Heart First A Psychedelic Adventure LL&L With Michelle Miller

Today, I am talking to Michelle Miller- Shogren about her new book "Heart First: A Female Psychedelic Call to Adventure". Michelle has been a friend of mine for years so I was excited to have her on Life, Lessons, & Laughter to talk with her about her new book as well as her journey on the spiritual path. The conversation flowed so well, we followed it up with a part 2! So pay attention for that to be released next.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hello everybody.

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

That's me.

Please welcome my guest tonight and friend of mine from Panama,

Michelle Miller.

Hi everyone.

Thanks Glenn.

Hey,

You're welcome.

Welcome to the show.

So here we are.

Here we are.

And it's exciting because you are releasing your first book.

Yes.

This Friday,

October 1st.

Nice.

October 1st is the official release date.

So what's the title of your book,

Michelle?

The book is entitled Heart First,

A Female Psychedelic Called to Adventure.

Okay.

Well,

We are going to dive into that today.

I mean,

That just sounds fun.

It was.

Yeah.

And it landed you in Panama.

That's how I met you.

I was going to go do a retreat there.

You were nice enough to invite me over and then the retreat didn't end up happening for one reason or another,

But it wasn't supposed to.

We stayed in touch ever since.

And yeah,

You've been working on this book for a while.

And really,

From what I saw from a distance,

Put your heart and soul into it.

Thank you.

Yes,

I'm excited.

Yeah,

You should be.

So what's this book about?

What's this psychedelic trippy stuff going on?

Well,

The short is,

It is a story about escaping societal expectations and living a life of everyday magic.

There you go.

That's kind of,

Yeah.

The long takes people through my process of waking up at an early age.

And I say waking up with air quotes because I'm a little uncomfortable with that term.

I know that not everybody understands it.

And it feels a little egotistical to me.

But basically waking up to the fact that outside of our material world,

There is a whole other natural world and spiritual realms that I became very curious about.

Unfortunately,

That curiosity wasn't really encouraged in the 80s and 90s.

This is true.

Yeah,

We're coming out of the 60s and 70s where it kind of was encouraged.

And then like the 80s and 90s was more about excess.

And you can see it in the drugs.

I mean,

The drugs went from LSD and weed and experimental free love stuff to excess and cocaine.

Faster,

Harder,

More like just,

You know,

And that kind of represented the cultures back then.

Yeah.

And that was definitely a role.

Like psychoactive substances definitely opened my mind and actually showed me more answers to some of the questions I had about the universe.

And really set me on my journey and gave me the courage to believe that there was something outside of our like manmade constructs of what we're told is reality and that I just needed to follow my heart,

Even though it was going against the system and going against the grain.

But I became determined to find an alternative reality for myself.

Yeah.

And I think what's important here is like,

I think I'm guessing that this conversation is probably going to be pretty fun and we're going to play around with discussing different aspects of psychedelics and stuff like that.

And it's probably we're probably gonna have some cool stories in there.

But,

But like,

You know,

I think what's really important is,

You know,

I look at myself,

For example,

I mean,

I was completely lost until I was 35 until I got sober and woke up spiritually,

You know,

Through that method.

But when I look back,

You know,

I could see and this is just my own personal perspective,

But I hear it,

Especially nowadays in the last several years for many,

Many people.

When we're younger,

There was something when we're being conditioned to believe the way we're being taught by society.

There's something inside of you,

A lot of people that are going,

I don't think this is right.

Like,

I,

You know,

There's something wrong with this.

And like,

I even when I kind of had an epiphany many years ago thinking about this and I was thinking,

I was like,

You know,

I think addiction for a lot of people,

Especially like drug and alcohol addiction,

Is their refusal to forget their truth.

Because you're sitting there as a young person and these adults are telling you,

Like,

The way society works and what you're supposed to do and what life's about.

And it seems like there was a part of me and I think a lot of other addicts as well as people in general.

But,

You know,

Namely addicts for this particular example that we're sitting there going like,

I don't,

This is a load of crap.

Like,

This can't be right.

This can't be right.

So we don't fully drink the Kool-Aid.

We don't fully buy into the idea of society.

So what happens if you don't do that?

Like,

You know,

What happened with me is I never fit into society.

Why?

Because I never bought into society fully.

So that if you don't know what else to do,

If you don't do anything else,

You're stuck in a very difficult place because you don't fit into society.

You don't believe what they're telling you,

But yet you're too young and,

You know,

Unknowing to figure it out yourself.

And a lot of times I couldn't.

Yeah,

There was nothing else really at that time.

I mean,

What else was there?

Right.

And so,

I mean,

I did go to the Grateful Dead concert when I was pretty young and that showed me a whole other world of,

Like,

Western caravanning that was going on.

And people living a more spiritual life close to the earth.

But for me,

It was like,

So it's either a Grateful Dead tour or working a cubicle job that I made.

Like,

There was nothing in between.

And that's where the integration comes in,

Which I knew nothing about back then.

Exactly.

Yes,

That's it.

There was,

You know,

And as children,

Every time you speak what you probably know to be the truth,

It's,

You know,

Everybody,

You know,

You're just brushed aside.

