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THIS IS WE
Morgan's Voyage: Navigating the Rapids of Self-Love, Grief, and Unconventional Healing Paths
When Morgan, a clinical social worker specializing in eating disorders, trauma, and emotion regulation, sat down with me, Portia Chambers, it was as if a dam burst within her, releasing a stream of profound insights on the interconnectedness of self-love, grief, and healing. Her own journey through these tumultuous waters serves as a compass for anyone navigating the complex emotions tied to self-worth and love's various, often unexpected, forms. Together, we traverse Morgan's past struggles with inadequacy and the healing she found in embracing her limitations as acts of self-care.
The soul of our discussion lies in the raw narratives of loss and the subsequent exploration of unorthodox healing methods that Morgan bravely undertook, like ayahuasca in the jungle and transformative breathwork practice. Her experiences shine a light on the path to surrendering the 'hustle' mentality, finding peace in stillness, and redefining love as a concept built on integrity and showing up authentically. These powerful stories underscore the need for self-care tailored to the individual, advocating for a fluid approach that respects the ever-shifting landscape of our needs.
As we wrap up our heart-to-heart, we delve into the potential of psychedelics like psilocybin in the realm of healing and the importance of proper integration post-experience. The candid discussion also offers a fresh perspective on self-love, encouraging listeners to boldly redefine love in their lives, to find a balance in caring for others without compromising their own comfort, and to stand steadfast in their personally defined boundaries. Morgan leaves us with a powerful reminder that embracing our authentic selves is the bravest act of love we can perform for ourselves and others.
Connect with Morgan @morganweatherup
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Join me, portia Chambers, as I sit down with women just like you, sharing moments in their lives that shaped them into who they are today Stories of motherhood, betrayal, transformation, love and loss, vulnerable conversations, deep connection and collective healing.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the this Is we podcast. I am so excited to have our next guest here with us. Morgan is a registered clinical social worker specializing in treating eating disorders, emotion regulation and trauma from emotion-focused and nervous system-based approaches. Morgan's heart and soul are grounded in providing supportive, high-quality and evidence-informed treatment for children, teens, families, parents and young adults, and evidence-informed treatment for children, teens, families, parents and young adults. In 2019, morgan founded her own mental health practice called the Healing Recovery Center, which is known for its holistic approach to traditional therapy experiences, with the motto you deserve more than one way to heal. Morgan, I'm so excited you are here. Hi, I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to listen to your story. I know that you we have talked about it a little bit in, like previous conversations, and I'm really excited for you to share it with everybody today, so let's get started.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll jump right in. I was thinking about this and like how to put the story together in the days leading up to this conversation and I was thinking about like, okay, what is really? What is the story really about? And we had talked before about grief, and when I really started to think about it it was about actually about love and a lack of love in my life for myself and just kind of in general, and from that was a lot of grief and that was the catalyst that really brought me to my knees to make things change. And so when I think about, okay, how did this all start?
Speaker 2:For a long time I told myself this story that it started with my aunt getting really sick and passing away and the year prior to that, my uncle getting really sick and passing away and our family going through the process of palliating both of those pillars in our family at home and, you know, in a really difficult situation. But when I really kind of think about it, that is the moment I cracked, but it's not the moment that things went wrong or things started to go wrong. There was this lingering. I cracked, but it's not the moment that things went wrong or things started to go wrong. There was this lingering, I think, from even being a really young kid and just kind of picked up over and over and over again as I progressed through life, of feeling like not good enough or feeling like I needed to prove something or hustle or, you know, earn my value. And when I really think about what that is now, I think about that being a lack of love in my life and a lack of appreciation in my life.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, like there was so much anger and so much like resentment in my life leading up to those big moments of breaking, because I felt like no matter what I did, it was never enough.
Speaker 2:There was always like the next thing or the next accolade or the next achievement.
Speaker 2:And when my aunt got sick it just really put things into perspective for me that everything you care about can be taken away really quickly, really suddenly. She was like such a big part of my life my mom and her would do trips with me and my sister together, like she was like another parent to me and I just imagined her at all of the big milestones of my life, and then she was taken away really suddenly, in a really difficult way, way too young, and so that, yeah, I remember like working during COVID while she was sick and in between meetings, lying on my bed with like no energy and no like nothing in me to go, and instead of loving myself enough to say like I actually can't work right now, I need to be with my family, I put myself through hell to try to do it all, to be the best and to be enough for everybody in my life, when really I was like not being enough for me and that's caused me to break.
Speaker 1:I kind of want to talk about that a little bit before we kind of continue into your story of not being enough. I feel like I feel like that's something that I, as you're talking, I'm like damn, like I feel like I can really resonate with that and trying to earn love and kind of in the same breath, like trying to earn love but at the same time trying to push it away. And so what would you kind of say to people that are like me, that are like I want love in my life, especially love for myself, from myself, but are very easily to be, very easily to kind of push it off and brush it off as if I'm not worth it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wouldn't have had an answer to that question like a really authentic answer to that question until very recently. I was a part of a psychedelic session that was based around love and really understanding what love is all about, and what we all learned was love isn't this like? Like, let me do nice things for people, or let me you know people, please, or show up in these great ways, or buy these amazing gifts, um, or take care of myself, like, let me show up to this yoga class or this breathwork thing or whatever. It's about actually being able to accept that sometimes to truly love is to also know profound pain and disappointment. And so what I would say is like you really think about what your definition of love is, because I think we push away love, or we push away different things in our life, because our definition of what love is supposed to be is different than what love really is. If I feel like I need to earn love through achievements or through nice things, then my definition of love is not actually what I believe love is. It's hustle culture, wrapped up in this word of like love and acceptance and belonging, wrapped up in this world of like love and acceptance and belonging, and so I, for me, I think love is being able to show up as yourself, even if it means disappointing other people. Loving somebody enough to say I can't do this in the way that you need me to do it, because that's actually showing yourself true love, and also being able to show the other person that they never have to second guess you.
