[MUSIC] Hello and welcome to Secularx Today, my name is Kyle Buller, and I am the host for today's episode. Today, I get to chat with Tommy Ocito. Tommy has been on the podcast in the past, so you can go back and check out his most recent episode with Court Wing and Joe. If you're scrolling through a podcast archive on any of your apps, that episode is called "The Veteran Community and Operator Syndrome, Secularx and Redefining Pain Management." For this episode, I actually found myself in Nashville, Tennessee for Thanksgiving. I had a friend just traveling across the country, he happened to be in Nashville, and decided to celebrate Thanksgiving and his birthday, and reached out to Tommy since Tommy lives in Nashville to sit down. We got to sit down in person for this interview, so if you want to go check out the video, you can check that out on our YouTube channel, where the video will be up there for this interview. In this episode, we chat about Secularx and what's maybe happening in the South, compared to places like California and Colorado, and Tommy highlights, maybe Nashville's growth and the emerging psychedelic community in there, and how it could be a hotspot for Secularx because of a lot of the creativity that comes out of Nashville, especially with the music scene. We chat about Tommy's experiences as a Navy SEAL, his experiences with Fatomeo DMT. We also chat a little bit about the Kentucky Opio Settlement Commission and the Kentucky Bill for Ibogaine, and what happened there. We also chat about breathwork, integration, and one of our favorite topics, nervous system regulation and the importance of that, and really developing those skills before going into psychedelic experiences. And also, chat a little bit about Tommy's experience with Beyond, which is an Ibogaine Center down Cancun. And yeah, so this is really fun, as I always mention, and it's always fun to sit down with people in person to record these episodes. So thank you, Tommy, for your time, finding the wonderful studio to record this in. And as I'm recording this, this is just before the new year, it's December 30th. So by the time this episode comes out, it's gonna be the 31st. So happy new year, everybody. I'm hoping that your 2024 went well, wishing you all the best for 2025. Let's hope it's a better year. For Psychedelics, I know there was the whole hiccup during the summer with Lycos and everything. So let's cross our fingers. Let's keep moving forward, and hoping 2025 is just an excellent year for psychedelic policy, research, and change. So let's keep pushing forward with our mission to get Psychedelics out there, legitimized and the war on drugs. So yeah, happy new year, everybody, wishing you all the best in 2025, as we wrap things up here in 2024. And on that note of the end of the year, I just wanna let everybody know that we have a end of year education sale going on until January 2nd. You can learn more at Psychedeliceducationcenter.com. So we have some really great bundles for sale. And our top bundle, our ultimate bundle contains a bunch of our classes. So Psychedelics past, present, future, navigating Psychedelics for clinical therapists, Psychedelics in psychiatry, ketamine and trauma treatment, Psychedelic neuroscience demystified, Psychedelics in the shadow, and then also some new courses that we're gonna be developing around spiritual emergence, somatic approaches to Psychedelics, inner work practices, a little introduction to breath work, and also an introduction to music. So if you wanna dig into education this year, this is a really great time to get all of our classes all bundled up with a really great sales price. So you can check that out at Psychedeliceducationcenter.com. There's a little banner up top there. It says end of year sales. You can click on that, or there's a little link up at the top that says end of year sales. And so yeah, we will be running that until January 2nd. So if you're listening to this in the new year right off, go check that out before you miss that. So I think that's it, everybody. I hope you enjoy this episode with Tamiya Sito. And again, wishing you a happy new year in 2025. All right, Tamiya Sito, welcome back to Psychedelics today. For those that are listening, you might remember Tami from our episode back in April of 2024, you were on with Court Wing. So we're here in Nashville in person, which is super cool. - Yeah, it's a great city. I moved here three years ago and it's a hell of a networking town and a lot of creatives, a lot of energy. They call it the city of good energy and great vibes for reasons, so it's been a good three years. - I jammed up here. - Really just fate, really. I moved out of California. My wife lived in Texas. She didn't really wanna live in California for the taxes and stuff. And she said, "What do you think of Nashville?" And I said, "I don't really haven't been there." And we came here basically eloped on July 4th and my friend's backyard. - Nice. - And guys, it's like, "I guess we're coming back here." So we closed up shop and both of our previous places and been here for three years. Love really like it, yeah, good energy. - The city has really grown over the past few years. I used to come here a whole bunch 'cause my really good friend went to Vanderbilt and yeah, the city has definitely seen like huge growth over the past few years. So when you say networking, I know a lot of businesses have moved in here, but how are psychedelics here in the south? What's that like? - That's really a great question. So I don't have the perspective of the growth here, but I do know from talking to other people that have been here a lot. I came from California, spent 12 years there where I learned a lot about psychedelics there and it's such a progressive place in terms of psychedelics. And coming here, it was like, there was nobody talking about it. There's people doing it and there's actually, have you ever seen nine perfect strangers? - Yes. - That's messed up. - So Nicole Kidman lives here. - Oh, wow. - Her husband's a country artist. - Oh, no, wow. - And they, she's been, I think, pretty public about like, she obviously played the role, right? So there's a lot of high-end ayahuasca. I've had rumors that like Bill Gates has come here for an ayahuasca. So there's, in an Ashland, North Carolina, which isn't too far east, they're known as a very psychedelic in the know kind of community. But to answer your question, psychedelics in the south, it's, you know, a fraction of what is in Colorado or out west. So I think having worked with the Kentucky's Opioid Settlement Commission, basically there where every state is receiving money from the federal government, from the Johnson & Johnson Opioid Settlement, which was $27 billion. I got asked to be a part of the advocacy group to set this up. It was the first state to ever come up with an Opioid Settlement Committee, a Bateman Committee, they called it. - And we saw that happening and we were like, what's happening down there? - Yeah, well, the reason that happened is because Brian Hubbard, who was the former chairman of the commission, Opioid Abatement Commission, I think, Settlement, God, whatever. But he was very influential, and he still is in this psychedelic community, particularly with IBA game. He healed himself at Beyond, I believe, Beyond Cancun. And so he partnered and got with Marty Steele, General Marty Steele, from the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition. And they basically got a bunch of veterans to give our testimonies about, in this case, specifically, it was IBA game. And it was incredible. I know, I didn't, I really was new to this advocacy stuff. This was kind of my second time speaking after Michigan, where we raised 1.3 million for Silasieben, only to be overturned and never to be done with. I think that's the kind of the play they use is they, thanks for showing up and putting all this work in. We'll piece the eye with, thank you for your service. We'll get this approved, it's actually approved, and then nothing happens with it. So I think that's something we need to expose. But after Kentucky, it became a lot more closer with Brian, and he's working in Ohio right now, kind of doing the same thing, and also gonna be working with IBA game, or beyond, which kind of like an alumni, I guess. But yeah, it's been crazy. - I can imagine, whatever happened with the Kentucky bill, are they gonna restart that if things go through, or is that completely dead? I think I've heard-- - It's just Navy SEAL, like politically free to speak. - Sure. - Yeah, so what happened with that was really, again, a show of hand on how they squashed something when you start to build too much momentum. What they did was we were working under the former Attorney General, Dan Cameron, a really great guy. He was a former football player, African-American, Republican, and he was trying to become the governor. He lost, and they put a Democrat in, not that it mattered if it was Republican Democrat, but I'm just trying to be clear here. Once