people, addiction, escapism, mdma, psilocybin, addictive, megan, trauma, perfectionism, life, dosing, mushrooms, body, yoga teacher, alcohol, medicine, reframe, fear, higher, soul
Megan Smith, Megan Swan, Nicole Smith
Welcome back to energetically you. I'm Megan Swan, your host and founder of Megan Swan Wellness. I'm a wellness mindset coach and consultant. I am so passionate about helping women in particular, optimize their wellness so that more informed decisions. Today on the podcast I'm excited to interview a sister Doer duo, Megan and Nicole Smith. They are founders of Zen chronicity, an intimate group program that supports members in healing trauma through micro dosing. They're experts in the studies of shifting neuroplasticity, balancing one's masculine and feminine energies utilizing meditation to calm the nervous system, reprogramming traumas through plant medicine and the T far theory of mindfulness. So excited to get to know them better. And let's dive in. Welcome, ladies. I'm so excited for this conversation. I feel like there's many rabbit holes, we can go down here. But let's start with some general introductions and how you sort of go off to Zen chronicity. And I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Yep, go for it. All right. So this is i We started this a year ago. But it's really been a lifelong adventure. We came from a alcoholic family. Our mom was the daughter of an alcoholic. She's a workaholic. And our dad was a severe alcoholic. But he comes from a long line of very high functioning alcoholics. And for some reason, like, never got DUIs, and were like CFOs. And it was just like nuts how high functioning they are. And we always wondered why our dad like sent us emails, like send me an email to remember to do stuff because he'd be drunk all the time. So as we grew up and realized, like, Oh, we don't have normal behaviors, when I became a yoga teacher, 10 years ago, was when I first realized I was such a perfectionist that I would get in front of people and completely fall apart if I screwed up on anything. And it was such self destructive. And in eating disorder, I'd had severe depression, suicidal thoughts, you name it, I had walked through it. And then it kind of came to a head when I became a yoga teacher. And I had to really look at that and realize people don't function like that. And that there was a better way to cope. And there was better ways to function. And that's actually when I entered Al Anon, and started hearing about like Pat Allen and the work she did, and like masculine and feminine, which went back to Carl Jung. So I started reading all of his books. And then, about a year ago, I was with one of my best friends who was a yoga teacher in San Francisco 10 years ago with me. And she introduced me to plant medicine, I'd always been very like, no, lots of stigma attached to it was not for me, I was very straight edge. I was in aviation, so I was like, can't do that. No, no, no. And I started with a plant medicine called Adopt a, and it's a actually tobacco, but it's mixed with different herbs. And it goes back to mine and ikan cultures. And having been a yoga teacher for nine years at the time, I knew body energy. And I knew how that worked. But I had never felt energy in my body. And when that up a hit my heart chakra, it bounced and I couldn't breathe. And I was freaking out. And I actually did a podcast on this. We have a podcast to so you guys want to hear that story of walking through that it was very, very intense. And I realized how broken my body was. I was like, Wow, this isn't just a mental thing in body, mind and spirit, I'm missing something. And this is one of the things that forced me into actually looking at how plant medicine can assist in the healing with the body. It isn't a complete answer. But it is the X Factor. I call it because any kind of wound or addiction or things like that, you actually have to put mind body and spirit, the full spectrum in and actually psyche comes from the Greek goddess of mind, body and soul. Her name was like psychologies named after her. But she was she was the Greek goddess of soul. And when you look her up its body, mind and soul. So why are we not doing body and soul work when we work with the psyche? So it propelled us into looking into mushrooms going and doing ayahuasca and the healing that has taken place. I have done more healing in a year than I had in the entire 20 years before that, which is just insane. Because when you could break down the dmn with plant medicine, and actually have a clearer view of ego versus higher self and what you're actually meant to do here, it pushes you into purpose. And it has just it has lit both of our souls on fire. And I was, it was the first time in my life where I was like, I don't care what rules I'm breaking, everybody needs to know about this and I'm willing to risk everything I am and everything I ever will be on this will change people's lives. Because in a single dose of grace a, I saw more about where my traumas are, and what I needed to work on than I had in therapy, psychotherapy, any other sorts of therapy, even yoga than ever before. So that's kind of a short story of mine. So yeah, I mean, we just kind of jumped in it, Megan's kind of always been like the forefront of it, she kind of walks through hell and back. I'm not necessarily saying I haven't, but she kind of always taken things face on I, I definitely was more of the avoidant. In our younger years, I escaped a lot with sports and drugs. It was mainly a massive user of marijuana. And that was, that was my that was my escape.
