Episode 5: Psychedelic Assisted Therapy—with guest Heather Smith

Episode Notes
Written By

We interview Heather Smith, Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified IFS Therapist, & Psychedelic Integration Consultant. We discuss "Big T" vs "little t" trauma, asshole parents, how much time we wasted in our 20s, and MDMA and other psychedelic-assisted therapy. These therapies are being researched more and more in recent years and have proven to be beneficial to treating and curing PTSD.

Live Tuesday, October 5, 2021, on Spotify, Apple, and all the podcast players.

References/Resources:

Intro:

Interview:

Heather:

Alison:

Anne:

Heather Smith Biography

"I support the healing transformation of those seeking a better quality of life via IFS Therapy and Psychedelic Integration Therapy as well as through educating others in these realms.

By drawing out the inner healing intelligence of each of my clients, I help them navigate their way to feeling better; towards having more clarity, confidence, courage, and calmness in their lives. My focus is primarily on healing deeply held childhood trauma and providing psychedelic education, integration, and harm reduction for those who choose to use psychedelics in a therapeutic way. I provide counseling to both users and non-users of psychedelics.

I am an IFS (Internal Family Systems) trained therapist and have found this model of therapy to be incredibly effective at supporting client’s transformation. This isn’t just “talk therapy.” IFS is an experiential model of therapy that works directly with the protective defensive systems and wounded parts of us. For integration purposes, IFS blends well with altered-states-experiences as these states often amplify parts of oneself that IFS can navigate.

I've had the privilege of building competency to provide Psychedelic Integration by training from MAPS Therapist Training Program, Compass Pathways Therapist Training, Fluence (Psychedelics for Clinician), and conferences such as Horizons and SOAP. I am a Certified IFS Therapist and have completed several trainings to include Levels 1-3, The Online Circle, The Continuity Program.

I also have the great honor of working with a phenomenal team at the Aquilino Cancer Center in Rockville, MD involved in psychedelic research and clinical treatment. I'm currently a therapist on the MAPS sponsored Expanded Access study of MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD, a research protocol approved by the FDA.

I not only see myself as a conduit of healing, but also an educator. Having a passion for both IFS and psychedelic therapy, I seek to inform and educate both therapists and the general public on the use of these modalities as tools for healing. I believe that these tools are effective for treating the entire range of experience, for those with significant trauma, as well as those seeking general improvement in wellbeing. I look forward to the day when psychedelics are legal, well understood for what they are and what they are not, and respected and honored for safe, intentional use."

Transcript

Alison Cebulla 0:06
All right. Hi. Welcome to latchkey urchins and friends and friends.

Anne Sherry 0:13
Identifying with the end friends, my friends,

Alison Cebulla 0:17
you're the urchin.

Anne Sherry 0:18
I know but I'm like, I'm a friend.

Alison Cebulla 0:24
Yeah, if you haven't listened yet to episode two, go back and listen to that one. So far. It's our least listened to episode. I don't know, maybe it just didn't sound that interesting to people or like they're like, I already know, I understand what a latchkey is, you know, it's. But listen, episode two, we talk about what's a latchkey? What's an urchin? It's a fun one. I'm Alison Cebulla.

Anne Sherry 0:46
And I'm an Cherie.

Alison Cebulla 0:49
And we're your, your hosts. And so thank you for joining. We're really excited to share this interview with you that we did with Heather Smith. And we'll introduce her in a little bit and what that's all about, we're going to be talking about like kind of psychedelic and MDMA assisted therapy. And, and so before we before we play that interview, I just wanted to catch up with catch up with my friend and my friend, my friend.

Anne Sherry 1:26
Somehow through let I know we've talked about this 1520 years.

Alison Cebulla 1:32
Okay, we met in 2005. Right? Six teen years. 16 years? Yeah, cuz we met in August of 2005.

Anne Sherry 1:43
Yeah, no sense.

Alison Cebulla 1:44
I know. I know. Well, and do you remember? Yeah, go when I like showed up at your house in 2014. And then was like, I'm gonna hitchhike to Durham. Do you remember that? I do. fuck is wrong to me. I

Anne Sherry 1:59
don't know cuz I fucking dropped you off at the intersection in Asheville, right? 240 like interstate 26. And I was like, I must have sent like, ability to like, have it's the neglect piece. I'm like, I guess it's okay. You know, rather than like,

Alison Cebulla 2:19
I'm hearing Oh, and seeing you definitely were like, I don't think this is a good idea. Like you did your motherly duties. You're like, I don't, I don't think you should do this. And I'm very convincing, very convincing. My parents told me that even when I was three years old. Yeah, I can. I

Anne Sherry 2:34
did not realize you're okay, go ahead.

Alison Cebulla 2:36
I can. I convinced them to go upstairs and look at something so that I could sneak a drink of their wine.

Anne Sherry 2:44
You are good. I had no idea. You may have been in a dissociative state. Two years of your life. It just you were all you were just Allison to me just this brave, courageous. I think part of me was like, I want to do that too. I want to be I want to hop on trains and ride, right?

Alison Cebulla 3:03
Yeah, yeah. It was something I felt that I needed to try. Like, I really felt it. But please, if you're listening to this, do not do this. Do not do this

Anne Sherry 3:16
on your stances. You could have been a case on my favorite

Alison Cebulla 3:20
murder. Well, and so yeah, so let me like, yeah, exactly. Very briefly describe a couple of the moments from this hitchhiking trip. So one, this guy with like a delivery like a very professional delivery truck. I can't remember what he was delivering. Let's say it was like paper products picked me up. He's like, Hey, I have like a couple more stops but then I can take you to blah blah, blah. You know, wherever Winston Salem will say and so I get in? And I mean the whole time I've been I'm texting you. I'm sending you like pictures of the license plate number and all this. Like right Okay,

Anne Sherry 3:52
I better than I Yeah, okay. Yeah. And

Alison Cebulla 3:55
he starts telling me that his son in law kidnaps women and sells them into the sex trade. While I'm in the car with him

Anne Sherry 4:08
duty to report I should have had I should I probably should have reported him from as a therapist.

Alison Cebulla 4:13
Hi. Yeah, I just felt like this for the ride. I gotta go and I got out like a next opportunity. I just got out thank God and took me a couple more rides I have to say like when I only had one woman stop I think I it took me like eight rides to go somewhere that's like normally a four hour drive, which is ridiculous. And I'm only one woman and she was super weirded out which I get it and it was a lot of weird just like rednecks. I'm just like sure get you know get their old clunker some some really nice people actually. Yes. But then it was like it was freezing cold because it was like February. And it was like snowing. It was so cool. I was so cold and I was just like, oh my god I'm I'm dying. Like I'm standing here on the side of the road, so this guy and like a really nice SUV pulls over. And I'm like, okay, thank God, I'm so cold, I got to just beg him to just drop me off at my relative's door in Durham. So I get and I'm like, please like, I don't care where you're headed. Can you please just drop me off right at their door? And he's like, yeah, I get in. And I get in the car. And I can't believe I'm admitting this to all of our listeners, but I look over and he has a gun.

Unknown Speaker 5:27
That's the South.

Anne Sherry 5:30
Who does it?

Alison Cebulla 5:31
I know. And so I always like and he it turns out he was an off duty police officer. And he basically just gave me the sternness talking to you of my life. It was like please do not ever do this again. Like you do not you do not understand how dangerous this is. He goes I have to call parents all the time. Like don't oh

Anne Sherry 5:54
my god, like some part of you thought she was in the 1970s or something. I think like, where I don't know if hiking was safer back then or not. But

Alison Cebulla 6:04
I have to say that part of it because we do back to like the the sort of political economy of childhood emotional neglect, you know, and there was no other way for me to get to Durham and I needed to get there so I could take this bus back to New York City. There was no other there's like literally no other way. So part of it like I wanted to but part of it was like there's literally no other way for me to do this.

Anne Sherry 6:28
I didn't. Okay, we can we didn't drive you. Why did I drive you? What what?