the new Democratic governor came in, he removed Brian Hubbard from the coalition as the chairman and replaced him with a former DEA guy. And so what was really a synchronicity here is, I remember watching the live stream from the MDMA hearing in DC and knowing, 'cause I'm friends with a couple of people that testified, and I watched them basically do what they did, which was pretty, I don't know what the right word is. It's just injustice for sure, I believe, how they handled it and killed MDMA going to market and going into therapy. At the same time, they were doing that exact same time. There was another feed-on from Kentucky, and it was where they were gonna, their decision on where they would handle the opioid settlement fund. And every single dollar of the 900 million, we were asking for 42 million for Ibogaine research. It was the first state. They took all that money, put it right back into the system. And so I had a theory that almost like, yeah, you got us, Oxycontin is addictive, it's pretty much heroin, and here's our, we're gonna force us to pay $27 billion, which is nothing for what they made, and basically put it in the system and then go collect it on the bottom side, into the methadone clinics, into the hospitals, into the same people that they control, well, they own. So it's really never leaving their pocket. - Right, right. - And that's what I saw. And I think there's a lot of states out there that are trying to duplicate this effort and try to find a way to use opioid settlement funds, but I can assure you this, it's not gonna happen unless you have a governor or a lieutenant governor that's willing to push the button. If you don't have that, they're gonna do the same thing. And hopefully it will be a state like Colorado or Oregon or someone that's willing to go against probably what would be their career advancement to do this because we need heroes to do heroic acts, and hopefully Kennedy will help this initiative as well. - It'd be interesting to see how the politics play out. I know we don't really know what's in store, but it's gonna be interesting 'cause it does seem like there might be some movement towards some adoption of psychedelics, maybe more research funds going towards it, maybe a push towards decriminalization, but yeah, I guess we don't know the future, but we'll see what happens. - No, we don't know the future, but I think, look, no, hopes are great, it's great to have hopes. I have a lot of hopes that we've never had somebody like Elon Musk in a cabinet position that's gonna look at the efficiency of where the money's going. And without these, like this is how I kind of give the analogy, let's just say, and I'm pretty apolitical. Like I, for me, it's about this medicine 'cause it helps save my life. And I know it's gonna do a lot more than just heal PTSD and addictions and TBI. It's, if it touches the nervous system and changes in the neurochemistry, which changes your thoughts, changes your actions, changes your feelings, if it does those things, then it's going to help heal and improve mental health, but cardiovascular health, it will be more aware of what we're eating and what we're putting our bodies. So overall awareness, which is your nervous system, is this, if it improves that, it's gonna improve a lot of things. So I have a lot of hope, but I can't sit here in good conscience, wait for the government to say it's okay to, it's approved by them because I might not ever see that, we might never see that, but we can see is the overall awareness of society starting to go, what's behind door number three? You can grow this and micro-dose this and use it with intention and wait a second, how long have they been doing this? Oh, thousands of years. Our forefathers probably use these. You know what I mean? I think we're there and it's funny how we're going backwards into more primitive things, like healing with energy and nature and, you know, it's Terrence McKenna would say it's that archaic revival. Yeah, cyclic, very cyclic. Yeah, yeah. But things could go backwards too, you know? Like we see that in Oregon when they push back on measure 110, which we criminalized most of the drugs that were decriminalized, which include psilocybin. And then I just saw that there were a couple of towns in Oregon outside of Portland that want to ban psilocybin, I think within that legal model. And so it's interesting to see, you know, we have some forward progress, but then things kind of like rubber band back a little bit too. So the current state in Oregon is what? Adult use? Adult use model. Yeah, that means it's legal right now. Legal for the service center, so you can't necessarily grow it, bring it home. In the D. Krimbill, you could grow it because personal possession was decriminalized. So they ended up going back on that because it also contained other substances. Like I think it was most substances, they might have excluded a few things. But I think what happened was that the progressive drug policy just started to, you know, go forward and then people started to see the impact of like, you know, the abuse of opiates on the streets and stuff like that. And so that clamped down on it. I think the voters wanted, you know, that's a problem is like we clump all drugs into a category versus like here, psilocybin, which most of the folks that are having drug substance abuse issues. So, but before, not for the de-legalized bill, but just for the adult use part of it, did that, so that is that still? That's still fine. So you can use it as long as you go through a doctor. Through a service center. Which defines a service center or license? The license, yeah. Was that what licenses the minimum for that, you know? I'm not too sure what the service center minimum is, but for a facilitator, it's 21 years of age, 100 and what is it, 20 hour training program, 40 hour practicum, a GED. So you don't need to be a medical provider. You just need to, yeah. And that facilitator buy the mushrooms and then serve it. Or does it have to go through like a doctor or a psychiatrist? No, the medical establishment isn't involved. So it would go through the service center, I believe. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out, what defines a service center in terms of, where's the state gonna approve and not approve? Hey, I wanna become a service center. You gotta go through the whole application process. So it's almost like a cannabis part. Probably, yeah. That's interesting 'cause it wasn't read up on that, but yeah, the, you know, I'm biased 'cause I'm a veteran and, but I do think just from, you know, listening to people like Joe Rogan and other people, like Bobby Kennedy, that I think that veterans are a huge part of the way into this, breaking through the FDA's abusive control and their, you know, shifting of the goal posts in terms of what's bonafide, like, you know, quality research versus we have to throw this out because it doesn't fit the model that we provide. And one of those is, you know, like, I talked to Dr. Sue Sisley who is just an incredible person and MD and advocate and just pioneer in his space. But, you know, she's working on a clinical trial using Iboga in the prison systems to rehabilitate in prisons. She's using root Iboga or Ibogaine? - I, Iboga. - Oh, wow. - So, well, which is, you know, 30% less potent. It's all the alkaloids, total alkaloid. The point is she has, she's the only person to sue the DOJ and win for a cannabis issue that she wanted to use quality cannabis and the government said, no, you're gonna have to use government control cannabis. She said, no, and she sued and won. So her thing is they're gonna, she wants to do everything natural, which is the right way to do it. The problem is it can't patent things when it comes to nature and they can't make money if people know and it gets approved that it was done with natural substances. That's why they're, that's why they don't, they're not gonna approve that. But we still gotta show that they're not proving it. We have to basically take one, you know? And I think she's done that with cannabis. But now, the thing I hope for the end state with Kennedy and Elon, because he's definitely pro psychedelics, is that we use the veterans and say, look, the people that go and fight your wars should not have to leave the country they served in order to get the treatment they deserve. The treatment that they choose, because these are options. And the only reason I was exposed to these life-saving medicinal plants and fungi are because I was a seal and that's not okay. You know, so a lot of the work I do, it's paying it forward for not just veterans, but firefighters and police officers, nurses, and anyone really that has had some sort of trauma. But as we see that this is much more than trauma, this is health and optimization of the nervous system. - Yeah, just chatting with some folks today during this shadow class that I'm running with good friend colleague, Dr. Edel Cohen. But this conversation came up today in class around this idea of trauma boxing