Psychedelics have gotten pretty popular these days, and there’s a lot of information as well as charlatans out there. We’re going to discuss the basics, benefits and risks associated with Psilocybin Assisted Therapy. There is a difference between taking Magic Mushrooms and hanging with friends, versus working with them and putting intention into transforming your life for the better. This talk will help educate you on how to look at Psilocybin as a transformative healing tool for improving your quality of life.

The latest scientific research and data is demonstrating that Psilocybin Assisted Therapy can:

-Treat Anxiety & Depression
-Treat Addiction
-Help with replacing habits that do not benefit with one's that do
-Treat OCD
-Enhanced creativity and openness
-Spiritual and Existential Insights
-Improved mood and well being
-Enhance mindfulness and emotional processing
-Neuroplasticity
-Reduce fear of death

It's important to note that while these potential benefits are promising, research on psilocybin is still a relatively new. Research is ongoing, and the therapy is not yet widely available. Additionally, Psilocybin is a controlled substance and should only be administered by trained facilitators in a controlled setting as part of clinical trials or research studies. Furthermore the therapy should always be conducted within legal and ethical guidelines, with a focus on patient safety and well-being.

Topics We'll Discuss:

-What is Psilocybin / Magic Mushrooms
-Background on Magic Mushrooms
-What is Depression?
-How Depression impacts the mind and the body
-Measurements / Dosage
-Safety
-Potential Benefits & Risks
-Intention Setting
-Preparation & Integration
-Tools, skills and modalities for using psilocybin for treating anxiety
-The Process

Learn more about us at www.brooklynbalance.org

Transcript:

Speaker 1 (00:00:02):

Cool. So yeah, this presentation does not encourage or condone any illegal activities including but not limited to the use of illegal substances. This is not a substitute for mental health or medical services. This is not a substitute for medical, psychological, psychiatric diagnoses, treatment or advice. So there is a lot coming out about psilocybin used as a therapeutic medicine in conjunction with therapy. The first thing I like to just tell people is use your discernment. Go slow and be safe. So what you will learn today, what is psilocybin? I'll give a brief background on psilocybin safety, contraindications, risks, what is depression modalities for alleviating depression, working with psilocybin for depression and integration. And if you, it's safe for you if you're not driving, if you have a writing utensil and paper available, we'll be doing an exercise during this talk as well.

(00:01:25):

So a little about me, right? Who is this guy talking about psilocybin. So my name is Josh or Joshua Jupiter. I'm the founder of Brooklyn Balance, LLC. I am a full-time psychedelic integration coach and facilitator. I have various certifications and professional trainings including but not limited to, TAM integration maps, psychedelic support and more. Also fun fact is I'm a native New Yorker. So a little background on me. So I had my first life-changing psychedelic experience in 2003. Later on in 2008, I began to have really debilitating panic attacks. I couldn't leave my bed, I could barely go outside. I was just like, I was just very trapped in my apartment. And so I went on SSRIs, I was prescribed citalopram and I was on that for about eight or nine years. And in 2016, I weaned myself off of SSRIs and I began to explore more with psychedelics with my therapists and my community members in 2020.

(00:02:50):

My background is film production. I got burnt out. I was working 80 hours a week and I pushed pause and pursued a new path in 2022, I founded Brooklyn Balance, LLC, and this past year I did the match training. I graduated from TAM integration's 12 month certification program, and now I am here in New York City working full-time as a psychedelic integration coach and trip sitter. So some of these photos I just like to share. This is up on the upper right, it's me at the MAPS conference in Denver back in June. This is my cohort from TAM integration. And if you're familiar with maps, this is Rick Dolin and I, so real people, real results. So these are two things that people have said about this work and working with me. I came to Brooklyn Balance due to suffering from continuous treatment resistant depression. I've suffered with depression from most of my adult life. I'm 60, I've been on most of the well-known antidepressants as well as some not well-known. I've continued to notice of substantial reduction in depressive symptoms. This is quite remarkable since I've been on medication most of my adult life other than emergency appendectomy in 1995, I don't think I've had anything impact my wellbeing so much.

(00:04:31):

So yeah, it's a little background on me and we'll do a q and A at the end as well if anyone has any questions about more of my experience and my background, but moving into some background on psilocybin. So I always like to begin my talks with this quote from Chris Bosch, which is from the book LSD and the Mind of the Universe. From ancient times, men and women have gathered under the night sky and taken substances that help them commune with their inner being and with the life that turns through all things they have sat in prayer and silence, seeking healing and guidance so they could return to their lives, better people and more aligned with the deeper currents of light. Because these substances opened them to the spiritual dimension of existence. They were called sacred because they healed the wound of forgetting who and what we truly are we're called medicine from before written history began.

(00:05:45):

The sacred medicine path has been one of the most spiritual paths human beings have taken to find themselves each other and the divine. So what are psilocybin mushrooms? So I imagine a number of you here already know a bunch about it, but just a little more background on it. And for those that we don't know, they're commonly known as magic mushrooms. And some people call them shrooms. I actually really don't like that word, but just to bring awareness to it, they're a fungi. They grow naturally all over the world and they've been used for thousands of years by humans. They're classic tryptamine, psychedelic whose mind altering effects can last two to eight hours. They are a schedule one substance and they grow naturally all around the world. It would be incredibly difficult to overdose on psilocybin mushrooms for that to be considered over 2.6 pounds of dried mushroom would have to be eaten, which is almost 2000 times a typical therapeutic dose of three grams. Psilocybin itself is biologically inactive, but it quickly gets converted to soin, which creates mind altering effects similar, which bear similarities to other substances such as Mescalin, DNT and LSD.

