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Lucine Eusani: Internal Family Systems and Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy
138 Plays13 days ago
In this episode Im joined by Lucine Eusani, Lucine is an Embodiment Facilitator, Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapist and Psychedelic Integration Specialist.
We both draw on IFS a lot in our work and share our respective journeys with combining this approach with psychedelic work. We discuss our different pathways into this work, explore parallels between different somatic approaches such as 5 rhythms and psychedelic therapy, outline some key concept from internal family systems and share a little about how this work has impacted us personally.
Lucine originally trained as a mediator, with an MA and Mphil in Conflict Resolution, Lucine spent a decade in South America working in mediation, facilitating of conflict resolution trainings, offering trauma informed yoga, and studying indigenous Amazonian shamanic traditions. With 2 decades as a trauma informed embodiment facilitator, she also became a 5Rhythms teacher in 2015. Lucine is trained in Internal Family Systems therapy (Level 1 and 2), as well as Somatic IFS for individuals and Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO) for couples who want to work with their parts in relationship.
Her 1:1 work is somatically guided and trauma informed, embedded in a deep respect for traditional plant medicines and embodied healing practices, and firmly grounded in the IFS therapeutic model. Lucine currently offers consultancy with training therapists for clinical trials in psychedelic therapy, as well as a 1:1 therapy practice specialising in Somatic IFS and IFS groupwork workshops.
Find Lucine at : www.lucineeusani.com
keep in touch with me at Insta: dresmedark
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-esme-dark-627156a0/
website: https://www.esmedarkpsychology.com.au/
Find Monash Clinical Psychedelic Lab at www.monash.edu/psychedelics
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Audience
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Beyond the Trip, a psychedelic therapy podcast with me, Dr. Esme Duff. During this podcast, I'll be bringing you conversations with thought leaders and other inspiring humans, exploring a wide variety of themes relating to the use of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy in the healing of human distress.
00:00:26
Speaker
Whether you're an aspiring therapist, already a therapist, or just simply interested in the emerging field of psychedelic therapy, then this podcast is for you. Join me for a journey into the psychedelic world.
Acknowledgment and Season Introduction
00:00:39
Speaker
Before we get started, i want to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which this podcast is recorded, the Wadawurrung people.
00:00:50
Speaker
I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, And I extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Hello,
00:01:04
Speaker
everybody, and welcome to season two of Beyond the Trip, a psychedelic therapy podcast. This is the first episode of our new season, which I'm very excited to bring you.
Lucene's Background and Work
00:01:16
Speaker
In this episode, we're joined by Lucene Usani. who is an embodiment facilitator, an internal family systems therapist, and a psychedelic integration specialist.
00:01:28
Speaker
She originally trained as a mediator and has an MA and an MPhil in conflict resolution. Lucene spent a decade working in South America, facilitating conflict resolution trainings, offering trauma-informed yoga, and studying indigenous Amazonian shamanic traditions.
00:01:45
Speaker
With two decades as a trauma-informed embodiment facilitator, she also became a five rhythms teacher in 2015. Lucene is trained in internal family systems therapy, level one and two, as well as somatic internal family systems for individuals.
00:02:01
Speaker
and the couples therapy version of internal family systems, which is called Intimacy from the Inside Out. Her one-on-one work is somatically guided, trauma-informed, and embedded in a deep respect for traditional plant medicines and embodied healing practices.
00:02:17
Speaker
Currently offers consultancy for training therapists for clinical trials in psychedelic therapy, something which we have done together, as well as one-on-one therapy practice specializing in somatic internal family systems and group work.
Themes of Somatics and Psychedelics
00:02:32
Speaker
In this episode, we explore many things that we both are really interested in We have a lot of intersections in our work and the way that we think. We talk about exploring somatics and psychedelics and the importance of healing using both of these modalities.
00:02:49
Speaker
We can outline internal family systems and talk about using that alongside psychedelic therapy, both in preparation and in integration.
00:03:00
Speaker
And we share a little bit about our personal experiences with medicine, work and psychedelics. So i hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I'm really excited to be here again bringing you season two.
00:03:13
Speaker
So let's get into it. Hello, if welcome to the podcast, Lucy, and it's so wonderful to have you here. You know, you and i i was thinking about where to start the story of how you and i know each other, and I'm not sure if you know, but I think I knew about you probably before you, well before you met me from your work in Five Rhythms, which is a practice, ah diet which I'll let you speak to, that I've used a lot personally and have found really, really helpful.
00:03:40
Speaker
And I'd heard about you in that world. and And obviously I was a somatic psychotherapist. And so there was kind of crossover happening. And friends of mine had told me about you and met you.
00:03:54
Speaker
And then we ended up working together to develop some training for the Psyche Institute and their research trial in psychosecarchic research trial that they've been getting off the ground for a while now.
Shared Passion for IFS and Psychedelics
00:04:05
Speaker
And we realized that we actually have so much crossover in the way that we work. We're both working in psychedelics. We're both very passionate about using IFS. I'm me in my general psychology practice and now in my psychedelic work as well. And so it felt really natural to have you onto the podcast today to come and talk about all of that.
00:04:25
Speaker
yeah So welcome. How are you doing?
Lucene's Psychedelic Journey
00:04:29
Speaker
Thanks. Yeah, i was i was saying before we hit record, i just I'm feeling I'm so passionate about all of this work, the somatics, the IFS, the psychedelics.
00:04:42
Speaker
And I literally woke up in the middle of the night, just like overflowing with things to share. really excited. excited clearly to be here and yeah and it's great as you said to have people to share with that have such overlapping experiences especially coming from because that's what's curious about us like we come from very different approaches to those worlds but I always think there's something about you know that idea of like all roads lead to Rome and it's like if we all come from these really different backgrounds and have all sort of recognized there's this like overlapping
00:05:20
Speaker
You know i think that it's like the confluence of those things. Like it's not just ISS, it's also embodiment. And it's also, you know, those things are so supportive together. There's a part of me that's like, well, it must be true if we all come to it from such different perspectives and find the same thing. yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and um I think, you know, when I think about my journey into this work, you know, it started like my i started with finding somatic psychotherapy and then IFRS and then landing in psychedelics with you, meeting you and then thinking, oh, well, we're really kind of, the way that we talk is very similar, like you say, and the way that we are working with clients and the way, even though we have such different backgrounds and maybe you'd like to share a little bit about that now like what was your journey into the psychedelic work that we're doing at the moment where does that begin well it was funny because even the way that you laid out your entry point into those three things I'm like oh yeah I think I came at the exact opposite but order of things
00:06:30
Speaker
Because I, of course, there's no such thing as accidents. Yeah. But I will say that I came into the world of psychedelics by accident.
00:06:42
Speaker
So I had moved to, I had a, when I graduated from, from, so I grew up in the States. I went to school in the States. i went to college in the States, as we call it. And when I graduated from university, I applied for a full bite grant to do research in Columbia.
00:06:59
Speaker
So I went down. As and a researcher, I mean, I laugh now as a 21-year-old researcher, but with nothing to do whatsoever. My background is in conflict resolution. So I went down to work in the field of armed conflict in Colombia.
00:07:17
Speaker
And within about six weeks of having arrived, I got invited to my first ayahuasca ceremony, which in Colombia is called Yahé. if So um I got invited and the ceremony and I was like, what's that?
00:07:35
Speaker
But It was a full body yes. Like I really, looking back on it now, i I, you know, and knowing all the things we know about IFS and protectors, I am very aware that it was definitely coming from a part, but it was also, I do really strongly believe there was a lot of self-energy in that, you know, i I struggled a lot in my early teens and into my twenty s
00:08:07
Speaker
with probably what Western medical diagnosis would say an eating disorder, but just a lot of thematic. I think a lot of my trauma that you know was unexplored at that time was expressing itself semantically through disordered eating and bouts of depression and all kinds of other kind of disruptions to my life.
00:08:33
Speaker
I strongly believe that some part of me knew that disorder This path, this psychedelic path was what I needed for healing. So there was no, I did no research. I did no investigation. i truly followed my gut on it.
00:08:50
Speaker
And that started this whole process initially in Colombia of working with the shamanic
Cultural Perspectives on Healing
00:08:57
Speaker
traditions there. And then eventually led me to Peru where i started working and kind of more closely purposefully with the Shipibo healers and ended up working as facilitator at an ayahuasca center and facilitating a lot of retreats. So working with, you know, groups of people for many years. So it it really was something that I found my way to for my own personal healing and there received so much personal healing, like,
00:09:31
Speaker
for eight or nine years before I then started to hold space for other people but but yeah all from the shamanic context all from that more kind of traditional living in South America working in in a really kind of traditional way or want to clarify I was not I was not offering the medicines. I was the sort of the the support person, the facilitator between the Westerners that would come and the the shamans who were actually doing the medicine work.
00:10:05
Speaker
But ironically, again, I think a lot of what I learned that applies now to the Western clinical approach was all about what we didn't do at the time to prepare people who are coming from this Western context of very, very specific, like the traumas that we experience in the Western world are very different to the traditional, you know, diligent life that these, that originally the shamans developed
00:10:38
Speaker
yeah these rituals and ceremonies to hold space for. And it was only sort of having that experience that I went, oh, wow, like we need to put some shoulders in place and we need to support people.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we need to bring, so you know, we need to, if we're if we're having Western people coming into these spaces, we perhaps need to bring some of that kind of healing from the Western perspective in into those spaces and to kind of, we can talk a bit about that in a moment.
00:11:06
Speaker
Before we get too much into this podcast, I wanted to just maybe, for those, because there's going to be all sorts of people listening and some people will know a lot about IFS and some people won't.
