Thank you . Medicines and the impact they've made among the countless psychonauts exploring the last true frontier . Buy a ticket and take the ride with me as we get true first-hand accounts of the experiences , benefits , risks and transformations taking place within the ever-expanding world of psychedelic medicines .
On this One Time , on Psychedelics , when I think of all my psychedelic experiences and the tools that have come in the most handy during these experiences , no realm comes to mind quicker than that of somatics .
Somatics , said simply , is any practice that uses the mind-body connection to help you survey your internal self , and today's guest in the show is an expert in this realm .
Her story is one which is steeped in overcoming her own challenges , utilizing this work , which allowed her to truly discover just how powerful the realm of somatic work is , and , as a result , she has made it her mission and life's work to educate the world far and wide surrounding how to get that perfect synchronization between mind and body back in their lives ,
so that they too can tap back into the heaven on earth that occurs and we can find balance within our minds and bodies and spirit . So please give me a big hand in welcoming my dear friend , Catherine Smallis to the show . Oh , catherine , I am so excited to have you here with me today .
You know , as I said in the intro , we got connected from our mutual friend , shaker what an amazing , amazing guy . And you know I probably shouted him out on this podcast about 25 times now . You know I thought I was a connector when I met Shaker and that kid .
I remember we were at Paul Cech's house and he was just like , hey , would you mind if I connected you with a couple of people ? And I was like , oh sure . And now , three years later , it's still ongoing . You know you're the latest one that I've been connected with , so it's amazing to have you here .
We're going to dive into a lot of juicy stuff on the podcast , but where I like to start these episodes out , just for context for everyone listening is you know , when you think about psychedelic medicines and you can take this any different way you want to but how did you first get interested in the idea of psychedelic medicines ?
Now , what I really want to say here also before I just give you the floor to answer , is you know , knowing your background and knowing what you've been into , I imagine you may be similar to me where , before you ever actually did a psychedelic .
You were already open to a psychedelic reality , and what I mean by that is looking to live a life that's a little bit different , or a lot of bit different than people around you , starting to see behind things that maybe others weren't seeing behind , maybe being told you were too much as a kid , these kind of things right .
So I'm curious for you how you first got introduced to psychedelic medicines , and did that start from you living in a psychedelic reality even from a young age ?
Yeah , that's actually a really . I've never thought about it in that way , but I remember being like eight years old having conversations with my friend's parents about aliens and saying like there's no way that we're the only species in this galaxy . I just I wouldn't buy that .
And so then I had a really hard time with religion or these strict constructs of what was reality and where we came from and all this stuff . I just never bought it . So probably from the age of eight , I was like really rebellious in my thoughts and I was very vocal about them . But it wasn't until I was actually in medicine .
I was like in the hospital system , working in Western medicine , that I was like these drugs that we're giving people are not helpful . I was like these drugs that we're giving people are not helpful . Whatever we're doing here , even the environment of being in the hospital is not helpful at all .
And so I started to question even the medical system , and so breaking away from traditional medicine allowed me to expand , I would say . At that point I had a medical awakening and then I was like where does healing happen ? I don't really even know why I started exploring with psychedelics .
I think my first experience with cannabis was in college , but I didn't do mushrooms until probably like mid twenties , and once I tried mushrooms I was like , oh , this is , this is where it's at .
This is matching every thought that I've had , and like giving me so much confirmation of everything that I thought when I was little and like I was like , oh , got it , this is what we need .
I love that , you know , and I'm so glad I asked to because I find that to be a correlation between a lot of people that come on this show is that , you know , psychedelics really just validated for us what we already were aware of , but maybe we were told didn't exist .
Maybe we were gaslit by people around us that maybe did not see the things that we were seeing . So maybe in that respect it wasn't intentional gaslighting .
But again , for a lot of us I know , for me I was obsessed with the paranormal aliens , all of those things , and typically what I found is that most people that do not like psychedelics don't really like to think about that stuff . Right , they like to think they have everything figured out , that life is just A plus B equals C , right , All good to go .
Whereas for me and I imagine for you as well and for many people that come on the show we actually find more safety , more care , more security in the unknown , in realizing that none of this is ever going to be figured out . We don't know anything , and actually in the unknown , in realizing that none of this is ever going to be figured out .
We don't know anything and actually that's what keeps us safe , you know . But it's funny that you mentioned the mushrooms in your mid-20s thing , because I was 23 the first time I tried mushrooms , and you know . It's so funny that you know for you and , of course , most people , I imagine , listening to this show that have done mushrooms and psychedelics .
There's a funny quote that's been going around , which is the people that rule the world have not done psychedelics , and those that have done psychedelics know why that's an issue , you know it's like one of those things that you can't really understand unless you've done it , and it's really hard to describe through words , because what you experience is beyond words .
But it is so , so powerful and impactful in one's life if done consciously , responsibly and with some sort of intention that allows you to contextualize that experience , or those experiences , within the bigger picture of your life . You know , it's really cool .
Yeah , that was very well said . Yes , yes to all of that .
And you know one thing I'm really curious on for you to considering . I you know what you're doing with so much amazing stuff , working with highly stressed out individuals , you know , on a range of different things , from limiting beliefs and subconscious challenges and things of that nature . You know I'm curious for you in your own life .
You can also extrapolate this out into anyone you work with if you want to . What have you found the utility of things such as psychedelic medicines to be within the space of subconscious reprogramming , limiting belief work , even stress as a whole ?
Right , because if you really think about it and this is how I like to contextualize anyway is that most stress is just limiting beliefs , stories , et cetera , created in the mind , right Programming , patterning , et cetera . You know , of course there can be more physical things as well . I mean , you'd know more about that than I would .
But I'm just curious for you , like what you found the utility of psychedelic medicines to be within those spaces , whether it be for yourself or for those you serve as well .
Yeah , and if we're talking about leaders and them needing to do psychedelics , and why I specifically specialize working with high-stressed professionals , leaders in the space , because when you're in the position of influence , like these leaders that really need to do psychedelics , you're oftentimes from a nervous system state very dysregulated .
Or , yeah , when you're in a high stress state you're in survival mode , so you stop losing the ability to think about the we and you're focused more on the me . So the way that they're leading has this undertone of survival , fear-based programming which , yes , there's a time and place for that Fear helps to move large populations in a specific direction .
So there's maybe a manipulative way that leaders know this , the media knows this and that's just the way to manipulate and control a population .
