 The Creative Life Show from the American Creativity Association's Austin Global Chapter brought to you through Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Phyllis Blythe. Joining me today from San Miguel de Allende in Mexico is Laura Silverman. She is an assisted spiritual therapist who is certified in something called psilocybin. And we will be discussing turning trauma into transformation with psychedelics or how magic mushrooms play a role in transformation. Welcome, Laura. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. I really appreciate it. Well, you're welcome. And could you tell us, how did you get started in the transformation business, maybe what you were doing before psychedelics? Sure, sure. This is not something that was on my radar. I'm 64 years old. I was never part of what might be called a drug culture. So this was all very kind of new to me. However, I've been a psychotherapist for a long time, a licensed clinical social worker. And I've always been interested in the different ways modalities for treating trauma that have less to do with talk therapy and more to do with sort of the body, the embodiment of trauma. And how do we help release people from that? And so I study different modalities that are more somatic, have more things to do with the body, things like mindfulness practices, brain spotting, which is a particular method of working with the different part of the nonverbal part of the brain. So as I continued working with clients who had significant issues, it was clear that even though we were getting more success with these modalities, there were still certain individuals that continued to suffer and that we seem to be stuck. And I came to Mexico just on a vacation and it was introduced to a woman who had been working with this medicine for nearly 10 years here and in other areas of the world. And I started training with her and experienced it myself for the first time and had a miraculously healing experience. And when I finished, I had a list of people that I wanted to just start to open a conversation to explore the possibilities of healing through this modality. So, I remember I met you on a walk outside of Austin, Texas, and we were walking partners and you, of course I hear all the time about magic mushrooms and psychedelics and you said something to me that prompted me to invite you onto the show. You said, Phyllis, I have been a psychotherapist for many years helping people and you talked about people who were suicidal who were so depressed, they were suicidal. And you, I think if I got this right, you said there might be three to even five years of talking therapy, but that maybe in one to three sessions assisted with this magic mushroom. Yes. That something that it was dramatic in getting to it, not sitting back. What I understood was it wasn't like him sitting around doing drugs. You very much talked about an assisted procedure that spoke that time and pain down into it. That speed with which you got the successful outcome was transformative to me. And maybe you want to talk about that a little. Yes, yes. Yes, so this is the thing. When you're sitting in a room with someone who's clearly suffering or you're with a family member who has lost a loved one to suicide because they had struggled with so much pain and that suicide seemed to be the best option for them and that they would actually exercise that option is tragic. And it feels when you start to understand that there's another possibility. And I do want to say, and we will talk more today about the limitations of this medicine. But when we are talking about a modality has a potential for helping people be able to tolerate their pain even to the point where they don't need to take their own life. It feels like a moral imperative to make this available and to start to open this up for folks. So yeah, it's a pretty... We're talking about life and death. It is not about recreational drug use, which often this is in the kind of media and movies and so forth. It's always sort of this kind of fun thing, this psychedelic lights and colors and melting faces and all those things. And while that may be parts of some people's experience recreationally, it does very, very different from the therapeutic experience. The protocols are very different. And so it's a very different experience. And when you say that, do we have a slide that can show people what they might have seen out on the street or what they wouldn't have seen, what this drug looks like? Sure, sure. There we go. Yeah, yeah. So this is what mushrooms look like. They're in a dry state. They look very much like any mushroom that you might see. All mushrooms have some functional health attributes. They can be used for a number of different things. You know, there's like lion mane and rashi and some other things for people taking now for the age and brain and immunity support. So all mushrooms have some health benefits associated with them. There is a set of mushrooms that have a psychedelic effect to them. And when people come in to work with us, so these mushrooms have been used ceremonially for a very long time. And there's lots of different methods for delivering the mushrooms. So one might get a mushroom like this and eat them like that. Some people make a tea. We grind them up and deliver them in juice. So people generally will get them in this form on the street when you're working in a therapeutic setting, they're generally prepared in some fashion in order to expedite and to have some control over the dosage and the speed with which the body starts to metabolize it, yeah. So that kind of picture of it, just the people, they may not see it that way on the street