Alison Cebulla 6:35
I don't know. I don't know. Okay, whatever. But what's what's the south and like, literally no infrastructure? Like, why? Yeah. You just spent in

Anne Sherry 6:47
Europe. Yeah. And the trains. The trains are so awesome. It was interesting for having people that live there. Like, oh, the trains I was like, oh, not. They're awesome. They're so I don't know, there's a whole thing about the development of cars and there's a I can't remember the movie. I'll see if I can think of it but just just how trade rail was undermined by auto industry all that stuff. Yeah. So it sucks because that's well, eco grief. Right? It didn't make any sense to just put cars everybody in a car. Okay, we are we digressing? I was just what this is what we're gonna do, right? This

Alison Cebulla 7:30
is what we do. We can Yeah, yes. Yeah. Did you read about the the train derailing in Montana this week? Yes, I did. This is just another thing. Like if we don't invest in our infrastructure, which we don't do right here, right? Because everyone's a goddamn libertarian of like, yeah, I want the government out data data. That's like, but don't you enjoy roads and like trains that don't derail? I

Anne Sherry 7:59
can't even have that argument anymore. Like, you know, get the government out of my social security check. Goddamnit What's that? I don't get it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Ah, all right. Time for a sip of coffee.

Alison Cebulla 8:19
So, what have you been? What have you been reading or watching or listening to this week?

Anne Sherry 8:24
Ah, what have I been doing? I've been busy as fuck this week.

Alison Cebulla 8:30
I've

Anne Sherry 8:31
got my caseload got emails to return. Did I watch? I don't know. August is all about the damn Avengers movies. He wants to watch that from start to finish, which is like 17 bill. I had no idea they were all connected. So I kept watching. Do you know the Avengers series? No. Anyways, I'm not I'm not a geek like that. But I frickin love them. Well, I did have an incident and I chat with you.

Alison Cebulla 8:59
Can we talk about poop? Okay, let me let me let me share the buildups Oh, so So basically I've been I've been obsessed with the podcast that can spirituality podcast. Really? Yeah, I am so obsessed. I know. You said you weren't super into it. Although you only listen to that one stupid Charles Eisenstein episode, right which I kept because I can okay I cannot hold space for anti vaxxers And so so basically this podcast can spirituality is helping to undo all the guru worship brainwashing right I've held on to even though I feel like I'm a smart person. Why was I so drawn? I think there's just something especially for an Enneagram one of like trying to reach perfection that we think like oh, let me worship suppose yeah, perfect people. Right. You know, and so as I

Anne Sherry 9:54
well I don't run from once but I do run from perfect people because they it free. takes me out because I I think it's I get I have to look at my own stuff it I feel so messy often inside that I'm like, Oh, I can't be around us because it makes me feel not enough and small so yeah

Alison Cebulla 10:16
teresting well, so I still have a lot of Guru warship and and spirituality is helping me dissolve all of that remaining shit. And so I am just so bitter about all of it that I messaged you and it was just like, I don't want to interview anyone ever, who has a persona of having all their shit together. And my kind of thing is like, we all fart we all shit. So anyone that's trying to pretend like they don't fart and shit. I'm over it like Eckhart Tolle, you know, people love him. But he who has his weird voice, and he can just not imagine him farting and pooping and I cannot anymore. You should be

Anne Sherry 11:02
be required to like film yourself taking a shit. Let me let me well, and here's where it started for me like Johnny Osman when I was six. Yeah, I was worshipping Donnie Osman. And I didn't think he had a butthole I was like, there is no way that Donnie Ozma shit. So with that, I think I was struggling with like wiping or shitting in my band. I was like, Well, certainly, Donny Osmond has no butthole. So

Alison Cebulla 11:37
So and use you said, you know, like how on on on being Christian who's interviewing gurus and who doesn't have a bottle?

Anne Sherry 11:50
She has some amazing guests, though. I'm like, if I love an app, yeah, no, she's awesome. But I need an app that will silence her voice because and maybe she's rephrasing questions, getting it perfect. And you know, I'm rephrasing because my brain is going in 17 billion directions. But if I could get an app and just listen to who she's interviewing, but yeah, that question she has like

Unknown Speaker 12:14
when do you I ask everybody this how do you what was your signatures spiritual? ality Yeah. How has that influenced who you?

Anne Sherry 12:25
And there's always these wonderful answers, but I think, right here, I think we might we're toying with this idea. Which is the experience that happened to me two days ago.

Alison Cebulla 12:36
Yes. is asking one. Yeah, and they're embarrassing. Poop

Anne Sherry 12:41
stories story. Yeah. Yes.

Well, that in particular, like the most well, to me, one of the most embarrassing, I guess you go into a public toilet. You know, Starbucks only has like one or two toilets, and a fucking coffee shop.

Alison Cebulla 12:55
You need they having people use the bathroom at Starbucks.

Anne Sherry 12:58
Coffee shops. Yeah, everybody shits like, you get your coffee, and you got to go. Right. So anyways, and then so yes, that happened to me. You know, I was like, they're making my coffee. I can, you know, relieve myself and the fucking toilet won't flush. And then people start knocking on the door. And then they have some tamper proof way to like, you know, if you're at your house, then you open up the top and you pull the thing and you know, but it's just this solid brick in there of like, go break have no

Alison Cebulla 13:42
way and there's no way.

Anne Sherry 13:44
You know.

Alison Cebulla 13:47
You don't look nice as you hold that door open and just you you can't see anything but you're like in two seconds. You're in first of

Anne Sherry 13:56
all never been so happy for masks and like, now recognize.

They're like, ready, like I have and then I'm like, I'm like in not as much of a panic state that I thought I was like, I got this like everybody shifts. And I was like, You know what? Your toilets out of order. She's like, Oh, it's not flushing. I was like, did you know about this? I'm like,

and so I don't know. I'm not gonna go back to that Starbucks for a couple of weeks. I need to

Alison Cebulla 14:26
PTSD. Yeah, we're still here.

Anne Sherry 14:29
But yeah, we're let's do that. Well, the here when August when I this was the other one. When we were in Netherlands. Yes. This is how trauma around this gets passed on.

Alison Cebulla 14:38
Okay. I have a European story to that. I'm not sure. Okay, good. Good. Good.

Anne Sherry 14:42
Good. August, like, filled up a toilet at a restaurant in the Netherlands. And he came and got me Yeah. And he's like, Oh, it's not flushing. I was like, Oh, I got this you know, like,

Alison Cebulla 14:53
whatever you're, you're the mom you're gonna say.

Anne Sherry 14:55
Yeah, yeah. And and then so I go in there with Yeah, but we try to flush it and like, it's like almost to the point of man overboard, you know, like a turd is gonna come.

And here's what I do. Do I go get

the authorities or the owners of the restaurant so that, you know, we take responsibility for this? No, you know what I said to him? Run. Ron, so I this is how your poop anxiety gets passed a lot. This is generational anxiety, but just right here. I just passed it on to him. So

Alison Cebulla 15:32
well done. That's amazing. No, this brings it completely full circle to what I was just saying about our lack of infrastructure. Okay, and Nicholas Kristof just wrote a piece about this. I adore him. He's a New York Times writer, and he writes about social justice issues. Why are we so afraid of fucking bathrooms in this country? Yes. Yeah. He wants us to admit that people shit. Yeah. We refuse to. And yeah, and the unit, but like the pandemic was happening. And I have an acquaintance who struggles with homelessness, and he was like, I couldn't during the pandemic, I could not find a bathroom in Portland. Ah, find a bathroom. So inhumane?

Anne Sherry 16:16
Completely, completely.

Alison Cebulla 16:17
I know in France, they had like the self cleaning toilets, like they're everywhere. And they're everywhere. They're everywhere. You're amazing. Open that. Yeah. So okay, so I poop story. And this was almost published in cosmopolitan. I saw like one of those, you know, or send us your funny poop story or whatever. So I sent it. It didn't it didn't end up making the cut. But the the woman who is curating the story, she was like, This is amazing. So okay, so I had just moved to Europe. Summer of 2009. I went there. I lived in Europe like for a year after after college, and I was in Paris for a weekend with friends or something. And I'm very out of my element. You know, American first time and you know, mainland Europe today. We went out we like went out clubbing. We went to all these clubs, trying to bicycle over cobblestone streets. I was like a whole thing where I was like, I think I'm gonna die. Like tonight's the night, okay. And

Anne Sherry 17:20
no ailment. I'm sure I ended up

Alison Cebulla 17:22
going home with this cute French guy that I met. We just I just stayed over display. It's nothing nothing. Nothing too racy happened actually. It was like just kind of late and I just I you know, I stayed over his place. But you know, but we like made out a little bit. It was kind of sexy. You know? So it was like, it was a he was a sexy guy, you know? Yeah. And in the morning. I used his bathroom. And just one one big old GIANT TURD. And I could not get it to flush. I couldn't because these old European toilets, you know, was already for my big American turd. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 18:07
Grace, you couldn't even put toilet paper. And so you're wrapping up all this shitstain toilet paper and putting it in a little trashcan? Yes.

