Don Bergeron's Comeback Story

00:00:10 Speaker 1: You were here for another episode of Comeback Stories, and just thinking about how I wanted to introduce today's guests, and I'm just gonna introduce him as a dear friend of mine, one of my teachers over the last year, gone through some massive transformations with him. Welcome to the show. Don bergeron Thank you, welcome man, Thank you very much. Nice to be here, man. It's such a gift to have you here. I feel like this one's gonna be deep and rich and emotional and the most beautiful way possible. So it feels good to have you in Vegas. We rolled up and met for a little meal before and we're like, God, it's so interesting being in Vegas, like where our lives are now, and just kind of feeling the energy. And then a lot of people come to Vegas and maybe get the buzz and the lights, and we're just like, WHOA, this is kind of like a can be a very low ye place for many reasons, and there's a lot of excitement that happens too, but there's a lot of darkness, and we were just having a little moment with that where at one point I think we were in that darkness and probably coming here and tearing it up. Yeah, thinking we're having the time of our lives, but we're slowly destroying ourselves and times of change, and it took a lot of work and healing to get there. But you've been an essential part of my healing journey. So I'm just grateful you're here. And we want to know initially, what was it like growing up for you? Yeah, thanks for having me. I've been excited about this for some time. Yeah, growing up, grew up in southern California. My parents worked really hard to try and give my sister and I kind of the best life we wanted. I was a little bit more work than my sister. I was diagnosed. I'm fifty two, so back in nineteen seventy seven, seventy six, I was diagnosed with. Back then was called what's now called attention deficit disorder, was called hypertensive or hyper hyperactivity, where I couldn't sit still. So for the first six or seven years of my life, my parents just had their hands tied trying to figure out what to do with a kid that couldn't sit still, kind of had an inability to do any kind of schooling, anything that required any kind of structure. So with their hands tied. I think my parents kind of decided they didn't know what to do. They tried everything from diet to therapy, and eventually, in my young age, at about six and a half seven, I became a part of a clinical trial at UCLA where they started treating kids with riddle in, which is now kind of I don't know how many people are now being served riddling for kids. That's kind of a high, high energy medicine for people. I think nowadays you get people with adderall they're taking adderall. But in that space for about six years, was taking Riddlin every single day. So that was a hard time for me. Now as I can look at it years removed, I can see patterns and things that were created in that space as a kid that I didn't understand. I didn't understand a lot of the things. I didn't know what it was like to have really bad and scary dreams until that point, and that medicine was doing that. So kind of a hard childhood growing up was taking that medicine. My parents were still kind of at their wits end. Riddling for most people would make them speed up. For my metabolism, it made me slow down. So I was taking a pretty high dose milligram I think it was twice a day for a while, just trying to get me to calm down. So kind of a tough childhood growing up. A lot of memories of people talking about me. In that clinical trial. I think there were seven or eight of us, and we were basically behind a two way mirror where they would give us placebo, give us riddling, and then give us tests and different equations we had to try to figure out. And I remember those things now as an older man much more than I did as a child, and that's some of that stuff has kind of worn on me. Always being put in the classes for people that couldn't sit still, had attention depths disorder at that point. So yeah, growing up as a kid was kind of a challenge for me. So when you say you were in the classes for people that didn't sit still, are you talking about special led classes? Yeah? All throughout well, for sure, all through high school, all four years I was in special education classes. Yeah. Well, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, and you were walking me through the image of like where those special ed classes were in the school. Can you just talk about that because I just have that image, and I think that's so daunting to think about where you were placed. Yeah, I think, you know, the teachers that teach special ed, I think first and foremost are saints who as salt of the earth. Right. I can still remember some of them in their faces and how gracious they were in that space. But basically they would you know, there's the center part of the school and the campus and most of the classes are in that area, but they had these trailers down kind of on the backside where the track field is kind of the abandoned part of the school where we would go take our classes. So it's kind of pushed away and far removed from the rest of the school, isolated different. I mean, these things that just stay with us, but you know, we don't even realize them right until a lot of times it's later in life when we've done some work to realize just that impact it's had, and we know we have to go back and really heal that. Heal that child, He'll heal that inner child. Yeah. Yeah, listening to a lot of what those teachers or even some of the therapists that