You're told that's not realistic,

Whatever.

So you can't really latch onto it.

So it is those two things.

You either buy into society or you suffer.

And then I think which leads us to.

.

.

Well,

I wasn't suffering.

I was just going way off the rails and enjoying it.

Right.

This is what I,

That's what I was going to say.

Like,

You either buy into society or you suffer or you found a doorway.

So yeah,

But I was very far gone for a while.

And that's a bit of the struggle in the book is just finding that balance between the material and the spiritual.

I just didn't know there wasn't,

Wasn't in between,

You know.

Right.

That's it.

It's the integration.

And I think that that is,

I think that that that's the foundation for everything.

Like even my book,

You know,

Down to Earth,

A Spiritual Being's Guide to a Happy Human Experience,

Because it's,

We have to bring our spirituality into our human experience.

We have to integrate those two if we're going to find balance and a joyful existence here on this planet.

You know,

We can't because I think sometimes I think that that's a big part of the learning curve where we are now.

It's,

You know,

There's a huge spiritual movement going on.

And a huge psychedelic movement,

Which is a spiritual awakening usually.

And integration is huge in the psychedelic community as well.

It's like we gain these insights on our spiritual journeys,

Which a psychedelic journey is usually a spiritual journey.

But then what do we do with it?

How do we integrate it into our everyday life?

Right.

Right.

So,

So now I,

This is kind of curious because I have my own perception of it.

But I want to get yours.

And it's like,

What's your perspective on psychedelics as far as using them to get high as opposed to using them for spiritual awakenings or more growth centered purposes?

Well,

It's interesting because it's becoming spiritually correct to only use psychedelics for spiritual purposes where I was not even exposed to that really.

My trips were spiritual,

But they weren't intended to be.

I had no intentions.

I mean,

We were having fun and we were trying to discover more about the universe,

But it wasn't like I was writing my intentions down and choosing my set and setting.

And here's where I see a huge crossover,

Even with like spiritual bypassing.

To me,

It's like you're doing it.

You're on the journey.

To me,

It doesn't really matter the intention or,

You know,

If you're skipping over something or one aspect of it,

If you're already there,

If you're already doing it,

The rest comes.

And I was joking,

But I'm like,

What happened to fake it till you wake it?

Well,

So I mean,

This is interesting because I woke up through addiction recovery.

So like when I had no interest in doing psychedelics in any way,

Shape or form,

Because I wasn't interested in altering my mind in any way,

Shape or form,

Because I had used that as an escape for so many years,

I saw the negative aspect of it.

So I wasn't interested in doing it again.

But then all of a sudden,

Ayahuasca kept like calling me and I'm like,

What?

You know,

Like I know when something spiritually calling me.

So and just for the record,

To this point,

I have not done ayahuasca.

If the time was right,

I'm sure I would.

But so but I started looking into it and I started really seeing all the benefits that they found.

And that they've actually proven through not just ayahuasca,

But but everything really out there,

Especially,

You know,

I mean,

Let's just kind of lean in a direction of more natural stuff as opposed to manmade stuff,

Because I'm sure somebody has some controversial,

You know,

Blah,

Blah for that.

But I mean,

But,

You know,

Just the stuff that the earth provides with the ayahuasca and the mushrooms.

Yeah,

Plant medicines.

Right.

All the plant medicines,

Animal medicines and stuff like that.

Like,

I've I've now I've gotten to know some of that stuff since I've been over in the Dominican Republic and I've experienced some of it.

And wow.

Yeah,

I mean,

I took acid when I was.

.

.

You are being like spiritually correct about it.

And I completely understand.

It's because,

Like you said,

In the 60s and 70s,

You know,

Psychedelics got this far out kind of unruly reputation.

And science is now working really hard to do all these medical studies and to prove the benefits of psychedelics in clinical studies,

Healing,

You know,

PTSD,

Healing trauma,

Near death trauma for people.

It's bringing people peace who are clinically or that clinically ill know that are near death.

Yeah,

Through addiction to their having really successes.

Smoking,

Alcohol.

I mean,

There's so many benefits.

And I know that nobody wants to rock the boat.

It's like,

Wait,

We're making headway.

And so honestly,

My book is kind of stepping out in a way from what is considered politically or spiritually correct right now.

Talking about the funner aspects and like the silly side of it.

But I'm also weaving spirituality into my story and personal growth and all of it.

Right.

And I think that's good.

I think,

You know,

I like,

You know,

When I was young,

18,

19,

20,

I don't even know.

But,

You know,

I took acid and tripped like you read about,

Man,

And had some serious experiences.

I didn't awaken.

You know,

I didn't really do anything for me spiritually.

Like,

I wasn't even,

I didn't even know what spirituality was,

You know.

So,

So I mean,

To me,

It was just getting high for a night and then having some whacked out experiences and then coming back down.

So and that's what my experience was.

Well,

That was part of my confusion,

Too,

Because I was like,

Well,

Why if all my friends are using these substances with me?

Why am I the only one that's like this far out and just can't get with the program and and like even experiencing psychic abilities and like seemingly creating my reality?

