Sacred Earth Medicine and the Path to Self Discovery
Have you ever wondered about the healing potential of psychedelic microdosing? In this eye-opening episode of The Mindful Coach Podcast, I sit down with Leslie Draffin, a women's somatic coach and psychedelic microdosing guide, to explore the transformative power of sacred earth medicine.
- • The subtle yet powerful effects of regular microdosing on mental clarity and emotional resilience
- • How larger doses can catalyze profound breakthroughs and spiritual insights
- • The importance of intention-setting and integration practices when working with psychedelics
Safety and Legal Considerations
We address common concerns about exploring psychedelic healing, including:
- • How to research local laws and find reputable resources
- • The value of working with experienced guides and integration coaches
- • Weighing potential risks against therapeutic benefits
Connecting with Your Inner Wisdom
Leslie emphasizes the body's innate healing intelligence, encouraging listeners to:
- • Trust their intuition when exploring new healing modalities
- • Identify personal "touchstones" that foster a sense of safety and connection
- • Cultivate a daily practice of intentional self-connection, even if just for a minute
Whether you're curious about psychedelic healing or simply seeking new ways to enhance your well-being, this conversation offers valuable insights into the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern therapeutic approaches. Join us as we explore the potential of microdosing to facilitate profound personal growth and healing.
Takeaways:
- The podcast emphasizes the transformative power of somatic practices in healing trauma and fostering self-acceptance.
- Leslie discusses her journey from a successful news anchor to a somatic coach specializing in women's health.
- Microdosing with psychedelics is presented as a potential method for overcoming deep-seated wounds of unworthiness and mental health challenges.
- The importance of connecting with nature and understanding one's body is highlighted as a pathway to personal healing and authenticity.
- Listeners are encouraged to explore their own cycles and rhythms, fostering self-awareness through practices like breath work and movement.
- The conversation underscores the necessity of trusting one's body to guide personal healing journeys and the significance of intentionality in this process.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:So welcome to this edition of the Mindful Coach podcast.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Brett Hill.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Do we have an amazing topic to talk about today.
Speaker A:And welcoming to the show, Leslie Giraffin, who is a woman's somatic coach, psychedelic Microsoft.
Speaker A:Excuse me, psychedelic microdosing guide, breath and meditation teacher, and menstrual cycle educator.
Speaker A:She helps women in midlife embrace their body sex psychedelics so they can overcome the wound of unworthiness and get free from mental health challenges and build the life that they're excited about.
Speaker A:She believes in somatic practices like breath work along with sacred earth medicine that have the power to bring us home to ourselves, awaken our authenticity, and heal the trauma that can get locked into our subconscious.
Speaker A:So welcome to the show, Leslie.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for having me, Brett.
Speaker B:I'm excited to be here.
Speaker A:Oh, man, it's so great.
Speaker A:This work that you're doing is really, I mean, it's kind of really ancient and really cutting edge at the same time, which makes it a really interesting topic.
Speaker A:And, and you know, it's such an, I would say, a unique calling to be able to be someone who facilitates this.
Speaker A:Tell us a little bit about how this became your mission in life.
Speaker B:Yeah, I love how you put it too, that it's like an ancient calling in a modern day atmosphere.
Speaker B:So I'm Leslie.
Speaker B:I, in a former Life, was a TV news anchor for about 15 years.
Speaker B:And I moved into this work of sacred somatic healing, psychedelic healing, and womb work because of my own disconnection.
Speaker A:When you say womb, you mean W, O, M, B work or W?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And wound.
Speaker A:Wound.
Speaker A:And wound.
Speaker A:Right, yeah.
Speaker A:So I just want to.
Speaker A:Just because the enunciation there matters and, and, and it's so such a relevant topic.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
Speaker B:For sure.
Speaker B:So I came to this work because of my own deep disconnection.
Speaker B:I spent at least 20 years deeply numbing out and punishing myself through things like eating disorders, alcohol abuse, because unknowingly, I really had a deep wound around feeling worthy, feeling worthy of love.
Speaker B:And that was made worse for me because When I turned 18, I had my first sexual encounter.
Speaker B:And four weeks later, I was diagnosed with herpes.
Speaker B:Now I'm a preacher's daughter from the deep south of the United States.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:This threw me into.
Speaker A:Could have been a problem there.
Speaker B:Yeah, a major problem.
Speaker B:I got, you know, really bogged down by all of the shame I was feeling in the body.
Speaker B:And because I had no tools, tools to figure out how to connect with myself, I chose to disconnect And I really got addicted to this idea of proving to everybody how good I was, how worthy I was, and our society loves that.
Speaker B:I was very successful as a news anchor, making six figures at the end of my career, but suffering internally just immensely.
Speaker B:You know, from the outside looking in, I looked like I had it all together.
Speaker B:And yet inside, I was coping with alcohol.
Speaker B:I was coping at times with starving myself.
Speaker B:And I went the Western medical model to therapy.
Speaker B:I was prescribed medications for anxiety and depression at times, but it wasn't until I really found the mindfulness practices that worked for me, which, by the way, were not always meditation because of my ADHD mind.