Speaker 2:And in this journey that we did through psilocybin, part of the journey was my friend having to tell me this person I love so much, having to tell me that she couldn't do something that was really important the next day for me, and it was this whole thing of crying and being upset and she's like I don't even know why.
Speaker 2:I don't know why I can't do this for me, and like it was this whole thing of like crying and being upset and and she's like I don't even know why. I don't know why I can't do this for you. I really want to. This wasn't even in my mind before the journey and like both of us having this moment of wow, I'm so proud of you for being able to say what you need instead of just pushing through and showing up for me, because that's what we think love is, and me being able to love myself enough to support her but also take care of the grief or the sadness that comes with her decision, knowing it's not actually about me at all, that I can celebrate her and take care and nurture whatever feelings come up for me without any blame or resentment being present, and that was really profound for me and that's hard, Like it's not, it's not easy.
Speaker 1:I and it's funny that you're saying that, because I really felt this like I just went away by myself and I really felt love for myself, Like every single day it was more, and like when I would talk to my husband and my daughter like, oh, we wish you were here. And I'm like your guilt is not like you're trying to make me feel guilty and I don't feel guilty because I love it here, Like I love who I am here, I love being separated, I love how my brain feels, how my body feels, how my heart feels, and I was just like I'm like I'm not sorry.
Speaker 2:Right, but I'm here. Even for them, though, right, like them thinking, their way of showing you love is to say I miss you, I wish you were here, right, and and it comes out as guilt. But that that's again. It's another example of like how we we wrap up guilt in this and disguise it with, like, this layer of love, but it's not actually that their intentions are so pure and so good. But what would it be like if they could understand that love was taking care of themselves in your absence and celebrating the fact that you were, like I'm taking a solo trip for the very first time and being able to take that step to do that thing that was so nourishing for you? Like, we don't have those conversations in life, and I don't think people even realize where they're, maybe thinking that they're coming from a place of love and they're really not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so true, and I love how you brought up the point of you know, really understanding love is kind of seeing the other side of it and you know the hard pain of love and I and I don't think I really really truly understood love until I experienced deep grief, and I don't even want to say it was the first time I experienced grief.
Speaker 1:It was like multiple things that, like multiple grief experiences or times throughout my life that I really started to understand the true value of love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now my motto is like things die, like I'm now accepting death a little bit more like and in different variations of it, like I have chickens and I've now accepting death a little bit more like, in different variations of it. Like I have chickens and I've now come to, you know, when the first one dies, I, I, my husband dug a grave in the rain, torrential downpour, as I'm crying, like holding my bird, like I was just so devastated. And then, every single time, after I just learned a little bit, like I was just so devastated, and then, every single time after I just learned a little bit, like, okay, this is the price I pay for love and I'm going to love these chickens, these pets, these purse this person wholeheartedly the entire time that they are here, and I know at some point in time that I am going to have to grieve them, but that's okay, cause I know that I love them fully now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like that saying, and I've like really been thinking about this so much. Similar to you, I don't think I made these connections until recently, when I've lost people or had devastating situations. But there's that quote where when you know profound pain and sadness, it means that you also knew profound love. But you can't, you don't actually experience sadness and heartbreak and grief if you'd never experienced true love. And so like what a blessing to have those feelings and experience that, Because it really is the reminder that there was something amazing that we had that's worthy of grieving and sadness amazing that we had.
Speaker 1:That's worthy of grieving and sadness. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, that's so true. And even when I like, as you're speaking, I'm linking back at other moments of loss and how the loss wasn't as devastating because the love was very different yeah, it was, I was, I loved it, I guess in a different way. And or maybe it wasn't full love, maybe it was just less like it wasn't. It wasn't the same experience. So I would love for you to continue the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, so my aunt had, uh, she was struggling with cancer and um had passed away, and this was at the height of the pandemic. So we have a very big family. We obviously all wanted to be there to help no-transcript, because we couldn't actually be there with her. It was a small amount of people or we were seeing her through glass and that was really hard until our family made the decision to just take the risk. And so when she finally kind of passed and went into a state of peace cause she was suffering, I remember my mom coming into my room that day with my grandmother and like laying in bed and her saying, you know, she's, she's gone, and like there wasn't even tears. I was so tired and so angry and resentful that I, just at life, not even at her passing, just at life, and like the way that I had to function, um, that I didn't even have tears, like I couldn't even connect with feeling. And that was one of those moments where I really realized, um, I'm really not doing well, like this is someone so important to me I know I'm, you know, I know this is devastating and I can't even feel anything. I'm so numb and I think for a long time in my life I built up this ability to not feel, I think, especially as a therapist. There's this lie out there where like oh, don't cry in front of your patients, and you know you're not supposed to feel, and like somehow we're not supposed to be human beings. But I definitely bought the lie as a means to like be the best or be worthy or whatever, um, and so I noticed that and, you know, tried to kind of produce some sort of an emotion and just laid there with my mom and my grandmother which was my, my aunt's sister and then my aunt's mom, and just noticed the pain in the room.
Speaker 2:And then a couple months went by after her passing and I continued to experience lots of anger and hustling and I just started working, more to the point where I was sleeping in my office at points, not leaving the hospital, and just had to keep myself as busy as possible. Like not leaving the hospital and just like had to keep myself as busy as possible. It was almost like the word, the need for worthiness and the need for this, you know, false sense of love went into overdrive. And so I remember driving home at some God awful hour from the hospital and having a conversation with Holly, who's my cousin, who we run retreats with through our rooted emergence company and both of us being in a really bad place, and she actually had said I'm going to go do ayahuasca, do you want to come with me? And I was like, yeah, I want to come, and I had not talked to my partner about it. I had not talked to my my partner about it, I had not talked to anybody in my in my life about it. Got on a call a couple of days later with the center. We were going to answer all the questions.
