014 Coming Home To Yourself

Coming home to yourself is the place where you find clarity, excitement, fun and passion according to Elizabeth Moxie. During this episode she talks about ways to find your way home including the psychedelic integration therapy. She explains what that term means, how it works, the clinical trials that have occurred and how it speeds up the process of experiencing hurt in order to heal and pave the way for reconnection with yourself.

​Links:
elizabeth@elizabethmoxie.com
www.elizabethmoxie.com

​Transcript

​Unknown Speaker  0:06  

Welcome, everyone to another edition of the exciting unknown podcast. I'm Laura Sanchez and with me today, as always, is my co host, Stephen Christopher. Hey, Steve.

Stephen Christopher  0:17  

How's it going?

Unknown Speaker  0:18  

Good. Good. Guess what? What? We have another amazing guest on the episode today.

Stephen Christopher  0:25  

Shut up. That's ridiculous. How do we have so many amazing guests? It's like every week, there's an amazing guest. I love it. I

Unknown Speaker  0:31  

think it's because we're amazing.

Stephen Christopher  0:33  

I'll go with it.

Unknown Speaker  0:34  

Maybe, or maybe just because the world has a lot of amazing people. And we're finding them. I'll take both. Okay. So let me tell you guys a little bit about our guests today. From a young age, she knew that she really wanted to help others heal from the hurts that they experienced, because she saw how those hurts impacted their relationships, how it impacted their self image, and their ability oftentimes just to move forward in the world. So what did she do? She did what most of us do is she went to college with the pure intent that that's what she was going to do. She eventually became a licensed professional counselor. And the majority of her career, she has worked with children and adolescents, as well as military personnel, both active duty and their families. Through that process, she has really become to understand the significance of trauma, and attachment issues or events in people's lives. So, as a result of all of that, she ended up doing much more training, she's got all kinds of different initials that go with what she does, I Fs maps, compass pathways. But now she would say that what she does is that she is a psychedelic integration and trauma therapist, she helps people draw out their inner healing in order for them to have more clarity, confidence, creativity, and guess what, that's what most of us want in our lives. So I'm really, really excited to welcome Elizabeth and boxy. I, Elizabeth. Hi, thank you for having me on salutely, this is going to be so much fun. I can't wait to hear about your life experiences as well as your professional experiences and share it with our listeners so that maybe they can begin to understand and have an appreciation for some of the work you've done. Yeah, thank you. So let's start maybe by what did I miss in talking about your background? In terms of how you got to where you are today? Is there something that I've missed?

Unknown Speaker  2:55  

Well, you did a lovely introduction. Thank you. I feel like probably one of the biggest thing that was key in this whole process of me becoming a therapist was opening my own private practice, and really coming into this place of really having to have an authentic way of helping people. It's like where the rubber met the road. For me, it wasn't just agency work anymore. It wasn't just, you know, it was like I was really directly there to help people in a real, authentic way. And I started wondering, how do people really heal? How do you really help people change, right, like talk therapy is great. And I can have a great conversation with people. And there's like a certain amount of maintenance that you can help people to kind of like, feel better for the time being. But there's something inside of me that said, There's got to be more, we've got to go deeper than this. I want to be able to offer people, something a lot deeper than maybe what traditional therapy has been able to do. So that was a huge key part of my journey was asking that question out loud. How do people heal?

Unknown Speaker  4:02  

And what I mean, that's a big, that's a big question, right? Yeah. Have you found the holy grail of like, Oh, my gosh, this is what it is?

Unknown Speaker  4:13  

Sure,

Unknown Speaker  4:14  

I'm finding it. I'm finding. I never want to say it fully arrived, because I'm always learning more. But it's interesting, a couple in this past year, so much has come to kind of like a full realization. So I think that I asked that question probably five or 10 years. I don't know if it was like several years ago, I asked that question. And it just came back to me several months ago, like, Oh, my gosh, I asked that question, and I actually have an answer for that now. And my answer for that is that people heal through experience. And that experience brings you back into connection with yourself. And so that, yeah, so therapists What I do is all around that type of work.

Unknown Speaker  5:02  

So So you say people, can we back up a minute, let's before we get to the healing stage, um, we talked about the word trauma. And we had a couple of guests who talked about trauma, particularly childhood trauma. Can you tell us how do you define trauma? What does that mean in your world in terms of how you approach your practice?