Speaker A:Yeah, but so.
Speaker A:So just to press pause on that for just a moment, what were those practices?
Speaker A:How did you discover them?
Speaker B:So breath work for me really was a big one.
Speaker B:And finding ways to move my body that felt loving.
Speaker B:I was really resistant to dance.
Speaker B:That's like a big embodiment practice in the sensual embodiment movement.
Speaker B:Dance is kind of always what they have you do.
Speaker B:And I spent years just not feeling it, really.
Speaker B:And maybe that was because of embarrassment or what, But I had to find ways to connect with my body in a loving way.
Speaker B:So walking in nature, going and grounding with, you know, the trees and the grass and swimming and loving self touch.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You know, I'd spent so much time judging my body and hating my body and trying to change my body through really drastic coping and comfort mechanisms, which is what my eating disorders were, that I had to find a way to, like, be in this body in a way that felt loving and nourishing.
Speaker B:And so a lot of practices help, but breath work for sure.
Speaker B:Stretching and more of, like, stretching.
Speaker B:So it's not real.
Speaker B:It's kind of like cat, cow with, like.
Speaker B:But make it jazzy, make it sexy.
Speaker B:So those really helped.
Speaker B:And then finally, I found psychedelic mushrooms.
Speaker B:I was listening to a podcast.
Speaker B:I heard a woman talking about how they were really helpful for healing sexual shame.
Speaker B:I had her on my show and then hired her immediately afterwards.
Speaker B:And that really unlocked a lot of just wounds I was unaware of that were blocking things like my ability to connect with my partner, my ability to connect with myself and others.
Speaker B:And so that, I think really put me on the path that I'm on now of helping other women just like me.
Speaker A:That's so powerful.
Speaker A:So I love it that you, you know, you tried the dance, but it just wasn't connecting right.
Speaker A:And then you found.
Speaker A:If I heard you right, you know, you found that just being in nature, that is.
Speaker A:That opened up A way for you to actually feel in a deeper way.
Speaker A:And, and that, you know, leads you, of course, to potentially, I'm imagining in the instruction, like the earth based medicine practices, it's like something about you and connecting with nature that made the healing path kind of open up for you.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And the other thing that I didn't mention, but that was absolutely essential, was learning how to connect with my body's natural cycles and rhythms.
Speaker B: uit hormonal birth control in: Speaker B:I'd been on it since I was a teenager.
Speaker B:So having to learn about my hormones and learn how to connect with my, you know, my womb, my divine feminine energy, those really also became key practices and belief systems that helped me deal with some religious trauma, deal with some programming around societal expectations, my own beliefs around drugs, psychedelics, that I had to move through when I began that work.
Speaker B:So that was another real homecoming for me to remember that the body I'm in is, is sacred and the body I'm in is, is essential.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, that's powerful.
Speaker A:And particularly with this cultural overlay of being in a religious context and you know, the guilt and the, you know, the dogma around that in terms of, you know, this is what's true and you have to align with this and your experience is a little bit different.
Speaker A:And so it's like, what do I do?
Speaker A:How do I organize around this new experience?
Speaker A:You can't deny the truth of your bodily experience.
Speaker A:I mean, you can, but it's a really difficult place to be in the world.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And that's where I was for a really long time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It sounded like trying to compensate.
Speaker A:And so, you know, somehow though, there was something in you that was saying there's got to be a better way to connect.
Speaker A:And you just kind of kept extending that and extending it.
Speaker A:Nature and then going within and even touching the divine feminine image.
Speaker A:That's a pretty big reach for a lot of people.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And one more comment.
Speaker A:I guess I'm getting all excited about your story.
Speaker A:The way that you connected to your natural rhythms.
Speaker A:I see a parallel there with connecting with nature.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, with nature is all about rhythm.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's, you know, the days, night sequences.
Speaker A:There's so many natural rhythms and the body's the same way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So powerful.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So how did you then was there, like, some people have these like moments where they go, oh my gosh, this changes everything along your path.
Speaker A:Did you have like an awakening experience like that?
Speaker A:Or was it more of a longer arc of bits and pieces coming in until the picture becomes clearer to you?
Speaker B: kening happened in January of: Speaker B:I had been dabbling in the gateway drug of spirituality, AKA crystals, for a while, and I loved him.
Speaker B:I think there's.
Speaker B:There's one.
Speaker B:I was looking at an amethyst right here.
Speaker B:So I had sort of been dipping my toe into the more metaphysical, esoteric things and had begun a meditation practice, tried to meditate.
Speaker B:In that month, I set up this little place in my room or in my house.
Speaker B:I had a special little room for it, But I was in Austin, Texas.
Speaker B:We had gone to a comedy show, and I knew the full moon was that night, and I was like, I'm going to go step outside and just, like, look at the moon.
Speaker B:And I could feel my whole body vibrating from the top of my head all the way down through my root chakra, through my legs.
Speaker B:And I feel like that really helped me, like you said, connect with a rhythm that felt real.
Speaker B:It felt so visible.
