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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.
I would like to invite you to take
a moment, a moment in your day,
to really find presence, find grounding,
and at the same time find
curiosity, a newness,
a way to feel tethered to what
you know, and as you breathe in,
really cultivating that first.
The newness following the breath in
and the breath out, watching both the
understanding of what we already know
with the invitation of a curious newness.
Breathing in and breathing out,
recognizing the deep, deep,
middle, as if it were a liminal
space of knowing and the unknown.
Breathing in and breathing out,
checking in with your physical body,
how it reacts to the liminal
of knowing and not knowing,
breathing out, checking in
with the emotional heart.
And once again, finding
your center with thoughts.
And with no rush, no sense of
urgency, finding a grounding cord,
finding your center and opening
your eyes when you feel ready.
Hi, it's Ryan.
Welcome to your weekly dose of the
psychedelic psychologist, where I
invite my guests to share their stories
about their psychedelic experiences.
We cover a variety of topics
from overcoming addiction and
severe depression to finding
wholeness and spiritual emergence.
Today I'm humbled and similar
to the guided imagery prior.
Trying inviting in and welcoming newness.
I have a beautiful
privilege to speak to Dana.
Dana, how are you coming in today?
I'm working it out, coming off
a challenging, challenging week,
but feeling, you know, seeing the
light at the end of the tunnel.
When you say that, how do you kind of
hold both at the same time, knowing that
we're still in it and walking out of it?
How do you manage that personally?
I think that that's a real skill set and
there's an art to that, to, to doing that.
I think that you can easily become
incredibly overwhelmed by all of this shh.
I don't know if I'm allowed
to curse on this podcast.
I'm a pirate.
Swear the fuck out of it.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, I mean, I think that like,
you know, we all have shit and
we can let the shit bulldoze us.
Or we can, we have a choice, you know, you
have a choice to let it overwhelm you and
take over and it doesn't have to do that.
And so when I come back to realizing
that I have a choice in this, that
oftentimes helps me to equilibrate.
Really?
Yeah, I love everything about it
because we're not ignoring it, right?
There's nothing that we ignore.
Tell me a little bit about your
homage to psychedelics with that
because I believe that so often we
think that, oh, psychedelics are
gonna like raise us above the shit
and really what is it that they do?
Yeah, I think that
psychedelics have the ability.
It's kind of, I almost think of
like, it's like a parachute almost.
And you know, when you're a kid and you
have the one of those big parachutes,
you're all standing in a circle and you
put something in the middle and you pop
it up into the air like a stuffed animal.
Like psychedelics can do that, right?
It can pop it up, but
you have to hold it up.
Right.
You have to hold it with your rituals
and your practices and the things
that you do every day because you
can't do psychedelics every day.
I mean, the medicines won't
even let you do that, right?
They don't work like that.
Most of them.
Right.
And so, yeah, you have to have a
practice to, to, to maintain that
higher, higher vibration, really.
Yeah, and so what I love about that, and I
echo is how many resources we have, right?
The internal resources we have,
the external resources we have,
and are we able to use them or can
we also be in the shadow, right?
Like walking one foot in and one foot out.
What's your relationship
to where you found it?
Where did psychedelics, did it
find you or did you find it?
I think a little bit of both.
I started working with psychedelics
when I was 16 years old.
So I started doing LSD when I was 16.
And then I had a long hiatus until I
was in my early forties as a mother
of three and a physician who was.
burnt out from COVID.
And I ended up at an ayahuasca
retreat in Costa Rica.
And that changed my entire life.
So I needed the break,
I needed the hiatus.
And, and then I needed to
come back in a different way.
Right?
Like when you're a kid, you don't
really kind of look at these medicines,
like medicine, you're just like, I'm
just gonna do some LSD to get out
of wherever the hell I am right now.
So, you know, that can be very helpful
when you're a kid and your parents are
getting divorced and, you know, you don't
even know what the hell you're doing here.
And it can be, it can, it's
usually an escape, right?
When we're younger, but also
when we're younger, you have that
ability to still get benefits from.
Those, those substances and
some of those medicines.
So I always kind of credit LSD
really for allowing me to be this
more of outside of the box thinker.
Like I have never been an
inside of the box thinker.
And I, I really believe that it's LSD
that kind of just erases the lines of
the box and just allows me to kind of
just flow more organically, I guess.
Yeah, I love that because I too was a
youngster taking LSD and psilocybin.
And what I find is I don't know if I was
doing it with so much intentionality,
but to your point, running the gamut
of curiosity, what I love about
how you say LSD erases the lines.