Alison Cebulla 18:18
And so yeah, I didn't I just was like I was. I think I was like 25 years old. I did not have the wherewithal to be like, excuse me sexy French guy that I just met last night. Um, can you help me? I just couldn't do it. So I just fold it up a little piece of toilet paper and put it right over the turd and just just said goodbye

Anne Sherry 18:39
a little he'll never see that Yeah. I can't believe right? Fucking that's the only thing you can do at that age. Just run

for child just as learn to run we have we have talked about that. Now. I'm like the weirdo there. So anyways,

Alison Cebulla 19:04
so really so they'll tell you some maybe a new a new opening story that will ask our guests because we only want to interview people who shit. You don't take shit. You're not for us. You know, we we're not gonna ever interview Eckhart Tolle or Krista Tippett. Okay, you

Anne Sherry 19:20
don't have Bibles? Don't beat a butthole. Right? Just don't have you have to have a butthole get those good poop stories ready.

Alison Cebulla 19:33
So all of that being said, I just want to thank all of our listeners for listening, texting us, emailing us messaging us commenting. We love hearing it funny stories. You know in the episode one we asked for people to text us about their emotionally healthy grandparents so we got to read some of those because I've been getting those texts. So thank you for thank you to all the Emotionally Healthy grandparents out there so far. There's two of them in the whole world. And so good And so our email is latchkey urchins@gmail.com and and we also have a contact form on our website which is latchkey urchins.com And, and we also will check our DMS on our Instagram, which is latchkey urchins. So these are all good ways to share stories with us.

Anne Sherry 20:21
Maybe let us know if we can read.

Alison Cebulla 20:24
Oh, yeah, that's reading them.

Anne Sherry 20:26
We don't have to put names to it or yeah, we'll try to

Alison Cebulla 20:29
get audio clips. We'll take audio clips, we'll take video clips, we haven't decided yet. We're still deciding. Reach out. Let's figure it let's figure it out. Look, this is episode five. We don't know what the hell we're doing.

Anne Sherry 20:45
Kind of one of the tenants of what we're exploring here, like, yeah, left, you know, being neglected. feeling neglected. You don't know what the fuck you're doing. So live and actions. Exactly. You're talking about poop?

Alison Cebulla 20:59
Yeah, we're talking I know which, which I was like, we should actually like in our intro, like, talk about the actual subject. But what Hey, that's, that's fine. Um, so Okay, so we're gonna, we're going to now play this awesome interview did this amazing woman Heather Smith, and does introduce her a little bit in the in the interview that we recorded. And Heather Smith is a certified ifs therapist. And I F S stands for internal family systems, which I'm going to have an explain in just a second. So she's a licensed professional counselor, and she's a psychedelic integration consultant. And so we have a really great conversation with her about psychedelic integration therapy, ifs, and just all the cool things that are going on with MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. And we also talk about maps, which stands for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. And

Anne Sherry 22:08
the premier organization that is done research for quite a while and they're setting up the clinics across the country where this type of therapy can be provided. And it right now is really used for you really meet the the criteria for PTSD. Very helpful. Yeah, veterans and I mean, hardcore stuff and it is moving out into general wellness in general transformation.

Alison Cebulla 22:37
Okay, so can you please tell, can you please tell our listeners what the f ifs is? Because yeah, God is so

Anne Sherry 22:44
much of this. And I now I know. Well, it's so I'm just going to read what they say from their website so that I don't go into 17,000. tangents like I do. So the little what is internal family systems ifs is a transformative evidence based psychotherapy that helps people heal by exit, accessing and loving their protective and wounded inner parts, we believe that mind is naturally multiple. And that is a good thing. Just like members of a family inner parts are forced from their valuable states into extreme roles with us. We also have a core self and that is a big S self. Self isn't everyone, it can't be damaged, it knows how to heal. So by helping people first access their self, and from that core, come to understand and heal their parts. Ifs creates inner and outer connectedness. And I started training in that modality in 2007. And it was big, I knew right away, I was like, This is phenomenal. I this is all I want to do. I was getting my masters at the same time. So it's the only way I've really practiced. And then when I had August, I went cut, I just went away from the trainings, I used to assist in them a lot. And then I reinterred God really in the pandemic, I like signed up to do assisting and learned that Zoom trainings, I mean, this thing has exploded is it's really speaking to therapists and speaking to clients that they're actually making real shifts and feeling more alignment, more alive in the world. And there's like 8000 people on the waitlist to get into trainings right now. Holy crap. Yeah. And I think that was a confluence really, you know, zoom, made it more available, like you just have to travel and go do the train level one is like, I don't know, they do it in all kinds of formats. Right now I'm assisting in a training that is three weekends four days. So that would be level one and in some other, you know, two hour sessions. But you would have to travel to go so this Other examples somewhat of the pandemic, making it more affordable or more accessible, and you know, they do scholarships and stuff. And there is the IFS conferences coming up. It will be happening October 14 15th, and 16th. And we can send, you don't have to be a therapist. Yeah, and other other our guests will be presenting on ifs and yeah, psychedelic assisted therapy and integration. So the famous

Alison Cebulla 25:34
so um, so yeah, without further ado, we're gonna go ahead and play the that interview. So

Anne Sherry 25:41
okay, sounds great.

Alison Cebulla 25:43
Cue the music

Anne Sherry 25:50
Yes, today, very excited to introduce my colleague and burgeoning friend, Heather Smith, she and I, she's a licensed professional counselor, and in North Carolina, just moved to North Carolina in the last year. And we met at an online training for Level Three in internal family systems ifs. And it was really exciting to see that Heather had moved to Asheville, I had no idea. So we have been spending a fair amount of time together talking about Yeah, her experiences and knowledge of psychedelic assisted therapy and blending it with internal family systems. And that has been something I have been very interested in and reading about and going to trainings. So that's sort of the focus of our podcast today. Welcome, Hunter.

Heather Smith 26:49
Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

Anne Sherry 26:52
And anything else you want to fill in about? Yeah, what brought you to ifs? What got you interested in psychedelic assisted therapy? You're what you know about that, at the moment where it's going? Yeah, I'd

Heather Smith 27:08
love to share. So I initially came to ifs therapy, become a therapist went to grad school, pretty traditional path. But when I got into private practice, I was really feeling the accountability and responsibility to provide good therapy to my clients. And the basic skills and things I've learned in grad school just weren't cutting it. And so I was really on a search for something that had a deeper impact for really transformation and healing for clients. And I it's weird, I didn't remember this until like five or six years later. But at one point in my office, I had said, how do people really heal? And and when I remembered it, I was like, I actually said that out loud. And somehow, I think something in the universe heard me. And within a couple months, another colleague had introduced me to ifs and, and we are in a different training for different models of therapy. And she said, You're gonna love it, it's even better than this current course we're in a sec. Okay, I definitely have to go check that out. So I actually started my own ifs therapy, and then got into the trainings and I was just like, loving it, really eating it up. And so as a seeker of information, and a lover of learning, and all that good stuff, I was in even more courses, learning more and more ifs, and it was on the i ifs online circle, that I saw Dick Schwartz speak about the psychedelic assisted therapy. And it was so brand new to me, it was like for me and my background. And where I came from in life. This was like out of this world, so different, like, Oh, my God, what are they doing? But somehow I become really open. And that's part of the one of the qualities of doing of ifs therapy is it really helps people to become more open and curious, less fearful. And so previously, maybe three or four years earlier, I would have been really nervous of psychedelic assisted therapy. But on that day that I started seeing what was happening, I was really open and very much intrigued, and I'd say like, instantly turned on to no more. And so actually, the book acid test, which is right here on my bookshelf, was recommended in that training module. They also showed a clip of the research. So I instantly like ordered the book, read it right away, and just kind of devoured information from there on. So what what does the research say? So the research is showing that MDMA specifically is the psychedelics that I've been most curious about. MDMA matched with therapy is really helping people to heal specifically with PTSD. They're also doing it with some other types of like social anxiety disorders and different things like that. But in some of the research studies have shown that people are actually healing PTSD. And there's no other therapy that currently heals PT SD. And so this is right, you know, pretty watershed moment of transformation in mental health treatment, that there's actually some sort of therapy out there that can be that transformative for such a difficult to treat disorder

Alison Cebulla 30:13
for acute PTSD or chronic PTSD or both.