Like,

Isn't anyone else seeing this?

So where I started thinking I was maybe going crazy.

Oh,

Yeah.

I bet.

I mean,

So so like,

You know,

When you said,

You know,

You were obviously talking,

Talking about using the psychedelics to get high and and have fun and also explore the mysteries of the universe.

Do you think just because do you think perhaps because you had that piece of curiosity about the universe that I had never thought about that?

Intention.

Because I really was looking for answers,

You know,

Maybe more so than my friends who are just partying or getting high.

I don't know.

That's a very interesting journal about that.

Yes.

And it's you know,

And it doesn't need an answer.

It's it's purely a hypothetical and it could be different for different people.

But it's like,

You know,

When I look at my experience,

I you know,

I was looking to get high.

I wasn't exploring the mysteries of the universe.

I didn't think that there you know,

When I saw stuff,

I didn't think it was because I went through a doorway into a different realm.

I thought I was tripping my teeth out and I saw some cool shit,

You know,

So like so like that was that.

But then now now over here,

When I took mushrooms here and when I took the mushrooms,

My intention was solely spiritual.

I mean,

I had no interest in getting high whatsoever and I didn't get high at all.

I had amazingly profound experiences and went through all types of experiences to help me grow and awaken spiritually even more.

But it was 100 percent that whereas when I was a kid,

It was 100 percent not that,

You know,

And it was a different substance,

You know,

Will be fair.

But it's just I guess that that's why.

You know,

I'm like,

OK,

I had this experience that way.

And then when my intention was different that way,

And that's why when you as soon as you said I was curious about the universe,

I was like,

Well,

Maybe that was it.

You know,

Maybe that's because I didn't know what I didn't know what I was doing when I got sober.

Like,

I didn't know I didn't you know,

My intention was to not suffer anymore.

And I didn't give a crap if I died or if I got sober.

I could care less.

But my intention was to not suffer anymore.

And that's what I found.

And I didn't do anything right.

Like,

I didn't do the steps correctly.

I don't think anybody there's no actual correct way to do the 12 steps.

You know,

I was I was a mess mentally,

Emotionally.

I couldn't do anything right to save my life.

But my intention was there.

Well,

See,

And that's what I would say about psychedelics and or spirituality,

That there is no correct way.

And I hear people throw the term spiritually bypassing around.

I don't know.

It just makes me cringe.

It sounds like a judgment.

It sounds like someone's not doing it right.

Or.

I don't know.

To me,

It's like at least you're doing it.

Yeah,

At least you're leaning towards something happier.

Well,

And,

You know,

And I think the spiritual bypassing thing,

You know,

I don't know if it's true or if it's not.

You know,

Because like you had mentioned that once and I was like,

Oh,

I that's a very interesting perspective,

Because people do spend a lot of a lot of energy defending their right to feel unhappy,

Because like many years ago,

We found we found out that you shouldn't stuff your emotions.

Right.

So the learning curve right there was like,

Oh,

We're not supposed to stuff our emotions.

I have the right to be miserable and unhappy and sad and all this stuff,

Which is.

Yeah,

You do.

You do have the right to to to feel unhappy.

And sometimes if something upsets you and you allow yourself to feel the anger and then you and then maybe you shift the way you look at it and move on with your life.

That's probably an appropriate way to handle it,

Because you're not stuffing emotions without feeling them.

But I think people have missed that part,

Like I think they're just kind of stuck with no,

I want to feel I have to feel all my emotions.

So if I'm in them,

Then I'm doing something right.

And it's like,

Yeah,

I don't think that that's true.

I think we can go.

We have to get beyond them.

We have to we don't have to sit in them.

And I think maybe that's why the spiritual bypassing has become such a catchphrase where people are like,

Well,

No,

I have to make sure I feel my emotions.

It's like,

Yeah,

OK.

You know,

It's OK to feel your emotions,

But you don't stay there.

Exactly.

I think there's just a fine line between honoring and then and then moving on.

And like there you've got to move on at some point,

Otherwise you're stuck.

And I think that we're we've come so far on the other side because there is so many mental health issues right now that we've come into an age where we need to hold space for people who are,

You know,

Suffering from depression.

And we need to be able to honor people,

People's feelings.

But at the same time,

I mean,

I just struggle with being toxically positive.

So I'm not somebody that's going to say,

Well,

Just snap out of it.

You know,

Everything happens for a reason.

I know everybody needs their time and needs to honor it.

But I'm also like,

But come on,

Like,

Lift up.

Being positive in love is the idea.

Yes.

Yes,

I agree.

And that's that's it.

It's like,

What what's the point?

I've said that many times throughout the years.

You know,

When you when sometimes we'll get into debates about and it can get very serious,

You know,

With this spiritual shit.

And like you get into these debates and everything,

Then it's all like you just let's pump the brakes for a minute.

Why are we doing all this?

Like,

What's the point?

What's the point of doing spiritual work?

What's the point in going back into your childhood?

What's the point in just being here on Earth?

What's what's the point?

You know,

And the point,

I think,

Is to be joyful and happy and enjoy our experiences here.