(00:07:29):

So a bit of a timeline on psilocybin. So back in 5,000 BC there are ancient paintings of mushroomed humanoids and they're in caves on the alii plateau of Algeria. And then 1000 bc. There's evidence of central American cultures building temples to mushroom gods and they carved these mushroom stones here, a little image on the right. In 1914, the first experienced documented in a scientific science publication of intentional psilocybin mushroom ingestion occurred and it details descriptions of visual effects, hallucinations, uncontrollable laughter, and joking more so in 1953, mycologist r Gordon Watson visited oca Mexico to witness a mushroom ADA ceremony and he returned again in 1955 to photograph and participate with Maria Sabina.

(00:08:47):

Maria Sabina is a well-known mushroom facilitator and she educated him a lot and a lot of that knowledge therefore got passed along to North America there. In 1958, Albert Hoffman isolate psilocybin and publishes the synthesis of psilocybin at Sandoz Pharmaceutical. A couple of years later, Sandoz created two milligrams psilocybin pills, which we could get a prescription for. So eight years later, the Staggard dog bill passed making possession of psilocybin and osint illegal, followed by the comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act in 1971, which made it a schedule one substance. So schedule one basically means that it serves no medical use and that there's high potential for abuse. So today, many years later, there's a lot of new stuff coming out about psychedelics. There's a lot of new stuff coming out about mushrooms. This is just some of the headlines that I'll put together here for it.

(00:10:10):

And we're seeing the positive effects of psilocybin and more and more studies and research are coming out every day. So this image here on the bottom left is one of my favorite images when talking about psilocybin. So in a study, one person was given a placebo and one person was given psilocybin, and they were both given an FMRI. And so you can see here this is like the neurons and activity in the brain with the placebo and with the psilocybin there's just a lot of neuro energy being generated and neuroplasticity. So the neurons are firing off exponentially here and we'll talk more about that later.

(00:11:10):

So through the research done and with the things that have been coming out, we're seeing positive effects of psilocybin in conjunction with proper guidance. So some of the things that we're seeing, we're seeing that there's alleviation from cluster headaches, alleviation from depression, anxiety, increasing mindfulness and feeling of interconnectedness. It may increase your relationship with nature. Spirituality, the universe, it may increase creativity, cognitive flexibility, it promotes neuroplasticity, neurogenesis, neurogenesis was the word I was trying to remember in the previous slide, and it may be helpful with substance abuse and addiction, including tobacco and alcohol as well as PTSD.

(00:12:09):

So this is one of my favorite studies also. So this was a study about harm caused by substances by Neuropsychopharmacology David Nutt in 2010, and its focuses really on how these substances not just affect people's health but affect culture and society. And so we see here that mushrooms had the least harm with all of those substances that were studied. So moving into risks of psilocybin, right? We're going to talk about their benefits and how they may help people, but it's not for everyone. Psychedelics are not for everyone. They're not a silver bullet, and there's a lot of things to consider before taking. So this is a short list that speaks to some of that behavioral risk. How will they affect your behavior? There is a risk of HPPD and that's where you remain seeing hallucinations even after the medicine has left your system. And for some people that can persist for months or even a lifetime, some people may experience what we call a challenging experience, formerly known as a bad trip.

(00:13:40):

If someone has borderline personality disorder, schizophrenic tendencies, it's advised to not really work with psilocybin. It can be very risky if someone is on a pharmaceutical medication such as barring dioxin, lithium, there can be a risk. Lithium particularly causes seizures, SSRIs and NRIs. There can be a risk of serotonin syndrome as well as blunting, serotonin, genetic migraine medications, anti-psychotics and contamination. So if you're considering working with psychedelics or psilocybin and you're not sure if it's safe for you, I put the information here for Dr. Ben Malcolm. He's also known as the spirit pharmacist. His website is spirit pharmacist.com, and he's a really great resource for advising on that.

(00:14:54):

So there are potential side effects as well. Disorientation, lethargy, giddiness, euphoria, joy, visual hallucinations, synesthesia, perceptual distortions, mystical experiences, pupil dilation, decreased heart rate, increased, decreased blood pressure, body temperature, fluctuations and nausea. So yeah, there's definitely pros and there's definitely suitability for use. What are the variables? What is your state of mind? Do you have expectations? Are you willing to engage in therapy or be guided by someone, be coached by someone, listen to someone with experience. What resources and support are available for you in case you need them? Or if something goes wrong, is there a cultural understanding, particularly between you and your facilitator? And then understanding uncertainty. I always say something may happen, nothing may happen. And also having a tolerance for destabilization. What do you do when you're feeling dysregulated and what is your tolerance for that?

(00:16:22):

So moving more into what is depression and the correlation between psilocybin and depression. So if someone's experiencing depression, it's generally defined as a mood disorder that causes persistent feelings of sadness. You might have a loss of interest and typically like hopelessness. So there's other names for depression and things can get very clinical with it. Me personally, I don't really like to apologize too much, but what I do understand from it is that there are a lot of emotional and physical problems that derive from depression and it can really lead to having trouble in your normal day-to-day activities. And one of the most difficult things that we might hear is suicidal thoughts that life is not worth living.

