We need an updated and broader narrative with respect to the field of psychedelics. While legitimate clinical research and societal openness to these remedies may be on the rise, so too is the confusion and misinformation. Therapist and researcher Sean Lawlor has emerged as a leading voice in articulating a new understanding of this long-maligned field of therapy and healing.
Here, Tami Simon speaks with Sean about his new book, Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing, in a nuanced conversation on: the various categories of plant medicines and psychedelics; the risk of destabilization or “psychotic break” through overdosing; ketamine; working with the body to process challenging emotions, memories, and experiences; the differences between MDMA, ketamine, DMT, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and other substances; meeting trauma from a place of love; personal responsibility in the use of psychedelic-supported therapy; turning toward and meeting as fully as possible whatever we experience; overcoming shame; factors and approaches that support lasting transformation via psychedelic-assisted therapy; psychedelics and the brain’s neuroplasticity; discernment and reasonable expectations; intuition and the healer within; microdosing; and more.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
Becca Piastrelli is a writer, speaker, ancestral folk medicine keeper, and women’s group facilitator. She is a leader in women’s empowerment and earth wisdom, teaching women how to cultivate a greater sense of belonging. With Sounds True, she has authored the book Root and Ritual. In this podcast, Becca joins Tami Simon to discuss the lifelong journey of reclaiming our sense of belonging, with a particular focus on four areas: land, lineage, community, and self. Becca and Tami also explore the concept of loneliness as both a personal and a systemic challenge, humbling ourselves to the natural world, confronting the pain and grief of colonization, listening to the soul of your home, healing the “great severing” of our root systems, the Indigenous concept of the “ever happening” and receiving the support of our ancestors, the somatic experience of ritual, the importance of being witnessed in our journey of transformation, and much more.
Grieving a cat—or any kind of grief—is not a one-size-fits-all experience (as though any experience or emotion were?). Some people can’t stop sobbing, while others reflect quietly. Some are comforted by hugs and rituals; others need solitude to process their loss.
There’s no “right” way to grieve, and there’s no “right” length of time. In fact, I don’t see a loss as something we “get over,” but rather something that becomes a part of our life experience. When our skin is gravely injured, it doesn’t go back to looking the way it did before; it heals, and we have a scar.
Loss changes the fabric of our lives; it changes the way we perceive and interact with the world. And like a scar, walking through grief (not trying to circumvent it) makes something in us stronger, more resilient. Grief is something to be healed, not to transcend.
Grief is nonlinear, too. Our human minds would love to make grief into a process that has a distinct beginning, middle and end…but in my experience, that’s just not true. Grief, like life, is messy and unpredictable. As Jon Kabat-Zinn writes, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
We all grieve, and for each of us, our grief is as unique as a fingerprint. If we try to avoid grief, it will redouble its strength and burst forth anyway. However you need to grieve, that’s the right way for you.
An original post by Sarah Chancey, the author of P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna, the first gift book for people grieving the loss of their feline friend. This originally appeared on morethantuna.com.
Sarah Chauncey has written and edited for nearly every medium over the past three decades, from print to television to digital. Her writing has been featured on EckhartTolle.com and Modern Loss, as well as in Lion’s Roar and Canadian Living. She lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, where she divides her time between writing, editing nonfiction, and walking in nature. Learn more at morethantuna.com and sarahchauncey.com.
When we talk about what secure attachment looks like, it’s not
unusual for people to give themselves a hard time. It seems like such a high
bar, and when we look at it that way, it’s easy to feel not quite up to snuff.
I can relate to that feeling, and I think it’s quite normal for everyone to
feel that way from time to time.
We all have emotional reactions we’re
not proud of, and most of us contribute our fair share to arguments and
unnecessarily difficult conversations. And many of us simply aren’t as present
as we’d like to be. We don’t feel quite here enough—either we’re distracted by
one thing or another, or we’re not as attentive as we think we should be.
Again, all of this is normal. Most of these things happen regularly—at least
they do for me! The main point is to care enough to notice when things are less
than ideal. That means having enough presence to know that things are a little
off and enough compassion to want to do a retake, to make things better.
There’s more wiggle room than you’d think. It’s okay to goof up, make mistakes,
and be less than our perfect self. The attachment system is a forgiving system,
and it makes a world of difference to register when we miss each other and mend
when things go awry as soon as possible.
We can all do a better job, of
course, and that’s where practice comes in. I want to offer you ways to
practice fostering secure attachment in yourself and others. These are methods
for boosting your secure attachment skills. The idea isn’t to ace every one of
these, but pick out one or two that you feel called to work on and practice
these the best you can. Hopefully, there are secure attachment skills here for
everyone—skills you can offer others in your life, skills to practice mutually
in your relationships, and skills to encourage secure attachment in yourself.
Secure Attachment Skill #1: Listen Deeply
Let’s start with one of the more obvious skills. We all know
the value of listening, but most of us haven’t actually taken the time to
develop our listening skills in any ongoing way. When we listen deeply, reflect
back to the other person, and ask questions that help us understand them, we
allow the other person to inform us of what’s going on with them—not in a superficial
way, but in a manner that empowers them to really dive in, feel their feelings,
and express them to us until we truly get them. We’re not simply listening
until they take a breath so that we can jump into the conversation and say
what’s on our mind. Listening deeply means that we respond with considerate
questions meant to foster and convey understanding, and we always give space
before explaining our perspective.
