[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole. On today's
episode, we have Mike. Join us for a conversation. All about the crossover between psychedelics and sexual liberation. Together we talk about the need for kink integration circles, learning to embody peace, and embracing our interconnectedness. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday. My name is Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, and I am also the founder of The Pleasure Practice, supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and Intimate relationships, dear listener.
It is such a joy to bring you these conversations when I get to combine my training in psychedelics and sex and relationships and see this crossover that has been so clear through my doctoral training as I've been exploring it deeper and deeper and so Any time that I get to bring conversations like this to you, dear listener, it is such a joy, like it is truly such a joy.
And so one of the biggest things I have been reflecting on in the creation of this episode is the power of set and setting. And this is something that is often talked about in the psychedelic community as what makes the psychedelic experience, right? If we think about psychedelics as nonspecific amplifiers, it comes down to, then, your set and setting.
Your mindset of all the different narratives and cultural scripts and pieces that are up there in the story we are telling ourselves about our lives. As well as the setting. Where are you at? Who are you around? What is going on in your life? And I really hope that the field of psychology, all of us, can continue to explore how set and setting is crucial in all of our life.
And particularly kink. Particularly psychedelics and any sexual play, right? Your relationships. What is your set and setting? And I think that's a powerful takeaway to understand that all these different practices, right? They say how you do one thing is how you do everything. And so there's just so much to explore in the crossover between these topics.
And I'm excited to share it with you today. Dear listener,
if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources at modernanarchypodcast. com, linked in the show notes below. And I want to say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon members! And we have a new member, Iris. Hello, what a joy to have you in the Patreon community.
And I am sending you a handwritten note with a picture of Fat Cat and I, and I am so excited for you to receive it. And just grateful for your support of the show and the community. So thank you. Dear listener, if you want to join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, then you can head on over to patreon.
com slash modernanarchypodcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all my love and let's tune in to today's episode. So the first question I like to ask each guest is, how would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners?
[00:04:33] Mike: How would I like to introduce myself?
Um, well, my name is Mike Margulies and I guess what I'm most, uh, known for currently is my work in the psychedelic space, which is mainly in psychedelic education and community building. That is work I've been doing for nine years now in different forms, sometimes producing events under my platform, psychedelic seminars, and currently really focused on a project called the global psychedelic society, which is a network of hundreds of local groups called psychedelic societies around the world.
And so I've been Uh, yeah, working to support local community builders, creating psychedelic education and a community in all these different cities.
[00:05:24] Nicole: Cool. I, yeah, I went to the Illinois Psychedelic Society. Is that?
[00:05:27] Mike: Cool.
[00:05:28] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jean
[00:05:29] Mike: is part of our network. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:05:34] Nicole: Yep. There's the connection.
Cool. Well, I'm excited to talk to you today and I know we're going to have a lot to hit. So I'm ready to run through our hour and a half or wherever we go today. Great. So I know we talked a little bit about some various topics and you had talked about what the psychedelic community could learn from the BDSM and King community.
Where do you want to start that? That alone is like a whole podcast in many years, right? Yeah, yeah. But where do you want to start us at, you know, at today?
[00:06:08] Mike: Yeah, that's a great place to start, actually. I have talked about this before, but it's not always the thing I get to talk about. So this seems like a perfect place to do it.
[00:06:18] Nicole: Yes.
[00:06:20] Mike: And, yeah, so, there's a lot of ways that the kink community has already really blazed all the trails, right, around consent and conversations, and there's power dynamics. These are the exact things where the psychedelic community is most struggling right now. And there's just Report after report, right, of abusive facilitators all the time, the psychedelic community.
And I mean, general and a lot of psychedelics are being lumped into therapy and medical communities. Those communities also just aren't very good. Historically, with things like consent, there's a lot of really awful history actually around this in these communities. And so kind of as a consequence of that, bringing psychedelics through those paradigms is psychedelics.
Aren't really, um, they don't fix things. They are amplifiers.
[00:07:13] Nicole: Right?
[00:07:14] Mike: So they're amplifying all these existing problems. Maybe through more awareness, we can address and heal some of these issues culturally, but all the cultural just like on the on the individual level psychedelics amplify your set and setting.
They culturally also amplify our set and setting. And so, you know, in the kink world, We're very versed, right, in having conversations before engaging in a scene. Um, and of course, you know, there's like the whole, the BDSM talk, setting boundaries, desires, safety, meeting, having those conversations ahead of time.
And I would say that that pretty much identical framework could be applied to psychedelic therapy. And Cat Tortuga here is joining me.
[00:07:53] Nicole: Love the cat, hi! It's your time to shine, baby.
[00:07:57] Mike: There you go, Tortuga. Um, But yeah, before psychedelic therapy, uh, I think those are the types of conversations that, um, psychedelic therapists or guides or facilitators should be having.
You know, hey, what are your boundaries?
What are your desires? What do you want to get out of this session? Let's talk about safety. What might come up? Let's have a deep conversation about, about the types of things that could happen from the substances or from your dynamic with me.
[00:08:23] Nicole: Right.
[00:08:24] Mike: And of course, meaning like, you know, and, you know, there's a lot of expectation now in psychedelic therapy because we're saying, hey, psychedelics are here and they're going to fix your PTSD and depression and be your silver bullet to fix everything.
And that can be problematic. Yes. Yes. Hi, Georgia. Um, yeah, that can be problematic to have that expectation. So, like, that's where meaning could come in too, right? Hey, you have this meaning you're putting to it, but yeah. Uh, maybe it could be more supportive to let go a little bit and see what wants to, what wants to be shown to you in this.
I might actually need, I don't know, Tortita is kind of easing off here.
[00:09:07] Nicole: Totally, totally.
[00:09:08] Mike: Um.
[00:09:08] Nicole: Yeah, I mean, I'm already just thinking about how yesterday I was, um, in supervision with my, uh, supervisor, Dr. Geoff Bathje. We do the psychedelic assisted psychotherapy work at Ketamine at Sauna Healing Collective.
And I was just talking about, like, you know, autonomy. For people to choose their dose when they're coming in right of like, where they want to start and what it means for us as providers to kind of say, like, hey, you can't start at that high of a dose. We want you to start here or there. Right? And that power dynamic versus self governance.
And he was talking about a case where someone had been like. In a state of like high levels of anger and agitation and was like, I want the high dose. I'm doing it today. And he had said, you know, like, I'm not really comfortable with supporting you in that. I think it's just going to amplify all of this.
And I don't think that's really where we should go today. And it immediately reminded me of kink dynamics of the person who's like, no, hit me. Like I'm ready. Like hit me with it, put me there. And the responsibility of the dom to kind of like know that sub and say, actually like. You seem to be getting in a space and I know you're asking for this, but given my perspective right now, I'm actually not going to give you that impact that you're asking for, right?
Maybe you're in this altered state of subspace, etc. Yes. And so just those dynamics there that are already present in these altered states of consciousness that we're stepping into.
[00:10:31] Mike: Yeah, and the idea too, it's very familiar in the kink world, like you don't negotiate up right after the scene has begun, you're not gonna like add new elements to the scene.
You know, what you talk about before that altered state is what you stick to because yeah, like you said, in an altered state, you're not really able to fully consent. And that is something that needs to be better understood in the psychedelic space, too, before you enter the altered state, there needs to be all these consent conversations between the person with powers, the therapist or facilitator, God, whatever you want to call them in this case, and the person who is receiving the service.