Or maybe they're just not aware of the impact that their own internal environment is having on the greater population Because , again , from a nervous system standpoint or from an emotional intelligence standpoint , we're all very much connected .
Unified field theory shows us that all of our electromagnetics are connected and so these leaders and leadership positions are actually regulating the people that they're leading to tune to their own emotional state , so like they are the strongest if you're looking at the magnetics of their influence their heart and their heart rate variability is the strongest magnet that
influences the people around them , so they're like the tuning fork of the people that they leave , the people that are in their space , and if they're coming from a really dysregulated place or a place of a lot of stress , they're actually impacting everyone that they lead to get into that emotional state .
Yeah , that makes perfect sense .
Yeah , and these leaders , if you're in your own suffering , if you're in a high beta brainwave state , however , you want to say that they're just like dysregulated . That is the collective frequency that's happening at a greater scale . So then we are all the collective frequency and a greater scale .
So then we are all the collective frequency , like globally , of our leaders , of these people in power . So just , it's crazy to know how connected we all are and what are we tuning ourselves to ?
Talk about psychedelics without needing psychedelics right , like that , right there , like that's what , like I , you know , met in the beginning , and I know you'll vibe with this too Like the idea that we are all connected , and to me it's not even an idea , it's a knowing , like I know that to be true for my own subjective universe .
But like , at the end of the day , like even that awareness , right , the going from singularity to that unified viewpoint of the world , is such a psychedelic thing I mean think about , like , at least for me . I'm not sure for you , I won't speak for you , but you know psychedelics .
I always had an inkling that , like you know , spirituality was a thing I always kind of knew , like I always resonated with it . But intellectual knowledge versus experiential understanding are two totally different things .
And you know what you're talking about is so accurate that a lot of the time , like you know , even recently , I was starting to feel very dysregulated and I started to increase my meditation in the morning to try to figure out what was going on .
And the downloader idea , as I like to call it , that I got was you're feeling a lot of what's happening in the collective right now .
You know , you're just tapping into that and feeling into it and so , like , what an amazing opportunity for people like you to teach these leaders how to not only regulate their own nervous systems but , I imagine , also become aware of , like , what is theirs , what they're tuning into that may just be from the collective and to become aware of that , because I can
remember many times in my life that maybe that was happening I'm not sure , but I wasn't aware of it enough and there were times where I would have an outburst or things like that and then I would have to go back and apologize later and things of that nature .
Now , again , when you're an individual human in a romantic relationship or in a friendship or whatever , and that happens not the biggest deal in the world but if you're a leader influencing millions of people and you have one of those days , what can be the diminishing return of that ? I imagine quite a bit .
Yeah , and just to expand on that , I'm just typing notes here that I'm like it yeah . And just to expand on that , I'm just typing notes here that I'm like , yes , yes , yes , because it's like let's break down what is dysregulation . It's this term that's being thrown out and you're like , okay , yeah , I think I'm dysregulated . Because what is that ?
You know , and to me and in my field of study , dysregulation is the inability to find and self-resource a state of peace , calm , like these renewing , regenerative emotions . Dysregulation is like pinging off of different nervous system states that create a sense of chaos .
So what that might look like for people who are listening that is like a tangible identifier is maybe you emotionally suppress . You don't even know how you're feeling ever . You don't even go there , you don't allow yourself to experience emotions . Probably dysregulation happening there because you're suppressing so much energy that wants to move .
That also might look like an emotional outburst . Like an emotional outburst , emotional reactivity or fatigue , low libido there's various spectrums of where you could be , but they're at the extreme of emotional suppression .
Disregulation is the inability to self-resource safety , which creates a lot of maladaptive patterns , behaviors , thought , trains , personality , traits that then ripple out into your external experience .
I'm so glad you went into that because it is true , right , we hear these terms thrown around quite often and a lot of times I think we can think we understand them , but at the end of the day , like you know , going back and reminding ourselves of what those things mean is so important , because if we forget what they mean when we start using them , they get
lost in the sauce and , in a way , right , that's a perfect example of as within , so without . Of course , a lot of us would throw this term around without understanding it , because think about what a dysregulated nervous system is .
Right , it's the lack of understanding and being aware enough of your own self to be able to mitigate feelings of , you know , challenge , anxiety , paranoia , depression , whatever it may be .
And I love what you said there about you know really closing off , suppressing all of these different ways in which you can show up , because I think for a lot of us , especially in the psychedelic space too , that's a lot of where the quote unquote bad experiences can come from . Now , again , they're not bad actually at all . They're actually really useful .
But I think for a lot of people , if they're unaware of that and then they go fuck around and find out with a psychedelic like , yeah , it can be very challenging , you know for sure , and there is like definitely a diminishing return . Right , we don't want to cause nervous system breakdowns and things of that nature .
You know , one of the things I found very interesting is , you know , cannabis is one of my big things that you know I teach about and things of that nature , and one of the interesting things was discovering that the ECS , the endocannabinoid system , actually controls and regulates the nervous system , and so you know a lot of people that are going to a lot of
cannabis over and over again . You know , what I've really been able to find out in my own little theory here of working with people is that they're really just looking to find a calm , a state of being that is calm , and they may actually have a defaulty endocannabinoid system , a dysfunctional , deficient one , etc .
And I imagine there are many things like that that could cause that , right from glyphosate in our food to things of that nature .
You know , what are some things that immediately pop to your mind that are good , uh , dysregulators when it comes to the nervous system that maybe some people that are listening are interacting with , and I imagine this could be anything from too much coffee to you know pornography to anything in between .
But I'm just curious what some of the things that immediately pop into your mind or heart could be .
That's a that's a complex question and the first thing that came up to me first when you first started talking is people have to be able to feel a visceral , felt sense of safety and peace in their body first .
Everything is potentially dysregulating because it's a stressor that you're experiencing during the day , so you could potentially always be dysregulated by anything that's causing any sort of sympathetic activation , and by sympathetic activation it's just the feeling of a stress response , like how many different stressors are thrown at us at any given moment .
Talk about going on social media and just like scrolling everything on there can potentially be dysregulating if you don't have a relationship with what safety and peace feels like in your body . And another story just came up A preacher came .
I think I might have been telling you this earlier , but like a preacher came and knocked on my door and he was asking , like do you think that we could live in the kingdom of heaven ? And I was , like you know , funny . You should say that because I go around the world , literally and do a similar sort of like .
