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 Existental 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, Psilocybin assisted therapy is still a relatively new and experimental treatment. 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

Measurements / Dosage

Safety

Potential Benefits & Risks

Intention Setting

Preparation & Integration

The Process

This is a free online event

Learn more about us at www.brooklynbalance.org

About Us:

Brooklyn Balance aims to be a supportive companion in your psychedelic journey—from beginning to end. A journey starts the moment you decide to have a psychedelic experience, and having the right preparation and tools is essential for a transformational and positive outcome.

With that in mind, we help you prepare for your journey by setting conscious intentions aligned with what your desired outcomes are. We offer tools you can tap into during your journey, and integration coaching to help you bring the psychedelic experience into your day-to-day life.

Transcript:

My name is Joshua Jupiter. I'm the founder and I'm a psychedelic integration coach at Brooklyn Balance LLC. A couple of things just before we begin. This is, so this is a legally safe space. If anyone is here with the intentions of trying to distribute psilocybin or any illegal substances, I ask that you do not. And if anyone gets any messages doing so, I ask that you please report it to me. This talk is largely just informational with a harm reduction focus. So yeah, we do find at times people come in and they try to sell. So please do not please honor that space.

(00:02:23):

Please honor the space. Yeah, a couple more people joining in. Cool. So getting into it, the intended audience for this talk, this talk is from a harm reduction educational standpoint on what both an individual receiving treatment as well as someone interested in being a facilitator, might want to know about safety, understanding and the process of working with psilocybin as a tool for healing transformation and therapeutically as well. So to add onto that, this talk in no way, shape, or form is a training or certification. So no one's really walking out of here being like, Hey, I'm a facilitator. This is just some information if you're interested in receiving treatment or potentially giving treatment in the future.

(00:03:26):

So disclaimer, this presentation does not encourage or condone any illegal activities, including but not limited to the use of legal substances. This is not a substitute for mental health for medical services. This is not a substitute for medical, psychological, psychiatric diagnoses, treatment or advice. Cool. So yeah, to start off, there is a lot of information coming out there about psilocybin used as a therapeutic medicine in conjunction with therapy. And so there's a lot of hype out there. There's also a lot of information, and this is a talk where I've kind of put things together to make sense of a lot of what's happening out there. So here's a lot about what you really need to know before pursuing it for yourself. So what we'll talk about today, what is psilocybin background on psilocybin safety, contraindications, risks, measurement, dosages, choosing a facilitator, intention setting, preparing and integrating your sessions.

(00:04:42):

So yeah, a little bit about me here is founder of Brooklyn Balance, LLC. I've been a full-time psychedelic integration coach and facilitator for about a year or two now. Various certifications and professional trainings through TAM integration, maps, training, psychedelic support, and more. And fun fact, I am a native New Yorker. I might not have the strongest accent of a New Yorker, but it can come out sometimes. So some background on me. Who is this person talking to you about? Psilocin right here. So in 2003, I had my first life changing experience with psychedelics. It was with LSD, and that was an experience that really shifted my life. It encouraged me to eat healthier, be healthier, and it also really made me see things in a new and different way. Later on in 2008, I started to suffer from really debilitating panic attacks. I couldn't leave my bed, I had trouble breathing. I was just full of anxiety. It was a very bad and difficult time for me. So I saw that help. I was prescribed SSRIs and I was on SSRIs for about eight years. In 2016, I weaned off of SSRIs and around that time with my therapist as well as community members. Later on 2020 with the pandemic, as you can see, my background is film production. I got burnt out from film production and I started to explore what was next for me.

(00:06:53):

A couple of people coming in. So today, 2022, founded Brooklyn Balance, LLC. I've done various trainings including maps training. I did a 12 month program with TAM integration. There is a nice little photo of us here. This is me and my whole cohort and I have moved into doing full-time, psychedelic integration. Yeah, so this was me at the MAPS conference in May out in Denver, and this is when I met Rick Doblin, who is the founder of maps and yeah, moving on. So real people, real results. I personally feel very passionate about this work because I've felt the results for myself. I've also experienced the results. I've been able to witness the results for other people and people that I've worked with. So this is just two little testimonials from some people I've worked with, one who had very positive results treating their treatment resistant depression, and then another person who is just saying that it has impacted their wellbeing a lot.

(00:08:19):

So moving into more of the talk on psilocybin, here's some basics on psilocybin assisted psychotherapy. I had like to start off with this really great quote from the book LSD In the Mind of the Universe by Chris Bosch. From ancient times men and women have gathered under the night sky and taken substances that helped them commune with their inner being and with the life that turns through all things they have sat in prayer and silence, sorry, seeking healing and guidance so they could return to their lives, better people and more aligned with deeper currents of life. Because these substances opened them to spiritual dimension of existence, they were called sacred because they healed the wounds of forgetting who and what we truly are. They were called medicines from before written history began. The sacred medicine path has been one of the many spiritual paths human beings have taken to find themselves each other and the divine.