(00:17:28):

Some of the symptoms include sadness, irritability, apathy, being tired, disrupted sleep, lack of motivation, difficulty concentrating, negative thoughts, feelings of hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, that being withdrawn, not engaged in activities, getting teary eyed, a lot of tearfulness, just a lot of heavy sadness, emptiness, hopelessness. There's various causes for depression. And I personally like to say it's nice and it's important to get to the root of things, but sometimes it's okay to just allow things to happen and to be in the mystery of things. But some general causes of depression, biology, genetics, health conditions, diabetes, heart disease, thyroid disorders, hormonal changes, brain chemistry changes, stressful and traumatic life events, limited access to resources. So if someone's feeling a lot of scarcity, I don't have enough food, I'm worried about what I'm going to live, I'm worried about this hospital bill, I have to pay or I can't go to the hospital because it's expensive. And then a lack of social support as well. Negative thoughts, problematic coping behaviors. So drinking for drinking alcohol to avoid like, Hey, I had a really tough day, I don't want to think about it, I'm just going to get drunk. Or substance abuse, other substances.

(00:19:17):

So if you've battled depression, you may have already been informed of or tried trying to improve your sleep, exercising, addressing your health issues, taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety, medication, going to therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. And then there's different types of depression, major depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder, also known as dys, methia, postpartum depression, bipolar depression, seasonal affective disorder and psychotic depression. So also just to, while speaking about these different types of depression, it's not always safe to take a psychedelic if you're in a very deep depression or if you have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder because it can be more damaging or it can even be very risky to do. So.

(00:20:36):

When we start to get anxious or depressed, it starts to affect our mind and it really can also affect the body too. So when the body gets stressed, it might experience aches, pain, joint pain, limb pain, back pain, upset, stomach. And if anyone here can relate to this, put a one in the chat. I'm just curious, how do y'all relate to this? Does any of this resonate with you? Have you had any experiences like this? Have you had insomnia, difficulty sleeping at any points in your life? Tiredness, appetite changes, headaches, psychomotor activity changes. And in general too, when we're feeling physical pain, the more severe the depression can be as well.

(00:21:29):

Yeah, thanks for sharing, Dan. So how, what's the connection between psilocybin and depression? So first I'm going to introduce some recent studies that came out where research was done. And so this first one, there were 30 cancer patients and they were from a single oncology community practice and they had been struggling with major depressive disorder. They were administered in small groups. So three or four of them at a time were given 25 milligram doses of psilocybin. And if you're more like me, a dried mushroom type of person, if you're working with a strain golden teacher, that might be two and a half grams. But if you're working with something of more potent like penis vy, the strain of mushroom, that might be like 1.25 grams because different dried mushrooms have different potencies. Yeah, Philip says, I treat my body as a conscious vessel consciousness vessel, hence I listened to what it says and I treat it well and maintain it in great shape.

(00:22:55):

We only have one body. If we do not take care of it, it won't be able to take care of us. I a hundred percent agree with Beth Philip, thank you so much for sharing that. So in this study, the results were very encouraging. They showed a robust reduction in depression in regard to the severity scores coming down by more than 19 points and sustaining for eight weeks. 80% of the participants demonstrated a sustained response to psilocybin treatment while half of them showed full remission of depressive symptoms as soon as the first week, and it persisted for two months. And so I always like to add on because it's like they study these people for two months, it's very likely symptoms came back later, maybe, maybe not. But again, echoing that none of these medicines are a silver bullet.

(00:23:59):

So in this study done at NYU Langone, I actually, I learned about this at the NAPS conference back in June and Denver. So they had 80 participants who had cancer and half were again given psilocybin in conjunction with therapy. Over six months they saw that the psilocybin assisted therapy significantly improved not just depression, but anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, OCD and somatization. And so I do send out these slides, but you're also welcome to take a screenshot, but if you look here at the graphs, you can witness the reduction in depression that they were experiencing right here in the middle. And then the other ones featured the other experiences that they had reduced in a John Hopkins study, another one with people with life-threatening cancer research conducted with 51 patients, showed people suffering cancer related depression anxiety found considerable relief for up to six months from a single large dose of psilocybin.

(00:25:28):

Six months after about 80% of the participants continued to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety with about 60% showing symptom remission into the normal range. 83% reported increases in wellbeing or life satisfaction, and they were given one high dose and one low dose. So a high dose might be like 25 milligrams, which can be like 1.25 to two and a half grams of dried mushroom. And a high dose would be, well two to three and a half, maybe four, but four would be a lot of a dried mushroom that could be 25 milligrams and up it's considered medium to large dose.

(00:26:23):

So modalities for therapeutic process. So it's like, alright, we have more knowledge of psilocybin and we know that in conjunction with therapy facilitation, coaching mindfulness, that there can be benefits between using the two. So one of the tools that I like to encourage is omi. OMI method is an experiential therapy, experimental therapy. So it means that changes are brought about body experience that you have in the present moment. The experiences of the body are the key focus. The body is fought to be a resource that holds information like memories and beliefs. So hamy involves mindfulness, non-violence, unity, organicity and mind body wholeness, inter-family systems is also a modality that I feel is similar to this. What we start to talk about somatics, holding attention in our body, locating in our body, and just being present to it and noticing it and giving it what it needs, talking to it, rubbing it, releasing it, calling it energy for it, all sorts of things.

