The Sesh - A Guide into Consciousness

I'm Brandon. And I'm Jesse we're. Cannabis school having cannabis infused conversations. With everyday. People. Cannabis companies. Celebrities. And your mom? Welcome to the Sash. Hey everybody, we are so excited to have you here again on The Sash. Welcome back. We have got some amazing guests here today. So we've got Troy and Aviva from Guides Collective. We are going to get psychedelic in here. Now you're noticing a theme every Thursday.

It almost seems like we keep gravitating towards psychedelics. It has been a common theme, hasn't? It recently, yeah, absolutely. But you got to remember too, cannabis is a mild hallucinogenic. It helps out with that one. This is usually kind of stepping stones towards what we're going to be talking about a lot today, but by far some of the most experts in this field, at least from we, we could gather.

We're super excited to be able to meet you, Aviva Troy, thank you guys so much for being here today. Thanks for having us. Yeah, absolute honor, guys, This is this is a thrill. I've I've been listening to your podcast for the past week and now I'm just, I feel like I'm a fanboy. I'm going to get autographs after. This whatever, you know, it was funny. I was at, I was at a dispensary at Salt Lake and I was getting it's with Dragonfly.

And when I was getting it, the guy's like, hey man, can one of the guys in the back come out and meet you? He's a big fan. I'm like, that's sure. And the guy's like, well, I'm really nervous. I'm like, what the hell? That's weird. That's so weird. I'm like, no, dude, we're cool. Shook his hand, gave him a little bro hug and he was just like, oh man, thank you so much. I'm like, that's weird, but OK,

cool. Because I mean, it's just like what we were talking about before with psychedelics, you know, you get to this certain stage of certain psychedelics and we are as one. That's why I feel around with a lot of people. I think that has a lot to do with the psychedelics. What do you guys think? Absolutely, yeah, Yeah. What I, what I've discovered with psychedelics is like, it becomes this level of empathy.

And when you get super empathetic, you do feel like one because it's no longer like you're doing this and I'm doing this. It's more like what's going on with you. Like even bad things like I got cut off today and right like oldby would have been like what the fuck? What are you doing? Driving like an idiot. And like, my first thought is, oh man, he seems like he's in a real hurry. Like I, I, I hope he gets to where he's going, like he might get fired from his job or something, right.

And like that, that empathetic feeling that that you get inherently from psychedelics, like once it sticks with you, it's like, oh, it's way different. We're all connected. Jesse knows me behind the wheel. That is my I'm usually like a very chill, mellow person and then you put me behind the wheel and I get so annoyed with everyone. Yeah, his his demon comes. In and it's like so when there's times that like that piece is actually with me and I'm like, Oh no, it's fine.

Like I'm no longer in a like I need to be here. I need to go do this. It's like no, this is just where I'm at. Like I'm OK, this is where I'm at this is where I need to be. I don't need to be racing somewhere else, like, and just chilling. And it's like, oh, it's such a different experience doing that. But to go from, like you said, the frustration and like all of that to like, man, hope he gets there OK, man. You know, he seems like he's in a rush.

Yeah, what a what a mind switch, right? And yeah, man, once that triggers in your mind, like the world just gets a lot. Do you think psychedelics has been that biggest like the switch? I would say so, yeah. I think psychedelics really was that trigger for me that just, I mean, the way that I would describe it is, you know, you go to therapy and you talk about things and you, you know what you should be doing and you know

what you should be doing better. But with psychedelics, it, it gives you more of like an inherent feeling of what you should be doing. Like a like a prime example for me is like, often times I was drinking too much, right? Like it wasn't a problem. Like it wasn't like I'm not going to jail and beat my kids with. It's just not the healthiest lifestyle. And I was like, I think I'm probably drinking too much.

And then during like a mushroom ceremony, I pictured myself on my deathbed from just like not taking care of myself and my family looking at me. And then like, why didn't you take care of yourself? That's you died early. And then that like that feeling was really what would like got me going and be like, I have to take care of myself better because it was it was more than just like a thought in the back of your head. It was real.

It was in you. And like with psychedelics, that's kind of how I look at it is just like, you know, you live this pretty normal, mundane life, right? And you don't have these like dare to be great situations. But on psychedelics, everything is amplified. Everything is bigger, right? So like, even like, you know, you can be hiking and jump over a river and you're like crossing like. Massive accomplishment here.

Yeah. And so like you have these like almost dare to be great situation like these times that you are fighting demons and fighting Dragons and it feels so much more intense that like it sticks with you, right. Like it, it lasts longer if you feel it more. That's interesting. Aviva, you you you've been using psychedelics for, I mean chronologically for quite a while. Would that be a fair assumption? A few. Decades. A few. Decades. You have such an interesting past.

I'm I'm interested. I I mean, Troy's going through this transformation that he saw like almost dipping his, his mind into the future. Did you have a similar experience? Yes and no, right. So like I, I, I absolutely am obviously a huge proponent of the power of psychedelics, but I also don't think it's the right solution for everybody all the time.

So, but there's a lot of media around how great you know, you're going to take mushrooms once and your whole life is going to transform or you're going to have this intense experience and go like go deep the way you guys are talking about, right? Like have this totally unifying opening experience where you realize that you're all part of humanity and you're all one and that can happen, but it's by no means a guarantee or like necessarily a key.

The The thing is like we talk about psychedelics being non specific amplifiers, which effectively means that whoever we already are, it makes us more of. So if you're like a really egotistical asshole and you're like involved with psychedelics, you're just gonna be a more egotistical asshole. So it's like, it, it, it, it leverages like it, it, it, it, it puts itself into who you are and amplifies that. And that's why to me, it's not a

stand alone experience. It's an experience that I think it's necessary to have with perspective, with guidance, with potentially mindfulness or yoga or breath work or therapy or guidance or whatever it looks like so that you're actually making the effective changes you want to be making. The thing about psychedelics is it, it actually changes your neuronal pathways. So it makes you more receptive

to change. It makes you more capable of sort of suspending your own judgement and your own feelings about, you know, your, your normal knee jerk responses. And it opens up a space between right, how I feel and how I act. And in that space, we can change how we act and potentially even change how we feel. But like, where do we want to go

with that? If there's nobody really guiding us towards or even ourselves, but we don't have a clear sense of what we want to accomplish from this, then you've had a great cool experience, but you may not have had a transformative experience. Yeah, I like, I like how you said that. Like if you're if you're an asshole and you use it, you're just gonna be a bigger asshole. And you know, we kind of thinking about like, you know, historically when the Vikings used to go berserker, they would

use psychedelics. And that just makes out. I mean, you're not going to be AI mean. These guys are going around cutting people in half while they're on mushrooms. So I mean. Can you? That sounds nuts because they can't even. Imagine. They they would be like, I mean, could you imagine the visual? Dude I watched EU. PTSD you would have after that. Once like walked into the bar with a buddy on a like not a microdose, but like a gram and a half probably.

And I started watching the fight and it was, it was horrible. It was the worst experience. And I actually blacked out as I was trying to walk out of the bar and I was like, it was just so much so horrible. Like just watching all the people rooting and cheering for people, like beating the shit out of each other and watching the blood on their hands and their faces. And I was like, this wasn't humans, it was animals. And I was like to watch that. It was hard. And I was like, I was like, I

need to get outside. And I started walking and I just like blacked out, fell on the ground. And my buddy, I wake up with this bartender over me and and I look over and then my friends there and I was like, where are we? And he's like at the bar And I'm like, OK, let's go outside. And then we went outside and then I came to and I was like, all right, we should probably not be here. We should probably go. And he was like, yeah, cool, All right.

So we hopped in the car. He drove because he was sober, and we went home. But that experience and I'm like, so Vikings and other people like doing that on AI, can't even imagine. Well, but that, that it goes to say, I mean, it's an extension of you, right? So it's you're, you're being able to put that energy out even further. And when you introduce light to light, you know, you get that good experience when you introduce darkness to darkness, that's where you get like that.