Speaker B: And so I really began in: Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker B:And all year long, while I was trying my best to meditate and often feeling like I failed because I couldn't quiet my mind, I would hear these little bits and pieces of what I now know is my intuition, but at that point, had no idea.
Speaker B:Say to me, you have to come off of birth control if you want to really deepen into what you need to do.
Speaker B:You've got to quit hormonal birth control because it's stifling your natural rhythm.
Speaker B: was kind of when that began,: Speaker B: I quit the pill in: Speaker B: like a very slow crescendo to: Speaker B:I spent the first three months of that year sick, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong.
Speaker B:I thought I had Covid, but I would never test positive.
Speaker B:Ended up being a massive respiratory infection.
Speaker B:I'm anchoring the news every night at this point with.
Speaker A:With a giant respiratory infection.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And just little by little, things would come into my world to show me, this isn't your path anymore.
Speaker B: ld say, like, the year before: Speaker B:And then when I added mushrooms, I was finally able to divest from this identity that I had tied my worth into, AKA anchor.
Speaker B:And the kind of crashing moment came in June of that year when we had a horrible school shooting here in Texas.
Speaker B:19 elementary school children were murdered, and their teachers and I, we live about two and a half hours from where it happened in Uvalde, Texas.
Speaker B: olo and, oh, I had to read at: Speaker B:And I just broke.
Speaker B:I had already been in talks with my therapist to find a way to take a break, to do a sabbatical or to take short term disability leave, but somehow I got through that.
Speaker B:A block of the newscast.
Speaker B:We make it to the commercial and my producer is in my ear and she's like, are you okay?
Speaker B:I'm like, I am not okay.
Speaker B:This is not okay.
Speaker B:Like, why is this what we're doing right now?
Speaker B:This is horrible.
Speaker B:So about a week later, I took leave for my mental health and never went back.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:So that's kind of the end.
Speaker B:And then of course, the dark night happened when I had to figure out who the hell I was if I wasn't this.
Speaker A:Well, right, but isn't that the right question to ask?
Speaker A:And, and you're setting such a great example of a person who is so committed to alignment with who they are that continuing to do this, this work, was damaging you.
Speaker A:And the imperative to be authentic and connected is so strong that you couldn't continue to do it.
Speaker A:And I just, you know, I'm so appreciative of that.
Speaker A:And at the same time, you know, there are lots of people listening to this who are like, well, I can't quit.
Speaker A:And you know what?
Speaker A:I want to say that that may be so.
Speaker A:And God bless you is just, you know, bring the awareness that, that you have to it and see what you can do, find a way to be more resilient if you can.
Speaker A:And if you can't, you just can't.
Speaker A:And you can't make that happen.
Speaker A:So, yeah, you were.
Speaker A:Your kudos for being present enough to know that.
Speaker A:And of course, what a poignant moment.
Speaker A:You know, there you are in the studio on camera, reading this stuff, and you're going, oh my God, I can barely get through this line.
Speaker A:And then realizing, you know, I just can't do this anymore.
Speaker A:That's an amazing experience to have.
Speaker A:And from there you becomes the pivot.
Speaker A:I love what you said about having to reorganize because all this energy you put into a, you know, a really strong kind of out there Persona in front of people all the time.
Speaker A:This is who I am.
Speaker A:And suddenly that's not who you are.
Speaker A:So who are you now?
Speaker A:So tell us about that exploration.
Speaker A:How did.
Speaker B:Oh, gosh.
Speaker B: like, we're talking in early: Speaker B:I mean, okay, it feels like it was just yesterday, and it feels like it was a lifetime ago.
Speaker B:You know, for me, here's what I did wrong, Brett.
Speaker B:I decided to work with Kali.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker A:With who?
Speaker B:Kali Ma, the Hindu goddess of destruction.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, well, that's.
Speaker A:Now that's a big.
Speaker A:That's a big deal.
Speaker B:Well, and this was like, in May of that year.
Speaker B:And I had, at that point, I was working with a guide, microdosing, to heal my sexual trauma.
Speaker B:And she had recommended this book.
Speaker B:I think it's called Shakti Awakening.
Speaker B:It's in another room.
Speaker B:But Kali really spoke to me, and she will burn your whole life down.
Speaker A:You will totally rip it down, like, happily, gleefully.
Speaker B:And that's what happened.
Speaker B:She.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:So after, you know, I decided to take this break.
Speaker B:For the first month or so, I was in deep terror and fighting with the insurance company to prove how broken I was so I couldn't go to work and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker B:And so I kind of had this bargain with the universe, like, okay, give me three months and maybe I'll go back and, you know, we'll see.
Speaker B:I had a contract renegotiation coming up, and I'd already been at this place for about three years.
Speaker B:Sorry, about six years.
Speaker B:And so Kali just keeps showing me how my heart had to break.
Speaker B:That's the theme.
Speaker B:So TV made me create a wall around my heart so that I could survive in an environment where I reported on the worst of humanity every single day and occasionally the best.
Speaker A:And now it's time for a commercial and look at the happy puppies.
Speaker A:And by the way, 12 kids were shot today.
Speaker B:100%.