And, of course, there's There's case after case of examples where psychedelic facilitators guides while someone's in an altered state are introducing new elements, sometimes even sexual elements, which should really be not in that space. I could see an area where, like, someone who, like, and it's where it gets.
You know, can you ever have thing is gets a dicey territory by like, can you ever have like sex work and psychedelic therapy together and the conventional? Yeah, there's
[00:11:36] Nicole: right. I mean, I think about Britta love, right? Yeah. Conversations around consent. I mean, I think it comes back to the relationship, right?
It gets real because I mean. The reality is, like, let's take it outside of the framework of therapy for a second and all that. Yeah, exactly. Because that's deeply complex. Exactly. If we take it into, like, our relationship life with our lovers and the people that we're connecting with, it's not that we can't have sex on psychedelics, right?
Exactly. But I always, I joked, I think, for the intro of that episode of, like, Oh, I was on an SSRI, like, a mind Can I consent to any of the sex that I had when I was on my SSRI, right? Like there's just a deep complexity here too. I think Britta had talked about like, what's your relationship to the person?
What's your relationship to the substance? What's your relationship to the act or the type of play that you're doing? And also what's the relationship to the space you're in? Is this at the dungeon? Is this at your house? Right? Like there's just different dynamics going on there. And like, if we do all of that math and that math adds up, I think it's.
Possible to do it right. Then add something like, yeah, like surrogate partner therapy and like what it would be like to combine that. Oof. Now we are in like very complicated territories, but healing territories. I'll say that in my own expansive journeys of like, um, sexological body work that I've received in my life.
I did it on cannabis. Super expansive
[00:13:00] Mike: yeah,
[00:13:01] Nicole: but I have to feel very safe to do that. And that's not technically capital therapy therapy, you know?
[00:13:08] Mike: Well, yeah, exactly. It's and I think what's important is, is this. Where's the starting point? Are you starting from a part, a place of sex work, and then from a place of this is a relationship predicated first and foremost on sex work, and hey, we're adding these healing components to the sex work, or is it starting off from, hey, I'm therapy, and now I want to add sex to it, right?
So the latter of those, is it? Not okay. If you're coming to someone, someone's coming to someone as a therapist and then, oh, I'm coming to you as a therapist. And then later on, the therapist says, oh, I want to add sex to this. No, this is, there's a power dynamic here. You're adding sexual activity to something.
I didn't come to you for sex. I came to you for therapy, but I think the place where it can, where it can be done though, is if you're first and foremost, primarily coming to that, into that dynamic as, Oh, I'm coming to you for sex work, sexual healing, sex work. And then as part of that work, I mean, I think we, we lose sight of this idea of sex work actually as, as a healing practice.
Absolutely. Yeah. I, I think that's probably one of the original like functions of it and we've lost that. So someone who is a sex worker and you're, so if you're coming to someone primarily from that frame. Yeah, of course, there's going to be healing that can be on top of that. So, and that's where I think it is.
It's not that you can never combine sex and healing, but it's where's the starting point here. And, uh, and too often what we're seeing is people going to therapists, not coming there. To have sex with this person, but then this therapist coming after establishing a therapeutic relationship, someone who has this power now is saying, Oh, I'm going to add sex to this because this is what you need right now or whatever it is, or just not holding or even even if the client brings up the sexual energy, the therapist not being able to hold a boundary of that, like, Hey, actually, this isn't.
The dynamic of our relationship,
[00:15:01] Nicole: right? Yeah. I really appreciate that distinction of like, what's the starting point, right? Starting off a sex work versus therapy and those being two completely separate boundaries, right? And then kind of building from there. I mean, that's, this is anarchy. We're talking, you know, hi, you know, exactly the plane with this stuff.
But the reality is there's so much healing, right? And, and, and, yeah. I just think about like what the future of healing will be like when we have access legally to things like MDMA for people to be able to connect with their bodies and whether that's with like a sex worker, healer of that capacity or a partner, partners, right, like being able to be in that expansive state of that, um, heightened body awareness and to actually play in that, I mean, we're talking about stuff that has high levels for healing and equally high levels for Drama, right?
Right. These are right. So like that is what we're playing with right here is when you are so open, there can be such an expansive experience and also the potential for significant harm. And so as long as we're holding that nuance and not just giving one or the other, I think we can hopefully continue to ride this line as a culture.
[00:16:10] Mike: Yeah, and I, you know, I wouldn't make the case that because we, you know, we don't live in an anarchist society. We live in a society where there's not only a war on drugs, but a war on sex work. Um, I think this is a big contributing factor to there being so much, um, sexual misconduct on the part of therapists, both with and without psychedelics, um, because we just don't have legal frameworks for sex work in general, right?
So if we had that, then that field can have, and, and people, they still. is a whole field of ethics around that. Um, but that could be a lot more open of a conversation and we can have open frameworks for people. Um, but because there isn't legal access to sex work, right? People who might do that and might have good, uh, elders or peers to support them and how to do this ethically are sort of, it's getting lumped into therapy where it shouldn't be.
And that's part of the problem is like people are bringing those elements into a framework that, hey, no, you shouldn't be introducing this element. That's not what people came to you for.
[00:17:11] Nicole: Right. And I think that's also where, like, my, uh, Ending of rape culture. My big dream. Mm. Right? Like, part of that is talking about kink and power plan dynamics, because I think that the more that we can talk about that, the more we're gonna not have these fucked up situations where therapists are actually using that power dynamic in a way that's non consensual.
No. Let's talk about power play. Let's create a space for you to have this adult consensual play with someone that's not your client, right? The more that we talk about this and get that out into the open and normalize the desire to actually inherently play with power consensually, I think that is how we get out of rape culture is having more conversations like that.
[00:17:56] Mike: Absolutely. And like this. This brings up another really good point, because in response to, there's so many problematic things that have happened with psychedelic guides, doing inappropriate things, bringing sexuality in, not holding matters, all that whole thing, having sex with clients, there are some voices whose, whose immediate, um, kind of knee jerk reaction to it is like, hey, well, I don't know.
You're not supposed to have any touch whatsoever between a therapist and a client. And so pushing back, not just on, on sexuality, but even things like holding hands in psychedelic therapy and people saying, Hey, no, this is bad. We need more control, more rules, more stop. And I, and I hear people saying like, you can't know you shouldn't hold hands and say, this is the opposite.
Of how we should be approaching this, like we shouldn't be clamping down more, but like you said, we need to be opening up these conversations. We need to talk. We need to actually emphasize that these are conversations that need to happen ahead. We need to make sure that we need to have more conversation about consent, not try to shut it down because actually.
Uh, non sexual touch in psychedelic therapy can be extremely helpful in healing and therapeutic. And yes, there are some people who abuse that, uh, and turn the touch sexual. That doesn't mean that we should clamp down and Ban touch in psychedelic therapy. It means we need to actually have more conversations about consent and about what ethical touch means in the context of therapy.
[00:19:29] Nicole: Totally. Absolutely. I think about the experiences that I have done with I mean, one, we've all been traumatized under the patriarchy around sex, but specifically people who have sexual trauma, you know, explicit experiences and To come into that therapy session with them when we're prepping for the psychedelic experience and to talk about them of hey, we can offer, you know, a touch of the hand a touch on the shoulder.