Because I didn't want to deal with life. And I didn't understand it like, and like she said, there was a there's a massive streak of perfectionism. And it was never good enough. It was never hard enough. And I my played out a lot in my sports. And it was, I was never, I could never train hard enough. And as I got older, I started to realize, especially as I went through college and stuff, like, if I couldn't get it perfect, then I would just quit. Because there was no sense in failing because I wasn't allowed to fail. And so with plant medicine, and like kind of this moving forward of stuff, in our company, we really the main thing was synchronicity is giving people hope, being vulnerable and sharing our stories, because there's so many people that we come across that they don't realize that they're not alone. And they have their story is just as powerful. And you know, that's really the goal. And why we started this is because we have so much to offer other people and the story that we hold, everybody does. You don't realize, no matter how detrimental your story is, that when you transmute darkness, or shadow or trauma into light, that you're actually transmitting the very thing that we came here to do. And you don't realize the power of your story. People collapse into their stories instead of setting them on fire. And people always ask us like, how can you be so vulnerable? Because I just am out with my story. I don't remember open book like ask me anything. I'll share it because I know that that's where hope lies. And that's where power lies is what I've been through. Because your story makes you unfuckable with it's how I say it. Because it makes you know who you are when you accept yourself. And it's super, super powerful. I always compare it to the moment in eight mile if people have seen that where Eminem used his entire life story, and what had happened to him in that rap battle. And then when he handed the mic over to the other guy didn't have anything to say because when you own yourself and you own who you are, you become unstoppable in everything that you do. I
totally agree with him that you guys have are dabbling in here. And I think more relatively recently, between Tim Ferriss talking about it quite extensively. I'm him investing on his podcast. And Michael Pollan's book, how to change your mind is one of my favorite things to reference to all clients. And then, of course, the Netflix series where I think he's kind of parsing this out for people that are, you know, that come from all different perspectives, and, you know, kind of the regular societal narratives we have around these drugs that are, you know, some of them are still illicit and others not. So let's talk like, let's define like, what is micro dosing first of all, and what are some of the plant medicines that you guys, do you work with them personally? Or is this something that you kind of like prescribe and then clients go on to find on their own?
So micro dosing, we define as anything between 200 milligrams anything under a gram Ideally, when you're working with a gram or higher you are considered macro dosing, therefore the in the body, psilocybin actually can cause visual and mental, like visualizations coloring, that's when you're touching into the subconscious. So anything less than a gram, it's considered a micro dose. We normally work between two and 400 milligrams, so it's half or a third of it, so you don't necessarily in a microdose you should would not have any visuals you shouldn't trip there shouldn't be anything outside of that. Because the goal with a microdose is to work directly in the neuroplasticity. Macro dosing does as well. But we want to shift the the neuroplasticity slowly as we're working with intention, and purpose and all of this stuff recoating the brain to actually process trauma in real time. So that's the difference. Now, macro dosing is definitely a whole different a different ballgame. Macro dosing, people can go into the subconscious and work, you know, change, change your mind, change how to how to change your mind, they talk about it, like people were taking more than a gram in those experimental studies, a lot of them with cancer and stuff like that, where they were actually visually going internally and experiencing microdosing. You're still working internally, you're working in the mind, but you can still function, go to work, go to school, drive workout and stuff like that. We particularly just right now on the work with psilocybin, Megan has micro dose with Ayahuasca, and that is something that we have kind of considered like looking into, and if people ask us about it, we definitely give them resources and, you know, in that in that realm, but mainly we focus on psilocybin because of the science behind it, what we've personally experienced and for our clients we have seen that have come to us, that's where they want to start. Because there's all there's a fear kind of around LSD, MDMA, ketamine. Am I missing any of them? I think that's the three. There's a fear, and there's a fear around psilocybin, but psilocybin has this like lightheartedness to it that some people they're not, it's not so scary. It's not like, oh my god, I'm doing drugs. It's okay. It's a mushroom. I understand it's, it comes from the earth, it's a little less aggressive, I guess, and there hasn't been a stigma around it. So our clients, they most of them have come to us they have either tried something else, and they didn't get the success they were looking for, or they're very new, and because of that stigma are more open to it. Well, and we do provide, so it's a gift.