Unknown Speaker  5:23  

Sure, absolutely. So trauma is any sort of wound any psychological wound that we endure. And a lot of people talk about big t traumas versus little t traumas. And I know other people in our community say there's no like trauma Olympics, which I love that phrase. But you know, there is a range, and I look at everything on a continuum. And so I do think that little T and big cheap fits in that that some of us are much more deeply impacted by trauma than others, right. And so that this actually, the way that shows up in our world is like, some people are high functioning, and not super debilitated by their trauma, whereas other people, because their trauma, they'll have big things like major depression, OCD, suicidality, and self harm, and like things that are really impacting their ability to kind of function in the world. And so that's where you see this big spectrum of how trauma impacts people.

Unknown Speaker  6:21  

So is is the definition of little t big T. Is it the trauma event itself? Or is it the individuals reaction to that trauma?

Unknown Speaker  6:33  

Right, so it's more of the meaning making that we have from it. Okay. Yeah, so it's the reaction. So, you know, a theme that's been coming up for a lot of my clients just recently has been school and how they've become impacted by teachers who have shamed them, like in front of the whole classroom, is early as like kindergarten people are actually I have my own example from kindergarten, where I felt really ashamed of not being I got stuck on like the number 77 when I was trying to count up to 100. And so this was not a big t trauma for me, but it is something that I held is like this, the meaning I made from that was, I'm bad at math. And I heard that belief all the way through, you know, math was always a struggle for me. So, so yeah, it's like, when certain events land on us, it's how do we make meaning of that? And then does it get lodged in there and stuck? Or are we able to, like release that? And like, get a perspective on it of like, oh, that doesn't mean anything about my math skills. It just means I got stuck once. And that's okay. And

Unknown Speaker  7:36  

Right. Right. Okay, that makes sense. I mean, I had a, I had an experience in grade school, dealing with playing a musical instrument. And same for me, I have now for ever and ever said, I'm not musically inclined, I don't like it. I'm not good at it. I don't appreciate it. And I know that it comes from that single event. Exactly. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  7:57  

So it's like the trauma becomes a belief, right? The belief is, I'm not good at musical instruments.

Unknown Speaker  8:03  

Right? Okay. So if we have this definition of trauma in, I assume, then that means that pretty much everyone somewhere in life experiences some degree of trauma and loss, different levels of response to that. So you would then part of your therapy and working with people is to use you said, first of all, they have to experience it. And you delve into that a little bit more?

Unknown Speaker  8:29  

Yeah. So the experience piece that I've been kind of honing into is that, so it's through those experiences that we get wounded. Right. And so it also requires an experience to reverse it, and heal it. Right? So if the experience was you messed up with your musical instrument, the way to heal that would be going in and having a corrective experience, to help reset that belief of know what's actually true, like what happened in that moment, to help you to re experience a new truth

Unknown Speaker  9:02  

about how do we do that? I mean, your Do I have to like, show up and play the clarinet and someone says, oh, Laura, you're really good? Well,

Unknown Speaker  9:12  

um, I think there's probably, you know, a plethora of ways to do that. The one particular way that I personally have been trained and find super effective is through a type of therapy called internal family systems therapy. It's irfs, for short. And the way that we do that, in this particular type of therapy is we actually close our eyes oftentimes, and we go into our imaginative space and will, a person will go back into that memory. So like, I would have you close your eyes, you would see yourself as that little girl playing the clarinet, and then, but then we'd invite like your adult self, like re entered that scene for you, and help do over anything that happened in that space that you actually needed to hear or needed to know. To correct that moment. And so there's a lot more to it, there's like sure, you know, years of training that go into leading people how to do this. And there's all sorts of different ways to interact in that like internal space. But essentially, the key components there is having a sense of your own self energy, like as an adult, being, like, you can go back to the versions of yourself that got wounded, and you can interact with those younger parts of yourself in a way that's corrective and healing and like, releases any sort of burden or trauma that's being held.

Unknown Speaker  10:31  

And is that

Unknown Speaker  10:34  

does that work for most people?

Unknown Speaker  10:37  

Yes. Interesting. As simple as it sounds, I mean, granted, I understand it's a it's a process. And there's hours involved in that, and having a professional coaching to do that. But but it does work. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  10:49  

I've had a few clients that have a real resistance

Unknown Speaker  10:53  

to it, like, it just feels really weird to them, especially to like, close their eyes and go into their imagination. For some people, it's just a little bit too much for them to kind of, like get into. But for the people that I mean, the majority, like, I'd have to say, like 95% of the people that I work with, very easily dip right down into it. And I have a phenomenal experience with it.