I was going to hear them say to my parents that well, he's never really going to become much more past this, or he's going to have learning issues, he's never going to be able to go to college, he's not going to be able to do this or that. Like I remember all those things. Some of those have come back within the last ten to fifteen years of thinking about it and being like, wow, maybe that's why I've tried to always outperform and never let anybody see a side of me that was like not trying to be the best of what I could be because I was told for so long I was being told that. And at the same time, it's this silent conversation that my parents are having with someone in a room that I can totally hear, knowing that they're saying, you know, he's probably not going to be a scholar student or you know, become a lawyer or a doctor or anything in that space. He has a learning disability. Wow, do you have like a specific early memory of pain? Maybe that maybe listening to people say that like limiting who I was, And I don't think I could have defined it then or even within the last you know, with probably within the last ten years, i'd be able to define that. But like just seeing people not see the potential that maybe I thought I had, and being kind of swept under the rug, put to the trailers down at the bottom of the school, or never really amounting to very much based on what other people are telling me, believing what other people are telling me. Wow, who would you say your your first real teacher was my dad? Yeah? I love my parents. God, they went through a lot. They had a kid that was kind of out of control, and you know, it's not their fault on so many levels, but you know, I watched my parents work for me. I watched my dad every single day. My dad was a carpenter and a contractor, and he came home late smelled like wood from cutting you know, two by fours and wood for a house, and he would go to bed and he'd wake up and he'd do it again. And I watched my dad work so hard and that created like this beautiful work ethic for me when my time to become a father was so my parents are my heroes, and my relationship with them is as beautiful as anything I've ever had, as far as a relationship that's come with time and that's come with me and maturity and reconciling some of the things that have happened in my past and forgiving them and loving them for they did the best job they could raising a kid. It's hard raising kids. It's really hard. Do you have a kid that's also your teacher. I have three grown kids. Yeah, my kids have taught me a lot of lessons. Specifically my son Matthew maybe my greatest teacher of all time. Yeah. What have you learned from him? Yeah? So much? Right, Yeah, Until you have kids, you don't really know what it feels like to be um in a place of this unconditional love, like you just don't care, you just love him, right, And yet as a father, it's really hard to be a dad. It's really hard because you have all those things that are happening throughout the day in your own life, your own past stuff, your relationship with your wife, and then you have these three little souls that just wants your attention and want your love, and they don't care about your day. They don't care about what's happening. I don't care what's happening in the world or on the news or any of that stuff. And you know, learning from my kids has been probably like some of my greatest lessons, but specifically my son just relentless forgiveness, showing me a side of him that I should have expected because the way I raised him. But you forget those things, and I think in some of that is just allowing myself to see my son become a man and watching him and being like, that's a good man. Like if I walk in the room and Matthew's in the room, I can often say I'm no longer the smartest man in the room. It's a good kid. Wow. Well, before you became a father and you were able to know talk about terms like relentless forgiveness, I want to know, like what was going into a young adulthood like for you in transitioning through that, because you talked about the wounds that you brought with you from your childhood and then you brought the other end into a talking about how you were able to love your children's for who they are, no matter what they do. Like what was the in between part? Like take us through that part of your life. Yeah. So when I turned twelve, I started smoking cannabis and in that space I stopped taking riddling and I didn't tell anybody that for about two more years, I would just hold the pills and smoke, and smoking for me at that time in my life allowed me to become like this open, slowed down version of myself that was connecting my head to my heart. And I didn't have those words back then, but looking at it now, I can say that that served me up until a certain point when my life got busy and that was no longer a space for me. I got married and kind of walked through a different time in my life. Cannabis was really a beautiful thing for me. And again I wouldn't have been able to say that three years ago, but looking back on it, what saved me from those voices of people saying I'm never going to mount to very much was that plant medicine. And I don't smoke cannabis anymore. I don't even like it. I like the smell of it, but I don't like smoking cannabis. But that medicine shifted me from becoming what most people who take riddling on the daily basis for seven to ten years generally become addicted to other hard drugs. And it's not going to be soft drugs. It's going to be harder ones because it's got to get them up there. So I'm really