Exploring IFS Concepts
00:11:18
Speaker
And so i think, you know, you've already, I just want to clarify a few things around definitions and how we're talking so that people can kind of make sense of some of the words that we're using. Does that sound all right?
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah. Because both of us, both of us are train a trained in, I mean, you've, you know, dived into lots of IPAS training in the last year or so as well, haven't you? Really getting more deeply into that model and I use it all the time as well. And so,
00:11:45
Speaker
I guess i you know i can start maybe with it and you can kind of jump in whenever you like, but the scene was just using the word self. And so you know the self is the the part that, well, the self is there's something that we all have and It's the part where we are the observer is how I would tend to use to describe it.
00:12:08
Speaker
And that that we all have a self. And then we have parts that come up and it's natural for our mind to be subdivided into these different. And everybody, if you listen to people when they're talking about their distress or their lives, they'll often talk about a part of me wants to go to that party, a part of me does it.
00:12:25
Speaker
Part of me is really angry with my partner right now. but our Our romantic relationships can always pull us the most into our parts or our most intimate relationships, I think. And then behind all of that is this self where we're observing, we might be in that kind of compassionate space where we're being curious but're and we're able to communicate with those parts.
00:12:47
Speaker
And IFS really, one of the things that I really like about it is it has a really non-pathologizing approach. And so for me, it was a natural fit and I'll talk about that a bit later, but you it really welcomes all parts so that all of these parts that come up have a good intention initially, and then they might get pushed into more extreme roles because of difficult life events that we experience.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. Do you want to add anything to that? i don't want to go too much because i'm sure you have lots to say. Yeah, no. I mean, I think, as you said, there's there's so many layers of of nuance in that. Yeah. I think one of the ways that I describe how we discern the difference between self and parts is this idea that self doesn't really have a strong agenda.
00:13:30
Speaker
So when we're in a part, there's often a feeling of like, this is the way, this is the only way. Mm-hmm. One of my trainers in my recent level two explained that in a way that I hadn't heard it before. then you know We talked about the the eight C's of self. So it's like compassion and curiosity and creativity.
00:13:51
Speaker
She's like the ninth C is choice. Like when you're in self, you have choice. Like you can't, you can do it, you can not do it. When you're in a part, there's like a a really strong option.
00:14:03
Speaker
Like this is the way. And that's why, you know, referencing what I said earlier, I think there might have been some part energy and when i first, because it was like, you're going, you know, like you're not there's no way.
00:14:16
Speaker
And I think that's really helpful to understand that, you know, there's this, like you said, the kind of observer, the witness, that's like not so obsessive or driven or kind of tunnel vision, but rather, you know, almost like a kind of sense of being able to step back from it all.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, and that parts, as you said, like they're, I often describe them as like adaptations, you know, it's like, there it's a healthy thing that we do is adapt to our environment.
00:14:46
Speaker
So they're amazing. Yeah. um They're like these incredible adaptations to our life experience, but they're kind of, you know, very...
00:14:58
Speaker
specific in what they can do, what they can perceive. And so when we're in a part, we can often be missing the whole range of other experiences or opportunities because they're like really good at what they do.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. That they kind of, they all come up with it. They all arrive within us with a good intention and that they are really good at certain things. And then that maybe they get a bit overzealous is often a word that I would use, like a bit tunnel vision, a bit overzealous with that role, that maybe the thing that has developed to help us in a particular situation in life maybe becomes something that isn't working for us as well as it used to as well.
00:15:41
Speaker
But we'll probably get more into that. later And I think why it felt like a natural fit for me is that so much of how I was trained was all, it was very much about if someone is in distress and sitting in front of you, rather than thinking about it from a diagnostic medical model perspective, it's not about what's wrong with you, but what's happened to you.
00:16:06
Speaker
And why you've developed these amazing, again, like strategies to help you in the world that then maybe have attracted become an extreme role and attracted a label of something from the medical model, like an OCD label or something like that.
00:16:22
Speaker
rather than coming at it, which is a bit unusual, I think, for clinical psychologists, but that's just that was my training and it's always been my ethos. And that that you know you come at it from a much more holistic approach, looking at what why that person has come to be sitting in front of you with the distress that they have in the particular way that they have had it.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, um' i I would wish that that was the approach that bit more people... It's interesting because I've also done some training and in process-oriented psychology and and there's a very similar ethos there of like, look at the whole surrounding environment and sometimes like, what is this symptom trying to help?
00:17:04
Speaker
yeah And IFAS has such great... Language around like ish that wasn't happening, if that part wasn't there, what would be there? And it's that's like to me that has that question has opened so much, not just in my own personal experience.
00:17:23
Speaker
my own personal exploration of my parts, but with clients, you know, when you ask the question, if that wasn't happening, what would you be feeling? And so often and this part that we think is a problem is actually protecting us from,
00:17:39
Speaker
you know, some underlying despair or depression or, and so instead of, as you said, pathologizing it or making it a problem, that ethos of ISS of assuming that everything is there for an underlying positive intention, just, just is such a game changer. Just that perspective is such a game changer for so many people to approach their depression or their anxiety or their,
00:18:07
Speaker
know, whatever that, you know, disordered eating, you know, which is where IFS started as actually this is this is an attempt of my system to try to protect me in some way.
00:18:22
Speaker
And so I don't have to hate it. yeah Exactly. That changes it so much. yeah It's huge. It's huge for the people we work with. And it's also ah real shift in the mental health kind of lens, on ah lot in the general medical model mental health lens, isn't it?
00:18:43
Speaker
but think it really represents that. Yeah, absolutely. I don't want to take us too far away from your your journey, Lucine, because I feel like yeah you I want to go back there for a moment.
Lucene's Work in South America
00:18:55
Speaker
So you were researching in the jungle and then you kind of stayed for, how many years was it? Was it nine, and did you say, or more than that I was in South America for 10 years.
00:19:06
Speaker
So a lot of that, 10 or 11, there was sort of periods where I would come back. Like I actually did my master's in England in the middle of that, which was hilarious. Like I went from...
00:19:19
Speaker
i wish I was in Colombia in this like tropical, bright, you know, express. but And I went to the north of England to do master's degree and i everything was gray. Yeah, what a contrast.
00:19:32
Speaker
I walked out of the house one day wearing like bright turquoise pants or something because that was just how you roll in Colombia. i just like jack out on the streets like what am I doing? So I went back and forth but yeah all so a lot of that initially was actually in Colombia i was actually more in the cities and then and when I moved to Peru it was yeah in the in the Amazon a a Yeah.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I really liked what you spoke to at the end there, kind of thinking, okay, right, we need to, maybe we need to bring in something to help us work with people who are coming with kind of, you know, because i'm I'm sure that people like yourself and many others came there to work on kind of these traumas or experiences, challenges through the Western framework. So it kind of makes sense, doesn't it, that we might want to bring in something a little bit different.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah. And it's funny because one of my roles when I was working in an Ayahuasca center was to serve as a translator between the shamans who it was quite interesting because of course their first language is Shapiro and they spoke sort of broken Spanish. So I spoke Spanish and then spoke in Shapiro and then people would come in English.
00:20:48
Speaker
And they would they would do these consults with the shamans where they were trying express what they were there to work with. And it was very much, they were coming from the Western perspective, almost treating the shaman like, you know, a psychotherapists. Like, here, let me tell you, let me tell you my childhood trauma history.
00:21:07
Speaker
a And more like, I would explain, and and it I would explain to the shamans, I would translate what they were saying. and They would they were just kind of look blankly. And i started to realize, like, this isn't this isn't just the language that's a problem. It's literally, like, these different worldviews that are just not... First, they did not understand a lot of our Western, like...
00:21:36
Speaker
you know, the feelings of abandonment and neglect that we have from, you know, being left by our parents to go out into the workforce or like because you're always with family there. There's always some extent, you know, so like some of the stuff that people were coming with that was obviously prasad and meaningful for them. They didn't have any context for the shamans didn't have any context for why that would be so painful. This wasn't something they, who you know, worked with.
00:22:08
Speaker
But then also, you know, so much of the kind of earth-based knowledge and wisdom that developed around these plant medicines have a whole different kind of framework.
00:22:20
Speaker
So a lot of it, I often describe it to people as like a lot of it is is similar to like Chinese medicine. It's very related to the elements. So it's like, you know, they when they are looking at someone's energy in the ceremony, they're seeing You know, imprints, energetic imprints, and they relate that to the elements and to different plant spirits and to where our energy is kind of all bunched up or is not like, you know, the cheese not moving to use ah a framework we understand a bit more.
00:22:52
Speaker
but they don't they don't overlay that onto our that's your abandonment wound from there was like trying to bring these these things together in a way that felt like you know not and i don't necessarily think that the shamans needed to understand that the individual's childhood trauma history it was like We needed to. We as as the participants need to understand
00:23:23
Speaker
what's going on for us. And and that kind of, i think, overlays into this idea of why I think now, looking backwards, ISFs would have been so useful or so helpful to help people understand what was happening for them. and And almost like who's driving this experience? Because that's the other thing is that I now, in hindsight, look back and go, wow, so many people would come With so many expectations.
00:23:55
Speaker
You know, and I think it's probably shared generalization to say there's so much like projection onto the the role of shamanism and like that the shamans are these like, you know, sheilers that are like have capacities to heal things within us that, and it's like, as I say this, I i have and incredible respect for some of the healing that I have received in those experiences that is cannot be described in any kind of rational context.
00:24:33
Speaker
So it's like, and here's why I love IFS, the idea of multiplicity. It's like, can we hold these two things at the same time? Like, You can receive incredible healing.