(00:09:34):

And one more quote from Ley Osmond to Albu Huxley to Fat and hell or Soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic. And I personally really love this quote because there's definitely different sides and spectrums and multitudes. With psychedelics, we can be really, really high. We can also be really, really low. And I feel like this sums that up in its own magical way, but of course, always open to interpretation in different ways. So what are psilocybin mushrooms commonly known as magic mushrooms or shrooms? It's a fungi and they grow naturally all over the world, and they've been used by humans for thousands of years. It's a classic tryptamine, psychedelic whose mind altering effects can last two to eight hours.

(00:10:35):

It is a schedule and substance, so it is very illegal and they grow naturally all over the world. So in terms of overdosing on psilocybin mushrooms, that would be incredibly difficult to do. If you were to eat dried mushrooms, you would need to consume over 2.6 pounds of them. Psilocybin itself is biologically inactive and it quickly gets converted to psilocin once ingested, which creates the mind altering effects similar, which similarities to other substances such as mescaline, DMT and LSD. So just a brief timeline about it. Yeah. Back in 5,000 bc, there are ancient, ancient paintings dated to that time that show mushroomed humanoids in the caves of northern Algeria. So here is a look at what those looked like, and then around 1000 BC it's dated to have found carved mushroom stones and all sorts of statues. Just a side note is I recently attended a talk with Darren LeBaron who really goes into really great detail about these things.

(00:12:07):

I can share more information about that person and talk later. So in 1521, the use of psilocybin mushrooms and peyote are driven underground. As the use of non-alcohol intoxicants became forbidden by Europeans. In Mexico, Catholic priests punished the use of or genes by native people around 1799. In London. The first psychedelic mushroom experience is documented in a scholarly journal. Dr. Everett Brody witnesses a family that experienced waves of laughter accompanied by halluc hallucinations. The mushrooms were examined later and today turns out they were liberty caps, which is a strain of mushroom. In 1914, the first experience documented in a scientific science publication of intentional psilocybin mushroom ingest ingestion is documented, which details descriptions of visual effects, uncontrollable, joking and laughter. In 1938, anthropologist John Bassett Johnson and his wife, AMGARD White Lan became the first modern white people to witness a mushroom vada, a healing ceremony in Mexico. And then in 1953, amateur Mycologist Gordon Watson visits OCA Mexico to witness a mushroom vada. He returns again in 1955 with a photographer for witnessing Maria Sabina ceremonies and later participates himself.

(00:13:52):

So more modern times. In 1958, Albert Hoffman isolates psilocybin and then publishes the synthesis of it at Sandoz Pharmaceutical. So that's around the time the psychedelic area that where things started really coming into more of a research phase and things were starting to get more out there. And then fun fact is in 1960s, Sandoz Pharmaceutical creates psilocybin pills each with two milligrams in them. So in 1968, we have the staggered Dodds bill, which makes the possession of psilocybin and OSI illegal. And that later is followed by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention Control Act in 1971, which made it a schedule one substance. So when something's a schedule one substance, it's essentially saying that this substance has no medical benefit or therapeutic benefit whatsoever, and that makes it really hard to do research and scientific studies on it. So today we are having lots of really awesome scientific studies, research and data coming out from psilocybin. So here's a couple of headlines about that that I like to put together from some reliable news sources or reliable scientific journals.

(00:15:40):

And then psychedelics can make you feel more connected with nature. New research confirms. And so if there's any psycho notes here, and if anyone agrees with this, put a one in the chat, right? Has psilocybin, if you've taken it, helped you connect with nature more? Has psilocybin helped you in any way? Yeah, just put a one in the chat if you can relate to any of this. So down here, this is one of my favorite studies where an FMRI was done between two people, one who had taken a placebo and one that had taken psilocybin. So with the psilocybin, you see that there's way more brain activity here.

(00:16:29):

And one of the effects I find with psilocybin that Pulse STAs talks about is that it's encouragement with courage. It's encouraging of people to become more courageous and more kind, bringing out more empathy, more sympathy, more love, more happiness. So when it comes to putting psilocybin together with therapeutic uses, we're seeing and we're learning that it may alleviate cluster headaches, may alleviate depression, anxiety may increase mindfulness and feelings of interconnectedness. It may increase relationship with nature and spirituality, the universe, it may increase creativity and cognitive flexibility. It promotes neuroplasticity, neurogenesis, and it may be helpful with substance abuse and addiction, including tobacco and alcohol. It may also alleviate PTSD.

(00:17:36):

So this is one of my favorite studies. It was conducted by David Nut, who is a neuropsychopharmacology, and it's about which substances are the most harmful in this study, mushrooms are at the very bottom, while alcohol is at the very top. You also see ecstasy is on a low level, LSD is on a low level. And then when we start moving into methamphetamines and cigarettes and things just become way more harmful. This was a study done at NYU Lamb go where basically 80 participants happened to control, were given psilocybin in conjunction with therapy over six months. What was seen was that through the use of combining psilocybin with therapy symptoms with anxiety and depression, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility and obsession, compulsion and somatization improved.