That makes sense too, because of, yeah, you may have this great experience. I remember like friends in high school would eat mushrooms and they would just giggle and laugh. And every experience I've had on on psilocybin has always been like this super positive, very open. But because I had the intent. And so again, it goes back to that, right? By being guided. And, and that's kind of like this huge thing of what when we met you guys, this was on on

just a fluke. I was at a dinner party and met this guy just joking around with him. He's like, you got to meet Troy. And then I meet Troy and then I meet a Viva and I'm just like, this is kick ass. This is so perfect. It's like it's just on this journey where I've been. I mean, a lot of it is, you know, I, I'm, I'm keeping this super valuable to my, my psyche and to the growth of my soul. I believe that this is helping

so much. And so hearing about that, especially what you had brought up, because social media has this, I mean, there are mushroom gummies now that you can get on there. And it's like, yeah, OK. But I saw some at the They sell them at the coffee shop here down the street. Yeah, they sell mushroom gummies all the time. I'm like, what in the world? Yeah, yeah, it's I think that's that's the challenge that this next generation is going to have.

I, I work for a company called 3rd Wave, which is like a psychedelic education company, but 3rd wave is, you know, we had the 1st wave, which was essentially natives doing it for, you know, cultural reasons as a family. Then we have the 2nd wave, which was like the 70s. And it's like, hey, take this, it's called acid. What's going to happen? I don't know how much should I take? I don't know, let's, let's go to

a concert, right? And now we're here at the 3rd wave, which is really like using these things as powerful tools, powerful medicine, But the more access there is to it, the better chance we have of fucking it up. Because truthfully, like I, I think the biggest thing was psychedelics. And even on the last podcast where you were talking about psychedelics with someone, it's like, hey, let's take mushrooms. It'll change your life, right? But how much are you supposed to take?

Is mushrooms right for you? There's LSD, there's DMT, there's five MEODMT, there's all of these things and they all work different. And like just saying, OK, I, I heard psychedelics are good. I'm going to pop these mushrooms and see if I'm all of a sudden a happy person that often times 1 can be very dangerous and two usually isn't going to work right like. And you're not talking about the setting and the preparations. That's huge.

Like set and setting is massive and it can shift at any moment. Like if some new energy or person or thing comes into that, it can like change your entire setting. And so it can take you from being in a safe, peaceful, OK setting to going to a dark, not OK space. And it's like, I've had that happen as well because it was like we had a nice safe setting set all of that. And then someone else came into it that that wasn't there.

And it brought in this energy and we had to all separate, go to our own spaces after we removed that energy. And we're like, you have to leave. We can't have you here. Everyone else went to our own space. And then we came back within 1015 minutes because we were like, yeah, we're OK, Everything's OK now. Like that energy was gone.

But it's it's massive and that will stick with you and there's so much unknown for someone to just go, hey, take a mushroom or take a psychedelic and jump right into it like that massively. It can give you a beneficial experience or it could end up giving you this horrible experience that pushes you away from any type of beneficial therapeutic things that you could gain from that. Yeah. You know, it's, it's like playing the lottery, right? Like it's funny.

The first time I did conscious psychedelics in ceremony, you know, you have your eye mask on, you listen to the music. And I took my eye mask off and it was done. And the first thing I said is, holy shit, I've been doing drugs wrong this entire time. Because before it was like, hey, let's take some mushrooms and go to a concert. But like in a setting like that one, music is already great and a concert's already great. Like it's a good time already. So you're not really introspective.

It makes the concert better, yes, but you're not really thinking about your own. No inner child, you know nothing like that. And to your point, what if there's a fistfight right next to you, right? And then how does that affect you? So now it's very much like I I only do psychedelics in very certain places with very certain people and often times usually just by myself now. I agree. I think by myself has been some of the most for me that's been

the most beneficial. Like I've worked through a lot of my demons, a lot of my struggles, a lot of my own, like shit my me being an asshole like all of this stuff. It's me looking at it and going like realizing so much. But it doesn't come like you said, it doesn't come from being out at a party out at A at a concert.

It's from those moments like the perfect set and setting where you're, you're meditating, you're doing these things and you're looking at this like broken inner child and going, hey, you're, you're OK. Like let me hug you. You're OK. And then you break down and you start bawling and that and you're like, but those are like some of the most profound experiences that we have when we allow that to happen. Yeah, I actually sorry. Go ahead. No, no, I was going to ask a question. Please go.

I so, so I actually have like a bit of, I guess qualification or comment on like this whole conversation you had like starting off with let's talk about set and setting, right? So for anyone who doesn't know, Seth refers to your mindset, right? How you're coming into the experience, what your belief systems are, how right, like how you're feeling and setting refers to what's going on around

you. So like you were talking about like, you know, is somebody going to walk into the room and totally upset the energetic balance or are you in a place that you feel safer? Are you at a concert or are you alone? So that's what we're talking talking about. And yeah, it's obviously hugely critical, but right, like one of the things you said around it's the difference between having like a really positive experience and going into a place that's really negative.

There's like, yes, obviously you could have an experience on psychedelics that feels traumatizing or threatening. And I actually have a friend who when she was much younger took too much LSD and it end up it it it like probably caused some form of psychotic break. She was not good for a long time. So these are serious molecules that you have to be really careful about. But if you're physiologically safe and that isn't like you, you aren't having that kind of tip over, then a bad trip isn't

always a bad trip. It goes back to right. Like, are we in a place where we like, we are just looking at our own demons, where we are in a spot of we're like delving into the parts of ourselves, our shadow that we haven't looked at and that we're allowing it to arise and then we're allowing it to release. And if we can do that, then these molecules become like a incredibly powerful force for fueling our own change and our own growth and our own maturity

really. And, and for mindfulness, for being able to really see ourselves and be conscious of who we are in a moment by moment place, which is what allows us to do what Troy was talking about, right? Be in traffic and be able to have like compassion for somebody. Because because we're not all about ourselves, we can be all about other people too.

Yeah, I like how you say that. It's it's almost like a it's a cleansing over there, kind of like where, I don't know, it's like the, the, the film that's on the top. You're able to kind of scrape that away. But it also just kind of like like the, the concept of oil pulling is, is where I'm I'm pulled to with psychedelics where you're able to extract this toxic it, it pulls it up.

That's why I feel the same way. If someone's having a bad experience on a trip where it's terrifying, It's something that the mind is trying to bring back up going, no, we, we need to get this out. We need to get this out. And that's that cleansing feeling. You know, like I failed on, on, on psilocybin on ketamine, like something is gone. I'm glad it's gone. I don't know what it is, but I don't want it back. And it, it definitely starts to pull it out.

And it sounds like from your experience with so many different people, that's the case, but also the cautionary, right? This, this isn't to be played with because I was talking to a guy recently and I was like, I was like, well, how much do you take when you take psilocybin? I mean, do you weigh it out? Do you know what kind of grams you're taking? He goes, no, my friends and I in college would get like a bag of it. And then we go, here's an even amount for you.

Here's an even out for me. And nobody knows that the weight could have been totally different. And here's like, oh, exactly what you said. I take this but. It goes, but it goes back to like if, if you're, if we're emotionally capacitated and we've grown up relatively safe and we've got an ability to self process and we're self reflective and mature, then if we're having a difficult experience, we may be able to negotiate it and navigate it on our own.

But not everybody has that grounding, as we all know. And people, people come from a lot of trauma. And even if it's what we call small T trauma instead of big T trauma, that's not that's not. That doesn't make it easier, which is why like not everybody's capable of doing

this on their own. People do sometimes need a sitter or a guide or somebody who's going to or a therapist, somebody who like post experience can work with them and help them tease out what happened and figure out what it means, which is what we call integration. Which means like you've had this experience, now where are we going to put it inside our body to make to make sure we're walking away with an understanding of what happened?

Integration, to me is like, there's pieces of us that are missing, and I think of it sort of as puzzle pieces. And as we integrate, like we're putting those pieces back into place, we're literally becoming more whole. And that's what ultimately integration allows us to do. It allows us to take those isolated experiences and plug up the places in us that we believe have gaps, even though we don't have gaps, but we believe they do. Integration makes us whole. That's trippy.