00:24:46
Speaker
And like there is a ah way that one has to be engaged in the process to china it's kind of like lay back let the healing be done to you.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. So, so many things that would have been really helpful to kind of explore a little bit more. Like, is there a part of you that is expecting something or hoping for something that ultimately might result in disappointment?
00:25:16
Speaker
And if so, how can we address those expectations up front? yeah Because I think ultimately... And I don't want to jump ahead of where we're going, but yeah that's a lot of what we call backlash.
00:25:29
Speaker
a That psychedelic backlash is all of these unexplored or unconscious hopes or expectations or beliefs of the silver bullet magical healing that then when...
00:25:44
Speaker
when we return to life, then inevitably a lot of the conditions still remain that there's this sense of crushing disappointment and hopelessness that what we imagined was going to happen didn't.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yes. And had so much to say on that. Sorry, I no, but I think like, So much of what you're speaking to you also makes me think around, it's like, I think when you're working in a different cultural framework of any kind, but also just when you're working in mental health in general, it's really important to remember that like the diagnostic labels that we use are socially constructed. They were designed, they were words that people came up with for a collection of things that they've noticed in Western humans a lot of time, you know, like in society. So when I worked in Myanmar, when the time we were my border, there's no word for depression, for example.
00:26:46
Speaker
They don't know what that is. They have, they feel things in their body. Interesting, they do have a word that describes kind of the physiological sense of trauma. And then a lot of my cross-cultural work in refugee mental health, there's often a word that's very similar to our word for that.
00:27:05
Speaker
um Although I'm sure not always, but that what happens to the body when we're we're afraid or in a traumatic experience. But these things like depression or obsessive compulsive disorder, they don't have those words.
00:27:18
Speaker
And so, and then if you have a person going into,
Western Influence in Psychedelic Therapy
00:27:22
Speaker
stepping into a particular framework, like an IFS, Shibibo, shamanic framework with this idea of I'm going to cure my depression, but there's no concept within that frame.
00:27:32
Speaker
it's It's, yeah, it's tricky, right? Because, and I think, The expectation piece is also fueled by the wider psychedelic field in general and this like magic bullet kind of thing that's been thrown around. There's not going to be a magic bullet for trauma or for mental health issues because there is so many complex layers that co it but create them in the first place within our society. So it's not going to be about just giving someone a thing, sending them off to do a bit of work. on and and And also, there's probably more, but I'll stop for a moment. Yeah, no, if you're right. And I think i what I named, there were like so many various different overlays into it. It's like one is about, you know, from an IFS perspective, like what are what are the agendas that are even bringing us there in the first place? And, you know, is that setting us up for ultimately that backlash or that kind of pendulum swing of like, I thought this was going to be perfect, right?
00:28:31
Speaker
yeah And so, you know, because thats that's when we go with these expectations that are so far beyond, like, I'm going to fully heal this experience, you know, i'm going to release it entirely. Then inevitably we're setting ourselves up for disappointment.
00:28:48
Speaker
so there's that one piece about how do we work with helping people to see what's happening. agenda is kind of behind but then yeah then there's the next thing about the cultural overlay and how much of that you know i and i it's like what i was saying the before it's like i i want to say both things you know it's like we need to have that understanding that you know a lot of the way we're approaching if if we are going into shamanic context that a lot of what the shaman is working with and seeing going to be entirely different to what we are understanding as the problem.
00:29:29
Speaker
And that doesn't mean that we can't receive incredible benefits from trump doing that work without needing to understand it. And that's also ah whole piece that boggles the kind of Western mind, because i I do have this profound reverence for the kind of mystery that is involved with how that healing works with plant medicine, with plant medicine in itself, and then in the shamanic context,
00:30:02
Speaker
You know, I know i have personally experienced physical healing that I cannot explain for any other reason. Yeah. Same.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ah So much of it is so hard to put into words. And I would say the same that there's things that I've felt and experienced that have felt so mysterious to me with psychedelic medicine work. And that's okay, I think.
00:30:32
Speaker
And, you know, with my clients too, they can get really stuck on trying to work out what it was, but maybe actually just letting it be. It's the most useful thing. And that's what I think is quite interesting. You have a lot more experience about this than I do, but in terms of trying to fit all of that into, you know, the Western clinical model is I'm often like, yep, and we have to leave space for the great mystery.
Five Rhythms and Self-Energy
00:30:57
Speaker
Like we have to leave space for, you know, I guess various different ways of describing it. It's like the the element of the transpersonal or the spiritual or the, you know, sentient,
00:31:10
Speaker
you know, in the shamanic, Shapibo shamanic context, the plants themselves have this wisdom, this sentience that is acting on us.
00:31:24
Speaker
And while we don't necessarily need to understand it, I think it's also like, let's at least leave the door open for that because I just feel, you know you cannot understand overlay the Shipibo context into the Western um clinical space.
00:31:45
Speaker
ah At the same time, it feels like holding space for that, which we don't know, is showing a bit of respect or reverence for that.
00:31:57
Speaker
Absolutely. And I guess like I think that holding that transpersonal kind of spiritual lenses, keeping that is really important in clinical spaces. And I think hope, one of my hopes for the field of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy in the Western way we're using at the moment is that it might allow us to bring that more into society.
00:32:21
Speaker
the like it might allow that that lens to widen within the general framework because actually I want to go on too much of a side side topic but I feel like that's important in all therapy and like I probably do a whole other podcast about that but having worked a lot in as a grief counselor in my very early days of being a therapist that was my first job and then kind of working in refugee mental health where so much of the injuries are spiritual then we have to hold that I think, yeah you know, whatever the mystery, the spirituality, whatever that is.
00:32:56
Speaker
And I think we're missing something in the Western framework if we don't hold that. Anyway, that's a whole other topic, but I don't want to like open too much, but I feel like it's really important to me.
00:33:09
Speaker
And so when did IFS come into the picture for you? You moved back. I actually don't know the answer to this question. When did you start training in that?
00:33:20
Speaker
Because five rhythms as well. You might want to speak to that. I don't know where you want to, you know, take this next bit. Yeah, so I'm like, I have that sense of feeling like all these various threads and of course how they were all interconnected. so I also, interestingly, it's another kind of background of where our work overlapped.
00:33:40
Speaker
So when I was working in Colombia, i was working with internally displaced people. So with essentially internal refugees from the armed conflict. And, of course, and actually that was kind of one of my questions that that I think originally brought me, that was part of my Fulbright research, was this kind of larger question of like, what is it that enables some people to recover from that experience and to kind of integrate and live, you know, productive lives and other people just to to never be able to move on from that.
00:34:18
Speaker
those kinds of spiritual traumas, you know, capital T traumas. So I worked a lot with internal refugees and actually ex-guerrilla or paramilitary soldiers. So who people who'd left the kind of civil war environment and moved to the larger cities to try to start over.
00:34:38
Speaker
and And that question that you're describing is the kind of, you know, that that that unanswerable, because I think some of it is really about the transpersonal. It's about, you know, and this is obviously a huge research question that's been done in so many different contexts about resilience and, you know, is it about having had a...
00:35:00
Speaker
you know supportive childhood you know that allows that kind of resilience later in life. But one of the things that became apparent to me was that so much of how people were experiencing their trauma was in the body, was you know through this kind of somatic trauma.
00:35:21
Speaker
symptoms of whether they were able to work with that or not. And so I started getting really interested in different modalities. Again, or course, this was so much guided by my own experience because I was experiencing but so much trauma in my body that I started pursuing the things that were helping me. So found that yoga was really helpful and learning about yoga and meditation. So and then I trained as a go at yoga teacher.
00:35:46
Speaker
And then at the time i did my yoga teacher training in Boston was when Bessel van der Kolk was doing the trauma-informed yoga research. So I was like, oh, okay, I'll go down that path. So I sort of kept taking the things from my life experience that were helping me and then applying them to people i was working with.
00:36:05
Speaker
And somewhere along that journey, oh, this is bizarrely how it all happened. When I was living in England, Someone, i one of my housemates was a a psychiatric nurse.
00:36:18
Speaker
And one day she was like, you have to come to this thing. Exactly the way the yahe happened to me. She said, you have to come to this thing. I'm like, what is it? like It's called Five Rhythms. And like, let's go. So in this bizarre 12-month period that I was living in the north and Northern England, I discovered the practice of the five rhythms.
00:36:38
Speaker
And it's very interesting. It was exactly like my experience with ayahuasca. It was like, oh, yeah, this is... This is it.
00:36:48
Speaker
Because in that period of my life, i was really, i guess now we probably say I was in a state of sort of depressive dissociation.
00:36:59
Speaker
Like I really was not... in my body for a lot of different reasons. And when I came to the practice of five rhythms, I really, so the five rhythms has this particular way of exploring embodiment um in what we call a wave. So it explores this kind of quality and movement, these sort of five different, I'd say essential energies yeah and how we can give them expression through our physical form.
00:37:30
Speaker
And when you put those five different rhythms or five different qualities together, they make what's called a wave. And the founder of that practice, Gabriel Roth, this practice actually developed side by side with Gestalt.
00:37:45
Speaker
So they were both working, Gabriel Roth and Fritz Perls were working together at the Esselstyn Institute. So there's a lot of overlap. And the reason why i share that is because the five rhythms has its own parts work. that This is all is all coming together. That's actually how I first got my first introduction to parts and working with parts was actually through the work of the five rhythms where we explore things.
00:38:15
Speaker
In this body of work called mirrors, we explore how parts show up in the body. So that's actually how I first came to know and experience.