grateful in that space that you know, cannabis came my way and it served its purpose. And yeah, just kind of that was up until about I was twenty one years old, and then I went years and years and years without using any kind of substances at all. So from like you said, so you Donnie and I like are are getting to our rock bottom in darker places in our lives. Was definitely like substances were probably the human contributor to the decisions, and you know the behaviors that led to that point. And you talk about how you in a long stretch of with no substances being used, what what are the circumstances the events that led up to what would you would say as the lowest point of rock bottom in your life? Yeah, my, my dark night of the soul, A series of um self inflicted wounds and really bad choices. I was in a twenty five year marriage and about a thirty five year relationship and instead of having the ability to kind of end something when I should have meaning to like end my marriage rather than destroy it, I destroyed it. And in that space you learn a lot about yourself. The first half of my life, I feel like I was watching other people do these things and make bad choices and saying, oh, don't do that, don't do that. Definitely don't do that. And towards the second half of my life, I realized I was making some of those bad decisions, and it drew me into a place of finally ending my marriage and kind of falling into a space of depression for sure, not really knowing what I wanted it to do. Everything I was doing prior to that, I was involved in the church, and the church I was going to doesn't allow divorce, and so you know, out of one hundred and fifty two hundred friends, when I chose to end the marriage, lost all those friends. They have their reasons, and I'm okay with them having their reasons, but that that kind of that period of going through those dark times me to have to do a different style of healing. I did talk therapy for a couple of years prior to ending the marriage, but I wasn't honest. I had a great therapist, love him to death, save my life on so many levels. Helped me to see that it's safe to be a man and to be fucked up and to admit that you're wrong. And even when I admitted to him that I wasn't telling him all the truth and I'd been hiding stuff from my wife at the time, he forgave me, just said, Hey, we'll get through this. Let's talk about it. Keep talking about it. Had some other people in my life that kind of pointed me in another direction and have been doing some of that work since. Kind of on a different level. Yeah, how is how is your healing journey continue to expand from that point you talked about starting with talk therapy? Like, what what has it expanded into now? The way that you and Donnie have formed a relationship. Did you get to that point? Yeah, so I like to talk about what I do now is kind of a grief and trauma therapist. Although I'm not a licensed therapist. The experiences that I've been able to have through the use of plant medicine have really allowed me to heal on a different level. Talk therapy is really good, but it takes a long time to get to the bottom of things, and in that space, there's a time where you're going to be sitting in that depression that could be somewhat dangerous for people who have a tendency towards that. I wasn't in that space, but I've never been that dark in my space and alone, and somebody told me that I should try a couple of different plant medicines and in that space, I think what those medicines allow is those are famous saying that you can do ten years of therapy in one hour, and it's it's a little bit of an advancement on talk therapy. It takes away kind of the you know, you get forty minutes with a therapist, you end early. You know, you don't get a lot of time to open things up and then it's okay, we'll see NX Tuesday. These types of medicines, plant medicines allow you to kind of open up and have bigger conversations, bigger experiences that deal with things on a very short amount of time. They're not for everybody, but they are definitely for a lot of people. Yeah, can you talk about what specific medicines you're referring to. Yeah, I think there's a couple psilocybin so magic mushrooms what people call them, but it's that's a very powerful medicine that's useful for helping people with PTSD, trauma, grief, really anything that you would even go for regular talk therapy too. There's other medicines. There's what's called five M EO DMT, which is toad medicine. That's a really powerful medicine as well. That's more like twenty five to thirty years of therapy in about one hour. Some people say that it's really intense. Joe Rogan's talked about it. He wasn't speaking specifically about what's called toad medicine or buffo. He was speaking about a synthetic form of five M EO DMT, a little bit different, but that's a pretty powerful medicine. Some people say it's gentle. Other people have said it's pretty intense, but it's definitely a medicine that works on the part of your brain that wants to show you that you're divine, that you're good just the way you are. There's not a lot of work to do in that space. It's almost as though you're going to have private meeting sitting here with whatever you call God, divine, sore him or her, whatever it is. There's there's no contingency when it comes to who God might be in these medicines, it's whoever it is for you, who can be Jesus, it can be whoever you want. These medicines are super powerful at helping people to deal with things that are hard to deal with. So for me this, you know, to speak of my experience, the