Heather Smith 30:17
It's kind of one in the same. So chronic PTSD. So it's treatment resistant. PTSD, so for most people, what they're finding is like, combat veterans, and that sort of person war as

Alison Cebulla 30:32
you like, like something big happened, a bomb went off.

Heather Smith 30:38
Just kind of be on to that. So. So that might be the catalyzing event currently in life. But what they're finding is most of the people who are suffering PTSD, who did have some sort of combat situation going on, actually have a lot of childhood trauma as well. So it really is a chronic, ongoing, persistent PTSD. So and obviously, it can help with acute situations too, though. So maybe it's a one time life event just happened, like maybe somebody never had any significant trauma before. And they just as an adult got raped or something like that. They're showing the MDMA therapy could certainly be helpful for that. But also the really long term, deeper childhood trauma matched with maybe some current additional trauma. Got it? Yeah. And

Anne Sherry 31:20
I mean, I think Allison, this this, I get interested in, we talked about sort of how people grow up personally, and we might want to Heather, if you're okay, with maybe sharing a bit about how you grew up, that's sort of a landing spot we have, but just this we've talked a lot about how this culture, the American individualistic culture has a trauma element to it, or, yeah, just even if you get in a car accident, or you don't handle it, so Well, just people are like, Gosh, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? Why can't you get over this? Or, you know, so there's a lot of such this value on, gosh, that person rebounded. They barely cried, they didn't lose a day of work. Look at her body. It's amazing after a baby. I mean, that's everywhere. Like, yeah, back to normal as quickly as you can. And that makes you an awesome American. And we're kind of saying, huh, that feels like shit. Yeah, that doesn't really work. I think it does, if we're honest. So that's sort of a thread that we're sort of exploring around here. But, yeah. Would you share a little bit about how emotional wounds you might have noticed?

Heather Smith 32:32
Yeah, well, first of your point, just there about the cultural piece. I feel like our society in general, and this isn't a bash on our society, I think it's just a learning curve, is that we're pretty trauma naive. And I'm really grateful for people like Bessel Vander Kolk. Writing the Body Keeps the Score and you know, things like that coming out to really begin educating on trauma, that all trauma is not capital T trauma, and that the majority of people I, my personal opinion, is that everybody to be human means that you've lived some level of trauma. And so for me, trauma is on a continuum, and everybody has has to be exposed to something like it's impossible for people to not have some level of that now. There's certainly big T trauma where it's significantly. Disgusting, tragic. Awful, right? There's like that level of trauma as well. And I don't want to diminish that. But the problem is, I think a lot of people diminish their little T trauma and shrug it off as like, oh, I had a car accident, no big deal. And that's where it gets lost is you don't realize no, that actually could have been something and it might not have been something but it could have been. And so I think that we need to look at these these times when maybe there was something more there than we realized. Because we're not able to live our best self if we're holding that so

Anne Sherry 33:47
well. Also, oh,

Alison Cebulla 33:49
I just thought when you said I'm what is healing. I've been thinking a lot about what why do we have to heal and I saw you guys follow peaceful barb on Instagram. I just love her so much. And she does these little memes where she'll just hold up a sign you know, that says something and so she said something like normalize a childhood you don't have to recover from. Yeah, and so when we talk about healing, you know, unless it was like a car accident or a single traumatic incident, or being at war, we're literally talking about your parents were assholes. Like that's literally what we're talking about like over time little by little your parents hit you spanked you sad little mean things had contempt ignored you. And that's what we're talking about recovering from is like all those little times that people in your life you know who were supposed to care about you dehumanized you just little by little over time. That's what that's that's my kind of thought train that I'm on about why do we need to spend so much freakin time healing? We've just been so much, right? Well, if you get stuck there,

Anne Sherry 35:03
right, just like this, we've talked to about the that redemption. I want my parents to care about me and that way that's a damn trap. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we you know, it, but I do think I love how you talk about we're just done an evolution here, you know, it's such a kinder way because I'm like, oh Merica mad at America because we have so much and it's

Alison Cebulla 35:28
still there. Okay, I still be mad and

Anne Sherry 35:34
you know, all parts are welcome here they're going to evolve will grow what you know all of that, but but you just can't get stuck there. But it is important piece of this to at least acknowledge that was really hard on a kid. And at some point I where we hope you go is that your parents also were proud of that little T trauma of what it is to be a human, you know, right. Right. Yeah,

Heather Smith 36:00
yeah. And all our parents had their trauma, right, so that nobody's immune, and then putting it on, it just rolls downhill, right? Like we just for the next ones to catch it. And so if we can catch it well now, right, we do have the opportunity to make a difference for if we choose to have children.

Anne Sherry 36:17
But yeah, I was reading a, an account of somebody who had done an MDMA session. And after years and years of trying to work out this emotional neglect, they got to a place of like, oh, oh, I don't have to keep autopsy in my childhood. I've done enough. So it was sort of like getting stuck there. And it just brought tremendous amount of compassion. Like I can let go now. Like, you know, so it was I think that that so that it is important to combine. I personally think ifs or some sort of body centered therapy. And I don't feel like these. The advent of MDMA and other psychedelic modalities are putting just like a big leap forward to synthesize a lot of work that's been done. And I think, anyways, the IFS in particular, so yeah, absolutely.

Alison Cebulla 37:15
Well, we gotta we gotta get you have there to answer the question.

Heather Smith 37:22
I'm not trying to avoid

Anne Sherry 37:27
put her back there. What's gonna happen?

Heather Smith 37:31
Yeah, so my childhood, you know, I gotta say, my parents weren't assholes. Like they. I think there are asshole parents out there for sure. Thankfully, I didn't have those ones. But I did have you know, my parents were divorced by the time I was two. So I didn't have like a normal relationship with the father that I lived with on a daily basis.

Alison Cebulla 37:52
You wouldn't it so I mean, I guess I use asshole like not to. I love my parents so much. They're wonderful. But either like, those moments like that, where you answers and sorry to kind of, but I've like, Well, my that, you know, I'd maybe didn't experience my dad. And I don't know how involved or not he was. But I think that's kind of what I'm putting under the umbrella. You know? Yeah. And so you would use a different term, but you

Heather Smith 38:16
would I think that my my way of scripting, my story is very soft. And I think that that's something like for my own system that I need to be able to say it in this way. That's like, Okay, I want to hear this. All that is pretty normal. Right? Like, I've been telling myself my whole life because it wasn't normal. It was my story is like, what else is life? Right? Like, this is all I know. Yeah. So but you do think that I think there's asshole parents out there who are like, like, like, directly mean to their kids. Right. And that's not cool. But like, there was a lot of love, you know, my mom, my mother was very loving towards me. Lots of hugs, lots of there for me as much as she knew how to be. The issues that I've come up with and working with my parts is that I've discovered that my mother was very much overwhelmed with her own anxiety. You know, really struggling to know how to make the right decisions. Probably had to grow up way too fast. You know, like, her whole history is just riddled with trauma. super sad. And so it's just like, this domino effect is like one after thing after another. It's like, I can watch my home mom's history of things that was going on for her and then she had us kids, and it's like, okay, we're just like, boom, boom, boom, we just keep on moving through life, right? Yeah, well, when do we put on the brakes? And figure out what the hell we're doing here. So um, so some of my own personal work has been around. How do I get the energetic overlay that my mother's energy kind of just like inherently put on me that I wasn't even aware of? But it's almost like the air you breathe, right? It's like Yes. xiety this panic this oh my god, am I doing the right things? I'm hurting my children emotionally You know, like, she always said, I want the best for you kids. It's like, okay, but that's so anxiety

Alison Cebulla 40:05
ridden. Totally.