That's totally up to you. Whatever you decide now in your ordinary state of consciousness will be what we take into that psychedelic experience and we won't go beyond that. So. Would you feel comfortable with a hand being held if you're in a difficult space, right? Yes. Okay. How would you like to signal that?
Is that something you like us to ask for? Sometimes even just asking a question can put pressure on someone. Okay. No, don't ask. I will initiate, right? I'm just thinking about Betty Martin and the wheel of consent and all this stuff. Um, and so in that opportunity, it it's checking in with the client each time, right?
Consent can change. Maybe they said yes to the hand in the first time. And maybe they don't want it in the second session or vice versa. The first time they felt fine, second session, maybe we're going up in dose. And so they actually do want to have that open container. Now, the healing potential to ask someone that damn question and for them to say yes and to be respected at that level and not gone.
Huge healing. And for them to even say, No, I don't want that. Okay, we will support you. I'm glad you, like, expressed your boundaries. I would hate to get to this space where we couldn't have that sort of opportunity of literally holding someone's hand, because what the fuck is healing if I can't hold someone's hand when they're dropping to the edge of their ego and feeling like they're dying in a psychedelic experience and I can't hold their hand?
Oh my god. And just the ability for them to actually find healing in that expression of their boundaries. Huge.
[00:21:22] Mike: Yeah, I mean, so much of the healing that has to be done in this world is relational. I mean, I would say, I would actually make the case that almost all of it is relational. How do we relate to each other?
How do we relate to the planet and the environment around us? Like, it's all relational. And so we do, it's just, it's kind of bizarre how we try to atomize it and turn it into, oh, well, like turn it into individuals as though we exist in a vacuum. And I'm a person who has PTSD or depression or addiction.
And so it's just this. I'm an isolated thing and I can get a pill and that will, that will fix me. If I take this MDMA, it'll fix my PTSD. If I take this psilocybin, it's going to fix my depression. And that sort of atomizing of us is, I would argue, the main source of this widespread depression and trauma, this separation that we're doing, that's the core source of it.
So if we're taking psychedelics through a paradigm that's separating us more, we're, we're actually, um, reinforcing The core traumas at the heart of the separation is at the heart of so much of the suffering in the world. So, no, it's just that's like, no, you can't be have. There is a relationship between the therapist and the client and it's the idea is not to.
Just because relationships are tricky, that doesn't mean we're supposed to like, Oh, minimize that and set, create more separation. But we just need to have more conversations about healthy relationships. And yeah, if you are someone in power in this really important role, there needs to be really good training around this.
And culturally, we just need training around how to be in good relationship with each other.
Um, I've got a lot of other thoughts coming into it.
[00:23:01] Nicole: That's good. Keep it coming.
[00:23:04] Mike: And, you know, maybe we need things like safe words and psychedelic therapy. And yeah, and I think, you know, I can, I have a personal story I could relay to what was coming up because, you know, I had an experience when I was in an underground psychedelic therapy session where my therapist was.
He asked me at some point if I wanted to be held. Um, and I, I said no. And then like a few minutes later, he asked me again. And yeah, and that really, um,
[00:23:39] Nicole: Yeah,
[00:23:39] Mike: that really, you know, impacted me. What I will say, just important to note also, I did later have conversations with this person and they did take accountability for it, um, you know, so I don't, I don't, I just, I don't think this person had ill intentions, I think, but it was, it was a misstep, you know, and it was, and, um, But this is an important example, right?
Like, yeah, from I personally had this impact where it was like, wait, what's going on here? Like, I was just asked this and I said no. And then they asked again, like, why are they trying to insist this is on me? And I can totally see. And I don't have sexual trauma, but. Absolutely, you can understand, as someone who has sexual trauma, like, I was impacted by it.
So I can see how someone could be even more significantly impacted. Um, and part of this was a, I think, a consequence of this person's training. And they actually, I believe, had really poor training themselves. And the training they received was Not really consent conscious. Um, and that's, and so it goes to that.
Um, but our whole culture, let me back to this whole thing of like, our whole culture is not very consent conscious. Psychedelics are nonspecific amplifiers. So what we're seeing all these problems on psychedelic therapy, these are just the problems of our culture at large.
[00:24:56] Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I have so many different thoughts that we're running.
It's just, it's hard when you, when someone, you know, it's, it's really tricky too, because like even that question of asking a client, do you want your hand to be held, clear question? We don't know where the other person is at. They could feel incapable of saying no, right? Like that happens to people where it's like, they say yes, but it feels like in their head, they couldn't possibly say no.
Like, I think it's important to even state that, like, our feelings won't be hurt. You can definitely say no here. We're here to support you and make you feel comfortable, right? There's a lot we have to do into that. Um, I'm also thinking about experiences. This is not even at all related to, um, a psychedelic experience, but one of my, uh, coworkers had offered someone a hug at the end of a session, right?
Oh, like, would you like a hug? And they said, yes. And so the therapist went in to go hug the client and then the client kissed the therapist on the neck. Oh, right. Yeah. Advice in the other way, right? So then it's like, whoa. And then, which even more content to process in the therapeutic relationship, as long as the therapist feels safe, right?
That like, how heartbreaking to know that an offer of hug. And care is immediately met with a sexual connection for that person, right? That's a lot to unpack in years of therapy, right? So like it can even happen in non psychedelic spaces and towards the therapist, right? Not just even the other way and and like you said this is all because our society doesn't talk about sex Right, why I have a lot of joy of, like, being in the space and talking about it and naming it because I really do think that that is how we get out of rape culture is being able to say, yeah, I had the scene.
I did this and we talked about that. And the more that we can get those kind of conversations up and into the light, not to be naughty. Not to drop this on people who don't want to hear that because I think that's an important thing as I get deeper and deeper into the culture of kink, right? Like, there's like a normalization of the stuff that we do that I can't drop on other people culturally, right?
Because they're like, you did what on your weekend? You know? Um, but the more that we can bring those conversations up into the light, I do think that that's how we end rape culture.
[00:27:04] Mike: Absolutely. Yeah. Not more suppression. We need more light on it. And, and yeah, this is, of course, in psychedelic therapy, sexual energy is going to arise inevitably because it exists and like, and humans experience it.
So you're, and so many of us have. Things tied up in sexuality, sexual history. So the question is, when sexual energy comes up, how does a therapist ethically hold that? And yeah, sometimes the way it shows up is the client is going to come on to the therapist, but it's the therapist's job to hold the boundaries in that situation.
And this is where So many of the therapists sort of, um, you know, you'll hear this excuse where it's like some of the some actual therapists, psychedelic therapists who have had sex with their clients will say, Oh, well, they came on to me, you know, and they put it on the client. Like, Oh, it's your fault.
You were being manipulative and did it. It's like, no, you're the person with the power here. It's your job to hold that boundary. Um, you can't blame this on the person, even if they Came on to you, right?
[00:28:06] Nicole: I mean, dark space, but like children that come on to adults, right? Like same sort of paradigm does not.
Okay. Right. Like there's inherent power, you know? So yeah, absolutely. And I think that. You know, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the world of like, how we can take psychedelic therapy prep into BDSM and the other way back, right? I just, I think about the worlds of like, you know, when we're doing prep conversation with clients, we're like preparing the backpack for this experience.