and they're hoping they don't. We're not here to talk about how to drop in and drop out. Exactly right, exactly. That is not what this is about. Right, and to focus on that, I think it could be the larger portion of this whole half hour, is you talk about a very important process, even a sacred process, that a journey that you take there, that is your journey invitation, isn't it, journey to spiritual wellness. Yes. And I think that just I wanna invite the audience to sit back and go on a journey with you and before, during and after, in an assisted way, someone would use this, as you call it, medicine. Yes, yes. Maybe you could take us on the journey and I might have, I haven't been on wine but I could ask you some questions and how this, you said to me, it makes all the difference in the world, that it be only a piece of a larger process. Absolutely. Rather than the only thing. Absolutely, there is some idea that, many people feel like they're gonna go and do this medicine and it is a medicine. You go and do this medicine and that all of their emotional, psychological problems are gonna be resolved and that's simply not what the medicine does. The medicine does change brain structures in some ways and that's a very long conversation about what those structures look like. However, the individuals still have to do some work because they have to be prepared for the experience and the limitations of the medication. And so the way this starts really, it's just in the beginning there, is taking a look at first moving into this notion that this is more than just a single, an isolated experience, that this is part of a larger journey that you're gonna be taking. And it begins with setting, kind of preparing with a number of questions to first understand what is the goal of this individual. And those questions are really first, the preparation is a lot of information about how the medicine works, what to anticipate in the body, how it's delivered, what the job of a sitter is because when people take this medication, you are going into an altered state of consciousness and you need to be safe. You need to be emotionally, physically and psychologically safe. And so understanding the role of your sitter is very important and being able to talk to the sitter and so forth is really important. Then we start to set some intentions. And this setting of intentions is really when we're asking at the end of this experience, at the end of this experience, what would you hope to have gained? How would life be different for you? We like people to be able to set an intention that says, at the end of this experience, I am or I have. And it could be something like, I am more trusting. I have more peace. I have, I am more connected to myself. There was a lovely study just released from the University of London that talks about the theme, the main theme they think comes from this work and that is reconnection. Reconnection to self, reconnection to family and friends and what I feel is almost no more importantly is the reconnection to spiritual self, whatever that means. And that doesn't necessarily mean religiosity at all, but sort of feeling very deeply connected to sort of the grand plan that you're not just on the earth, you're an integral part of being here and that you're needed. And so I think that's piece of what's really important for this preparation. So we start asking questions and start exploring what are the issues that have brought them to us, the trauma, the grief, the anxiety, so that we can really understand what it is that we're going to be navigating through. Okay, and so this is more than a one-stop visit. It is. So let me just clarify, because when I was walking with you on the trail, I really do think that you had observed this transformation opportunity assisted with the magic mushrooms in maybe a one, two, or three visit setting. And you believed in it. Since then, as I understand it, you've developed this spirituality wellness program, which gives you a lot more ground time than three sessions. I'm assuming like a week or two maybe. So what we're going to talk about today is signing up for and being part of maybe an intensive experience with you. It doesn't, we're not going to talk about other ways it could be used clinically in cities throughout. Well, it can't be used in cities throughout the United States because you're right. Where it's not even legal here. So we're talking about something more experimental, although not in terms of pre-indigenous times. But also not for experimental in terms of the science. There's a tremendous amount of data. It's been studied for years and years and years now. We have all the data from the pre-60s in the 50s and 60s and 70s before it was changed to a class one drug. So we have that data and then we have the data that's been done in the last 15, 20 years. So we have a tremendous amount of information. So it's not really experimental. And there is one state in which it is legal, although it's very, they're still working out the bugs of how to provide this medication services to folks when that's in the state of Oregon. But many other countries already have clinics that are already using this. So it's not really experimental in the sense that we don't know, we really don't know what's gonna happen if you do this. We know a lot about what can happen. And the, which is so interesting because when it's, when it is forbidden, people just get it and dose themselves. Exactly. You know, even prostitution, where it's allowed like in Amsterdam, there's a whole culture that's built around safety. Indeed. And agreement, being a volunteering to participate. And when there isn't, when you take away the