I often have said, yeah, I feel
like I'm boundless within a
larger container of a boundary.
If I can trust the larger container,
that boundlessness allows me then to.
Pay homage to, okay, I need to, to,
to listen to this when I'm old enough,
or maybe the wisdom is digestible.
Sometimes it wasn't even digestible.
Yeah.
Sometimes you can't, you don't
even know that it's wisdom.
Right.
How do you intuit when it's time
for you to use the medicines?
Knowing that similar to me, a gaggle of
children, a professional career, right?
What do you do to listen to your
internal wisdom on when it's appropriate?
Yeah, I, I feel very much so that
you know, some people say, oh, if
you have more than two medicine
experiences a year, you have a problem,
or if you're doing it, you know,
once a month, you have a problem.
I mean, I, I think that.
It's it's hard to judge someone else's,
um, frequency of which they work with
these medicines because everyone is
doing something different and everyone
has something their own organic
chemistry is different and their life
is different and what they're doing
in medicine ceremony is different.
Like I've been a part of medicine ceremony
where it's not for me and my healing.
It's really, I mean, you do get
healing for yourself through
community, but it's, it's sitting as
a guardian and ceremony and helping.
Right.
And so, and to be able to do that, you
have to work with the medicine a lot and
you have to be, they have to trust you.
You know, because a lot of the ceremony,
specifically ayahuasca, you have to be on
the medicine to be in the ceremony space.
And so for me, it's a, it's a,
when I go for my own work, I,
it's just a deep knowing and a
calling that I know that it's time.
And sometimes it's like
particular medicine will say.
Let's hang out.
Like we need to do some work
and you just, you just know it.
And it's almost like right when it's about
to happen, you're just like, let's go.
Like, I am so ready to, to move this out.
Let's let's work right now.
Yeah.
I love that.
And what's so interesting, I mean, for
me, like, you know, so many people think.
These psychedelic experiences are, you
know you're a fairy the whole night,
you know, like my personal experiences
have been incredibly challenging, like
very, very, very, very challenging.
And so, you know, when someone says
to me, you know, sometimes when
you get into the, into the space,
like your family or your friends
might be concerned about you, right?
Like, Oh my God, like they're,
they're doing this like so often.
And I had that with my own family,
which was really challenging.
And it's just like, You know, for some
people, yeah, they might be abusing,
like you need to know why you're
going to these ceremonies, right?
Are you going as an escape like me
when I was 15, 16 years old doing LSD?
Are you going there to do real work on
yourself and you have a real intention and
you're looking to move through some stuff?
So, yeah, I think it's a, it's a
challenging, it's a challenging,
it's a challenging place.
Like how much medicine
is too much medicine?
And not that that's what you asked me.
No, but it's exactly, it's exactly
what I was asking because you're
giving me a breath of fresh air.
Dana, the idea of really being, I think,
prudent to it, and I love that you use
the word work and intentionality, but
it's not for the light and faint of
heart, and I'm not trying to say But I'm
trying to have some reverence for it.
And I often say, to your point, my
family are like, okay, he's still angry.
He still has shadow elements.
He's still walking around looking
like he has a doomed cloud over him.
And I'm like, no, I don't.
It's just, I know what I need to tap into.
The instruments in order to
heal and listen, right, right.
And I, you know, I mean, I think that
unless you've worked with ayahuasca,
you really don't, you know, if you've
worked with ayahuasca, I don't think
you would accuse anyone of being
addicted or like, it's a really, that's
a real punishment to, you know, I mean,
it's the, it's the greatest teacher.
It is the, it is the teacher.
And I, I believe that all of these
plant medicines are teachers.
But, you know, the ayahuasca is, I
saw this, this image once of someone's
standing on the edge of a cliff.
I don't know if you've ever seen this and
there's a hand that's about to flick the
person off the cliff and the hand, they
write ayahuasca on the hand, but then
the hand is also the hand that catches
you when you fall off the cliff, right?
Or when that hand flicks you off, right?
So it's, you know, all, all of
these medicines are, they're,
they're plant teachers and
they just allow us to remember.
I, I agree with you and I love
that metaphor and just the imagery.
Can you speak to me?
Do you do any energy testing?
You talk about the medicine sometimes
calling you or do you listen and say,
okay, I'm longing for an ayahuasca
ceremony and they're like, not right now.
But then all of a sudden something
else comes into your existence.
How do you work within your
own personal inventory?
I feel very connected to my
knowing and that I know internally
when it is right for me.
And I've been to ceremonies where
I didn't stay the second night.
Right, like this doesn't
feel right for me.