Speaker 2:I had a little bit of an intake and I was leaving in a month and a half to go to the jungle to do. In my mind it was to do drugs. I had I've never, like I am allergic to alcohol, I don't do. I, you know, smoked weed a couple of times as a teenager. I've never done anything before, um, and so I'm. I was desperate. I had tried all the therapy and all the things and I needed something.
Speaker 2:And so I remember being at Pearson, getting dropped off, being like I'm going to the jungle to do drugs like this. I like, are we sure? Are we sure about this like I don't even know what's going on. And we got there and it was great and, um, before you do the medicine, we uh, you have to do. You do breath work. And I had never even I never even really heard of that before. I knew what it was from taking a couple of yoga classes and just the idea of breathing. As a therapist, we talk about deep breaths, but I was a therapist that was like, yeah, don't worry, I'm not going to teach you how to do deep breathing, Like that stuff doesn't really work. Which is just like highlights how disconnected I was from myself to even be saying like really believing that. Um, and so we did this breathwork experience and I was so desperate to get better and feel better and I was like, okay, I'm going to give it all I got.
Speaker 2:And that brought that hustle mentality, did the breathing exactly right, like as deep as I could go, and at some point my body just got tired and I couldn't hustle anymore and it fell into this really restful rhythm of breathing. And that's when I started to have all these visuals and see all these things and what I saw was a younger version of myself running away from me through this forest and I felt this panic, needing to catch her, and I couldn't catch her and she kept looking back, like terrified, at me and running and running and running, and then the breathwork was over and the journey was over and I was like, oh my god, what is? What is that? Thank god, I'm here, um.
Speaker 2:And then I went into my ayahuasca ceremonies and, you know, hustled and was like I'm gonna, I'm gonna drink as much as I can. I had no concept of what it was, what it was like, or you know, I knew nothing, um. And so went up for several different doses of ayahuasca when the average is like one or two cups, and I had for five, like crawling to the front of the room to get more and um, and wasn't get. I wasn't getting anything, I wasn't experiencing anything and I just was watching everybody else around me have these beautiful moments and ahas and I was barfing my brains out and thinking I needed more, like so, um, I had a couple more ceremonies similar to that, where I, you know, just watched really painful things happen and, you know, watch myself die over and over and over again, but not a lot of clarity.
Speaker 2:And when it came to needing to go in for the final ceremony, so there's four in a row. I remember on night three, I was like crying with the shaman and she held me and rocked me and told me stories and I said I don't know if I can keep doing this Like it's. This is too hard, this is way too hard for me. I'm exhausted, I'm, you know, I'm scared. And she said, don't worry, there's still tomorrow. And then I left the ceremony and if you start to have your period, you're not allowed to go into ceremony.
Speaker 2:My period came like a week and a half early and so I couldn't go into that fourth ceremony and so I was like panicking and you know, again not showing myself love Like my body.
Speaker 2:I literally was saying to the shaman the night before I can't keep doing this, it's too hard, that I'm hustling too much is really what I was saying but didn't have the awareness of, and I don't know how to stop hustling in this environment right now.
Speaker 2:And so, whether it was my body or the medicine, or the universe or a collection of all of it, gave me this spotting of a period which took me out of the race and I had to spend the evening by myself while everybody else had this like massive ceremony the last one is always, like, longer and more intense and so, um, I was prepared to stay like an extra two weeks to figure my life out.
Speaker 2:I was like in crisis and um, and then I went back to breath work and um, like, asked and prayed and hoped that this would be the moment where I got what I needed and I, like, to my surprise, went into breathwork and had the most profound experience of visuals of meeting and seeing that girl again, the younger version of myself.
Speaker 2:At this time, she was sitting and playing with butterflies, which is an important symbol for me and she was just there, like you know, smiling at me, and it was like I had arrived back home to myself. I felt this rush of love and this need to do everything possible to take care of her, and I've never felt that way in my life about myself, like, even looking at pictures, never feeling this need to protect her happiness and her joy and her peace. And so that's really where my love for medicine and for breath work started, because it really showed me the lack of love in my life and what that feels like I'm literally making me sick to the importance of showing up and taking care of yourself as a precious human being over everything else in life, and I'd never truly understood that until that moment.
Speaker 1:There's like so much in that story, like, oh my God, lots of chills, lots of chills. I want to talk a little bit about the moment of surrender, yeah, because I feel like that was just screaming at me, especially when you were talking about like crawling back up taking another drink of ayahuasca. Like this is going to happen. And it brings me back to a friend telling me that she was doing psychedelics with a shaman and every time she did it, nothing would happen. And to me I'm like I don't know, you're holding too tight, like you're holding on for dear life and and you're walking in with this expectation of this is going to fix me. And it wasn't until like a few where she was just like, okay, I'm just going in and that's it, like I'm just doing it and whatever happens happens.
Speaker 1:And it brings me back to my yoga teacher training and at the end of your yoga teacher training, you did this retreat and basically you did three days of yoga, like you were doing classes nonstop and for the longest time.