Like otherwise,

Why bother?

You know,

So we can.

Yes.

So we can,

You know,

Work on ourselves for the next 80 years and then on our deathbed,

Get a score or something like this.

A teacher.

Well,

You worked real hard.

You know,

Like.

Yeah,

I think it's a leftover from our linear mind.

That's how on Earth everything is linear,

So that's how we're so conditioned that that we start here and then we just continually work at something and then somebody lets us know when we graduate.

And a lot of times that mentality comes into spirituality.

It's just a mentality of work,

Work,

Work,

Work,

Work.

It's like,

That sucks.

If I woke up spiritually 18 years ago and found out that I was going to spend the next like 70 years of my life working at it.

Yeah,

I would have offed myself right then.

No freaking thank you.

No,

When I woke up spiritually,

What I found was that there was peace,

Love and joy to have right now.

I think it was on the collective conscious episode.

Like,

Let's learn from positive experiences.

We don't necessarily need the failure to learn.

That's like very cliche right now about failing.

And I know we do learn a lot from failures in our lessons,

But we also learn from our blessings.

And I've been shown like so many cool universal truths and channeled and just evidence of everyday magic to where.

I don't know,

I don't need the conflict.

And that was something that was really difficult writing because the way I wrote Heart First,

Because I was writing memoir,

It's almost like fiction.

Because there has to be an arc and there has to be conflict and resolution and tell a story.

And so I was really struggling with like,

But wait,

Why can't it just be one amazing thing after the other and I take people along for that journey.

Why as a society are we so addicted to conflict and that we have to have it in our books that we have to have it in our movies.

Otherwise,

It's just someone as I was explained many times,

It's just somebody going along doing whatever they want.

And it doesn't.

That's,

That's the book I want to read.

I want to read the book that somebody's just going off doing whatever they want.

And learning all these like universal laws and spiritual truths.

But nope,

There has to be conflict.

So from your,

You know,

So let's kind of dive into your experiences.

So you were a teenager when you started leaning into this direction and experimenting with drugs and partying and opening and different ways of life.

I started smoking weed at 14 and I first tried psychedelics at 15.

And then I got pretty into it 16,

17 for about 10 years.

Doing it very regularly,

Like every weekend if I could,

Sometimes even during school week.

I remember a girl like you in high school.

Everybody had a girl like you in high school.

Yep,

I was Miller.

The crazy one.

Nice.

But,

You know,

Here all these universal truths were unfolding for me,

And people were like,

No,

You need to learn algebra,

You're failing algebra.

You know?

Yeah.

And admittedly,

All the adults in my life were like,

Yeah,

You'll never use that,

But you just have to do this.

And so therein lies a bit of the conflict.

But also,

You know,

Really is just looking for my parents approval,

Like wanting them to approve of or understand me or understand why I was doing the things I was doing,

You know,

Why I didn't want to go to college.

You know,

What,

Why I was railing against the system,

How I could trust the universe,

How I knew everything was going to work out for me.

And that was really a missing piece for me for a long time of really searching for their approval.

So,

So how.

.

.

The dog just scared herself.

So,

So how,

Like,

When did you kind of come to that,

That truth that you knew that everything was going to be okay?

Were you young as a teenager where you were like,

You would,

You know,

Figured that out through your experiences?

Yeah,

So I'd say one of my first psychedelic trips,

You know,

And we were saying it was,

It was halfway recreational party,

It was halfway spiritual,

And it fluctuated.

So my girlfriends and I were at the beach,

I was 16 years old,

And looking at all the sand,

We were like,

Wow,

Just think one tiny,

Tiny little grain of sand makes up this entire beach,

Like put them all together,

And it makes up the entire beach.

And then think about,

You know,

All the sand on the bottom of the ocean that expands through,

You know,

The entire planet.

And then,

You know,

We would get really stupid and silly and start laughing.

Oh,

We were laughing about other people walking by and we were like,

Hey,

Look at the sand.

Like,

We're having this spiritual epiphany of all the sand and then we turn towards the water and the same thing,

One little drop of water,

It's like a Taoist principle that makes the whole and I realized that I was the same that I had all these tiny little atoms in me that made up the whole and I was just one tiny drop of water in the whole universe.

And that I was connected to everything and that I knew that by connecting the dots with my thoughts that I could choose my own reality.

I saw it almost like the stars and connecting a line to the stars of what direction I wanted to go in.

And so I guess it wasn't really until I was on my own till I was 18,

19 and started venturing out that I realized,

Okay,

Yeah,

The universe has my back.

Like,

I mean,

Think of somebody and they would show up that day in my life or,

You know,

It was little things at first.

But then one of my first journeys,

My backpacking journey that I took when I was 19,

I went up to Alaska to work in a fish factory.

Of course.

Of course.

Because what else would you do at 19?

Every young woman,

Vegetarian woman from California goes to work in fish factories.

It's a dream.

It's a common dream.

That was the dream I was connecting the dots to my reality.

Oh,

Wow.

Which it wasn't so much about fish for me.

It was just about like the great frontier and being outdoors and a true adventure.