00:38:28
Speaker
this idea that, oh, I have parts and here's how I can feel when I'm in a part versus here's how I can feel when I'm in more of what we call self, where it's just I feel more open and available and present in my body.
00:38:44
Speaker
So five rhythms, I think, was my first opportunity of really experiencing self-energy in a non-psychedelic space.
00:38:56
Speaker
ah Just from the way that the practice works. So you start with, you know, this kind of just gentle arriving, sensing, receiving how you are.
00:39:08
Speaker
And then you work into kind of more, it sort of builds up and there's more like expression and engagement. And then you get to the rhythm of chaos where you kind of There's a lot of, you know, it depends how it's. Yeah.
00:39:22
Speaker
I call it my home rhythm. Same. good but You know, it's like, oh, yeah, this is. And there's a lot of the kind of intention is around non-resistance.
00:39:33
Speaker
So like letting whatever is moving, move. And always there's this kind of transition point when you move out of chaos chaos to the the fourth rhythm of lyrical, where there's a sense of like you're kind expand into by that non-resisting.
00:39:49
Speaker
Like there's this awareness of you who you are that kind of expands. And that's what I would say is kind of the part stepping back and accessing cells where there's this kind of larger sense of like,
00:40:05
Speaker
I haven't gotten rid of my grief and I haven't gotten rid of my pain, but I've stepped into this larger space of like, oh yeah, I can hold that. I can hold that because there's more of me here.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah. I remember going to one of your five rhythms classes actually and being like really stuck in my memory that you said something like, and I'm not going to get the exact words, but like, I am my grief and pain.
00:40:33
Speaker
I am my pain and and that is such a helpful reminder for all of us that you are that and you are something else. And I think you were speaking to something which really resonated with me around being in a different country to your family, maybe. I think you said something about that, which is also my experience. And so kind of holding that and then being greater than.
00:40:54
Speaker
And I think IFS also really teaches us that, doesn't it? That we are multi, we have multi- different parts of us all the time that are there and we are both end, right? yeah And psychedelics also give us that real kind of perspective of this and this, both end.
00:41:17
Speaker
yeah Bringing together opposites and that being okay. Yeah, and that idea in IFS of multiplicity, it's like, we're not ever going to get rid of our parts.
00:41:29
Speaker
We shouldn't want to, right? and dar Yes. And they can all exist in these really complex areas. And, you know, nuanced ways, that doesn't mean they don't, you know, we can hold those contradictions.
00:41:45
Speaker
And I think if there is anything know, I try to like transmit to people, whether it's, you know, I'm often in the position in the moment, and I don't want to polarize anything here. I've got some strong opinions about the the difference between five rhythms and this this category of ecstatic deum.
00:42:05
Speaker
And it's so it's just interesting, even that kind of perception of like, so I would say in IFS, in five rhythms, we're not looking for ecstasy.
00:42:16
Speaker
Where like you actually start by going down, like descending. the the the beginning of the practice is by going down into your feet, going down into the earth.
00:42:28
Speaker
We're not trying to transcend our and suffering. We're actually trying to be able to be with it. Yeah. And, you know, I would say that's also the thing about what makes a difference between a helpful psychedelic experience or, ah you know, potentially one with a lot of backlash is like, I'm not trying to transcend into this aspect of myself.
00:42:53
Speaker
I'm actually trying to kind of expand my awareness so that I can hold it Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, for me, don't know, like, I think for me, five rhythms has always been such a helpful way to process my emotions. And also like that kind of piece of, I actually used to go a lot after work when I worked at the torture trauma service.
00:43:19
Speaker
And I'd go directly from work into a five rhythms class and really helped me to move a lot of what I'd been holding from the day through my body. and And I think, yeah, I think it's really, and you can even just listen to your description, you can see how it can be such a beautiful fit between 5 Rhythms, IFS and psychedelic work. And I think they really do.
00:43:41
Speaker
And anyone listening, by the way, 5 Rhythms is all over the world. So I'll put a link. to some information about it, but there's a very good chance. You know, you went in the north of England for the first time.
00:43:53
Speaker
i got my mum into it. She's going in Bristol in the UK. You know, this Melbourne has plenty. Australia a lot there. It's everywhere. Yeah. If people are interested. Yeah, and it and it's it really was for me. So I moved another like very bizarre story that I moved from Peru.
00:44:12
Speaker
i was brought to Australia to open up an eco retreat center, all of which was laid out in place by Ayahuasca. ah well There's too many stories to tell.
00:44:24
Speaker
So we when I came from, you know, working for 10, 11 years in in in South America, where these circles are, first of all,
00:44:36
Speaker
it's the traditional environment and it's part of the culture, but also it's legal to work in the psychedelic space. And I moved to Australia and I experienced this crisis, which I think was actually probably a big part of what was happening for me in England of like, how am I going to stay in touch with this?
00:44:58
Speaker
yeah Like, how am I going to be able to keep accessing this state of being when I'm not in psychedelic community anymore.
From South America to Australia
00:45:08
Speaker
And the first thing I did when I landed anywhere in stilts, what I do to this day is I get online and find where's the nearest five rhythms class.
00:45:17
Speaker
Because yeah, it it felt like they're very similar gateways into very similar states of being that can be accessed through the body. And I'm going to say that now because we may ah touch on this in a later when we talk about psychedelics and protectors and, you know, when is it a good time and not a good time.
00:45:41
Speaker
i I've described myself recently in the last recent years as like, I feel sometimes like i'm a psychedelics bouncer. a lot of people, I'm like, make yeah you know Maybe just slow it down a little bit.
00:45:54
Speaker
So having people know that there are other access points to similar states, you know, where you have, you can, and you know, start with, and and I don't necessarily think that five rhythms is the only way, but there is like there is a pathway to be able to access some of that feeling and experience that In the body, a kind of more, I'd say, grounded container where you have more sense of agency over how much you're feeling and not feeling.
00:46:28
Speaker
I think it's really helpful for people to know that there are various different pathways. to self-enproduce. Absolutely. i think that's really important.
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, you know, if I think about ah just briefly, like my, it's it's a long story and a shorter story, but like my journey into IFS, you know, it began, actually, don't know this, but it was through our mutual friend, Lauren, Lauren Ban. Oh.
00:46:57
Speaker
She introduced me to IFS because, She'd heard about this course that was happening that was like, well, you know, the introductory ones. Oh, yeah. And i I didn't really know anything about it, but I read some stuff and I was like, oh, this sounds like, you know, at the time I was working in refugee mental health and a private practice. So I was kind of doing both.
00:47:16
Speaker
And it it it as i it really resonated, as I've said, with this kind of non-physologizing approach that I was already taking. And by that point, I was also in the middle of and quite deep into my sensory motor, like a therapy somatic training.
00:47:32
Speaker
And I thought, oh, I'll go along to this course. And I'm with Laurie. It'll be nice to go with my friend from work i because we were working together at the time. and and And I just sat there and I had one of those moments of like, yeah, this is
IFS and Deep Trauma Processing
00:47:43
Speaker
it.
00:47:43
Speaker
This is a therapeutic modality that I really want to... got dive into more in terms of using it with my clients but also i then went and sought individual IFS therapy for myself and I got into i had ways to be with the trauma that I've experienced in my life and the challenging experiences that I've had that I couldn't get to with other types of therapy that I had never i peeled back the the layers and was able to do that thing you were just speaking to of like holding the grief and holding the pain and in a way that just wasn't hadn't been possible for me before and I'm not sure if I'm jumping ahead now but and then I kind of when I went into a high dose psychedelic experience at Monash's part of the the trial i felt like I was doing IFS work on myself
00:48:35
Speaker
And I do, i mean, I've heard a lot of people say that. and And I know that, I mean, I was kind of primed in many ways because I'd had a lot of work and I'd done so much work with my protective system before I went in there.
00:48:48
Speaker
But yeah, and and I kind of had this very potent moment of working with an exiled part that was holding trauma that I'd worked with before. So it's not like it was a quick fix. It's layers, right? When we're working with these things, it takes time. It's not all going to happen in one high-dose psychedelic session or one therapy session, but it was just it's just been the most powerful thing that I've experienced personally as a client, I would say.
00:49:15
Speaker
And that's why I use it so much. um Yeah, and I just, i I really loved hearing, there's something so interesting about how our experiences are so similar and yet almost like approached from, like, I feel like I came at IFS opposite, sounds very binary, but it was like, I had all these experiences of you know, working through embodiment. Like I mentioned, the mirror's work in Tri Rhythms is amazing.
00:49:45
Speaker
embodiment of parts it's like how do you what when you're in this part how does it shape your body what repetition does it make what do you and then you find this kind of physical expression and then sometimes from the body like a phrase will come out And so I started learning about parts just through exploring these physical shapes and these movement repetitions and like, you know, like all of that clenching in my jaw. Like, what is that?
00:50:15
Speaker
but If I just use all of my awareness to that clenching and I let it happen, what is it saying? So that's how... in In five rhythms, we explored hearts. And so then when I discovered, so I was actually doing hearts work with people through the body.
00:50:33
Speaker
and i And it was actually one of my clients. That was like, oh, you mean like IFS? and close What's that? Because and then so as i as I started reading about it and learning about it, it was like, this is the language that completely matches what my experience had been, both through psychedelics and through embodiment.
00:50:59
Speaker
Like the even the idea of like, you know, working with exiles, it's like in the shamanic world, it's called soul retrieval, you know, like you bring back these parts of yourself that have been exiled, not not allowed to live in your body because of.
00:51:16
Speaker
you know trauma So it was, it was like made as you're describing it, like for me, it made complete sense, but it was like, someone has finally given me the language and then the like really clear and specific step-by-step protocol.