Because it's decriminalized, and it was one of the things I learned in DC about weed. So if it's decriminalized and you buy like artwork, then it's a gift and you're certainly not selling it so we do provide we work with all different types of mushrooms depending on where the trauma in the body you know, like the penis envy strands, which is the funniest I love saying that because they really do look like tiny penises. It's it's hysterical. But we those actually work with sexual trauma in the sacral and root chakra, and we've got like heart, mushrooms and mined mushrooms because a lot of people have like mental reprogramming like blue meanies. We work with mainly when we're trying to take people off SSR blockers and one of my the SSRIs no SSRIs in the antidepressants. Yeah, antidepressants, but there was a specific one Wellbutrin Wellbutrin Yes, yeah. So we but what we do that so different, because it's like, well, what you know, it's not the pill that fixes it. And people want to take a pill and have it fixed. And it's such a western medicine programming. And that's why we created a coaching program, but behind it because it was, how do we get people where we're at? How did we shift ourselves? Okay, intention, okay, well, self love. Well, self love has faith in any kind of escapism, or any kind of suicidal thoughts. Suicide and addiction are very closely related, just like depression is in the brain, right? The end, if you really think about it, you cannot separate love and faith. They are of the same making. So if you don't have faith, and you don't have love, you don't have love and you don't have faith. So they go hand in hand, and you have to bring the two together. So you have to have people that you can help starting to have faith in themselves learning to love themselves. Well, what happens when you do that, then you have purpose, finding purpose, finding fulfillment? Why are you excited to wake up every morning most people don't even want to get out of bed. Well, let's look at that. So it's intention and we created a coaching program that goes along with micro dosing, and what we provide because I want to look at your trauma. I wanted to do a deep dive into where you're at and who you are and why you are the way you are, you know, traumas lie in the masculine and the feminine. And this is Carl Jung's theory and Carl Jung was different from Sigmund Freud in that theory of masculine and feminine energies yin and yang, right, and also spiritual, he believed in a power greater than yourself and this mass consciousness. So you have to realize how connected we are to other people. And the one thing unit that I started questioning was Why do some addicts stay sober? And why do others not? And the epiphany that I had was this our father has been able to stay sober for nine years, not because of a it's because he died and saw the light. Well, how do you recreate that? Right? Because you can't just be like, Okay, well dying and bring somebody back. This is why LSD, magic mushrooms, Ayahuasca, here addiction because you realize you cannot separate yourself from spirit when you're in the other dimensions using these. So you essentially see the light, it recreates everyone that sees the light that isn't an addict that I have talked to, or my dad has talked to has stayed sober. And I'm an astrologist also. And when I see addiction in a chart, the negative frequency of addiction, the highest frequency is spirit, these people that have serious addictive behaviors actually have one of the closest connections into God, but they use this escapism, because it's this, it's society, not really allowing your understanding of a power greater than yourself. To be a part of everybody's life, we've turned so much to materialism and worshipping kind of material instead of soul spirit, like service purpose. And so we do an overhaul of everything that you are getting mind, body, and spirit is where it lies when you work in all three, and you can bind the 3d. That's what's actually healing the body, the psilocybin or any microdosing that you're using breaks down the dmn, which is the default mode network, because addiction is programming. It's a coping mechanism. If you can break that, then you can reprogram the body in three months. It's absolutely like it makes sense when you really think about it. Because that's what I I mean, my brain just recognizes patterns, right? So I'll sit and think about things until it makes sense. And then like, oh, that's the patterning. And when I hit that epiphany of Oh, my gosh, it's the lack of spirit. It's the lack of, you know, and that's why it's step one of a and Bill Wilson actually came up with a 12 step program on a psychedelic trip. I could not believe that. I was like, what, we have been struggling a bit. I think everybody is addictive. I say everybody needs a little bit of Oblivion, because it's really hard to be human. And we all have trauma. But how do you? How do you make a life worth living where you're excited to wake up every day, because I was in that even in aviation, I was making great money, I was doing all of this. But I hated waking up in the morning, I was like I don't, I was going through the motions. But I didn't really want to be here. I wasn't excited about life. And now I wake up, and it's like, we have the opportunity to change the entire and this is a very bold statement. But I mean this, it's like, we have the opportunity to change the entire framework of mental health, the entire framework of addiction because of what we have lived through. And that makes my soul frickin jazz. I want to get up, I want to run a marathon. I want to like tell everybody that I know. And again, when you find that thing that it's essentially, I know, this is also weird to say, but it's worth dying for, like that's how I feel I would give anything to help people see that there is hope, especially with the suicide rate in the country. What it is, it is the number one form of unnatural death in our country now, and nobody's talking about it. And it's so related to addiction. And I that when I actually found that out yesterday, because I was doing a project for the company, a slideshow, it like it like mess with my soul. I was like, how are people in such a hopeless state? That their only answer is to leave. We have to do something about this, like this cannot be this cannot it? It's soul shattering. It really, really is that that is the number one form of unnatural death in our country.