Yeah. So Aviva, in your like decades of experience through here, I'm guessing you didn't start as a guide. No, I am. I don't even formally act as a guide, although I do so informally. But no, I, I landed in here inside of conscious community accidentally. I have, I have a friend who was, was a rock star actually back in the 80s and was during the time exposed to all kinds of

different drugs, including MDMA. And she had an experience and thought it was so fantastic that she wanted to bring it to her mother. So she ended up organizing a family, what she called a camp, a family experience where she and her mom just sat together with MDMA and allowed the heart opening properties of it to to, you know, integrate and heal their own relationship. And that was so awesome that they ended up bringing in her siblings.

And then the mother was so impressed by the outcomes that she constituted her own group of women and started quarterly getting together with these women to have MDMA experiences where they would spend a whole day. It it, it was like a whole Saturday kind of thing. And then Sunday would be integration where they would just have themed experiences. They would dance, they would dress up pretty. They would talk, they would talk about really difficult stuff. They would talk about child

raising. They would whatever it was. And those happened quarterly for years, like probably 15 years until some of these women's children were old enough to be brought into the group. And it became like a, a sort of shift of like, how do we bring, how do we make this a next generation experience? They started bringing in their daughters and their daughters are like, I want to invite my friends. So it, it just kept growing

organically. Today it's a group of probably about 120 women and men in a bunch of different locations around the world, obviously who don't get together simultaneously, but who are considered part of this kind of group of getting together and having these experiences. So that's the context in which I've learned to guide and facilitate. Side note, that's fucking weird. I don't know what that thumb. Is I don't know how that I know it's trying. To. Trying to give a. Thumbs up.

It's like. Remember, this is the part of the story where you give a thumbs up. This is This is what you need to do every. Time you say something smart of Eva we're getting. Yeah. She's. On it she knows. No, that is so. Oh, I'm still like, I've never had that explained to me, but I'm I'm seeing those gaps like puzzle pieces right now. Maybe it's maybe it's the cannabis. What are we smoking? Super Lemon.

Super Lemon G. Super lemon G So that's very nice, but it's like when you were doing that, I felt that going in and they just I'm thinking about that during those psychedelic experiences because there's this there's this bit of apprehension that I feel still even when I take a micro dose because I'm I I think it's because I've developed so much respect for the plant that I'm just like, don't don't abuse

this. Use this for when you need this, but you know, don't don't use this like feel like feel like getting something to eat. Let's go to Wendy's, right? That's a bad choice. That's a bad choice, right? We still make it, but it's still a bad choice. And when you think holistically, like creating this homeostasis within your life, like you just don't want to just be like, oh, it's Tuesday. Wow. Yep. You really want to be

intentional on that one. And I think that's part of that intention is once you become more acclimated to it and having a guide is so important now 'cause you brought it up, I mean, we've got women's publications talking about microdose for 30 days and change your life. Like, OK, but we don't know what their body, it's like everybody's endocannabinoid system is completely different

from the next. We don't know how it's going to be from A to B to C. Or their mental state or whether medications they're on or anything else you know, and, and to say, hey, just take it and go off and do your own thing. It's it's really. Tough. Best of luck, Yeah. Like it's the same with cannabis. I feel like the experience

should always be guided. Your first experience should be with someone who, whether it's a therapist, a guide, someone who understands and knows and can like help walk you through that to make you feel safe. Where did, where did guides collective like what did that? What was that starting point like? What made you guys think, hey, we need to help these guides, these people who are trying to guide others through this? Yeah, so I, I can go first.

We kind of, it's, it's funny, 'cause we hit it from two different angles and then we came together and I was like, Aviva, here's what I'm thinking and she's like, this is what I'm thinking too. But we got there in two different ways, right? So for me, I very much have my own personal relationships with psychedelics and I have been guided, but I have very much like an imposter syndrome where like who am I to be a guide, right? Like I, I didn't go through training.

I, I'm not a guide. So as I was going through life and you know, my journey is relatively new in terms of conscious psychedelics. So I'm probably about five years in, but I would go to people and be like, Oh my God, psychedelics have changed my life. They're absolutely incredible. Everyone should go do them and they would be like, OK, well,

can you help me? And I'd be like, no, who can I was like I, I, I don't know, Like I, I generally don't know, but you should really go find that person and and there's. Gotta be. Someone, somewhere, yeah. So, so for me, guides collective, you know, we have this new thing to help people find A guide is really that starting point for people, 'cause everyone's listening to these conversations of psychedelics is good, psychedelics is good, psychedelics is good, but where

do you go and what you. Do it And how do you do it safely? And what should you be doing right? Like even right now, the best answer would be like go to a place like retreat guru and it has all of these, you know, they're verified and they have all these different retreats, but it's like a three day ayahuasca ceremony, a six day psilocybin ceremony, a micro dosing course. And and you don't even have enough information to really know. What? To do there know know where to

start, right? So there's no starting point like when you go to a doctor. I got a thyroid issue, right? And like I went to a doctor and I was like, this is kind of weird. There's a bump here. And that guy was like, oh, you have a bump here. This could be a couple things. I'm going to send you to an expert and that expert will figure it out for you, right? And so like you had a starting point. They sent me somewhere who was the expert based on what I

actually needed. And then that expert got me to where I needed to go. That doesn't exist in psychedelics. So what we built was this place where we found the best guides in the world, right? Like we have a network of 500 guides, but it's a starting point where you speak with us specifically for 30 minutes. You tell us what you're going through, what you're feeling, what medications you're on, all of those things. And then we link you up with the person that we think is right

for you specifically. Like, for example, if you have a traumatic, like a really traumatic experience in your childhood, a lot of times MDMA is a good starting point over mushrooms because MDMA is a little bit more empathetic, right? Like where you can start having those feelings and start having those cries before you're having visuals and too much is going on and you're not really processing. But a lot of people, you know, they could have severe sexual trauma and take a hero dose of

mushrooms. And again, if if there there is no such thing as a bad trip and you might freak out and it might be good for you. However, that probably wasn't the best starting point for you. It could have been better, it could have been easier. You could have, could still. Gain immense value from that if you can find a way to integrate what you've learned or you know the experience through that. Even though you know, like you said, there's not really a bad

trip. I've had horrible moments within a trip or really hard moments that have really like kind of torn me to pieces. But then I've seen, hey, I'm going to be OK. Like it's, it's kind of a teaching moment in that moment to show me an experience that's going to happen, a moment it's going to happen. And then it's like you're still OK. And through those like, I found these things and it's like

cathartic in those moments. But that moment when I'm sitting there in it and I'm like, feeling like I'm falling apart and I'm bawling. And, you know, like, in that moment, I experienced my kids moving across the country. I watched in that moment my kids leave. And me feeling the pain of my kids leaving and me not seeing them for who knows how long. Yeah. And that was a reality that was happening. It just hadn't happened yet. And I was beyond terrified of it

happening. And when it happened, like, that mushroom trip was hard. It was hard. But that's because the real life experience was hard. Yeah, but I knew in that moment I was like, no, I'll be OK. And in that, that was still to this day is one of the most beautiful experiences that I've gone through hard. But like that trip was eye opening and mind opening going like I never would have gone through that.

Like I never would could have experienced that in my own reality without that psychedelic like hand. Yeah. And ideally, what do you do after that? You appreciate your time with your kids 10 times more because you felt, you know, the feeling of when they're going to leave. And so ideally you come back and be a better, the best dad you can be in those moments, right? Yeah, be present in those moments.

When it brings such an emphasis on why there should be more guided experiences as we're seeing this culture shift where psychedelics becomes the end all be all cure and cannabis has gone through that multiple times. People are like, oh, it's great for everything. Like I got eczema. You just smoke this and the eczema goes away. Just. Spray some Windex on it. Yeah, yeah, You know it. It's like everybody's like, oh, yeah.

Like when I first got into campus, like, oh, you know, it'll help with diabetes because I have type 2 diabetes. And I go, yeah, OK, you show me something that goes behind it. Like I'm just going to trust it going. No, honey, I'm keeping the diabetes away, smoking all day long. I just keep my bong attached to me with like a utility belt, right. I pull it out for the diabetes. Yeah, it's for the Venice. I'm in line over there for the Walmart somebody like hey, hey.