It’s important to note that when we
listen to another person, we don’t have to believe or agree with what they are
saying. Really listening to someone means that we don’t immediately respond to
what they’re saying with denial or criticism. Instead of negating their concern
or getting into an argument about it, we just listen. That’s it. And we can
open up the contingency space even further by trying to resonate with them. “I
understand why you’d be upset about that, and I can see that really hurt you,”
for example. In other words, listening in this way means you’re offering to
hold—to contain—whatever it is that they’re dealing with and be present with
them, regardless of their emotional responses and reactions.
I think most of us have this in
common: more than we want to be convinced otherwise or placated, we just really
want to be heard on a deep level. That can be hard at times, of course, because
relationships can bring up a lot of stuff for us, and it’s natural to have
challenges when dealing with other people, especially those closest to us. But
if we can do our best to listen, we can make the best of difficult situations,
and we’ll have a much better chance of closing the gap between us and the
person we’re listening to.
Secure Attachment Skill #2: Practice Presence
Listening is one of the ways we can show presence, which is one of the most important gifts we can give ourselves and others in relationships. Presence isn’t a static thing; it’s a way of being. Presence means showing up, paying attention, and letting the other person know that we’re there for them with whatever’s going on. It means we do our best to put aside our own worries and concerns and be with them in an undistracted way. This can be hard in today’s world when it’s common to be on our devices so much of the time, but I highly recommend setting your phone or tablet aside when you want to show someone else that you’re truly present for them. Of course, this is impossible to do perfectly all the time, but there are certain things we can do to practice presence in order to become more available to others, as well as to ourselves.
Committing to remain undistracted with another person in a world that is so full of distractions is a powerful and fulfilling practice.Try it at dinner sometime: put everyone’s silenced cell phone in a basket while you’re enjoying the meal together and see what a difference it makes in your ability to connect. Attention is an extremely valuable commodity, and I recommend as much device-free, face-to-face time as you can manage. People know if you’re fully present or not, and it matters to them. Try being present when you’re on the phone sometime. Instead of doing something else—like surfing the Internet or washing the dishes—sit down and try to be as present and attentive as you possibly can. Give undistracted time to the people who are important to you and watch how that transforms your relationships.
Secure Attachment Skill #3: Attune
Attunement can mean a lot of things, but in this case it means becoming curious about another person’s experience and working to understand what they’re all about, discovering them in new ways and trying to resonate with them. How do they see the world? How do they experience their own feelings? And whatever emotions or situations arise, attunement also means that we do our best to connect with other people and let them know we’re there. Attunement is what enables that sense of contingency to arise. It lets the other person know that we really get them—that we’re by their side. This is an invaluable experience to receive and to offer another person.
Being dedicated to attunement also keeps us in touch with when we fall out of attunement with others, which is crucial knowledge to have in relationships. We’re oriented toward connection, but we’re also aware when that connection isn’t quite as we’d like it to be. If you feel you are not quite in sync with someone or are concerned that you don’t fully understand their situation or their feelings, ask the person to tell you more about what they are trying to share. Ask caring and clarifying questions.
Secure Attachment Skill #4: Engage in Joint Attention
Joint attention means mutually being there for each other, no
matter what you’re doing: meditating together, dancing to your favorite song,
telling jokes, making meals, or exercising. Any activity can serve to foster
more secure attachment with your partner, child, family member, or friend when
enacted with joint attention. You could be watching a movie on the flat-screen
from your couch and still practice joint attention (for example, occasionally
making eye contact with each other, laughing together, or having a conversation
later about the film).
Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D., is an established expert in
the field of Child and Adult Attachment Theory and Models, trauma resolution,
and integrative healing techniques. Diane developed her own signature series on
Adult Attachment called DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience) also
known as SATe (Somatic Attachment Training experience). Dr. Heller began her
work with Dr. Peter Levine, founder of SETI (Somatic Experiencing® Trauma
Institute) in 1989. As Senior Faculty for SETI, she taught Somatic
Experiencing® trauma work internationally for over 25 years. As a dynamic
speaker and teacher, Diane has been featured at prestigious international
events and conferences. She is the author of numerous articles in the field.
Her book Crash
Course, on auto accident trauma resolution, is used worldwide as a resource
for healing a variety of overwhelming life events. Her film, Surviving Columbine, produced with
Cherokee Studios, aired on CNN and supported community healing in the aftermath
of the school shootings. Sounds True recently published Dr. Heller’s audiobook Healing Your Attachment Wounds: How to
Create Deep and Lasting Relationships, and her book, The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate
Relationships.
As developer of DARe and
president of Trauma Solutions, a psychotherapy training organization, Dr.
Heller supports the helping community through an array of specialized topics.
She maintains a limited private practice in Louisville, Colorado.
Tami Simon speaks with Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD, who is certified in family practice, geriatrics, and psychiatry, and has worked for years in rural emergency medicine. He is the author of several books, including Narrative Medicine and Coyote Healing. Dr. Mehl-Madrona has worked in collaboration with Sounds True to create two new programs: The Spirit of Healing and Native American Healing Meditations.In this episode of Insights at the Edge Dr. Mehl-Madrona speaks with Tami Simon about what Native American wisdom can offer modern medicine; the value of relational, storied, and ceremonial culture; and the role of spirit beings in the healing process. (57 minutes)
Malidoma Somé is a West African elder and teacher from the Dagara tribe in Burkina Faso, West Africa. A beloved speaker and workshop facilitator, Malidoma is the author of several books including Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Malidoma and Tami Simon discuss the methods and rituals required to contact one’s ancestors—as well as the nature of the parallel world that they inhabit. They also talk about what we can do to resolve interpersonal issues with family members that have already passed into the next world. Finally, Tami and Malidoma speak on the most important lessons that the West can learn from the Dagara, and in turn what the Dagara might learn from the West. (68 minutes)
Sarah Chauncey