But I went all my girlfriends had secure jobs and I didn't have anything.

And I was sure it would work out for me.

And it did.

So,

You know,

It was over the course of traveling and traveling without plans.

And actually,

I got pretty addicted to it because it is an altered state as well.

When you throw yourself out into the world and you make no plans.

I mean,

My life had absolutely no destination and I was open to endless possibilities.

So it became almost addictive of like putting my test or my faith in the universe to the test all the time.

Wow.

I'm loving this conversation because it's just like… It was so psychedelic even without psychedelics.

And I'm sure you can relate being in the Dominican Republic.

Every day is kind of psychedelic when you're exposed to new things.

And you're like trying to figure out the message and what you're supposed to do.

Or what does it mean culturally.

It is.

It is.

That's why I think this is so helpful for me.

Like when I moved over here,

Everybody's like why?

And there was many reasons.

But to sum it all up into one,

It's just because I knew I was going to be a better version of myself over here.

I knew and I could see it.

Like my cultural fears that I had been just stacking on.

And now this is… I've been spiritually awake or whatever you want to call it for 18 years.

Consistently working on myself,

Creating a business around it.

I'm kind of pretty much knee deep in this shit.

And I'm still… when I came over here,

I was still seeing all the unconscious conditioning from the United States way of life that didn't fit over here.

And the stripping away of fears,

The stripping away of me using my tools to get through life.

Like my ability to speak and intellect and rationalize.

And none of that does anything over here.

Like I don't care.

And I don't understand what you're saying because you're speaking English.

So like I was stripped away of a lot and in a different culture that doesn't function the same.

So yeah,

It's like it just strips away all these things that you leaned on unconsciously for so many years.

So it's a trip in itself.

For sure.

Yeah.

And like you said,

Stripping away the fear.

I mean,

And that was the thing.

I just wasn't going to let fear hold me back.

Like it wasn't enough to keep like this sense of security.

I pretty much saw that's a false sense of security,

Believing in money as security.

Or even at like 13,

14 years old,

I was like,

Yeah,

But anything could happen.

Absolutely.

There is no security.

People want stable jobs and stable lives.

And there isn't one.

You know,

I think COVID showed a lot of people out there like,

Oh,

Whoops.

You know,

So this is where we are.

And I'm just finding it so interesting that like,

Because I'm hearing what you're saying without any prejudice towards psychedelics.

Or prejudice against anything else.

Right.

Thank you.

So I'm hearing what you're saying.

And it's so interesting because if like,

If people did have a prejudice against psychedelics,

It would sound weird.

OK,

We have some teenagers sitting on a beach,

You know,

Pointing with,

You know,

Playing with grains of sand and saying they can understand the setup of the universe and going,

Hey,

Man,

Look at the sand.

You know,

And it sounds silly and it sounds like a joke and it sounds like some kids are fucked up doing some drugs on the beach.

Right.

And nobody takes that seriously.

But yeah,

But yeah,

If you if you go back and you listen to the world's top spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle,

Deepak Chopra,

You know,

Wayne Dyer's books.

If you go back and you look at any spiritual text like the Bible,

Like the Tao Te Ching,

You know,

Like the Koran,

They all speak of this same thing.

Exactly.

And,

You know,

So it's like this is profound stuff.

I only really had the Bible to draw upon.

And until I was like 19 or 20 and I started diving in the more,

More spiritual type text,

Like you're saying.

But yeah,

I was so confused.

I was like,

What is happening to me?

I started to feel like I was going crazy,

Especially that summer in Alaska,

When everything worked out for me far better than my friends who had planned everything to a T.

And that just showed me,

Oh,

Wow,

You let go of your expectations and you just trust and you create the unimaginable.

You make room for the unimaginable to happen in your life.

And so I was learning all these lessons,

But I was like,

What is this?

Is this asking you shall receive?

Am I just doing way too many drugs?

Like,

Do I have superpowers?

What is happening?

And I really didn't feel like I could talk to anyone about it.

I thought I would sound crazy thinking I had like guardian angels or super powers or yeah,

On too many drugs.

I had.

And it's funny because the other thing I see is,

You know,

Like I said,

This is an interesting conversation on many levels for me.

But like another thing is like I'm seeing I had I had similar experiences,

But I wasn't open enough to understand them and grow or learn from them in any type of good way.

You mean when you tried psychedelics at a younger age?

No.

Well,

I mean,

It was around that time,

But it was like like I was going through a very I went through a tough time,

Like,

You know,

17 to 22 or whatever,

Somewhere in that area in the height of my alcoholism.

And I was experimenting with a lot of drugs at that time.

But it wasn't just that.

It was,

You know,

Like at that time I was trying to figure out who I was as a person.

And,

You know,

And I started seeing some of the same things that you're saying.

Like I saw that like,

Oh,

My God,

Like my mind was I was battling depression,

Too.

So I usually had a darker slant on.

Like so.

So one point in my life,

I actually thought that I couldn't die because I was so depressed that like I was I was trying I was trying to make sense of life.