first time I worked with this Toad medicine to day my life changed. It was Easter Sunday, two and eighteen, the first time I ever received it. There was a little bit of sacrilege in me trying to do it on Easter Sunday, just to kind of break the mold on some things that I'd always kind of been busy on Easter Sunday and Christmas. And you know, it's a very short process, about an hour. The first part is about ten to fifteen minutes long. But for the first time, and probably what I can say is forty years, I felt joy. And I felt it without somebody telling me, are you feeling joy? What are you feeling right now? Are you feeling happy right now? It was just this overwhelming sense of joy and connection to myself self, forgiveness, kind of the ability to love myself differently than I'd ever been free to love myself. So That's a really powerful day in my life. All days are judged by that one day. And as I took that medicine, I realized, you know, as scared as I was in the space doing all these new things and trying new new, you know, avenues of trying to heal myself, I realized, this is what I want to do. I want to help other people, specifically men, because we're pretty locked up in the space where we are and we don't know how to communicate very well, or at least we think we do, but when we have a good partner, we realize not really that good at it, and there's a lot of work to be done in that space. So I was a general building contractor for a long time and kind of close that shop up and trying to serve others because of what it's done for me. Wow, I listened to you articulate all of this, and it's you know, the exact reason why I felt safe enough to move forward in my own sobriety to lean into this medicine. But I we initially connected through your partner, Christie, who with me moving to San Diego, and I kept like it was coming up in every conversation this whole idea of psilocybin, and a few of my sober friends had gone through these, these ceremonies, these bigger they might call it the hero's journey, where it's a five hour journey blindfolded. And it was the sober friends for me that gave me permission to do it. But it was also you know, Christy and just the safe space that she provided. And you know, you say ten years of therapy and I'm sitting here first with the mushroom psilocybin journey that I did. And I always say a lifetime's worth of therapy is it just breaks through all the limitations of the mind. And some of my journey wasn't easy. I went through this massive grief of a dog that I loved and cherished and was so attached to, and it was the most visceral thing in my whole experience. It was so sad and I was not Bubble crying. And I've told this story to some, but like, his name is Bubba and he's still alive. But I lost him in a breakup, right, We had to kind of split up our dogs. And I remember just sitting there crying and going, Bubba, I love you. I love you, buddy, but I gotta let you go, and I'm making this fist and I couldn't do it. And then eventually I let it go, and it was I let him go, and it was so sad and so beautiful at the same time. And somewhere along in that journey, a few stops later, this little brown friend she showed up and it's the exact dog I have today. I swear to you. It blows my mind. But other just massive, massive breakthroughs in that visions and certain things I've seen with the podcast, like that's what I had in that first five hour session, but I hadn't met you yet. And then we went to dinner, and just the way like listening to you talk and just the way that you articulate this and your calm presence and this knowing it's like again, either there's something that you have that I want. And it gave me the trust to lean into Buffo and go through the ceremony. And I've done it twice once with your teacher and you there also, and in that first journey it was exactly what you said. Sitting with God. I did not see a face, but I felt the presence of God, and it made me understand that I'm actually safe. I'm safe, and I was saying it out loud. I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe. I don't know how for how long, but I kept saying it, and again it made me realize my whole life, everything I've done was just to feel safe. This overachiever cared what other people think, people pleasing validation, achieve, achieve and to be able to see that, like you said, everything will be judged on that day. I can't ever unsee that, and more than unsee, unfeel it like no one can never take that away from me. And it's also given me so much understanding of the world and specifically women who walk through this world and we can walk to our car at ten o'clock at night and we don't think about anything where a woman has to go and they're probably scared out of their minds every time. And so I think we're all walking through this world just trying to feel safe. And some people close their hearts, some people do drugs and alcohol, some people hide in their work, and so it's like it just gave me such a better understanding first of myself and of the world, and then the one thing I'll share in my second ceremony with you. It was just me and you that did it together, and one of the most profound things. I mean, I had some You seem to always show up in these journeys because I just think you're such an important part of my life. But there was a point where I was rubbing Don's arm and like rubbing it like I would typically rub a girl's arm, like just so passionate, and I'm just telling them I love you, I love you, and I'm crying. I love you so much, buddy. And it was like all of the judgment of