(00:27:54):

So I find H Aflex and ACT very interesting is a model that is currently being used to better understand the psychological mechanisms involved in psychedelic experiences. So accesss for acceptance and commitment therapy and it, it's a way to go deeper and it is a way to just bring in more flexibility. And so it's like if I'm here and I want to go there, but I can't go there, I can go over here and now I'm here, but I don't like being over here, I can go over there. And it's really an interesting modality to be present, to drop into what our values are and just accepting like, hey, this is where I am right now.

(00:28:47):

And a quote down here I say about that Joshua Schultz says about act is that it helps clients embrace their demons and follow their hearts, the inner directed approach. So I mentioned the word somatics before and somatics to me is kind of a fancy word for body, but working with the body and being in tune to the body. And so allowing things to arise naturally, we'll see experiential emotional engagement, encouraging imagination, restructuring, cognition, and then transference too. So if you're working with mushrooms, with a facilitator, being aware of how the facilitator's energy might influence you and how you might influence the facilitator's energy, subconscious tendencies, compassion for self and others, transpersonal, spiritual and imaginal exposure. So these are just a couple of modalities, these few slides when it comes to bringing in doing the work.

(00:30:04):

So moving into bringing in changes into your life. So if someone is feeling depressed, it's looking into like, Hey, well what might be causing this depression? And so as humans, it's very natural for us to just be like, I'm having pain, I'm having suffering right now. I want this suffering and this pain to just go away right now. And that's being in the moment. And yeah, our nervous system's going up and we're just thinking about that, but it's like, well, why does this pain, why does this suffering keep coming up for me? What do I need to consider about the long-term? And making changes and maintaining them daily, weekly, or monthly, yearly so that they'll stick and that there's less pain and less suffering in life. So I'm going to invite us to do a exercise, which is why I said if you're able to have a pen and paper nearby. So if it's safe for you and if you're in a quiet space, I'm going to invite you to do a meditation. And we're just going to be brief here. It's not going to be long. So if you're unable to do so, we're just going to be a few minutes, but we're all participating in this regardless because we're all here. And I like to always say that even as an observer, an observer is participating, an observer is not an outside and observer is included.

(00:31:53):

If it feels good to you, I just invite you to sit with your back straight spine tall invitation to close your eyes or soft gaze to the floor. And just start taking some deep belly breaths into your nose and out your mouth, feel your belly rows and feel a fall as you exhale.

Speaker 2 (00:32:47):

And just take a few deep breaths,

Speaker 1 (00:32:59):

Just begin to notice how you feel in this moment. And I invite you to imagine what a perfect day would look like for you.

Speaker 2 (00:33:30):

What does it look like?

Speaker 1 (00:33:34):

What does it feel like? What does it sound like? Is there a smell?

Speaker 2 (00:33:55):

Are you with people? Are you alone

Speaker 1 (00:34:05):

Noticing what that day brings up for you and what's happening in it? How things might be able to be fun, exciting, tranquil, relaxed.

Speaker 2 (00:34:37):

Notice what's happening in this moment for you.

Speaker 1 (00:34:47):

Look around, where are you? What are you doing? Who are you with?

(00:35:07):

And maybe take notice that all of this that you're thinking, that you're imagining envisioning is just coming from you. It's not coming from anywhere else outside. You're choosing this. You're choosing your perfect day, keeping your eyes closed or soft, ga to the floor. Shifting into intention. What are some goals that can move you in the direction of creating this perfect day to step into this vision? Think about some specific things, little steps. Is there anything confusing? Is there anything that's challenging that feels unsure to get to that perfect day? What do you need to get clearer on for that? To take a better, to get better clarity? What do you notion? What do you notice emotionally with that? Take a few final breaths. Take a moment to recognize that the work never ends, that all this work, all this progress is continuous and each day is a new day for doing so. Still breathing. Slowly come back to the room. Notice where you are, notice how you feel.

Speaker 2 (00:37:47):

Do what you need to do to be present.

Speaker 1 (00:37:54):

And moving into reflecting and integrating the past few minutes. If you have your pen and paper writing down what resonated with you, what felt good, what do you have the most resistance with? Whatever you have the most resistance to, that's probably what you need to do first. And I invite you also, if you're comfortable sharing chat, what some things that are present for you that you can take action with. I know that for me, I noticed I wanted to earlier this week, last week, improve my environment, improve my apartment. So I made a little list and I said, I want to buy an alarm clock so I'm not on my phone first thing in the morning to turn off my alarm. I want to buy a new altar, I want to buy a new desk. And I ordered one very promptly and I started to put little notes as to like, all right, well where do I want to buy that?

(00:39:25):

What kind do I want to buy that and research it. So yeah, this is a little exercise meditation. A few more questions here that would just be repeating myself as to how to take notice of what we want in our lives. And it's like, yeah, it's easy to think about. It's easy for me to say like, Hey, yeah, I want a new couch, but I have to make time and space to buy a new couch. I have to research it. How much do I want to spend on a couch? What's it going to cost for me? Delivering what takes up time and energy? And it could be exhausting. And so it's just putting things in motion and when we see it, we can make it happen.