And I was like,

OK,

If there's a God and I'm like,

Yeah,

Everything that I was taught about God doesn't seem right.

But but then I was like,

Well,

Well,

If there is a God,

Why does he hate me?

It seems like he hates me and I'm not good enough for him.

So he must hate me and all that stuff.

So I created a mentality of like,

Oh,

You know,

If if God hated somebody,

What would he do?

Would he like allow them to die young or would he make them suffer here for like eight?

And I was like,

He would definitely make me suffer and he definitely hates me.

So I'm like,

There's no way I could die.

And I mean,

I literally used to like drive through red lights and just do all kinds of crazy stuff.

And I'd look at people,

I go,

I can't die.

And they're like,

Yeah,

Right.

Hang on a minute.

Watch this.

And I'd go do something that could literally kill me.

And I'd walk out the other side.

I go,

I told you.

And they're like,

Oh,

My God,

Maybe you can't die.

Well,

And that's so interesting because I write about that and how so psychedelics and same with spiritual experiences,

They give you what's typically called a sense of ego dissolution,

Where you realize that you're not your physical body,

That your spirit and that you're eternal.

But at 19,

That information was just a prescription for total recklessness.

I thought I was invincible as well.

So very interesting.

I think it is kind of that spiritual immortality type.

Yeah,

There's some sort of and I mean,

I was way too messed up battling depression and whacked out thinking and suicidal thoughts.

I was way too going in the wrong direction of negativity to to come across any positive way of looking at this,

You know,

Which I have now.

That's so interesting because I went the opposite way of just like optimal optimism,

Like and I was an eternal optimist that everything was going to work out.

And I was just going for it.

I was like that when I was younger.

But when I got into the depression stuff,

It knocked me all over the place.

And then I ended up there for a while.

But,

You know,

I made it.

So what the hell?

You know,

You're going to have to suffer probably and live till you're eight.

Well,

Yeah,

But I don't have to suffer anymore.

Thank God.

Minimally.

Thank God.

But yeah,

You know,

I think,

You know,

I think that you were you know,

This is this is how.

I think this is good because I think a lot of people do go through what I went through and not only have been through it when they were younger,

But are going through it now,

Too.

And,

You know,

But like your way,

You know,

Is obviously in my mind,

It's obviously the better way.

I mean,

Because you're if you lean in the direction of positivity and then all of a sudden these questions start popping through your head,

You're going to find the answer that's closer to the truth.

You know,

My answer wasn't very close to the truth.

I mean,

Maybe I was I couldn't die.

But but my reasoning was so detrimental to my life.

Well,

I do believe that it is also intention.

Then you're sending your focus towards more negativity and darkness.

And it keeps you there,

You know?

Yeah,

I got stuck in the darkness until I guess over.

Really,

You know,

That's and now that was unfortunate.

But then,

You know,

Of course,

I popped open and all that stuff.

So that's cool.

But but like your you know,

Your journey,

You were able to you were able to take this and and learn.

So you were in your late teens,

Early 20s,

And you were already really kind of getting this stuff.

So so like when did you said that you weren't really sure you weren't really sure as far as the.

Like you thought you might be going crazy,

But you were having these epiphanies.

When did this stuff start settling and you started kind of making some sense of some of it?

It's not just sporadic through the next 20 years.

I was just testing it out.

I was like,

All right.

So it seems like I am creating my own reality.

Here I am living with no plans and a little bit of money.

And I managed to find a job.

And so then I was like,

Let's take it to the next level.

Let's go travel with no plans and no money.

And let's see what the universe has in store.

Right.

Let's see if everything works out.

And here the adult in my life and the parent and my parents,

Like you said,

They were not thinking like,

Oh,

This is a spiritual quest.

They were worried about me,

You know,

Thinking I was crazy,

Making stupid life decisions.

And here I was like,

No,

I'm going to I'm going to crack the code.

You know,

Nice,

Because I was like,

OK,

So am I co creating my reality?

Am I creating it?

Is the creator creating it?

And I just kept on having more and more experiences that kept,

You know,

Layering my knowledge and giving me more.

I looked at it as like rewards for taking that step.

It's like,

OK,

No risk,

No reward.

Wow.

Look at what you're being shown now.

I mean,

Wow.

I've had out of body experiences.

I've channeled information and have it be told back to me that same day to where I was like,

I am not making this shit up.

Oh,

Yeah.

And then it was just interesting,

Like,

You know,

I was opening myself up to all these opportunities.

But when you're 19 or 20,

What opportunities are coming are like some guys in a van inviting me to go to the Rainbow Festival.

I'm like,

Excellent.

See,

The universe has got a plan.

And it wants me at the Rainbow Festival.

The Rainbow Gathering.

So,

Yeah.

And then I was just like testing it out and like,

OK,

So what are these people doing?

Like,

This is a intentional community.

It's a prayer for world peace.

Right.

The Rainbow family gathers in the National Forest and creates like a whole village.

For one week to where people come together and they drum and they chant and they they feed each other.

It doesn't cost any money when you go in.

I'm like,

To me,

This is an opportunity to see what else there is in the world.

Like,

What are their possibilities?