Well, I mean, I personally, so many things I want to touch on there. I'll guess I'll start with, you know, I had a really surprisingly emotional reaction to and like I said, I read Michael Pollan's book whenever it came out four or five years ago. And then, you know, I was really excited to watch the series more because Oh, like this message is much more widely going to be heard. And yeah, the MDMA episode, I, my reaction was just as deep sadness and regret that because instinctively, in my early 20s, I basically stopped drinking and went to raves, right. Like, I'm not saying that that was the necessarily the answer to the entire answer to my journey, either. But because there were these very deep seated narratives in society about what's accepted and what's not like I very essentially just gravitated back to alcoholism because that was socially acceptable.
Right? Well, and MDMA. I mean, it was, it almost didn't become illegal, you know, in the 19, in 1985, you know, when Nixon gave the DEA the emergency power, because MDMA is mescaline derivative, which is derivative from peyote, which is a sacral sac sacrament in Native American culture, and MDMA almost didn't become scheduled. And it was the emergency power given by Nixon. And they just put it on there. They had, they were doing so much work proving that MDMA was the cure to a lot of mental issues to alcoholism, like, they were doing it and DEA came in and just pulled everything. And, you know, made this crazy stigma in the media around it. And you know, we're saying people are going crazy and like, so it became this like crazy, social, socially unacceptable. Use. Yeah, well, I
think like part of the, you know, all of these topics are so nuanced. So when we're always coming at it from like, what a government is saying, or what, like, society has accepted over X amount of decades. And even like, I put in the pandemic really got to know the vastness of the sobriety communities, specifically in Instagram, and there's like, very entrenched camps in a lot of these scenarios. And I think, you know, okay, but I, you know, in terms of alcohol, like, I particularly like talking to women who would never even consider themselves to have a problem, like, let's just have a conversation about how this can? Or is it harming me, but like, is it benefiting you? And like, maybe from that different lens? And so, talking about microdosing? I don't know, I just feel like, I guess my my direct question, first of all, is, how do you talk to somebody who's coming from this position? Well, no, I'm an addict. I'm in recovery. That's like crossing the line. So how could I possibly consider this?
Well, that's it's so it's, it's what's called TPR. Thoughts become feelings, feelings become actions, actions result in your life. And when you have a fear based thought pattern of, oh my gosh, this is going to make me relapse, oh, my gosh, this is going to make me dented at the die. And it's like, Okay, let's go to that thinking. You're in a fear based thought process. Now, I want you to look at how addictive alcohol is because alcohol is bad for everybody. And to answer your question, I'm also a holistic nutritionist, and it kills your liver. I don't believe anybody should drink, really ever we have. The only thing that we drink is red wine every once in a while, and it's usually well to Cuba or Mexico. But for the most part, we don't drink either. And if we do, it's European because it doesn't have the sulfates or anything in it. But alcohol is just going out and drinking I cannot because it's also such a low vibrational drug I want it like it is if anything should be illegal, it should be alcohol. But then, so going back to my other, psilocybin or any kind of hallucinogenic is non addictive, so if you're worried about your addictive behaviors being triggered, it is not addictive. It doesn't have anything to do with addiction. It plugs into the neural receptors in your brain and it reprograms neuroplasticity so it's no different than taking something like a probiotic or something for your brain. So I we mainly teach it it's a huge part of our course it's Teef our thoughts we can feelings, feelings, we got actions, actions result in your life, if you understand how powerful a thought is, you have a choice every time you think, right, you can't help circumstance circumstance happens to everybody. But you can control what you think of those circumstances. And I can go down the line of this is going to make me relaxed, this is going to do that to the DA right you follow that narrative and that becomes your reality, or you follow the narrative of this is not addictive. This will help me expand my mind, body and spirit. This will help me see myself in a new light other people in a new life that will help me understand why I'm here what I'm doing here. And I'm looking with intention to make this be something that expands self instead of collapse itself. And that's an expectation expectations are always made in fear, expectations or scarcity. mindset. Expectations are fear, mindset, abundance, love, intention is all expansive mindset. And when you're working in the damage, and you can shift how your thought patterns work, you're changing your entire life. Even if you're in a car accident and break your leg or something terrible happens. You can find the positive part of that and it becomes a beautiful way of reframing every aspect of your life because addiction, fear negativity all follow the fear based mindset, because it's shame addiction is shame. Addiction is fear. And if you choose to start being in abundance