And I'm like it's. Medical. They're like, OK, OK. But fetus is acting up. I got to start smoking again. You just smoked 10 feet before. I got to do it again. You're so high you're eating 10 cookies. I. Got a flare up? Walmart Walmart should start having high guides. They just pick out the guys with really red eyes and kind of slow gate and they go come with me, Sir, and they just have a they're perfect snack aisle. They need a high aisle that's. What they need?

Is going there we. We know everything you want. As soon as you come in a a voice goes over there going aisle 4. Sleekies and Doritos in the same place. That was the thing I was thinking about when you were talking about these, these places that do these psychedelic retreats and they're like ayahuasca Monday, Psilocybin Tuesday is just like, why don't they just have like an

announcement? If you were at like a restaurant and the restaurant goes, OK, you eat something all at the same time and they go, by the way, that food can cause severe cramping, diarrhea and vomiting. Best of luck. And you're just like, OK, what did I just get into 'cause that's the feeling that you have when you you take it going, there's no going back. There's no going back. But it, it can't, it shouldn't feel that way. You should be prepped. Although, you know, that's so

interesting, it shouldn't. I'm not. I wanna think about that comment because I think that we probably should have a bit of trepidation before approaching psychedelics, no matter how experienced we might be. The this, this every single trip has the potential to quite literally change the way you think and feel. I mean, we, we all know the whole Burning Man storyline of like, you know, the, the prohibitions after you've, after you've attended, right? Don't quit your job, don't sell

your house, don't get divorced. Because the impulse when you've had this kind of experience is I've seen the light, I know the truth. I am God, I can make all these changes. And I mean, sure, what like we, it definitely feels like we've gained a, a bigger truth, but then real life is gonna come back. Real life is still gonna come back. And so how do we navigate these kind of like big moments in that

real life context? So like, should we feel totally comfortable approaching this or should we be a little concerned and respectful of, of the lineage that this comes from of the right of the of the potential power of what it's going to do to us emotionally, psychologically? I think a little fear is probably good. It sounds like you still have that after decades and decades and decades. I so that's so interesting. I've lost it for a little bit. I was afraid for a really long

time and I was afraid. I'm not panicked, but I would have that moment of like, OK, here we go, right? Nervous anxiousness of. I've lost that fear for a short little period about a year ago. And I was just like, yeah, whatever. I've taken all kinds. It's like it all looks like I can take all kinds. It's like it all. They're not addictive. It's not a big deal. It doesn't do much for your

body. And I ended up like with real medical problems that the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on and that I still don't have like a firm diagnosis 'cause, you know, I only reveal so much. But it looks like it was probably like some kind of, what's that syndrome called? Troy, do you remember it's like when you when there's too much serotonin syndrome, where there's too much serotonin in your body and it messes up your like capacity to function. So. So again. Now I'm afraid.

Again. Not actively, not enough to stop me, but enough to be really respectful. One of the best ways that I've heard it put and that that I use now is like, psychedelics are a skill that you can get better at. Like let's look at it as like karate, right? If you're going to join karate, you're not just going to go like, all right, I'm going to get into a fight and see what happens, right? Like, you have a sensei first, right? And like you get trained and you get taught what to do.

When they do this, you do this. When they do this, you do this, right? And like in that starting journey of psychedelics, it really makes a lot of sense to have that sensei. So when I started doing guiding guided psychedelics, right, like if something would get scary, I learned breath work, right, 'cause someone's like, no, no, do box breathing, Watch what happens. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, I, I just left my body for a minute. That was great.

And from box breathing, Yeah. Well, on psychedelics, yeah. Yeah. But just 30 minutes of box breathing and I was just left my body, my stomach was a little uncomfortable from the mushrooms. And they were like, keep breathing it this way and you won't notice your body anymore. And I was like, oh, I left my meat bag. Like, that's wild. Yeah, it was very interesting. But I keep learning these new

things in psychedelics, right? And like, the way that I look at it is it's an onion that you continue to peel back. So a lot of times your first psychedelic experience could go very bad because that's the first layer of the onion, right? That's the first piece where you're dealing with that childhood trauma, where you're dealing with that those surface level emotions that are fundamentally inside of you that you've been bottling up. And now we're about to come out.

So that's where you really want to be guided, right? But after doing, I don't know, 20-30 guided ceremonies like then, I felt equipped. About two months ago, I had probably the most profound psychedelic experience of my life. I did 8 grams of mushrooms completely by myself, completely by myself because I felt equipped so that I could handle anything that would come up. And it was so profound. It was so crazy because I shed all the layers of Troy that is a dad, a business owner, this of

that you know, you have all. And the, the older you get and you have kids, like the more those layers are on and you forget who you were. And the best way I can describe it is I fell in love with myself again. Like I took myself on the best 4 hour date I've ever had with myself completely alone and I I felt equipped to handle it. But that shouldn't have been my first psychedelic. Experience. Right, like like that could have gone very. Grounds on your own like.

That's a huge. That's a heroic, yeah, massive heroic dose. Yeah. So like the starting point, the, the feeling comfortable starting with low doses and working your way up and dealing with some of those traumatic things. Cause like the first level for me, it's like the trauma, the identity, but then it goes a little deeper into like the meaning of life, the source, right? And then it goes a little bit deeper and each layer gets a little bit more profound.

But I mean, that's why they call it the work. Because we work through all the other trauma and like, get bullshit that we have that we carry, Yeah, in order to get to that. Yeah. And that's, that's the, that's the hard part. And that's where we really believe in guided, safe, take the right stuff at the right time, preparation, integration,

all of that stuff. So that's really what our mission has been is, is basically really understanding who the human is and then pointing them in a direction that we feel is the best to work with, the best in class to handle whatever it is you're looking to get out of, you know, a psychedelic regimen or a psychedelic experience. So. You're like the General practitioner that they go to to go, hey, who's the specialist? Where do I go to to go? The final is going to help me,

yeah. Yeah, But really understanding on a deeper level that 30 minutes, I mean, you can gain so much from someone if they can be honest in those thirty minutes about their life, their struggles, like who they are, maybe what they're taking, what they're doing, like that can be massively beneficial in that experience and really aligning

them with someone. Like you said, some people have certain traumas that really are cater to almost specific types of therapies or types of personalities in that to work with that, it's like you will gain the most value from this type of person. Yep, yeah, that's, that's been our, our, our mission for a long time now. My, my biggest thing is I find that the people who probably need psychedelics the most are the people that are the most

adverse to them. And this is the same thing with cannabis is like you had the image of the pothead, right? Like, oh, wait, I'm gonna smoke that. I know who smokes that those guys in the basement that don't do anything and they live in their parents house, right. And that was that was this initial stigma.

And like right now with psychedelics, it's like, oh, that's for like those people in leather vest that slackline and and live in Thailand and you know, like I'll do them and I'll want to quit my job and nothing, you know, nothing will matter anymore. And like, it's really like the soccer moms who are living, you know, their mundane lives, who just need to need to remember their spark, their inner joy, you know? Remember who they?

Are Yeah. These businessmen who just nine to five, they go, they go and, and and that's what we want to bring is like psychedelics to the masses where everybody feels comfortable doing. Like my avatar, I grew up Mormon as well. My avatar is my sister and my mom. If I could do MDMA with my sister and my mom like because they now feel like it's been normalized enough, Oh my God that would just be that. Would be amazing, yeah. Could you imagine doing?

It it's the same thing with like I think about that with my parents even like I've thought about it, man, how cool it'd be to consume cannabis or do like a micro dose with my parents or, you know, MDMA. Like what would those experiences in those conversations? And honestly it sucks because I had a conversation with my dad about this yesterday because one of my cousins, we talked about it like a couple weeks ago and she's going through therapy and

she's like it's interesting. I honestly don't feel like anyone in that side actually loves each other. Like I don't feel like. And and that side of our family is 160 plus people. We're massive from my grandparents down like. Mormons multiply like amoeba, Yeah. We are Mormons through and through. That's like, hey, can we pop out how many kids like, let's do it so. I've got five kids, rookie. Yeah, what? I have a small family. Those are rookie numbers. Balls rolling through California.