Wow, what a similar world when you're creating a scene of like, hey, let's get all the people together. Let's talk about our desires, our intentions, our boundaries, and quite literally intentions like a psychedelic experience, right? Like what's your intention for that and the ability to take multiple even meetings if you want to, right?
Multiple meetings over time to like think about what you're creating in this ritual. So much power there, right? And then to be in the experience, it's an altered state of consciousness to know what your intention is to know that your boundaries have been communicated. And then afterwards, the follow up, right?
Like you can have a beautiful kink BDSM scene feel great in the moment and maybe days later. Not feel good about what happened, right? Being able to integrate and or if it was great, how do you integrate that moving forward? I think we do the same things in psychedelics where it's like you can have a beautiful experience and then maybe hours, days later, you're like, whoa, and it's bringing up a lot more.
Like, I think those same paradigms can be really applicable in terms of how we kind of move through and hold these experiences. And so I fucking want to be able to have. kink integration therapy. I want someone to feel safe enough to like come to a therapist and be like, I want to do this. Like, how do I prepare?
What do I talk about with people? And then have the integration afterwards. Wow. You have this radical scene. What does it mean about your dynamics? What does it mean about the person you're moving forward? How do you want to integrate this experience into your life rather than just, I did this one psychedelic kink scene and, uh, next, right?
Like there's a lot to slow down and like really simmer in there.
[00:30:12] Mike: Yeah. Kink integration circles. ,
[00:30:15] Nicole: I'm ready for it. You know, I'm ready.
[00:30:18] Mike: Yeah. It's a, it's a really, that's a really interesting idea. And yeah, it's like a kind of a form of aftercare, you know? And like, um, I don't know if I've heard of, uh, any kind of kink integration circle, but it totally makes sense.
Like, yeah, come together. Let's talk about like a scene I had with peers who are also of the community. I cannot. Process it. And, and yeah, yeah, pretty good all apart. And, and it also the around beforehand with intentions to, yeah, the psychedelic community. One thing it is very good about is setting intention.
And there's a lot of emphasis on what are your intentions? What are your intentions? And like that same framework, yeah, it can be applied to the kink world. And it is there to some extent, if you're having a really good conversation around meaning, although. I think there's, there's oftentimes probably like a lot of kink scenes that aren't necessarily like, really thinking deeply about like, what are my intentions?
And it's okay too, maybe it's just I have this desire, I want to do this thing, but it could be very interesting to come into a kink scene with like, the same way we go into a psychedelic experience with like, these are my intentions. Um, and you could probably use a kink scene in the same way that you use a psychedelic experience, you know?
Yeah. Oh, my intentions are to learn about myself and grow, for example, you might say before. An MDMA or psilocybin therapy, but what if you said that before, yeah, before getting tied up, and I bet you some lesson would come out of that.
[00:31:38] Nicole: Right, exactly, in the same way that you could have that psychedelic, you know, intention of openness to the unfolding.
Do the same thing with kink, and I think that's a lot of what people do, right? And, and often in psychedelics when there's not that intention, it's That openness, right? And so, but right, you can go into these experiences with, wow, I want to focus on this. And so, yes, that's existentially and narrative wise going to frame.
You're going to set your frame so that when you're in the experience, you're thinking about that. An important thing is that particularly, I mean, depending on where it takes you, but if you are the sub or the bottom, You don't drive home. We don't drive home after the psychedelic trip. If you're in an altered state, baby, do not drive home.
You know, the paradigms are similar. Right. I really do see that sort of like, yeah.
[00:32:27] Mike: Absolutely. Yeah. We're talking about altered states, talking about power dynamics. That's just so much overlap. And it is really cool looking at like two worlds like this, that on the surface at first, seemingly you're like, Oh, these are totally different talking about.
kink and sex and we're talking about psychedelics, but like, actually, there's so much that these two communities can learn from each other because each one has more wisdom around different aspects of these experiences and by kind of cross pollinating it. Yeah, they aren't actually that separate. These are, these are all kind of interconnected things.
[00:32:59] Nicole: Mm hmm. A flow state both ways. Yeah. Flow states. I think about just even the systems and how that impacts both, right? Like if you, um, have been impacted by the war on drugs, right? You're gonna have a very different experience into that psychedelic. If you, When through dare, right? Like you're going to have a very different experience that often can paint it in a, in a, in a difficult light, right?
Um, depending on what paradigms of, Oh, I took this bad drug. I'm a bad person. I'm, you know, similar things can definitely happen in a kink experience, right? If you've been impacted by purity culture, hello, hi, that's me, right? Like. You might be having this experience going, Oh no, I am such a slut. I am such a whore.
Oh no, like not an unempowering way. Right. But like just thinking about the frameworks and the systems of oppression that are present in both ways too, depending on how you're feeling and the narrative and meaning making of the experience that comes out for you.
[00:33:56] Mike: Yeah. There's so many parallels. Um, Yeah, I'm between the war on drugs and the war on sex work.
Um, and there's this great TED talk, I forgot what the person's name was who did it, about the laws that sex workers really want. Maybe you're familiar with this one. No, but
[00:34:10] Nicole: I should reach out to them, whoever they are.
[00:34:11] Mike: Um, yeah, I could probably, like, find that. But, um, yeah, it's a great, uh, yeah, it's a great TED talk.
And, uh, the speaker talks about how, um, It's just different ways that the war on sex work has, there have been different attempts at legalizing sex work, right? But different attempts that don't really fully hit the mark. Um, so there's frameworks where there's a legalized and regulated access to sex work, but the shadow of the kind of legalizing and regulating sex work is now you create this two tiered system, um, where there's the legal market and then there's still like the black market, right?
And, um, and they refer to this as a backdoor criminalization of sex work. So you have a tier where it's above board and okay, and by the tier where people can still be abreasted, oppressed, and all of this. And this is just so completely parallel to the war on drugs and how psychedelics are currently being legalized.
And this is something I'm paying particular attention to right now. Actually, I just, right before this podcast, got off of a conversation on this exact topic, where We're seeing that happen live with psychedelics, where a lot of the frameworks that are legalizing psychedelics on the state level, but also even on the federal level here too, there, there's going to be the legal regulated model, but one that doesn't include broad decriminalization, and that's the goal here, right, is if we're talking about full collective liberation, it's full decriminalization of all this stuff.
We need frameworks for ethics and for accountability. And for safety, but not enforced through prisons.
And, um, so decriminalization being the goal here, but here in California, for example, there was a bill last year to decriminalize psychedelics in the state of California or certain psychedelics, and it was vetoed by the governor.
And There is a new psychedelic legislation that is coming through right now that's likely to pass that's going to create a legal regulated framework for access to psychedelic therapy in California, but it does not include decriminalization, right? So it's essentially, it's okay. Psychedelic therapy is going to be available, but only in this very particular narrow paradigm.
[00:36:44] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:36:44] Mike: Um, and of course there, I think it's important that there's not one way to use psychedelics. There's so many like, and we're talking about psychedelics here. You know, these are, there's a lot of ways people are going to engage with these and should be engaging with these. And it's very personal.
And we need not just this.