00:51:37
Speaker
about how to lead people through something that I had initially experienced. Just, you know, like you have the experiential version of it and go, how did that happen? And that and then IFS is like, step one, step two.
00:51:52
Speaker
And so it was just such this incredible gift because it was like, oh yeah, this is is exactly matched what my experience was. So it just felt like this perfect fit.
00:52:04
Speaker
But again, something that I had kind of come to through my own, initially through my own life experience and then got the theory. so But yeah, it was a similar feeling of like, oh yeah, this is so helpful. And then being able to language that now with client makes it so much more, like a statistician.
00:52:26
Speaker
There's an efficiency to IFS. i have their I have parts that love efficiency. They're like, what's the fastest route to get this point to across?
00:52:37
Speaker
I mean, the thing that I hear the most from clients is that it gets me to, or it gets them to depth of processing your experience that they haven't been able to get to with other things. And my experience of using IFS both personally and with my clients is that it can feel...
00:52:59
Speaker
somewhat on the edges of psychedelic in terms of people might experience big feelings in their body. Some people get very, we were talking about this just before we went on air, like for some people it's very visual, for others it's very somatic.
00:53:12
Speaker
There are so many ways that people can experience parts. But I often find that when I'm sitting in self, so I'm in that compassionate, curious, open, non-agended space with my client, working with them, that we end up in this, it feels almost otherworldly place. Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
where we're working with their energy and their parts and bringing it back into their body, of course. But I find that fascinating. And so it feels like such a natural fit. And we're not the first people to be having this conversation. A lot of people are thinking more and more about how to use IFS alongside psychedelic assisted therapy or in in other contexts you know in the as well.
00:53:53
Speaker
But yeah maybe i can share... like Well, maybe I can ask you, sorry, like why you feel like IFS is such a good fit with psychedelic work.
00:54:05
Speaker
So we hone in a little bit now. so appeal that feel good? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I feel like a way that just kind of makes sense for me to share is almost like, i i feel like this one of the themes that I'm describing this is how i there are a lot of things that I didn't understand. so i experienced experientiary and then went back and went, oh, right, this is that. And so i I also feel like I learned a lot of what I learned about psychedelics the hard way through throwing myself into experiences.
00:54:43
Speaker
you know, probably driven by certain parts and then going, oh yeah, might've helped to know that. And, you know, I think that's partly why I feel so passionate about this work about, you know, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and use the the potential of your psychedelics in the healing space is because I have experienced such profound healing in my own life.
00:55:13
Speaker
But I've also experienced profound fragmentation. And I guess, you know, looking at that, particularly through the eye the lens of IFS, it's like, what could have helped me?
00:55:27
Speaker
So think the idea of understanding our protective system, understanding that we have these incredibly wise protective hearts,
00:55:42
Speaker
that show up and and again, this is this conversation that we're having before off air, but particularly in my experience, my parts show up semantically predominantly.
00:55:55
Speaker
So I don't necessarily like hear a voice or see something, but it's through so tracking my
Navigating Psychedelic Experiences
00:56:04
Speaker
semantic experience that I've started to understand like, oh, that's, that's a protector. So one of the,
00:56:13
Speaker
I'm going to say, i think this is a whole like neighborhood of parts. Maybe an army. and like I think there's more than one part here. But I have a lot of parts that, I guess the kind of clinical word for it is they're they're like somewhat dissociative.
00:56:32
Speaker
But the way that they show up is through kind of decreasing my emotional and physiological, like my sensations. So kind of numbing, but not in an overt, like you would never, seeing me from the outside, you wouldn't necessarily go, oh, she's dissociative.
00:56:53
Speaker
Like it's just like someone just dialed down the intensity on my experience. Yeah. And I can explain that, you know, to a lot of ways. I think I grew up in a very intense and kind of violent surroundings. And so, you know, like we say, no bad parts. Like these parts were amazing at getting me through life without being terrified.
00:57:18
Speaker
And there's so many things that I've done in my life experience, like going to work in Columbia with ex-guerilla soldiers. People always ask me, weren't you terrified? Yeah. I'm like, not at all.
00:57:30
Speaker
i now understand that that's because I had these protectors. They just like they just kind of dial down the intensity of my experience and put this kind of bosher protective layer between me and the world.
00:57:45
Speaker
and So why I share that is that in a lot of my early experiences of psychedelics, I had no idea that these protectors were doing what they were doing.
00:57:56
Speaker
yeah And the amazing thing about protectors is they can they can keep doing what they're doing, some of them, even in the psychedelic experience. So for years, I used to think that I needed a lot of medicine che to seal anything.
00:58:15
Speaker
ah hey And so for years, I'd have this experience where I would be that person that would keep going back for another dose, keep going back for another. And I thought that I needed so much to to to feel, to to access what other people were accessing.
00:58:32
Speaker
And then I would get to this point where, you know, I was so, I had so much medicine that, you know, I i think about this one particular experience, which I now realize wasn't profoundly healing, but I literally...
00:58:50
Speaker
experience myself fragmented into thousands of pieces i had no sense of where my body was like I I was actually so I think I was speaking but I I happened to be in ceremony with a dear friend of mine who I trust deeply and I just remember saying there over and over can you touch my leg can you show me where my leg is and I was so terrified you know this is So far beyond what was ah therapeutic, like I experienced this profound sense of
00:59:26
Speaker
being lost in the void. yeah And thankfully was in a safe enough space with this dear friend of mine who brought the shamans over.
00:59:37
Speaker
And I literally experienced them like pull each fragment of my being together. Like experienced them piece me back together, which I'm, you know, so profoundly grateful that I had that support.
00:59:57
Speaker
yeah I have had other experiences similar to that where I wasn't in such a supportive environment and completely unable to navigate and, you know, kind of keep myself safe.
01:00:11
Speaker
But when I look back at that now, it was like I was overriding These are protectors who were like, no, not ready. no don't want to let go. no And I was just overriding them with more and more medicines.
01:00:27
Speaker
yeah Until I got to that point of fragmentation that was so terrifying that for years afterwards, I had so much terror around drinking medicine because like there were parts of my system that were like, we're never doing that again. Yes.
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah. so Just that sense that at the time if I had had some guidance around understanding that these are my protectors and that they're actually here for a reason and that they're my friends.
01:01:00
Speaker
Yeah. And that I couldn't, there are ways for me to work with them to to check in, you know, is it okay for me go into this experience and what are their concerns about and how can I help resolve some of those concerns? And are they willing to scotching, which now working in that way? i don't, I, I,
01:01:24
Speaker
drinks I take such small doses. I mean, i actually, as you're describing, like the more I work with IFS and embodiment, the less dosing I actually experience myself.
01:01:36
Speaker
But what i realized was that I didn't ever need those high doses. I have a highly sensitive system. It's just that I didn't have there the process and the awareness To ask these protector parts to soften back.
01:01:56
Speaker
Yes. And engage in the experience. Yes. Well, thank you for sharing that. And, you know, because I think it's so helpful. I haven't listened to that thinking, you know, now but most of my work in this space, working with clients has been,
01:02:13
Speaker
You know, all of it has been in a trial space apart from, you know, people come to me also for integration after. So they might have done psychedelics somewhere else. But when I take people through that whole process, it's, you know, has been through with but with about three sessions of psychotherapy for preparation, then a dose, three integrations, and then a dosing session with medicine, and then three integrations.
01:02:35
Speaker
Or... I was known as the therapist with and me and my diet partner, the most people that got onto the placebo arm, out of the whole trial.
01:02:46
Speaker
So actually my experience was mostly working with people for about 10 psychotherapy sessions with some dosing with a high dose antihistamine in there, because that's what we as our patients.
01:02:59
Speaker
placebo. But what that actually meant was I've actually had a lot of experience now working with people for a long time before giving them medicine. I mean, it's not, that could be longer too, but that's, you know, it's 10 weeks of 90 minute sessions is quite a lot. And yeah a lot of what we were doing is, was working with and getting to know their protective systems. Yeah.
01:03:20
Speaker
And those people had really deep experiences, I think. And i'm not I don't know if they're looking at this data on the trial, but I would be curious to see how those people did versus the people who had less psychotherapy. and I'm sure they probably are looking at that. The results are not out yet. But intuitively, it felt really helpful to me to get to know people's protective systems first and and to kind of and to get permission.
01:03:48
Speaker
you know to And i started to do that in different ways at the beginning of a dosing session with clients and that but we would kind of do some work in the prep sessions and then they'd come in for their dose day and I would work a little bit or a lot depending on the person with their parts.
01:04:04
Speaker
So that was, and I think it sounds like for you, that was something that would would have been helpful in those settings that someone can come and do that work with you either before or after. Yeah, and even being able to, once people have the awareness that that exists, it's it's even something that we can do with ourselves, right? like Yeah. It's wonderful if you have ah therapist, but beginning by developing the, even just having the awareness that this exists, right? That like, you know, and this this shows up for me everywhere, I should say. Like, you know, I noticed, you used the example of partnership, relationship stuff, which I think-
01:04:41
Speaker
if is the most perfect mirror and activator for all for all my protector parts. Becoming aware that any time there's a slightest insinuation of conflict with my partner, i'm i'm fine.
01:04:59
Speaker
I'm fine. It's taken so long to go, oh, that's protector. like yeah Because I feel like a non-feeling. They feel like I'm just like, yeah, I'm good. you know Yes, yes. Oh, wow.
01:05:16
Speaker
There they are just taking me, taking me away from anything that they perceive as. you know, disruptive. And it's so cool. It's so wonderful that they do that.