They. Be like Mormon bro. Yeah, right. That's exactly right. So but I look at that and I'm like, I would love to do those types of things with them. And looking at that and going, yeah, realizing most of my family has no idea what love is like. They don't love themselves. They don't love each other. So looking at that and going, how much of them could be healed in the right setting?

The right like, if they had someone to guide them, walk them through this, how many of these broken children would come outgoing? Hey, oh, my God. Like, I am so much more than I thought I was. And then they treat other people so much more because they see them differently. And like you said, it becomes the like we not an us and a them or like each of us as

individuals. That's like a we, you see their struggles, you feel their struggles and you're there for them, for those struggles because you're not judging them. It's no longer this like, Oh well, I'm better than you or this. It's like, no, you're human, I'm human, we're human. Like we're all going through this human experience together. And sometimes it's incredibly shitty and hard, and other times it's incredibly beautiful, but you can't experience that beautiful without the shitty and

the heart. But it's like we wear so many layers of this ego, of this struggle of life that we carry. And it's like how many rocks are in our backpack that we're carrying. Yeah, you know. One of the greatest things that I've ever done for my marriage is as I started going down this path, me and my wife started tradition where we'll get a hotel room every three months to six months. And we'll do a little bit of MDMA and we'll do a little bit of mushrooms and we will talk.

And like the last experience that we had when my son was really little, you know, she looked at me and she's like you. So we, I have two boys, right? And one was three and one was one. And she looked at me and she said, you need to hold Skyler more. And like, if she would have told me that on a random Tuesday, I'd be like, I'm a great fucking dad. Like, I do see all the things I'm doing. Do you see? Do you? Yeah, I I just would have gotten very defensive.

And you know, when she said it, in that moment, I was like, you know what? You're right. Because I feel like because you were the mother and this is a baby. Your responsibility is to this baby while I'm taking care of the three-year old who no longer needs you as much anymore. And I was able to analyze why I was doing it, what I could be doing better. And instead of a fight, it's this super profound moment that like the very next day, you know, it's like, I got Skylar.

I got Skylar. Don't worry about, I'll feed him. I'll feed him like, because I, I fundamentally understood where she was coming from and was able to shed my ego enough to be like, oh, you're right. And here are the reasons. You are right. And here's what I was thinking when I was doing that. 'Cause our ego gets in that way and it's like, what was their tone? What was this?

And it's like half of the time we take it way out of context and blow things way out of a proportion in something simple like that could have been like, you know, it turns into like, I'm holding him enough. Like, you don't think I'm a good dad. And you're like, versus just sitting and realizing where she's coming from, what she was trying to convey and going, oh, man, seeing more of the picture and going, yeah, I, I could do that. I like. And that's what you integrate

into your life. You go, OK, cool. Yeah, this is what I'm going to pull from this. I think about like the layers, you know, peeling off. But I'm also got this like, idea of rendering the fat, right? So if you've got the fat back on something like pork or something like that, you want to render that fat because then you get to the really tasty part. And that's, you know, the tasty part of life is being able to get these layers.

We become so calcified. And so, you know, we develop these calluses that just keep building over our emotions and our life and pain, right? Yeah, but but not just, I mean, we're protecting ourselves, but it's OK to be strong from that. It's OK to have those calluses, but to know that there's something soft inside. And I think we build it up so much that we don't allow ourselves to do that.

So by being able to have such a services such as what you guys are providing here, by being able to find the right guide that's going to be for your right situation and for what you're going through currently, that's immense. Especially now where it's becoming so popularized. It's it's getting to the point where it's going to be like in talks like CBD, like I don't want to go to 711 and get my dose. Like that's dose not give me give AM. Give me slushy.

Skittles and some MDMA. Yeah, I'll take I'll, I'll take the blue flavor and I will take the red flavor. And they're like, OK, like I don't even know what. I want Mountain Dew Baja blast. MDMA Slurpee. It's got to be. It's got to be like Nyquil. Like Nyquil is the only medicine out there that tastes like red or green 'cause there's no other way to describe it. It's just like this. Tastes like it. Does taste like? Right, so you just fall asleep.

But I wanted to ask you Viva, since you've you've been the the most experienced psychonaut. I have been thinking about this for a bit only because of Frank Herbert's Dune. So there is a mushroom expert. What's his name is it? Is it McKenna, Terence Mckenna's brother? Terence McKenna. It's the guy who wears the massive hat. He wears a hat and glasses, has the big beard Stamos. Seems Batman. No, no Stamos, Stamos, all stamens. All stamens. All stamens.

Yeah, sorry Aviva, they're they're getting me high so. We're just always a mistake with Troy but. You guys are a black belt. I'm a yellow belt in weeds. Oh, don't. Don't worry, man. Never go too far, man. We are. We're very responsible for that. You. Guys are my guides, so yeah. No, no, you should probably cut yourself off. But but in Frank Hubbard's Dune, this the, the guy was reading it back then and he knew Frank Herbert and he came to him and he, they were talking about the

blue juice of life. And he said, that's psilocybin tea. He goes, you created that the spice is from psilocybin. And he goes, you know, you're the only one who got that. Yeah, he's like, you're the first person who's ever noticed that. Yeah, and it was like psilocybin tea. I know that it can turn blue, but how's the experience compared to just eating the plant? Compared to just eating it. Tea versus.

Like, OK, so, so the issue with eating mushrooms is that it takes time to metabolize so that you're it's not going to hit your body. And like Troy was saying earlier, it's probably going to mess with your stomach. You're going to you're going to feel nauseous. It's not, it's not the end. It doesn't taste that great. What? It's delicious. Stop telling these people. Lies. If you grind it up, you can use cannabis grinder. You grind it up, you stick it in a tea bag or a tea holder.

You you, you steep it for like 1/2 an hour. You can add honey, you can add right sugar. You can do what you want. Some people add lemon, it's called lemon teking, which makes it even stronger. It's going to hit your body faster. I've heard that helps. And it metabolizes much more quickly. Yeah, Yeah, it does. Like I said, which was getting to that you're not nauseous on it as much. With the lemon juice you may.

Feel some nausea again, depending on the quantity that you've taken and you know your dosage and your comfort level and you know if you're used to feeling this in your body or not. But no, chances are you're going to navigate it a lot more smoothly and you feel the come on more softly, so it becomes something that you can lean into differently than if you're just chewing the stuff. The only way I do mushrooms that was lemon teking. Like the difference it's done on my stomach.

Yeah. So basically the the way that it works is like the lemon kind of pre digest the stuff that your stomach was going to have to digest. Yeah. So it's not the psilocybin itself, but it's everything else that's in the mushrooms like it. It kind of does the. Work of the microorganisms, yeah, interact with your gut Biome or something and I acid in advance. Lemon juice. In advance, Yeah, it's, it's, it's been once. I did it once. I was like, this is the only way I'm ever going to. Take.

I hadn't heard that before and I told a friend to try that because she was like, oh, every time I'd use mushrooms, I'm just nauseous or I throw up. And I was like, well, I heard lemon juice works, but it might make it work like more potent. So just be careful. But try that next time. And I get a video message from my buddy and his girlfriend and they're like, Oh my gosh, it's amazing. I don't feel sick at all. And I was like, well, that's,

I'm glad it worked for you. Like I've I've not tried that yet. So yeah, I've been really interested because I mean, you imagine having a picture of that in your in your fridge. Daddy, what's that blue juice over here? Can I have some of the blue juice? No. No, you're not talking to God today.

Yeah, seriously. I don't know, like I personally have had psychedelic experiences with my children who are adults, but but it's I don't mind giving them the blue juice like it's a it's an actual honor to it's an. Adult. I think that would be amazing. Kind of thing. To have that type of connected experience with them because I've done it with like a, a handful of close friends now and then, like here and there. I've done psychedelics with a

few. And I think in certain circles with the SAT setting and the people like that's OK. And it when my kids get old enough to the point that they're adults, I would love to have that experience with my children. Like MDMA, psilocybin, like those, 'cause I know, gosh, I know. I've never been the perfect parent. And how much that. They I'm glad he admitted it. The. First he keeps doing that. He sends me like memes, like I'm better than you.