or just using psychedelics for trauma treatment. And you know, you're talking about optimization and wellness, so I wonder if you could chat a little bit more about that, because we do just really, I think, focus on the mental health component, which is great, you know, I think that's helping to mainstream and get these FDA trials. We need to have some sort of, you know, psychopathology to look at, to quote, unquote, heal or treat to go through that whole process. But there's other use cases for psychedelics. - Yeah, I know I'm good friends with Dr. Martin Polanco from the Mishwhithin. He, you know, I would like to mention his name in these podcasts because he's the doctor who helped heal the seals, the bridging old doctor who was treating Ibogaine for special forces. And we're good friends, and he's kind of shifting into like an athlete with athletes. Because a lot of athletes, well, number one, a lot of large-frame men that abuse their bodies like get hit in football or hit to the head. They don't have any protocols. There's no drugs that help heal TBI. But the psychedelics, without the research being done, I know myself who's had many TBIs, explosives, you know, hardfalls out of planes. But all my friends that are athletes, they're the only tool they really have is cannabis, but that which is great because of an inflammatory stuff. But psychedelics, what we're finding in this kind of, is what you're asking about the performance and health and optimization side of this, is that we've got to talk about neurochemistry. And I got to the privilege of studying under Dr. Joe Despenza, who's a renowned chiropractor. Well, he was a background of the chiropractor, which, you know, chiropractor, they do understand the nervous system. Some of them, more of them than doctors, because that's what they focus on. And they know about energy. And so he's definitely a Eastern-trained healer, but he uses neurochemistry and uses the tool of meditation to change the brainwaves from beta to alpha to beta, delta. And then if you take an EEG and you look at that and you look at the neurochemicals, when they're in different states, beta was a very sympathetic survival state, kind of mundane, like, "Oh God, I got this text. "My ex said this, my boss needs this report." You know, all these survival things can add up and you can actually create grooves and neural pathways that are not addicted to, but programmed to living in survival. Now, if you put trauma on top of that, then you really are beefing up those pathways. So you almost can get addicted to like adrenaline. All right, cortisol. And so I think from a neurological perspective, I think that psychedelics, either with microdosing or with these, you know, flood doses in a safe space, I feel that you can start to alter the neurochemistry and the body is 100% objective to the experience. And I think what I like to say is the medicine becomes the experience and then the experience becomes the medicine. It's the neurochemistry. And it also, using for a lot of us, it took some experiences to get us here. So it probably is gonna take some to get us out. And unfortunately, a lot of the big pharma in these synthesizing divisions, they wanna try to take out the psychedelic effect and essentially the experience and see if it'll treat their opioid receptors without it. And I'm going, they're missing the boat, completely missing the boat. And so we got a lot of stuff to throw in. - We do, we're building. - Yeah, yeah, we're just at the beginning here. And I think that's a good reminder for all of us. You know, there's just so much to learn, so much to explore and research. I know you're pretty new to Tennessee and the South. And I know you're an advocate and you're out there trying to educate people and talk about these treatments. I'm sure there's a lot of interest around here, but maybe people are afraid to come out and talk about it and maybe get involved. Like, have you noticed the psychedelic community here at all or just thinking about if there are people listening in this area and they're like, how do I meet the others? Like, what are you noticing? - Yeah, I love that, yeah. So a couple of years ago, I did do a conference, speaking conference in Birmingham, Alabama. So you don't get much more south than that. And, you know, we had a psychedelics in the South conference. We brought in a couple of veterans, a couple of psychologists. One of them was a dear friend. He's awesome. He's a teacher at University of Alabama, Birmingham. And he's doing the psilocybin smoking, Peter Hendricks. Yeah, he's a great friend. He's probably my favorite psychologist to listen to. He's just a great speaker. But we actually had a clergyman, a pastor, who actually was part of the Harvard Last Good Friday study, the newer one. They haven't released those data because it was so overwhelming. - Wow. - And he was part of that like four years ago, I think three or four years ago. - Overwhelming in a good way. - In a good way. Yeah, from a spiritual aspect, which they don't need that getting out. So anyways, we all spoke and it was amazing 'cause I think my community as the veterans and the like special forces and the SEAL teams, like we're so small comparatively. And we all know like we literally kind of not judge but categorize former SEALs as if he's on the mass or not. You know, it's like it's funny. But I think I knew this that it would so transcend the veteran community. And it would go into other areas of trauma, which is poverty in our African-American communities, our indigenous, which was the most trauma out on. Anyways, I don't mean to be, I'm not trying to be judgmental, but I think that our Native Americans have been through more than any other group and you know, in our continent. And so, but just in even in the penal system and in our inmates, like there are so many places for this to go, especially in Parkinson's and all these other neurological disorders, like we don't know unless we test this and we can't test it and do the research unless the government allows us to. So it's like, you know, it's gonna take a lot. But I think, you know, Bobby Kennedy did a pretty good job on his campaign and from, you know, trying to defeat this two-party system which I don't think it's possible, but he campaigned by word of mouth the way his dad and his uncle did. And he got on podcasts and he was the first person he could, he might've won if they didn't block him in New York, but I think that model of information that needs to be disseminated is gonna be podcasts and other content documentaries and miniseries and people teaching others, you know, how to use this with intention and getting the neuroscience behind it because once we get that, it's gonna be really hard for them to say, this doesn't have a medicinal value. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, media is changing, right? Like the way that we consume media and we gotta stay on top of that. And we were just talking a little bit about storytelling before we got here and how important that is, especially in this field of like changing the narrative, battling up against some of the stigma and taboo that's still here. But yeah, I mean, do you find it challenging to try to get involved down here still or is it like people don't wanna talk about it? Is it still pretty controversial, taboo? I mean, I don't even know if cannabis is still legal here, right? - Yeah, there's a difference between cannabis and psychedelics. My angle, when people know that I was a seal and that I healed myself from addictions to PTSD and TBI that it's a different animal. It doesn't look like a joint. It doesn't, it's a pill or it's clean, whatever. But the thing is is, and again, my community, like the energy around me, right? I've never heard someone like really looking at me like you're speaking satanic things or whatever. Like they're just, most people I talk to are very, very interested across the board. Now they might think I'm crazy, they're just not telling me. But I mean, I hang out with a lot of creatives, like I'm a storyteller. So a lot of musicians know about me. They, my friends, I laugh because they call me the psychedelic seal here in Nashville, which isn't a bad title. But there's a lot of songwriters and storytellers and musicians that know the benefits of psychedelics. I don't need to tell them that. But I think for people that are battling mental health or have been on SSRIs and don't wanna be on SSRIs, I truly believe that these microdoses to include LSD, psilocybin, iboga, you know, a lot of them are gonna change the way we treat people. And if people can heal themselves, I would not wait for my doctor to tell me, oh, I can't talk about that because I could lose my license or we don't have enough research on it. Like if they're hearing that from their doctors, they need to find another doctor or just ditch them and do it yourself. But, you know, use intention. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is a good point, you know? I know, I think Joe's brought that up a few times, but I get it, you know? I trained as a therapist and holding the license. It's like, you know, how much do you talk about this? Could you lose it? And I understand why people are afraid to sometimes talk about it. But, you know, I think it just is, you know, gives more motivation to try to educate folks. I think I just saw a research study, somebody just posted online how a bunch of doctors and nurses actually don't know much about psychedelics because they don't get it in their medical training and they really have to search for it. And, you know, yeah, how much do we really need to go out there and educate these folks? Because it is going to be the forefront, I think of medicine and healing in a way. And if it's, they're not starting to talk about it, we definitely need to get them more up on speed. - Yeah, well, I think there's a couple of things. Like I said, I had a strong passion to be a physician as a kid up into college. I want to be the pediatrician. And so, I have that mindset of like, I always ask myself, like, it's not like they're all bad. There's bad people that were bad, you know, in intentions. But I do feel that people that are healers that are in a system, there's a couple people. The ones that are like, I'm curious 'cause I'm a healer and I really want to know how I could help my patients and using things that could possibly more than likely heal, help with the nervous system and deregulate and drop the default mode and switch you in a parasympathetic, which releases different neurotransmitters. And I think that not many physicians will argue with that part, but what I think scares a lot of physicians is the fact that the way they do business might be taken away. It comes down to the fear of not providing. I think that puts you in survival mode. And I think people, at that point, make the decision to feel safe. And that's what I think the problem is. Especially when you talk about like insurances and all kinds of pressures. But you know, like, that's the power, like I said, that's the power of awareness and doing podcasts is that hopefully there's a handful of young college students and med students that are seeing here are going to hear this and they're going to go, why are we hearing about this in med school? And then all of a sudden now there's- - They need to start changing the curriculum or something. - Well, here's the other thing. I know that one of Elon Musk's guys gave 16 million to Harvard for their first psychedelic society, which will integrate the school of law, school of medicine and school of divinity. And I think that model is going to apply to all the Ivy League schools and then further. So, and that's Michael Pollan is leading that right now with Brian Merzak, you, the author. - Yeah. - More, I say it. Sorry, Brian. - Since you just said it, it's in my brain. - Merz rescue, Merz. - More rescue. - More rescue. - I have to like clear out what you said. - Damn it, he's not taking advantage of it. - Damn it, he's not taking advantage of it. But yeah, I think that like that's the natural progression. And I, as a storyteller, I really believe that we need to integrate, at least bring up psychedelics and creation, and I have people believe in that and really have a real strong conversation with the clergy and, you know, even all the way up to the pope because it's just from that side house, but every religion. But I think, you know, Buddhism is going to definitely be the only one to resonate. - Yeah, I wonder how that would resonate down here if like some of the, you know, religious organizations are to get more on board and people are hearing it through the church, you know, 'cause we are kind of like a little bit in the Bible Belt. - That's why they shut that down as the research from the Harvard. But no, I think it's, they look, the best way to be advocate for this is to walk the walk. If they wanna see if it works, just show 'em. You don't need to tell 'em, just show 'em. - I mean, we kind of have to tell 'em to spread awareness, but I think if people see you judge you by the fruits that you produce, you know, like if you're becoming more human and less like a predator, they're gonna see that. Unfortunately, psychedelics don't just make you a better person. I think they're kind of like a nondescriptive amplifier like a scope on a rifle. Like if a narcissist, it doesn't wanna do the healing or the work, they're just gonna use it to do things. And I'm very open about that 'cause I don't want people to think that everybody should do psychedelics. I kind of look at it like this. There's some people that are gonna crave the experience of life and find it from recreation. Some people are gonna be in a place where they're in a lot of pain and a lot of suffering and they don't know if they're gonna be able to go on anymore. And they're gonna look for an alternative, right? That's how I showed up. And when I said earlier that the body is 100% objective, when you look at the spiritual housing that lights up on a 3D MRI and you look at a psychedelic trip, they mirror it right there in the frontal lobe, which has got three functions, creation, creativity, intention, and see the consciousness. That's where the wires, that's how we do this. And I think like people like Joe dispends in many, many other people that understand this awakened state and energy and some neuroscience, I think they're gonna gravitate towards it. And I just want people to know that if you're not happy, there's ways that you can treat your nervous system and you don't need a doctor to do it. You just kind of have intention in a safe place. And I love that you're just constantly bringing up like treating the nervous system, right? I think at least a lot of my work comes back to that too. And so many of us, we aren't in tune with it. Yeah, somebody was going on their body and nothing, right? But like when we start to really tune in, you go, oh, actually there's something going on there, but it's like a different language 'cause we've just neglected everything's in the head in our culture. - Yeah, 'cause the awareness is there. And also, if you don't use it, you lose it if wires together, fires together, so the more you become aware of the body, of the emotions, of the breath, of all these things, well, the more you do that, the more robust your nervous system, your neural pathways are becoming. And that's why microdosing on a good regimen can improve awareness. Some say I laugh because if I friends at Newvian High School, they're like, "Were you always this part?" I'm like, "I mean, I don't know." And then I laugh and I go, "I think it helps with IQ, especially emotional quotient." And you know, people say all the time, like, "Can you make, can you build genius?" And I'm going, "Well, if you break it down to awareness and you improve awareness and you improve your intention and you start to feel and you develop this thing called the heart, which is Christ consciousness. And if you really learn how to suffer through the lens of love, which is passion, now you got a system that is really powerful energetically. You got a mind that's operating in a heart that is strong. And that doesn't mean that your life's going to get easy. It just means that you're living in a different, like aura or a different sphere, energy, whatever you want to call it. But it's, and that's what schools, 'cause now you have a, you're writing a different story. You're completely writing another story. And that's powerful. - Yeah. I just, saying I just going back to some of my own experiences and I'm sure other people really resonate with this too, but like the emotional resiliency, I think with psychedelics is that we just start to build more of that, right? It's like, maybe we can talk, I always think about like, you know, all this work and then going through the pandemic where like a lot of people just had like, I don't know what the hell to do with themselves, right? And I don't know how other people in the psychedelic world fared, but I feel like having that practice of like inner work and that emotional resiliency and like, something to keep me going, right? Like when there's like no hope or you're just like, what the hell is going on? You're just like, are we gonna go back to normal? Like, you know, I think those experiences help me to continue to say, okay, yeah, no, there's something else on the other side of this. How do I stick with this? And it's kind of like psychedelic experience. How do you stick with it when it's really tough? There is another side to it. - People like the front side, they don't know about the back side of it, right? The back wave can get a little exhausting. Yeah, I mean, obviously I was a seal for a long time. And so when I got out, it was right when COVID happened and I'm watching like a reverse of society going on a deployment and losing their autonomy. And I'm like, that was my life. So for me, it was a completely flip-flop. The freeways or hope I can go to San Diego to L.A. in an hour with no traffic. But that was really