like oh my god, this is gay, or like all of that self, it was didn't even matter, man, And I'm just in there, like caressing his arm and telling him like how much I love him. And it was the most like beautiful thing of like unconditional, unbound love that I've ever felt in my life. Man. It didn't matter to you, It mattered to me. Actually, you were squeezing my arm was so hard that there was a moment where I thought I only might break my bone. But I'm in it, I'm here so beautiful felt like I was a beautiful moment and That's why I do this. I mean, your your description just brings me back to it's a fuck yes for me on all of it. Like, I've seen so many people changed, and it's not that everybody needs to change, but the people that do know that they want to do better, and they do a medicine like this or any of the plant medicines that are out there that are valuable and helping people to become better humans, to love better, to be better spouses, better friends, are relatives right to the collective. Any of that so precious. That's why I want to do this. I want to see the people that have those kinds of transformations. Then someone else sees it, Then someone else sees it, and we're healing the collective one person at a time. We don't beg people to do these medicines. We offer it to them and we let them make those decisions. Medicine has its own power. Can you talk about the actual, like for Buffo specifically, what it is that comes from a toad? Can you just give us like a little breakdown of what that is for anybody that maybe done? Sure, So it's the Sonoran desert toad is the animal that we get this medicine from. It's also called the buffo alvarious toad. There's some other toads that go with it, Colorado River toad it's also called. But this toad lives underground for nine months out of the year, comes out three months out of the year June, July, and August, and it has these glands on the side of its neck that it uses for protection. And some beautiful soul, divinely inspired, saw that gland and squirted it out right, kind of relieve the pressure from that gland and squirted onto something and then in some strange again divine way, inhaled it. And that's where they found this divine essence in that one hour experience. It's the venom from the Sonoran desert toad that's dried. Now that's poisonous if it's ingested, but when it's vaporized, it's not. And it has different components to it. There's what's called five M e O d mt, which is naturally occurring in this venom, and there's also twenty five other attributes in it called buffoteen, which is from the toad that you get and that have that divine It creates the divine shape shift where it shuts down a part of the front of your brain that kind of controls everything that happens in your body. It's the turn on your seat or put on your seat belt, makes you turn the alarm on at night, don't point the gun at your face, those types of things. It slows that down and allows the other parts of your brain that do most of the thinking and the articulating, and the loving and the caring and the generating of generosity and the kindness kind of all those those valves that work in our brain. It allows those to work directly. So this medicine has a very strange and powerful way of reacting very quickly when it's taken and doing things incredibly clean and simple and pure. Some people say they see a white light in that space. Some people don't see anything, and they just come out and say, that was an incredible experience. Where did I just go? What just happened? Like, you know, an hour later, you're driving home, no hangover. Note, you know, it's not even like cannabis, where you know, if someone smokes cannabis six hours they're kind of stuck in that bus. This medicine super clean and super simple. The brain loves it. It's metabolized very quickly in the brain. But it's medicine that comes from a toad. It's the venom of the Sonoran desert toad, and the medicine actually continues to work through you for a couple it's about six weeks. Yeah, I mean I did it three weeks ago and I feel it. But I get feedback from people that don't even know maybe what I did. That's what's something's different. Yeah, something's different about you. You know, it's caught and taught, right, Yeah, yeah, and it's it's um. So is it technically a psychedelic No? UM, I mean I don't. I don't think it is. Some people might call it that, but it's an entheogen, so that that basically defined means the divine within. So this is a medicine that creates that god molecule. Something's happening in it. There's not a lot of visuals for the most part. I'd say probably sixty to seventy seventy percent of the people don't see any visuals. So no, I don't consider it a psychedelic. If I can back up for a second, I want to talk just about how we get the medicine and how important that is. There's been a lot of controversy about these toads that are coming out for these three months, that they're being traumatized or abused. The medicine that we receive is harvested with love and compassion, and it's been being done by the Series tribe in northern Mexico and southern Arizona for years. We take great care and how the medicine comes to us, who's harvesting it, the consistency of it. It has to be done with love. It's kind of like if you were to grow roses and they don't have any smell. I don't feel like there was any love put into those roses. I'm not saying that the toad medicine has a smell, but it's harvested with the intention of healing and and being part of the tribe. I've been blessed to be kind of initiated into that space, to