01:05:28
Speaker
And, you know, and then there's low on effects of that. And, you know, it's actually exacerbating the dynamic between my partner and I. It's like, what's...
01:05:40
Speaker
and Why aren't you feeling anything? What is she? Yeah, and then his his parts get activated and then your parts are having an argument, right? Which is definitely something that I experienced, you know, and I think most people. i mean, you and I were talking about this before and I also experience...
01:05:59
Speaker
parts very somatically in but mine and like could my like right now for example is something that experience quite a lot is this kind of tight feeling in between kind of my middle of my chest that is very tight and very hypervitilant.
01:06:20
Speaker
So when I'm feeling stuff, like when I'm recording a podcast or at the moment, I've got a lot of things going on outside of work life that are really exciting and but big stuff like selling, I'm trying to decide whether to sell my house in the UK and there's a lot happening.
01:06:37
Speaker
And so there's anxiety here and that part is very hypervitilant. It's kind of always scanning and watching and making sure that I'm safe and what do I need to do to make sure I'm safe? It's very active, which is actually very helpful in a public speaking situation to a point.
01:06:56
Speaker
You know, it kind of it comes up a lot in those spaces and I get quite organized and I might over prepare. But then once I get into the situation... It's kind of settles down. However, if I get really, really anxious, which for sure happens, that kind of hyper, hyper vigilant over thinking kind of can just trip me up completely. And then I can't think because it's working so hard that I can't actually be present with the conversation.
01:07:24
Speaker
man Yeah. So how do you in the moment, how do you work with that part? What is that part? Like this morning, I was just sitting before we came in and really aware of just kind of checking in and saying hi and sending it a bit of care and and just, and noticing and thanking it because it is very helpful. Like I do think some version of this i is really, really important for me and, you know, and I use it a lot.
01:07:55
Speaker
So for me, I find like just placing a hand on there can help calm it and let it feel seen. I might ask it, like, what does it want me to know in this moment?
01:08:07
Speaker
And just, but kind of really holding it and breathing into it. So that it can relax enough. And it doesn't you usually go completely, like, you know, even though I know you well and we're flowing and this is great. It's still kind of there, but it's not as hypervisual and watchful as it was beforehand.
01:08:27
Speaker
So you feel like it responds to year to your care? Like it yeah notices you noticing it? Definitely does, yeah.
01:08:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and can it can start to kind of so relax a little bit. little bit. But not completely. Man. Yeah. You know, I think that's the thing that is so profound for a lot of people to get. And, you know, we just keep getting it over and over. Is that for most of our parts, they're like really not aware oh us, of self.
01:09:04
Speaker
And so that moment of being like, oh, I really appreciate that part and what it's trying to do. And then it's like, this that part get it that it's being appreciated right now?
01:09:17
Speaker
It's often such a a moment of like like, we actually have to make that connection. You know, for when I notice my numbing parts and then taking that extra moment to be like, oh, that's really cool what you do. Like, that's really amazing. And for them to, just to receive that appreciation, and it feels like it takes a lot of just doing that o over, in my system, over and over.
01:09:49
Speaker
Like, just letting those parts know a that that i I'm seeing them a And I'm not going to try to make them go away, but just that I'm actually like, oh, wow, what you do is incredible.
01:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Because I don't know if you have this experience in your practice or in your life, but I think a lot of aaha is done. I speak even in my own bosses by some parts trying to get rid of other parts.
01:10:21
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, it's like I usually turn up to my ISS sessions like, OK, can we focus on this? yes And that generally there's some agenda in there.
01:10:35
Speaker
of like How can we make this start? Yeah. You know, so I really have to like, you know, and of course my Ives therapist is great with catching me on this, but I'm just noticing like, where is this coming from?
01:10:50
Speaker
And that whole thing that self has no agenda. It's like really noticing when it's absolutely just coming from a place of ah of curiosity and appreciation for like, oh, there that part is like,
01:11:07
Speaker
Yeah. How useful. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, it's interesting, even me just pausing for a moment a minute ago and doing that in this conversation, the tightness has got bit less.
01:11:21
Speaker
Yeah.
Importance of Recognizing Protective Parts
01:11:22
Speaker
And it's like, it just, even that additional check-in has helped it to kind of settle down just a little bit. And I agree, like both me and my clients will often say, oh yeah, yeah, no, I'm really grateful took to this part, but I just also wanted to, go you know, but the subtext thing, and I also wanted to go away.
01:11:41
Speaker
And so it's so natural, you know, like course I totally understand that, but it's very, to be tricky with people and catch them when they do that. And catch myself, right? because Yes, to say.
01:11:55
Speaker
You know, it's like we have these amazing opportunities when we're sitting in a session to have a therapist ask those questions for us. Like, so how are you feeling towards that part? Because, yeah it's like and until you actually check in the next layer down, it's like, oh, yeah, no, it's great.
01:12:11
Speaker
But I'd like it to stop. It's great when there's a therapist there to to check in. But, you know, so much of IFS is happening moment to moment. Like you said, when you're standing in front of ah crowd about to speak or when I'm sitting down with my partner to have a conversation. and it's like really being able to observe that if there's any kind of resistance to this that it's it's coming from another part that's like would you just get away yeah and being able to soften that and go a lot of these parts i don't i don't know the story of yet you know because they show up it's just so like as a sensory awareness and
01:13:02
Speaker
It takes a while in my system to know the story of my parts, but just to approach them from this awareness that, you know, be a lot of them, they're, they're pre-verbal, think, which is why and somatic ISF is for me has done such a, a useful, you know, they like, day they don't even necessarily have words, but,
01:13:31
Speaker
And, you know, I am also really, I'm often curious about those ones like in the gut, in the, that kind of vigilance, which I also have in my system, just alongside of the dissociation, and I've got the hypervigilant.
01:13:46
Speaker
okay And I sense them as like, really like, this was happening, know, probably like before I had access to words, it was just like my way of, know,
01:14:00
Speaker
trying to be saved in a world that felt overwhelming and scary yeah bringing that awareness that this isn't a rational adult behavior but that like it's a very young you know early response to life just kind of helps in my in my experience just helps to kind of soften the judgment towards it Yeah. or that Thank you for sharing that. And I feel like that's so important, that idea that some parts and maybe quite a lot might be pre-verbal or non-verbal and don't have words. And I think we talked about this a little bit off air. And I think it's an important thing to say is that, you know, everybody's experiences their parts differently and...
01:14:48
Speaker
we Of course, we have so many experiences before we learn to talk. And also, like like for me, I was in an incubator for 10 weeks as a baby, right, because i was premmy and was born really, really tiny.
01:15:01
Speaker
my mu My body was the length of a BIC. pen like a oh my god and my legs were the longer but yeah it was super tiny and so I'm sure that some things developed at that point and interestingly in some in a journey I I was doing this which I'm like yeah what am I doing here I'm like stroking something with my thumb for anyone listening and like holding my hand and squeezing with my thumb which is what I used to do in the incubator because my family members would put their hands in and I would like
01:15:33
Speaker
hold it like this, I've got photos. And so, you know, there's, it's a it's a very, I'm sure that I have lots of pre-verbal parts that come up forever from that time and And so much of our experience with the world is not with words.
01:15:49
Speaker
You know, words are made it up only a small part of actually how we are in the world. And I'm sure that you're fully aware of that. And so am I. And so, of course, they don't, our parts don't always have words. We might just feel, we might sense.
01:16:02
Speaker
Some people get very visual images. For some people, they mine come out in my dreams as well. So that can be another important way to get to know a part.
01:16:13
Speaker
For some people, they really like to kind of channel them into objects. And some people I've worked with have found that really, really helpful. And that helps them to kind of connect. Sometimes they talk to us in words. Some of my parts are very, tell me a lot in words. And sometimes they speak to me in sensation or feeling or something that else.
01:16:34
Speaker
Yeah. and Or non-feeling. Yeah, or non-feeling. I've got those parts too, by the way, you know, you're like definitely do. and And yeah, I think it's important to welcome all of those different channels, right?
01:16:47
Speaker
Process that talks about channels. And I think as a therapist, you know, I can get very sort of, I generally ask people if they feel a part, like, where you feel it in your body? And that's where the dialogue starts.
01:16:58
Speaker
But some of my clients don't feel them in their body. And that's been a really important lighting for me too, that maybe then we use an object or drawing or something else. Yeah.
01:17:09
Speaker
Yeah. the the It's funny how all these different modalities add like extra elements to support each other. And the idea of, you know, process work and the channels and understanding, you know,
01:17:23
Speaker
what you might have a main channel that you tend to to experience your parts in. And then there will be some that are beyond that and how to help people to perceive that and tune in into how they know what they know.
01:17:40
Speaker
And it was interesting. There's such a, this is my experience. This might not be scientifically accurate, I tend to meet so many people in the psychedelic therapy world, both as participants, but also as therapists who have that experience of the the incubator or the, I think in Australia, they call it the humidicrube.
01:18:01
Speaker
and I heard it. so common am so curious because it feels like psychedelics is such an a place i suppose where we're able to experience some of those early i would say they're they're those are the things that are much more embedded in our unconscious experience i would also semantic work again is a great you know gateway to explore and heal that but yeah all of that kind of pre-verbal and really like very deeply embedded in our you know this isn't even our conscious yeah experience of the world it's like all of that imprinting about proximity or distance and kind of these core existential feelings of aloneness you know that really make no sense to this person's
01:18:58
Speaker
at Elijah and how often I end up finding out with clients. you know, like much later on, like, oh yeah. And I was also, you know, in the humidity crib for six weeks. So like, oh, just, yeah I have such a curiosity, you know, and it wasn't, this isn't like, I don't, I don't have a broad enough evidence base, but it feels like there's something that draws a lot of people with that experience.