interesting to see the kind of experiment in humans, but I think you're right, because I think I've studied not just with the psychedelics, but that's what showed me what I call the best skill you can ever learn is letting go. Eventually, whatever you love, you're gonna have to let go. Eventually, I think the issue is attachments, which become neurological attachments. And I think once we learn how to be better at letting go, which is the cleaving part of the neuron from neuron to go to a new neuron to create a pathway, a new pathway, when you start to look at how psychedelics can help with that, there's a medicinal value that you're not gonna find anywhere else because of this ability to go into a state of receivership, which is looks like surrender, right? And so people have a lot of problem with that word, allow. But state of receivership means to allow. And if you're doing that, you're gonna be, you're gonna have a better chance to do that when you're feeling safe. So if you create safety and trust, that's why it's so important with seeing the setting in the counselor or the therapist, you have to have trust in the veteran community. That's why we've been doing so much good work with psychedelics, 'cause we trust each other, and that's huge. - You already have like that group, - Right, when someone comes to me and says, "It's time you hear about Mark, he's not drinking anymore." You're like, "What?" You're like, "No, he's changed." And in that word of mouth, right? And so, but yeah, when you get trust, you get safety. And when you get safety, you're in a parasympathetic. When you're in a parasympathetic, when you have faith, and that's the metaphor of faith in any kind of theology, it's like, if I know that there's a heaven and my soul is clean, and I'm like, I know that I'm loved, and I'm going to return to love, no matter what religion you're talking about, or I'm gonna come back and whatever, it doesn't matter. But if you can deal with death, and look at it, and not be afraid, and to welcome it, like Ramdaz, and all these things, then you are basically rewiring the nervous system from the most fundamental thing, which is death. And if you can do that, and there's medicine that can help you do that, like five M-E-O-D-M-T, which is not, you're just walking the park, right? Then you gain the awareness that I can enter this state at any time, on micro levels, when I get an email, and I feel my blood pressure go up, and I have awareness, what do I do? I close my eyes, I start breathing through my nose, sipping air into my nose, feeling the bottom of my... They can just say it, and my brain is already... And then people go, well, do you have to keep doing psychedelics? And I say, well, here's the crazy part, the more open your system becomes, the less you need. I can go into a trip from five years ago, if I wanted to, right now, with my own breath, because they're open, pathways. Where are they teaching that in medicine? - I think it's an important conversation, especially as like psychedelics become more mainstream, people are doing more of them, is that, yeah, what are we doing in these in-between states? And can we bring those lessons and really feel it on a day-to-day basis, right? And I think that's like the integration, right? Like it's all here happening in front of us. How do we slow down enough to just be with it? - Yeah, like if there was a title, people say, "What do you do?" I'm like, "I don't know, I help people change." Like, "Why do you think people need to change?" And I'm like, "I don't, but if they want to and they can't." Well, then they need some help, right? And I needed a lot of help, but I think the word change is growth. Sustain change equals growth, or decay, but you're changing, you're not staying the same. You're either going to growth or you're going to decay, or you're either going to survival more or more, or you're going into creation more and more, where I'm creating. And I always say, you have to feel safe to create. But I think as we see this, like play out, like it's like, it's not just about doing a psychedelic and having a reset. We can do that, but is it sustained? Can you sustain change? And that's where this huge elephant in the room, in terms of psychedelic therapy, the word integration, which you guys are certifying people in this work, how do you bring it home and how do you make the person learn and become aware that you must heal yourself? And I say this every single time with somebody teaching about psychedelics is that psychedelics is a tool that used to heal yourself. It's a technology, it's a medicine, it's a blessing, it's a sacrament, but it doesn't heal you, you heal you. And until people really get that, it's a hard road. But once you understand that and you use these things to go in and do this, you have to start to develop new behavior patterns. And so for me, I have to become aware that I lived my life. I was a Navy SEAL, I was a two-time state wrestling champ, I did some crazy stuff. But what it taught me was that the ego is not what you think it is, the ego is a mask that we wear, that we show the world who we are, what our identity is. And if you're not showing somebody you're inside, if you feel like you're putting on a fake, then there's something more. And to take that mask off is scary because that's where I call it, you're being affirmed. And that's my affirmations where I stand, that's how I feel good. And with that becomes a drug, that becomes a neurochemistry, right? I feel dopamine and I feel serotonin, right? But to take all that off and become who you're meant to be, it's very vulnerable and scary, but it's the most freeing thing in the world because we're not gonna be here that long. And once we, I'd rather live a life full of passion and full of like, I feel good about who I am, like at the core, not in the egotistical way, but in a very grateful way. I feel like that's just set yourself up for the afterlife. It really is. - No, yeah, I mean, it's that kind of old saying I learned during this death and dying class, it's how we prepare for death, it's how we live our life and how we live our life is how we prepare for death. And I thought that just kind of popped in my mind as you're speaking is like, the timing that I'm speaking to right now is probably so different than the Tommy before as a steel wrestler, an athlete. And what was that like? What was that transformation like for you? And what was that path? - Well, it was five MEO and it hurt and it was horrible. I didn't have anybody telling me how to surrender. I wouldn't have probably did it anyways, but it's something I had to go through and I'm glad I did. And I always believe that, I think when people start realizing something didn't happen to me, it happened for me. And if you can have that, you literally are doing a reversal against the thing that we're all trying to beat, ourself, our mind, the demons, the whatever you want to call it, the darkness, the resistance, the self doubt, whatever it is, it's, if you can start to feel grateful for the things that you might look at as a wound or something that's holding you back, then you really switched the neurochemistry and that point and gratitude is a really cool thing because it's a post tense emotion, meaning if you start to say, I'm grateful for, you're literally telling the nervous system and the body that it's already happened. You're releasing the chemicals as if they already happened. If you do that long enough in a meditative state, gratitude, then you're going to switch the neurochemistry and you're like, fake it till you make it, I guess. But yeah, I think the Tommy I was was the per, I was, I have a hard time for giving myself, but I think that I'm doing a better job because I feel like I got exactly what I needed when I needed it and not a day before. And it's what I do with it now that really matters 'cause in storytelling, people don't really care about what you did before. They just care about what you did after you reached your rock bottom and that's the start of the third act, you know? So people have a lot more autonomy. I think there's so many people out there that are, it's the human condition, right? It's the human condition, but I think we're in a renaissance of people that are becoming those little nodules of good energy and it's really starting to manifest. Like, and I think that's the only way we fix a stand place. - Yeah, it definitely feels like there's a shift on the horizon and people are starting to kind of wake up and start seeing things differently, which is exciting. It gives me a little bit more hope that like even though as crazy as things are getting, you know, maybe we are going through a transition, some sort of weird growth period and we are having a hard time maybe letting go of certain things, but you know, I think psychedelics and even you're just bringing up breath work and these other types of techniques, you know, Stan Groff would call them the technologies of a sacred, but we're starting to become more interested in this