be given the medicine and to be able to serve it to people who are willing to take it. And one of my main concerns is making sure that the medicine that I serve has been done with reverence, honor to the tribe and with love. So just to make sure that you know, it's very clear that there are places and people that are harvesting that medicine without love, and some of the cartels have actruly gotten involved in that now and becoming a thing. But it's really important to where we get our medicine and how we get our medicine. Just as a follow up to that, I think there's like a beautiful lesson of like open mindedness and all this you talk about it's the venom from a toad and it's a way for it to protect and you know, kill something that is trying to attack it, but in a way like we've been able to find it, and you it as a way to enhance a life experience. UM and you look at whether it's psychedelics, whether it's um you know, just healing medicines. You know, they may have a certain label from people um as you know, a hippie thing, or you know it's like you know, like using drugs, but it's really, you know, with with a level of open mindedness, this is really truly a pathway to freedom. And I feel like open mindedness has helped us in recovery, has helped us in you know, just going about any healing journey that is uncomfortable to us, but to at least give it a chance to seek it out, to ask questions and be like could this possibly work for me? Instead of labeling something. And that's just something that came to me right here. And it's like, that's so beautiful, Like a venom is allowing people to heal and to grow. It's like it's God, I mean nature, right, And I think, like, I mean, that's just amazing how you just articulated all that. And I think it's um important for me to talk about this because I've had an identity that's attached sobriety and I still have my sobriety date that tattooed on my arm and I feel strongly about that. I feel more sober than ever, and I understand I'm going to get some questions about that, and that's okay because I was actually that person that used to do the same thing to the people that went before me that said they were sober, and I had my own because it was just threatening this old belief system and it was kind of a broken down belief system in me. So you know, I'm always public about my stories on social media, and I've shared I've shared the Mushroom Journey, and I've shared the two Buffo journeys. And the beautiful thing is like nine of the feedback and the comments, not that any of it really matters, but they're positive. And then there's always one or two and I'm like, that's okay, I totally get it. I was there. But for me, we're always trying to break stigmas, and I think there's one around some of these medicines, especially when it comes to sobriety. And you know, the truth is for me, like my sobriety only matters to myself, and I know of the people closest to me know they know what's up and they and you know, it's reassuring to just get some feedback from the people that really matter to me. That's say, man, there's something different, and it's it's the work, it's the medicine, and it's like wise, counsel and teachers like you who I've just trusted. I mean, you just hear the way that you articulate this, and it's just so easy to just surrender because you have something in your energy and your voice that I just want, so it makes it easy for me to say yes if we can give anybody else permission to do the same. It's all about intention though, Like this is that was the word I was in my mind because my sponsor always talks about you know, this is not about chasing a sobriety day. It's about growth. It's about progress. And you look at our intention behind this. It's not to just like get high and escape or get high and just like numb out or not feel anything. It's really I am doing this with the intention of showing up and being a better person, being a better spouse, being a better friend, being a better relative. Like the purpose behind is for me to show up better for these people and be less self centered, be more selfless, be more into the world what I can contribute to life. So it's like the attention behind that would you know over time if you affirm it to yourself and continue to take it in, like, that's what could free you from the shame of like, oh, who am I embarrassing my recovery community. No, I'm trying to grow and be a better version of myself. That's why I'm taking this route. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, so powerful. Yeah, it's beautiful. Man. I knew this conversation would go deep and it's it's again, it's important in my own journey just to carry this message. We have a platform here where we get to reach a lot of people, and I think there's people out there in their own sobriety or in their own addictions that are looking for something. And yeah, it's like we used to pop pills every day, could not feel to numb. Right, this isn't about that, Like, let me be clear, Like it's about feeling all of the fields. But you have to feel it to heal it. And sometimes therapy is amazing, and I think therapy got us to this point where we felt okay to maybe lean into something like this. Meditation is amazing, but it I don't know, you'd have to meditate your whole life and more and somehow take off into enlightenment to really get to this space. We're all looking for hacks sometimes and I don't even like to say that word hack because I feel like this medicine is it's sacred and those words don't really go hand in hand. But if we want to streamline a process of