. She walked us through a lot of things. I mean, she called us out on a lot of stuff. There were many times when she told me, this is still your responsibility. Yeah, he has his addictions, but what are you doing in this situation?
00:40:10
Speaker
Yes. And before that mushroom ceremony, I had gone away with Carla and did like a mini like two day retreat with her. I thought I was visiting her and it ended up being like a retreat and I came home and I was like, I have boundaries. I know what my boundaries are. And I said to him, these are my boundaries. I love you unconditionally and I will always love you.
00:40:35
Speaker
But I love myself. And these are my boundaries. If you cannot respect these boundaries, I am okay with going our separate ways. I will still love you. But I this is where I draw the line. And that was that he was like, Oh, I
00:40:51
Speaker
I have to do something because she's like, she's serious this time. I could tell the difference. She had set boundaries many times during like, if she caught me cheating, if you do it again, that's it or whatever. And it never really, she never enforced the boundaries. So she would speak her boundaries, but she wasn't embodying them. When she came home from that weekend with Carla,
00:41:16
Speaker
I felt it. She was embodying the energy of her boundaries and I knew this time she really meant it. And so I did respect it. I think I just, it's like Cesar Millan says with the calm confidence, if you order your dog, if you're upset and aggravated at your dog and you order it to do something, it looks at your energy and it's not gonna obey you. But if you have that calm, she had that calm confidence.
00:41:39
Speaker
I love you, but I can't tolerate this anymore. If it continues, I'm gonna go my separate way. And I'll still love you, but I can't be with you. And I was like, oh, okay, so let's do this then. So in a way, at first, I wasn't willing to do the work. You had to really get into doing the work first, and that inspired me to start doing the work. Yeah. Yeah. I always call it the rubber band effect on a relationship, meaning
00:42:06
Speaker
You have two people that are together and there's a rubber band. Normally, one person begins to move in a healthier direction. And a lot of people don't like to sit in the tension that's created there. So I'm going to set the boundary, and then I'm going to come back. I'm going to set the boundary, and I'm going to come back.
00:42:23
Speaker
But somebody who's willing to sit in that tension and continue to move towards health, this other person has a choice. They either stay where they're at and eventually that rubber band is going to snap or they begin to take their own ownership and journey and responsibility. And then that rubber band, that tension moves, but you end up over here with a healthier dynamic. But to move that relationship from one place to another, it is not an easy process by any means, but medicine can help expedite a lot of that.
00:42:53
Speaker
years of counseling, et cetera. I mean, for us, we had all of these years of trying to fix these things and setting the boundary was a big step. But
Integrating Psychedelic Insights into Daily Life
00:43:05
Speaker
that experience where I channeled mother Ayahuasca and he felt everything that he was feeling, you were saying before that bad trip
00:43:17
Speaker
fear, right? This is my first time with a big psychedelic experience. And I, you know, the me part of me back here was like, is this a bad trip? Should I call somebody? Do I like what do I do? He's he's suffocating. I don't know what's happening to him. Yeah, yeah.
00:43:34
Speaker
that in me was like he's fine let him go through it and i was like let him go through it and when he when it finally broke and he broke down sobbing i held him and i felt all of this unconditional love it was like
00:43:51
Speaker
the floodgates of love opened. And for me, I think, you know, I'm realizing this right now, all these years I loved him, but I only allowed myself to open up just a little bit because I didn't trust him. In that moment where it broke and he finally saw everything and was truly repentant because he had said, I'm sorry before, I don't wanna hurt you, but he was still continuing those behaviors. In this moment, I could see that he finally understood.
00:44:20
Speaker
You know, yes, I know this hurts you, but it was like he felt it. He knew everything I had felt the past few years. And so when that opened up, it's like my floodgates of love opened up. I had never felt this overwhelming amount of love just flowing into him. And so I just held him and and I let him cry and I was like, OK, OK.