(00:18:57):

So you're welcome to screenshot anything as well. And a recording of everything will go out after the talk. So if you feel like you missed anything or if you feel like, oh, I want to go back and see that slide, you'll have capability too. But this is a really great study that I learned about, and I wanted to put it here as an introduction before moving into risks and contraindications for psilocybin, because nothing's entirely safe. And I think that out there, there's a lot of things that are painted as silver bullet or like, Hey, yeah, take this. It's going to change your life. But the reality is that not everything is for everyone. So these are some things to consider. If you or someone you know or someone you're thinking about working with is considering working with psilocybin. So there is a behavioral risk, right? It can change your behavior, you can get worked up, you can get anxious.

(00:20:07):

I have various personal stories about that, and I've seen it also with people that I've worked with. People come in very confident, want to work, want to go into it, and then there is potential for destabilization and it can take some time to get destabilized. So it's something to consider. HPPD, hallucinogen, persisting perception disorder is a risk. It's pretty rare if you're just doing low amounts of psilocybin and very infrequently, but too much of a good thing can cause negative consequences. And HPPD is basically where you might be seeing things that aren't there after your experience. You can have a challenging experience that's affiliated with behavioral risk, but a challenging experience can also happen more during the journey where maybe you're in the wrong set or setting or maybe a really negative thought loop comes into your mind. There's various things that can happen with that.

(00:21:21):

Borderline personality disorder is a risk. I'm not going to get too much into that. And someone did mention that in the chat at the beginning, but there is more. I put the information for Dr. Ben Malcolm down on the bottom who can really speak to people at individual levels from a medical doctor standpoint. So feel free to take that information down. Schizophrenic tendencies, HOR is a contraindication. Digoxin lithium creates seizure risks. SSRIs and SNRIs may result in serotonin syndrome or blunting of the effects. And then serotonergic migraine medications can be of a risk as well as anti-psychotics, and there is potential for psilocybin to be contaminated as well. Mold can grow on it or bacteria. So that is also an effect, a risk, sorry.

(00:22:36):

So when it comes to a challenging experience, also it's also known as a bad trip, right? This is why we stress the importance of screening, preparation and set and setting. So what might happen to cause a challenging experience? Negative thought loops might have extreme paranoia, a lot of anxiety, headache, extreme fear, nausea, heavy sweating, diarrhea, vomiting, HPPD and maladaptive, ontological shock syndrome, also known as moss, where people might come out of their experience or be in the experience and not see the world or themselves in the same way as they once did. And it can be a really big shock to them.

(00:23:26):

Potential side effects from taking psilocybin, and this is more so in a low to high dose or very high dose. It's not really including microdosing, disorientation, lethargy, giddiness, euphoria, joy, visual hallucinations, synesthesia, perceptual distortions, mystical experiences, pupil dilation, increased or decreased, heart rate increased, decreased blood pressure, body temperature, fluctuations and nausea. So these are all things to talk about and discuss in preparation and what to do if they come up and how to prepare for them. So additional potential side effects, anxiety, tension, dysphoria, fear, losing control, shivering, sympathetic arousal, fight or flight impaired, mort, coordination, headache, dizziness, unsteadiness and balanced, tremors, weakness, dry mouth thirst, sensitive to temperature, yawning, restlessness and arousal.

(00:24:42):

So moving into some pharmacokinetics and also we'll do a q and A at the end, but if there is any particular question that does come up, and if I can get to it, if it relates to the slide, feel free to put it in the chat. Once ingested, psilocybin is the phosphate, alright, the removal of phosphate group from an organic compound by hydrolysis to soin and then it penetrates, the central nervous system begins to move throughout the body in that process. So soin is then metabolized by the liver and it's excreted through the renal system. And a note I made is that psilocybin and soin is understood to be safe for those with mild to moderate kidney impair. It's not too heavy on the kidneys, it has a half-life of 50 minutes psilocybin. That is while soin has a half-life of 160 minutes. If you're thinking about, well, how long does this last in my system in terms of detectability, it may remain in the urine for up to three days and detectable in the blood up to 12 hours and it may be detectable in the hair up to 10 days.

(00:26:12):

So psilocybin, once ingested is metabolized, become osi. The OSI binds to the serotonin five H two A post synaptic receptors in the cerebral cortex. And here's an image I found of what five H two A looks like. It's like rainbow colored. And so those receptors activate and release glutamate. And so glutamate is the excitatory neurotransmitter. It's needed to keep your brain functioning properly and glutamate plays a major role in shaping learning and memory. Thus the brain enters into a state of high flexibility and hyper connection. This is going back to the FMRI image before with all the neuroreceptors going on when it comes to timing of the experience with psilocybin in regard to when I'm speaking to, I'm speaking in terms of taking a low to very high dose in terms of the length of time. So if someone were to take two grams of mushrooms, they're going to experience the ComeUp. And then between an hour and an hour and a half, they'll be reaching the peak, typically between an hour and a half and two, they are in the peak. And then they'll plateau around this area up until the third hour, and then they'll begin to gently come down, down and then they enter the return, psilocybin leaves the system and we come back to presence very quickly.

(00:28:19):

So when it comes to form forms of psilocybin, the most common is magic. Mushrooms also known as mushrooms. It does have various different names. So you have the mushrooms and they're harvested and then maybe they get dehydrated prior to oral consumption, John asked, how does food impair the standard timing of the experience? John, that is a great question. Food can definitely impact the experience when it comes to the timing of psilocybin, and I'll mention it later, but it's important to take psilocybin on an empty stomach largely because you don't want to get a stomach ache, and it helps keep the system clear.