Speaker B:It's psychotic.
Speaker B:So what I didn't realize is that I'm a very sensitive person.
Speaker B:And yet I was often told when I was in TV how, like, cold I was.
Speaker B:And, you know, people would think I came across very, like.
Speaker B:And I'm like, what is this?
Speaker B:So come, come to find out the mushrooms.
Speaker B:And working with Kali showed me I had built up this wall, and I Had a lot of grief I needed to process from a divorce in my 20s, from getting herpes, all these things.
Speaker B:And I just had refused for so long to look at it that it was festering immensely.
Speaker B:And so even when I had taken this mental health break from work, I still really wasn't willing to look at those parts of myself because I let myself get, you know, bogged down in the semantics of paperwork.
Speaker B:So what did the universe do?
Speaker B:Our dog died.
Speaker B:We are on vacation.
Speaker B:We are going home to see our family.
Speaker B:Our dog dies soon.
Speaker B:Super suddenly.
Speaker B:That's another one.
Speaker B:And then six weeks later, our second dog dies.
Speaker A:Oh, no.
Speaker B:And out of nowhere, that dog wasn't even really sick.
Speaker B:She was six years old.
Speaker B:So I have this one dog left, and for me, hold on, buddy.
Speaker B:He's the only one.
Speaker B:He's my soulmate dog, for sure, who has since left us.
Speaker B:But what I notice now, looking back, is that it was a continued warning sign of if you do not con, if you don't look at your heart, if you don't look at the grief, I'm going to keep putting stuff in there that's going to be so uncomfortable for you to look at that you're going to break.
Speaker B:And so the dogs died.
Speaker B:Finally, you know, at this point, I'm about to have to decide, am I going to go back to work?
Speaker B:My leave was about to be over, and I had.
Speaker B:I was about 97% sure I didn't want to go back.
Speaker B:And then I get an email from my HR that they're not going to renew my contract.
Speaker A:So they decided for you?
Speaker B:So they decided for me.
Speaker B:And I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'm not going to go back for two and a half months that you cannot renew my contract in January, so see you later.
Speaker B:And for me, it was just a reaffirmation and a confirmation from Universe that, okay, listen, if you can't make this choice or if you feel like this isn't the right move I've been showing you, it's the right move.
Speaker B:But let me take it from you so you don't feel like you have a choice.
Speaker B:And now you can look at it in a way that feels like it's more.
Speaker A:And your remaining dog is very grateful.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So all of that is to say, you know, how did that.
Speaker B:I mean, clearly I was in a very dark night of the soul.
Speaker B:I was still drinking alcohol at that point.
Speaker B:All of this to say, you know, little by little, the mushrooms and the.
Speaker B:The work that I had been doing to connect with My body and my cycle and the divine feminine were showing me all the places in my life where I needed to look for the reasons why I felt so stuck.
Speaker B:And so it was probably a year, or maybe not quite a year process of who do I want to be?
Speaker B:Who am I really?
Speaker A:Who am I really?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And now what's interesting is I realized that I was doing my soul's work as a news anchor.
Speaker B:Shining a light on the things of the world that people need to look at so that they can wake up.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:It just wasn't a very enlightened version because it was corporate TV news.
Speaker B:And so now here I am helping people shine a light on the things they need to look at so they can wake up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:They can wake up and.
Speaker B:And live the life that they really like, really deeply crave, even though the.
Speaker A:One they were born to live.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I had to be shown all the light.
Speaker B:I also had to be shown by goddess, by universe, all the places I needed to look for my own little light.
Speaker B:And I'm still working on, you know, the grief process.
Speaker B:The soulmate dog died last May.
Speaker B:Oh, it was.
Speaker A:I feel you.
Speaker B:I feel it was a lot.
Speaker B:But I learned so much in caring for his aging self from.
Speaker B:For that last year and getting to spend so much time with him because I had left that job.
Speaker B:It was just such a beautiful moment.
Speaker B:That showed me a lot of lessons, too.
Speaker B:So hopefully I answered the question.
Speaker B:I think we kind of meandered in a couple of ways, but that's pretty much how I was able to divest from that identity and begin to figure out who I really was.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So a lot of.
Speaker A:A lot of work, a lot of suffering, a lot of, you know, deep dive into the side of what's actually happening.
Speaker A:Doing the work.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:I call it doing the work, you know, and it's the hardest thing that a human being can do in many ways, as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker A:I hear a lot about leadership and, you know, and people like, well, you have to get out there and be a leader.
Speaker A:And I'm going.
Speaker A:As long as you're focusing on what you do, you're missing the point.
Speaker A:You have to focus on who you are, you know, and so you're doing that.
Speaker A:And I'm really happy to hear all that amazing stuff.
Speaker A:I'm a dog person myself.
Speaker A:I feel the resonance there and I.
Speaker A:I'm sorry for your losses there.
Speaker A:I know there's.
Speaker A:You have a dog now.
Speaker B:I do actually have a puppy.
Speaker B:We got a puppy a couple of Months ago.
Speaker B:She and.
Speaker B:And here's an interesting story.