legality of something, you also take away all of the structure. Indeed. Yeah, that people can make wise choices to use. So I do want, before we get into your journey, I do wanna mention that I personally know quite a few people, CEOs being at the top list. Sure. Like gone to India in particular, maybe Thailand to experience, what is it, Warren Mosca? Tell me about that. Iowaska? Iowaska. Yeah. And they do that assisted. Is that different, the same? It is a different medicine. It is a medicine that can create healing. Mike, I have experienced Iowaska myself and I find it to be, it can be very helpful. It's also, it's a little more harsh on the body. There's a purging that occurs with it. It's a little more difficult for some folks. A lot of people will go to Peru. It's really kind of came out of Peru. And so it is, it certainly is. And it is athletes, CEOs, performers, creatives, lots of folks are exploring, trying to find these different modalities. The difference between Iowaska and what I'm talking about is that Iowaska is always done in a group setting. And so you'll have a large group of people, the shamans and the practitioners will also be under the influence of the Iowaska. That's the traditional way in which it's delivered. This is very different in that this is one on one and the practitioner, the sitter, is not partaking in the medicine. They are there to provide safety and reassurance and comfort to you, why? So that's it. So it's a different, there's a different modality. And I don't dispute that anybody that's going to an Iowaska group thing does not benefit. I know many people who have benefited from it. I had a very interesting experience myself. But I think there was some differences here. The one on one therapeutic model allows for a real safety because I have actually tried doing psilocybin because psilocybin can also be done in a group. I've tried doing it in a group with folks and what happens is that people, the people that I'm working with who have mental health issues and are significantly anxious and depressed and have grief, those folks have a very hard time being in a room and allowing themselves to become completely vulnerable when there's other people in the room. Right. They're concerned about making sounds or they're worried about what does that mean that they're making a sound or they're in trouble or they're in distress. So we have found that this one on one and this is the Johns Hopkins model of having one to two sitters with an individual in the room is really the most deep way that we can help somebody come sink in and allow themselves to fully trust the experience. Without anything that we're seeing. Is that what we're seeing there? Yeah, and you're seeing sort of the recorder, the computer there is really the recorder, the sitter who's also recording anything that the person says during their experience. And so we get to create some pages that we can refer back to. Because remember, when someone goes into this, it takes this medication, they go into the experience. They are in an altered state of consciousness and they may not remember much of what they said. And so we're recording it such that it becomes useful in their continued work which is a really critical piece of this. The continued work that comes after this. But it's also a cue for their memory. As we read the notes together the next day, which I call the meaning making day, we start to kind of put together in their head like, oh, that must have been when I saw this or I thought this was happening or that's, oh, I know what that means. And we can talk more about what those particular statements or insights were as we continue moving through into what's called the integration process. And that's a really critical piece that is often missed and it's completely missed when people do it recreationally. But it's often missed in these larger group settings as well. What constitutes integration... Right, right. Yeah, what constitutes integration often is just like one conversation where everybody's sitting around talking about what happened. But that's actually not sufficient because the journey is not done. The medicine, this medicine, I think Timothy Leary said it, that the medicine doesn't do the work. It's a chemical key that opens you up so that you can see where the work is, that the set and setting is important, getting preparation, having a good sitter. But then the medicine sort of opens things up. But that insight now, you have to put legs under it. There's work to be done or otherwise you can just slide right back into your old habits of perceiving and responding and so forth. And so we want to then begin the process of integration which is can take weeks and for some people, months of insights that continue to arise. What many people will describe when they are finished with the journey is that they feel like they're different. I've changed, I'm different, but they can't quite explain how. There's a very ineffable kind of quality to this kind of work. And so people cannot come up with the words to describe their experience. And that's because you have to sort of be in interaction in your life to see where the changes are. But to notice, oh look, I had a difficult conversation that I may have never had before or something was going on and it didn't seem to bother me or something I used to really think was so important, no longer feels very important to me. You have to encounter and engage in your life to start to see where are those changes. So we're up, let me slow down just a minute. When you opened, you said it can change the structure of your brain, which feels kind of scary. Did you tell me when we were walking that it's