Speaker 1:I'm like, why are they doing this to us? Like I can't do this anymore, like I can't do another downward dog or another chaturanga Like this is making me not love yoga. It wasn't until somebody said the purpose is for you to surrender, is for you to just lay on your mat and be, to not have to keep up with everybody else in the room, the 30 other bodies that are here. It really is for you to surrender and let go the shed, the ego. Yeah, and I was like, okay, that's not what I signed up for. Yeah, I thought this was like a fitness weekend but I was like that makes sense because of course I need to surrender. And so I loved kind of hearing that moment of surrender for you and like when you had said you got the period the next day, I was like damn someone was listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I even think, like when I, when I first told the story, I remember coming out of the first ceremony and being like I had thought and I like everyone saw, and in my mind no one was watching, but everybody the next day was like why did you keep going up? Like why we were like trying to send you messages like stop, stop going up. But I in my mind, I mind I was like no, this is surrender, like going up and having more going up and having more going up and having more trusting the medicine. That's surrender. And when I think about it today, I think about how, the moment that I called like waved over the shaman on the third night and said I can't go up for more, um, because they had called for the second cup, and I was like I knew I needed more, because I like kind of you get like this message inside, like go up for more, and I had I just said no, I can't, I can, literally cannot do it. And then this wave of guilt and shame came over me, Like I've spent all this money and I showed up here and I, you know, do I not care about myself enough? And I just couldn't sit in all those feelings. And so the shaman came over and loved me, like there was 80 other people in the room which is way too much for ayahuasca, but there was 80 other people in the room and she like, literally rocked me like a baby and told me stories and like, rubbed, like, put her hands through my hair and sat with me the whole time, even when the ceremony was done and everybody was saying how they had these life-changing experiences and I was broken into a million pieces.
Speaker 2:And so for me, when I think about it today, the moment of surrender was when I stopped hustling and trying and feeling like that I needed something to show me how to heal, that the medicine was actually showing me. The way that you're using medicine right now is to keep alive the same things that are keeping you sick, and so we're going to take you out of the race. So that way you're forced to be with yourself and realize it's not about working hard and trying hard and pushing yourself, it's about listening to your body. And so that moment with the shaman was the first moment of surrender. And then the moment where I decided I wasn't going to lie and go into the ceremony anyways was another moment of surrender, because that thought passed my mind and then like actually allow, allowing myself to cry, and like cry about the grief of not being able to go in, and at the time I thought it was just radical acceptance, but really it was crying and grieving that the part of me that wanted to hustle, and somehow my body realizing that, that that that symbolized that I can no longer live that way anymore, that my I just actually won't forget the pain and the suffering that comes with hustling and living in that way. And so those were my moments of surrender.
Speaker 2:And they say, when you do medicine, to be careful. Six months later, I quit my very stable, secure job and jumped full-time into my private practice, and I'm so glad that I did. My life is significantly better now. It's not perfect, I still have lots of healing and work to do, but yeah, significantly better. And I would have never been able to make that change without that experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny that you brought up that you're going to lie, because I was going to ask that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, I called, like several people. I like I FaceTime my mom, I FaceTime my other cousin who had been there before. I like I talked to all these people and was like, how bad is it if I lie? But even that right, Like how the lack of love that I was going to, I was going to show up in a lack of integrity, potentially harming other people in the room and the shamans and lying in a very sacred space for what, like you know, that's not love, but in my mind it that that was my concept of what love was like pushing yourself beyond the edges to get this magical outcome. And, you know, when in psychedelics comes a lot of desperation. And I think that that's a dangerous, you know, combination and it definitely happened to me and I see it in people all the time now. And, um, the medicine will not give you what you need out of when you're in places of desperation.
Speaker 1:I have a question for you about love. So you saw love as pushing through, as to hustle. Did you see that in other people? So when you were looking at your partner or your mom or your cousin or your aunt, when you saw love at them, were you like, had that same expectation, or was it more freeing in a way?
Speaker 2:Before my experience, before your experience, yeah, I looked at people and thought, look at how like they hustle and how they show up, and when people wouldn't show up for me, like wouldn't, like do everything to make it work and like sacrifice all these things, I would get upset, like how could they do that? I obviously don't mean enough to them, that I really it consumed my whole concept and I had compassion for other people, but the people closest to me, who I also watched, like it's a big theme in my family, this hustle mentality and don't feel and keep going. I I also saw that in our relationships and so I, until I got back and that was the hardest part to integrate was really being able to see people differently and understand this concept of love. And I'm still working that through because it's hard with my mom or my dad or, yeah, like with my aunt, and it was really hard to understand that, but I'm starting to now.
Speaker 1:I want to talk a little bit about forcing to be with yourself, because you had mentioned that and that you were forced to be with yourself, and I don't even know what I want to talk about it. I just kind of want to talk about it in the sense of I guess, if you're listening, somebody who's listening right now and thinking like, yeah, I kind of need to force myself to be with myself, what would that even look like? Or where would they even begin? Because I know for myself, because I kind of do the same thing. I went through grief, I hustled, I just dove into my new business.
Speaker 1:Life was great Outside, looking in inside my body, it was soul crushing. But it wasn't until like two years later, a year and a half later, that I literally had to force myself to be with myself, and that's how I got into meditation, was that was my variation of forcing myself to be with myself. But it wasn't easy, but I'm sure it could. I imagine it could be harder for other people, like it wasn't hard for me, but it wasn't easy either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can totally relate to that. I don't think it's easy. I think that it can get to a place where it's the benefits outweigh the discomfort and that's maybe when it starts to feel easy. But I, yeah, I think what makes it hard is a number of things. Is one we're not practiced as human beings, in a Western culture. We're not practiced with being with ourselves. We're we're very well-practiced at being distracted, but also we are a species of people who are, like we're, conditioned to be competitive and to compare, and so when I open my phone on Instagram and I see somebody with their hand on their heart and their hand on their belly taking deep breaths and telling me how to you know, structure my day, or how to what practices I should be doing, um, that feels really hard. Um, and it feels like I should be doing. Oh, I should be doing all these things.