OK,

Here's people who don't have real jobs.

Like,

What does that look like?

Yeah,

That expands your mind so you can see things differently.

For sure.

I feel like it's almost like that book.

Are you my mother?

Are you my lifestyle?

Yeah.

Try them all on for size.

Yeah,

Because I didn't really know what was available.

So I was like,

OK,

This is happening.

And there's like diehard rainbows that are on rainbow tour that travel with the Rainbow family.

And that's what they do.

You know,

I'm like,

OK,

Yeah,

No,

That's not really my thing.

But like,

Cool to see.

I mean,

I share the same ideologies,

Our respect for the Earth.

You know,

Living in harmony together with all our brothers and sisters.

Like,

OK.

And so I just kept following the breadcrumbs and following the opportunities.

And and that's what's a call to adventure.

I was just going wherever adventure called and and just really trying to find my own way and open to whatever that would be.

That's I mean,

It's you know what it is.

You used your life as a as a spiritual journey,

You know,

Like that,

You know.

And I mean,

I guess,

You know,

I guess I guess I'll just be a realist at some point.

Say like,

You know,

We we get to choose our own way.

So like not everybody that's listening needs to go quit their job,

Take acid and travel the world,

You know,

To find themselves spiritually.

But like that is a way to do it,

Too.

You know,

It's just it's it's it's about what you're finding out.

You know,

Like you like the name of your book is Heart First.

So it's about leading with the heart and finding what works for you and,

You know,

Through exposing yourself to different examples and different experiences that other people do and and going,

Oh,

Wow,

This is really cool.

I have a lot in common with you people,

But I'm not going to join you and travel because that's not what that's not what my heart is telling me I should do.

But I really like the way you guys look at life.

That's cool.

You know,

And then you go on to your next adventure.

It's it's it's like it's such you know,

Sometimes I talk with kids that are in college and stuff.

And it's what you know,

What I'm realizing is what I'm teaching them is kind of a maybe for lack of a better term,

A ground more grounded version of what you were doing.

I'm like,

If you're in college and you don't know,

Just,

You know,

Get some of your primary courses out of the way and experiment and look around and follow your heart.

Something captures your attention.

Follow that.

If something brings you joy,

Follow that.

That's our guidance system.

And we've you know,

A lot of people don't even know that that that's our guidance system.

It's like why would a creator like whether it's a loving God or just some like a creative intelligence,

You know,

Intelligence is the key word.

Like this some sort of intelligence that makes no matter what you believe,

There's some sort of intelligence out there that makes things.

Why would something intelligent set up a system where you don't like what you're supposed to be doing?

And look how intelligent it is.

Trees that make oxygen that we can breathe and yeah rivers that yeah.

Right.

So there's examples of intelligence everywhere in all ways around us that nature provides and it's just endless the ways that we can see its intelligence at work.

But yeah,

It's going to create a system that makes no sense whatsoever.

That's foolish.

Of course,

It's of course our guidance system is going to make sense.

Of course,

It's.

So what would make sense?

I don't know something that feels good would then you would want to do it more.

I mean,

Look at sex.

That's why sex feels good because nature wants us to do it.

If nature didn't want us to do it,

It wouldn't have made it feel good.

So it's the same thing when we're walking through our life.

If we're paying attention to what makes us feel good,

What captures our attention,

What our heart is calling for.

That's our guidance system.

Now,

You may have done it traveling all over the world in this cool ass story,

Which is actually your life.

But there's many ways of doing now.

We can do it that way.

Like you did.

We can.

You know,

Now I'm doing it your way.

I started off just really asking the questions and following my trains of thought.

And I started off realizing,

Oh,

Well,

That seems pretty common sensical.

This isn't something someone's teaching me in school.

But if I follow the thought,

I pretty much come to my own conclusion.

That makes more sense than what other people are saying.

Like,

If God is love,

Let's just go down a train of thought here.

You know,

Why would he have people burn in hell?

You know,

And then my 12 year old mind would follow that thought and go,

Well,

That makes no sense.

He wouldn't.

He or she.

Right?

They wouldn't.

If it's a loving God,

Then,

You know.

Right.

It's like,

You know,

I think we're made in the image and likeness of our creator as far as what's innate within us.

You know,

So like when I look at this is why like me having my son,

I used to use that train of thought all the time because I'm like,

OK,

Would I create would I create a world where my children.

Like if they didn't do what I told them to do,

Then they were going to burn in hell for eternity.

No,

No,

I would not create a system like that.

You know,

I'd be leaning more towards unconditional love personally.

Right.

You know,

And God doesn't have an ego.

He doesn't need my freakin approval.

He doesn't need me to do what he to do what he says for him to feel good about himself.

But what you were saying of teaching like college students just to listen to their hearts or listening to their gut feeling.

It's just that that I started learning through observation and realizing that that's a whole other way to learn and being present.

It's like if we're so wrapped up in our jobs and school and people's expectations of us and where we need to be,

We're not even going to notice the miracles that are all around us or these opportunities.

Someone can be like,

Hey,

Over here,

Come this way,

You know,

Free school job,

Whatever you want.