Speaker B:So gunner was my 12 year old great Dane who was the love of my life, the furry love of my life.
Speaker B:He had this spot on his hip that looked like a heart, a black heart.
Speaker B:He passed away.
Speaker B:I cut like, we had to take him to the vet to have it done because of just some other issues.
Speaker B:I get in the car.
Speaker B:444 is the time, like, okay, that is now Gunner's message to mommy when he wants to talk to Mom.
Speaker B:445.
Speaker B:I'll see it everywhere.
Speaker B:So we had no dogs for all of last summer.
Speaker B:My husband deeply wants a dog.
Speaker B:And I'm like, okay.
Speaker B:I keep asking Gunner if I'm supposed to have a puppy.
Speaker B:Like, send me one.
Speaker B:Send me a puppy.
Speaker B:I look on Facebook and there is a puppy who has a heart shaped nose.
Speaker B:She has like spots around her nose that make it look exactly like a heart.
Speaker B:She's like 20 minutes away.
Speaker B:That is my new dog.
Speaker B:I think she was sent by him.
Speaker B:Who can say?
Speaker B:But anyway, that's another, I think way to just say, sometimes the universe brings you these synchronicities and these like, signs.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:When you start to do the work, you start to see.
Speaker B:See the signs.
Speaker B:And so like you said, it's so hard to do the work, but when you start to do the work, you get all these beautiful little signals that's like, you're on the right path.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker A:And sometimes they're not little.
Speaker A:You know, sometimes they're not little.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Without jumping into my story too much, one of the very first things that happened to me was in terms of realizing there's a bigger world than the one that you normally think of.
Speaker A:When you brought up.
Speaker A:I got this message, if you will, that I needed to move to Seattle.
Speaker A:When I was like 22, I didn't know anybody in Seattle.
Speaker A:I had no contacts, no history.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:I was never even thought, what about Seattle?
Speaker A:All I knew was, you know, Elvis did a show there once long ago.
Speaker A:That's all I knew about Seattle.
Speaker A:I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker A:And so I.
Speaker A:But this was relentless.
Speaker A:I mean, it was like the word Seattle was literally jumping off the page in my face.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:When I hear it, it'd be like, so today in the news, it was like, I mean, I'm literally going, wait, what?
Speaker A:What was that?
Speaker A:And I wasn't into mysticism or believing, but it was clear that this was happening.
Speaker A:I moved.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I got so tired of it.
Speaker A:I felt like, okay.
Speaker A:I literally said, okay.
Speaker A:I give up.
Speaker A:I'm going to Seattle.
Speaker A:And as a result of that, a whole amazing thing, series of things happened.
Speaker A:I wound up getting funded completely to start a whole chain of retail stores.
Speaker A:I wound up in a whole business.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:It was just one magical thing after the other.
Speaker A:It changed the arc of my life for a reason.
Speaker A:And that opened me up to the notion that the world can communicate with you in ways that we don't understand.
Speaker A:And so anyway, that was just a little bit of my own experience with the synchronicities in certain ways or the world communicating with you.
Speaker A:I wanted to come back to this notion of microdosing, because that's a big part of your story.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And you had someone on your.
Speaker A:On your show, and she introduced you that.
Speaker A:When you started to do that, what was it that got you to say, this is helpful?
Speaker B:I think I really felt pretty quickly that it was helpful.
Speaker B:It made me.
Speaker B:It quieted my monkey mind.
Speaker B:It made me feel more present, more focused.
Speaker B:But working with the woman that I worked with, I think was the truly transformational part, because for the first time, not only was I being held by the medicine, by the mushrooms, but I was being held by someone who could guide me into the places of myself I couldn't do on my own.
Speaker B:I love a DIY like the next girl, but DIYing this, not the smartest idea, not recommended.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B: ing my spiritual journey from: Speaker B:And so that moment of meeting with the medicine, having this person to hold the space, I think really quickly showed me that it was working.
Speaker B:The other thing that made me realize how quickly it worked was the fact that some of the issues that I was having seemed less.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I almost immediately felt more patient.
Speaker B:I felt like I had more joy in my life, even while I was grappling with leaving this career I'd spent 15 years in and, you know, eventually again grappling with the death of the dogs and.
Speaker B:And all of that.
Speaker B:So there were little things quickly that.
Speaker B:That really made me feel like it was.
Speaker B:It was working.
Speaker B:And then I ate a full dose journey, which is enough to make you trip.
Speaker B:And it blasted me into my divine feminine, into my healing my mother, wound, healing my womb.
Speaker B:And it was one of the probably top three most beautiful experiences I've had in my entire life where I was able to see so much of what was blocking me and what I was unconsciously being driven by, and then from there, continue to eat little doses of mushrooms to move through the things that I had become so aware of.
Speaker B:So I think that was what was.
Speaker B:Made it so potent.
Speaker A:So the.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:So the small microdosing got you to a place where you were able.
Speaker A:It felt.
Speaker A:Sounded like.
Speaker A:I call it just, for lack of a better word, resilience.
Speaker A:Like more resilience in your life to where you're not being so reactive and you're being more present and you're saying, this is good.