And then he'll like send pictures of me doing stuff with his kids. He's like, were you you. Bastard religion is what did it because I was like this concept of God, this like perfect father. And then they looked at it and I was like, if he's the perfect father, I'm I'm nowhere near a perfect father. And if he's and I was like, and if he's the perfect father and I'm like this story that I've been told makes no sense. No, and I was like, that's AI cannot wrap this in my mind that

this is true. And I was like, that's a load of shit. And so since then, that like concept of that because I'm like, and and now I look at it and I feel like I am way more introspective about how I am with my kids. I am always the first one to go. I am sorry. I yelled, I snapped. Like I am sorry. My parents never apologize. Jesse's we talked about it. His parents didn't either. It was like, this is how you were raised. You got like smacked. You got like you were put in

your place. You were you did what you were told and like just how shit was. And so now I'm like looking at it going, yeah, no, I I'm not raising my children that way. And and still looking at it going like how many times that I just because of how I was raised, that it's a reaction and going I'm sorry, I reacted. I was not paying attention.

I was frustrated. All this was going on and and I'm sorry, like I'm still working on being a parent and like work with this through me because you know, if there's things that you're like dad, like tell me because I know I'm not perfect and I'm the first one to go. Hey, I fucked up like I'm sorry. Yeah, he says it a lot.

That's that's one of the best parenting things you can you can do. I think a lot of children get fucked up is when they think they're their father, their parent figures are the end all be all right. Yeah. And they know exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. And when I don't do it, I get yelled at and they know everything. And then those people, like they don't realize until they have kids like, oh, my parents are just a bunch of idiots trying

the best that they could. Why didn't they tell me that earlier? Like the earlier that you can look at your child and relate 1 to one as human rather than parent to kid is is. Very. So many times they come to me. Dad, do you know this? No, actually, I don't. Let's let's go find this out together because I don't have to know everything. Yeah, I'm older. Yeah, I've been around longer. But I'm not the end all be all. I'm not God. I'm not whatever you want to think of that is, I'm Brandon.

I'm this guy who's figuring life out as he goes, and I'm still figuring life out. I have no idea and as new data and information come along I go oh shoot look I was incorrect. I learned something new today. They. Yeah, I mean, you know, I this is reminding me of a book I recently listened to on near death experiences. It was he was on, there was a guy, he was on Shawn Ryan's podcast and it was awesome. I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this. And I smoked a lot of cannabis

while I listened to this book. And you know, that, that idea of thinking about a perfect, you know, I'm not perfect. And, and a lot of, you know, religions across the board, they all want, they had this idea of you need to be perfect and you're not worthy enough, you're not good enough. You, you, you'll never be there. And a lot of people feel that like within, you know, in Utah, the, the predominant faith of, of the LDS Church, that's what's the, the idea that people get.

But when I listened to this book, it took all these near death experiences over a / 30 years and the commonalities they found in it. And the closest thing that I, what they were talking about is the same feeling that I have on psilocybin, which was absolute acceptance, absolute love. And that's what every single person talked about in those near death experiences where we envision whatever the greater entity, whatever you want to call them, them whatever is,

it's nothing but light and love. There's no judgement, there's no anger. There's only like the way they described it was the most intense love you've ever felt in your life. And I, I feel that we get a touch that when we use psychedelics, just for a moment, imagine if that was all the time ever expanding. I mean, that'd be crazy. Somebody's like, look, dude, if you, if you take mushrooms, your, your love is just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

If you go in with the right intent, the right person to guide you, like you just had the happiest people walking around. Like, I feel nicer. Like Brandon rode with me. I am the most passive driver ever. Oh, you go ahead, Sir. Somebody over there getting real angry. I'm like, hey, take care. And they're hitting your horn. For you, I I never hit my horn. I rarely hit my horn even if I'm at a stop light and and the guys over there dinking around on this phone going who, who

messaged me? Jesse's like he'll finish the text soon. He's like. Fuck it up. I'm like, I'll wait like for like 5 to like, all right, just a little. And they go, oh, you know, 'cause I feel that I'm just like, oh, I'm so sorry. And, and allowing people to get in line at the grocery store, they just got that look on their face saying, Hey, you need this more than I do.

It just puts you in this sense of and, and I, and I say this too to a lot of people, I was like, it put you in this Christ like sense where you're just like, I'm going to be loving, I'm going to be caring. I care about all of you, all of you are important. That's where I mean, you know, Brandon bringing me into, you know, cannabis. I mean, like I started telling him like, you know, early on when we started really hanging out, I'm like, hey man, I love

you. And it was like a light went off on him. He goes, I love you too, man. We every day we talk, which can be multiple times a day, every time we get off the phone like, hey, I love you bro, love you too. And I've spread that to other people. And now I have people like I just met this new guy yesterday and we're talking it's all business stuff and, and I just say hey man, I love you. And he's like, I love you too. Like so excited.

And I feel that's the same way with psilocybin, like we're people need to be in that environment. You can't get love in 7-11 out of a bag that's sealed by the counter that's in Raspberry. You just can't. You mean charity? Well. Shit, I changed everything. I was just like, you know, what, if it's, you know, if it's that you're like, but if it's cherry like shit, man, to come off like Kobe Bryant's in there in the Staples Arena, right, Just you're like, I'm ready to I'm

ready to play ball. Like, no, it's it it definitely you need that. You really need that guide into Sage, if you will, somebody that can really help you through that process and and allow that stigma to fall off of you. And that's what I love about these communities. It's not like you're going to run into each other at the supermarket locally going. I know what you do on Saturdays. Like it's it's just a community. You just know each other.

It's like when Brandon and I joke around about it with potheads, like if you go anywhere in the world and don't even speak the language and somebody is smoking some Chiba, you go and they go, oh, yeah, yeah, they'll share it with you. And all of a sudden you're friends. Yeah. It's like with psilocybin. If somebody knows you do it, they go. They they welcome you. Like what? What Christians believe, how they'll be welcome when they come into church. Yeah, come on.

Hey, what's up? Oh, it's. So good to see you. How you do. I love you. Yeah. Yeah, we have this. I do this bed circle like once a month where we take psilocybin, but like the after doing a few times, I was like, man, I think this is what church was trying to do. I, I like we support each other. We talk about what everyone's going through.

There's genuine love. Everybody wants the next person to just be a little bit butter and you could feel it and like, I grew up going to Mormon church and I was very bored, but right like I, I. Got the market to be to do. I I give the feeling they were trying to invoke, but I've just found for me this much more real way of doing it that now has become my more or less my religion.

I've never done psilocybin and gone to church, but I've definitely thought about it and I think that would be an amazing experience because I'm, I'm usually I, I have cannabis in my system when I go because I'm like, look, people are going to say things are going to be pretty ignorant. That's OK, you need to let that go. I'm like, all right, so I go and they'll say something. And normally I'd be like, that was dumb. Like now I'm just like, well, I wonder.

I wonder why that experience has his attention. That's all I think now. But it is it because it comes down to compassion and right if we're full of opening our hearts up and it it it going back to what I was seeing before.

I don't know that psychedelics are the be all and end all for that, but you know, if it's done intentionally, if it's like if it's indicated for you and your body, if you're capable of doing this, and if you're emotionally and psychologically whole enough to experience this and you don't have to be whole, you just don't be whole enough, then absolutely. Like, can it tap you into a deeper level of love?

You know, a consciousness of divinity, a sense of belonging on. Self love like previous to psychedelics, I honestly, I, I know I had no self love. There was mirror work that I did and experience and in that moment, like just seeing myself in the mirror, I was bawling and I saw like I talked to myself and I was like in that moment I was judging myself. But then I saw who I was and I found that love and I was like this is horrible. How have I not loved myself at all?

And to see that and like to feel that difference, to find a love for yourself can reflect so much more outwardly when you find that. So again, like you said, if you're whole enough and you're in a good enough spot, you can find one that works well with you.