Heather Smith 40:09
Like, let's just not be anxious anymore to be great. I think that's kind of the soup I grew up in. Okay. And, you know, I was the youngest, I was the only girl. And I think that I really learned how to this is where some of my therapists parts come from, is like, how do I help everybody in this household be okay? So that I can be okay. Right? Like if everybody else can I got them part so good again, right? If everybody else can be okay, then I finally get a chance to live my life a little bit or breathe. So

Alison Cebulla 40:42
we're going to talk to a lot of people, I think, on this podcast with the helper that Oh, yeah.

Anne Sherry 40:50
Yeah, I'm reminded of this quote, that in my early days at University of Colorado, and my religious studies, degree loving, caring sort of the Buddha, I was grew up in the South, so I was just so anti Christianity, it was so suffocating. So judgy, so awful. I have found my way to an extremely liberal church. And I'm like, Jesus is rad as a model of how to live life, but I do remember this quote with from the Buddha, just you want to get enough. You know, I don't know, little T trauma, but not scope much. So there is this place that you're able to right

Unknown Speaker 41:29
amount of trauma.

Anne Sherry 41:33
gets me so excited about the psychedelic assisted therapy that feels like it like makes that where it's maybe like a four lane two lane highway. And you can because I grew up with an older brother that had way too much something. He was barely functional. And, but I think it turns us into maybe an eight lane or a 10 lane highway. So it helps sort of address quickly. And I'm big too on we'll got a lot of time we talked to we've done some talking on climate or just the climate crisis. I don't think we have a shit ton of time, I think we got to get people loving and bold and not stuck in their childhoods and AutoP. Seeing them, we need people out in the world being bolder and kind of structures to start work and you're not mad at you unnecessarily. Because that's a lot of energy that just flows away from us, you know, and we gotta have it to we got to do something different. Something else is trying to emerge. Yeah. So

Heather Smith 42:36
yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's why we need to heal trauma is because yeah, trauma literally turns off the lights within our system, right? Like when we get traumatized. It's like, all the lights go off. Our play goes away, our joy goes away our creativity, like all the faculties that we actually show up in the world with as infants, if that's fostered Well, we naturally move into that flow, and we're just these brilliant little beings. But when we start collecting the trauma, all that just gets just shut down, right? Like,

Alison Cebulla 43:08
that's how I was when I showed up at your doorstep. And yes,

Anne Sherry 43:12
I went to telling her a little bit about how

Alison Cebulla 43:15
Yeah, I was 23 I wasn't even

Anne Sherry 43:19
sure if you Yeah, you were legal. Yeah, I was 20.

Alison Cebulla 43:24
I really look at there was this momentum from childhood? And, and, and Heather, I think that you are you were born in the in the 80s? Or, okay, early 80s, the 80s Parenting was a lot about achievement. And like, you know, how, like, how early Can we start you on piano lessons? And just how much can you achieve and accomplish? And that's like, your whole worth. Yeah. And there was,

Anne Sherry 43:56
I just want to share the 70s Parenting was like, Who are you?

What are you doing here? What is this? So I just had to throw that in for a little No,

Alison Cebulla 44:05
I that's exactly what we want to be talking about. And there was this momentum of like, you need to go out and achieve all these things. And I didn't even think about where what I wanted to really do or where I went, I mean, it was just like, oh, I will go to college now you know, and then I got there and I arrived and I actually just had a deficit of like the basics that I needed to like function normally in society. So I you know, and when I when I moved to Asheville to like, you know, recover and like figure out who I was and grow up it really was just this how did you put it and like the I almost think that my 20s There it was like a standstill, like backwards in time to like to like really toxic your childhood. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't. I wasn't actually able to do that work until my 30s. My 20s was just like this messy. Whoopee. Like, how come I can't function? Like I literally, it took me until age 31 To have the insight to actually understand what happened to me and why that created the disaster. That was my teens and 20s. Yeah. And it was such a waste of time, I really look back and I go, Fuck, you know, I could have been, I don't know,

Anne Sherry 45:23
I don't waste as the other thing that I see too with the these types of therapies or internal family systems period, you know, just without psychedelic assisted therapy, you do connect into something that's known as the self. And, again, this is what I loved about Buddhism to way back in the 80s. We all would just go into piano lessons, and I was trying to figure it out in Boulder, like, I did drop acid at 18 in Boulder, and went to affirm frat party. That was weird. So it was around, I did get this little window that I think led me to Oh, yeah, the what the Buddha's talking about what Eastern religions, but there's a sense of like, that a truth there that everything's okay. Everything's right on time. Somehow, just like when to look back and have judgment on what happened, you know, I could feel like I would you came to the house, and I was like, Oh,

are you my older brother?

Alison Cebulla 46:22
Are you gonna be okay, you

Anne Sherry 46:24
know, I think I might have kept you a little bit. And I still look back on that as if you and I have connected throughout the years, like, Did I take care of Alison enough? Or did I just let her spin in her orbit? Or, you know, it's funny, like reconnecting that way that there were some parenting parts, I think, and I was trying to figure my shit out. But there is this sense that it's all fine. You're right on time. And I do try to tell my 20s clients that they get pissed a little bit, because I'd like But what should I do? I was like, Look, let me let you in on something I made every mistake. Possible. Although things you're fretting about, I made the worst choice like that. You're like trying to make the best choice. Just do just go just be just try, you know, your lodge through. I know. And I kind of you kind of have to It's like my 30 clients, I don't know, if you find this Heather a little bit. It's just developmentally, when you haven't gotten all you needed, or you were pushed, or you didn't, whatever, it looks wacky, through your 20s 30s. And then you're comparing yourself, I think, against this culture, that's like, why are you not here already, you know, you have this compulsion to be like, something's wrong with you. You know, like, something's wrong with you. And that's, that's the little T trauma that just keeps banging you while you're trying to just figure out the world when you didn't have a lot of attachment perhaps. Or it was just wacky attachment. That should be an attachment style. I got wacky attachment. Sugar? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So where are we at? What's happening here? We're rolling.

Heather Smith 48:01
A little theory that's developing. I haven't quite nailed it completely down yet. But So Alison, were speaking of your 20s. And you feeling like it was a waste of time? I had a similar sense in my 20s. It just felt like, like, what is this? Just trying to make sense of the first 18 years? Yeah, and then kind of like rejecting it all and going through your like, your it's really rough, like, friction years, right? Yeah. And then it felt like my 30s was like this, like, me, like having this reckoning of just coming back home to my own self? Like, how do I do that? Right? And then recently, there's, I don't know how much you guys get into like psychological theories on this podcast. But there's Erik Erikson are both mental stages. I

Alison Cebulla 48:43
loved Mary, bring it in? Sure. Well, my

Heather Smith 48:46
nice theory on that theory is that when people start doing psychedelic therapy, work and IFS therapy type work, it's almost like you get this opportunity to go back through those stages of development that you should have been able to go to at that actual age. So you can see, you know, age 23456, that type of thing. And so lately, I've been noticing, even in my own work, as well as other clients work, like age three, and four, you're supposed to do this, like identity development, trust versus mistrust. And as people are going back into their trauma, and looking at what happened at that age for them, it's almost like they're, they're regaining their trust or their individuality. And when like, age 38, you might actually be finally cutting the umbilical cord with your mom. But it's actually happening now.

Anne Sherry 49:42
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, forget about like, yeah, go ahead, Alison. Yeah. Okay. I

Alison Cebulla 49:47
want to hear what you have to say. And so we might not get to this question, but like, what is it about parenting or our society or whatever now, to where children don't feel differentiated? I just Just that thing of like, you're supposed to be a different person than your parents. But that's not what I'm seeing. You know, I was just talking to a friend yesterday that she wasn't allowed to experience feelings growing up as a child. She's not parenting her kids that way she gets that her kids are separate entities but her for her parents, it was total enmeshment. What? What is that?