Unknown Speaker  11:15  

And so, you know, I think oftentimes, you know, most of our listeners are entrepreneurs, some quite successful or even starting out, and many of them are in a situation where they are finding that maybe they're not as fulfilled as they once were. They're looking for something different, you know, maybe their career, they're going, wait a minute, I don't I don't want to do this anymore, but they don't know what else to do. Right? They are. Maybe just looking at life as a whole. I don't have as much joy, I don't have as much excitement and looking for answers. What would you say to them based upon your, your experiences and your knowledge of what happens in those in those times in life?

Unknown Speaker  12:02  

Yeah. So I have a pretty existential sort of answer. Um, you know, I think that it's all about connecting to your most true authentic self. And my, my belief is that a lot of us through these wounding times of childhood, we actually get disconnected from ourselves. And so I actually work with a lot of entrepreneurs, I work with very high power, DC, sort of people. And, you know, it's like, things happen to us that, it's like, when we get those childhood wounds, what happens to us, it's like, we disconnect from that part of ourselves. And it's almost like, the lights get dimmed in the spirit of our childhood gets like, dark. And so then we just keep moving through life without a lot of clarity of like, who we truly are, and what we really love what we're all about, and like, what's the meaning of our life for the purpose of us being here. And so when people are able to do this sort of work with themselves, I talk about it as like, coming home to yourself. It's like you're reconnecting, you're re integrating you are like becoming this really cool person. And I think it's in that space that we have the most clarity about, what do we want to do? What do we want to do? What excites us, like, what brings us passion, joy and excitement and like, and from that space, I think that people find brilliance and creativity and like they're working their best space, where they're really well connected to themselves.

Unknown Speaker  13:38  

So it's almost as if the really recapturing who you are, right, as opposed to what you do for a living or where you live, or whatever those other surrounding things are at finding your true self again, which might lead them to an identification of some type of problem. Or any or any other type of hurt out there and support. Right, right. Yeah. So I'm, in your bio, when I introduced you, you know, I it says the word psychedelic integration, how does that play into the work that you're doing?

Unknown Speaker  14:18  

Well, that was part of the answer. When I asked the question, how do people heal? Um, so my first you know, what I realized? Would, the first layer of answer that I got for how to people heal was I began to learn about imfs therapy, and how this coming back home to yourself really connecting the sense of self energy and like, kind of like the true essence of who you are. That was kind of my first answer as to this equation of how do people heal. The other piece that I got introduced to this, this whole realm of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. And so it was actually introduced to me through a professional training that I was taking through An IFRS online module. And dick Schwarz, the founder of IFRS. He was showing videotape from the FDA clinical trials for they're using MDMA to work with PTSD. And when I saw what was happening in those videos, I was astounded. I had no clue that this world of medicine even existed. But when I saw what was happening with those clinical trials, I was just like, this is amazing. Like what is happening here, this is really, really profound. And ever since that day, I just started eating up. Everything all about, I was researching, reading, watching everything I could get my hands on, around psychedelic work. From there, I have learned that psychedelics provide another tool so much I Fs psychedelics is another tool that provides us experience to help us feel right. So I talked about experience earlier. It's another one of these realms where we can go into ourselves and see and perceive and feel in order to bring us to this new side of like, understanding how things you know, how did we get wounded? And then how can we release that and kind of reset?

Unknown Speaker  16:21  

it? Can we can we delve into this a little bit more. So, you know, we've had some other guests on our show who have mentioned psychedelics, or plant based medicine is something that they have used. And it's been, it's been empowering and helpful to them. But we've never really talked about what does that mean? How does it work? What do I need to know about it? So can you start by maybe telling us when we, you know, when you say the word psychedelic, I think, oh, we're gonna like drop acid and like, put on goggles and look at weird things in the world? What What does it mean? What, what what is it actually?