(00:40:28):

So yeah, moving more into thoughts. So someone I study with by the name of Dr. Stacey Ellis, she likes to say thoughts are not real, they're just ideas presented to you. So when we relate to our ideas ourself and others thoughts may be correct, thoughts may be incorrect, they might be cleared, they might be distorted, they might be confusing or focused. So we're going to touch upon CBT and our thoughts. So if we're battling depression, some thoughts might sound like I'm a failure, I'm at fault. Nothing good happens to me, I'm not worthy. There's nothing good I can't change, it's hopeless. They're better off without it beating ourselves up. If you can relate to that, put a one in the chat, big one over here, more so in the past.

(00:41:41):

So where do these thoughts come from? So a lot of these thoughts come from our early experiences. So were we criticized a lot as an adolescent, bullied, abused, what events might've been triggering for those? Programming is a word I like to say put into our mind, into our subconscious to create our core beliefs. So our core beliefs of judgment worthiness and in creating limiting beliefs, getting us to start to assume things that are not true. So we start to think, I got to please other people before I please myself. If you can relate to being a people pleaser, put a one in the chat. I know I can less so these days are pretty much not much these days.

(00:42:42):

Critical incidents that can happen when you're older too. So someone in your family getting sick, did you get laid off or fired? Career transition in some countries like a terrorist attack or a medical diagnosis. And we might go into automatic negative thoughts, I never get it right. And this can really perpetuate symptoms of depression. Philip says, indeed, feelings and thoughts are not real. They just bubble up and we can spiral into them or we can dismiss them. Our choice. Absolutely. Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that. And yeah, Steve, yeah, thanks for putting a one in the chat. Yeah, thanks for sharing. So something I like to say is my vibe attracts my tribe. And it's like, have you ever noticed in your life that you keep attracting the same kind of person?

(00:43:52):

Maybe for example, you're the kind of person where people keep coming to you for help and people keep coming to you and asking you for money, or can you lend them this or can you help them with that? And it's like stop it. When you wonder, it's like, why do these types of people keep coming to me? So it's like we might be thinking a certain way and because we're thinking a certain way and we do things that let out an energy, that let out a vibration, it attracts that energy. So it's like, if that is not serving us, what are some things we can do to change that? So getting a little more into C, B, T, right? So if I think, for example, I don't have many friends, we might feel people must not like me, so I feel sad. But if you reframe your thoughts, if you look at things from another perspective, it's like this is what's in the front, but let's go in the back, we go in the back and it's like, no, let's look at this differently. I have a couple of friends, but the group of friends I have is a small group of friends and they're really special to me. And if I put things in motion, I can make more in due time.

(00:45:19):

And so this is talk about psilocybin and depression. So mushrooms have a way of opening the subconscious and the mind and they allow for the ability to shift the way we look at things. And by combining different tools and modalities as the ones that I'm talking about, we can utilize that to our advantage for changing the way we think, looking at ourselves and others. And so just to speak a little bit more about mushrooms, like I said earlier, they generate more neuroplasticity and they'll also, they may have a way for some people to open us and to expand us, and then we will experience neuroplasticity after or not. And it's during that time where it's like, oh, when I was in my journey, I just saw things a bit differently. And so it's like we had that there, but then therapeutically, how do we start to notice what are our thoughts and shifting our thoughts through integration and therapy. So it's like imagine your life is like a movie and you're the screenwriter. Can you flip the script? So if you might say to yourself, man, I'm a mess. It's like, how can we be a little more compassionate and softer on ourselves and just be like, I'm human. Things get messy sometimes I can't do this. I can do, I do hard things or I can put effort into doing this. Why is this happening to me?

(00:47:16):

What is this teaching me? Something bad happens, something an event happens, how can we learn from it? Some more examples, my friends are probably angry or happy that I'm not going to see them tonight. Maybe try. My friends are happy that I'm taking care of myself tonight. I'm neurotic. I'm particular and attuned to my needs and I can take care of myself. I'm too rigid. I'm working on being more flexible. Yeah, Philip shares psychedelics permit us to observe ourselves from a neutral perspective, allowing to see habits we do not resonate with, hence giving us the choice to change. I agree with this, I agree with this for myself, and I always say when it comes to words like us or you, it's like what might happen for me might not happen for everybody. So I just like to always remind people, especially people that are new and exploring this about that.

(00:48:36):

It's like, I'm bad at yoga. Well, if a yoga teacher ever said that to you in yoga, there is no good and there is no bad. I try my best at yoga. I'm not good at playing the piano. I recently started putting effort into playing the piano and intend on practicing daily to improve. So when we start to notice more about our thoughts and noticing how our thoughts are impacting us, something that can really benefit if we're trying to make changes and improve ourselves with things such as depression and other things as well. Maybe anxiety is tracking it. So in this example, made this up, but it's like how do I feel on Monday? I'm having 40% depression. How do I feel on Tuesday? I had breakfast alone that morning I felt really depressed more than Monday at 70%, but the next day I just took a walk and my depression was less.

(00:49:56):

Thursday, les had a phone call with a friend and then Friday breakfast alone, a bit more depression. So what do I learn from this and what do I need to do and change for myself to mitigate and put preventative measures for the depression, as well as calling in things for improving life and tracking our activities. It helps provide a structure. We will learn about what's priority, what's not a priority. Well, I got really upset when I was talking to my friend on Tuesday. Maybe I need to talk to this friend less or at another time.