Heather Smith 50:20
Yeah, yeah, I'm not a parent, so and might have a better answer, but

Anne Sherry 50:24
let's just say fear. Yeah, fear. I think, like, that's

Heather Smith 50:28
what I was gonna say. Yeah,

Anne Sherry 50:30
I mean, and I almost, will do and we're doing that we're gonna talk with my, we're gonna bring my husband on here. And Alison, I'll be the guests with my husband. And we're going to talk to parenting, like, how we grew up, are we doing it, okay? And becoming parents, our situation being unique that we became parents of 44 years old, after a lot of therapy. And we still slugging it out, I am sure. And what does that mean? Most of it is like, I do feel like if you can instill like trauma, as an adolescent therapist, he's got this, like, just trust that your kid's gonna be okay. Like, if you can really sit in a place of, you're gonna mess up here and there. But if you parent with fear, I think the title of his book, or the coming book that's in his head is like, chill the fuck out, I think is what it's called. That was my, that's my subtitle for it. I think he's got something more palatable. But I do think I do have a gratitude of coming to parenting later, I think it would have looked, I would have produced a much different kid and my 20s If I was blended with all kinds of fear. There's a fantastic book called Parenting from the inside out by Daniel Siegel, I think so he really talks about how you can pay attention to how you were raised how you can you can witness that coming through in your own parenting so that I think that helps a lot. I think we've been talking about this for a while we get this sense of like, you know, I don't know, my generation a little bit was just let kids cry that you're going to they're going to they're manipulating you, you know, so that's a whole thing. So I stopped crying. No, it's not. Right out method. I'm not talking about that, which is, you know, there's lots of feelings about that. Which is just mom needs to get some sleep, I think we can sleep train. There's a lot of attachment going on with that I'm talking about like, do not pick that child up or pay attention to them, because they're manipulating you, you're gonna spoil them was the wisdom. Wisdom just gotta be a term lack of wisdom. I want to come up with a word that ideology time. Yeah,

like ignorance.

Right now, that has an impact. I have been working on accurate feelings forever. But I have this ability to compartmentalize and I've made a lot of fucked up decisions, but I'm also forgiving. Mostly. Because I'm like, Well, you weren't feeling your way into stuff, you know, so and this, you know, patriarchy, I think. Yeah, does a whole number on like, don't be too emotional. And it's like, no, no, no, no, actually, that's where the real juices and where decision making can come from. And you can actually it's still gotta be grounded and trust. So I don't know if I answered that. But yeah, I just have to trust your kids that they want to the system wants to move towards wholeness. So just witness them. Just don't be afraid to say what is going on, you know, and be a little bit more truthful. And also do your own repair. I think that was it. There was just no talking in my childhood. It was just like, you just raised yourself. And so it was like, Am I okay, do I exist? Is anybody here? You know, so, so I want to hear, like what

Alison Cebulla 53:51
Heather like what do you have to say about how MDMA, and other, you know, these these modalities of therapy? Like how do they help cure that kind of childhood? Yes.

Heather Smith 54:03
Yeah. Love that question. You know, love MDMA. I think what MDMA specifically does, is it helps you to take the perspective of not only your own self and your own experience to really see it's super clear. But it also can give an opportunity to see the perspective and experience of your parents or other people in your world. Like what was going on with them. I had a client recently share her experience with me and she actually shared it on a podcast as well, about she was doing an MDMA trip and she, I think she's from the Philippines. And she all of a sudden was able to see her father, as a little boy growing up in the Philippines, and what it was like for him, which, based on what it was like for him and impacted who he became as a father, and then obviously her own childhood. And so when you're able to get this perspective of not only your own plate, but other ers that helps to increase your compassion and understanding and your clarity for like, how did this all happen? Right. And that's huge. Because we don't, I mean, it's, it's one level or layer to just heal your own shit. But then when you can go the next level and see and hold compassion for people who actually hurt you. That's, I mean, that's next level healing. And a lot of people are really afraid of that a lot of people are really afraid of hope. People are afraid of love. People are afraid of forgiveness. And they're afraid if I forgive, that's letting somebody off the hook. And so actually don't even like the word forgiveness actually steer completely away from

Alison Cebulla 55:38
either I don't like compassion. Is that the one you like? Or what do you like, like

Heather Smith 55:43
compassion? So I go with compassion, I don't even worry about forgiveness. Let's not touch it. Yeah, if you can hold compassion and and clarity and understanding, perspective taking, then it frees you even more, right? And it just lets your whoever your person is whether it's a perpetrator or just whoever hurt you, whatever, whatever their designation is, it just helps them to put put them on the sidelines and understand it and get it. But it doesn't have to connect to you in that way anymore. Yeah, that's a huge amount of freedom.

Anne Sherry 56:15
And it's not it's very different, I think, to then letting go. I mean, we've also talked about just how polarized this country is, and how that is, like exploited by, I don't know, if they're doing it purposely, but like, people make a lot of money off us being all going after each other, you know, and it's not a giving up, I think I hear all the time, people say, if I don't hold this, then then that means I'm not fighting the fight, or I'm not doing this work, or I'm not going to make changes. So again, this piece of trust of like, well, Goddang, where's that getting? You you wear yourself out? You? You know, just this polarization so ifs would talk about that. So I am interested in how are we going to address this political thing that just keeps getting exploited? And how do you have compassion for Q Anon, or drama?

Alison Cebulla 57:07
I just started watching that documentary

Anne Sherry 57:10
are like over racism and yeah, all the IFS is I do appreciate about ifs, they are addressing sort of what they call the legacy burdens, individualism, greed, racism. There's one more that I patriarchy. So that piece,

Alison Cebulla 57:27
does MDMA help with that help with our anger at the patriarchy? I gotta go get some because man, the anger? And the frustration is, it has been pretty overwhelming. I think for obvious reasons. This year, it's really been, it's shown in our in our faces, just Yeah, everything is.

Heather Smith 57:52
You know, I'll speak to that real quick. You know, how does this all work? When you go from it's such an individual, I'm just one person to how do I you know, we're working with giant political systems? Yeah. Yeah. Like, how does that all translate? And, you know, so as an integration therapist, I'm working with a lot of clients who are from their own adult agency choosing to use these medicines, they want to integrate it, they want to do the therapy, they want to do it. Basically, shadowing, like the maps protocol of what they're doing research. They're wanting to do that therapy with me. And so I'm getting to witness, you know, not like 1000s of people, but a good handful of people who, and every pretty much everybody's saying, How can I return? They're doing this healing work individually, right. And then they're going back into their profession, and saying, How can I be the most impact now? Like, they want to do bigger things they want to, they want to be even more impactful in society. A lot of times, they're wondering ifs to their workplace. Yeah, they want all their co workers to be doing this work. Right. So it's, it's I think it's that sort of wave making. Yeah, as you do heal yourself. And as you feel the power of true transformation, you want to share it right. I mean, that's why this podcast probably exists, right? Like you want to influence for the good is my assumption. And so right, as you do this deep transformation work people. You know, I think we're creating lots of little Gandhi's all over the world. Maybe.

Anne Sherry 59:21
I think Paul Stamets. I was in a training. Paul Stamets is Heather, you might be able to introduce him more mycologist mushroom guy, mushroom guy, right? But he has what's the movie fabulous, one guy,

Heather Smith 59:39
fantastic, fun guy.

Anne Sherry 59:41
But he said that he's like, look, this world's in trouble. And he has good events. Of course, the you know, I do think psychedelic mushroom do a similar breaking apart some maybe great long held beliefs and narratives. He's like, just he just sees the world very soon as like a million lives. Will Einsteins, you know, or that level of ingenuity and boldness and? And, yeah, so yeah, that's on its way and I have to wonder, you know, like God dang is this like the cause if you believe in the self of the system, self ifs talks about self and systems, which is pretty much a divine inspiration or whatever, but something a bigger organizing principle with this climate crisis I don't know who out there the earth or whoever is just saying, Well, this is how we balance this level of we are very imbalanced, I think we must agree on that, that like, as humans are what we're doing to each other, the warring, the polarizations the so it's, it's just interesting that it's showing up, just being able to trust this emergence. And there's a lot of pain that's still out there, like a lot, a lot of stuff, you know, climate is, the that piece is out of control, and there's going to be a lot of it's not going to be pretty, it isn't pretty already, you know.