Unknown Speaker  16:57  

Right? I'm glad you're asking that because there is a specific context where it's psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, right? This is very different than like, you know, festival use or fun social recreational use, I think there's space for all of that, I think that we can be wide open, you know, hopefully doing all that in a nice, safe way. But this specific container of doing it in a therapeutic way with the intention of healing. You know, people use acid, mushrooms, I, Alaska, MDMA, all sorts of different substances. I personally, I'm most familiar with working with MDMA. So I've been maps trained, which is the association, organization, nonprofit that's working with MDMA for working with PTSD. And so in that specific realm, MDMA is really helpful for working therapeutically. And so what that looks like is people do a number of like regular therapy sessions, followed by like MDMA, like a full day of doing medicine work, and then followed up by several more therapy sessions, and then that re, there's a reiteration of that three times. So it's this whole kind of like, process of doing several therapy sessions with several medicine sessions, to help people work with really big trauma.

Unknown Speaker  18:24  

Can you talk about you, you, you mentioned that you saw the clinical trials that they were doing with PTSD? You're like, holy cow, this is amazing. What was amazing what, why were you Why were you blown away? After all the work you had already done on trauma and treatment of some of those kind of things?

Unknown Speaker  18:41  

Right? The reason I was blown away is because they were getting to things in that six hour therapy medicine session, they're getting to things that usually would take me with a regular I Fs therapy

Unknown Speaker  18:55  

client,

Unknown Speaker  18:57  

it would take me months, even years to get to that. Wow. And in one or a couple sessions of doing MDMA, people are able to drop right down into exactly what is locking them up. Right. So a lot of times, like what our psyche is brilliant, like, we have this amazing mind that can protect us so well. And actually, it protects us so well, that we often don't even know our trauma, which is kind of scary. But it allows us to be functioning human beings, right? Sure. Absolutely brilliant. But the problem is it still keeps us locked up. So it's like there's still this garbage back there that we're still carrying around inadvertently without knowing it. And so when we can get familiar with what is that that's locking us up, keeping us like, not fully ourselves, we can actually like, at least I can get rid of it all.

Unknown Speaker  19:53  

Okay, so it speeds up the process. That's really the advantage and the biggest advantage. Yeah, so When, if someone, would it become from a recommendation from a therapist that, oh, you should try this? Or would someone seek it out and be like, Hey, I just kind of want to see what this feels like.

Unknown Speaker  20:14  

Yeah. So right now because we're in this weird space in history is on the way to becoming made legal for clinics for clinical use.

Unknown Speaker  20:24  

Um,

Unknown Speaker  20:26  

but we're in this Limbo space between it becoming legalized, which is very much anticipated 2021 22 it will probably be happening. That's what they're expecting in clinical use. In that, Meantime, there's a ton of media coming through that's like promoting this to the world. So there's, there's a lot of people learning about it and experimenting with it outside of the clinic. And so there's a lot of people that are saying, Oh, I just want to try this for myself. And they're pursuing it on their own volition. Um, obviously, people in the clinical trials are kind of a different subset of people who are getting to do the like, technically appropriated way to do it.

Unknown Speaker  21:09  

Right. So so your, what would you What would be your recommendations if someone was so inclined? Yeah. Any recommendations for how to go about that process?

Unknown Speaker  21:20  

Yes. I love that question. You know, my sense is that well, let me say this first, I think that, for the record, I'll be the first therapist to ever say this, I think there's a lot of bullshit therapy out there. And a lot of people are tired of it, you know, they feel like they've done therapy, they haven't gotten anything out of it. And so they're, they're kind of like, ready to dismiss that and push that off the table, and just do psychedelics.

Unknown Speaker  21:49  

Right. Makes sense. That makes sense. Yes, I gotta stand that, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  21:52  

Right. However, I want to just offer hope, to people that there is a particular type of therapy, that I would love to promote to the world to say, if you can combine this type of parts work is therapy, with psychedelics, you will be getting exponentially more out of both. Right? Okay, I Fs by itself is amazing. psychedelics, by themselves are amazing. If you put the two together,

Unknown Speaker  22:23  

you

Unknown Speaker  22:26  

it's, it's just, it's like, so much more exponentially helpful. So your total healing because psychedelic speed up is, but then I first bring psychedelics, the full circle.