00:44:44
Speaker
And that was this true awakening for me in that that is the feminine energy, right? The tough boundaries where she's like, yes, I'm going to show you exactly what you did and you're going to feel it and I'm going to let you feel it. But I'm right here with love and compassion for you when you're ready to receive it. And I'll let it all flow through. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. I think another component of what you just shared is your heart felt
00:45:14
Speaker
capable of fully responding in love in response now psychedelics helped facilitate this obviously but in response to his vulnerability which i think that's something that especially in you know the conversation around masculinity
00:45:31
Speaker
It's like vulnerability equates weakness or vulnerability equates fear. So I need to like shut that part of me off. And yet for so many couples, the woman is just standing there waiting for the man to open up and actually be vulnerable. And that's what their hearts are longing for. They're longing to feel that connection, that scene.
00:45:54
Speaker
I love that. I do want to hit on one thing before we start to wrap up and that is the integration part of it. Like we've talked about it some
00:46:03
Speaker
but I think that's in the realm of psychedelics. That's an underserved area. It's being talked about more now, but I think there's a lot of people that kind of go into plant medicine expecting it to kind of be a light switch experience where it's like, oh yeah, it was profound. I saw it and I've ever since then, I haven't dealt with that like, you know, or whatever and setting that expectation.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But for you guys, what does that look like as far as the integration in the sense of you have this, let's use that moment with the mushrooms for you, Danny.
00:46:40
Speaker
And then, you know, you wake up the next day and the next day and the next day and you have to actually do something different in your life outside of that crazy, profound moment where you realize something. What does it look like for you to actually do the integration work in that to create a different, practically create a different dynamic in your relationship?
00:47:05
Speaker
The psychedelic experience provides the epiphany. It helps you see things from a different perspective so you can step outside of your own narcissistic, or even if you're not a narcissist, but your egocentric view of an experience, a fight, whatever it is.
00:47:25
Speaker
The plant medicine helps you step outside of that and see it from a different perspective. That's when you get that epiphany, like, oh my God, this is how all that stuff affected her. Now I have to every day put it into practice. I'm not all of a sudden a changed person, a person. It's not like at the end of Beauty and the Beast, all of a sudden the beast turns into the prince and that's it, he's perfect forever more. The day after, I have to now start
00:47:54
Speaker
remembering that when I go to tell a lie or when I do something, if I was going to speak to somebody who Vanessa would be upset about me speaking to an ex-girlfriend or whatever, you know, there were many times in our relationship where I, the part of me, the insecurity needed to know that all these ex-girlfriends still would be willing or would respond to me. So there were conversations I had that were
00:48:22
Speaker
out of boundaries and maybe they weren't cheating, but it was really, I know looking back, it was my ego trying to get some validation. So now I'm like, it's your ego needing validation. This is disrespectful to Vanessa. Don't engage in this behavior. It's not going to make you feel better anyway.
00:48:46
Speaker
As soon as she validates you a little bit, you're gonna need validation from somebody else anyway. That's the addition. So then you can start to work through it slowly. And it really just is day by day, experience by experience. When it comes up, I have fucked up many times since then, right? But every time,
00:49:06
Speaker
it's a little bit easier for us to come back into balance. It's not as much resistance because I understand the process now. We have a process that we're actually developing an e-course about, a shadow work course. It's a mantra that I was given by Mother Ayahuasca called trigger oscillate release. So when I get triggered,
00:49:32
Speaker
I have to sit with it. And instead of avoiding the bad feelings like I did before, because I hated feeling bad. I hated any kind of negative or heavy feeling I would avoid and bury. I didn't grieve my mother for 10 years because I did not want to face the grief. Just as an illustration of how strong my resistance was to dealing with negative feelings. But now it's like trigger, oscillate, release. Trigger, it happens.
00:50:00
Speaker
let it oscillate, think about it. Why do you feel this way? How old do you feel in this situation? What is this, what childhood trauma or what did you experience in childhood or not experienced in childhood that's causing this trigger reaction? And then release it, forgive somebody yourself or whoever hurt you that caused that original wound.