I'm teaching emotional intelligence and nervous system regulation , which , when you know those things , like you get into a state of unity and peace and love for all , which is kind of the same concept that they teach in religion , but not religious Right .
And I said well , you know , you're going door to door to ask people if they have , if they believe that we can experience the kingdom of heaven , but you don't .
If people don't understand what that feels like in their body , they're just playing off of the basis of what somebody else is telling them is the thing that they're supposed to experience , but they don't actually know what that is . And just to further explain that it's like we're trying so hard to create peace in the world .
Yeah , so somatic integration is all about seeing that . Yes , it is the mind . It's how the mind is interpreting different experiences .
But you have to be able to viscerally feel and be okay with maybe doing nothing , not have to like self-medicate with any sort of stimulus , whether it's pharmaceuticals or psychedelics , some sort of stimulus on social media , like how many of us actually are okay , and like the experience of our internal environment .
Yeah , that's a mic drop right there , because that is .
I mean , I really think that obviously everything in life is multifaceted , but if we could just take that and extrapolate it , I think that's the main challenge we're seeing in the world , because you can't connect , you can't figure out your why , if you're in a dysregulated state , you can't figure out who and what you know you really resonate with in the world ,
what things you want to do . All of it rests on your ability to find safety within yourself and to also be able to be still , because you know , I always get this , um , this like analogy of a snow globe , right that most of us , when we're kids , we see a snow globe and the fun is to shake it up , you know , and make it go crazy .
And so I think a lot of us , when we are growing up and we're witnessing the adults around us and the members of society around us , just run like crazy , get more coffee , etc , etc . We kind of fall into that like , oh , that's the point of society around us . Just run like crazy , get more coffee , etc . Etc .
We kind of fall into that like , oh , that's the point of this , right , the point is to shake the snow globe up , but it's not until you actually can allow that snow globe to settle that you can see like , oh wow , there's a beautiful picture in there that I can really benefit from looking at .
You know , and I really feel like that analogy has stuck with me for a long time because it's definitely something I've gone through . One of the main reasons why meditation is a non-negotiable for me is that every single morning I wake up and the voice in my head says you don't need to do it today , man , you actually feel fine , you're totally good .
And it's such a thirst trap because if I give into that , undoubtedly there's going to be something that throws me off . And then there'll be every excuse coming through my mind of why no , you have to handle this right now . You can't go meditate , you can't just get still , or you can do it after you get this done .
But once I get that done , then I get the dopamine going and I'm like well , I get these other three things done and before I know it now the story that I don't have enough time has come true From no other reason than I have created it , and this has been like a huge thing for me in my life that I've realized even in the past couple of years actually
I'll say especially in the last couple of years and starting a business , you know , having all of this come out because when I was working for someone else , it was easy to have okay , end of the day , is there , good , I'm going home . Now I would still find things to distract myself with at home , et cetera , et cetera .
But it was a lot harder to buy into the myth that I didn't have the time , because I did have time at night , I just would choose to do other things . But when I started the business , the stories became so much more believable , right , it's like well , you know , you're an entrepreneur , you have to be working constantly .
You know , if something comes into your email at 10 pm , you have to get back to it , right ? All these belief systems around what it meant to be a business owner now came out and strengthen the story that I don't have the time to slow down .
And so this has been a really big thing for me as well , and one of the many reasons I was so excited to have you on , because anytime I can speak with someone that is an expert at slowing down and finding peace and safety within . Those are people I like learning from , because I am an eternal student of this , especially being an Aries as well .
I think it's in my DNA to naturally have that ability to want to go faster and that's fun , like it can be good , but you know you're on , has no power until you learn to turn off . So that's something .
I've learned , and while you were saying that , like my body , my nervous system took the deepest breath because , yes , and I also wrote this concept of pendulation . So so many of us , especially leaders , are so used to that sympathetic drive to get things done , to accomplish , to do things .
But in the vortex of healing , which is a term that Kimberle Ann Johnson talks about , it's creating the opposite pendulum swing into a felt sense of safety .
So your meditation practice , when you say like I'm not going to do it , it is so detrimental because when you actually do it , you're creating a prophylactic resource of safety that actually allows you to have the capacity for potentially dysregulating experiences .
So you're creating enough safety in your body for the day to say , okay , there's going to be lots of things that happen , but I built this resource of safety , calm , energy , renewing resources to allow me to have more capacity for the day .
And if you actually don't do that , you're starting off like half of the amount of energy that you would have had if you didn't do that thing . So it's like a any sort of morning practice or or somatic practice . Whatever it is that you're doing is just creating more capacity for experiences , to create more resilience in your nervous system .
I love that you mentioned that , because another thing I've noticed and I've noticed that a lot of men , I imagine women , have it too in their own way or maybe a very similar way .
But one thing I've noticed with a lot of leaders I speak with and work with is that we end up undoubtedly with a morning routine that just becomes a checklist item , or a nighttime routine that just becomes a checklist item , or a meditation practice , breathwork practice , whatever , and we kind of forget what the reason is . We're doing it .
And I saw Alex Hermosi talking recently of like how he's like well , I don't do a morning routine , I just get up and go to work , right , and I see so many people in the comments being like oh my God , this is like totally revolutionary , oh my God .
And I'm like well , guys , that sounds good if you're looking at it through the lens of oh , he has more item to get a good accolade for the day and then go into our day and get stressed out . It's there as a safety protocol to make sure that we don't get overwhelmed throughout the day , that we become unfuck withable in a lot of ways .
You know and I'm glad you mentioned that because I think I know , for me I lose the plot . You know , and I imagine for many people listening they do as well . I'm like why am I even meditating ? Why am I doing breath work ?
And I've had to really like check in with myself over and over and over again to make sure that I'm not just doing it to be like , oh , I was a good boy . Today I get a checkmark . It's more of like no , I really understand what this is doing and what its importance is in my life .
Because if I don't get that and I don't understand that , then why am I really doing it ? Now we're just doing things to do them . We're not actually like embodying what the lessons and what the teachings and wisdom are within them . So yeah , it's really cool .
Yeah , and speaking of the Hermoses , I saw his wife Layla what's her name ? Yeah , yeah , she put a post . She's great , but she put a post up and it was like basically , like if I'm feeling stressed , I just I use that as an opportunity to lean into it and push harder .