stuff and where is that going to shift humanity? - I think in our country, number one, people need to realize and stop believing that we're supposed to have things given to us and our government and this and that. And yes, we should have certain things, but if people would take more accountability of their own health, their own wellness, their own happiness and they start to become self-sufficient and this is kind of one of those things. I think our nation will heal a lot faster and division will be less because there's a lot of fear out there and that's addicting, fear is addicting, being a victim is addicting. It's dries cortisol and what you know is what you do. So it's like it takes one thing to go back into the program that you're currently running, but it's harder to change that program without having one there, you have to create it. And so I think that's what I was like, what am I forgetting? But when you said about being a seal before, there's a lot of things that I'm like operator syndrome, dopamine spiking, like I'm guilty is charged, like addicted to the-- - It was interesting, you guys were talking about that on the podcast last time. - Yeah, so dopamine setting is basically living in a state of survival for a long time. I happened to be from a place in my childhood where I had a pretty angry dad and he was a good man, but just a lot of anger, product of a World War II, professional boxer, you know, just yeah. So I came from a place where not being safe felt comfortable and that what's led me to be a seal. And so I thought I flourished there, but what I wasn't aware of was the moral injury and a lot of the shame and just seeking the storm, chasing the storm. And so that what we know now is called operator syndrome and you're like basically spike your dopamine. So hi, if you feel anything less, you feel crappy and so you find something to do that, behavior that you're subconscious about, why am I keep dating the wrong person? Why am I, you know, so self-loathing? Why am I doing these things? It's because you're, that's what you know and it's gives you energy. Actually, it is actually energy in adrenaline, right? - Yeah, yeah. - To feel afraid, right? So, but one of the things that I'm grateful for with my background is I know how to work. And that's one of the components in this integration and even in the ceremonies is you're gonna have to learn to work and it's gonna have to happen over and over. And if there's any money that trains, that knows about training, it's the SEAL teams because we do things over and over to the fun things don't come fun anymore. Like scuba diving, jumping on airplanes, shooting none of that stuff because you're so much iterations. So that's how the mind works. It has to be replicated, replicated, replicated. And I think that the ability to have someone say, okay, what's the game plan here? Well, I know I gotta improve my health. I know I have to improve my physical health. I know I have to get my body healthy. If my body's healthy, that's one thing. But if my mind's healthy and my body's not, it's not gonna help the mind. But if the mind's healthy and the body's healthy, they're gonna help each other. And so there's this huge thing and you talk about like emotional eating. Like have people at microdose LSD, 10 micrograms, every three days, like Dr. James Fademan's request, you know, said, and see what happens to your emotional eating. You're not, you're intermittent fastens are gonna be way easier, trust me. Like I've kept my weight off for a while since microdosing LSD. And I'm like, just imagine what else this stuff can help. - And Dr. Andrew, while we always forget how to pronounce this last name, I think in an episode, I forget what it was on, maybe Tim Ferriss or some other, you had some pretty wild stories about it, like LSD, like curing like sunburn or like a cat allergy and stuff like that. I mean, the potential, we just don't know, right? Like we're still really at the beginning of everything. And I think once you start to, I mean, there's so much there, right? You have the physiology, the chemistry, but then you also have like the spiritual and transpersonal aspects of these medicines. And then how do you describe that interfacing? It's like, what is going on here? - Yeah. You know, something that you brought up that I kind of resonated was like feeling safe and being afraid or maybe just at chaos. And I just resonate with like my own childhoods. Like, oh, if it's not chaotic or I'm not like on edge, then like I actually don't feel safe. And you know, hearing you talk about like letting go is really hard. And just thinking about, yeah, how do you, or how did you find that relaxation in your nervous system to feel comfortable? 'Cause that is kind of like what we would call like the golden shadow, right? We could talk about the dark side of trauma and psychedelics. But what about this other side where it was like letting relaxation in, letting love in is actually terrifying 'cause it's making your nervous system more activated. - Yeah, I love that question because when I did it the first time, the five MEO, it was horrible. I clinched up, it felt like forever, right? But it was probably like 15 minutes. I did three rounds of the toad and I, you know, I always tell people, five MEO is the godmaw cool because it basically shows you your personal death if you get in the way. Like if you try to resist that thing, you're gonna get run over and it's gonna show you something to where it's not gonna feel good, possibly. But if you just change the way you go into the medicine with a state of receivership of surrender, of allowance, and you can coach that. Like for example, getting somebody in the ice bath, couple days a week, couple weeks before they go do five MEO, you get 'em to start relaxing and to surrendering and being still, just working on it. The chances that they're gonna have a better five MEO trip is gonna be way higher and I've done this before. I've seen our world's strongest badass warriors cry like five year old girls when they saw death. I've also seen people that have been through hell raped and just the worst things you could ever imagine yet, they've surrendered and they are now a different person. They're not being prisoner of their bad circumstances. So it is coachable, but the state of receivership is what I learned. I didn't learn the first time until I said, I thought the CIA was euthanizing me in my trip, 'cause it was horrible and I was so much pain that I was like, okay, I'm ready, this is it, this is it. I literally was playing a head game with myself and I surrendered and thought I died and that's when the glow happened and I saw the little glows and I just knew that they were souls and I was like, I'm surrounded by love. Oh my God, it's all love. But that was the first time and then the second time I didn't wanna do it again, it was after Ibogaine six months later and Dr. Martine was like, are you done doing the work? I was like, so at that moment, I literally reached in my hand and grabbed a rosary and I was like, I'm gonna surrender right away and I took one hit and I went into the body of Christ and it was the most incredible thing I ever experienced in my life and I felt, I remember there was two ladies there and one was an older middle-aged lady and young, like I call her like she's an angel 'cause she's held space for more special forces guys than anybody that could ever imagine. Beautiful Latina girl and they were holding my hands and I didn't wanna move a muscle. So I had like the jewel coming off the side and I had like this tear and it was just like right here and it was, I just felt like the shame and the weight and the pain of the world and I just exhaled and breathed and like went and as soon as I did that, my chest shot up, I had to like light hit my chest, people in the room were like crying and I'm like, what the hell was that? Like I was a little theatrical but I was like, you know what, the body doesn't need to know if it's real or not, I just need to feel it. And when it does that, I saw what letting go does. Like to me, from a storyteller perspective, it was like that's what Jesus was trying. That was the whole point, the story was dying to yourself in order to be reborn and doing it with intention makes it magnified and it's like an energetic reset to the nervous system when we can do that and this medicine allows us to do that and I'm going, that is divine. You cannot say that this is not a spiritual thing when you go through that and I'm like, I've seen it so many atheists like find a higher power. They don't need to describe it but the words that come out of their mouth after five is like, oh my God, it's love, oh my God. And I'm going like, you can't tell me that this doesn't have medicinal value. It's got life-saving value. - Yeah, especially when you're at the end of the ropes and like not really too sure you don't have any hope or love or anything like that to feel that. - Yeah, thanks for sharing your story there. That's really powerful. Did you