And it's not anything
about the particular space.
It's just like, you know, you'll
get Downloaded a message in ceremony
that like you're supposed to be
with your children right now.
What are you doing here?
And then you know, it's I
think it's important to listen.
I do too.
That's remarkable again It seems
like the more I meet people that are
actively working with the medicines.
They know actively when they set them
down and tap into more integration,
more walking with their path.
Yeah, I mean, everyone says like
I'm going to go to ceremony.
I'm going to do the work.
I'm going to do the work.
I'm going to do the work.
And like, yes, there is work in ceremony.
And sometimes it is gnarly.
But the work is also here in this realm,
like we have to take what we've learned.
And apply it.
Otherwise, what is the point
of doing it so you can get a
transient burst of serotonin?
I feel so aligned with that, right?
This idea could be spiritual
bypassing too at some level, no?
Can you speak to me
about that idea for you?
If you can see that with individuals
or yourself when you're like, okay Am I
doing this with the appropriate intention
or am I doing this to kind of like?
Like we were younger, disassociate.
Do you ever get that sense of,
Oh, I can feel that in myself?
I, well, for me, my
experiences are always so hard.
So no, I don't like, I don't go
there to dissociate because I
don't, that doesn't happen to me.
I'm not like, you know,
riding this magic carpet.
So.
But I know that it happens to people.
And one of my closest friends was just
addicted to ketamine and addicted to
non ordinary states of consciousness and
never doing the integration and never
really doing the work in this space.
And so, I mean, addiction is possible.
It's more likely to be addicted to
ketamine than any of the other you know,
psychedelic medicines, but, that's real.
And you see it, you know, when people
are going from ceremony to ceremony.
I mean, I, there was one point where
I had like four therapists, I think,
you know, and you know, that's, that's,
that's can be helpful, but it also, I,
just right now I'm on like a therapist.
I'm like a dry January for therapists
because I, It was just too much.
And I'm like constantly doing the healing.
Like, have you ever seen the
Instagram what is it called?
The, the Instagram handle
healing from healing.
No, God, that sounds you got to check
it out because like, you know, a lot
of us in this space can just be like,
so tunnel vision focus on healing
that like you forget to have fun.
You're always doing therapy
and work on yourself.
And it's just like, you
got, there's a balance.
Well, I, I talk a lot about serious.
Why so serious that when you, you just
resonated with me, because when we were
looking at this as this higher power
holier than thou, or I'm like trying
to heal my karma from 15 different
lifetimes with this medicine, it's like,
you know, I'm not advocating for the
grateful dead or, you know, fish tour,
but there's some space in these realms
where people, the levity is important.
We still need.
Critical.
Yeah.
What do you believe to be
critical in that levity?
Can you speak?
Just the existence of it.
It's like, you know, for anything like
there is this pendulum that swings and
you, you know, if you're not paying
attention, you can live all the way to the
right or all the way to the left, right?
Just like politics.
Right.
Right.
The answer is probably right here in
the middle for everything in life.
Except love.
You can't love anybody too much like that.
Love is the only way that, you know, it's
the only way it's the only way it is.
The only way love is the
medicine is the medicine.
I totally agree with you.
And I think the plants echo
that each and every time.
And that's what brings me personally
back is like, if I feel like jaded
or despondent, I'm like, Oh, okay.
amplification as Stan Graf would
call these spontaneous amplifiers.
Will amplify love even if it's a gnarly
trip and I am like, you know dismembered
disemboweled I know to your point of the
hands holding after the crazy Yeah, I
would say for the most part that happens
for most people but for some people it
doesn't So, and I've seen ceremonies where
people have, you know, become homicidal
and, and afraid of them themselves.
And that has lasted after the ceremony
or, you know, that like, they don't
come out with this amazing feeling.
So I think it's important
to talk about, right?
Like us advocates of psychedelics
and healing and true healing on
like this, like foundational level.
It's really important for us to also
recognize that some people's experiences
are not are not the more recognized
normal psychedelic experience, right?
Like some people have a rough time
in there and that's why you need
to have appropriate preparation.
You need to have appropriate support
in that journey and you need to
have someone after that experience.
Because you can become completely
dysregulated, and it could
be harmful, harmful for you.
In a very long time, too.
I mean, depersonalization is a real deal.
And to be able to have a trusted
integration therapist, or a protocoler,
I often will call them allies, right?
Before I go into medicine and advocate
for my clients going into medicine,
I'm like, Dana, who are your allies?
No, you need a support system.
And you know, it's, it's important
that you have a community like that.