and being in highest self frequency that can't actually exist in the same framework. So I start to tell people, you have to reframe your thoughts when you have addictive thoughts of the patterning that you took on as a child. So microdosing is going to help you are going on down and doing our last or whatever it is right or taking MDMA. MDMA is a heart opener, the beautiful, beautiful, I wish it was more mainstream. If I could get a hold of it, I've used it a lot more. You know, mushrooms are just easier to get a hold of at this point. But I love MDMA. I think it's one of the most powerful heart openers and I think every single person that we work with has heart chakra trauma, because heart, chakra and heart are what alchemize, the rest of the chakras. So it's super important, but it's the mind. But it's the body responding to those fears. And this is how addiction has become so prevalent in our society is because we're taught to live in fear based thinking, and this is why during COVID, and everything, the addiction, alcohol, antidepressants went up 83% in usage, that's an astounding rate. But that's because when you're in a fear based mindset, you fall into the same vibration. And that's alcohol that's addiction. That's escapism versus higher frequency, which is mushrooms, Ayahuasca these things are so expansive, but they're non addictive. But I we talk to people all the time that have a lot of fear around this. And I've talked a lot over the edge, and they take it and they're like, I'm actually so glad you talked me into that. And I, and I tell them and actually our dads one of them, he still will not try mushrooms, and I'm like, you have to get out of this mindset. And who you are a lot of it too is we were having this conversation with my dad, it's all day. It's really old, as true.
And it's actually worth having a conversation with him about it. Because he's like, no, like, I try mushrooms. My sobriety is over. Like, that's it. And I was like, well, but it's not like and he's like, No, but it is according to his sponsor, according to his lineage of A and you know, and I can I can see both sides, right, because I can understand this old, the very, I almost want to call it like a like fraternity based boys club. And I personally think
one of the most powerful things about AAA is this is the community, right? Yeah. It's tapping into that, like not being accepted into the community when you make XYZ choice again.
Exactly. Right. And that's where, you know, and he was telling me that, like, the old way of AA is one way, and then there's this new generation that we're starting to see come up of like these Narcotics Anonymous, they're starting to kind of push the boundaries of like, wait a second, this isn't, this isn't going to break my sobriety, this is going to help me. And so like Megan was saying, right, the as we change and move forward, in the thinking of what it is, it's changing the entire way we're looking at them, we're looking at addiction differently. We're looking at plant medicine differently. We're taking this old way of thinking, and we're making it into a new version of, okay, we might be stepping out of the box, we may be pushing boundaries, you may not think that I'm sober now, because I'm choosing this path. But people are owning it. And I think that that is one beautiful thing about this new age of plant medicine is that it's giving people the power to own it, and to be like, Hey, I'm using psilocybin to work through my trauma through my whatever it is that got me into these rooms to begin with. Yeah, well,
I mean, you're preaching the choir, I'm totally, but I have one follow up question that just like playing devil's advocate, yeah, the one comes with the, okay, well, it's not going to break my recovery promise, or it's not going to trigger me into addiction. But isn't it still escapism, which is potentially
avoid, right? It's not escapism, because you aren't, this is a you dose, dose two days off dose. And then once you're done with the three months, you have to actually do integration. So it's like we've had all this neuroplasticity shift. Now you need to sit in it. You need to sit in meditation, let it integrate. This isn't something that you rely on every day. And the other thing is, is like if you're in escapism, if you're in all of this, it's like we need to look at boundaries within self if you're blaming something outside of yourself for your problems, because addiction is trauma. Addiction is in your brain. It's in your body. We need to alleviate what's inside so that you stop blaming something that's outside of you for your your problems with coping. So when people say yeah, it's just another form of escapism, I do believe it can be. And it's absolutely why we put a program behind it of saying, These are the tools that you need to put into your life so that you don't need us and you don't need it anymore. This is a complete reframing of mind, body and soul, so that you're not in your escapism personality trait anymore. You're in your highest self purpose. And again, we have to reprogram that escapist nature of going into the low vibration, and not going into the higher and that's why we always tell people like, I really encourage people using coaches or people that have been through what they've been through just like an AA, you have a sponsor, you have a coach that helps guide you, and forces you to step in. Because the biggest problem with addiction, it's actually victimhood. And I have a serious problem with victimhood. And what happens in addiction is the fact that people are, it's