(00:50:50):

It helps prevent ruminating, just fixating on thoughts and going like, well, why was I thinking that? And spending a lot of time just thinking about one thing, looking at the larger picture and learning from it so we can realize for the future and therefore have less rumination. Tracking what gives you pleasure, changing perception from chaos to manageable tasks, increasing the chances that activities will be carried out and enhancing our sense of control. Some other tips I can suggest for alleviating depression when working with psilocybin, which are equally as important during preparation and integration, continuing to do deep breathing, journaling, CBT, exercising, socializing, limiting caffeine, meditation. Yeah, thank you. Getting good sleep, resting, avoiding alcohol, stimulants, narcotics. And for some people cannabis, cannabis can be good for some people and it might not be good for some people. It's a very interesting medicine of its own establishing boundaries and getting firm with your boundaries, getting more attuned to what am I yes to, what am I a no to? And mindfulness meditations.

(00:52:29):

Yeah, learning about what triggers you, how do you respond to your triggers? Are you reactive or do you pause? Do you go into fight or flight? Re-parenting as a tool, asking yourself, what do I need? I'm a big fan of internal family systems and better understanding consent and sovereignty, knowing that we are sovereign, we make our own choices and we decide our own path. For me, it's like if someone asked me to do something or request for me to do something, I'll pause, think about it and really drop into if I'm a yes or no to it. And that will really, it's really impacted me with doing so and pausing that. Yeah, inner team dialogue too. Yeah. Thanks for sharing, Philip. Appreciate that. As we mentioned, tracking patterns, recognizing where's the chaos, when are you suffering? And when it comes to chaos and suffering, growing up in that kind of environment, we get very used to it.

(00:53:55):

And it might create feelings of I can't trust or it's harder to love, and the psyche gets really filled up with fear. And so it's like how do we work with that? Recognizing that we do have agency and that we can open our hearts, our minds, and our souls to love what was normal in your development and how are you reproducing that pattern? And so that's more about touching upon what are the good parts and what are the bad parts? Well, not bad, there are no bad parts, but what are the parts in us that might seem more love and attention that we may have inherited from our family members?

(00:54:46):

And so what we change in the body, we change in our mind. And so it's like what's something we always worry about? Money, health, worry gives us a sense of traction as the suffering. It gives us a familiarity. So if we're feeling depressed, it's like we're just so familiar with this feeling that it can be scary to think about what it's like to not experience that feeling. And it's like, yeah, embracing the younger version itself, like talking to the parts and talking to ourselves when we were younger, what happened before certain events happened to us and what do we need to give that earlier version of ourself? And so it's like when we're a child, we're very present, we're very in the world and we're feeling very connected and we're very in the moment and psychedelics can really help bring us to and relate us to that state of mind.

(00:55:54):

So this is probably one of my favorite things about talking about how psilocybin is a beneficial tool in regard to working with as a medicine, our minds can get knotted up, be like a ball of yarn, it's all tangled and psilocybin can, for some people, help it to just relax and help create more space, lightness, clarity. It can help us get more data about ourselves and so that we can straighten out that yarn and relay it, put it into a new ball the way that we want it to be. It can help us to be more vulnerable and it can help us see how we're behaving in the world.

(00:56:50):

Many people function as if what they're experiencing is real. And so if our thoughts are not real, they're just ideas that are presented to ourselves, how do we present our thoughts to ourselves in a different way and putting new programming in the subconscious so that it becomes conscious. So yeah, there's certain things that may not be there and we can help get a grasp on how to reformat that. I just spoke to this and establishing trust. If you don't trust anybody, it's unlikely that you're going to have healthy relationships. If you're working and you're a manager and you don't trust your team, you're going to be micromanage. You're going to be putting all this energy out there of you need to do this and you need that. Did you do this? And I don't believe you that it's going to make your relationships very challenging.

(00:58:04):

So looking into who can be trusted and how will trust lead into feeling the pain. And yeah, bill, exactly right, if you don't trust other people, you don't trust yourself. Yeah, really appreciate you saying that. So if you're considering working with a facilitator with psilocybin, it's vitally important to consider what is that facilitator's state of mind. A facilitator's state of mind creates the aura, it creates the energy that will affect you, that it will affect the client or the friend that you're saying like, Hey, you need to go and do mushrooms. So it's important to really get clear on yourself but also have a clear understanding as to what is the energy, what is the partnership like between you and the facilitator and being with your own energy and maintaining it for your own attention to be present for what's true to you. A facilitator's energy should not interfere with your experience.

(00:59:17):

I'm not going to touch upon this too much. I will send out the slides and you're welcome to look at this a bit more in depthly, but I like to talk about balance. And in short, there are different polarities that we have and there's different ways that we act and we navigate all of these different polarities. So there's the unaware, wounded feminine up on the upper left, and that's, it's not literally in regard to the female body, like a woman, it's just about the energy in general. A man also has or can have unaware, wounded feminine energy. And same thing in regard to masculine. And so it's like, alright, is there a lot of attachment is like there are a lot of sadness and grief, a lot of drama like reacting impulsively, not pausing and just taking a minute to drop into things and creating chaos or being like the victim being needy, self-sacrificing the unaware or the wounded, masculine aversion, fear, anger, rage provoking.

(01:00:40):

I'm going to start a fight contracting, mentally reacting physically. I'm just going to punch this guy controlling, bullying him. Narcissistic. Yeah, I'm wondering, I put a one in the chat, but I don't can relate to any of these things, right? No one's perfect, but I imagine at one point or another we've been there. I can, I'll put a one in the chat. And then there's the aware feminine, the empowered feminine, love, roundedness, healthy boundaries, being compassionate, abundance and flow and radiance, wisdom and birth in new beginnings, be aware and embodied, masculine freedom, holding space, creating safety, witnessing without judgment, silence, spaciousness, stillness, knowledge, death and endings.