grow up very religious or spiritual or is this something that's starting to develop a little bit more? - No, yeah, well, see, that's what I always go back and I'm like, how did that happen? And, you know, was it, what was it? I believe like we can load the nervous system, load the mind with whatever we put into it. So, you know, a lot of things we do pre-work for medicine is read these books, read unto the soul, read how to change your mind, read the body keeps score, read, breathe, read these books. And I think doing that puts the information in like a like Neo in the Matrix. - Right, yeah. - And once it's in there, you're aware of it. And then the experiences kind of brings it out. But for me, my faith, I grew up in a Christian home. No, I grew up in a Catholic home, but they weren't really Christian. Like my dad wasn't, he didn't have, we did all the things that show, you know, the ultra boy bring up the stuff, but it was not like, it wasn't, it was no relationship. - Right. - And then I, later on in my life, I basically numb God's voice out for a long time and did a lot of drugs and stuff. And then when I found my faith again, it was through the Protestant faith where I really actually learned what the story was and the word got rebaptized 2010. And then I had a real bad experience with the church and it was like, I saw like the Pharisee thing and I was like, dude, I'm done with this. So I went back to the Catholic church 'cause I had a men's group and one of my good friends is Jim Perviesel who played Jesus on a fashion of Christ. - I don't know what. - And I was in San Diego and a bunch of baseball players were in my men's group. So it was like kind of neat 'cause I had the word and I went back to the original, kind of that sacredness. But that's when I did the five, like in that state. So if I had all that in my head, the chances are it's probably why it manifests. I wouldn't expect somebody in Africa or, you know, Thailand to go into the Bible, Christ, unless it was exposed to you. - Right, right. - Like that. You know what I mean? - Yeah, a further narrative. - Yeah, so I go, well, that kind of makes sense. But I think, and I've done the five a couple times now and every time I've just always surrendered and every single time it's like, it's just these crazy downloads. Like I haven't done it in years, but it's like these crazy downloads of, like you're climbing the ladder of enlightenment when you get these in every time it's through the state of receivership, which is surrender. So there's gotta be something there, metaphorically, theologically, physiologically, psychologically, like they all point to this one thing of learning how to let go. - Yeah, yeah, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I guess just the reason I asked that too is 'cause like I didn't really grow up very religious. I don't even think I really went to church as a kid, but I had a really bad snowboarding accident when I was 16. And if you listen to the podcast, you probably hear me talk about this all the time. But you know, when I was in the first aid station and I was really starting to drift off, I started to pray, you know, and I never, you know, I felt like I was more of an atheist at that time, but like that feeling that was starting to come over me, I'm like, oh, wait, I think I do believe in something right now. And to be able to find that again in psychedelics later on and be like, oh, whoa, we can kind of get back to these states through these other medicines and develop that relationship to the universe. Whatever word you wanna use, God, Christ, Buddha, universe, Jesus. - Yeah, that's, and that's the funny part too, is like, so I would say that I always felt a presence of God even as a kid, but I definitely numbed them as long as I could. And I think, like you said, I do think the nervous system is built on either I'm in danger or I'm safe, like that's the fundamental thing. It's either sympathetic drive or parasympathetic drive. One, you feel after sex and an orgasm or you're sleeping. That's parasympathetic. Or the other one, you're like running from your life and it's like, that's what it is. So for you to say, I felt like I started praying when I was in a state of like, I need to feel safe, right? - Yeah, yeah. - Essentially is what it-- - Yeah, I mean, doctors are telling me I'm probably gonna die and I'm just like, oh my God, I'm 16. - There you go, so exactly. So it's like, they say you find your faith in foxhole, right? But I do think it's, you can say, I could say this neurologically or we can say it like, psychologically that in times of great despair, you definitely find a higher power or something because you wanna feel safe, right? And so I think, like what the psychedelics show me and it's like, I love how when Christians are like, well, I say Christians 'cause that's most people hang out or anybody, it's like a religious that they always worry like, if you do psychedelics that it won't be religious or spiritual anymore and I'm like, no, actually it's gonna expose more spirituality 'cause you're operating the energy out of the frontal lobe and that's where your spiritual housing is. And I go, and it's beautiful too because I think I've transcended a lot of the things I feel that got lost in translation in 2000 years by man and their human disease of power and manipulating story. I believe fullheartedly that psychedelics are part of the Christian faith that were washed away and hidden, I can't after having these experiences and reading the word and seeing things like the burning bush or the man that fell from the sky or even the Eucharist, in my opinion, I don't believe that it was a piece of wafer and I believe that the wine had ergot in it. That's just my thinking, but I can't see this hurting someone's vision of God, I think it only enhances it because if that's the intention and now if I was anti-God, I don't know, maybe, I don't know, but I can tell you this, more times than not, people that had nothing to do with God that literally are openly, I don't want you to say the word, I don't want you to talk about it. And all of a sudden, they're like, there's something there, maybe it's energy, maybe it's aliens, it's either aliens or divinity, right? So he's got to be something. But yeah, and I'm going, dude, that's better than nothing. - Yeah, yeah. - Way better. I think about the Stan Groff quote where he talks about after his first LSD experience, he said he went in as an atheistic Freudian and came out as a devotee, a Shiva, you know? And yeah, sometimes that happens, but sometimes it doesn't, right? And I think it's your openness and the ability to let go and go deeper into it. And we've been talking about this letting go, entering into parasympathetic, but there was a paper that was just published, I didn't read it fully, but I know people have been circulating it about relaxation is actually more of an indicator for a mystical experience, or to go deeper. And I think that's so true, right? If we're able to get into that parasympathetic state, really relax, let go, you know, we're going to go deeper into the experience 'cause the more that we hold on, it's like we're trying to fight things all the pressure away. - Navigate it, control it, right, yeah. - So I learned this, here, actually, Jota spends, I came to Nashville two years ago and I got to go to it. And, you know, I was like, I can't meditate for four hours, you know, like, there's no way. And I was blown, I was like, there's no way they're gonna be able to do this without saying it up. But I was wrong because if you keep training this stuff and the nervous system, you're eventually gonna slip through the analytical mind. It takes a lot of work. You put psychedelics and that, those teachings together, it's a game changer, but I'll take like the, he always says like a thief in the night, it happens. Like, you don't expect it. That's proof that if you're in this sympathetic, this parasympathetic and you're not, you forget about who you are, where you are, what time it is, how long you've been there. If you can get to these little nuggets, the chances of you blasting off into the ether and getting some real incredible shifts in your brain chemistry without psychedelics, you can do it, you can do it. I've done it and maybe they were already opened from the psychedelics, but I wasn't on psychedelics and I had incredible, actually it's almost, they were almost better in a way because I could navigate them. Like I could feel my energy centers. I could feel, I did the thing where I was a heel E and I healed over, we have like seven people over the person and that was probably the most intense energy I've ever felt in my life, like for literally almost a week after I couldn't, my palms were felt like energy was coming out of them, it was insane. But like, again, like we're talking about wires, we're talking about energy here and I'm like, "What else can we do?" - I mean, that's what turned me on to breathwork, you know? Like having these profound experiences by just