01:19:22
Speaker
To this work. To this work. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know, but that would be an interesting thing to look into, I think. yeah And I would love to be involved in one of the studies and be like could you put in this question as well? Just could you?
01:19:37
Speaker
But it's a really important thing. Like I think actually something, know, because a lot of people listening to this are therapists, like really important to ask about that early, very early developmental history, even with adults. And I think even I, you know, i definitely also forget sometimes to ask those questions, but it can give you so much information.
01:19:57
Speaker
I'm mindful of time and I really want to get into a little bit about integration and IFS? I feel like we've covered how a little bit around, and of course this is a whole probably more that we could say, but we've covered a little bit around preparation.
01:20:14
Speaker
And is there anything you wanted to add on dosing? Like I feel like on the dose day or when someone's in a medicine session, like I've definitely used IFS to help. working with their to help work with the protective system and I've personally experienced it being helpful in terms of helping me navigate inside a psychedelic journey I'm not sure that that's always the case that's also different from each other but that's just that was just my personal experience and I would never try and suggest that that's something someone should learn to try to use in there because I don't think it works like that at all but there is a thing that can happen in a dosing session you know i was
01:20:51
Speaker
Keeking out a little bit on Stan Groff and his work and his early work and talking about the COEX system where people kind of journey through similar memories to do with a particular theme in their lives that feels very IFS-like. You know, when you're sometimes working with an exiled part that the protectors are protecting, it might release in a way that feels like that.
01:21:13
Speaker
in ah in an individual session. So I think that's something I wanted to say, but I don't know. Yeah, I think, ah yeah, i I agree in that because dunking session can be so different.
01:21:28
Speaker
depending on medicines, first of all, you know, some medicines you're more accessible for conversation. Other medicines are so profoundly somatic that actually trying to do any kind of work is potentially not either accessible or not helpful.
01:21:44
Speaker
There's so many, such a broad variation. I think it'd be hard to speak to and you know, without going really specific into each one. Although I will say again, in terms of very general themes, just the idea of self energy,
01:21:57
Speaker
you know In IFS, self-energy is the healer. Self-energy is the therapist.
Healing with IFS and Self-Energy
01:22:03
Speaker
And as an IFS therapist, your role is to just emanate self-energy and emanate that turns trust in the person's that this person also has self-energy.
01:22:15
Speaker
And, you know, I think if there's any one thing that one could take from that, and um it matches so many different, you know, the idea of the inner healer, so many different kind of modalities have that idea that, you know, I think one of the best things that one can do, especially if you're not trained as a therapist, you know, i know there's a lot of contexts where people are working as a sitter or even a space holder,
01:22:39
Speaker
Emanating that that staying in your own self energy of trusting that this person's internal system has what it takes to work with and integrate.
01:22:51
Speaker
There is something about just... You know, such it's so important, just even in one on one straight IFS therapy session. So many parts get activated that want to help, you know, yeah all of my therapist parts that are like, oh, we could do this. So, you know, and they're out figuring things out, you know, and how my job works.
01:23:13
Speaker
as an I-DOS therapist is to work with my own parts and go, hey guys. You can step back a bit. and Thanks for showing off right now. I'm okay. I've got this.
01:23:24
Speaker
but And I think the reason why that's so much more important in psychedelics is we're so sensitized to what's happening in the space that when you're in a dosing session, having a particular time, if the therapist is activated, if the therapist is worried,
01:23:42
Speaker
like that can cause this whole cascade of secondary effects of, you know, feeling the other person's distress or worry or concern. Like, oh, something really, something bad must be happening if this other person is activated.
01:23:59
Speaker
Totally agree. Yeah. And I think that's where the IFS process as were your job in that space is to work with your old hearts.
01:24:10
Speaker
Yeah. And to calm your own system. and to be in self and ah you so and I think that's, thank you for bringing that. It's really important. And I can remember a lot of the time in the trial work, you know, really intense experiences are happening in front of you. And so you can get pulled out of self into a part. And I think having a, you know, working in a diet, out having someone else with you is also can be really helpful in terms of assisting both of you to kind of be in that.
01:24:37
Speaker
And I think, you know, I've said this on other podcasts in this series, but like getting to know your own therapist parts before you do psychedelic assisted therapy is probably one of the most important things. Like really know that rescuer, you know, that that wants to jump in when the person is really having a big emotional release because you could interrupt that.
01:24:56
Speaker
But sometimes sometimes a person is also, it's complicated, right? Because sometimes they're looping in a way that is not so helpful for them. And so when do you make that judgment?
01:25:08
Speaker
And that is beyond the scope of this podcast and something that I think is pretty challenging, right? And if people, you know, it's definitely something to be thinking about as we work on going to the clinical use more here in Australia.
01:25:20
Speaker
Totally. And that that feels like we can totally have a whole other conversation and podcast around that. But that that's, again, where I feel like having an IFS practice of noticing, am I coming from self or am I coming from apart?
01:25:37
Speaker
Because in self, I generally have the feeling that I can make an offering in a very non-agended way.
01:25:48
Speaker
That isn't rescuing, yeah but is like just like compassionate of that person's humanity. And generally, in this sense again, this sounds very very generalized without having specific examples, but I find that it's not...
01:26:07
Speaker
it's it's almost like the person can take it or leave it because it's not coming from that pressurized way. And so, yeah I suppose if it is largely therapists listening to this, you know, to really say having, having your own practice of noticing your own parts and then blending from your parts and bringing awareness to where that intervention is coming from in yourself, knowing that, you know,
01:26:37
Speaker
that one's perfect but it is yeah I find it it's a really helpful reflection to go okay where where is this coming from in me that to avoid some of that you know unnecessary projection or intervention totally yes and like he maybe we should do another episode on this I feel like I've covered it a few times in different ways and it's like But i I think I would sometimes check in with my diet partner too, like if I'm thinking of intervening and then is that a year and and where you? know and And that's quite helpful as well in terms of working out whether it's a my therapist part or a projection that's coming up.
01:27:22
Speaker
ah'd like to I'd like to talk a little bit about this idea of longer term integration and we used the term whiplash before as well.
Integration Timelines and Misconceptions
01:27:34
Speaker
And so I'd like to dive into that a little bit more. you know The word integration gets used a lot you know in the psychedelic space. And, you know, in in our trial, we had, you know, a couple of some dosings and then about three or two to three sessions of integration psychotherapy before that, but we were very clear that integration lasts a long time. And you and I have spoken a bit about this. So what do you think people think integration is and what do you actually think it is in a more realistic way?
01:28:05
Speaker
way yeah i mean i think often my sense is that people's expectations are our integration are like two or three days or i mean some of it's dictated i think by the context so like yeah for example in traditional and traditional ayahuasca context you're ah you're asked to be on a diet and i think again different traditions have a different framework some of it's like 10 days some of it's two weeks some more kind of moderns you're like four or five days before so sometimes people feel like oh well i'm on a diet so that's the kind of period afterwards where i'm integrating for those 10 days or two weeks and and the diet is about you know again that kind of more shamanic cosmology of like allowing the plant medicines or the plant spirits to integrate into your
01:28:58
Speaker
Your physical and energetic body that you hold this particular, you eat certain foods or don'ate don't engage in certain behaviors that are going to interfere with the the integration of the plant medicine.
01:29:14
Speaker
So I think people's expectations around what those are sort of dictated by that context. Or like you said, in the clo in the trial perspective, it's maybe around, it's those three sessions.
01:29:26
Speaker
But I'm starting to really see, you know, this is now, um my God, it's like when I think about timing and I i trace back how many years I've been working with psychedelics, I start to feel really old.
01:29:40
Speaker
I think it's 23, 24 years now, 24. twenty four yeah And the relationship of how that has changed over time, I'm starting to really see the arc of integration so much longer than what I had originally imagined. And perhaps there are different stages along the way.
01:30:02
Speaker
But, you know, why we I think I originally brought this up of really wanting to talk about this is that I feel like more and more I'm starting to see it almost like a wave. Like I talk about in the five rhythms, there's a wave that often, not always, but often there's like an initial kind of.
01:30:22
Speaker
feeling of, you know, euphoria or, you know, grace or having gotten contact with self or you know, however you experience it, that, you know, the great mother or you know great mystery, like there's can often be an experience like in the session that may last a few days.
01:30:43
Speaker
um the classic one i used to hear all the time of like i did it i did it it all makes sense you know this way this sense of like having access to our expanded awareness or our self-energy and then we go into light and we meet a lot of the same conditions that you know our parts arose from whether that's You know, the Ram Dass quote of like, you think you're enlightened and go spend a week with your family.
01:31:13
Speaker
Or another book I used to recommend to people all the time eyes my gosh, think it's Jon Kabat-Zinn. the After the ecstasy, the laundry, like that that thing of like we have these expanded experiences and then we have to go back into this world where, you know, we might have difficulties with our boss or, you know, our children are... I always say that my children are like the most amazing teacher. where I'll be like...
01:31:44
Speaker
I am so wise. i am so compassionate. And then they like push some button and I go into this part of myself that I don't, you know, still have judgments around.
01:31:57
Speaker
So we come back into life and then these parts get reactivated. Yeah. Yeah. And to me, that's what we call the the backlash or the whiplash of like, I was here where everything felt so amazing.
01:32:11
Speaker
and and in that, there may be some hidden expectations or be beliefs about, you know, the silver bullet or I'm going to read myself with this forever or. And then almost by necessity, like this, the pendulum swing to the other side of like,
01:32:31
Speaker
oh, I haven't actually gotten rid of those things. are oh, it's still here. or sometimes the contrast of the external we world, like when we are so open.