Unknown Speaker  22:39 
 
Because I've heard people talk about before that they will have an experience of using psychedelics of some type. And there's all this clarity, they come up out of being like, Oh, my gosh, I know what I need to do that it's x. But they still aren't able to do it. Yeah, they're still that like, Okay, well, I go back to the real world. And I have a job that sucks. Exactly. So this,

Unknown Speaker  23:07  

yeah, I'm printing this little model right now. where it's like, my sense is that people get halfway around a circle, their psychedelic experience, like they get all this illumination, all this clarity, all this, oh, my God, this is what it was. Right? But then they need something to take them full circle all the way through the full healing completion. And that's where this therapy comes through. It's like, Okay, so now you've got all the information you need about what damaged you. And you know, it is people do have some spontaneous healing and psychedelic experiences, hands down, some things are just finished, you're good to go. Right? But not everything. And so it's like, people need that just a little bit more to bring them to that place of like,

Unknown Speaker  23:55  

make sense? Okay. So in the clinical trials that you've watched it in your research, yeah, does it doesn't last, I mean, that that would be one of my questions, right is, you know, like you said, before you go to therapy, whether it's talk therapy or whatever, and you feel better for a while and you kind of think, like, I got my shit together. And then some major life event has and all of a sudden you are spiraling back down to it, and you end up in the same place again, is there any proven, proven results that hey, wait a minute, this really does last? It does. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  24:29  

I wish I had the numbers with me right now, but I don't have the memorized. But it does actually have been doing. Maps has done follow up. questionnaires and information to see the longevity of the healing. And it actually doesn't only last it keeps improving. It the follow up study, the number of people who qualified for PTSD like 12 months later, people were getting even more improvements. 12 months later. Then it's like a three month follow up. So, the longevity around this is amazing. And specifically with MDMA, another drug that's out there right now, that's actually illegal already is ketamine. And ketamine is really great. It's helping a lot of people like depression and that sort of thing. But that only lasts like, a couple weeks, maybe three months. Right? So it's that short term, I feel better, but doesn't do that long term healing. And so MDMA is doing that, as well, as I have to say is therapy does that as well. Because once you go in, and you are these wounded parts of yourself, they're not wounded anymore.

Unknown Speaker  25:40  

Like, is that a skill that this might be kind of going a different direction, but I was having a discussion with a friend not too long ago about why some people are able to, something happens to them in their life, they they're hurt, they are able to look at it and be like, Okay, this happened. It was horrific. And I'm not going to let it now affect me, I'm not going to let it control how I behave in other situations, and other people exact same situation, it has a tremendous impact for a long period of time. So I guess what I'm thinking is, whether it's irfs, or its use of a psychedelic if you learn that process, with one particular her trauma, can you then do it yourself with second or third or fourth? events? that might happen?

Unknown Speaker  26:38  

Yeah, eventually, yes, it does some take take some time, right. So um, I do that work with myself, like I use this process in my life all the time. And so like, I've learned how to do that for myself. But you know, the first couple years of really getting this it took, it takes for me. And I think for most people, even therapists who are doing this regularly, it kind of takes like an outside person, another therapist and other guide to help you

Unknown Speaker  27:09  

have that degree of separation and be able to like work with your stuff.

Unknown Speaker  27:13  

But eventually, you do integrate that a lot.

Unknown Speaker  27:17  

That makes sense, right? So it's a skill that you could learn, but it having outside help is going to speed up. And it's also going to maybe make it more efficient in terms of,

Unknown Speaker  27:30  

yeah, I'd say the large bulk of like, the skills and techniques that I do with clients. They can, for the most part, do for themselves, maybe like 85 to 90% of that type of way of being with yourself. And claims tell me they start channeling my voice. I've had some other, it was three. Yeah. And I was all upset and anxious. And I couldn't sleep. And I just started channeling how you talk to me and working with parts of myself. And it's like, oh, my gosh,

Unknown Speaker  27:58  

it's fun. Fun, people do start to do it for themselves. Steven, any questions that are coming to mind for you? Yeah,

Stephen Christopher  28:05  

um, I do. So there's always this balance and everything that we do, right. And so when I, when I listened to what we've talked about so far, you know, we talked about past trauma, and the I guess I'll use the word, the importance of kind of being able to find that in order to heal certain things, which then can help us unlock more of our access to our true self. That's kind of how I would I say, I would say it, no, but then, but then this balance, right, like, let's say, you know, I'm going along, I got a good life, I'm relatively happy. I'm not sad, I'm not depressed. You know, I got a good job, I run a, I built a business. You know, from the outside looking in, I got my act together. And there's nothing really major coming up. So how do we start to do this balance of like, going and looking for trauma? Right, right. Because because I feel like it can be, you can spend your whole life looking for trauma, right to fix. And maybe it's these little tiny things that get very incremental gains. And now you've spent your whole life looking for trauma, as opposed to living it. So like, how do you like a relatively average person, right, that had didn't have anything crazy happened to them in their, in their childhood? How do you start to figure out like, okay, maybe I should go look for some trauma, or at least pay attention to something in my past in order to live even more into my true self.