You can go through and find that for yourself and work through these things and come out as a more of you because those pieces that you think are missing that you're just perception is they're missing, so they're missing and so you're just allowing that to come back. The more we do it too right, the better we become at, at self regulating, at self healing, at seeing our beauty. We get to reflect that outwards

and that, that rubs off. That rubs off on the people we work with who we can say we love. It rubs off on our parents and our children. It rubs off on the drivers that we don't swear at, even though they don't know like it rubs off on, on, on the people in the line in front of us. It it makes it, it makes us it, it has the capacity to make the world maybe a little bit kinder, which I think we all need. Yeah, definitely. And and and I love what you said earlier too.

And, and I'm thank you for sharing that, that, you know, there was a time where you, you, it didn't make you nervous anymore and you just took it a lot more. And, you know, I, it reminds me of this one guy that I, I knew he's around here. He was involved with the business, doing really well, got really into ayahuasca. And he was, he was one of those guys like it's, it's better if

it's in the jungle. And he was going down so much that he had a psychotic break and he came back and, and I, and I worked, I worked 10 years in psych. So you, you have the ability to see other people through different lens 'cause you know it so well. It's not like, Oh no, no, this, you know, 2024 schizophrenia, so much more different than early 2000 schizophrenia. No, across the board it's been the same in the way that he was acting was mildly schizophrenic. And I felt so bad.

Where it's you fly too close to the sun and you're going to get burned. I have, I have a friend going through that right now. Like I was at an ayahuasca ceremony and someone said something really interesting about, you know, talk about preparation, integration. It's like some people are looking for altered traits and some people are looking for altered states. Which one are you looking for? But I had a buddy who got his psychedelics at like 40. Everything he did, he went to

the extreme right. So he's, it was just like, oh, you took 4G of mushrooms. I could take 12. Oh, you, you only do it once every three months. I'm going to do it every day for the next two weeks. Oh, you do this with ayahuasca. I'm going to have more. And it's like you're missing the point and you are starting to lose your minds. Like it's, that's not, it's not,

that's not what you're missing. The entire point of what this is is for, you know, And that's why, again, you should be working with someone who can help you and if you are that kind of person, also remind you like, well, you're missing the point a lot. 'Cause like you said, your very first thing where you're like, oh, I realized I was doing drugs

all wrong. Because when you use, there's a difference between like doing them recreationally or socially and then using it with like an actual experience. You use way less too. The medicine that you actually use is tons less. And so you're like the experience you get is way better, can be way more impactful and you're using like a portion of what you would otherwise. And it's like, again, it's like setting dosing. Like there's so much that goes

into everything for. That that's the epiphany I'm having right now is like when you, when you hear about, like when you're taking it, It's what's the oh, damn it, damn marijuana. Got it. No, no, no. No, but I had something there. Damn it. It was actually pretty good. It was good. Now it's gone. It's gone, it'll come back. I have a good feeling about. It no, no, I Yep, it's gone. You know what? It probably wasn't meant to be anyway. Let's think like no Jesse. That's way too meta.

Stop being a pretentious Dick head. Hold on. We're. Going to do. We're going to do a recap. Let's get you back here. We talked about doing way too much. Then we talked about the reasons for doing it and the setting and what your intentions were. And then you were about to. Say, oh, yeah, you know what the guy going over there talking about like, I got to do more than you. I got to do more than this one. You know, nobody's going to do that with calcium and with

magnesium calcitrate. Like, no one's going to take like I'm going to drink the entire bottle. And not only that, but the insides of my colon are going to look like steel, a brush steel, because it's going to clean me out. It's going to be beautiful. And that's the thing, like when when you're doing that, just like, whoa, what? Like I still hold myself at, I, I have a moderate tolerance. Yeah.

That's why I don't want to think of as tolerance, because a tolerance is being able to accept a poison into your body and still not feel the effects. So I want to be able to elevate myself based on this certain dosage because this is all I need, right? You don't. I mean, dude, pizza's delicious, but you don't need to eat the entire pie. You can have one or two slices and just be happy. Well, maybe that's the intent behind it is you know when. You weigh.

Out specifically your dose it's you know I've got this intent so it's a micro dose it's this small of a dose it's it's 1g yeah you know but how often do you have the intent that you're taking an 8g trip yeah you know so. Just once. That's a, that's a planned event, yeah. So maybe that intent has, but it depends on the person. There's, like you've said, so many people just, hey, well, I'm going to eat a handful of mushrooms. I'm just going to take this

mushroom. Do you even know how much it was? Yeah. Like there's so much they can go into it and you're like, well, was it 1/3 of a gram? Was it a gram and a half? Like what was the dosage? And what strain was it? Exactly. How did you consume it? And like all of that matters and people don't know.

So I agree. I but it goes back to what I was saying before around non like non specific amplifiers, because if you're a really competitive personality that has to prove that what you're doing is better than what other people are doing, you're gonna fall into that kind of trap without the proper preparation that you know, oh, here I am. I've got to prove that I'm better at psychedelics as well. So like, and, and to Troy's point, it is true.

I mean, it's not ultimately those are the habits that we're trying to break, not trying to solidify. And if we're not careful, we can find ourselves solidifying the habits we don't want to be solidified. I mean more of, you know, more rigid or more judgmental or more competitive, so. What I found, what I found kind of ironic about psychedelics is the more I've done them, the less I need them and the less often like. Now I now I call it. I do, the less I do.

Like a refresher, like I've had these profound realizations in my life that now I know inherently and I just need a reminder every once in a while, you know, like that that's all it is. I just need a top off to just just remember like, oh, you know that thing that you fundamentally know now. Like, you know, like a prime example of when I was talking about the five MEODMT, like I have this realization that I needed to take better care of myself on a trip a long time ago.

And the five MEODMT was just like, Hey, remember that? Like, like, don't forget that thing that you inherently knew before. And it was like, oh, thanks. Like good. I I'm good for the next. Thanks. Hire me. Yeah, I'm good for the next year or six months or whatever it quote UN quote calls you back. But like I don't it's not like I crave it. I know when I I just need to remember again, if that makes sense.

Could you feel it? And it's like, Oh yeah, I should, I should probably check back in with the mushrooms. Yeah, I need a little reminder. Yeah, it's the least competitive thing, right? I mean, that's funny, you know, people saying I can do more psychedelics than you can. It's like that's psych flexing. I mean, cool. I I guess like that. That's neat. My ego's more dead than your ego. I drink more water. I I drink more water than yours. I don't even have my ego's on the cross.

Look at my eyes. There's. Still been laying. Here for a week. Completely. Black once I, I remember a friend saying something like, you know, oh man, I took all this LSD and like my third eye opened and like I was in touch with God and like, like I, I just need to take more. And my son, my youngest says like, well, with his third eyes open, where else is he going to go? Like, isn't he done? And at some point you do, you have to start asking why. Why am I doing this?

That's like drinking a whole bottle of of laxative right there again and my butt hole opened. Up and the. Sights fell out. That reminds me of the story when we were in Denver at the MAPS conference, and we were at that bar and the guy was like, yeah, I'm writing a book. I've done LSD every day living in my van, and I want to do it for 365 days. And he was just saying it from this, you know, this kind of noble place. And if he just looks and goes, why the fuck would you do that? Yeah.

And, and like, he generally didn't have, like, he was thrown because most people were like, oh, that's incredible. You must be so enlightened. And he really didn't have an answer. Yeah, because who asked you that? It's always like, oh, we don't want to go. That's fucking weird. What? That's awesome. Yeah, I love to think. About that mental health that reminds me of like the scene in Goodwill hunting where the guys starting to be, you know, super smart and she's Matt Damon going

over there going fuck you. You know, you like apples. How do you like them apples? You know, she's just like, that's so stupid. Like why would would you do? That and it's also like it comes back to safety too, like what we started guides collective. The challenge that we're going to have this next generation of psychedelic use is a lot of people like that, do it a few times and they're like, oh, I got it all figured out. It's time for me to give it to

other people. And like that's fundamentally dangerous, right? So like the guides that we have on our network, it's you go through a serious screening process. We talk to the people that you've worked with. It's what school did you go to? How long you've been doing it? How many ceremonies have you run? Are they in groups? Are they by themselves? What medicines do you focus on? What's the education you had behind that medicine?