I mean, I, I appreciate the framework of psychedelic therapy. I've personally benefited from it, but it can't be the exclusive way people have access. You think about ayahuasca circles, like community. Circles community actually is like, it's a big gaping hole in all of the legal psychedelic frameworks and where's the community and that's a drum.
I'm constantly banging here and we need that and we need to not be. Criminalizing people who don't use a particular framework, um, where it's only the people that have enough money. I think one of the core dramas we have culturally is this separation. Um, and so to approach psychedelics in this atomized way is just Adding to the problem, not solving it
[00:37:49] Nicole: totally, right?
Yeah, it's crazy. Like individual therapy, like psychedelics have been done in groups and ceremonies and communities, right? Presenter is it's crazy. Um, and the field of psychology, you know, I've had many conversations and like tears and pain points around the fact that like the field of psychology is beautiful, right?
It can do a lot of healing. And it's also. Highly problematic. I do not like the DSM. All these frameworks of the individual, the individual person being sick rather than the systems level perspective causes harm. Like I will flat out say causes harm when we look at an individual and say you have bipolar, not, hey, you're a long family line of trauma plus under capitalism.
And then this is actively what's. And so I am. Sick of this, like idea of like putting that onto the individual rather than the larger system. And so the field of psychology actively does cause harm in that process, in my opinion. And that doesn't even take into context the idea of spiritual healers. What does it mean for psychedelics to not just be this drug that we've studied through, you know, neuroscience, whatever, but to actually represent like cultural healing and different weights.
Like there is no paradigm where that's going to be given access unless we do decrim, right?
[00:39:04] Mike: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's like and you think about it's really obvious when you think about like our children, right? And now there's the Wow, all these children have ADHD now and we have to give them Amphetamines because there's just this so many children have have ADHD and like Did we ever stop to think maybe the problem isn't the kids?
Maybe the problem is the system. Maybe kids aren't supposed to just sit down at a desk for hours on end, listening to a teacher regurgitating facts. Maybe kids are supposed to be creative. Maybe kids are supposed to explore where their curiosity guides them. Maybe we're supposed to support them and becoming the fullest expressed versions of themselves and we are suppressing them from being the fullest humans they can possibly be.
And we, and then we pathologize their, their correct reaction to this of not paying attention. We pathologize and drug them. And so, and so that's the biggest glaring example of where it's actively causing harm. Um, and then I also want to piggyback on the other point you made is on spirituality here. Um, yeah, because this framework where drugs and the only appropriate place to use drugs is if you have one of these pathologies, and it's a system that's dependent on like, yeah, the only valid use, we must pathologize you for you to have the right to use this, you must have a diagnosis and, you know, what about as, um, Bob Jesse, who's a leader in the psychedelics.
Space speaks to and he started the council on spiritual practices, um, the betterment of well, people and what about our, our spiritual growth psychedelics, obviously, our tools and spiritual growth, you don't have to have a pathologized diagnosis to benefit from psychedelics. So just the idea that we're.
Yeah, bringing psychedelics through this. And of course, in a sense, it's maybe a Trojan horse, hopefully, that we can bring psychedelics through the medical system for wider cultural use, but hopefully it doesn't just. In the wider cultural use, we're seeing it already get kind of constrained, like the frameworks in Oregon, for example, are wider than what the F, you know, you don't need a diagnosis to get psychedelic therapy in Oregon right now, but it still is limited to this just particular type of regulated access, even though drugs are kind of decriminalized in Oregon, which might get rolled back, you know, there's civil penalties versus criminal ones, so you don't really have the right To grow your own mushrooms in Oregon and do psychedelic practices in your own way.
Um, so, yeah, we need, we need spiritual frameworks too, not just whatever, you know.
[00:41:48] Nicole: Mm hmm, yeah.
[00:41:49] Mike: Or whatever the regulated model is, medical or otherwise.
[00:41:52] Nicole: Right, right. This is systems of power and I just want to roar like all over it. What the fuck, you know? Um, and just thinking back to the, the crossovers between like sex work, right, and drugs.
It's, it's, it's. Conversation about bodily autonomy, like at the end of the day is like, do I have the bodily autonomy in this country to use my body to make money? Do I have the bodily autonomy to take this drug? And the answer is no in America, um, right, like, you know, and so just like the more that we simmer in that, I, I, I am excited about the fact that, you know, as more awareness of this grows and the collective consciousness of the healing, right, the potentials for harm, just like kink, wow, healing potentials for harm right there, right, but the more that people kind of like get aware of the healing power of psychedelics, the more you go.
Oh, shit.
[00:42:46] Mike: Yeah.
[00:42:46] Nicole: They lied to us!
[00:42:48] Mike: Yeah.
[00:42:49] Nicole: Whoa! You know, and I love that collective raising of like, uh oh, we gotta ask all the questions because they've kept this from us, what else are they keeping, right? And just that like, little bit of like, anarchy in the people of like, collective rising. I love that. Yeah.
[00:43:04] Mike: Yeah. And I, you know, I think to me it seems the biggest barrier to this is Individually and collectively this idea of the need for control. We have this idea that any problem that exists in the world, the way to address it is through trying to control it. So if we have an issue of. With drugs, let's say, okay, there's a fentanyl crisis as we're calling it, right?
Um, cool. Now we have to control it more, to clamp down more controls, more laws, and there's this, yeah, and that's a very pervasive idea, culturally, that somehow control is an answer. And of course it's, it's very demonstrably not. You look at the drug war, the drug war has not resulted in even its stated goals of less drug use.
So it doesn't work yet. You can see this on every level. I mean, and it's sort of like, there's this idea that like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna use our force and our control and these horrific things are now happening in the name of, we're going to create peace and safety through force, I guess. And it's just very obvious, like, it's very obvious it doesn't work.
You know, you can't create peace and safety through force and control and violence. You have to embody it. And why isn't this happening in the, you know, with the drug war or with war in general? Um, I think it comes down to Like, there's a fear, right? There is this, there is this deep, deep seated fear of letting go of control.
And this is one of these psychedelic lessons, you know. Trust, let go, be open. Trust the universe. And we're, you know, that is the deep lesson, ultimately, is like, letting go, surrender. This is a big theme in psychedelics. It, uh, it's surrender. Uh, also a theme in a lot of kink play. Right. And So it's very difficult for us.
We're having trouble with that because we have a habit, we have a deep seated cultural habit of control, we have this idea that like, well, what are you going to do? You have to do something, and the idea that we have to respond through some measure of force or control, and to let go of that, is a leap of faith.
It is a spirit. It is a spiritual process through and through. So it reaching us. Anarchy culture is absolutely spiritual. Collectively. Can we let go enough to really have that faith? And there's so much trauma underlying it all. Um, and so there's this idea that like, okay. Um, the only way to stop this bad thing from happening again is like more control, more control and like, and that is I think the epit, the, the core of what's happening right now, deep, deep, deep fear is triggered, deep insecurity is triggered.
And so this crazy response is happening because there isn't an ability to actually have this faith and let go and trust into, like, hey, is there something else? Is it not more control? But maybe the answer is actually a loosening of control that needs to happen. And that's yeah. It's frightening. Oh, totally.
And, um, yeah. And we went to a whole other tent over there. Totally, yeah, yeah.
[00:46:31] Nicole: I mean, anarchy, self governance, right? I mean, I, I hear it. Like, what would it mean to defund the police? Right? Oh, no. Right? Like, concepts like that, right? And just, yeah. I think about, I, uh, I giggle because somehow this conversation came up in my training with, uh, again, Jeff, and he was like, control, right?