Alison Cebulla 1:01:07
I guess I've been getting discouraged lately. Because even though it can feel like we're changing the world, when we have these conversations between three woke people, you know, you gotta ladies, yeah, like I go on the radio, live radio pretty often here in my hometown, to talk about different public health or social justice issues. Yesterday, I went on to talk about the lack of mental health services, we actually recently had an event on Monday where someone was had been trying to access mental health services for quite some time was not able to get them and ended up shooting and killing two police officers killing, shooting both killing one and then killing himself. And the fact that it's, it's actually literally impossible to get, like if someone's having a psychosis to get them any, any form of help here. And I've personally experienced that with from a loved one who, who was experiencing schizophrenia could not connect with them how they're still homeless today. And the people who would call in

someone call in and just, you know, do a whole tirade about how socialism is not the answer. You know, this is the level of what's, you know, like, we're like, oh, everything's changing. People are taking drugs, people are waking up. And I'm like, are they? Because you just listen to the same callers that I listen to, like, people are in the Dark Ages? Yeah, you know, and that's what's getting me down lately. And Heather, I see you nodding. So maybe you could speak to that?

Heather Smith 1:02:53
Yeah, no, I feel it. Because I'm like, straddling two worlds, in some ways. Like, again, referencing where I came from, I came so more about my childhood. I grew up at a evangelical Christian household. He's super. Yeah. And I will say, to give the benefit of the doubt, I did have a very spiritual childhood that I'm very much in love with, and very grateful for. And it was, for me very authentic, profound experience to be connected to the Divine as a child. The religious system that later followed for me wasn't so fun. But that all said, it's interesting, going back into the world where like, psychedelics doesn't exist, and therapy doesn't exist, and healing isn't understood. And, you know, there is a kind of like, a range of trauma, little T to big tree. It's like, there's this huge range of consciousness. Right. And I think on one end, there's just like, extreme ignorance. No offense, I just think it's not a judgment. It's not moral judgment. It's just ignorance. And then I think there's just this continuum of knowledge and understanding and openness and then all the way to the other side of you know, profound understanding. I don't I don't know what that word is on the other side of the extreme end of that, but

Anne Sherry 1:04:15
it's Yeah, well, I'll send if we go back to Tim Okun's. Characteristics of white supremacy culture we're in a hurry you know let's fix this now now that we know it it is it is a weird place to hold I can I know for myself my evolution in anti racist work it was all fight all anger and part of it you know, is everything I read I finally started really reading the true history going to trainings were released. Yeah. Ah, yeah. Paying off an awful you know, and I mean, literally dropped to my knees almost and just like I cannot I as a white person being from I know I didn't do it, but I felt the lineage of that

Alison Cebulla 1:05:08
the lynching Memorial did it, Memorial. That's a powerful one so

Anne Sherry 1:05:12
powerful. So those types but but so being able to process and I think that's what drives people out of the the anti racist work and they get caught up and like, I'm not a racist, I'm a good person, you don't want to own any of that. And it's just you have to, for me, coming to a very liberal church that has as a focus, justice work, you cannot heal this shit alone. You have to be in communities. And that has been a process of me my first community was a family that didn't want to be in community. Everybody was just supposed to do their own thing. It wasn't my parents weren't assholes. They just weren't. They just weren't you know, like, I guess that's what I could say. Kind people community loves them. But yeah, you gotta in mental health has an issue. I've worked in crisis services forever out in the western part of North Carolina out of some crazy shit, you know, the all the money is poured into little bits of evidence based piece of crap, not sorry, like there but like our abt or something. But there were some recent innovations. I was working with some agencies that were doing Wait, what let's have a community center. These are individuals that don't have a community. So creating these spaces, they forget defunded that shit, you know, they're like, No, we don't know how to measure that. You know what it was like, this was a home where people could come like a day center sort of thing. And they had peer support. And so some of that stuff is coming to but this individual healing in an office it's really I think, based out of this shame, I don't want anybody to know but my I really feel like I finally made strides by trying to be like, Why can I not belong to a community? What is going on here? Everybody says they love me and I'm like, yuck, like, buck off. This is. And I really had to come to learn it because it was just fear of loving just what you were saying how they're like people are afraid of hope you wanted there already been

Alison Cebulla 1:07:18
used to it. You felt like I mean, fear. I think you were just like, is this

Anne Sherry 1:07:24
what Yeah, I was like, what my, the words that come to me or what do you want from me? You know that this is like a transaction, you're gonna want something you're gonna burn me out. I'm gonna have to make you some food, all the meal trains. Like when I had a hysterectomy. Like, they were like, Let's get you a meal train. I was like, stay away. That's weird. I don't want to I'm gonna have to like, you'll see me you know. So all of that to say that I do feel like and I'm reading that the psychedelic assisted therapy is this huge burst of like, you are like to really know you are loved. You belong. What happened was awful. And I'm sorry, you know, this the sort of gaining the trust with the the self is like I'm sorry, I wasn't able to be there. But you just like just falls away. We talked about it unburdening. So we need those bumps because I spent goddang 30 years of therapy trying to be like, Why? Why can I not be at a community? It sounds like a great idea. It was either no community or I'll be in a cult, you know, and Allison, I love some cold stuff. Right?

Alison Cebulla 1:08:31
That's, that's a whole different episode. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:08:37
But that's what I was like, it's either or that was the extreme that I would go there was nothing in between, I had no agency, even though I seemed very independent. It was like, so this order,

Alison Cebulla 1:08:48
like MDMA is, it can be a gateway or an entry point to actually feeling a love and amount of love and community and interdependence that was missing.

Heather Smith 1:09:02
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's gonna be different for every person. You know, some people might get profound feelings of love and connection, other people might have something completely different. It's, it's kind of you know, that's tailored a bit to your own experience and whatever you may have been missing or traumatized by so it's a pretty obviously it's a very customized package. individualized treatment plan. But yeah, it just in some different things I've read talk about its ability to go to exactly whatever you most need right now. And almost kind of like goes layer by layer according to what is most relevant for you to heal or safest to heal. So it's not going to jump you into the you know, 12 foot deep and pool end of the pool first, it's going to take you like, wherever you first need to go. Gotcha. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:09:55
yeah, I think like when I was activating wisdom

Anne Sherry 1:09:57
of the of our whole system, I mean, right Is this how Abby's just activating the the innate wisdom?

Alison Cebulla 1:10:04
I guess, right wisdom? Yeah. So they

Heather Smith 1:10:07
talk about in the trainings that I've been to, and some of the different readings that I've done talks about your inner healing intelligence. So there's some sort of, and I think that's similar to the self energy that we speak of in ifs therapy. So there's some sort of inner wisdom, that we have this ability to heal ourselves. And so they talk about like, bones, right? They don't our bones, when we break a bone calf, putting in a cast doesn't heal it, it just resets it and holds it. But then the bone itself refuses itself back together. And in that bone is healing itself, right. It's like, that's the inner healing intelligence of like, our skin heals when we have a cut. And so we can support it. And we can foster those things to go well and not get infected or whatever. But our body knows how to do that for itself. And there's something about taking these types of psychedelic medicines that fosters that ability for us to have the time and space and the safety, this context to bring through this inner healing intelligence. But I will say also, there's something else about these medicines, that just listening to people talk about it, you will consistently hear people say, the Medicine showed me. So it does, there's something about it. That's maybe that's still our inner healing intelligence, maybe that's the self, but people have this sensation of something outside of me, showed me what I needed to see. So that languaging is really interesting to me. I love

Alison Cebulla 1:11:38
hearing that, because I never realized until this new research has been coming out that like my go into raves, you know, in my 20s, and taking MDMA was actually therapy, I was actually just trying to experience the, you know, actual love. And there was so much shame. You know, it didn't feel like a medicine, it felt like there was so much guilt and shame. I'm not supposed to be doing this. I'm a bad person. I'm destroying my brain cells. I had a therapist tell me that the brain cells that I lost to MDMA, I would never get back. She literally said that to me. Yeah, it's awful.

Heather Smith 1:12:15
Yes.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:19
And that's what people really thought back in 2005. You know,

Anne Sherry 1:12:24
like, Ben did bond, right? I've it's been? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:31
And I'm so much guilt and shame that I just wish I could go back and look at it as therapy and have that whole, that whole thing, that whole period transform. So it's, I'm just, it's just warming my heart to know that people can be relating to this as a medicine now and not Yeah, as you know, you're a bad person. And you're because people really just are so drawn to healing and trying to find their own natural wisdom.