somehow that the medicine allows people to gain a less fearful attachment to whatever their blockage is, the person, the loss, the disease that they're trying to live with or not. Do you take a step back from it a little bit in your brain? Can you get some distance from it the way people who don't carry around your phobia or your fear? Other people aren't having the same reaction to that stressor that we are. So we know that the reaction is in us. It's not the only one people can have. That's right. They can kind of step out of themselves and stay there. That's even without conversation with you. There is a restructuring of our relationship to some of our traumatic experiences that allow us to revisit them and all of a sudden you're a new person doing that. And does that last? And can that interfere with the command, maybe the positive relationship we have had to how we're speaking or thinking or practicing law or practicing medicine. Does it ever happen that we distance ourselves from our former strength? So those are really great questions. So let me talk a little bit of what happens and I'm gonna give a very simplistic sort of neurobiological lesson here. So there's a structure, a function in the brain that's developed in our mid 20s. We often hear that our brain is not fully formed until we're in our 20s. And this is one of those functions. It's called the default mode network. And it's sort of a shorthand for the brain. It starts to filter out what the brain proceeds to be unnecessary information and that's helpful to us. Evolutionarily it's helpful to us because there's so much data and stimulus and sound and movement around us. We'd be overwhelmed if we were perceiving everything. And so it starts to sort of prune. I always think of sort of pruning off perceptions in the brain. And that causes us though to have sort of a, develop a rigid set of responses, beliefs, perceptions. And that's why people that like the same food, they always like, they say the same music they always like. They think about the same thing. They only are interested in a set number of things. That's that pruning that has occurred. It's kind of like a plant you put in an air pot. The plant can grow and still thrive, but it's pruning back and the roots are not expanding. And so when we think of the brain, those roots are like those dendrites and connections and neuro synapses, right? So those things are kind of being pruned. When we take a civil side in medication, it turns down and down regulates that function in the brain. And so now your brain, the parts that we're being sort of shut down are lit up or opened up. In Michael Paulin's book, How to Change Your Mind, he has a great image of a two side-by-side functional MRIs of an adult brain, one firing not on psilocybin and one firing on psilocybin, same brain. And the one without psilocybin, you can see all the color and all the firings, you see a lot of white space. In the psilocybin stimulated brain, firing brain, there's hardly any white space. And so all these perceptions, and so what happens is you get new and more ways to think about your situation. It creates a much greater context. I often say for people who have trauma, they really, their story, they are the smack dab, the center of the story. They are the victim, they are often feel like they're the perpetrator, they somehow are culpable, they blame themselves. When we do the medicine, when that system kind of opens up the brain, we start to see ourselves in the bigger context where we can see, oh yes, that happened to me, but now I see how it's possible or what it means, or that I can free myself from self-blame. And so it's a lovely, lovely way of sort of getting just a bigger picture, if you will. And it deepens though also, because you're getting this more information, whatever your skills are, whatever the things that you're good at, you're gonna get more insight in how to do that better and bigger and more and so forth. And so many people who are creative will do this in order to be able to expand their creativity. So you don't lose anything. You really do. What you lose is sort of this habituated way of thinking that says, I am anxious, I'm always sad, I'm always gonna be this, I'm never that, I'm not good enough, I'm bad. That's what we start to lose because we get to be able to see ourselves in a much greater, clearer, more colorful context. You know, you remind me that growing up, I've always been heard that we're only using like 10% of our brain, but maybe 90% of it is there in that white space picture. Yes. There has been a few CEOs who made it kind of rich and they've come back onto the market with coffees that they say that they have coffee with a like a dollop of purified butter and they drink it and they can hack into that unused space. This feels like another way to hack in. Yes. To use space, resetting the field, all of that. And you know, this field, this discussion needs to continue. Yes. We have on the books right now that we will be dropping a show, part two of your work on January 17th, same time, same place. And today's show, we'll have to leave it here. And I would like to remind the audience that you have been watching the Creative Life show from the American Creativity Association's Austin Global Chapter on Think Tech Hawaii. Today we've been talking with our guest, therapist, Laura Silverman on the question of transforming trauma into transformation with psychedelics and how magic mushrooms really play a critical role in that transformation. Mahalo, Laura, for joining us and Mahalo to our viewers for tuning in. I'm Phyllis Blyse and we will be back in two weeks for another edition of the Creative Life. Aloha.