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In this episode, you'll meet David who is working with a group and healing his personal story, his family of origin, historical race and cultural trauma. In his work he learns the value of love, dedication and the importance of how psychedelic experiences provide support.
The Psychedelic Psychologist is a conversational-style podcast hosted by Dr. Ryan Westrum with clients and guests who use talk therapy to integrate Psychedelic experiences for healing and personal transformation. Tune in to hear people’s experiences, breakthroughs and stories of healing addiction, depression, and trauma through Psychedelics. Dr. Ryan Westrum gracefully and empathetically narrates real therapy sessions with people in their most vulnerable and transformational moments.
At this moment.
I invite you to place your feet
on the ground and turning inside
yourself inside your body.
Checking in with the fluidity of all
the energy going through your body.
As you slowly settle in
taking a breath in and a
gentle breath out, shifting
your focus now to the thought.
As they percolate bubble, removing
all judgements, all preconceived
obligations or expectations,
breathing in and breathing out,
turning now to the emotional hearts.
The seat of all emotions and just witness
consciously the emotions that arise
and with no rush, no sense of urgency,
bringing your focused attention
with your eyes, open to the present.
Hi, it's Ryan.
Welcome to your weekly dose of
the psychedelic psychologist.
Where I invite my guests to share stories
about their psychedelic experiences.
We cover a variety of topics
from overcoming addiction
and severe depression.
To finding wholeness
and spiritual emergence.
Today's podcast.
You're going to hear from
one of my guests, Kevin.
Who explorers?
Their family of origin.
Culture.
Race.
Personal and biographical trauma.
All the while finding complete.
Love.
And the ever flowing compassion for
oneself and the world that large.
Good to see you, Kevin,
for the, see you Ryan, Dr.
Western, all the formalities.
Tell me we've been working
together for some time.
What is the relationship that you
have with psychedelics at this moment?
Where do you see yourself
and what are you process?
Wow.
Um, psychedelic have been a ever widening
and fascinating gateway to insights
that I never imagined that I could have.
So if I go back in time to my first
journey ceremony, When I was quite
skeptical, very, very anxious about
the prospect of, you know, losing
my mind or having a bad trip.
The reality was it wasn't,
we weren't really tripping.
We were, we were in the journey space,
which isn't, isn't really tripping.
And looking ahead on that
timescale each successive,
time in that space was ever enlightening.
Each, each occurrence opened up
another doorway, which opened up
another doorway and the like the
absolute result has just been.
A procession of deeper understanding
of myself and the world around me, the
world above me and the world below me.
, just things that I could, I don't,
I don't think I could have ever
determined or discovered on my own.
And that's not to say that
that's not possible because
there are other disciplines and.
Work that can get you there.
But, the psychedelic space has
been, sacred gift that I received.
I've been able to let it take me places.
I never thought it.
You talked a little bit about the
fear at first of losing your mind
and what settled in today, and what's
become reassuring and this beautiful.
I love what you call
it, the journey space.
How do you, incorporate the journey
space into your everyday living,
knowing that I heard you say the
ups, the downs, the present moments.
You know, it's interesting
though, the journey space is.
No time stands still.
You're you're out of your head.
You're dispensed with, stress, anxiety,
shame, guilt, fear, and bringing that,
you know, can say coming back to the
elusive world, it actually becomes easier
over time to integrate, to carry that and
have that, but that place in your mind
persist, it's not as if journey helps
you do that or that you need to be in the
journey space to be in that frame of mind.
But it, it, what it does is it allows
you to inhabit that place and then
to see where that place is available.
In your, in your everyday existence
and how to sort of maintain
that, that serenity, that joy.
Uh, fearlessness, you speak about that.
So poetically and yet I can imagine
the everyday world that we live in
is full of and ripe for challenges.
So as you carry the journey space,
that sense of peace, that sense
of understanding what are you
personally coming up against and how
are you reconciling that based off
of your experiences with journey?
Okay, well, I guess time to go
deep or a little deeper, the daily
challenges have not gone away.
That's that's the, the interesting part
is that the idea that stress challenges,
things that would ordinarily tip me into.
Fight or flee mode.
You know, that those don't occur.
They still occur.
What, what doesn't occur is the
narrative and the places I went
under, the various same conditions
that exist today, I would argue that
they are no different, if not worse.
When you think about what's happening in
Ukraine, And the assault on education.
And, you know, it's just like a,
a laundry list of, of turmoil.
But the reality is, is that
turmoil doesn't have to come in.
I don't have to let it in and
I don't have to let it dictate
my energy or invade my space.
And while all of that stuff
is still occurring, I think.
Look at it from a, a safe distance and
examine how I feel about it safely examine
safely and gently examine how I feel
about it, how, what I can do about it.