And it's actually very detrimental if you're looking at the psychoneuroimmunology of that experience , which is just the effect of , like , your emotional state , what's happening in your mind , what's happening in your nervous system and how it impacts your health , especially long-term .
But the leaders that I see who have that mentality of like pushing yes , stress is important because it's a perturbative force that allows you to evolve , but pushing yourself .
If we look at the animal kingdom , there's no animal in the animal kingdom that can survive in a prolonged state of stress because it's pushing your nervous system to a capacity that it doesn't have the capability to sustain and so that leads to burnout , it leads to hormonal disruption , especially in females when they're not in sync with their cycle , and how that
is impacted by the stress response Overwhelm , long-term chronic illness .
When I was in the hospital , we'd get all these people who had these really ambiguous diagnoses and I'm like why is no one asking about their history of work or their stress response , like really understanding their nervous system or where they were at in their emotional state , because that mentality does lead to these really crazy complex chronic illnesses .
But it's really hard to also pitch somebody on like , hey , you're really stressed right now , you're really busy , and that's going to lead to more chronic illness down the road because they're hyper focused . When you get into a stress state you get tunnel vision and you're hyper focused on one thing . You can't see a broader perspective .
Yeah , psychedelics have been something that I don't personally administer , but I'm more of the integrative part of .
After they have a psychedelic experience , their view widens because it actually , you know , changes their brainwave state , allows them to get into a nervous system state that is not so hyper focused and hyper vigilant on one thing , allows them to see a wider perspective . Then I can start to work on integrative practices for behavior change .
I love that and I think you said it perfectly too , that , like in my experience anyway , what psychedelics do is I know that every once in a while I will end up losing the plot and going this way a little bit and it's kind of like a system reset , you know , is how I look at them .
You know , like every once in a while I'll end up in my stories and my belief systems etc . And I'll start realizing something feels off , you know , whether or not it's feeling a little numb to life , whether or not it's feeling like a nervous system dysregulation , whatever it may be . And in those moments I'm like , okay , let me try my normal things .
Okay , maybe those things are working , maybe they do not . If they don't , that's usually when I know like , okay , maybe stop talking knowledge , maybe I can benefit from a psychedelic experience .
And what I , what I find when I go into those experiences is , you know , especially with mushrooms , there's always a point when I'm coming down from like a big , big dose of mushrooms , where it's probably like right after the peak stops and you start coming down just a little bit .
I just get into this feeling of immense peace where I could just stare at a ceiling and be in bliss for hours and hours and hours , and , you know , once a year anyway .
I want to remind myself of that experience because for me it's so hard , even with meditating , even with all the things , to get to that level of peace when I'm in my day to day reality , because you know there's things going on , there's notifications going off , etc . Even when I'm , you know , on vacation or whatever .
You know like there might be the worry of what's going on when I'm not at work and things like that .
And what I love about psychedelics is , every once in a while I like to hit those buttons and realize like , oh , this is what I'm working towards Because , like you said a little while ago , if we don't know why we're doing something and what the goal is , then how do we know when we get there ? We really don't know .
And , and that's the biggest thing , with intention and all of these things , again , intention is not something you do to get a good accolade . It's something that gives you an awareness of why you're doing something and what you're looking to get from it and how you'll know if you get that thing from it .
And so I think that's super important Because , you know , nervous system regulation is one of those things that it just it can get overwhelming very quickly , and because most of the world , at least over here in America I'm not sure what the rest of the world looks like , but over here it is like the epitome of our culture is like oh , we just go , go , go .
If you work 12 hour days , you're somehow able to feel as though you're , you know , somehow accomplishing something that is so much better than if you did it in six hours .
Right , it's kind of this like gratification of the overwhelm , and that's one thing I've noticed that especially happens with leaders , you know and I imagine you can speak more on that of how they've gotten to this point , how we've all gotten to this point , where that's what we gratify .
You know , we're like , we think that working longer hours , we think that getting ourselves into these stressed out states is somehow us winning or us reaching an objective that somehow good . You know , I'm curious for you , like and this is more of a philosophical question maybe but how do you think we got here ?
You know , like , how do you think we went from , you know , at one point anyway , being much more connected to nature to now being so driven by stimulation . You know , I'm just curious what comes to mind or heart . Obviously , this is a big question , so I'm just curious what comes into you .
The first thing that comes up is like the industrial revolution , where we were trying to build up a country from you know with the idea that it was going to be this place for expansion and growth and building . So we got on this train that everything needed to be productive and we never got off the train .
We never stopped , like you said , to acknowledge and really appreciate what we've built . It just kept going .
And another symptom of nervous system dysregulation and the work that is so potent with leaders is they get to this dead end in business where they've pushed themselves so far , they've reached a certain level of success , but it feels a dead end and it's meaningless and they no longer have a purpose because they've spent so much time seeking externally for validation
and meaning . And really the journey the whole time was this beautiful balance of like , inner and outer balance and that's again as far as like as within , so without . How beautiful of a world we live in .
If people really valued their internal state and created from that place and that's why I think people in psychedelics they really start to have that connection and then they're like well , I don't really want to be this leader that has this sucky job where they're responsible for everyone and they have to be on all the time . I don't want that .
I'd rather move in a murmuration as a bird in a pack . You're just a part of a bigger picture of us evolving together , versus it being . I'm the leader , you follow me all the time and I'm always in charge . Again , leading back to our primal roots and a wolf pack . They have an animal .
There's , like you know , two animals that are in charge , an alpha female and an alpha male . They're , quote unquote , leading the pack , but they know when it's time to take a rest for other pack members to sort of lead and everyone has a job .
But they're also working in this murmuration together Because , like I said before , there's no animal in the animal kingdom that could be on all the time and feel meaning and feel healthy and feel vibrant Like . That's just not how we are built as people beings who also have that connection to our primal nature .
Yeah , that's a great answer , and that's , I mean it feels very accurate to me as well , because , you know , one of the ways I like to think about this , too , is have you ever read a book called the Law of One before , or have you heard of it before ?
I've heard of it . I haven't read it yet .
I highly recommend reading the real book of it . I haven't read it yet . I highly recommend reading the real book . Audiobook is kind of boring it just like they use like a human calculator voice for it . Love the book but just like good Lord , it was that a thugging it out type thing to read out an audiobook .
But I really enjoyed him and one of my good buddies , Aaron Abkey . He teaches from the law one and A Course in Miracles , which I recently stumbled onto that book as well , which is really cool , but different conversation In the law of one they talk about .