like my feelings, my feelings. It's like psychotherapy, and therapists, right? It's like, they actually validate people all the time in their victimhood because they don't want to lose a client. I'm not going to do that. And I tell people, I'm like, you better be ready to work when you come into my room, because I'm sorry, but I don't give an F about your feelings. There's nothing I can do about your feelings that I'm not going to validate them. I will teach you how to reframe them so that you don't go down those emotional like freakout paths that you can actually go, Okay, I'm feeling this, I'm going to let myself feel this accepted. And then okay, how am I going to grow from this? Because it's a choice. And, but there's nothing I can do about feelings. And people are like, Oh, my God, you I mean, I've had people quit and just be like, you're the meanest person I've ever met. And I'm like, No, I'm the most honest. And I'm here to actually make you accountable. Because you don't want to be accountable for your life. Who's going to be responsible for your life? If you're not, I mean, I can't believe the way but I used to be like that, too. I was like, Oh, my God, my dad's an alcoholic. And I'm in a red state again, you know, my life is terrible. And then one of my yoga mentors was just like, Oh, poor Megan, poor Megan, you know, she, she had this life, and then it ended up Who do you think is gonna fix that Megan, and I was like, she's like, you're gonna take drugs, you're gonna kill yourself, or you're going to step in and actually become the woman that I know you can be. And I was like, holy, like, whoa. And it hit me so hard that I was like, You know what, that's, that's true. Nobody else is responsible for my life. But me and I either step in or I step out, and it's a choice and when people are forced with that choice, and they stop being codependent and they stop having to rely on other people for for validation. I mean, I always tell people, it's like, of course, you care what other people think. But make sure that there are people that are actually worth your thoughts, and worth your feelings, everybody else can eff off, have your tribe, and don't care what anybody else thinks. Because most people are such in victimhood, that they're going to project that onto you. So choose the people that are elevating their lives, because escapism is contagious. And if you have people that are accountable and not in escapism, then your vibrations that arise if you have people that are escapism and don't take responsibility, then you're going to be in victimhood. And victimhood I think is the biggest pandemic in the world right now. As of today, people don't want to take responsibility, they don't want to step in and people that are trying to force them to be they're calling terrible names and saying horrible things about them. And I'm like, no, that's just accountability. And we're not in the frequency of that yet. And if you loved yourself, you would hold yourself accountable. It's no different than going to the gym every day, or eating healthy, or those are choices that we make, because we love ourselves and because we want to be our best selves. And I still ate pie last night, you know, like we all have. I mean, I say everyone needs a little bit of Oblivion, but in moderation, because when you're in the vibration of love, escapism can't exist in the same frequency.
Well, and I think too, with like, you know, people when people come and say, Oh, well, you know, I can use this to escape. You can use anything to escape is what I normally like, come back with like, there's people that overuse the gym, they over eat, they drink, they drug you know, they do whatever spend too much money you know, and it's it can come in all forms you know, like I definitely am definitely guilty of like, I had one I was a workaholic I was I went from smoking a ton of weed to being excessively like crazy obsessed with work. And then it was like oh, okay, well I don't have work right now because of COVID So now I'm just gonna online shop because online shopping is great because it comes you know, instant gratification, but you know, it's so nice right and so many people like will bring that up and I asked them okay, well, like you know, if you if you think psilocybin is addictive, look at the other things in your life that you can easily become addicted to. And as of today, there has been no overdoses on psilocybin. There has been No overdoses on anything that is plant based marijuana, LSD, everything right. And so to me, that's my argument. And they've not proven they have done many, many, many, many, many scientific studies on this, that psilocybin is non addictive in the brain, we have proven it. And they've proven it with MDMA. They've proven it with LSD, they've proven it with all of these plant based medicine. And with alcohol, if someone has a trigger, and that's their coping mechanism, a lot of times it's past family, right? They have seen that this escapism is a pattern, then we've proven it, we would scientifically proven that alcohol is addictive. And so to me, that's kind of an argument. When people bring that up to me, they're like, oh, my gosh, and I'm like, well look at it this way. And you can get addicted to anything, we can really, you really can their point.
So let's bring it back kind of full circle to the beginning of the conversation where you both painted the picture of having to mitigate perfectionism. Can you kind of connect that thread from being children of an alcoholic, or workaholic, and where that comes from that relationship?