Speaker A:And then eventually you took a bigger dose that just kind of blew the lid off, but not in a chaotic way.
Speaker A:In a way where it's like, now you have a somatic experience of being in relationship with these.
Speaker A:This woundedness.
Speaker A:That is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Amazing.
Speaker B:What a fabulous phrase.
Speaker B:In relationship with the wounded goodness.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I also often explain microdosing versus full dose.
Speaker B:Like, you've got a clog in your drain.
Speaker B:Like, you can pour Drano down the drain.
Speaker B:It'll eventually get the clog out.
Speaker B:Sometimes you're gonna have to snake it.
Speaker B:You're gonna have, like, shove something down in there.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's a full dose.
Speaker B:Snaking your drain is a full dose.
Speaker B:Drano is a microdose.
Speaker B:Do they both work?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Is one more brutal.
Speaker A:Your dream?
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And both really showed me.
Speaker B:Yeah, like you said, how to be in relationship with.
Speaker B:With the woundedness.
Speaker B:And I love also that you said, you know, I had this somatic experience.
Speaker B:I certainly did.
Speaker B:But what was interesting is, you know, at that point in my journey, I never thought I would be someone who is helping people also navigate the world of psychedelics to assist with their healing.
Speaker B:I was really just focusing on my own stuff, and I didn't have as many tools as I have now when it comes to somatics.
Speaker B:I think if I had had the additional awareness around the trauma, informed somatic practices that I now have, I spent a lot of time in training for that and breath work, it probably would have been even more potent, but it was potent enough to change my life.
Speaker B:And what more can we ask for?
Speaker A:Well, right.
Speaker A:That's big enough.
Speaker A:I mean, we could always add tools, but that's.
Speaker A:That's the master class.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So that's quite the story.
Speaker A:And so how did this emerge in you, that you.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:It's not enough to have got your own plumbing working, so to speak, but to get the.
Speaker A:But to help other people as well.
Speaker A:How did that come out of you?
Speaker B:Yeah, so when I was working with mushrooms myself, I was already also a coach for women who had menstrual cycle issues.
Speaker B: I'd spent most of: Speaker B: began working with people in: Speaker B:Stuck in the womb.
Speaker B:This is wild.
Speaker B:And sometimes they would know about it and it would be a conscious thing.
Speaker B:And sometimes when they started to connect with their cycle, they would have a download during their menstruation where they were like, oh my gosh, I remember being assaulted or I remember this guy, you know, doing this to me or whatever.
Speaker B:And I felt like there was something there.
Speaker B:There, there's something there.
Speaker B:When I did my own work around my sexual issues and my shame and my trauma with the mushrooms, I saw it confirmed that mushrooms are really beautiful healers for that specific form of trauma.
Speaker B:And so I kind of had this journal entry that I've gone back and looked at many a times that said menstrual cycle and mushrooms.
Speaker B:Question mark.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Is this connection?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Is there?
Speaker B:Because I'm, I'm doing the menstrual cycle work with clients and then I'm doing my own self healing.
Speaker B: But later that year in: Speaker B:And it was in that first month of the training that I had this aha moment where I realized that you could combine cyclical living with microdosing and working with your womb to really radically assist women with uncovering wounds of unworthiness and issues around confidence, but also around big time trauma.
Speaker B:And so the people that were coming to me in the beginning were like sexual assault victims, multi, multi sexual assault victims, childhood molestation victims.
Speaker B:So I think I, I realized it when I saw it affirmed in my own work and my own healing, I guess I should say.
Speaker B:And then this nod from the medicine, like, yeah, you're on the right path.
Speaker B:That question mark you had in the journal when you were doing the work eight months ago, it is.
Speaker B:The answer is yes.
Speaker A:The answer is yes.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:So here you go.
Speaker B:Go figure it out.
Speaker A:And so go do the work because you're the one that is aligned with it and it becomes possible because you're the place where all this comes together and because of who you are.
Speaker A:So that's so powerful.
Speaker A:What an amazing mission to bestow.
Speaker A:Have, have to both simultaneously emerge from you and be resonant with what's actually true in the world.
Speaker A:That's needed.
Speaker A:That's really powerful.
Speaker A:So what do you say to people who are like, I want to.
Speaker A:I'm interested in exploring this, but, you know, I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You know, there are so many resources on the Internet nowadays for how to begin.
Speaker B:I wrote a guide that is a A to Z Beginner's guide on how to intentionally work with microdosing as a beginner.
Speaker B:And I'm happy to give that to you if you want to put that in your notes for free.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Sure, we'll do that.
Speaker B:The other big question people have is, where do I get it and how do I do it safely?
Speaker B:And the thing is that here in the States, there are some places that they have relaxed laws who can say how long or what's gonna happen in the future about that.
Speaker B:But there are places who have made it either legal or decriminalized, and there are certain countries in the world where it has either never been illegal or it has also been decriminalized.
Speaker B:I would say do the research around your place where you live, and know that there is risk associated often with embarking in psychedelic work, and then ask yourself if you feel the risk is worth it.
Speaker B:Because for me, I had done the work of the other things.