I really love how they juxtapose like these two forces we're talking about and they call it negative polarity or positive polarity . So like negatives , what you're talking about , right it's , and it doesn't mean bad , it just is like an opposite of positive , put it that way .
So negative is very egocentric , very I focused , like you were talking about , from from we to me , right , that's like going from positive to negative .
So like when you're in the negative polarity it's about I lead everyone's below me , I got to conquer the world and I imagine , like I've never thought about this before , but I imagine that energy has a lot of like push , push , push , go , go go . You know singular type work rather than collaborative in nature . Push , go , go go .
You know singular type work rather than collaborative in nature . Whereas the positive polarity is like we were talking about in the animal kingdom . Yes , there may be someone who says , hey , I've got us , like for right now , like I'm in the lead , but it's never like you have to do what I say .
It's more like , hey , we've come to a conclusion , I'm the one that can lead that conclusion forward . So I'm going to do that until we need another conclusion that someone else may be able to lead forward . And I love that way of looking at it because , like you're saying , especially in the animal kingdom , there's no animal that can push itself past that point .
And I think we're just doing ourselves a disjustice and we're really just kidding ourselves to think that we can . Because if we look at the rise in disease and all of these things happening , if we look at it through the Western med you know , lens it's all these ridiculous calculus , equations of all these things going wrong and all this stuff .
When you look at it through a more holistic view , what I see is just humans getting farther and farther away from that power . That is them .
Whether you want to call it god creator , pat , flying spaghetti monster , whatever you want to call it , whatever that thing is that we come from , the more we get disconnected from that , the more disease ridden we're going to get , the more stressed out we're going to get .
The more of that all of that we're going to get , because all of that is related to the negative polarity service , to self fear based thinking , all of that kind of stuff that is just farther away from all that is natural to human beings and to the world as a whole . So it's very interesting to look at it through that lens .
That's been a way that I've really gotten into my philosophical mindset and been like , wow , this is really interesting to see how that dichotomy of negative , positive polarity plays out in real life , which is really cool you're so hyper-focused on your external world that you're spending all your time accomplishing and everything is required for external gratification .
But then we also have people who go kind of too far in the psychedelic realm , where they go really far inward and they have the same experience like oh , now I have no meaning or purpose because I'm so far into the ethereal that I actually can't bring it back down , or I'm like constantly searching , I constantly need stimulation , and the middle point between both
of those is being in the body , being able to self-resource , a sense of what is . What does peace feel like in my body ? Am I okay with sitting in peace for a prolonged period of time and safety and not having to do things like take a psychedelic or like go build something , like can I just be in my experience ?
And I think that's where integration is like so important to find the middle way of those two polarities .
Yeah , I completely agree . Like the middle way is the way always , and there's there's positive and negative , and I don't mean good or bad , but positive and negative things that can happen from going to either side too much , right , and I love that you pointed that out , because it is definitely a thing . You know .
I've met many people that would fall into that category .
And it's why integration is so important , because the more that I mean you can really look at it from both angles , whether or not you're looking at it from the go go , go , I'm getting myself stressed out , trying to build the external world around my internal demands or on the side of like I'm just going to go completely internal .
On both those sides , what's happening is they're getting to a point of not only diminishing return but they're getting to a point where they're becoming disintegrated from who and what they truly are . Disintegrated from who and what they truly are . Because you know , I think , a lot of the spiritual community and the psychedelic communities .
They're like , well , if we're all God or insert word here , we're doing these psychedelics to get closer to that . But at the same time , what I , what I thought about , you know , in early on in my psychedelic career during a psychedelic experience was well , wait a minute .
If I choose to believe this theory that we've , we're infinite beings and we've been there wherever there is forever right , whether you want to call it heaven or whatever it is and we're down here for a moment in time , well , why are we trying to get back there ? We'll always be there , we're there eternally , but we're only here for a moment in time .
So this kind of felt like the real experience for me , and part of that is being able to balance that infinite part of you with the finite part of you .
All of life is about balance , and at the same time , though , I think a lot of us forget what balance feels like , and I think that's why these medicines , somatics , all these things are here to remind us of what we've forgotten , because and I'm sure you will laugh at this too but , like , try to tell someone , like , find balance in yourself right now .
And they're like , ah , like they don't . You know , it's like really hard to figure out and justify that or , uh , juxtapose it , but but if you can give them an experience where they reach balance and they go , oh , this is what that feels like . Well , now they know what they're working towards .
Now they know when you say , hey , we're going to do this thing to find balance , they go oh , I know what you're talking about now .
Now , it may be different for each person , right , it may be a little different , but if everyone can understand subjectively what a balance point feels like for them , I think that's the first thing that is really valuable to understand in this space , because if you don't know that , you don't really know what you're working towards , and I guess you could still
reach it , but you might not know when you've reached it , you know , might be something that you don't even realize . You're there , you know . So it's very interesting to talk about this stuff , yeah .
Yeah , and and to further that , what is what is balance ? When you tell someone like , can you find balance in your body ? Like what ? Can you give me some tangible ways of answering that question ? And to me it's feeling confident , trusting your own internal guidance system , being with an emotion and not reacting .
Can you just sit with it , staying with the sensations of your own body without requiring something to self-soothe , like finding balances , finding the middle way in all of those things , and staying with yourself .
Yeah , 100% .
Someone tells you to do something and you do it because you are worried about their perception of you . That is not balanced right , Like it's always taking in the information , being able to compute it before a reaction happens , and acting intentionally in the direction of your own choosing .
Yeah .
And then another thing that came up you were talking about people who do psychedelics , or forgetting that , getting information and then being able to bring it down . I just recently went to Bolivia and part of what I do for work is travel globally to different temples .
And it's amazing , I work for the Graceline Institute Just going to plug that in here because it is life-changing curriculum but we travel globally and we were just in Bolivia at one of the temple sites and there was these megalithic figures that have demonstrated on there that there was people in the community that were open and willing and prepared to go on these
psychedelic journeys to receive higher level consciousness information and then bring it down to the masses to actually teach .
And I think that is really what's missing in the psychedelic space is that people are kind of going for their own exploration but they're forgetting that the integration is actually what helps to give back to the collective frequency of the universe .
Yeah , that is so powerful Because , you know , I talked about this with Hamilton Souther , quite a bit as a shaman , down in Peru , and we talked about how we have a lot of elders these days , but not too many wise elders .