healing and get to this place and get a relationship with God. I mean, that was my number one intention in doing Buffo, was to grow closer to God. I feel like I was meditating, but I wasn't really praying, so I didn't really have the meaningful conversations. And it might look like I'm a spiritual person and have this, but like, really I knew I needed more, and I got everything I asked for. You know, these medicines are really good for opening up that box and looking at it and sorting through the things that matter and getting rid of the things that don't. So many people walk into our ceremonies and they're carrying this big metaphorical backpack that's so heavy, just packed with things. And what I find is that in the medicine, people are taking these really deep breaths and it looks like, you know, it's kind of like and all of a sudden, you're like something just shifted, right. We breathe so so quickly and so like, lacking depth in our breath on a daily basis. That that, to me is one of the most beautiful indicators in the middle of a ceremony that someone's right where they need to be. Is this that deep breath and it's just a long exhale, and the work doesn't end when you take the medicine, right. I often say that people should start doing therapy as soon as they're done with the medicine, because that's where the real work is. You can still be an asshole and do medicine, you can still go to therapy, you can still go do all of the AA, You can do as many things as you want and still not be a really good person. What matters is that when you do these medicines, or you do breathwork, or you do yoga, or you do any of the things that are so beneficial, you have to integrate those things. There's nothing more important. Integration is more important than the medicine. The medicine is just a platform to get you to the space where you can do more work in a quicker time and also help you develop into the person that you really want to be, like seeing a clean, purer version of the self that you are. But integration is so important, it's paramount. So many people do journeys and journeys and journeys and journeys, and they're not doing anything to integrate in that space, and we're in need of integration coaches. People who can who have done the medical and so they know exactly what you just went through, and they can help speak to that space. They can talk about love, they can talk about God, they can talk about genuine intentions moving forward, how they can become better in the things that they're doing. But without If you're just doing these medicines, you're really just using at a certain point, which goes back to well, you're just partying then, which is why I love specific medicines that I work with. They're not psychedelics. It's not about having a good time. If you think coming and sitting with Sacred Toad medicine is something that you're going to go tell your friends about and say, let's do it on a Saturday night, you're sorely mistaken, but you will tell all your friends about it, and they'll probably want to do it too, because it's going to be a new version of you. It's going to be the Donnie starkins it's always wanted to be exactly who he's supposed to be, the best version of you, the divine within. It's not anything I do either, It's what happens when you connect yourself. I only give you back permission and the keys to get you to that space. You're the divine holder of that right. When I serve someone in the medicine, I like them to look me in the eyes because I'm asking them for permission to guide you back to yourself, to go back home. And when people come out, it's the same thing I said the first time I had the journeys, where did I just go? And my teacher said home? You went home, the safe home, not the one that you were raised in, not the one where you were abused in, not the one where you had all these traumas in, but like genuine home, like the house of God. It's within each of us, that integration piece I am. It's reminded me of like rehab, and then it's what do you do when you get out of rehab. It's the same thing. It's the afterwork. It's the work that you do afterwards. You can rehab essentially can be kind of easy because you're in that safe space. The real work starts when you get out. And it's the same thing for integration. And I think I've been grateful to have accountability around my own integration practices and organically have as a coach, have it's turned into some me being an integration coach for people that have walked through some of these medicines also, and it's so beautiful because the accountability is everything, right. People know what to do, they just don't always do it. So without the accountability, we just end up going back into our same old ways. So that level of accountability because the integration, You're right, like, I think about some of them when I won't get into the specifics of the integration practices for my initial psilocybin journey, but to see those start to come into play out, I almost like more blown away about the integration. How I saw something I can n see it. I took action on it, and I'm like, oh my god, there it is. I've had conversations with you and like the last buff of the ceremony, I'm like, oh my god, and like I'm feeling him like on a heart soul level in these journeys. And then we have a conversation afterwards and he's like, yeah, I'm feeling that too. I'm like, oh my god, it's just it's divine energy. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. How does someone if they want to continue into this, they want to take this next step. Who do they contact? Who? Where should they look to research for a place near them, or is there a certain place that they have to go to do a ceremony like this? What will be a next step for them? Yeah, I mean there's lots of people that serve this medicine, some better than others. You know, they can contact me. I've got a couple other of my teachers that I can also refer to. I'm sure we can find a way to get that information to people, but it's really for me. I really spend a lot of time with our our potential clients talking about what medicines they're on, what their history is, what their use has been, kind of where they're at in their life, and how that could be a contra indication for actually doing the medicine. Generally, it's only going to be people who have heart issues because this does affect your blood pressure in a lot of ways. It does raise your blood pressure. But the amount of time that I spend talking to clients in preparation for the journey is also about making them feel comfortable that I'm going to provide them with a safe set and setting for being in a place to kind of be outside your body for about an hour. And my job as a facilitator is to always have another female in the room when a female is being served for accountability, and to always have another man because these ceremonies can be dynamic, not necessarily physical, but they can be dynamic where there can be a lot of trauma that's released, there can be a lot of crying, a lot of grief in that space, but there can also be just total bliss where people don't move the entire time. So I always make sure to kind of interview people and make sure that they're a good fit for the medicine. There's also other medicines. People don't have to start with toad medicine, you know, Psilocybins are great space. In the next couple of years, the FDA is going to do hopefully the right thing and make it unscheduled and make it where people can start using it as a therapeutic method or modality. Same thing with MDMA. These medicines are going to help, hopefully the people that need it the most. And we have so many people that are on antidepressants and are still depressed, so and they have no libido and they're stuck they can't get off of them. So I like to interview potential participants in the medicine to find out where they're at and see if we can wean them off of some of those medications and see if we can get them this medicine because they're the people that need this medicine. What is it like se of most Americans are on some form of antidepressant and that includes children right from twelve up. And I do know some kids that are under twelve that are taking out of all So it's like I was one of those kids, right, But we want to do better. We want to be able to give them opportunity. That doesn't mean they have to do these medicines. There's other modalities, right, teaching a child to learn how to control their breathing Huberman lab right. Huberman's a beautiful podcast where he talks about teaching kids how to box breathe, teaching kids how to facilitate themselves when they're in a difficult, trying time. Like, there's so many things we can do for those kids to teach them yoga, stretching, exercise, all those things, but it's really important to make sure that anyone's who's coming to these ceremonies. There's no contra indications for the medicine working with them with whatever they might be taking so much here, man, I think we're gonna have to have you back for round two because we didn't barely get into much of your story. We got a little bit of it, but we didn't hear the comeback. But man, I just want to thank you for being here. You mean the world to me, both of you two like two of the most important people in my life by far, and just how much you've helped me heal and given me the safety, feeling that safety and feeling that ability just to surrender and trust this. It's changed my life forever. And man, it's just so cool to have you here, have both of you guys here, like very very grateful. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. Yeah, thank you for being here. Thank you for being a voice for a new way of healing that most people may not have known about. And it could be a method for somebody as listening to this right now to have their life transformed and to just show up as the version they've always wanted to show up as. So thank you for being that voice, and thank you for being vulnerable. Yeah, thanks for using this platform for good. Thanks. It's great, really an honor to be on the show. Thank you very much. Tracked down down if you're interested more your Instagram as Earth Medicines. Yeah with two who s is Don Burdern? I love your brother? Thank you very much. What's upcomebackstories family? It's Donnie dropping in here. So did you know that Darren and E's relationships started by me being his personal development, mindfulness and mindset coach. I want to let you know about both my one on one coaching program, The Shift and my group Mastermind Elevate your Purpose. These coaching programs are specifically designed for people who are ready to take the next step in their purpose and level up their career, personal finances, and have more connected, deep and meaningful relationships. My gift and part of my purpose is to help others take that next step and leveling up their lives so that they can have a greater impact on the lives of others, create success that sustainable yet evolves and grows, and help build a legacy that will outlive your life. If this is calling you, just go to Donnie Starkins dot com and apply for either one of my programs,