01:32:44
Speaker
And so, you know... in you know again I just might say we're in a more kind of idealistic part or an innocent part and then we go into the world and we see the cruelty and the horror well that there can be this swing almost to the other place I see a lot of people hit like a hopelessness or a despair and a questioning of what happened which
01:33:15
Speaker
I would say it's the re-engagement of our protectors. Yeah. And some of that I do think, you know, in my own experience, can be helped.
01:33:28
Speaker
Yeah. on the front end by really gaining consent from our protectors, really understanding are there any agendas in here that are setting up unrealistic expectations? Like really a lot of the prep work that we're talking about of like really understanding who's driving this experience and and who's not been included. Like, do I have protectors that are really yeah not wanting because you know we touched on this earlier right but it's like you're you know some of these protective parts that are dissociative or depressed or they're also protecting something they're protecting us from something and so when we override them without their consent and then you're
01:34:19
Speaker
we and then we come back into this experience of our imperfect reality, some of those protectors can double down. Yeah.
01:34:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think one thing I don't know how we're doing for time, but I wanted to share an experience that just briefly, mom there's a lot I could say about this, but you know, I, when I had my psilocybin journey as part of the trial, you know, i connected in with some really beautiful things around, which I spoke about before, around connecting with all of the women in my family, so my mom, my grandmother, my auntie and I had this expansive experience of being connected to them and and birthing nature through my body. And it was very kind of, whoa, out there, beautiful.
01:35:09
Speaker
And then that night, but you know, also in there, I'd kind of done like moving through, I witnessed different areas of my life and I was moving through them. and then that night I went home and I had such an intense series of anxiety dreams.
01:35:26
Speaker
where this little 10-year-old me was like looking around everywhere, like in that hypervigilant part was really active. And I woke up almost in a panic attack in the morning and I was like, I thought I was supposed to feel amazing. you know i I had those parts that came up and were like, what's going on? And actually ah realized that this is my 10-year-old hypervigilant part, just working out what had just happened, still working through kind of settling, still working through that experience.
01:35:59
Speaker
And that's happened in different forms at different times. it's I'm still working with that. This was man three years ago. And, you know, she doesn't get anywhere near to the level that she It was like a full kind of ho panic moment, you know, the next night. And and now she's a lot more settled.
01:36:17
Speaker
But... I still connect with her and with and with the big, beautiful image of my, you know, being with the women in my family and the birthing peds. But they're all important. Three years later, when I revisit my notes, I meditate and check in.
01:36:33
Speaker
I take it to therapy. And so I'm still integrating that that experience. And do you
Ongoing Practices for Integration
01:36:39
Speaker
have a sense, you don't you might not have the answer to this, so don't want to put you on the spot, but it's always helpful to even just explore live as a as a question.
01:36:48
Speaker
Do you have a sense if there was something that would have helped that part? to go into that experience to feel safer or more filled.
01:37:00
Speaker
Because it sounds almost like that part felt really like exposed. or like you know was like There was such an experience. Because even joy and and rapture can feel too much to our parts. right like it's it's like There's a lot of feeling in that experience you had.
01:37:21
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if, you know, had I done but a little bit more parts work with myself or therapist around getting permission from my protectors, if that might have made a difference. I'm not sure, but it's certainly been an important afterwards. And I think what has made a difference is seeing that truth of that, that the but the experience itself was still working its way through long after I left.
01:37:46
Speaker
The dosing room long after the therapy. And that's okay. And that feels like that's yeah part of it. And so, yeah, that that that has really helped me to continue to work with it.
01:38:00
Speaker
Yeah. And i and i i I appreciate your answer, actually, because moon that brings up for me that actually the original reason why I wanted to talk about that backlash is that...
01:38:11
Speaker
it doesn't that necessarily mean that we've done something wrong either. you know yeah So there can be this tendency to be like, oh no, maybe I've triggered this part and maybe I shouldn't have.
01:38:23
Speaker
And I think what I'm hearing you say or what I think is my reflection on what you're saying is that it's almost like a natural rebalancing that has to happen. Yeah.
01:38:37
Speaker
And yes, yes, it's still helpful to each time like we learn more like, oh, maybe I need to give that part of myself attention and every time I have an expansive experience.
01:38:50
Speaker
But also that is almost it's like almost like a natural part of the process that we go, you know, it's like if the pendulum swings this way. It's going to swing a little bit back this way.
01:39:02
Speaker
And it takes time for it to land. And i when I'm saying time, I'm now starting to see that that time is like a span of years, I think, yeah that some of my psychedelic experiences that I've described, that you know even that fragmentation that I experienced, like and then years afterwards of fear around you know going into a psychedelic experience and then how that thing...
01:39:29
Speaker
influenced my approaching with more caution. And then, but like over time, I would say, I would now say that was a prosoundly healing experience, but my system took a long time to integrate that. And like the pendulum,
01:39:45
Speaker
Going back and forth and back and forth until it settled. And I feel like for people to understand that and almost, I don't exactly want to say like expect backlash, but to understand that some of that happening is not necessarily indication that you've done something wrong.
01:40:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if I remember actually my therapist on the trial who was became my diet partner later was but said something like, maybe you should sit down and talk with that 10-year-old. She sounds like she has a lot of wisdom. and Man.
01:40:22
Speaker
And so that was really helpful and that was what I did. And of course, if I was him and working with a client, I he have said something similar and And I think it is really important. And I think it's really important if we think about the ecosystem and how we are rolling this out.
01:40:37
Speaker
You know, if we're not careful, people will think it's supposed to all finish after the nine sessions or whatever it is. And I just certainly haven't been saying that to clients I've worked with and the clinical space is outside of trials. But I've said like this takes a long time.
01:40:53
Speaker
in terms of expectation management. But yeah, we have to be careful to to elevate that. And that was kind of one of the things that wasn't it that you and I wanted to really talk about on this podcast. yeah So I'm glad we have got there.
01:41:05
Speaker
Yeah. And that idea, like it's not necessarily going to finish in those nine sessions and that you're not necessarily going to finish feeling amazing or resolved or, and that, that,
01:41:17
Speaker
you know, like that, that is still, it's still working in us over a long period of time. And that's where this idea of what other practices, whether that's having ongoing IFS or whether that's doing five rhythms or whether that's like meditation or yes, what is that? What are the ongoing practices that help us to kind of keep checking in with the parts of ourselves and,
01:41:47
Speaker
bringing awareness to the fact that there's and over a long process that's happening on a subtle level over time that we can stay present to so that we don't go into that contract you know it's like another analogy that I use a lot is that like expanding and contracting like all of our organs do that that's how we live you know not just our lungs like all of our organs they expand they contract and when we have a really expansive experience, there is a contraction that happens.
01:42:20
Speaker
That's part of digestion. so if we think of integration as like digesting so in in a psychic way or an emotional way, digesting our experience, then expecting that contraction as part of our integration makes it a lot less scary or overwhelming.
01:42:42
Speaker
Yeah. Beautiful.
Collaboration in Psychedelic Therapy
01:42:43
Speaker
I think that's a really lovely place to end the conversation they've seen. and Is there anything that you want to say before we finish or anything that you haven't talked about that you wanted to mention?
01:42:57
Speaker
Just that I think, you know, I'm really appreciating, I'm really appreciating these conversations. I'm really appreciating there the openness of like how different perspectives and different modalities can serve and complement each other.
01:43:12
Speaker
yeah and You know, like there was something you you spoke about at one point, which... Like my kind of hopes for this space. And it's really like, you know, i feel like having come from such a different background in that kind of shamanic world. And I've often gone like, how do these things fit together?
01:43:32
Speaker
And I don't have the answer to that, but more just the ethos that we're just embodying here of like, how do you we complement each other's experiences and perspectives?
01:43:45
Speaker
You know, just approaching it from that curiosity as opposed to, you know, a kind of fixed like, well, this is... This is the way, which seems so obvious. but But, sorry to cut you off, but it does seem obvious, but I think I see a lot of, I see ah sometimes see that not happening. And that is one of my intentions in this with this podcast is I don't think it's to bring the both ends, right? we don't There's not just one way of working with medicine. There's not just one way of...
01:44:18
Speaker
Thinking about this, so I think for a healthy ecosystem, it's really important to bring multiple perspectives together and to be curious. And and actually you and I've come from quite different worlds and landed in a very similar place, right?
01:44:32
Speaker
And I just want to mention Onaya as well, which is a friend and colleague, Simon Raffel's organization that is kind of bringing together he's he's also been on a podcast he's bringing together the best of both like the kind of shamanic perspectives and the western medical kind of lens as well which i think is really interesting and i can put a link to that in the show notes but yeah and if lucene if you want to find you you've got a website which i will also put in the show notes is that the best way for people to get in touch
01:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. am bridging right now. moving in between the States and Australia, doing a lot of the, you know, participating some of the, as you said, the psychedelic therapy, clinical trial development with embodiment, with IFS. So I'm sort of jumping around quite a bit, but yeah, people can find me through my website and then exploring, you know,
01:45:33
Speaker
What other future i don't know future in and collaborations unfold? So watch watch the space, really. I have no idea how to say where to find me next, but part of the great mystery, yeah. ah we Amazing. ah Thanks.
01:45:49
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on. I've loved this conversation. We've gone for nearly two hours and I could have kept going for more. So I'll rack us up and hope we can have more of these chats. Yeah. Thank you so much.
01:46:02
Speaker
Thanks for listening. If you're interested in following along on the journey with me, check out my Instagram or website details listed in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share this podcast to help get this important conversation out to more listeners.