What, what is, what does it mean in
the bigger picture of, you know, us
as specks of dust in the universe?
it's just a different perspective.
I think that's.
The major takeaway.
I love that you ended that
by calling us specks of dust.
To me, you never, what are we?
No, I'm in trying to present a burden.
We're not even specs.
We're like, you know, nano specs.
And yet this work is so.
Moving.
And so it reconciles so much of our
biographical story in our spectral,
very redundant, mundane life.
It definitely blows up open, like
the shutters of, okay, I'm looking at
healing, my childhood I'm considering
reconciling family of origin and all
of the cultural ramifications we face.
It's a pretty wild binary that we are
nothing and yet we're being capable
and offered processing of everything.
Well, what do you do with
that personally right now?
I see it as a, as an opportunity
as a, an opportunity I'm great
full for having been in the right
place at the right time to receive.
this is all a massive intersection
of, of occurrences that
aligned, in some mystical way.
I don't know if there's any, anything
mystical about it, but it, for me,
I feel like I've been given a gift.
What am I going to do with this gift?
How that, what does that mean in the,
the, you know, my immediate orbit, it's
being able to see with clear eyes who we
are, why we are w w what we are, where we
came from, without, without the, the drag.
Of stigma or the weight of
shame or the weight of trauma?
I feel, I don't, I don't want
to say uniquely, but I feel just
seriously blessed to, to be able to
see this right now in my lifetime.
it's just an unimaginable.
Gift.
And so in, in, you know, in the, like
I said, in my immediate orbit, I'm
able to show up for family in ways
that I never really could before.
Not only never could, but never even
was aware of what the barriers were,
what those barriers have fallen.
And I, I feel.
Empowered to, to just be a better
brother, a better son, a better father,
a better friend, a better lover, better
colleague, better human, all that.
I'm not going to say psychedelics
made all that possible.
I would say that I, I was in the
right place at the right time.
And, The these possibilities, you
know, have resonated within me.
And I have to interject too, because of
the work you do and the deep courage.
And I want to take a moment, Kevin, to
re iterate what I've been witnessing
in you is you come right up against.
So it isn't just the psychedelic
medicines and the journeying
space that's provided you.
And I admire the timing, but it also
goes without saying that you are
pulling up your sleeves and facing
some pretty archetypal challenges, both
within your personal life and within
your, the history and life we live.
And you're not turning
away from it whatsoever.
Are you?
No, I can't.
Say more about that.
Yeah.
It's maybe that's part of who I am.
Maybe that's part of why I was put here.
Sometimes I feel like I have to
break some cycles or some, some
historical and cultural cycles
that we're imprinted on us.
I feel, , unique, not uniquely, but you
know, it's an opportunity to break those
cycles, to identify them and say, now
this stops here, that has not been easy
because a lot of my, a lot of what I
was carrying around was invisible to me.
A lot of my anger, the
armor that I will, will.
fairly constantly, I didn't
need, I wasn't even aware of it.
And being able to shed that has
allowed me to grow and to be
courageous about looking inward and
looking outward at, uh, my family's
history, or cultural history, our.
National history.
you know, let's zoom out from their global
history and it, it sounds courageous,
but I actually would call it more
exciting than courageous because once
you I'd say once I got past that first
doorway into the space of being able to.
Observe without fear to be present without
ego, to, to, well, to move towards that.
it became
easier and more rewarding.
The, uh, you and I talked about this,
the, the fuel of love is endless.
Once, once that once I was able, to peel
away all of the scabs over that well, and,
and get into that well of love, then it
becomes, more or less self-propelling.
the, the inquiry, the discovery.
The search for the truth is also
has also been closely aligned with
that producing more self-love.
So, you know, courage probably
applies, but it's a courage that,
that has, has had its own rewards.
You say that and.
The intersection of that excitement and
courage and the rewards you get from it
also comes with a lot of preparation.
And I heard you say intention.
What are your intentions when
you use the ceremony for healing?
That's interesting.
I've been lucky to be
involved with a group.
That maintains a high degree of,
respect, adherence to respect and
trust and understanding the scope of,
of that space and how sacred it is.
So that that environment has been,
very conducive to feeling comfortable.
To, to explore, feeling comfortable, to,
to, to dig a little, to look around, to
look inward outward, regarding intentions.
It's interesting.
My, my intentions have, have
some to some degree migrated or,
I don't want to say change, but
they've, they've become more of it.
A broader, not, not so granular.
Like I want to do this.
I want to go here.
I want to, I want to dig into that.
It's more of a now I, I go in with, in
many cases, just, I want to feel love.
I want to give love and feel loved,
or I want to know myself better.
You oftentimes don't get
what you set out to you.
You can, have the intention
time before a journey.
And none of that happens,
you know, you go right.