And you're like,

Nope,

Nope,

Nope.

Got to see now.

Must be a cat.

That door right now.

Right.

Yeah,

It's true.

We miss you know,

We miss the opportunities a lot just because a lot of times we get so upset that things don't go the way we want them to.

You know,

It's like something we go,

Oh,

I want I want I'm not sure which job I should take.

I'll I'll I'll take this one.

I think that's the right one.

You get there and you're like,

Oh,

My God,

This is horrible.

I made the wrong choice.

And instead of going,

Oh,

OK,

The universe has my back.

So that means if this is the wrong one,

There's a window open somewhere for me to climb out to the next opportunity because the universe has my back.

God has my back.

I'm loved.

I'm cared for.

I'm protected.

Instead of doing that,

You're going,

Oh,

My God,

I oh,

My God,

I made the wrong choice.

And they beat themselves up for making the wrong choice.

And now I'm stuck here.

Oh,

No.

And this is horrible.

And it's like and you know,

Meanwhile,

You know,

There's a bird in the window going.

Yeah,

I think you don't even see it because you're too in your head about the intellectual decisions.

But if we just relax,

We look around,

There's always opportunities.

You know,

Opportunity doesn't knock once.

That's all it does.

It's only job.

It just runs around knocking all the time.

And if we weren't so,

You know,

Having our earmuffs on and so focused,

We'd be looking around going,

Oh,

What's next?

Sun next.

Sun,

Good's coming.

Where is it?

You know?

Yeah,

I think it's awesome that you learned all this stuff and the way you learned it.

You know,

It's what a.

Can you talk to my parents?

No.

Can you talk to mine?

Yeah,

But I mean,

It's just so you know what?

And I think this is actually a good point to make to people out there.

And I was I was actually having a conversation kind of on this point with my parents the other night.

And it's we were talking about action takers and processors.

But,

You know,

I want to keep it on point with what we're talking about.

It's just different ways of doing things.

Right.

So like in action takers and processors,

Like an action take,

I'm an action taker.

So I'll take the action and then I see processors not taking the action and I'm sitting there going,

What are you waiting for?

Just take the action.

And it takes them forever to process and get themselves ready and then to finally take the action.

And meanwhile,

I'm pulling my hair out,

You know.

Yeah.

And Myers Briggs,

I think it's like feeling and perceiving or something like that.

And I'm a feeler,

An action taker.

But the rest of my family is a processor for sure.

Mine too.

They're very logical.

Mine too.

And I take I mean,

I'm very logical,

But I do take action like I I try.

Well,

No,

I've always been like this.

I trust myself,

You know,

Like.

And now that's in alignment with the universe.

When I was younger,

It was just I had no fear of consequences.

I didn't give a shit what you did to me.

I knew that I'd make it.

So but regardless,

I've always trusted myself.

But when I take action,

What I've noticed is that I do go through an adjustment period after.

Like I take the action and then am I just swimming like a professional swimmer?

No,

It takes me a little while to learn my way of swimming and getting used to living the way that I decided to live when I took that action.

And there's an adjustment period after.

And I noticed that processors have a shorter adjustment period after.

So I don't think there's that big of a difference between the way we do things.

It's like I can take action in the first month and then take five months to make the adjustments after.

And a processor takes five months to take the process.

But then they take the action and it almost has no adjustment period.

So it's still six months,

You know?

Yeah,

It's not good.

It's not bad.

It just is.

It just is.

Right.

So I think it's,

You know,

If you look at,

You know,

Which really leads to the point of I think this conversation and,

You know,

Your life is such a good example of that.

Instead of judging how somebody did it or what's right and what's wrong,

Just do what's right for you.

There's not one way,

You know,

And if you follow your heart,

You're going to find that way for you.

And maybe it's an action taker.

Maybe it's a processor.

Maybe it's a little bit of both.

Maybe you'll,

You know,

You'll lean into the psychedelics and open up that way to your spirituality.

Maybe you'll find spirituality and then fall into the psychedelics.

Maybe psychedelics won't have anything to do with it.

Whatever.

Maybe you come into a yoga practice.

You become a yoga instructor.

You discover travel or now you can work globally and live abroad and you're experiencing new things and following your heart.

It really is all about just following your heart.

That's it.

Following your heart and,

You know,

Having the experiences.

Well,

You know,

I could talk to you for another three hours.

But we're trying to wrap this up and keep it under an hour,

Which we're just about to do.

So I'm going to say goodbye and then maybe we can maybe we'll have another discussion.

Sounds great.

Yeah,

I think there's more to uncover here.

So I'll send you a book and then we could have a book club meeting.

Oh,

Oh,

All right.

More to look into.

It will be an altered stay as well.

You get a contact high from the book.

Oh,

Nice.

You didn't put acid on the pages.

Did you know it would cost a lot more.

All right.

I'm going to wrap up so we can end this before an hour.

So thank you,

Everybody.

Thank you,

Michelle,

For being.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

It was fun.

Absolutely.

We'll do it again.

And thank you,

Everybody,

For listening.

And we're going to say goodbye.

Talk soon.

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