Control. Prisons. High levels of control. You know what still gets in there? Drugs. You know, like, like our highest level. We got this. Let's control them. still gets it, you know, it's just like, Oh my God. Right. So, um, yeah, there's so much there in terms of just the different ways that we are actively using force and control rather than, you know, trusting into the self governance of our communities and our peoples.
And that's only going to happen when resources are actively redistributed. Right. Because that's part of the reality too, is this like resource distribution of capitalism that is like. hitting people against each other for valid fucking reasons, because there's not enough resources in this paradigm. But if we shifted it out of this capitalistic profit, you know, like we'd have a very different container.
Um, so yeah, it's all very intercorrelated um, for me,
[00:47:44] Mike: absolutely. It's, yeah, it's all connected. And like the, the idea of control versus surrender is also attached. It's completely tied to the idea of separation versus reconnection and in control. is sort of a consequence of a worldview of separation. If I am like this separate individual in this world, like I have to control things to be safe and to trust into this surrender.
It goes hand in hand with understanding the interconnection between us all and to know that like, well, hey, what happens to what happens to one of us happens to all of us. And I can try. I can only maintain this illusion of like, oh, this control is helping if I have this illusion of separation with it.
But if I understand. Um, the interconnection here. We can live in the U. S. Here and pretend like what's happening in Gaza right now is something or it's happening in the drug war right now. People in prisons in our country that this is somehow separate from me and I and many ways like I have this beautiful life and I'm very grateful for it.
And I knowing all the suffering happening and I have gratitude for the life I live. And yet at the same time, I experienced it as very personal what's happening. And I realize I'm not disconnected from it. Um, all the wars that the US supports abroad that all ends up coming home to right. And you can see like even like in, in more modern, um, Upright, you know, the protests that have happened within the U.
S. in recent years, you're seeing a lot more militarized police happening, right? This is the reflection of all the wars we're fighting abroad. It's literally like the leftovers from all these wars we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're ending up in police forces on our streets. So what's happening abroad is happening here.
It's not separate from us.
[00:49:32] Nicole: Right, and I think a great example of that is climate change, right? Like, you would hope, Jesus, that we would all get together on that one, at least bare minimum of like, oh, this is our Earth, collectively. But you do see people who say, ah, stop my generation. It's not going to happen in my time.
Ah! You know, like, plastic, plastic, plastic, plastic. More plastic, you know? But, uh, yeah. So, I want to believe in humanity to be able to, uh, Look past those and see the connection. You're right. But that is like a large collective liberation that I think we'll have to move towards as we see that we're all collectively, um, in community with one another, particularly in this, this current time of global connections, right?
Um, especially with something like climate change that is affecting all of us and the future, you know, of our species. Um, yeah. And when you were talking about, like, the openness of the, um, unfolding of the unknowns, I almost want to process a little bit with you about my own non monogamy journey, because Lord fucking knows I have done the integration and, uh, the prep work for some experiences, like my first threesome.
Like, I felt like I had got all the people together, we had talked about it, we had done all of this. stuff. And Lord knows the second that I saw my partner touch and hold hands with someone else, like the sex was great. Let me be very clear. The sex was fun. But the second that they touched the other person's hand in a loving, kind caress of their hand, which is wild because that's something that maybe my partner could do to anyone in their family.
Just like, Oh, let me hold hands. You're sad. But just the second they, they did that, I lost my shit. Okay, I was not prepared for that psychedelic experience. You know, you go in open, you have the intention, but Lord knows, it takes you places. And I think that's where I think about the paradigms of psychedelic.
paradigm shifting, right? When you get into this world where things are the unknown, you don't know what it's going to feel. We're talking about a heightened state or amplifying, right? I'm in this paradigm of now playing with multiple people. We have heightened states of attachment, okay? And I have no idea where that's going to take my brain, right?
So, like, I just see that parallel coming up really, like, closely, too, of the unfolding of not knowing where it's going to take you and being okay with that and being able to process it afterwards and that being alright. I, I don't want to call, I have processed this a little bit on the podcast where I said it was like a really difficult experience, but like.
It's a bad trip, right? Or I learned a lot, right? Like, where's even that frame of that, you know, even though I had that significant body response, even though I thought that MDMA would make that easier and it did not. I thought, you know, I was like, Oh, cool. It helps with trauma and stuff. Cool. I'm going to be more relaxed.
And again,
[00:52:22] Mike: You had the threesome on MDMA?
[00:52:24] Nicole: We started the night going to a concert together and so just seeing them even touch each other before we got into the sexual stuff. Again, just touch each other. Just hug, caress, snuggle on MDMA. I was like, I'm gonna be chill. I'm gonna be chill. It suppresses your trauma.
It opens your heart. Fuck. No. I was raging inside my body. It was crazy. Again, the sex part, super fun, oddly enough. Not what I imagined would be the easiest part of the journey, you know, this is my first, like, first time that I had ever done anything of that caliber. And so then I just think about like the I'm going into an experience like that.
And then the subsequent of like, oh, okay, now I've had this experience again, right? And it actually is not bringing up the same level of things because I've walked this psychedelic land. I've kind of learned what it feels like to drop your ego to the floor and then pick yourself back up. Like, God, these paradigms are so clear to me because they're, they're literally like paradigm disruptors.
[00:53:27] Mike: Yeah, um, I gotta say threesome on MDMA sounds awesome, but, um, I can understand what you mean though. Like, yeah, uh, well, it sounds awesome, but yeah, it's your experience of it was, um, was difficult. And, um, well, yeah, as we say with the Zender Project, which is a psychedelic, um, peer support organization for that goes to places like Burning Man or other festivals.
And this is where you go, uh, if you're, if you are having like a difficult time, you can go to Zendo and someone like, I volunteer with Zendo, but we'll sit with you. Um, and the idea there is. Um, when you're in that, in that role, you know, you're, so you're, you're creating a safe space. You're sitting, not guiding, talking someone through, not down, but the, the last piece of it that's really important is that a difficult experience is not necessarily a bad one to your point earlier there.
Uh, and so, yeah, it's. I think it's totally normal and natural for feelings like jealousy to arise in non monogamous situations. I think where it becomes problematic is when there is not awareness. of those feelings. So if a feeling arises and you identify it and say, okay, I'm feeling jealous and you can own it as like, this is a feeling that's coming up in me and can communicate it well with your partner and the other people involved.
Like now there's an opportunity for transformation. Where it can really go wrong is if a feeling of jealous, and this is something that I had experienced, um, with a previous partner where they had some, uh, feelings of jealousy, but that they weren't actually acknowledging.
Um, and so it ended up coming out as like, instead of a conversation around, like, hey, I'm feeling jealous.
Let's talk about it. It was like, there were just fights breaking out about other things that were not the thing. And that's where it can get really rough is if someone is, if does it. And when difficult feelings arise. It is hard to feel them because they are uncomfortable and we have so many strategies to avoid feeling our feelings.
We have so many ways of not feeling what's coming up in our own bodies and we come up with all kinds. I would say this is like, um. You know, a lot of like anxiety, for example, gets experienced as thought loops, right? And like, oh, like what happened in this thing or what's going to happen and all these thought loops.