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There is a notion that more acidic foods can make an experience more intense, and there's also a notion that more base oriented foods like milk can bring it down a bit. Eating food during experience might also soften it or make it end a little quicker. It can move things with the body. I hope that answers your question for now, and I'm happy to talk about that more in depthly later, or even after the talk. Psilocybin can be created synthetically. This would typically be used in a clinical or research setting in which the amount given is consistent when it comes to chocolate containing psilocybin, right? So put a one in the chat if you've seen someone with a chocolate bar and say like, oh, I have a magic mushroom bar. Or if you have experience with magic mushroom bars, well, chocolate is known not to be consistent in its distribution, and it's difficult to know what is actually ingested. So there's less knowledge of what strain is this, how is it processed? And then if you're taking just a corner of it, and if the chocolate bar says, oh, one corner is one gram, how do you actually know that that actually is one gram? So me personally, while I think chocolate does transport well, and it's a safe way to carry it around, I don't view it as the most reliable.

(00:31:12):

And John asked about magnesium. Magnesium, I'm not too sure about magnesium's effect on psilocybin, though I do know that it relaxes the body and it can help just ease tension. And magnesium is very frequently used with MDMA assisted therapy for that reason. It helps with teeth grinding. And another note I have is just be wary of fancy packaging or potentially deceiving marketing like mushrooms that are branded to target people of a certain audience or be like, take these, they're really going to change your life. I'm just skeptical of those kinds of things. So moving into dosing and levels. So the first thing I'll say is everyone is different and there is no exact formula for each individual's dose. And then different strains have different potencies, and we'll talk about testing a little later as well. But in general, something like golden teacher might have the regular 10 milligrams per dried mushroom, 10 milligrams of psilocybin while penis vy may have 20 milligrams of psilocybin per dried mushroom.

(00:32:47):

So when it comes to what we're talking about at this moment, we're more so looking at 10 milligrams of psilocybin per dried mushroom. So I really, really love this chart, which was made by reality sandwich.com, put their info right there on the bottom. So we look and we see this is what constitutes a microdose. You might get some mood enhancement, crisp concentration, increased menthol stamina, and it's between 0.05 and point 25 grams, or maybe even 0.33 for some people if there's a tolerance or a microdose and then moving into a mini dose, right? So, oh, I just want to take a little bit and just see what happens, but I want to be able to feel it. So you might have some visuals. You might feel mild euphoria. You might feel a little stoned with 0.25 to 0.75 or even one gram. You might hear the term museum dose, like I want the visuals, but I still want to be present.

(00:34:00):

So you could take between 0.5 and 1.5 grams and things might become more vivid. If you close your eyes, you might see things, there may be some distracted thought patterns, but you might be feeling really creative and able to interact with things in a different way. So moving into more therapeutic doses, a moderate dose would be around that range. I would say more so 1.75 or even 1.5. So you might see warped and kaleidoscopic visuals, mild hallucinations, things might look more 3D, some synesthesia might be experienced and a distorted sense of time. And then moving up from there, things get pretty intense. So there is a heavier dose, a high dose. I don't really call the three and a half a mega dose. I call it a high dose heavy hallucinations, ego dissolution, mild disconnect from reality and complete loss of time, synesthesia and out-of-body experiences. And then with five grams, it's known as the hero's dose. So that can be really powerful, that can be really intense. And I highly recommend a lot of preparation for anything really, more than two and a half grams for sure. So yeah, different strains do have different effects. And starting with potency, like I mentioned, golden teacher may have 10 milligrams of psilocybin per dried gram of mushroom, while penis envy might have 20. And so therefore, penis envy is a known strain for having more of a hallucinogenic experience with it, deeper visuals and such.

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Down here on the bottom, if you're ever interested in testing your mushrooms, these are two websites that sell testing kits. And if anyone has any personal experience with that that they'd like to share in the chat or after the talk, I'd love to hear about it. So yeah, dosing levels, right? So a low dose, one gram of dried mushroom, about 10 milligrams of psilocybin, and then moving up to there, very high dose would be 50 milligrams of psilocybin. So moving more into, okay, I'm thinking about doing, if I'm thinking about doing psilocybin assisted psychotherapy, am I qualified? Is it suitable for me? So we've already gone over risks and contraindications and safety. So if I'm in a physical healthy space for myself, and if there aren't any risks that will happen based off of diagnoses, then I'm going to move into what are the variables? State of mind, how is my state of mind? Do I have expectations, willingness to engage in therapy? What resources and support are available for me? Do I have a coach? Do I have a therapist? Do I have peer support? Do I have friends? Do I have family? Do I have a psychedelic network that can support me or a community that can help support me?