Unknown Speaker  29:41  

Right?

Unknown Speaker  29:43  

I would say don't go looking for trauma.

Unknown Speaker  29:47  

Like go Don't go looking for trouble, right? Don't go for trauma.

Unknown Speaker  29:51  

Don't even go looking for it because then you're just in this mindspace of like, trying to figure something out like Oh, did something happen to me. I would say just stick with whatever There, what is coming up? You know, like, if nothing's coming up for you, right that wave, love that, like, do that just do that, right? But if you start to notice something coming up so here's an example, when I started my private practice, what was coming up for me was this imposter syndrome. Right? I was feeling like, I'm collecting a whole bunch of money from people, but I don't really know that I'm giving them anything that's really valuable. And that was creating a feeling inside of me, that felt yucky.

Unknown Speaker  30:32  

Right? So then I started reading articles on imposter syndrome. And everybody was saying, Oh, don't feel that way. Just push it away. And don't feel that way. You're great. You're you're trained, you went to grad school, you shouldn't feel like that. And I thought, No, I do feel like that. I need to listen to this thing. And that's what led me to ask the question, how do people heal? which took me on this whole adventure of getting a really phenomenal answer. Right? So just listen to what's already happening, right? listen to the voices coming up and saying, Oh, I feel like an imposter.

Unknown Speaker  31:04  

Or

Unknown Speaker  31:06  

I keep feeling insecure, or I feel inadequate, or whatever, you know, like whatever's coming up for you naturally, that just stay with that, like, you don't have to go looking for anything, you just simply notice, like what's already there?

Stephen Christopher  31:21  

Hmm. And I think that's really, really important, especially for leaders and entrepreneurs and people that listen to this is, you know, for the most part, a lot of us are pretty decent, right? Or we've learned how to trick ourselves into thinking, Hey, we got our act together, compared to most, but I think that's really important that you mentioned things like imposter syndrome. Because that can be you know, I know, at least for me, when I when I used to hear the word trauma, I was like, you know, I'm thinking, major, major, big T, trauma, Olympics type stuff. But now I've started to learn that trauma is just these things that have happened to us in the past that anchor in something. And once we start to uncover those, we can free ourselves. So I think it's really important to mention things like imposter syndrome can be a thread that we can pull on, to go down that path in order to maybe uncover something some some sort of past trauma that can then unlock even cooler, greater bigger pieces of our true self. And I know that's, that's been my journey is, is unlocking these little things. And I know, you know, I've done some plant medicine work and the stuff that I unlock in there, or that comes up for me in there. When my ego is completely kind of gone for a minute it left the room and allowed me to look at this stuff from a very safe third party perspective. It seemingly small stuff, but it has a really big, big impact when i when i can properly integrate it. And it's made a huge impact as far as like fulfillment and really understanding my true self and knowing what I'm capable of, and being excited about what I'm capable of, as opposed to imposter syndrome, which is has been big for me in the past. So it's funny, you mentioned that one.

Unknown Speaker  33:12  

Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, it's all these little things that bubble up on the inside of us this feelings, the sensations, those fears, worries, whatever they are, you know, I invite people to start listening to those. They're just little indicators to say, Hey, what do we need to notice here, there's something that feels a little off, it's not something to get rid of. It's actually something to listen to. And I think that we can find ourselves a lot more productive when we actually like, open ourselves up to be curious

Stephen Christopher  33:39  

about that. Yeah. And I'll say, for me, just so people have some perspective. For me, you know, I've had a deep meditation practice for a little while I've had a meditation practice for a decade, probably, and then deepen that consistently, especially in the last few years done some, like silent retreats, done some half day meditations, even Laura and I and some friends, I'll put together a half day meditation. And for me, and actually, Elizabeth, I'd love your thoughts on this for me, I've had just as deep if not deeper experiences and access to things that I typically would hide for myself. In my, I guess my psyche would hide from from from myself in meditation. Yes. And I'm so so I believe, from my personal experiences, we have access to all of this stuff that you're talking about, without the use of anything, it's just, maybe it takes longer, maybe, yeah, you've got to have all these other maybe you've got to have a meditation practice for 10 years. That's a pretty long time to be doing it until I started to get the bigger impact from it. But we do have access to those types of things.