Although, interestingly enough, once, uh, you know, I've found that when I can change my attention from the thought loops and then actually turn into like, wait, what's the actual feeling both emotionally sabbatically in my body, like, oh, my heart's beating fast. My face is getting flushed. Like, what are the, actually, instead of, um.
Avoiding experiencing the uncomfortable feeling that I'm feeling in the moment through strategies of thought loops. If I actually turn that attention in and feel my feelings, once the feeling is fully felt, it can be allowed to pass
[00:56:34] Nicole: totally,
[00:56:34] Mike: which, um,
[00:56:36] Nicole: yeah, yeah, just how we work. Go ahead. You want to go more?
[00:56:39] Mike: Yeah, well, um. I was going to say that the biggest, I would say culturally, one of the biggest feelings that we don't, we avoid feeling is grief.
[00:56:48] Nicole: Oh, yeah, totally. Yes, absolutely. It doesn't work under capitalism to grieve. Productive means of efficiency. Go, go, go.
[00:56:58] Mike: Yeah. And like, we have so much loss and we don't actually let ourselves feel those feelings.
And that's what manifests. And then it manifests as more violence, right? So rather than, feel the deep grief that we felt, uh, around whatever loss has occurred. Then like that story of control and paranoia and anxiety, like it's kind of a distraction from feeling the uncomfortable feeling. And then, so there's like a reaction to it, a violent reaction to try to control, which is in a sense, kind of an avoidance of like really feeling the depth of the grief.
[00:57:36] Nicole: Right. Yeah. And I'm a pleasure activist and I know that pleasure comes with the light and the dark, right? You can't just pick which emotions you feel into. And so for blocking grief, you're not going to feel the full depths of pleasure, right? So when I say that, I know that that means we must embrace like the light and the dark.
This is not a Pollyanna. Everything is beautiful, right? We actually really need that dichotomy. And it's just such a part of the human experience to go through grief. You know, we're all going to lose People, pets, places even, you can come back to your hometown and things have changed. That one restaurant that you went to for all of your life with your family is gone.
Gone, right? Like, there's just so many different ways that, like, grief is inevitable, and the more that we can get in touch with the actual pain of that, I think the more that we can feel pleasure because you're having more of that saturation to your fullness of life, and you were talking just about the different, like, thoughts that go up.
Yeah. Huge, right? Like in that experience when it was happening, you know, like, Oh no, this is intense. They're going to leave me. What if this other person's a way cooler partner than I am? And this is going to blow up in my face. I'm actually like, the listeners can't see, but I'm like rubbing my chest like up and down here, which is like what I do when I get activated, just like to have some sort of sensory feeling here, right on my heart.
Um, but as it was going, I was telling myself that's okay. Like, so I was like feeling the intensity. I was like, this is okay. You are a beautiful human. You have many lovers yourself. You do this yourself. This is okay. You are great. You are great. This is awesome. I'm noticing the reaction. That's okay. And so it was really interesting to like have that positive internal dialogue.
But regardless, my body was raging. And then I think that creates an interesting dichotomy of feeling powerlessness. Where like, I was giving myself all the grounding I needed, but I was still like, still feeling it so intensely in my body, but I just kept dancing, right? And this is where I start to then think about like rock climbing as a rock climber.
There are so many routes that I've gone on that have actively made me terrified. And I have to be able to sit with that and be like, okay, I'm okay. Maybe I'm going to take a break. Maybe I'm going to take some deep breaths, but there have been so many points at which like I can actively have some level of semblance over my internal dialogue, but yet still no control.
Tech like feelings like no control, right? I do actually have control, but like, or maybe we don't, I don't know, but you see what I'm saying? We're like, I don't want to panic about this route and I am panicking like and like my head space is good But like my body space is not good and like the ways that those can be in complete contrast to one another is really Fascinating to me and can bring up a lot of feelings of powerlessness often for me
[01:00:17] Mike: Yeah, and I think it's a lot there around, yeah, being comfortable being uncomfortable.
[01:00:22] Nicole: Right.
[01:00:23] Mike: And this has come up in my own psychedelic therapy session where I was like, You know, I had different feelings of, as I've had, I've had what I would, I would call them bad trips versus difficult experiences because I didn't have the actual, um, ability, I didn't in these some contexts have the ability to find safety, although over time, I've been able to process them and transmute these into difficult experiences that have become valuable.
But, um, I had later, You know, I had some psychedelic therapy to help me process trauma from prior psychedelic experiences.
[01:00:55] Nicole: Yeah.
[01:00:56] Mike: And so I've had like, you know, the same anxiety, paranoia sort of thoughts come up. But like, yeah, I went into the body level, let myself really shake. I was physically like shaking and shaking and it's highly uncomfortable.
But I had this experience of like, well, one shaking out that trauma and also just getting into the sense of like, okay, yeah. Actually being comfortable being uncomfortable. Um, and yeah, it's, it's hard and we don't have these culturally. We aren't talking about this enough about what is it like to be with uncomfortable feelings.
And we have, yeah, we've been saying there's so many ways to avoid. Feeling those uncomfortable feelings and there's this idea, like you said, powerlessness and yeah, when these things come up, we, yeah, we feel like we're powerless or we're victims to something and, uh, and of course that, that identity then cycles into, oh, if I feel like a victim, I'm going to now be a hero that is going to stop other people from feeling like a victim like this and then in the process you become the villain and so the cycle continues,
um, and yeah, what is it like to embrace That feeling of powerlessness and this comes back to kink to like, can I, um, yeah, can I embrace a feeling of really surrendering and being powerless?
Um, what is that like?
[01:02:16] Nicole: Yeah, yeah, it's tough. And I mean, I think we do have power just as much in kink of. Hey. Red. Red light. Red light. Stop. So when I am climbing, I After I took that route, I laid on the floor. I was like, I need to be horizontal. I need to play horizontally, right? Um, I think it's tricky in the psychedelic space.
[01:02:37] Mike: Yeah, you can't tell the mushrooms. Red! Red! Red! I don't consent to this paranoia! Anymore!
[01:02:44] Nicole: Take me out! Take me out. Yeah, no, that is, that's the hard part. Right. Um, and, and simply, I have dreams of doing like multi pitch climbing. Right. And that is the hard part too, is that once you get off the ground, you know, like you're off the ground, you're on the roller coaster, right?
You've, you've strapped in, you're going to do the full loop, you know, relatively. Um, so I think there is that, and that's where I start to think about, um, windows of tolerance, right? Like, what does it mean to. We're all going to have different thoughts too on where that is. And some of us need to check in, have been like potentially anxious, traumatized folks who continue to push at that window of tolerance really intensely in ways that maybe we could, you know, benefit from not always doing that heroic dose and actually feeling the joys of like the smaller doses, the comfort, the ease.
Right. But when we're doing these novel paradigm shifting worlds, like, yeah, what does it mean to know your window of tolerance? To know your triggers, right? Like, for me, once I start to get into this space of, No, I can't do this. Like, I can't climb. Like, I can't, I can't do nominogamy. I can't, I can't do this.
Like, that's where I know I've gotten into that state. I can't do grad school, right? Like, I've gotten into this state where I'm past my window of tolerance. I need to lay on the floor. I need a break. I need a movie. I need some sushi. Good night. Like, right, you know, like, just being able to know yourself enough to know where that is to then communicate with people.
people. That is a skill to learn in all of these different contexts.