There are so many, I always say, I always
come to this whenever I say the community
of psychedelics, like I always come back
to AA because there are so many parallels
between AA and psychedelic medicine.
And you know, that I, I feel like the main
two reasons why AA works for people is
that is, is the connection with a spirit,
like having a spiritual experience.
Right?
And having community.
And those two things, I think, are what
really allow AA to really function.
And for a lot of people in AA, they
don't have the spiritual experience.
Right.
So in the big book, they took out that
Bill Wilson was doing LSD and not just
doing LSD Recreationally, he was doing
therapeutic sessions with LSD step.
Right?
Exactly.
And what do you make of it?
Do you think that there's room for that in
the because I do know there is beautiful
space in that I totally agree with you The
community and psychedelics and the spirit
the it's again intentionality, you know,
yeah a hundred percent A hundred percent.
And I think a lot of the reasons why
people relapse in their sobriety is,
is the lack of a spiritual experience.
A hundred percent.
I agree.
Because this, you know, and the, and,
and the way that psychedelics, I believe
would be very helpful in that space is
allowing people to really see themselves.
Right.
Cause, cause.
AA, you kind of are, there's like a
limit to how far you can go, but with
psychedelic medicine, you can kind
of go underneath that rug, right?
And pull out the stuff, look at it.
Yeah, and so, I think AA is wonderful.
I think AA should be for everybody,
and everyone has the human condition,
and we all need community, and
we all need all of those things.
I agree with the idea, and I know a lot
of times now there's actually psychedelic
communities doing AA that are psychedelic
friendly, which is alarmingly beautiful.
This idea of AA with psychedelic
friendly respect is just really
Evolutionary, in my opinion, I agree.
I have been to psychedelics and recovery
meetings and what I worry about in
those areas is the lack of education
and a person who can really like hold
that container because there's a lot,
you know, that's a, that's a group of
people who are at high risk of learning.
Yeah.
Yeah, vulnerable and
high risk of addiction.
Mm hmm.
Oh, and so you don't want to just
replace something for something else You
want to give them the tools to really
be able to work with the medicine as,
as the medicine is not a tool, right?
Our breath, our community and your
educational point is spot on because
I think there are so many people
kind of flippantly Talking about,
oh, you know, what's a microdose?
What's a macrodose for psychedelics?
What, what's a protocol?
And they're doing it kind of flippantly.
And so I can appreciate your
concern within those communities
that who's educating and who's
the one holding the container.
Right, and who's honoring the indigenous?
I was wondering about that, right?
Because even with ayahuasca,
there's such a reverence to
that culture, that community.
And so, how are we walking with it?
And is it being appropriated or
are we listening to the people,
the carriers of the medicine?
Can you tell me a little bit?
Often times we're not.
Because we're not well because it's
again societal norms or it's the
cutting edge or it's super trendy and
that's not necessarily a benefit Right.
How you how do you integrate mostly?
What's your entry point for integration?
You talked about after ceremonies.
What is your Protocol and do you stick
to one way or do you kind of listen
to it depending on the experience?
I feel like you know, sometimes in
my ceremonies there's a very clear
salient message that It doesn't
require, in my opinion, for me
personally, a ton of working with
another, working with someone else.
Like, I'm able to do some sort
of self integration stuff.
But, you know, for instance, I'll
share with you one of my last
ceremony experiences I had was with
Yahé, which is Colombian ayahuasca.
And in the ceremony, I found myself
in a child molester's torture chamber.
And I approached the child molester,
it was a man, and I approached him and
I just looked at him and into his soul
and his being and talked to his, the
child that was wounded within him, and
I said to him that I see him and that I
know that someone hurt him and that he
doesn't have to keep doing this anymore.
And then what happened was
this like portal opened up
next to me and this big hole.
And he then was reborn through this
hole and I adopted him as my child.
And so You know, some people would say,
well, what the hell does that mean?
Right.
But it's like, it's, it's all about to me,
it's all about transmuting the darkness.
Right.
And, and being able to see past what
someone is doing or has done and offer
forgiveness and meet them with love.
And, you know, I mean, there are some
other experiences that require a lot more.
You know, talking through and working
out and things like that, but you know,
there are a lot of things in my life
that where I'm encountering someone
who has hurt me or whatever it is.
And it's the way that I can look
at them and have empathy and
compassion and move through that.
And it doesn't mean like, you know, people
think like, okay, well, when you forgive
someone, that means that you have to have
them in your life forever or whatever.
It's like, that's not forgiveness
is not for the other person.
It's for you.