Speaker B:I had been on the pharmaceutical drugs.
Speaker B:I'd been in therapy for years.
Speaker B:I had a psychiatrist, and it's like, dude, why is this not computing?
Speaker B:And for me, I looked at it and I weighed the cost analysis of like, is this risk worth it?
Speaker B:And it was for me, and maybe it will be for you, too, when you then decide that you want to embark on a journey.
Speaker B:You can contact someone like myself.
Speaker B:Or the easiest thing is figure out if your town or your state has a psychedelic society.
Speaker B:Often these are free to join.
Speaker B:Texas has a very thriving psychedelic society, which is where I live.
Speaker B:But they are pretty much everywhere.
Speaker B:And get immersed into that scene.
Speaker B:They'll probably have Zoom meetups.
Speaker B:Maybe they have different educational summits or workshops you could go to and start learning and then finally ask the universe to put it in your path if you are meant for it.
Speaker B:And I swear, like your Seattle story, you'll hear about it everywhere.
Speaker B:This is what happened with me.
Speaker B:I started to hear about it everywhere.
Speaker B:I'd heard about it on the podcast.
Speaker B:There was a couple of weeks before Bijou was going to come on my show.
Speaker B:It was everywhere.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:The Netflix documentary had come out.
Speaker B:There's a great Netflix documentary by Michael Poland.
Speaker B:How to change your mind that you can watch.
Speaker B:So ask the universe if it's for you, and if it is, trust that it'll be put into your life in a way that will feel nourishing and supportive and safe for you.
Speaker A:Well, I love that.
Speaker A:That last piece, particularly about, you know, inviting confirmation or help.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:And when I.
Speaker A:I don't do it so much these days, but when I do my mystical kind of work and I talk about that, there's a thing I call obligating the universe.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:And it's like if you just put a wish out, and it's not like, hey, universe, make me rich.
Speaker A:Give me the lotto numbers.
Speaker A:It's not like you're demanding material wealth or something, but instead you just offer it up in a way.
Speaker A:It's like, let this be so.
Speaker A:Is this so?
Speaker A:And you just create a field, if you will, where there's a question mark in the ether.
Speaker A:And the universe does not like these question marks.
Speaker A:It's my experience so much, and so it begins to attract to you things that help resolve that dynamic.
Speaker A:Now, this is getting a little woo for me in the show, but that's okay.
Speaker A:I'm all about that behind the scenes, so.
Speaker B:And beautiful.
Speaker B:I'll also just say, to that point, when you do start working with medicine, when you work with mushrooms, there's this whole idea of doing it with intention, which is the basis.
Speaker B:Intention and integrity are the basis of the work that I do with this medicine.
Speaker B:Yeah, you can ask for anything you want, but mushrooms will give you what you need, not always what you want.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:When I began working with it, I asked to become open to receiving pleasure, and they heard me say, open to receiving, and they didn't hear the rest like, okay, we're gonna make her be so open to receiving by taking all these safety nets of her life.
Speaker B:The six figure job, we're gonna take that.
Speaker B:We take the dogs away.
Speaker B:You're gonna have to be open.
Speaker B:Are you open?
Speaker B:Are you open?
Speaker B:Are you open?
Speaker A:You asked to be open.
Speaker A:Well and behold, my guess is that that was actually the pathway to being open, to receiving pleasure for sure.
Speaker B:Yes, it was.
Speaker B:Eventually it happened.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was about a year and some change later, but, yeah, it didn't.
Speaker B:It eventually did happen.
Speaker B:And I think.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:To what you were saying about, you know, with the universe, the same as with the medicine, with the mushroom.
Speaker A:Well, there's a deeper knowledge here that, you know, we aren't in touch with, and that's why we're asking for help.
Speaker A:If we knew what the answers were, we would go and do them, but we don't.
Speaker A:So you have to kind of surrender to what Ron Kurtz of the.
Speaker A:Would call organicity of the system.
Speaker A:There's a.
Speaker A:There's a.
Speaker A:There's a natural organization to it.
Speaker A:And if you're not in alignment with that, you experience that as tension, anxiety, you know, neurosis compensation.
Speaker A:And you don't know how to align, or you would.
Speaker A:And now there's a part of you that does know, but cognitively you might think, well, it's in this area over here, but really there's this other roadblock, and when you remove that, then everything just snaps into place.
Speaker A:So, yeah, and so that's the problem with being too specific, like you say.
Speaker A:And I appreciate that as a teaching moment as well, for people as well.
Speaker A:Just sometimes say, you know, whatever needs to happen, let it be so beautiful.
Speaker A:This is such great stuff.
Speaker A:Well, in the notes, we will put all the ways that people can contact you.
Speaker A:What would you say to someone who's like, on this path?
Speaker A:And you've already said, here, here you can.
Speaker A:Or ways to connect.
Speaker A:But what would you say is like, is there a.
Speaker A:Like a.
Speaker A:One of the most surprising things that you may have learned through your work here?
Speaker A:Like, something went.
Speaker A:I have.
Speaker A:Not completely out of left field, but turned out to be a big deal.