Speaker 2:And even as somebody who does this work, I actually don't. I don't, I don't do all those things. I don't gratitude journal every night. It's nice, I love to do it. I do it when I feel like it's important for me to do it, or when I'm can't find any good thoughts before I go to bed. Then I do it it's.
Speaker 2:I love to cold plunge, but I don't cold plunge every day because it's not what my body needs. There are times where my body actually just needs rest, or needs warmth, or needs something else, and so I think what makes it hard to be with yourself is that when someone is looking for how to even do this, there's all of these out of reach ways of doing it. And so my, my advice to myself and my advice to anybody who's listening, who's struggling with this, is like quiet the noise, the way that someone else does it is good for them and it may not be good for you. And so look at one degree of change. And so for me I'm a busy person. I, you know, I'm a recovering perfectionist and hustler and, you know, over scheduler, and I'm still working on it.
Speaker 2:The one degree of change for me is like yesterday I watched Vanderpump rules because everyone's talking about it, and I watched two episodes and and I gave myself that time to just not do nothing and be in stillness, and I didn't have my phone, and like that was what I was, what was in my capacity that day and there's no judgment in thatness, and I didn't have my phone, and like that was what I was, what was in my capacity that day, and there's no judgment in that.
Speaker 2:Other days I go for a cold plunge and I then I stay outside in the cold and just listen to the birds, and that's in my capacity that day and that feels nourishing and good. And so I think being with yourself is really being truthful with what is in your capacity. Because if you're forcing yourself to do what everybody else is doing or what you think you should be doing, like a 20 minute long meditation or like you know breathing exercises or you know 15 minute cold plunges or whatever, like if it's coming from somebody else and it's actually not going to be helpful for you, it has to come from like what actually feels good for me, and sometimes you have to try a couple of things to figure that out, but it's the practice of listening to your body that is the first step into being with yourself.
Speaker 1:I love everything that you said and I love how you brought up that you don't have to do it every day, because I feel like like you're exactly what you had said.
Speaker 1:You go on Instagram, you go on Tik TOK and there's people saying like I do my 15 minutes of gratitude and then I do my 30 minutes of meditation, and then I do my daily movement and I get my my 10 K steps and I'm thinking, do you do anything else?
Speaker 1:Because like that would be my day, like that would be my entire existence between making meals, like that would be my entire existence, between making meals, feeding my family, and like the little work that I do, that would be my entirety of my day, which would be amazing. But at the same time, like you had said, am I really doing it for myself at that point? Am I doing it literally just to check every single box, to be like I do do my 15 minutes of meditation and I cold plunge and I did my daily movement and I got my 10 K steps and I ate all the best meals, and I had limited television and I didn't go on my phone and I did my breath work before and, you know, after a meal or whatever it may be, and I'm, I'm just like my my thoughts are like.
Speaker 2:my human thoughts are like you either won the, you won lottery, yeah and great. You um have a cook, a cleaner and like full-time maid in your house, um, and you're lying because it's not, it's not actually possible. And I, I really think I noticed this when I started to, like, you know, you start to learn something new. I was learning about psychedelics and becoming a psychedelic therapist and becoming a breathwork practitioner and doing all these different things. And you know, you start to learn something new. I was learning about psychedelics and becoming a psychedelic therapist and becoming a breathwork practitioner and doing all these different things, and, you know, traveling to learn from some of the people that I am so inspired by. And I came home to my practice, to all my clients, and I was like I got the thing, I have the secret sauce, let's do these things. And, to my surprise, it wasn't working.
Speaker 2:Like you know, there were some people who were like, and I was watching them do all the things show up in the ways, gratitude, journal, whatever and they were just as depressed as they were before, and so that was when I really, like, took moments to reflect and, you know, went inside myself to figure out what is really going on there and it's exactly that like they're doing it because it goes back to love.
Speaker 2:They're doing it because they want to people please me, and so they're still not engaging in those things from a place of love for themselves because they're so worried about not showing up for me and that's what their idea of love is.
Speaker 2:And so I had to have conversations with all my clients about what love really is and the way that we connect and like taking people pleasing out of the equation and and even like me, saying we should do this. This is like putting emphasis on that these are the right things and taking all of that away and being able to just come from a place of exploration and curiosity and, um, not having these set ways of healing or having value on certain ways of healing or taking care of yourself, like for some, some people, it's a bubble bath. I've taken bubble baths many times and I don't enjoy one second of it. The water gets too cold too quickly, like you know. So it's finding the ways that you that actually feel good for you, and showing up in those activities from a place of true love for yourself, not competition or people pleasing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so true. And it was funny because when I went away for my week away, I was like this is my time. I have all the time in the world. I'm barely going to be cooking, I only have to worry about myself. So I'm going to be doing a journal and I'm going to be meditating and I'm going to be doing my breath work and I'm going to get my 10 K steps in. And I arrived and I was like yeah, no, I'm not doing any of that, like I don't even really care. I said being here is enough. Like being here gives everything that I'm going to get out of doing all of those tasks I'm getting right now, just being here.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh my gosh, I cannot tell you the amount of books that have traveled with me to never be cracked open. I have all these high hopes. I'm going to read all these books while I'm away. No, I'm going to sleep on the beach, because that's all I have capacity for.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I was like I have like my few little things, my few little ventures that I want to do. I literally want to sit by the pool and I want to walk every morning and I'm good, and I don't want to cook a meal. That was it. Like this was the best. And I read, I read my books and that's all I wanted. And I was so content and I remember, like at the end of it I was like I didn't do any of the things that I like originally thought I was going to do, but I'm so happy I didn't do them Right.