(01:01:45):

And so it's like where is our balance? What might we be experiencing? Where does imbalance, am I up here with the wounded and need to drop more into my aware? And am I out of touch with the feminine? How can I find the center between all four? Yeah, strengthening all of those pillars and diving into the core wounds as to what may have created those wounds. So when we have a profound experience or when we're in a moment, if we're depressed, it's like things might not always be clear. So something I like to say is, maybe this is how I'm supposed to be.

(01:02:47):

And just taking a pause with that and just thinking maybe this is where I'm just supposed to be right now. Dropping into accepting. And sometimes we can get exhausted and even more overwhelmed from fighting, trying, doing. I will often see people that rush from psychedelic experience to psychedelic experience, to psychedelic experience trying to fix or change something or people that are doing workshop or education after training after one another. It's like allowing space to just eat and say like, Hey, maybe I'm not meant to change this right now. Maybe I can pause with it, go to something else and come back. Maybe I can surrender.

(01:03:45):

So yeah, again, psilocybin or any psychedelic surely is not a silver bullet or a cure all regardless of the substance. If you're considering working with psilocybin, asking yourself, why are you choosing to work with psilocybin? What other parts of your life are you looking to focus on and improve to better improve yourself and the people in your life? What are you calling in? What are you releasing? And how are you practicing keeping it sacred? So I'll say a lot, and the community will say a lot, being intentional, and when we make something have a sacred energy to it, we're making it special. We're making it unique. It's not like, Hey, I'm going to take mushrooms and you just go dancing at the club and hopefully I'll have this profound experience. It's like, no, make it a ritual.

(01:04:47):

Treat it, treat yourself. Treat your space like it is a sacred ritual in a temple, in a church, something that's very precious. If you're in your experience with the mushrooms or any psychedelic, stay with the breath and tracking your system, particularly if a memory comes up that might be upsetting or overwhelming, that's an indication that the body may be trying to talk or release something. So I like to encourage releasing in a safe, consensual, nonviolent, non-sexual way and staying with the breath and practicing emotional release to allow somatic experiences to occur. So nearing the end, touching upon integration in Latin, Integra, which means I make whole, I renew, I repair, I begin again.

(01:06:13):

Philip says, ask the memory, what are you here? Why are you here? What can you teach me? A hundred percent, absolutely agree with that, for sure. Yeah, talking to the memories, talking to the parts, integration reprocessing, reinhabiting, re embodying, rea, associating, restoring, releasing, reclaiming, right? And so I talked about ceremonial ritual, getting in touch with spirituality. When working with psychedelics, it can feel sometimes for some people isolating, it can feel like I just had this big experience and I want to talk to people about it, but maybe these people can't relate or maybe these people will judge me. Maybe these people will just not understand and think I'm crazy. So it's beneficial to cultivate community, to go to places to find community that can relate to these experiences. So integration circles are really great for that. Attending an event at your local psychedelic society. And if you don't have one, maybe starting one.

(01:07:35):

Journaling, just letting a stream of the subconscious being in nature, doing creative arts, singing, writing, creating a plan for the future and moving into doing new experiences and insights I like to recommend. Avoid the news. Spend as little screen time as you can as well with integration or in general, yoga, dancing, hiking, Tai chi, Qigong, working out, move your body. Wellness, spa, massage, acupuncture. I love acupuncture, chiropractic adjustments, meditation, breath work. And then there's grounding, and then there's also discharging. So sometimes it's like during our experience we might actually take in energy that isn't ours and might not realize it. We might need to let that go.

(01:08:41):

I've spoken to a number of people that have had demons come up with them after their psychedelic experiences. And it's like we've had to do exorcisms is the word I'm going to use to release that deep, that energy that was not theirs, that was disturbing. So eating well and nourishing foods going to therapy and throw a party, have a potluck or go dancing. And so the benefits of integration, taking this time to create space for yourself to process what happened for you, upgraded your software, you may get increased felt sense, debriefing, difficult, challenging experiences, processing emotions, releasing and breathing, translating and applying new insights, embracing and adapting to changes of ego, identity, world and culture. Enhanced capacity for selfserving, self increased wisdom, enhance compassion for self, making sense of potential generational trauma and epigenetics. Yeah, Philip says demons can also be deeply repressed. Sub personalities, totally agree with that. In my context, I was speaking to just definitely outside energy and viewing it as coming in and getting in there. It can be ours, it might not be ours.