[01:04:11] Mike: Yeah. And I have a really kind of far out thought. I'm just going to go with it. I don't know how true this is or not, but I'll just let it out anyway. Like this idea comes up of, I wonder if you can have that, um, maybe it's possible and actually to have that consent talk with the substance before the experience, like talk to the mushroom, uh, have that BDSM thing on one of my boundaries and desires And safety and meaning and like, I wonder what it would be like if you were to, yeah, before, um, taking mushrooms, have the conversation with the mushrooms beforehand around the, around the boundaries and everything and, um, I wonder if that, maybe it is possible actually to call, like I read, you know, if you have that conversation ahead of the time with the mushrooms and build that.
And then I say, look, if I call a red light, I need you to chill with. I don't know if this would work or not, but this is an interesting thought experiment.
[01:05:06] Nicole: The placebo effect is real. So I think that anything is low key kind of possible, depending on the frame, right? Cause uh, yeah, and there are spiritual paradigms where people do communicate to the mushrooms and other stuff.
So I would be curious what a frame of like having that conversation then would change in terms of like, Oh, I know it's not going to go there. And then potential even like. Placebo effect to that of knowing that that's not going to happen. Then when it starts to happen, you're like, Oh, nope, this isn't happening.
Cause I've had the convo, right? Like all of it could be right there. Yeah,
[01:05:35] Mike: it's really interesting. And, and, uh, and, uh, and also important too, like at the same time, you don't want to like avoid if there's something coming up, there probably is something important there, but you know, maybe there can be like some agreement you make with the mushrooms that like, look, if there's something that comes up.
And I'm feeling like it's too intense in this moment. Would you let me just, like, bookmark it and then we can process it later? Like, give me enough to, like, give me enough that I can handle right now, Mushrooms. And then, like, um, if I start to, like, call a red light to you, like, let's just revisit it in my integration or something.
[01:06:05] Nicole: Right, right, right. I mean, there's so much there, like. In the moment, like, we do always have the ability to come back to the body. I believe that. I don't know. I mean, right? Like, even in those high dose trips, like, if we, and this is something that is built in ordinary states of consciousness, right? How often can you go through your life, slow down the monkey brain enough to actually feel the body?
For me, in those high dose experiences, even if my brain starts to spin in loops and loops and loops, there is always that drop back into the body. And how that can actually really pull you off, yeah, this question of powerlessness under the psychedelic, it's like, yes and to our ability to actually say, In this moment, I'm going to feel.
I'm going to feel. I'm going to stop the thoughts and again, that is predicated upon experience building that neuronal pathway, that muscle memory of the brain in ordinary states of consciousness so that when you are in this heightened, you already have that neuronal pathway going. Okay, back to body.
Stop thinking, right? So yeah, I was uh, I was just about to ask you to take that deep breath with me.
So I ask every guest just to check in and see if there is anything else that you wanted to share with the listeners. Otherwise, I can direct us towards a closing question.
[01:07:28] Mike: Um, yeah, I think we covered a lot of the bases there. Um, that was cool. Yes, it was. Uh, well, yeah, so the Global Psychedelic Society, globalpsychedelic.
org, and we have a map on that website, so if you're looking for Local community wherever you are, you can use the map to find your local psychedelic society. So that's a global psychedelic dot org. Um, and then I have a lot of free content, uh, educational content about psychedelics on psychedelic seminars, which is like Sam's.
P s y c h s c m s dot com. And I'm jester of Amazon on Instagram
with links to all of those other projects. Instagram's in my bio.
[01:08:13] Nicole: Great. Well, if it feels good to you, I'll guide us towards our closing question.
[01:08:18] Mike: Great.
[01:08:20] Nicole: Okay. So, the last question that I ask every guest on the show is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?
[01:08:31] Mike: What is one thing I wish other people knew was more normal?
[01:08:36] Nicole: Anywhere. Take it anywhere you want.
[01:08:39] Mike: Being weird. Ooh, yeah. Being non normal, dare I say.
[01:08:46] Nicole: Yeah, you want to say more to that?
[01:08:49] Mike: Yeah, um, yeah, I mean, this idea of normalcy in itself is, is weird. Right? Um, we have this bizarre concept of like, yeah, that we're supposed to show up in this particular kind of way, fit in these certain types of boxes, but actually we're all super unique human beings.
Um, what does the world look like when every human is self actualized when we're fully expressed and it's a lot weirder and it's a lot more interesting and it's a lot more fun. Um, and a lot of us suppress that part of ourselves, that weirdness and whether it's your. kinky desires or whether it's your use of psychedelics or maybe it's your performance art to name a few of my favorites.
[01:09:39] Nicole: Yeah.
[01:09:41] Mike: Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Um, that's the other answer. Normalized sex, drugs and rock and roll. Um, but yeah, being we have so many of us like are afraid to be that. Fully expressed version of ourselves or fear of like, well, what are others going to think? Am I going to fit in? And, you know, and I, the more I think in the last years, I've.
Increasingly stepped more into my, my fullest, weirdest self and my life has become better and certainly there's some people who like aren't into my particular flavor of it, but the people who are, are really into it and we all need to like, actually, I'd say, lean into that, lean into our uniqueness, not lean into like how to it.
Conform more to be like everyone, but actually lean into what makes us uniquely human and our unique selves. And what's our unique gifts for the world? Um, so that is what I would like to make more normal is weirdness.
[01:10:40] Nicole: Yeah What a beautiful message right to lean into that to fly your freak flag to live into your Zest and energy for life, right?
I think that's a lot of what we did in this conversation today, right? Between you and I of, of leaning in of the things that get us excited about these worlds and the crossovers. And if we were, you know, we have a lot of privilege here, but like, if we were in a state of like, fear of not wanting to talk about kink or psychedelics or sex, like.
This conversation would never happen. And just even looking at the two of us and the energy where we were just like, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, right? Like that joy only comes out through the vulnerability of being like, Hey, like, this is what I think this is what I'm passionate about. And like, you can feel it in our bodies and in our voices.
Like once you get to that sort of like. Um, space in your life where you're actively living into your pleasure and your passion. I mean, it's palpable and it's, it's ultimately what you feel in, you know, your community and it's, it's powerful to be around other people that are in that same space of truly living out their passions.
[01:11:44] Mike: Yeah. And like normalizing vulnerability too, like you said, like that's actually a key piece of it is actually being vulnerable and doing it. And like, there's a lot of topics tonight that were edgy for sure. Um, but I would say. It definitely made for a much more interesting podcast to go on these places than to make it vanilla.
Like, that wouldn't be nearly as fun, but I had a great time having this conversation with you.
[01:12:11] Nicole: Totally, and I love some vanilla, don't get me wrong. I love vanilla. But in this context, hell no, there's no vanilla here. We are open and honest and radical and I think that is what modern anarchy, I hope it will continue to become.
So I'm really glad that you were nominated to the show and I'm going to look forward to see who you nominate and where that takes us. So yeah, thank you for joining.
[01:12:36] Mike: Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome. Yes. I really love doing this.
[01:12:41] Nicole: Absolutely. It's such a joy. Yeah. If you enjoyed today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast.
And head on over to ModernAnarchyPodcast. com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode. I want to thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.
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