Speaker 2:I chose love instead. Yeah, yeah, and like, how skilled are you to not like? A lot of people would be compromised by guilt and shame. Oh, I'm, you know, three days into my trip. I haven't done all these things. And so, if you're listening and that's been you and your experience those are moments where you get to choose. It's like the fork in the road. Do I want to stay in this pathway of like continuing to feel crappy and choosing people pleasing or hustling or needing to earn my worthiness, or can I lean into the guilt and soothe myself and really take care of myself and nurture myself through this guilt, without feeling like I need to do the thing that I feel like I'm supposed to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a huge like. That has been a huge thing for me, I think over the last, like I want to say, nine months or so, because I was at a huge meditation practice. This is me now admitting that it's not as big anymore, but and it's probably why I don't share it as much as because I had a huge meditation practice. I meditated every day, wow. And then my schedule changed and it was very, very hard to fit it in.
Speaker 1:But what I learned through meditating for like 18 months regularly is that it carries with me and it doesn't need to be structured how it was originally. So at the end of the day I might just turn all the lights off before I'm going to read my book and sit in my living room and I'm just going to sit there in the darkness and just be fully disconnected. Whether it's 30 seconds, whether it ends up being 10 minutes, but that's all I'm going to do. But I'm not going to call it meditation, I'm just going to allow it to be, or walking or whatever. And so I teach people how to meditate and I try to remind them that you can very much have this beautiful structured practice and it's great, and it's great to have that at the beginning because it allows you to establish a routine. But don't worry that it it changes because it's meant to change, because you change.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And like the beauty of being able to honor the need to change. That's when you really know, oh my gosh, I'm really tuned in, I'm really listening to myself, I'm really being with myself. I'm really being with myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where the magic happens. Yeah, and that's what I realized, like when I was on my trip, is like I'm by myself the entire time. Yeah, I don't need to sit quietly by myself Again, like I'm already doing it every single day that I'm here, right, right, so so it was just day that I'm here, right, right, so so it was just. Anyways, I want to talk about. We brought this up at the um, the. We saw the event and I really wanted to talk about it again because it was something that really, really resonated with me and it was feel all the feels, or feel your feelings, and I feel like it's one of those things that it's advice that's given and given with full intention and happiness and all of that stuff. But sometimes it's advice where you're like it's logical advice, right, and you're like, okay, yes, I understand what it means to feel my feelings, but I really don't understand what it means to feel my feelings, right. So I'd love to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's like so much I want to say about this. But so I think when we give that I'll start with this when I think we give that advice of like, feel your feelings, First of all, most people don't even know what they're feeling and so like they don't even know how to go into the water of their emotions, because it's like I don't even have the weight of a process to step into that. The second part is, I agree, you need to feel like, you need to feel to heal, or you know, feel your way through. And in therapy we say that all the time feel it to heal it. And you can't go around, you have to go through.
Speaker 2:But there's also a trauma informed process here. If you jump in the deep end with no life jacket, you're going to drown. And the same thing is true with your feelings. If you are in life and then you're like okay, Morgan told me I should feel my feelings and so I'm going to sit here and I'm going to go into the depths of my depression. And you know, and sit here. Well, if you've gone down there with no life jacket or no way out, then we're in trouble.
Speaker 2:So it's good advice, but it has to be advice with, with tools and resources, and so again it goes to the one degree of change. It's if I never feel anything, how can I elicit some emotions and allow myself to have some safety with that, have some psychological and emotional safety with that, have some psychological and emotional safety with that. If I'm, you know, if I haven't cried in a long time, maybe I'm watching a sad movie and allowing myself to cry, just to expose myself to what it might be like to be upset and have some tools and resources there to be able to also come back to a place of happiness and calm. And knowing I knowing I can get back, because your mind and your body is also not going to let you feel your feels if it doesn't actually think that you know the way back home. And that's what a protective and wise thing that your body does right, and so a lot of people who are in frozen states or disconnected. In these survival states, you can't actually just all of a sudden feel your feeling because your body is also holding you there from a place of protection and we can't disarmor those survival strategies until we have the tools to actually experience safety. So, yes, I agree, Feel your feels and feel them all the way in as deep as you can and also give yourself permission to know.
Speaker 2:It's a process, Having safe and supportive people around you, being able to have a ripcord where you can get back and, you know, go back to state safety and stability and therapy. We talk a lot about if we're working through a trauma, for example, we talk about building an imaginary safe place in their mind and knowing that if it feels too much, we talk about building an imaginary safe place in their mind and knowing that if it feels too much, we can go back to the safe place and the therapist usually knows what it looks like and you know what it feels like and we start to say those things to bring the body and the mind back into that safe place. The same thing is true in breathwork and in psychedelics. We teach people grounding or you know, look at me, open your eyes, when are you to be able to pull them back from whatever feeling is feeling too deep?
Speaker 2:And then we equip them to be able to go back in and every time they go it's a little bit further and a little bit further and a little bit further. But we wouldn't jump in to water like deep water without a life jacket, like shark infested water without a life jacket, and that's what it can feel like inside, sometimes like shark infested water without a life jacket. And that's what it can feel like inside, sometimes like shark infested water without a life jacket. And maybe you've lived on the beach for a really long time. Um, if I, getting into the water feels actually like the on the most unsafe thing you can do, and so giving yourself permission to go slowly and go with compassion and love, not just jumping in all the way, because that's what everybody says you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:First analogy that came to mind was like a nightmare. You know, when you have a nightmare and you wake up and the first thing you do is you look around and you're like, okay, I'm here, I'm safe, right. And then you're like, okay, now I can digest what just happened, right, right. And so that's what it reminds me of. It's like okay, but like when I have a nightmare, I'm like, okay, think of a happy thought.