You go a completely different
direction and that's fine.
And now that I understand the
space as not something you can
dictate or steer or we're dry.
I've become more open to universally
accepting what, whatever comes.
I liked what you said too, about
working internally and externally,
such as I'm going to work on myself
and the collective and then., being
open to it in a way you're surrendering
to, what's gonna come your way.
W is that because of the work you've
done around you kind of loosely
talked about the trauma, the family
histories, the cultural ramifications.
Do you believe that that simultaneously
operating for you under the surface
that you're doing both healing,
potential trauma or reconciling your
story, and then also kind of just
acknowledging what's going on right
now with love and that endless.
Yeah.
That's, that's a good question.
Right?
I th there's definitely been an
arc to my capacity for exploration.
There were some places I had to go first.
I would not be.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Could you say more about that?
Yeah.
There's an order to
what needed to be done.
And that in that respect, uh, talking
about intentions, when I say order
of referring to the barriers, the
immediate barriers and those immediate
barriers for me were, were shame.
I don't want to say self-loathing,
but, a lot of self-esteem issues,
insecurity, anxiety, looking at, you
know, what happened, uh, with my father,
cultural and racial traumas, things
that I thought, or what I felt initially
were what defined me were essentially.
The walls that I had allowed
to be built up around me.
And so in those initial,
ceremonies, I had no choice, but
to interact with all of that stuff.
And it didn't happen all at the same time.
And there were, there were lessons
that came, that were let's call them
parent lessons that had child, impacts.
And so like a larger message about that
while my father did kill himself and leave
me and leave us, you know, when I was
very young, he did it because he loved us.
He did it because he, he
ultimately wanted us to be better.
And that was something, you know,
let's call that a first order.
Um, there was a lot of that that
had to be processed, identified.
Understood.
And you, you know, you and I have
been talking about a lot of that
over the last a year or so, there
was also work that I did, in, in
another space around those traumas.
So the being able to, to reach high.
To go further to tap into that.
Well, of love did require
serious attention to
what I would call, very, very basic
and real barriers that, that I
had to understand and break down.
And you're doing that actively right now.
And that's both within your everyday
life and then walking as you
integrate the psychedelic work.
Yeah.
You know, almost back to your
first question, into, you know,
integration, being a, the ultimate
challenge of psychedelics.
What do you do when
you've come back to earth?
How do you.
But what you've understood into practice
and with each successive journey,
coupled with, attentive and consistent
self-reflection, other modes of, of,
of work, including yoga and meditation.
A lot of physical activity.
it's a spectrum of, of maintaining,
achieving and maintaining, you know,
mental health, the journey space,
isn't the only avenue, but it was
a very, very significant and, and.
Worthy direction to go to,
to have so much revealed.
When you say so much revealed and being
so transparent in your healing with
trauma, do you get a sense that you're
exonerating, not just yourself and your
own story, but generations beyond and
generations that have come before you?
Yeah, because, You feel?
I feel a lot of that.
That's one of the things that I
guess a lot of us don't realize
as though the, molecular trauma
within your DNA is a real thing.
That's what she'd been
working on recently.
We've been talking about, can you
say where you're at in that process?
That molecular it is it's like
familial generational trauma.
No.
Yeah.
that's something that a gateway.
I was able to identify and to sort of see
more clearly, what is it about me that
makes me me and what is it of, you know,
my components and traits and behaviors?
Uh, what of that is.
Is comprised of, you know, environmental
stresses, what's cultural influence,
what's familial and what the bottom
level is, you know, what is in the
bones, in the flesh and in connecting
to my family's history, coupled with
the journey space, I was able to.
You know, it's not that, you can't
get that granular and say, oh yeah,
this comes from that specifically.
It's not that, uh, it's not
that well-defined, but what is
clear is that I can identify.
Where some of my tendencies came from,
and that predated my parents and their
parents and their parents' parents.
and it, it resonates, it,
it cannot not be true.
So back to exonerating
that clarity has helped me.
See my family's journey, their path, their
experiences, their trauma, that the, the
generation prior the generation prior,
and to have compassion and empathy for,
for all of those folks, for all of what
they went through, and what they gave me.
You know, it's one thing to look back
and go while yo, they, they should
have made better choices or they
could have done things differently,
but I don't, I don't see it that way.
I see clearly that they did the best
they could with the tools that they
had and they, they gave me gifts.
And so maybe the combination of
exonerating is also appreciating.
More what I know about them based
on what I know about myself.
Is there an emotion when you
say that that sits in your body?
Pride.
Pride.
Yeah.
Pride.
Thank you.
Is that an emotion is pride.
We'll say it is right now.
I believe it is.
Yeah, this sense of gratitude, the sense
of accomplishments are all a lot to deal,
especially with reconciling traumas.
Yeah.