Heather Smith 1:12:59
Absolutely. And that's part of that inner healing intelligence is, and you referenced this earlier, and like, the system does want to move towards wholeness. There's something inside of you that wants to feel better, right? I mean, we want a good life.

Anne Sherry 1:13:14
And I know I used to I was there was a John Iseman from my hakomi days. And in California, he had a training and I think it's still there, like, recreation of the South. So I think it was a sort of an ifs brand, coming along simultaneously, but His thing was, like, you got a pillow, and you got a hammer? Are you going to like put your head on the pillow? Or are you gonna choose a hammer, you know, and I still use that. It's like, well, I'll choose the pillow. So let's help your system do that. Let's move towards pillow rather than you just keep hitting yourself, which would be sort of our judges and critics. But whether Could you say a little bit about that move from how MDMA or psychedelics that are experience sort of in clubs or with your friends or going to a bug in frat party, when you're 18 on acid that aren't, don't promote the healing sort of that we're talking about? Like, how it's sort of how its practiced, or what what it looks like in the healing setting. Does that make sense that it's more of an inward journey, it's quieter. It's yeah, the set and setting peace. So,

Heather Smith 1:14:21
you know, a lot of people can have really profound recreational experiences that are incredibly healing, lots of love, lots of connection with friends that I mean, it's absolutely can happen in that context. And people, people tell their stories about that, right. However, in this specific, you know, assisted therapy context, the intention is to go really deep. And so, protocol is you were eyeshades, so that you're not, you know, you, you get rid of the external stimuli of looking around and anything that might be going around in the environment. You have a sitter or therapist with you to take care of the external environment for you so that you don't have be worried about the mailman coming out the door or the dog barking or things like this. And also to keep you safe in case anything's coming up for you. And then music is really part of the setting set and setting as well is that people have specific music being played that really supports that deeper inward focus. So there's a lot to sentence setting that's really important towards facilitating and fostering that experience, to really make it therapeutic. So another thing that I like to speak to that's not really in literature yet, but I'd like to make it be is, specifically with ifs therapy, I feel like when people begin to really get the concept that they're a system of multiple parts. And they begin knowing how to work with these parts of themselves to come in a space of curiosity, like if they get really angry, to be able to, to know Oh, a part of me is feeling really angry right now, can I be curious towards understanding why you kind of like, befriend it and almost like, interview it from an outsider perspective. For me, this is an actual mindset. And being able to have the mindset of knowing how to work with yourself in that way, before you ever touch a psychedelic, it gives you this way of operating within yourself, that once you do go into an altered state experience, you almost naturally flow into that way of being already. And I think it I think it can make people's experiences profoundly even more productive. Because you know, when people journey with these medicines, parts come up, your personnel go away, just because you're high on MDMA, or psilocybin or LSD, like parts still can absolutely be there. I think this is what happens a lot of times for people when they're smoking marijuana, they might get really anxious or something like that. It's like, oh, actually, just your anxious part just really had an opportunity come out right now. Like that's the marijuana didn't do that to you. That's your part that's already there. The medicine just allowed that to be obvious to you. So go work with your anxiety. Don't get mad at marijuana.

Anne Sherry 1:17:08
There's an article Allison that you were referencing, like, this isn't to be alone. It's not just doing some set and setting

Alison Cebulla 1:17:16
although that just feels like that sacred shaming energy like reading that title of like drug the drug alone is not the cure. Um, I can't stop already with the war on drugs. Jesus, he just stopped this.

Anne Sherry 1:17:29
Are you doing? Like I was saying that it was like do that. But you also need to I think it's opening up new pathways and you need to keep working on them. Like what insights did I get? Okay, sort of, like what I hear so you get messaging basically like you did you write more? How about creating stuff, people feel more empowered to where they've had tried to have a discipline for years and years? And it's like, oh, I can't get on the peloton. Everybody's doing peloton, why can't I do it, you know, and you just can't do it. And you're just like, I suck, I suck. But from what I'm reading, when the sense of being loved then you, you really find ways that you want, you will engage in what your system wants, you will move your body in those ways, and you will have more, quote unquote, one of our episodes is going to be on discipline, like why can't childhood emotional neglect, people have just, you know, like, stick to stuff or have a meditation practice or whatever often. So anyways, it's that kind of allows the activities to come from a place of want ifs talks about this, like that's a place of inspiration rather than should, I shouldn't be meditating. I saw something on it, and I should do that it will make me calm or it's like, oh, I want to do that. Which has a lot more staying power, because it's inspirational over fear based. Totally.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:49
Yeah, yeah. So

Alison Cebulla 1:18:51
I think we're gonna just kind of wrap up a little bit even though I we could talk we could

Anne Sherry 1:18:58
hang out here all day with.

You guys are both beats.

Alison Cebulla 1:19:04
What do you see Heather as the future of this modality of healing? What's happening now? What have you seen shift? And where do you think the movement is going?

Heather Smith 1:19:14
Well, super long term. I hope it's moving towards total legalization for anybody to use in a safe context. I've heard Rick Doblin talk about his hopes for that future. I think it resonates for me of like, everybody should have a license to have these substances. And if you fuck it up, you lose your license. And if you're responsible, and you know how to, you know, safely use these substances, then you keep your license, you know, maybe there's educational courses, just like we have to get a driver's license and we have to go to driving school and we have to learn how to safely use a car. We could do the same thing with these powerful substances. I think I think we have to be super careful. I don't want to be too trite and saying all that but totally. But if we could get society moving towards that, I think would be phenomenal. And the point of me saying that is we started the podcast talking about the current studies being for PTSD. And that's fabulous for research because we need that for research to help this legalization thing. And the scheduling. Right. So it's schedule one drug, we need to get that rescheduled to schedule three, at least, that's the first step. Right? Yes. So PTSD is a great diagnosis to use for that for the sake of moving it through the system that we have to move it through. Right, this is just the reality of the world we live in. But in a long term way, these medicines can be profoundly helpful for everyone. And there's a lot of proponents out there talking about healthy normals. I guess that's, I don't know who that is. But like everyday citizens could benefit from conscious normal raising medicines, right. normies, normies, normies. And so, so it'd be really cool. I think it's important for people to know, yes, this is currently being researched for PTSD. But just like people in the 60s and 70s, new who are using this, it can be really beneficial just towards the general development of us as a conscious people totally. So if we can keep moving it towards a healthy, respected, revered, you know, privilege to be able to use these substances, and we hold it in that sacred space of really honoring what it is, and we don't fuck it up. It could be a really good thing for our society, for civilization, really. So yeah. And

Anne Sherry 1:21:33
I want to give one shout out here because Duran Young, who started black therapists rock, she is Ben. She is an evangelical evangelist, basically, on psychedelic assisted therapy. So just lots of YouTube will link to some stuff in the show notes, of really addressing racial trauma and moving that forward. And so she she is, there was a list of we'll post this in our show notes. She was on the 25. She was 25th out of 25 most influential, influential people in psychedelic assisted therapy are bringing this forward. And so hers is hers is certainly accessibility it currently it's fairly expensive. And there's a illegality to where we know, in this culture that probably white people would be less.

Alison Cebulla 1:22:35
You know, are you kidding back? People get arrested for drugs and white people don't end of story. So

Anne Sherry 1:22:42
the expense of it, but also the risk of it. Yeah, you know, you have black in a black body and pursuing healing in these modalities that it's riskier. So, anyway, she's doing phenomenal work. She's an incredible human. And basically said this, these saved her life. So yeah, so good stuff. Yeah. Beautiful. Great. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:23:07
Well, thank you so much, Heather. I'm really excited to have this change. And thank you for your curiosity around this and helping to spread the word and yeah, I guess I'm going to leave this conversation with some sort of sense of hope for aware things the all the potential that that individuals in our society could could move towards so thank you for that.

Anne Sherry 1:23:36
You're welcome. Places in Oregon and DC that's legal there, so it's illegal there. Yeah, decriminalize or whatever. So Oregon, Denver, it's coming, so you can't stop the healing stuff.

Yes. Okay. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Heather.

Alison Cebulla 1:24:10
Hey, thanks for listening to latchkey urchins and friends podcast by Alison Cebulla. That's me and and Sherry. You can find show notes about this episode and others at latchkey urchins.com. The music is by Proxima prata and audio mastering is by Josh Collins.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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