Um, so I, I can remember like, as a child, my dad, so my dad was an alcoholic, and my mother was the workaholic. So my mom growing up, it was her body was never perfect. She was very constrictive on what she ate. She was there was just nothing was ever good enough. And my dad was the same way. I remember him being always like, well, the kitchen wasn't clean, like our chores, were never good enough. There was another There was never a threshold of like, good job. Like, you guys did a great job with it. I even remember, like, school, I mean, school was always like, especially in our younger years, before the steak escapism with both of them got really bad. We really like we would sit down at the table, and my dad would do math with us. And it would be like, he was really graceful about it. But it was never enough. And so that's, at least for me, and Megan can speak to her own. I never felt like there was a threshold of like, okay, you're doing a great job, or explaining to me, like, what the threshold was. And so my mind in my mind, perfectionism became push harder, do harder, more and more and more and more and more. And there was never a point where more was more was like, there was a ceiling, right. And so my world became this, like, I mean, I was an athlete, right? So if I wasn't in first place, or I didn't have the best numbers, it was do more. If I came in, in second or third, like, Yeah, great. I got a silver or bronze, but it wasn't first place that that in my mind, because of what I saw as a child wasn't good enough. And so that's where my perfectionism really came in. And even less even last year, I went to Bikram yoga teacher training is a spin off of that grommet was a 26 and two, five week program. And I was fully emerged and we had to memorize dialogue. And I couldn't do it. I came to the point where I was a lot like Megan, I got up in front, I had it memorized. I knew it. I knew it word for word. I studied, I practice. And I got up in front of my class, and I couldn't get worked up. I was to the point where I was so upset with myself, sobbing with no words that my teacher had to one of my mentors had to pull me aside and be like, What is this what is going on? And it was this such deep rooted perfectionism that if I couldn't get it, perfect than I didn't want to say anything. I couldn't even get the words out of my body. And I really looked at it. And I was like, wow, this is what everything I do if I can't have a flaw, and I started to really dig into that, especially after teacher training, and then I was like, Well, I still I'm allowed to give myself myself, Grace. It doesn't have to be perfect every single time. You can always go back and edit it right? Or you might not have a perfect day. But you can look at it and say okay, it's the too far right. It's looking at it, hey, I didn't do the best, but I can definitely tweak it for tomorrow and try my best tomorrow. It's never going to be perfect perfection of Islam is not possible. At least in my own. I have yet to find it and I've honestly found I've stopped seeking it. And when I really dropped in and started accepting myself that I'm I'm flawed, but I'm exactly the way and my higher power made me God. I have all of the tools. I don't need to be perfect and I I think that our society has really pushed perfectionism and like this idea of what you're supposed to be, you get on social media, you see celebrities with like flawless skin and perfect bodies. And it's really, it's really a, it's really a sickness. It's really a form of addiction, to be honest, well, it's for what I have watered it down to is control. When you grow up in chaos, and you never know what you're going through, that's going to be removed, your mom's going to be in you, you start to try to manipulate yourself so that there's not reaction in your home. And so for me, it was trying to control myself in that, in that sense, actually manipulate other people's emotions. And since I'm the only one that I can control, it came out being a severe eating disorder, it came out being a perfectionist, because if I'm perfect, then I'm not going to trigger them. And then I won't have to deal with the aftermath. You know, and then I would bottle my own emotions to the point where I actually like started like, burning and cutting myself because I couldn't actually like, push my emotions out without having a severe reaction. So then I started physically hurting myself, because it felt like a release, but it was all about control. And so as I've started micro dosing, and doing plant medicine, and realizing you start to turn over that control, that we really don't have the control that control is actually an illusion. And that was the hardest thing for me to fathom was the fact that it's all an illusion. It's all how you're interacting with something and how you're projecting and how people are projecting onto you. And if you don't actually internalize other people's stuff, like I have very strict boundaries energetically now, where it's like, if you're having a bad day, like, I'm then taking myself out of that if you're going to treat me in a certain way. And that's, that's not control it's boundaries. And what I had to learn and what you know, addiction and everything with escapism doesn't have as boundaries. Addiction cannot live, where boundaries exist. And that's been the biggest lesson for me in my own addictive behaviors and my own issues, because eating disorders are addiction, burning and cutting as addiction and suicidal thoughts. It's all the same. But relinquishing that control and taking a second to be like, there's a power greater than myself, I am here for a reason, I know that I'm here for a reason. And during my Ayahuasca ceremony, I had a big epiphany, where, you know, it was actually talking about your body and your mind and who you are. Because we're so much more than what I call these blood bags. Like what what we are as blood bags, right? We look the way we do, because it was designed designed to do what you came here to do. You're given the gifts that you're given, and the challenges that you're given, in order for you to be of highest service to self and to others, but it's through the transmutation of your own self and how you interact with it. But to hate self, or try to control or manipulate self is actually a sin against God, because you're divinely created down to your cells, your fingernails, every piece of strand of hair, is by divine design. And to hate even a piece of it is to hate essentially, like your understanding of God. And I just remember being like, holy, like skin color, everything is completely divine. And when you realize like,