Speaker 2:Right, and we do the same thing in, you know, in breathwork and psychedelics and therapy, like we have. We talk about integration and it's the same thing If you're going to feel your feelings, no matter how you're doing it. I did this beautiful, like cocoon, like the hammock therapy thing the other day for the first time. It was amazing and I had all of these big emotions and at the time I don't know. I didn't know what they were about, and so I took time afterwards to integrate and explore and make meaning about what was going on, because in that moment I needed to. I felt my feeling as much as I could and when it started to become a bit more overwhelming, I like grounded myself, touched my face, like opened my eyes and reminded myself where I was, knowing I could go back to that moment and get curious when I felt safer and felt like I had more resources online to really make meaning of that experience.
Speaker 2:And we do it in psychedelics all the time. People come out of their journey sometimes and they're like I don't know what that was about and I saw a cloud and I saw this and I saw that and we're like, okay, let's give it three days and let's see. And then we have these integration meetings to be able to really help someone put together what were the themes, what were the messages, what do you really feel like that was trying to show you? And that's where things start to come together. It's not always in the moment where you're feeling all the way.
Speaker 1:It's in the moments after, when you come back to baseline and I love how you brought that up because I think I think, even for myself, if I were to go on like a psychedelic journey, I would almost want to have the answers right away, like I went through. I went there, I went through, wake up, okay, where are the answers? So I love how you kind of you brought up that there's an integration period and that there are. There might not be any answers as to why you saw what you saw or felt what you felt until they settle in, and I and I like that. I like that because for me, like when I do events, everyone's like I'm buzzing. Next day, they're buzzing next day. I am like dead, I am a zombie. I could just curl up in a cocoon and just watch TV all day, like I literally just need to decompress because I don't even know what just happened.
Speaker 2:Right, oh my gosh. I like when you said that. I have this vivid memory. I went to the US to do a psychedelic experience with a dear friend of mine and the next day I flew home because I could again like I was working on my hustling and I was like I can't take too many days off work. So I flew home and I'm walking up and down the airport crying I've got my hood on, I can't keep it together. I'm like sobbing. All I can think is like the person beside me is gonna think I'm suicidal. Like how am I gonna? How am I gonna get home?
Speaker 2:I cried like on and off throughout the car ride or throughout the flight. I get into the car and I'm like my eyes are swollen, I'm in rough shape and Grant's like why are you going? Grant's my husband Like why are you going to do these things? Like I'm not going to let you go anymore. I really got concerned. I was like this can't be working. Why are you so upset? And I was like I don't know, just really feeling a lot of things. And then the in the days that followed, it started to make sense.
Speaker 2:I worked with a really good integration therapist and that was one of my most profound journeys to date and it was with psilocybin. So it's yeah, it's not always like coming and getting the answers. It's landing back in your life and really starting to think about, like you know, how life is changing, how, what, you know what, what are things feeling? You don't always get the answers you think you need after, and most of the time you just want to curl up in a ball Like there's. You know it would be great. I watch people all the time who dance after ceremony or dance, you know, after a breath work thing, and I'm just I love that for those people. I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1:That's not for me, yet that's not me.
Speaker 2:That's okay, that's you know. The most loving thing I can do for myself is to let myself curl up into a ball cry for a couple of days and take space and time for myself.
Speaker 1:We have a little bit of time, I would love to talk a little bit about the psychedelics. You've brought it up quite a few times and for anybody that's listening that may not be familiar with psychedelics, I would love for you just to kind of explain a little bit about them and how you have integrated them. We've talked a lot about how you've integrated them in your own healing journey, but how others can maybe integrate them in their own journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that, for me, I'm very passionate about psychedelics. I've worked in eating disorders for a long time and I think my one of my big pulls towards psychedelics was because I've worked with so many people who, despite doing every treatment available to them you know, in all across Ontario, all across Canada and in the U? S haven't been able to get better or maintain a quality of life that is. That is good, and eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of any other mental health illness that there is. So I'm really drawn to psychedelics because I see how it can be the thing that's missing. I see how it can dramatically transform and change people in a way that nothing else we have access to right now has been able to do. And the other thing that's amazing is that it's lasting, and so you could do. I know people who've done psychedelics one time and have never needed to go back, and the change has been long lasting, whether it's recovering from alcoholism after years and years of drinking, or, um, recovering from restriction after having an eating disorder that almost killed them, um, so many different examples of, of profound changes after one or two or three experiences. And so, um, I think, if you're wanting to use psychedelics on your own, my caution would be don't do it alone and make sure you're in a place that's safe.
Speaker 2:When psychedelics is so kind of everyone's talking about it now and it's kind of becoming a bit more mainstream, which is, you know, in a lot of ways great, and also people forget that they also need to ask questions. No-transcript, and my red flag is if someone is promising you an outcome, then they don't actually understand the medicine. Like you can't promise somebody an outcome because it's not determined on you, it's determined on that person and their ability to build a relationship with the medicine and what they're ready and motivated for. So if you're wanting to use it, it can be great. Do your research, reach out to people, watch videos and you know there's some great TED talks online and some really good documentaries and really make sure that you know who you're taking medicine with, and more is not better.
Speaker 2:There's also this big thing of like, oh, do a hero's journey and you know, learn from me. Like it doesn't. It actually doesn't need to be that way and you, if you're someone who hustles or who's coming from it, coming at it from a place of desperation, that five gram dose may not actually be for you. You may be engaging in the same patterns that are keeping you sick, and so exploring what it feels like to have a lower dose, like three grams or two grams, or I've even had people who've had one and a half grams and have had full six and six hour journeys, and if they had taken any more it would have been too much and so just really paying attention to your body and seeing what your body is ready for, rather than like pushing through and forcing to get this result, because you won't likely get it. That way you might actually become traumatized, and we don't talk about the negatives and psychedelics enough.