And so I've learned a lot about empathy
and compassion and forgiveness from
ceremony I really appreciate that and
what I love about what you're sharing
is that you can hold it And see the
multi paradigms and facets that that
experience in ceremony provides you
and not have to take it so literally
and figuratively all at once.
What's the emotion you have when you think
about it and reflect now with time passed?
How do you reflect emotionally on that?
Because that's a pretty.
Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting
because like, again, like my experience
has been so challenging that that kind
of feels like a lighter experience.
And I really was, I was, I was happy that
in the moment that I wasn't like, totally
freaked out and want to run out of there.
Right.
That wasn't even like an option.
Not because it was, it wasn't an
option because I didn't want to do it.
Do you know what I mean?
I was like, I'm going
here, we're doing this.
And this is the work that we're doing.
I haven't had many experiences where
I actually wanted to really run maybe
like to, what would you say to someone
that knows that they're scary or
they're tough or they're difficult.
How, what's the fortitude?
What's kind of the preparation
one could do knowing that?
Because I agree.
I, when I'm getting ready to lay
on the mat or do a ceremony, I know
it's like jumping out of an airplane.
It is.
It's, it's, you're going
into unknown territory.
And you ha you have to have
the trust in the medicine.
If you trust in the medicine,
it's going to make a big
difference in your experience.
And sometimes, you know, even when we
feel like we trust the medicine, sometimes
our ego comes in and, and our ego's
like, you should never do this again.
We're never doing this again.
We got to get the hell out of
here and get your girlfriend here.
And we're going, we're not, we're leaving.
And you know, and sometimes in this,
like, you don't know, like your ego
from your, yourself and your soul.
Right?
So when you're in the ceremony, you're
like, okay, you know, and then it
feels like can feel so confusing.
But then in the end, typically, for
most people, you're able to come out
of that and put the pieces together.
But for some people afterwards,
it can be very dysregulating.
So you really have to, you know, You got
to have it really pretty much put together
to safely go into those experiences.
Yeah, lay out what feels
like a safe container.
Yeah, and there's no guarantee, right?
For the most part, these are
incredibly safe medicines.
Minus iboga, which is a different thing,
which is a beautiful medicine, especially
for people with substance use disorders.
However, that's the medicine
where people can die.
And I mean, people can die in other
ceremonies, but that's exceedingly rare.
But Iboga is one where you
need real cardiac monitoring.
So it's, it's, yeah, it's no
joke that I appreciate that.
Yeah.
This is no joke.
I have a couple of testimonies in my
book writing about this guy that did
Iboga and I know personally, it's, it's
not something that I would come back to.
No, I mean, I, you know, I have, I
know someone also who drinks a lot of
ayahuasca over the course of, you know,
the last like five or so years and then
did iboga and was suicidal for a week
because in his iboga journey, all of his
friends died and he came out at thinking
that all of his friends were still dead.
And, and was still in
the journey a week later.
So his friends had to come, you know, over
and check in on him and say, I'm not dead.
Right.
And one of the things that I
really appreciate Dana, that you're
bringing to light is the too hard,
too fast, too soon, too much.
And I really appreciate.
Appreciate the middle, because someone
as versed as you, it's not as if
we're pushing away, nor am I, the
intentionality of using medicine, but
really in this culture, there's so many
people today going, Oh, I need to try
every one of them on, I need to be the
psychedelic explorer, and I'm going
to find my medicine, and then they, to
your point, could get lost in it without
even knowing that they were lost in it.
Yeah, I believe it's like when you are
studying anything, you don't want to just
go study 8 million different things a
little bit, you know, for a lot of people
in the psychedelic space, I feel like
in the beginning, they're like, Okay,
I'm going to try these different things.
And then I think, I think
it's nice to choose one.
And that's your teacher,
and you stick with it.
I'm shifting gears.
What are you doing to
be gentle with yourself?
How are you being gentle
with yourself within all the
transitions and transformations?
Meditating actually twice a
day for 20 minutes is something
that is important to do.
And my yoga practice.
I have a daily yoga practice.
And rapé.
Those are the things
that really helped me to,
and, and break from work, right?
And being with your kids.
And not taking everything so seriously.
Yeah.
Where it's kind of fun.
The wisdom of the T the teachers,
the, the children can teach how to
slow the fuck down and be like, Oh,
making this all out to be some cosmic
spiritual journey is pretty fun.
But we are also just like tumbling
around like the karmic cleanse.
Right.
So nice to have you.
It's an honor and I'm humbled
by your information and service.
Thank you.
Thanks for doing your, your work.
I appreciate you.