(00:37:57):

Cultural considerations and understanding this is something yeah, I really like to consider. Do I culturally understand the person that I'm working with? Can I relate to this person? So personally for me, I have learned more about other cultures, other communities to greater understand what they might be going through and what they may be experiencing and how that might show up with their psychedelic experience. And if I feel like I can hold space for that, great, I can feel into that. Yes, I'm in alignment for supporting this person, but if I don't really understand someone's deep cultural background, then I would recommend finding someone else that would, so that they have that relatability and that they can create a deep therapeutic alliance as well. Understanding certain uncertainty, something might happen, nothing might happen, no guarantees. And then also understanding that there's a tolerance for destabilization. How does this person feel if they get destabilized? And how might they approach that?

(00:39:33):

So moving into screening, so medical and psychological psychiatric assessments. Assess social support, social network, developmental, psychosocial, cultural history. How does this person communicate? What is their communication style? Do they prefer to text? Do they prefer email? Are they better talking? Are they introverted, extroverted? Is English their second language? Will we be on the same page about these things? Understand personal rituals and practices. So I always like to say different strokes for different folks. For me personally, I like to say I'm a bridge between the science and the spiritual. And I meet people sometimes that are like, I don't want any spiritual. I'm like, okay, I can meet that person where they're at. And then there's some people that just really want things to be very, very spiritual. And so for me, I'm spiritual, but I'm not the most spiritual and it's something to consider. Do they have any active suicidality or history of suicide? Any family history of psychosis, bipolar, schizophrenia, hypertension, medication, supplements? Have there been any prior adverse effects from psilocybin or other psychedelics that may or may not have required hospitalization? And if there were adverse effects, what were they like? And are they ready to meet that again? And is it safe for this person to do this type of work if they've had that experience?

(00:41:31):

So if someone is interested in choosing a facilitator or a therapist or a coach, some things to look for, life experience, experience with the medicine itself, experience with clients, professional training, underground training, non-judgmental, good discernment, active listening, patience, trust, comfort, cultural identity, understanding, continual learning, references, testimonials, ethics, collaboration in the community, cost and fee, transparency, informed consent, boundaries, clear and strong communication offers multiple consultations prior to booking. Sense of humor, just some food for thought on that last one, preparation. On the facilitator side, what fears is the facilitator feeling about doing this work or holding space for people understanding positive and equal healing? To elaborate on that, I would say there are good things that can come from this work. And there's also negative. Not that they're bad, but there are things that can come up that might equate to what was not expected. And if that happens, it's how do we deal with that? How do we work with that strong understanding of consent, inter directed process, non-directed process, which we'll talk more in later slides, safety and support symptoms, internal wisdom, creating a therapeutic alliance, music, managing stress, keeping a beginner's mindset, somatics, having a support person for themselves and figuring out the logistics as well. There's really a lot that goes into being a facilitator in this work, and it's a big reason why preparation and education is key for this.

(00:43:59):

So when it comes to the inner directed approach, basically when someone is in an altered state, we really don't want to be like, you need to do this or you should do that. This is the right way to do it. There is no right and there is no wrong. And as a facilitator, we're there to hold space for a person to have their experience. We might the term guide, but we're more so space holders. And when we need to step in, we're strengthening our hold on the container to support the person, to let them feel seen, heard, witnessed, confident, strong in themselves so that they're able to let go and have their experience. So the inner directed approach involves ways for allowing the person to do their own healing. The facilitator is not trying to heal the person. The healer is doing their own healing themselves.

(00:45:14):

So there's experiential, emotional engagement, encourage imagination, restructuring, cognition. How are we looking at things? How are we thinking about things in a imaginative way? Recently, there was someone recently who was stuck and we handed them just a pen and paper and they just started to draw and they were able to move that energy of stuckness by transmuting it into the art, and then they were able to go back into just being in their experience, transference between the client and the facilitator. Subconscious tendencies, psychodynamic, what is in the subconscious, how is that coming out? How do we process that? The body somatics, compassion for self and others, transpersonal and spiritual understanding when it comes to energy work and what might we be seeing and how things might be moving in more so of an energy field rather than a physical field.

(00:46:36):

And then imaginal exposure with the non-directive approach. Keeping ample timing. So if it's an eight hour experience, giving a lot of space before things start and allowing for a lot of space after too for the processing and during making sure that nothing is being rushed, there isn't a sense of urgency. I personally like to say we become a high frequency tuning fork with psilocybin and we feel everything very much more intensely. And so a lot of that energy is picked up. So it's really important to be sensitive in that regard. How was guidance? Invitational communication. So saying, I invite you to close your eyes, I invite you to lie down rather than saying, close your eyes, lie down.

(00:47:44):

Who knows best is the journeyer? If they want something, if they need something, is it done that knows best rather than the facilitator? We might think, oh, we know how to conduct this experience for the person, but truly themselves that know how to conduct the experience best for themselves. In my opinion, avoid reductionist thinking. It's okay to get lost in details. Things don't need to always make sense. It's okay to see a bunch of squiggly lines. We don't need to really overthink and be like, what do these squiggly lines mean? I think I saw my mother in there. I think I saw my father in there. Cool. That's the experience.