00:50:25
Speaker
that is informing this trigger, right? So there's a whole process of doing that just on a daily basis, anytime you get triggered. And it takes practice. It doesn't happen overnight. It's taken years. I feel like I'm finally now in a place where I've got a pretty good rhythm of doing this where trigger oscillate release, trigger oscillate release. And so the conflicts now, if we have an argument, it lasts five or 10 minutes instead of hours or days. Yeah, that's huge.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah. And so it's huge for conflict resolution. And if we're both practicing that at the same time, she and Vanessa is a lot better at it than I am. Because she is that natural empath. I have to work a lot harder for that. Empathy on my arm as a reminder. So
00:51:14
Speaker
It's hard work. It's not to say that you're gonna have a psychedelic experience and you're gonna be this new person automatically. But the epiphany that you get from the psychedelic experience is like the fuel that you put it in your Tesla and now you're driving through that shadow work. And it's hard, there's bumps on the road and you're gonna hit potholes, but you have the fuel to keep going. Maybe that's a bad idea. Tesla doesn't use fuel.
New Perspectives on Health and Mindfulness
00:51:46
Speaker
I feel like what happens for me in these psychedelic experiences, the things that you see are impossible to unsee.
00:51:59
Speaker
like now you've seen the other side and so there's no way that I can ever forget that experience that feeling of that overflowing love I mean especially because more and more I'm in that space um but it took us like as soon as the as soon as we were like down and like okay we're back to normal it seems um we journaled everything out
00:52:23
Speaker
And as the following days progressed, any little thing that we remembered, we would write down, we would talk to each other about it, we would share. We worked with our friend Carla, also sharing the experiences with her and having some feedback or advice on how to move forward on how to continue to integrate these things.
00:52:44
Speaker
That really created the fact that she introduced us to psychedelics in a form of ceremony really brought us into this space of sacredness where we don't have to be taking psychedelics to be in ceremony.
00:53:00
Speaker
where we are every moment is sacred, every moment is a ceremony and that really shifted things for us where every day our lives kind of shift a little bit more at a time, right? Like yesterday we finished a four-day water fast, this is the first time we have ever done a water fast and
00:53:23
Speaker
That was hard. It was really, really hard work. But through this fast, we were like, yeah, we it's important for us to change our eating habits. It's important for us to be more mindful about what we're putting in our bodies and not just the food that we're putting in our bodies. What are we consuming externally? The social media, you know, anything else that we're consuming, how can we be more mindful about it? So every day, it's a process of how can we
00:53:51
Speaker
How can we create sacredness and every single moment and every single interaction yeah that's kind of been the daily work for me i have extreme reverence for plant medicine. I have been shown.
00:54:06
Speaker
magnificent beautiful things that I don't think I can ever go back to who I was before plant medicines. There's, it's impossible. I mean, I would have to go off on the deep end somehow to go back, but I can't unsee what I've seen. And so there's a,
00:54:24
Speaker
It's every day bringing those memories are with me. I carry them with me. I have my journals. I can always go back and there are times where I do go back and read my journals. And I'm like, oh my God, that was crazy. Sometimes little things that in the moment didn't make sense when I go back weeks, months, years later, I'm like,
00:54:43
Speaker
Holy cow, look at that. I saw that back then and it's only now making sense. And I think that's one of the beauties of the beautiful things about journaling, that you can then go back to the things that perhaps didn't quite make sense back then. But now that you have a different perspective, that you've continued your work, you know, we
00:55:05
Speaker
started going to integration circles. We started going to, we started having ceremonies with other people, having moon ceremonies where there's no psychedelics, but we're in community and we're talking about healing, healing things and setting intentions and releasing things. And so now it's become a habit. We have a habit of looking at ourselves. What do we want to release? What do we want to manifest? What are our intentions and
00:55:30
Speaker
That is now a way of life. It's not just, I had this experience and yeah, that was cool. Now I have a new way of life. Yeah. That's,
Life Advice and Embracing Growth
00:55:39
Speaker
I think that's a great way to end it there in the sense of your, the integration part of it is it's a new way of life. It's not a one-off, you know, it's not, and even what you said, Danny, as far as how the psychedelics, I've always said that, you know, they give you the insights, but it's like, yeah, the epiphanies that open your eyes and you can't go back. You know, you can't go back.