Speaker A:A strange question for me to ask.
Speaker A:So it must be coming from somewhere else.
Speaker B:It must be.
Speaker B:You know, I think for me, it.
Speaker B:It goes back to all the mental health struggles that I was having that really led me to.
Speaker B:Led me logically to leave my job.
Speaker B:I was anxious, I was depressed, I had ptsd, I was burnt out.
Speaker B:And I had been really trying to heal those things for a very, very long time.
Speaker B:But what I know to be true is that if you have mental health challenges, you have to start in the body.
Speaker B:There's no amount of talking about it that's going to solve it.
Speaker B:There's not talk therapy that's going to actually help you move through it.
Speaker B:That's at least my experience.
Speaker B:And so often we don't trust our body.
Speaker B:We don't think that our body has anything to tell us.
Speaker B:And our.
Speaker B:Our medical model makes it so, our society makes it so.
Speaker B:And so I would say the biggest aha for me is that your body actually already has all the answers that you need.
Speaker B:Your only job is to get out of its way and learn to listen.
Speaker B:And you can do it in a variety of ways.
Speaker B:Maybe you eat mushrooms, maybe you do breath work, maybe you go watch the moon, but, like, your way will find you.
Speaker B:And so we've talked about so many things, and maybe this is the way for you, and maybe it's not, but just trust that your body knows the way if you get out of its way.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love that so much.
Speaker A:And I would just extend that thought a little bit if people are going, well, I don't know how to ask my body.
Speaker A:Here's what I would say.
Speaker A:Ask yourself, what lights you up?
Speaker A:What lights you up?
Speaker A:I know Leslie, she's talked about.
Speaker A:You talked about your dogs.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So that's something that really gets.
Speaker A:Reaches you.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So what's that?
Speaker A:And then walking in nature was one of the things.
Speaker A:Those are the things that are, I call them, touchstones to this piece of you that's really core and true and not dependent on anything or anybody else's conditional.
Speaker A:The moon, all these things are touchstones.
Speaker A:So find those touchstones for yourself and study your relationship to them.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:And that's a big.
Speaker A:Has been a huge impact on my life.
Speaker A:And I teach that to all my clients.
Speaker A:I don't care if they're CEOs or if they're waiting tables or they're unemployed.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I lead with that because it's such a powerful entry into the world of, what am I connected to?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think what's also lovely about that idea too, is your body, when you're lit up by those things, is probably in safety.
Speaker B:It's probably slower, slowing down.
Speaker B:Even if you're in an excited state, you're in a state of your nervous system that is in that resilience zone where you are in your vibe.
Speaker B:Like you're in the space where now you don't feel as stressed out.
Speaker B:Like, I just think about how calm I get when I, like, watch birds outside or I pet my dog.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:That's the place of how your body starts to talk to you.
Speaker A:Yes, exactly.
Speaker A:So and my lexicon, it's because.
Speaker A:It's because we're connecting with something in that moment that's bigger than us and letting that inform your senses so that you can connect to the majesty, the presence of a mountain or the.
Speaker A:Or the majesty of an old tree.
Speaker A:For me, it's a big presence experience.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:There's like a thousand years of presence in this tree.
Speaker A:It's been the same place for a thousand years.
Speaker A:It's like not thinking about it, fencing into it.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:Those are the thoughts that I have.
Speaker A:And when that happens, something in me emerges it feels resonant with that presence.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:That's the juice, you know, I just love it.
Speaker A:Anyway, you can tell I could go on about this.
Speaker A:Well, thank you, Leslie.
Speaker A:This has been so fun.
Speaker A:We'll put in the show notes how people can reach you and connect with your work.
Speaker A:Any last words to the audience in terms of, like, particularly in this crazy world we're in right now.
Speaker B:You know what?
Speaker B:I've started recently, and it's not my own design.
Speaker B:It is by woman whose name is Sarah Jinx.
Speaker B:I've recommitted to what she calls and I also now call the sacred start.
Speaker B:How can you have a moment in the morning or wherever it fits in your day that is divinely for you to connect with the things that you're talking about?
Speaker B:Is it your dog?
Speaker B:Is it, you know, art?
Speaker B:Is it playing guitar?
Speaker B:So it's my husband's thing, you know, how can you have just that little moment for you, the beginning of the day to refocus, to reconnect so that you are more in touch with yourself and then can be more in touch with the world?
Speaker B:If you're looking for somewhere to start, I would go there.
Speaker B:And it doesn't have to be long.
Speaker B:It could be one intentional minute.
Speaker A:Perfect.
Speaker A:Yeah, perfect.
Speaker A:I love that a lot.
Speaker A:Starting with intentionality, like that is really powerful.
Speaker A:Well, thank you once again.
Speaker A:I appreciate you being here, and the work that you're doing is so powerful.
Speaker A:And so for the women in the world that are listening to this, that are interested in working with Leslie, reach out and change your life.
Speaker A:So thank you all, and we'll see you in the next episode of the Mindful Coach Podcast.
Speaker A:The Mindful Coach Podcast is a service of the Mindful Coach Association.