(00:48:38):

We encourage you to also invitational. So I really like this image of this man holding the bike for the woman because I kind of view it like that sometimes. Alright, I'm going to teach you how to ride a bike. You're going on the bike, I'm going to hold it for you, but then I'm going to let go and you're going to ride the bike yourself. So I'm encouraging you to ride the bike. This might be a good time for you to tap on the brakes of the bike. There is a steep hill coming. Say breathing versus breathe. So if I want to encourage someone to breathe more during their experience, I might just say breathing rather than command of breathe, breathe, reflect, let people know that they're heard, that what they're speaking, you're hearing it. So I like to reflect and say things back to people.

(00:49:42):

OMI for somatics and psilocybin OMI is pretty interesting. I'll be doing a more advanced talk in the future on things. But to touch upon omi, the OMI method is experiential therapy. This means that changes abroad about by the experiences you have in the present moment. The experiences of the body are a key focus. The body's fault to be a resource that holds information like memories and beliefs. So Koi focuses on mindfulness, non-violence, unity, organicity, mind, body wholeness. You might hear in the spiritual space like we are all one. Or even the book, the body keeps the score. It's like what is the body holding onto and how do we allow the body to release what it needs to release for healing and making more space for things. So I do like to teach my clients emotional release techniques. Methods like shaking and hand screams movement that helps with the hakomi process.

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So to touch upon group work, if anyone is considering group work, some things to consider are having an understanding and practicing of nonviolent communication that there should be no sexual energy in a therapeutic group work container. Practicing emotional release. We just touched upon understanding, practicing nervous system regulation, techniques, co and deregulation. Something as simple as putting your back next to another person's back and breathing together can be very regulated, explicit, and clear boundaries. Being in a container that's built slowly, not like being like, Hey, I have two friends and I have 12 friends and we've never done psychedelics and I want everyone to do psychedelics. You have 12 newbies going in and having kind of a crazy night, probably not a good idea. Trust established between people. Consent, training, sovereignty being true to you, knowing your yes and knowing your no. So and I really like to stress encouraging people to really drop into what's true for them. Take a beat. How do you feel about this? Are you a yes? Are you a hell yes or are you a no? And if someone's like I'm a maybe well i's a no. So really dropping into that is really important, especially for group work.

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So psychedelic is paradoxical. So if we say, I don't want my mom to show up in my psychedelic experience, guess what? She's probably going to show up. I want my psychedelic experience to be the greatest experience ever. Nothing happens or it's the worst experience ever. Yeah, I really like to encourage having no expectations. And my opinion is that it's important for facilitators and space holders and people receiving treatment to have an understanding of that. Trust the medicine surrendered to the process, receive what comes up. Just I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just going to trust the medicine. I surrender what's going to come up. We'll find out.

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Moving into intention setting, why are you choosing to work with psilocybin? What other parts of your life are you focusing on? Improving to better yourself? Quality of life. Yes. Expectation is different than intention. I can definitely speak to this for sure. So an expectation is more specific. I want my psychedelic experience to be like, I want to become enlightened by my psychedelic experience. And that would be an expectation. Oh, I thought I was going to become enlightened. Well, an intention is more of a calling in what are we nurturing or what are we adding on to our lives and what are we releasing to? So an intention could look like I'm cultivating more joy in my life, and it's not saying that I want my psychedelic experience to be joyful or that my psychedelic experience is going to guarantee more joy in my life. The intention is part of my doing work on this is that I'm cultivating joy and by doing this medicine, I'm being true to myself and making space for myself and enhancing myself so that there can be more joy for me. And I'm definitely, I can talk a lot about intentions for sure. We can circle back on that. I'm also open to chatting about it after. But does that sort of clarify for you, Sherry, your question?

(00:55:45):

Okay, cool. Yeah. So what are you calling in? What are you releasing? How are you practicing keeping it sacred? So we looked at the timeline of magic mushrooms that they've been used for thousands of years for healing purposes. And there is a sacredness to this work that I like to bring into it and encourage others to do so as well. I don't really like to make it a very clinical thing. Okay, Mr. Johnson, you're going to walk in, you're going to take your mushrooms, you're going to lie down. Things are going to happen in a sterile environment. So I like to really kind of make it unique, make it special, but treat it like it's sacred. Treat it as if we're maybe like a bar mitzvah or a baptism, that there is a sacredness to it and it's not required if someone prefers it being more clinical, if, like I said earlier, if someone just wants complete science, cool, someone wants more spiritual, cool.

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But keeping an element of sacredness to the uniqueness is I find beneficial. And it makes it different too. Not like, oh yeah, I'm just going to go trip my friends and go to a fish concert. It's more of a very special, unique healing experience connecting with the divine potentially. So additional prep on the client's side, let your friends and family and anyone else know you will be unavailable the day of the session. Arrange transportation, do not drive. Avoid alcohol the week prior. Avoid caffeine, wear comfortable clothes, and bring a change of clothes too because they might get soiled. Record. Your session with a voice recorder if you choose to do so, can be pretty beneficial, is a great way to prep internal family systems as well. And I highly, highly recommend avoiding the news, avoiding social media and avoiding screen time for as long as you can before your journey. Set And setting private, no interruption, quiet, minimal stimuli, comfortable furniture, aesthetically pleasing decorations, right? Maybe some flowers and plants, snacks, food beverages, art supplies, space for movement. I like to encourage making a little altar, alter toys, stuffed animals, blankets, pillows, make it fun. So moving into day long session, also known as ceremony. Yeah, I like to encourage nonclinical setting, right, more relaxed, calm, and comfortable environment. I recommend the alter or an alter space. Comfortable. Couch playlist is very important.