And you know , I think it's interesting to think about the fact that , you know , for a lot of people , especially when we get into psychedelics , we're like , oh , everyone needs to do psychedelics , and I think that comes from a good place of intention , but at the same time , there's never been a time throughout history where everyone was doing psychedelics .
I think , whether you want to look at it through the lens of like new soul versus old soul , or just DNA biology , whatever you know , I think there are certain people that are more apt to be able to handle an experience like a psychedelic one , where the other people are really apt to be able to learn about that , but maybe in this lifetime or for whatever
reason , they're not really like , built or meant to go down that road themselves . And you know , if we think about healing happening in community and a lot of the statements we hear , why wouldn't that make sense , right ?
A certain group going on this type of journey , coming back and around the fire telling everyone about stuff being able to , you know , shift up or change curriculum or add to curriculum based on what they're learning from these higher level frequencies and higher level information . You know it actually makes perfect sense and that's like it's actually funny .
You mentioned that because that's like a whole reason that I started the show . You know straight up . You know it's because , like a lot of times in these experiences , you know you have them and you're like holy shit , these downloads and ideas are so fun .
But you also know that you know a lot of people around you may not want to hear about them , they may not be interested , and what do you do with them ? Right ? Do you just let them die with you ? It's like nah , I want to put those out there , not because exactly what I heard is going to be the medicine trigger something totally different in them .
That's like Whoa . That just made me think of this thing , which is a breakthrough for me , and I think that's how it really works .
It's really cool , yeah , and it's the rest of the hermetic principle . You know , we said as within , so without , but then now we're like as above , so below . So it's the the impact of how we can , you know , influence the entire collective through being able to access these emotional or these psychedelic journeys .
Yeah , it's so cool .
You know , and I'm curious for you , like because I love asking this question to people that are experts in any certain thing that you but you know in your own experience , or maybe in something you saw it could be with you , it could be with someone around you what is the most profound somatic experience you've had someone go through , maybe yourself gone through ?
Like what immediately comes to mind or heart when you think about like a wild story or something that someone may be able to take from this and go okay , like that's what's possible . That's really cool . I'm just curious to ask you what comes up .
Yeah , so I did I ayahuasca . Last year in October . I did a seven day retreat and so I did four ceremonies and I am very sensitive to medicine . I was very intentional about my experience , so I did the whole cleanse .
I did I mean , I'm a therapist for work , so I've done my fair share of emotional processing and so I was ready and my intention for going was not I need to clear myself of an experience that I've had . It was how can I best serve the world ?
So I went in there with , like , what do I need to connect to , to really give back to the world , and one of my intentions was , okay , everyone's talking about this like divine , feminine . I really want to know in my being what that is and why it's important .
Well , I had a very intense experience where I went through every single emotion that you could possibly have verbally . We're in a maloca , a sacred space of 30 people , and I am crying , laughing , moaning , screaming .
All of this emotion is coming through me and I was at one point in the middle of the maloca like moving my body and I'm like , oh , okay , and I'm seeing the importance of being able to be with each emotion and feel it and viscerally experience it so that I can guide people in ceremony , in session and not be afraid of what comes up .
So it was this like true embodiment that I was downloading , and since that experience it has come . You know , we talked about , like , the morning routine . I don't have a structure to my morning routine . It's all about what is my body seeking that is going to help it feel like , come back to myself . So what emotion needs to move ?
Do I need to go on a walk ? Do I need to meditate ? Do I need to drink lemon water ? Do I need to like , somatically move my being so that I can continue to build that reserve of what is my optimal state that I want to be able to achieve or come back to in states of dysregulation ? I know my way back home .
Oh , I love that and it's it's so powerful too Because you know it's . It's really funny what you mentioned about the ayahuasca experience , because you know what psychedelics taught me early on was that intention was real . You know it's like in the middle of that experience where you're like , oh , I guess the intention works .
You know it's like it's like that funny moment where , like , the cosmic giggles hit you and you're like , oh , my goodness , like because you're so much more tapped in and tuned and turned on to like the subtle frequencies around you .
When you're in a plant medicine experience , I imagine if you were living in the middle of a jungle with like a native tribe , you could get there even without it like to get to that like really tuned in a subtle frequencies .
But you know there's so many things around us emfs , 5g , all that kind of of stuff to interfere with our biofields that it's really challenging to get to like down to that level of connection to the subtleties , like constantly . But that's always been what's funny for me too . You know I had an experience same same but different where I had a story .
I couldn't cry right now . I knew the story was bullshit , but knowing it was bullshit didn't help me get over it .
So you know , I set the intention to cry during this experience and I remember I was having a great time , my girlfriend was going through some rough stuff , and I was like , wow , this is actually really light , I'm having fun , I was playing with , you know , the spirit of the mushroom and just having a blast , and then I had this idea and I was like , oh my
God , because I laugh constantly . And so they were like , oh , like , laughter is a lot like crying . And so that hit me and it made me laugh . And then in the middle of laughter , it just completely inverted and I started crying and I was like , oh my God , like this is wild . So it's just funny how , like again , I knew the story was bullshit .
Like I'm like , I'm a human being , of course I can cry , and my mom had that story , so I even knew where it was coming from and I had always joked with her about that story when she had told me when I was a kid I'm like that's a silly story , and then I find myself in it .
I'm aware of it because I coach and do these things for other people , but it didn't seem to get the block to go away . So I just said , okay , let me subtract from the equation of myself , aka take some mushrooms and really just let the snow globe settle a little bit .
And it was right about that time where the peaks started , you know breaking , where all of a sudden , boom , my intention completely manifest .
And I realized that it's not that I didn't know how to cry , it's that I had been running so fast , not literally , but , like you know , figuratively running so fast because there was a part of me that was scared to slow down so that natural process could come up .
But the other thing I noticed , there was a Joseph Campbell's quote that bliss is any emotion felt all the way through is 100% accurate . You know , like you feel pain , you know , but you're fully with it . It's bliss . You feel sadness , but you're fully with it . It's bliss . You feel happiness and you're fully with it . It's bliss .
And it was just like so funny to see how these thirst trap type things I had fallen into in life had led me to believe that happiness is valuable . Sad type things I had fallen into in life had led me to believe that happiness is valuable . Sadness is not like all these kinds of separations .