00:56:01
Speaker
Well, I always wrap up everything with three quick rapid fire questions. Last one's all about you guys, but the first one is just simple, broad questions. I'm always fascinated by how people answer these, is what advice would you give your 20-year-old self? Just in general, however you want to answer that, what advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
00:56:25
Speaker
We were talking about this yesterday and I, I gave you a really good like sound bite, but now I can't remember the most important thing that I would like my 20 year old self to know is, oh, love yourself first. That's what it was. Love yourself first. I was so desperate for validation in my teens and 20 and even thirties. Um,
00:56:50
Speaker
because I didn't think I was worthy. My worthiness was coming from external validation. So I think the thing that could change my 20 year old self's life the most would be learning to love myself. So that's my message. Love yourself first. Yeah, yeah. It starts from there, absolutely. Vanessa, what about you? I would tell my 20 year old self that
00:57:21
Speaker
all of the experiences are necessary and part of the journey. The bad experiences, the quote unquote negative experiences are all necessary, right? We exist in duality and light and dark and we can't experience the light without the dark and it's okay to go through the dark experiences. So I personally wouldn't change anything that I've gone through. I'm grateful for all of those experiences and they're all lessons to me now and
00:57:50
Speaker
And I think maybe in my 20s, I wanted to avoid that. I wanted to find a way where I could just go right into the light without anything else. But today I'm grateful for all of the negative experience. So I would say, yeah, all of the experiences are worthy. Well, I think you guys unfairly might have answered the second question without even realizing it. But that is that if you had a billboard
00:58:20
Speaker
One billboard, one billion people would see it. What would you put on that billboard? But Danny, I think I know what you would put. Oh yeah, I love yourself first. I'm gonna start pricing billboards. We're here in Brooklyn, so I could put a billboard on the BQE and millions of people will see it. Yeah, yeah.
00:58:41
Speaker
I think mine would be that, I guess I'm on the same path, right? Life is a ceremony and every moment is sacred. And I think that we forget that. And I've been integrating that more and more. And the more I show up in interactions with that sacredness, if I'm interacting with you, this is a ceremony right now. We are in a ceremony.
00:59:05
Speaker
And if more people started looking at the world that way, I think that would shift dramatically how we interact with each other. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Last question. Where can people find you guys? sovereignlove.nyc is our website. If you want to go directly to the podcast, it's sovereignlovestream.com.
00:59:31
Speaker
And all of our offerings are there. We do ceremonies if you're in the tri-state area, integration coaching, anything like that, you can check out our website. And we have a whole body of work in our podcast where we go really deep into a lot of these issues. We basically do shadow work on the air. A lot of times right before we're gonna do an episode, we have an argument. And then we end up integrating right on the air in front of everybody.
01:00:01
Speaker
And you know, we were talking before about vulnerability. I really think that vulnerability is really the key to everything. It's how we get back to unity consciousness, being willing to be vulnerable with everyone and everyone is how we get back to unity. So I definitely recommend your podcast. I was actually really challenged it. Share this with you guys beforehand, but I love the challenge or the one on the inner victim.
01:00:31
Speaker
Cause that's an area that I have, like I was taught how to be a victim by my dad growing up and within the realm of masculinity, right? That's where I can so easily in a lot of my integration work is.
01:00:44
Speaker
working to change that, you know, that conversation and that dialogue that lens on life expectations, all that kind of stuff. So definitely for everybody listening, go check them out. Danny, Vanessa, thank you guys so, so much for taking the time. Like I said, love this conversation. And I have no doubt that you guys will be guests later on in the future. Yeah, we love you. Thank you so much. Thank you for
01:01:08
Speaker
Thank you for the ceremony. And thank you for your podcast. Yes. Because your podcast, your episode on divorces really helped me integrate some stuff that I didn't even know was still there. I'm also divorced. I had a very similar situation. We grew up Christians. We were high school sweethearts. We got married, the whole thing. But there was always, I was never holy enough. And so
Conclusion and Appreciation
01:01:33
Speaker
because of that,
01:01:35
Speaker
my ex-wife, her family, even my mother, all kind of like hammering me since I'm 16 years old that I'm not whole enough, I'm not worthy, and I need to work hard to be worthy. So here I was in that divorce, oh, that's a whole nother podcast. Okay, all right, we'll save it for my next podcast. Your podcast on divorce really helped me dig into some of that stuff and release it. So I appreciate your podcast as well.
01:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Well, until next time, guys, thank you so much and we will find each other online. Yes. Thank you.