Carrying the weight of I've often said
that it's parents are two grandparents
or four, and then you just kind
of multiply it and it compounds.
And before you know it, like you said,
you're feeling into the psychedelic
space of someone you've never even
met her potentially never saw.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And you've had those experiences.
Yeah.
going to
one of my first experiences was
to visit with the matriarchs of my
family and to commune with them and.
Essentially get this, this confirmation,
you know, where they said not
literally, but the confirmation that
we're giving, we gave you
something, we trusted you with this
because we believed in you and.
Understanding that so clearly, and then
actually recognizing that gift in myself,
um, you know, are, was I really there?
Did I go back in time?
Did I, you know, ultimately
I feel very strongly about.
Tapping into molecular
memory cellular memory.
It's all embedded in us.
It's not like it, it didn't happen.
It's just arranged in ways that
are, that are not as easily
accessible and being around.
I'm curious, being around the matriarchs
of your family and densifying as a male.
In this culture in this community
at this moment, what was the lessons
in the invitation they provided you?
Well, the biggest one is to open
my eyes, to are our differences,
our struggles, Masculine, and how
we have hurt the feminine, how
we have, oppressed the feminine.
I don't believe that I would be
aware of or sensitive to, or feel it.
So clearly if they hadn't taught me
and given me those lessons, and you've
also said that you come right at it on
a daily basis with how you want to show
up in the world, without that conflict
internally being exposed externally,
how do you wrestle or weave those?
And showing the compassion.
How do you grapple with that?
And kind of unpack that, oh, Ryan,
there's nothing to grapple with.
that's the interesting part is
reaching and opening that well of love.
Has allowed me to stop grappling.
There's nothing fantastic.
Yeah.
Drop the rope, right?
Yeah.
It's it's just to love and be aware and
to see, and to, to not be afraid to look.
and learn, learn from my past
mistakes, learn from learned from
previous versions of myself that we're
working with limited information,
limited tools and limited resources.
I really appreciate that.
So with all this, love this
well of love, this ability that
you're cultivating it right now.
Where does that leave you?
Knowing that psychedelics can
offer us so much, but at the same
time, Things are going really well.
I've talked to a lot of people
about things are going good.
I don't know if I need to do a
journey or things are going good.
I think I need to do a journey.
It becomes very paradoxical.
What is your relationship
to your psychedelic horizon?
Well now.
And with your help and your.
That this is not something,
this is not a toy.
This is not something to play with or
treat as entertainment or distraction.
It is a seriously sacred and
important place that with each
successive ceremony, I understand.
Even more how sacred it is.
And so if I'm thinking about, you know,
the opportunity to go in again, I'm also
thinking about, is it really necessary?
What is my motivation?
am I really ready?
Am I going in with, with dark energy?
,really doing an inventory, a very,
realistic inventory of, of, you
know, what's, what's behind that,
that opportunity or that desire.
I don't feel the pull of the space.
It's not like a gravitational tug.
That's always there,
but I do recognize the.
The serenity of that space and
lucid meditation of that space.
So that that's hard to just dismiss,
but there's more to it than that.
I look forward to my next journey.
I just don't know when
it's going to happen.
That's fantastic.
It comes to you when it needs to, and
you're open and listening pretty much.
Yeah.
, you know, I've met some incredible
people in that space made connections
that I'll have for the rest of
my life and into my next life.
I'm sure.
And that part is seriously rewarding.
That defies description.
To try to articulate the
strength of these connections
that you develop in that space.
That doesn't mean that's
where it has to happen.
That's important, isn't it?
That imperative that it doesn't always
have to be in that setting under the
influence of that medicine or in that
sacred space that you can actually
walk with it in our everyday life.
And also maintain those connections
outside, build, build on that
connection in wisdom and you know,
in the, in the outside world, that's
been really rewarding as well.
That's wisdom.
Thank you so much, Kevin.
You're welcome, Dr.
Western.
It's really a pleasure.
Yeah, thank you.
Lived in a time.
They lived in a time when every
member of the tribe held knowledge.
Of the body, the magic of
healing and the wholeness.
Of sex and the miracle of birth.
And then the necessity of death.
They lived in a time.
Creating driving onward.
This need to expand, live and understand.
They lived in a time when reverence
and sense of the sacred spoke
to them in a hollowed whisper.
Throughout the mundane
tasks of daily life.
They couldn't find meaning
in the universe otherwise.
They lived in a time, blazing, forth the
trails through passion and love, creating
a new destiny for us to awaken to.
To heal our culture to
heal our historical trauma.
And today.
Many of us ache for these old ways.
Urine for the wisdom.
That seems so inaccessible
to us in our everyday nature.
Hyper speed of modern life.
Awake to the memory of our elders.
And most of all.
Be gentle.