Unknown Speaker  34:52  

I totally agree. I actually would really love to emphasize that to the community of people that are exploring psychedelics. I see this

Unknown Speaker  35:01  

Little dangerous edge. Some people are getting really excited and just like full on psychedelics and like, that's the end all be all right? It's not, that's not true. It's an amazing tool. Like a really, really amazing tool. But I think there's meditation, there's shamanic journeying. There's all sorts of other pathways to connecting with ourselves, and having these really amazing deep experiences that can be completely drug free. breathwork is another example. And so the point is not about having like a psychedelic experience and some like, mind blowing thing, right? It's actually it's, it all

Unknown Speaker  35:43  

comes back to connecting with ourselves.

Unknown Speaker  35:46  

Right? I am curious if you would agree with that, like,

Unknown Speaker  35:48  

if that's what you're experiencing in your meditation, like this

Unknown Speaker  35:52  

connection with yourself or this like realization is it's about

Unknown Speaker  35:56  

being here.

Stephen Christopher  35:58  

Yeah, 100%, it's, for me, it's no matter what it is plant medicine, meditation, self awareness, becoming more conscious, all of that stuff is about understanding what's going on with my inner being higher self, true self, whatever you want to call it. And being able to tap into this full, amazing potential that we have as human souls, whatever you want to call it, we have access to all this stuff. But we've got to like, find ways to quiet the mind to maybe visit past trauma to let those things fall down and know that we're still safe, and then experience something that shows us that something else is possible. So yeah, I mean, it is very much that I mean, I went through some silence retreats and meditation and like I had full on other galaxy, like visions. I mean, I was just I was gone. I've seen crazy, crazy stuff that, you know, probably made me feel like I was on psychedelics. But it was just from sitting there meditating for four days without talking to anybody. Yeah, that experience. And then, and then I love that you said, it's, you know, we heal through experience, because I agree so deeply with that. And I think it's something that I had never really heard people talk about until recently. Mm hmm. is, you know, most of the time you go sit on a couch for five years, and then you're addicted to sitting on the couch for five years. And then five more years.

Unknown Speaker  37:39  

Not fun. Yeah.

Stephen Christopher  37:39  

Like, come on, let's like, let's help people, like, be more of their true self so that they can now live better, and then impact the world and the community and stuff like that. Better. That's why I'm so excited about this type of work.

Unknown Speaker  37:52  

Yeah, me too.

Unknown Speaker  37:54  

Right. It's like, we need to get on with it. Like,

Unknown Speaker  37:56  

get on this healing.

Unknown Speaker  37:58  

So that yourselves and

Unknown Speaker  38:00  

bring our best in this world? Because it means really well, people.

Stephen Christopher  38:06  

Yeah, like we're not. This is one of my missions is to help people understand that we're not meant to be stressed all the time. Yeah, like that. We're not meant to be frustrated all the time. This is supposed to be a fun journey. And it can be and we can still be very successful, we can still be very loving and love and giving love and helping other people. And there's there's abundance everywhere. Like, this isn't supposed to be a harsh ride. Right?

Unknown Speaker  38:38  

Yeah, let's enjoy the journey. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome.

Unknown Speaker  38:44  

Sounds like maybe this is a good place to wrap things up. Elizabeth, is there anything else you want to make sure our listeners know about you? Any words of wisdom, anything you want to share?

Unknown Speaker  38:58  

Yeah, I just, you know, to kind of bring it full circle. It's just like, it's truly all about

Unknown Speaker  39:04  

yourself. And so while I'm a huge proponent of via person, huge proponent of psychedelics and all this kind of stuff, like what I really want people to know, is that, you know, I feel like the whole point is having this relationship with self. And that's like one of those beautiful places we can come into. And from that space, is where we get to go out into the world and do amazing things. So

Unknown Speaker  39:28  

if anything got lost on that, I just want to make sure that

Unknown Speaker  39:30  

super clear. I appreciate that. No, I think that was good. I really is going back to really finding out who you are. Yep. So that you can show up as you were intended as what's going to make you fulfilled and joyful and get all of those things that you wanted in life when you were a little kid. Yep. Yep, absolutely. Um, if people want to continue the conversation with you best place to reach you. Don't worry. You can find me on my website at Elizabeth moxie.com. And I can also be reading by email Elizabeth was with Mark t.com. And, yeah, you'll find me there. Awesome. This has been amazing. I mean, I know that our listeners are really gonna love the information you've given the way you were really able, I think to package it different. And to hear about use of psychedelics, from a professional point of view is been very enlightening. So thank you, thank you so much for your time and your interview today. We really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Steven, you want to

Unknown Speaker  40:35  

send us off with a couple of takeaways?