Right , it's really funny . Yeah , that's beautiful . Fully fully experiencing and being with the emotion , seeing it as bliss is like that's huge . Cut that as a little short , that's beautiful . Yeah , I need to get better at that , For sure . I have by no way mastered it .
You know , like psychedelics , I can get there , for sure . Meditation , I need to get better at that , for sure I have by no way mastered it . You know , like psychedelics , I can get there , for sure .
Meditation I can from time to time , but I am definitely still full in student mode when it comes to this stuff , because I , you know , I cannot remember a time when I was a kid where I wasn't eating candy or drinking soda or doing something to shift my state , you know , to ramp myself up , playing video games .
Nothing that's inherently bad , like none of those things are objectively bad . But when I look at the patterns of them , it's like , oh , no wonder these things I'm now becoming aware of , when I have a conscious awareness of , like these things going on inside of me . And you know , it's really cool what you mentioned about the ayahuasca experience .
To that , you know , you wanted to experience the divine feminine alongside it too , and that's like another one of those terminologies very similar to divine masculine that we hear of a lot . And sometimes I'm like , what does that actually quantify to mean Right ? And again , like , any logical understanding doesn't beat the experience of it .
You know , and it's also funny that you know your experience allowed you to do that right in the middle of 30 other people , because I imagine like and you can correct me if I'm wrong , but like were there any feelings that came up on you when you were doing that around the other people ?
Were you conscious enough to like be aware that you were around all these other people ? Did you have the awareness that might happen before ? I'm just curious about that .
I'm a really open person . I would have openly danced , like like a silly person in the middle of the mocha . But the next day I definitely felt a contraction because I had never had that experience before and people were openly like so what happened last night ? And I'm like , and the next day I was high the entire day , I could not come off the medicine .
So they're trying to talk to me and I'm just sitting in the chair like so that was a little bit , that was a little bit confronting , but it just further . That has been a whole lesson in itself .
Like people are going to be really confused by your ability to be self-expressed and it's OK because you're mirroring to them a potential that they might not even know exists until they see you .
So that was a whole nother lesson that I got to unfold and it was beautiful because people were asking out of the curiosity for , because they wanted to have that experience . It wasn't that they were scared of it , but they're like how do we do that ?
What button do we have to hit for that to happen ?
You know , yeah , and then yeah , and then I got to explain to them what I do for work and that my intention . I didn't have a lot of density that I was clearing out of my field and really , when you do the work to clear the density out of your field , you start to see and desire how do I give back ? How do I give back ?
How can I be a part of the betterment of this place and not be so egocentric or worried just about my own survival ? You start to give back more , you start to be more generous , you start to be more open , more expansive . We brought Shaker up at the beginning .
His beautiful gifts of connecting people have only been exacerbated by his continued progression of clearing dense energy . His , his gifts are like turning on even more , so that innate those innate things that he was already really good at only get better once you're getting out of your own suffering .
Yeah , that is . I mean , that is like another mic drop moment right there , catherine , because that's exactly what I've noticed as well , and and it's not to say that I didn't notice that I was doing things , you know , that could potentially remove density from the nervous system , from my field , etc .
But it's like I almost like didn't expect it to show up as it did , and I think the last like four years have really just shown me in my own subjective experience , like wow , this stuff really works .
And , like I said before , like I'm nowhere near you know , mastered this stuff , if there's ever even a level that you know you've mastered , unless you're like an avatar or something . But but it has been really beautiful to talk about what the gold is at the end of this .
You know , and that's what I've really loved about us talking about is that you know , and that's what I've really loved about us talking about is that you know a lot of times like people will focus on getting out of pain .
I don't want to suffer anymore , I don't want to be upregulated anymore , whatever it may be , but it takes a different mindset to be able to go . Well , what do you want ? You know , like what ?
What are you actually like calling into your reality , because if you understand that and you understand what you're going for , it allows you to bear any of the hows that life may throw at you .
You know , like that famous quote says , when you know your why you can bear the hows along the way , and it's so important for that and that's why I love you sharing like what the real gold is at the end of this metaphorical rainbow here , with regards to like what becomes available .
You know in your life , when , when , when you have these types of experiences . You know , for me , everything has changed in my life over the last three years . I don't even really know what to talk about , but I think the most important thing and again , this is still a work in progress is just how I view myself .
You know , like how I would describe a lot of what has occurred is finding my own power and discovering it , because it wasn't really that , it wasn't there , it was just clouded over . You know , like Hamilton Souther gave me a good analogy for this .
He's like think about a dinner table you have that at one point was really good for eating meals , at creating memories like it had a utility to it and over time it just got piled over with nonsense .
You started putting one paper there , then one paper became three papers , then you're going to put this binder there and before you know it , you forget there's a kitchen table there at all . But underneath all that , the kitchen table is fine , it's still there . You could still eat a meal at it , but it's just covered over with all this nonsense .
That's kind of like what we are . It's not that we don't already have all of our power , it's not that we're not already healed within , but there's a lot of nonsense clouding that over . And so this whole process , like I remember for me when I realized like , oh , this is actually subtraction , this is not addition , this is not me .
Like having to go take a million more certs . You know , like that those can help if they're helping you subtract . But you know , there was a time where I was like , if I just get another cert , you know like , then I'll have it figured out right , looking out there instead of in here , and I think that's been beautiful .
Is that by actually doing less , by just choosing like for me ? Like no , I'm not going to get into my messages on a Sunday , I'm just going to go take a walk with Rach and the dog doing those little things have made such such exponentially big just value in my life .
It's been absolutely wild and I'm curious if , if , if you've noticed something similar because I've never , like , really talked about this specifically with anyone , especially anyone that's an expert of this Do you find that the paradox in this is that most people think it's going to be a lot to try to like slow down , but it's actually it's actually doing less and
it's actually much easier than they make it out to seem .
Yeah , for sure . I mean the image that came up . Have you seen the movie soul ? It's a Disney movie . Yes , I have . Okay , and there there's like these lost souls that are the black clouds . Just for people listening to give you a visualization .
They're like these black clouds that go into this scary place and then there's this whole healing squad that comes and follows them and is playing music and doing some sort of ceremony to help drop the darkness , drop the emotional residue that's just been built up over time . And so it is that subtraction process and it allows your true nature to come out .
And that's really what is happening when you're integrating any sort of healing work and especially psychedelics allow you to drop things , see things from a different perspective and really purify yourself with intention back to who you really are .