whoa, like, that takes so much pressure off of you for every reason. It's just like, wow, okay, so as long as I start living in alignment, and what really sets me on fire, like mushrooms and things like that, when I feel in alignment, I don't have to have control, I just have to know I'm in the right place. And trust that everything else will fall into place. Because there is mass consciousness. There's divine design, the universe is intelligent. And when you start to trust yourself and your higher power in the universe, in the mass consciousness, it takes a weight off of you, and it's just like, I don't need to escape. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. And, you know, all of that stuff that happened when I was a kid, most people it's happened to in one way or another. And when I step forward in that empathy and in that understanding of, I come from an addictive background, I come from myself really harming myself and hating myself and not wanting to be here. But when I shift that frequency, I open up space for other people to do that when I'm not in a controlling shame driven environment because that's where our parents were at. And that's I don't choose to be a part of that. Ideology as such. anymore. So, you know, but our mind was mainly just control issues, it was unbelievable the perfection, and also just the selfishness that existed in that, because perfectionism and all of that it was all about me, oh my god, I'm not perfect at it. And it's like, what, you're a yoga teacher or you're a coach, it's not about you, it's about holding space for them. And it's about embodiment. Like, if you embody something, you're gonna inspire other peoples to embody themselves because you're challenging them to rise to your frequency. And so I've learned a lot about just embodiment, because our parents copied their parents, and that's why they became addicts. They embodied addiction. And so when we shift out of an addictive embodiment, into, you know, I am here to serve the highest good of mankind, then that embodiment then becomes contagious, just like every single person before us. So, that's our domination. Yeah, well, I mean, I
resonate with all that, I think. Yeah, addiction is self hatred. And we all grew up with that model. But then also, I think I can I've done my own work that as a parent, you know, like a really common coping strategy of not doing that perfect. Doing the parenting or just doing you know, it's you deflect and so there comes this constant judgment everybody else around you instead of really looking within so well, thank you for sharing all of that. And I think you know, you're doing really important work and your your excitement, your passion is contagious. So what's the best way for people to reach out to you?
Um, so we've got our website, which is synchronicity222.com you can contact us on there. Also, we have the company Instagram, which is synchronicity, 222, you can DM us? We'll respond there if you just want to have a chat and kind of understand further, what we do what we represent anything that we didn't answer on here. And then we have our fan page where we kind of post very out of the box, things that have nothing to do with me. It's more of just our personalities, which is synchronicity, underscore sisters, and that one's becoming more likely with just fun. Again, it's more of just our complete selves, and not just what the company is offering. But any of those if you DM us, if you comment on any of our photos and just say, Hey, will you DM me, I'd like to talk more or just get in touch with us on our website is the easiest way. So
to find that other account, that sounds fun.
There's a lot there's a lot of things like we were just in San Francisco, and we were posting things or we're posting like the most random stuff. And I was like, Well, this is who we are like this is the Wild Wild Adventures of us. So have fun.
Yeah, well, I think that's one of the pleasant pivots of Instagram. Like right now is back to authenticity and less curated. Yeah. So yeah, any final thoughts, bits of wisdom he might want to share with us before we jump off,
I think just reminding people like they're not alone, that their story is important. And to live it and to be in there, like to, to embody it because, like we said, There's not one single person that probably on this planet, they can't relate to you? Well, yeah, your shadows are your gifts, always understand that anything bad that you've been through, it's transmitted and understood correctly, is where your gifts lie. So never. Like, it's, it's important to ask, like, why, but also understand that we're all in this together. And there, there's hope. There are people that are on the frontlines fighting for everybody that feels like they aren't worthy of being here. And again, it makes me emotional, because it's like, God that touches my soul because I've been there and like now on the other side of it, and it's like, there is hope. And it's that love, like be get a dog like anything that you can do to get on the path of love. Even if it's not contacting us even if it's not, you know, working with plant medicine. The thing that counteracts all negativity is love. If you can love yourself and you can love your story and your life. It will change your life is love is the antidote to everything negative. And that's the biggest message and the biggest thing that we want to get across is that well Go heal Love heals all wounds. And I, we've made it our life's mission to make sure more people are loved in this world and feel that. Now, I said, Thank you so much for having us, Megan. We appreciate it and appreciate the work that you're doing as well. So keep it up.
Thanks. We'll be in touch and I'm really excited to share this interview with everyone. Yeah, yeah. All right.