Stephen Christopher  40:38  

That'll Yeah, always. So one thing I'll add kind of, I guess, at the beginning of my takeaway is, is it's important for people to listen to what Elizabeth talked about, the things that she's pulling her research from are FDA approved clinical trials, I think there's a lot of people out there that are either one going way too deep in psychedelics and using it as a crutch instead of a tool. And then there's other people out there, they're like, Oh, my gosh, like, absolutely not, that's all wrong, you've got to work through it. And we've got to spend the time and the energy and they're not, they're not open to seeing it as a tool. And so, you know, these are FDA approved clinical trials that are happening. So psychedelics, it you know, is is not just a word from the 70s that everybody did at Woodstock, like this is this is a medicine, that is helping people currently with major things like PTSD and uncovering trauma. So I just want to reiterate that so that people can have an open mind when they go to explore this. And, and, and then choose how they feel about it not just based on a word that they heard their parents say, and they have some anchored meaning to it, like, be a researcher and go out and do your own homework before you start to make any judgments one way or the other. Because maybe it is something that could be really useful to you. Or maybe it's something that you just find out, hey, that's pretty cool. But I don't need it. I already have all of this built into my meditation practice and stuff like that. So just don't be judgmental of it, I guess is what I would say. Because in what in the 20s, or 30s, alcohol was illegal. Now it's legal, like, so just just be calm, be aware of where you might be anchoring in some of these words that Elizabeth talked about. So I'll start with that. And then it was really cool to talk about how people heal through experience, I think that's really, really important to just take a step back and remember that and just allow your mind to be open to that, like, we're healing through an experience. Like I said, not just gone and sitting on the couch and like expecting something outside of us to be the healing power, or the thing that heals us. There's no trauma Olympics, I've seen it as this word trauma has started to come up and to bubble up a lot more often. It's like, Oh, well, my trauma is bigger than yours. And then when you share your trauma, like, I've actually I've literally seen people add more to their trauma. So it's bigger than the story that they just heard. And the whole point of all this is that we want to be more free, and we want to be more of our true self and just live a better life. So there's no trauma Olympics here. Like, if you didn't have a lot of trauma, hell yeah, that's awesome. Like just take it and run with it and be happy for it. And then go support people that have had a lot more or a lot. I guess larger trauma. So there's no trauma Olympics.

Unknown Speaker  43:41  

The

Stephen Christopher  43:44  

this stuff when we talk about like psychedelics and MDMA and stuff, this is a tool. This is not the only answer. Meditation is a tool. imfs therapy is a tool. These are all just different types of tools. So there is not one answer, make sure that you're doing things properly, to get the most out of whatever experience that you're that you're going, that you choose to go down. And then oh back to trauma for a second. Trauma could be something as simple as the common theme across most entrepreneurs as imposter syndrome. So it doesn't have to be this big thing that happened to you as a child or some major accident in your life. trauma can be something that's stuck inside you, that is causing something as seemingly simple as imposter syndrome. So just start paying attention to what's really going on. Pay attention to your feelings, pay attention to where you feel, resistance are caught up or sad or happy. You know, all of those things can lead you down that path to identifying something that that might be traumatic so that you can then have a better experience or through experience, you can now be more connected with your true self. And the final point is just again, all of this stuff is about connecting with your true self connection. doing with your higher self. And as Elizabeth said, it's about coming home to yourself. So all of this work that we're doing here is about just you finding out more about who you are and being able to experience more of your true self through life. That's all I got.

Unknown Speaker  45:21  

Awesome job that that. I think you hit all the big takeaways for me as well. Um, I think we'll wrap it up with that. Stay tuned for our next episode in which Stephen and I will share some of our thoughts about the subject, maybe we'll get into some of our experiences that we both had in terms of dealing with trauma in our own lives with either successfully or that we're still struggling with. So until then, don't forget to always embrace the exciting unknown.

Unknown Speaker  46:01  

It's a wrap.