breathing. I mean, breathing in a room with music, but just like, "Whoa, it's all in there." - So how do we just like tap into it a little bit more? - Some people say Yahweh is the breath, Yahweh. And I do believe, like I got a great experience, used to work out with Laird Hamilton and Gabriel Reese and Malibu and their pool underneath the water, which I was an underwater steel instructor and we would do contrast therapy. And there's magic that happens in Asana, why? Because everybody's entering a state of receivership because it's easier to put up with the stressor of heat or ice when you are what? A more and receivership mode. So you see this, people do this and they're changing their brain chemistry by changing from beta to alpha in the state of receivership. And that's when that stuff, all this philosophical talk in Asana comes out, right? So it has to do with the neural chemistry and you know, Laird gave me the book, breath. And he said, you know, one of the things that it's fascinating is he's a big wave surfer, incredible breath holds. Breathing is the first and the last thing you ever do in your life and not many master it. Or it's been lost in trans... Where was the breath work awareness from mainstream health FDA, NIH during COVID? Did you hear one time about people learning how to breathe better? Not once, they did the opposite. And so I... I was just made us afraid to breathe. Exactly. No, so the thing is with breath too, if you inhale through your nose, through the tissues in your nose, you can actually increase nitrous dioxide, which is a vasodilator. You don't get that feature breathing through the mouth 'cause the mouth's meant for eating and speaking and the nose meant for breathing. So just doing that through the nose, holding and then activating that vagal response and exhaling, squeezing the exhale, you're now you're slipping into the parasympathetic using a vagal, but you're starting to manipulate your gases and your neurochemistry, the chemo acceptors, that's how you do it. So I think that's the key that really gets in there and starts to change the brain chemistry, whether you're using psychedelics or not, but when you're on psychedelics and you know about this, you know when you start breathing. I mean, you are, like you put LSD on board, you go out on a sleep mask and you get that music kick in, you start pushing the energy around. Yeah, which is so helpful for navigating and, you know, holding, you know, the disruption in our nervous system when we started going outside our window of tolerance. Yeah. And I just loved before how you were talking about like cold exposure, some breath work and it's like, how do we work the system before we even go in there and prepare people that way? 'Cause I think it's so important, you know? It's all there, it's all downloads, it's all, you know, the neocortex is an autobiography of your life. Every experience, every sound gets lodged and if you can, you know, go in there and show people the awareness of what our intention is and why, you know, why do I go in ice bath and why do I try to not resist it? Because it's a fight and your nervous system is telling you, get out, it's freezing, you feel that pain in your feet, you feel that pain in your stomach. These are my signals and you just go, I'm good, we're good. We're gonna do this. And you start grabbing the damn reins of your body and your mind and you say, we're gonna do this, it will eventually go isomet. And when it does, like a thief in the night, you're gonna go, you're gonna get out of that ice tub and you're gonna go, oh my God, I feel energy. I feel amazing. And once you feel you heal, not a minute before and once you have the experience, you will feel and you'll go noted, duly noted, let's do that again. - Love it. (laughs) I see that we're over an hour. This conversation just seemed to fly by. I feel like we could just keep going. Anything that you wanna close with for today, it's been a really fun conversation. - Yeah, I appreciate it. I would just say for all those out there that are, you know, dealing with something, know that you're gonna have to change and it's supposed to be scary. It's not supposed to feel good. Nothing and the unknown feels good. But if you have faith and you trust and you start to develop that faith and that trust and you start to develop being grateful for just the present moment, I think you'll find that change is definitely possible but you gotta do the work. There's no way of getting around it and you can't wait for someone to help you. You gotta be your own hero. You gotta write your own story and you gotta be your own protagonist. - Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. And people wanna learn more about you. Can they find you online somewhere? - Yeah, so I am on Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter or X or whatever. And, but I kinda just use Instagram right now. I am working a new job with Beyond Ibogaine Center and Cancun. They're doing incredible work with not just treating a chemical dependency or PTSD but really leaning into this future of what is health and optimization of the nervous system look like using this technology of Ibogaine and not just Ibogaine but other things down there. There's talk about including stem cells and neuropeptide therapy and other modalities. While here in Mexico. But, yeah, that and soon I think we'll be starting a hub here in Nashville so that we can use as like an information center and I'm about to start traveling doing speaking engagements. - Awesome. - And that's gonna be under a company called Vitality. - Vitality, cool, I love it. And your Instagram's flow state Frogman. - That's correct. - All right, cool. - People can check you out up there. - I really enjoyed it. - Yeah, Tommy, thank you. - Really appreciated it and yeah, getting this beautiful studio too in our Nashville. - Yeah. - Really appreciate it. - Yeah, thanks Lee. - All right, well, thank you everybody and we'll catch you next time. All right, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Tommy Acedo. And again, if you wanna go check out Tommy's previous episode, you can check that out at Psychedelics today on our podcast. And again, that episode was called The Veteran Community and Operator Syndrome Psychedelics and Redefining Pain Management. And that was with Joe and Court Wing. Super awesome episode. So if you wanna listen to more Tommy, go check that out. And just wanna give a huge thank you to Tommy for taking your time out of the holiday week to sit down and chat with me. And if you have any questions, comments, anything like that, feel free to reach out to us. info@psychedelicsday.com. I always love to hear from folks and hear some of your thoughts. And just a reminder, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, please do so wherever you listen to your podcasts. And just a last minute reminder about our end of year sale for our education offerings. So we have some really great bundles happening right now at Psychedeliceducationcenter.com. That sale will run until January 2nd. And our ultimate bundle includes a bunch of our courses. So if you've been wanting to dig in, this is the time to do it. And also it comes with some new courses that we're gonna be developing in the year. So it's kind of like a little presale for those courses. So you can get this at one of the cheapest prices with everything included. So you can check that out. Again, Psychedeliceducationcenter.com and you can click on the little tab end of year sale and it will bring you to the page. So again, wishing everybody a happy new year, happy 2025, I hope 2024 treated you well, even though I know we've all been through some ups and downs in the past year, but yeah, let's plant those seeds to create something new in our lives. Maybe that's more community, more healing, more love, more connections with folks, whatever that is. Maybe take some time to reflect on what you want to plant. I always love these little seed metaphors. I like to garden, so resonates with me. But thinking about this time and planting those intentions. So I'm wishing you all the best in 2025. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting us throughout the years. We couldn't do it without you. So with that, I hope you're having a beautiful day, beautiful week, whenever you're listening to this, and we'll catch you on the next episode. - This podcast is produced by Psychedelics Today, a limited liability company in Colorado. The content provided in this podcast is intended for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. No information shared is a substitute for professional, legal, medical, or therapeutic advice. And while the podcast explores many topics, some of which may include discussion about non-ordinary or altered states of consciousness and the use of substances, Psychedelics Today does not encourage or make any endorsement of the illegal use of substances or any illegal conduct in your applicable jurisdiction. 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