We make sure of all those things because again, you can go out and have a good trip and say, wow, that was fun. I want to give it to someone. That person has severe trauma that they didn't talk about and all of a sudden you're both on mushrooms and someone is freaking out and nobody knows what to do, right. And that's, that's how this, this whole movement goes backwards again.

So that's why we really just want to focus on getting the right people to the right people that can help and do the right medicines and in the right doses and in the right setting. And yeah, it's been our our focus, our mission. I love this. So we are able to find, so you guys have a website, everything. We'll put that down into the show notes. We don't have to go over all of that. What's the one thing that you would tell our audience of being?

I mean, we've we've talked about everything kind of really in depth, but I want to be broad here, just kind of like a, a mental flash card for somebody. What's something that I need to look out for and not trust in somebody who says, let me guide you through your experience? So I don't think there's just one thing you wanna, you wanna make sure that any guide you're

looking for is properly vetted. Just because they've had a pause, like they have people that they've worked with well in the past, doesn't mean that they're going to continue or maintain an ethical standard. So you want to make, look, I recommend speak to other people that they've worked with, but you might also want to make sure that there's like a criminal

background check. And you want to make sure that they adhere to certain ethical standards, that they have a certain amount of training and that they have a certain amount of experience and that they understand, you know, contraindications and medical knowledge or that they have access at least to somebody with medical knowledge. Ask them what you know, what their protocol or practice would be if there's an emergency. Right. Like the same. Like the same.

Like we go for a second opinion when we're given a diagnosis because we want to make sure that this is accurate. This is equally as important. Ask more than one person, speak to several people. Ask a lot of questions and there isn't a dumb question. If you're not comfortable, trust yourself. The other thing, like their intake process matters a lot. So if someone just goes, sure, I'll give you mushrooms, let's do it, That's a problem.

Like an intake should be robust. They should speak to you for an hour. They should ask you what medications you're on. They should want to know what you're trying to get out of it. They should give you like two weeks of preparation, tell you what your diet should be like. There should be just a lot more in that intake process. And the more robust that is, the better feeling you should have

with. It that gives a sense of, of comfort because I, I, my mind goes to, I mean, my ADHD brain just skipping all over the place. But I laughed because I thought of this one old episode of The Simpsons where the whole family goes to Duff Gardens, right? Amusement park that has flowing beer everywhere. That's, that's awesome. That place would stink. But but Lisa falls into the river, and they pull her out and

she's hallucidating. And there's this guy, and he's got a lab coat on. And he goes, OK, she'll be fine. Just give her these, these and then all of these. And it's like a handful, just a giant thing of pills. And she goes, oh, thank you, doctor. And he goes, oh, I'm not a doctor. Yeah. And it was like, that's how you should eat. I mean, that's like, again, that's like going to the doctor's office.

And he's like, hey, turn around. I have to put my finger in your ass because I got to check something out. And you're like, OK, And then he like. And then he comes over there and goes, all right, Doctor will be in to see you in a little bit. Who's that guy? I don't know what's going on you. Didn't realize you were at the dentist the whole time. What's? Going on. Right. It's like a Saturday life skit where I keep telling this guy to cough and then this other lady

comes in, he goes here. What do you think? She goes turn your head and cough goes again. And then the other guy comes in. He goes, hey man, you got to come check this out. Go ahead, hold it over there. And he coughs and then they all hold it in a unison and he's coughing. And then this guy comes in, he goes, hey, what the hell are you guys doing in here? They're all get out of here. It's up and they're like, that guy's the real Doctor Who came in.

And it's just like, that's the way I I'm thinking about it. Like, would you trust somebody just because they give the perception that they know what they're talking about, that they know what they're doing? I think the safety part is extremely important because when we're looking at this from a broad scope, from so many people being accepting and seeing this now in mainstream, I mean, in Utah, it was just legalized for

medical use. And so we'll see this start to materialize and it'll be interesting to see because there's so many people that are looking for answers. They go to Western medicine, they go to diet and try to make these changes. But it all starts in the Gray, right? I mean, it's, you know, every other organ we have in our body science pretty much knows what it does. But the brain, they have ideas of what it does, but we truly have no idea where.

It's so complex and so crazy. It's it, it's just when you're using something to be able to help or to experience, right? Either it's conscious, you know what, what was it? It was a state or a. Altered states or altered traits? Yeah, altered states, altered traits, like thinking about that and having a guy being able to work with you on that. Like what are you seeking? What is it that you would want? Like I want to experience an altered state. OK, why instead of going cool?

Right. Yeah, it was kind of interesting because even when we started this business, like my, my business before this, like I'm an Internet marketer, right? So like even building the website, like, OK, everything needs to be easy and seamless And the least, the least amount of questions about like thinking of like how to sell a toaster, right? And like in making this like if you work with us, you're going to fill out a long form that

takes a little bit of time. If you're a guide that wants to work with us, it's a pain in the ass. Like you, it's, it's a lot of work. And you know, when I stepped back and got out of my Internet market mind, I'm like, no, this is, this is what we want. Like it's This isn't supposed to be easy. Like it's supposed to be done right? With intent. Yeah, with intent. And that's really what we want to focus on is.

Just yeah, you don't want that impulse by like I know being an intermarketer Internet marketer for years too. It's just, yeah, that's the goal, like less amount of words. Use the most potent psychological tactics you can to be able to influence them, to make them feel the FOMO. Like this isn't a FOMO thing. That's not like everybody's like, hey, you. Yeah, you look like you have problems. Come here, come inside. All right, Eat these and sit over there.

Don't worry. Just look at the ceiling. We've painted it root and swirly. You're like I, I don't know if I should be doing this course. You should. That guy has a lab coat over there. Just turn your head and cough turn your. Head and cough. Well, it's like, it's like what we talked about before, like one of the funniest things we have with this podcast is like I literally said to people, I'm like, I get out of things and I go and they'll go, hey, you can't do that.

I'm like, that's OK. I have a podcast and they go, OK, OK. So I mean it just shows that people are are it's not gullible. They just are so quick to trust authority. Yep. So if you're going to have some of the authority going, wait a minute. Like, like recently, OK, Like I'm in the coaching world and Jay Shetty, There's a huge thing out on Jay Shetty, which is funny because people have been saying about this for years.

And he takes other people's inspirational quotes and then puts it and then puts it as he he said it. Doesn't even change a word. No, he could have written the 10 commandments, put it on a tweet and then said Jay Shetty gonna be like, oh, well, I have been fooled for years. Who wrote this nonsense? It was this guy here, clearly the British man with blue eyes and he looks Indian and he's a monk supposedly, but doesn't matter.

Like that's something you should check because even though somebody could have the best intentions, have a skill set if you will, they still should be considered more taking this on a, dare I say a professional level because these people are looking for that. They don't want to have this like one experience. I heard of this guy. I mean, he said it was a very beautiful experience, but I could only imagine it'd be weird. I think he's like ACPA and he was very LDS and he was growing

it in his office. And then one day he just locked his door and did 5G and he stripped himself naked, got underneath the blanket and stayed there for the next 4 hours. And he was like, and he went through a lot of childhood trauma in that time and came out just like, oh, and his biggest fear, it wasn't even the childhood trauma. I can't tell my wife, I can't tell my kids. They would think so low of me.

And it's, it's just like you said with your sister and your mom, you're like, oh, we could be connected so much more and you would understand. You would understand. And that's that that's the that allure to it. It's this this mirage that's in the in the in the far distance. You're going. OK, well, yeah, maybe I could touch it, but that sounds scary. Yeah. It, it materializes. It becomes real. Yeah. This is awesome. This has been great. This has been fantastic.

Thanks for coming on the show you guys. It was the pleasure was all ours guys. The the second I met you, Justin was like, oh, I love him. I love him. We shall be friends. Yes. So yeah, it was it was awesome coming out here. Well, and, and we appreciate you guys coming out. We'll make sure to put all the links over there. If you are looking to try psychedelics, if you're interested in what psychedelics can do for you, if you're looking for a guide, you guys go

down there. Click on the link to be able to get in touch with these amazing individuals. And who knows, maybe your next psychedelic journey will be the best you've ever experienced. Brandon, parting words. Guys, everyone at Home Pay Transporters, we love you guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. As always, see you next week.