And then , once you build that awareness , like you beautifully shared , oh , on a Sunday , instead of doing another journey , I'm going to just enjoy life with my girlfriend and my dog , and that is a beautiful zero point actually , of you having built the capacity of safety and presence in your body .
And then you even like , maybe say no to more psychedelic experiences or something else that you want to go seek to find what's wrong , because you know and you have capacity for what's right and what feels good , as much as we have a fear of not wanting to go deep and extrapolate the emotional experience that many of us have suppressed .
We have an equal ceiling , as above so below , we have an equal ceiling of what we won't allow ourselves to experience in terms of what feels good . So with every level that you go down , you also want to spend time in the integration , helping you to build the capacity to feel good , but many of us are kind of missing that .
So we're always in this loop of like I need to do another journey so I can find more out about myself , but they're like okay , now that you found the thing , what are you going to do with that ? How do you want to change your life ? What actionable steps are you going to take to like where you're at right now ?
Yeah , that is such an important thing , because what I've noticed is that and again , like I understand , when I was in my early 20s I did a lot of psychedelics and I don't regret that by any means .
But I do understand what you're talking about when it comes to the fact that the whole idea , as I see it anyway , is that you want to be in a state of bliss as much as possible .
Right , like that's like the goal peace , bliss , whatever you want to surmise that to be but like you want to be in a really happy , joy , go lucky state and you also want to be able to handle the negative emotions with joy , with love . Understand that they're not bad . Right , like you want to have that balance point between all of them .
That , I feel , is the goal . You could sell , you could say self-realization , self-actualization , you could put a name on it , but for me , like that's always the goal . And so for me , psychedelics are like tools . You know they're like these days . They're tools for me . They're like okay , how do I feel ?
Right , let me see if I can figure something out on my own Now , every once in a great while usually around once a year , once every year and a half , I'll have like something that comes up , whether it's a dark night of the soul or a mini dark night of the soul , whatever it is where it seems like I can't seem to solve the equation from the same level
of thinking that's created this issue . And so if I can't seem to slow myself down enough or whatever , that's when I'm like , okay , let me like metaphorically throw an atom bomb on myself and just like pattern interrupt . Okay , you want to force myself to sit down and go through a psychedelic experience .
But when I come out of that , the whole point of doing it is to stabilize a better normal right , a better everyday reality . And that doesn't mean always happy . It means like I'm just as happy when I have to go through a sad emotion , I'm just as happy when I have to feel frustration , because any feeling shows me that I'm alive .
And so if I can use self concept work and these kind of things to to really like create my own NLP in a way where I start to actually look forward to even the perceived negative things , well then I'm winning .
And that's like for me why these days I'm so grateful that you know , yes , I still enjoy psychedelics from time to time , but my whole life has become a psychedelic reality , and I know you feel a similar way too .
And when you're that person in the middle of the ayahuasca ceremony , going through those things , like you're liberating not just yourself because you're already liberated , but you're liberating the people around you , and that's what everyone wants , right ? No one wants to just go drink ayahuasca and shit in a bucket all day , all night . You know what I mean .
Like that's not what they're going for . They're going for what that brings about and what didn't happen ? Yeah , yeah , exactly . You can also puke it out too , or you can just thug it out and keep it all in so so funny , no , the end .
And to tie this all back into a nice bow where we first started about like leadership and being better leaders being there for leaders being there for them to be able to process their own mental , emotional , emotional barriers .
Look at how beautiful your evolution as a leader in this space has become as a result of you clearing that suffering , having greater perspective , seeking psychedelic support when you need to experience something so that you have more capacity to understand , have more empathy and love for other people in your space . Going through those things .
That is a wise elder , that is a leader , that is somebody that I want to be in the same room with , knowing that they are taking personal responsibility for how they show up , knowing the impact that they have on others .
Yes , yes and more yes . Catherine , you are the best . This has been amazing . I cannot believe an hour has already flown by . I can't wait for the day we meet in person , because I'd love to do another episode in person .
I'm sure we might do another one virtually between them , but I want to make sure I give you ample time to tell people where they can find you , where they can find everything you got going on , because you got so many things going on . You're a world traveler . Definitely , guys give her a follow . We'll make sure it's all in the show notes .
But where can people find you , connect with you and charge their batteries with you ?
Yeah , my Instagram is the only way that you can really get a touchpoint with me personally right now . It's just at Katherine Smilis and it will be in the show notes . But also the Graceline Institute for any leaders who are wanting to get out of their own suffering and show up better to serve the world . It's an amazing curriculum .
We go all over the world doing retreats in Peru and Egypt and Greece , so that's an amazing organization . Any female entrepreneurs specifically , I'm also involved in an organization called the Mindful Business Collective and that's for healing and integration support for female entrepreneurs . So those are my two projects currently , but for sure , dm me on Instagram .
I love having conversations like this .
Oh , this is awesome , Catherine . I always end with the same question , and that question is this let's say someone listened to this episode and they're really excited to explore psychedelics in their own life .
What is the one piece of advice you would relay to them to allow them to use the proper discernment in choosing whether or not these medicines are right for them in their life during this time ?
It's a for me , and what I would say to anyone is there's an inner calling , there's a repetitive sort of whisper , usually at the initial stages , of being called by a psychedelic medicine . But really focusing and hearing , listening to that voice to guide you in whatever direction that you want to go , is definitely the first step .
Yes , spoken like a somatics expert , I love that . That is 100% the same thing . I feel as well . Spoken like a somatics expert , I love that . That is 100% the same thing . I feel as well .
You'll always know internally , but if you're going too fast , if things are too loud , you're not going to be able to hear that voice and you'll be potentially swayed by other people around you who may have your best interest at heart but they don't know your own subjective experience . Catherine , this has been amazing . Guys , go give Catherine a follow .
It is amazing , amazing , amazing . The work she is doing to level up the leaders of the world . You know , and speaking as someone who has gone through a lot of different somatic challenges in my life , I promise you when I say that her work is nothing short of life-changing .
There has been almost nothing that has supported me more in my life than understanding how to slow down , connect with my body , regulate my nervous system and show up as a better leader as a result of that , and also just a better man , a better human being , you know , for my friends , my family , my dog and everyone in my life .
So , guys , go give her a follow . If you enjoyed the show , go give us a five-star review . It helps us get the show to more people , which we love . And until next time , everybody , wherever you are in the world , I hope you're having the best day ever and I look forward to seeing you soon . Much love , peace .