(01:10:28):

So some down the road. And right now there's tons of psychedelic scientific studies happening and they're focused on creativity, O-C-D-P-T-S-D, anorexia, alcoholism, depression in Alzheimer's disease, mood, post Lyme's disease treatment, microdosing and opioid use disorder. So nearing the end, I always like to say go slow. Less is more. Give yourself time to integrate. The process is likely to continue to unfold for days, weeks, months, years after. I'm still integrating my psychedelic experience from when I was 16 years old. Transformation is possible with determination and time, with or without substances. And yes, Philip says journal, journal, journal. A hundred percent agree. Trust the medicine, surrender to the process, receive what comes up. Here are some recommended readings that I find beneficial when focusing on depression. The untethered soul, I'm doing depression by Richard O'Connor. It's not always depression, which I have right here. I was reading in preparation for this talk and freedom from your inner critic, and again, I'll send out slides, so if you want to come back to this, it'll be in the email later. I

(01:12:16):

Having some technical issues. And that's it. Thank you so much for attending this talk. I do offer free discovery calls if you're interested in learning more about psychedelic integration or if I could be, if you're interested in talking as to how I could be of service to you, let me know. I do post a lot on Instagram and TikTok too. Brooklyn balance, Brooklyn Balance Integration. You can follow me there. And if you've registered for this talk, you'll be automatically added to my news blast, which if you don't want to be on that, you're welcome to unsubscribe, but I'll be adding you. Yeah, thank you Philip. Appreciate the time words. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen and I'm going to open it up for any questions. Does anyone have any questions? You're welcome to unmute yourself or type in the chat.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):

I have a question for you. How do you see micro microdosing as a really good, as a form of integration? Let's just say you do a large journey or some people don't like to do large, they want to titrate, they want to go small, which is totally great. I find that going small is actually more beneficial or more at the helm. See, I love your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):

Yeah, it's a great question. And I was actually thinking about touching upon that, but I was concerned about time. I did do a talk specific to microdosing and that's, I can forward that to you. It's through my website. And microdosing I think is amazing. And I think it's different strokes for different faults. I know for some people that they may get relief from macro doses, and I know for some people they may get relief from micro doses and vice versa. Macro doses might totally dysregulate one person, and so they lean into microdosing and that really works for them. And then there's some people where it's like microdosing does nothing for me. I don't feel anything. I'm not noticing any changes, but macro doses do and it can take time to figure that out for the individual. And I fully support microdosing. And I think it's also a really good way to get introduced to the medicine before too. So I'm a fan of the vitamin protocol and if someone's very new or has never done psilocybin, it can be recommended to microdose before a macro dose so that it's in the system and that there's a familiarity to the medicine. And then likewise for post macro dose journey as well. So I had this really big experience and it's resonating with me and maybe microdosing after is a way for continuing the integration. It's all, yeah, it's all

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):

Define microdosing versus macro dosing versus journey in your opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):

Great question. So in my opinion, you'll hear the word sub perceptual a lot in regard to microdosing. And so it's like if we listen a lot to Paul stats or James typically say a very, very low sub perceptual dose is 0.05 grams of dried mushroom. And also depending on the strain of the mushroom, depending on the potency of the mushroom.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):

When you say 0.05 grams, you're meaning milligrams, correct?

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):

No, I personally prefer grams, so that would be like, I think that's 25 milligrams.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):

Okay. You're talking about the active alkaloid inside, not the, because a true microdose in my mind is 50 milligrams of, and if it's at 1%, if the tested fruit body is at 1%, I'm just trying to gain clarity, a hundred milligrams is normally what I utilize. And then a macro would be a half gram or 500 milligrams.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):

Yes. Yeah, actually I'm going to see, I have a really great chart that

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):

I love charts

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):

I'm going to try to find, right, so this is anecdotal, and this is from a talk that was done between James Fatman and Daniel Shankin of TAM integration. And I use this chart also in my microdosing talk. And so I personally just stick with using grams, not milligrams. I find it gets a little confusing for me with milligrams, but 0.05 grams. Right. And so you said you like a hundred milligrams?

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Point oh five is 50 milligrams. Point one is a hundred milligrams, this is 15. Point 15 would be 150 milligrams. And then 0.2, I don't know, I got a little lost on that one,

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):

So that's 200 milligrams or 250 milligrams.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Yes, six.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):

What I'm hearing from you is that anything over 500 milligrams or a half a gram of dried mushroom and depending on the strain is a macro dose. And it's like if that's what allows you to feel, if that's what you consider a macro dose. Yeah, definitely. And I would just say that it's a low dose Personally, I think for me, in my opinion, a macro dose is something that brings me more into a journey state. So anything like over agram.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):

Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, and everybody's different as we know. It doesn't matter if you're a 250 pound guy or Hey, I'm 150 pound guy, I have a high tolerance. And that a big person, it doesn't really, it's not like I guess as cannabis would be. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):

Cool. Thank you for the clarity.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):

Yeah, I appreciate the question. It's a really great question. For sure. I'm really glad that you asked it. Anyone else?

Speaker 3 (01:21:08):

No one else. I have another question. Any microdosing programs that you would recommend on the internet or you know of anything or you could recommend there's any programs out there that you feel confident in or safe

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):

For learning?

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):

Just yeah, microdosing protocol program to learn about it and go through a type of cohort one to three months. So it's accountability.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):

There is moms on mushrooms and it's for moms, but guess what? They're making one for fathers. That's awesome. I don't know if you're a father or not, but that's going to be a really, really great cohort. And nothing else is coming to mind

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):

At this

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):

Moment specific to microdosing, but let me think about it and get back to you.

Speaker 3 (01:22:22):

Sounds great. Thank you, Josh.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):

Yeah, you're welcome. Cool. Well, we're at time. I always like trying to end on time. If I say if I'm going to end at two 30, I'm going to try to end at two 30, so appreciate you all being here. Thank you so much. I invite you to turn off your cameras and wave goodbye or type in the chat, whatever works for you. But thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate you all. Have a great rest of your day and I'll be in touch with emailing some more information to you all. Thank you. Bye.