(00:59:11):

Having it ease you into the experience through the timeline, maybe experiencing the peak arc with it. And also gentle music. You're coming out of it, having your eye mask, covering your eyes. And I recommend fasting, no food three to four hours prior, but if someone gets hangry, if someone has low blood pressure, low blood sugar, cool. Totally eat, please take care of yourself like a smoothie or toast. Eggs. Totally cool. Sherry asked, do you recommend voice recorder versus video recorder? Also, how do you manage recording at the same time listening to music? So some different strokes for different folks when it comes to if you're choosing a voice recorder versus video recording.

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A video recorder can be kind of a big presence in a room just knowing that the camera's there rather than just an audio recorder. So it depends on your personal preference if you want to see what you're looking at, but also acknowledging depending on where you are, what your video recording might not be legal per se. And what if you put it on your computer and your computer got hacked and people saw it kind of thing. So there's things to consider in terms of privacy also with how you record your voice or if you're video recording. And generally when I'm speaking to voice recording, it's just like maybe just having the ability to take some notes, talking into a recorder when called to it because going in and out of the experience is definitely capable or even just recording what's happening. So if you just know it's there, you can just yell it out for sure. I'm happy to chat with you more about that later too.

(01:01:21):

Yeah, moving on, communicate, structure and flow. So a facilitator I recommend should communicate what to expect in terms of structure and flow on the day. So if someone's just like, all right, I'll see you at nine, the journey or what's going to happen at nine. So I like to encourage giving a brief loose layout of what the day might look like. I'm going to meet you at nine. We're going to get grounded. We're going to drop in. We're going to take as much time as we need to get you comfortable and settled so that you're in a good place for what you want for yourself for this experience. We'll go over consent boundaries, we'll talk about the dose, and we'll review emergency contacts and emergency plan information as well. In the end, I learned from my teacher, we both agree that neither of us leaves until we both agree. So if the facilitator's like, I'm ready to leave, but the journeyer is like, I'm not ready for you to leave, then it's not the best idea for the facilitator to leave.

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And if the journeyer is like, Hey, I want you to go, but they're still in a very erratic state, the facilitator, it's like it might be unethical for the facilitator to leave the person in that situation. They might get, they could harm themselves, they could make a decision, not the best decision since they're in an altered state. So having those agreements before and having understanding and alignment is important. And that's also why I stress prep too. And then when we're complete, I'm going to slowly pack up, double check that you're okay with me leaving. So it's like, okay, we're done. I'm not just going to pick up and grab my stuff and run out the door. It's like I'm going to slowly pack up one by one. I'm going to ease this exit. And when I do leave, I'm leaving slowly and I'm walking down the hallway slowly, I'm walking to my car slowly just in case the person decides, Hey Josh, I want you to come back. I'm not ready for you to leave. Cool. Allow that ample timing.

(01:04:12):

Yeah, so staying with the breath, I do really like to stress breathing, especially if a particular memory comes up that could be upsetting or overwhelming. That is an indication that the client's body may be trying to release something that is encouraged in a safe, consensual, nonviolent, non-sexual way. Stay with the breath, breath, practice, emotional release, and somatic practices may assist with that. And it's also like staying with the breath is a good way for toggling the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system for relaxing the body and encouraging the body to do what it needs to do. Shaking is also really good for that too. So when it comes to frequencies and protocols, so there's lots of different protocols out there, different strokes for different folks. So a couple to touch upon here are in the clinical trial for treatment resistant depression led by Dr.

(01:05:23):

Robin Carhartt Harris. The protocol consisted of four prep sessions between the facilitator and the patient or client. They did two day long sessions, also known as ceremonies, which were separated by seven days apart. The first session was a low dose of 10 milligrams psilocybin, so that would be one gram of dried mushroom. And in the second was a moderate high dose at 25 milligrams of psilocybin, which would be about two and a half grams of dried mushroom. And then they did one integration and prep in between, followed by six integration sessions after. So they did two ceremony, they met up again, they went over things, okay, are you ready for the next one? Cool. Did the next one. And then they met six more times.

(01:06:26):

Yeah. And that treatment was found to be effective with depression levels that were looked at to be reduced six months prior, up to six months prior when the study finished. So they tracked the clients for six months after that. While there are many suggested protocols out there, everyone is different and there's no perfect formula. So integration would be post sessions after a day long session or a ceremony or therapy sessions, depending on who you're working with. So an integration session, well, we're going to get to that soon, I promise. There's some slides on that. So with Yale University, they follow two prep, one day long session, two integration. And then the maps study on anxiety associated with stage four melanoma consisted of four prep sessions, two day long sessions with seven to 14 days in between and 10 post sessions or integration sessions. So like I said, integrations right after. So the Aladdin word for integration is Integra, which means I make whole, I renew, I repair, I begin again.