Speaker 2:Everyone talks about how amazing it is, which it is, and there are a lot of risk. You I know lots of very skilled psychedelic therapists who go to ceremonies and come back with PTSD that are receiving treatment for it for like a year because of the experience in psychedelics, and so you have to really be mindful of who's there, what feels right for you, feeling like asking the questions and really making sure your safety is paramount and not going into it with all of this desperation, going into it with two feet on the ground and having the practical skills to walk the mystical path. So that would be my advice. The same thing with microdosing Microdosing.
Speaker 2:I have so many people who are like, oh, I take a 0.5 microdose and I'm like, so that's not a microdosing, microdosing. I have so many people who are like, oh, I take a 0.5 microdose and I'm like, so that's not a microdose, that's a dose. I'm like I shouldn't be driving, you're not supposed to feel anything on a microdose and it should be like 0.05 or 0.1 or 0.2 at most. And so just really making sure you're getting your information from credible places, because when we do things like psilocybin too much, um, it actually can have a negative impact on the receptors in our brain, which will then weaken the effect of psilocybin for the in the future for us, which we don't want. We want to be able to use that medicine as we need it, um, and be able to have access to it, but if we overuse it, your, your body and your brain naturally stop feeling the effects.
Speaker 1:I'm happy that you brought up the negative side of it because, like you had said, that's never talked about and one reason why so I have microdosed a few times, but I didn't. I didn't get what everybody else got. I was just like it. I felt the same so can we?
Speaker 2:can we also just like, maybe put it out there that everyone thinks they're supposed to feel this big thing and so they're saying that they're? It's like, it's like cold punching oh my gosh, I had this and I'm. I've pulled punch many times. I've had a couple experiences, but it's not always about this like big, mystical thing. Sometimes you just get to the cold, do a hard thing and you get out. It's the same with overdosing. It doesn't have to be this life-changing thing.
Speaker 1:So I went into it thinking it was going to be this life-changing thing, because that's what everybody said, right. And so I started taking it and I was like I feel the same, like I felt like I could just get this through meditation, like I don't feel like I need this, but I've really stayed away, like I have never done psychedelics or anything, because I had a boyfriend in high school that was on mushrooms and he collapsed and it was so scarring for me, like it gave me PTSD. I was like I don't think that's worth it and so even to this day, I'm it's still like. I'm like, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I'm, I don't, I think immediately I'll go back there. Yeah, like that's going to happen to me or I'm going to have a bad trip, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, yeah, like I. When you say that I think about I'm in the process of working with MDMA and forever I was like no, only plant-based medicines, cause I could like wrap my head around that. I was like it's not a chemical, as I have this drug stigma, like I'm working with psychedelics, and yet I have this active drug stigma and, similar to you, I remember like kids in high school dropping then the ambulance coming from taking ketamine. I'm like people are taking horse tranquilizers, like what you know, and now we're doing it for healing. Well, what's happening here? This is not my understanding.
Speaker 2:So I agree, I think that we have to you know, we have to be really mindful of what the risks are. You can, you can become sick. You can, you know, pass out. There's different medical checks that you should do. There's some medication you shouldn't be having while you're on psychedelics. So that's why it's important to have someone who really gets to know you before they give you a substance or before you, you know, do a substance with them.
Speaker 2:These are powerful medicines and they need to be treated with, with care and consideration, and they're not for everybody. That's the truth, like it's it's. They are not for everybody and that's okay. Yeah, and being aware of your stigma, like you know, I'm coming around to MDMA and the idea of using it for healing because the research is just too good that I can't. But I have to do it for the first time in June, like as part of my training, and I'm terrified, like I'm like I'm nervous even talking about it now. I'm like sweating a little bit. I'm nervous because in my mind I have this stigma that I'm taking this drug, um, you know. So we'll see how that that turns out for me.
Speaker 1:but yeah, I hear you yeah, it's, yeah, it's interesting. So my last question for you today I ask everybody this question is what is one piece of advice that you would like to leave here?
Speaker 2:One piece of advice that I would like to leave here is to really think about what your definition of love is and to get curious about if that really is love and if it's really serving serving you in the way that you want to live and in the life you want to have and start to challenge some of those ideas of why do I show up in this way and tell myself it's love? And really really seeing if that's true? That would be my advice, and my other piece of advice would be don't do what everybody else is doing, because you think you're supposed to Be bold and do what's good for you. That's what this world needs more of is people who are like this is what's good for me, this is for me, and I'm not apologizing for it.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy that you brought that up. Yes, yeah, I'm so happy. Be bold, I think that's so important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like to be yourself is the boldest, most radical thing you can do to look at somebody else with eyes of love and say thank you so much for telling me about that. It's not for me, though. It's so, so great.
Speaker 2:My friend and I talk about that all the time. I'll go to something. I'm like you want to come with me and she's like I love you so much and I don't want you to go alone, but it's not for me and there's no judgment. Like you know, I don't feel any kind of way or, you know, upset with her. I'm so excited and proud that she has that boundary because it reminds me, oh yeah, I can actually say that something's not for me and still support, you know, my friends or my colleagues who are doing these other things that are amazing, and I don't have to go to all the things. If it's not for me, I can still love the people and support them, and so my advice would be that love is loving other people and loving yourself more, and there's no guilt or shame around that. I love that.
Speaker 1:We'll just leave it there. Well, thank you so much, Morgan, for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. It was such a pleasure. Yeah, thank you. I'm so honored to be here.