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So we've had our experience and now we're coming out of it. And there may have been some really profound experiences, life-changing things that have come up for the person receiving the treatment. So is there any reprocessing that needs to happen? How do we talk about that? What do we do about that? Embodying, reassociating, restoring, releasing, and reclaiming. So moving into integration, it's the day after. Who are you? Are you still the same person? How are you different? Are there any lifelong conditions that may have shifted or are you looking at things differently? Do you, you feel more strength and trust, whether of yourself or other people or the universe? How do you speak about yourself? Have you developed any new relationships? Does anything need more attention?

(01:09:12):

So when it comes to integration, there's various ways to do so. So ceremonial ritual, religious, spiritual, somatic practices, movement, community. For me personally, as a form of integration, I practice five rhythms. It is a guided meditation movement that happens through dance and music. And I do it once or twice a week. And it's a space for me to really just drop in and process what's going on for me. And so that in itself is very therapeutic that I find for me and the people I know in that community. Journaling, I highly recommend for integration, ecology, connecting with nature, creating art, music, writing songs, poetry. Creating a plan for the future can be beneficial too. And then just talking about new experiences and insights with like-minded people as well. Yeah, five rhythms. Five rhythms. It was the name of the community that I just mentioned when you're done with yes.

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And Susan asked if I'll be sending out a link to the slideshow and a recording. I will be sending out a recording. I'm happy to sign out the slideshow as well. Integration for change. So yeah, connecting with nature, avoiding continuing to avoid the news and screen time. Yoga, dance, hiking, Tai chi, Qigong, working out, wellness, going to the spa, I get a massage. Acupuncture is something I really love to do. Chiropractic adjustments may be beneficial as well. Meditation and breath work are definitely great for integration. And then there's grounding and there's discharging. And grounding can also mean discharging. So maybe if someone feels a little destabilized, how can they ground? Do they need to connect more with the earth, right? Maybe doing some walking on the grass without their shoes or and socks on, or do they need to discharge and release energy? And how can we hold space for them to do so? Eating well and nourishing foods and continuing with therapy. So benefits of integration. One of the things I do like to say, it might sound a little weird, but is upgrading your software. So I could say from, and I could speak for myself when I say Josh that worked in film production was Josh 1.0, Josh, today is Josh 2.0. My life today is very, very different from how it used to be, how I think, how I act, how I talk, my friends, my work, and just how I present myself and carry myself in spaces.

(01:12:43):

Increased felt sense, right? Increased sense of feeling. What's true for us in our sides. Maybe feeling emotions deeper, maybe feeling more empathy, maybe more in touch with the nervous system and what the nervous system is saying for us. Debriefing, difficult, challenging experiences, talking that out. Talking it out with a therapist or a coach followed with a facilitator or integration circle as well. Processing heavy emotions or even light emotions. Releasing and grieving, translating and applying new insights, embracing and adapting to change of identity, ego, world culture and non-linearity and amplifying felt sense networks. So you might hear in the psychedelic space, we are all one that can be attributed to that enhanced capacity for observing self. How do we view ourselves? How are we different with viewing ourselves? Increased self wisdom, enhanced compassion for others, making sense of potential generational trauma, epigenetics, maybe holding more compassion for our ancestors, our parents, our grandparents.

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I'm Jewish and I've done a lot of processing about my ancestors in Eastern Europe. My great grandparents who came over to New York City from Ellis Island. And I've done a lot of processing around the trauma of the Holocaust, and I've done that through integration. Energetic work is very taxing. So if you are a facilitator, if you're considering becoming a facilitator, getting rest and rejuvenated is vital for facilitators. Listen to your body, shake, practice, emotional release. Don't overdo it. Burnout is common with facilitators. Yeah, I'm part of a support network and we frequently talk about burnout in the space. Eat well, treat yourself well. Go to the spa, saw, arrest, relaxation, and of course receive your own therapy, psychedelic or nons, psychedelic coaching, whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. So there's some really dope scientific studies that are in the works, and I'm really excited about 'em.

(01:15:31):

Some of 'em include creativity, O-C-D-P-T-S-D, studies on anorexia, alcoholism, depression in Alzheimer's disease, which I have an understanding of how that depression can be because my grandmother had dementia and so she would become very depressed. And I'm curious if I knew today, if I knew then what I knew today, how she might've responded to such treatment mood post Lyme disease treatment. There's more studies about microdosing underway and opioid use disorder as well. Go slow. Less is more. Give yourself time to integrate. The process likely continues to unfold for days and even weeks after. Be aware of chasing peak experiences, right? When it comes to peak experiences, it's like, wow, I had this experience, now I want to do this setter experience. I did ayahuasca, now I want to do five MEO. I did Bobby, oh, and now I want to do mushrooms, and so on and so forth. And going to Burning Man and always just chasing the next thing. Just having awareness to that. And in my opinion, transformation is possible with determination and time. If you put the effort in, it can really happen. Here's some recommended readings. Each one has its own value to it, for sure. I want to save some time for q and a because we're almost at time, but I do offer free discovery calls and you're welcome to email me, Josh or brooklyn balance.org. Follow up any questions. I will be sending out a copy of this recording and I will send out the slides so we can take a beat now to, I'm happy to receive any questions anyone might have.