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April's Journey: Embracing Cannabis, Creativity, and Self-Discovery Through Microdosing
April Pride, a trailblazer in the cannabis and psychedelics industries, joins us to share her remarkable journey into becoming a "weed mom." Her story takes us back to her childhood with parents who secretly consumed cannabis, and how this influenced her own relationship with the plant. April's creative entrepreneurship and background in architecture and design intersected with the cannabis industry in 2015, where she found her niche by creating aesthetically pleasing products aimed at women. Her decision to involve her children in this venture, sparked by a Bob Marley documentary, illustrates the intricate dance of balancing creativity, family, and business.
Our conversation navigates the nuanced challenges of balancing public roles with personal lives, especially in relation to cannabis use. We dive into the complexities faced by harm reduction educators during the COVID-19 pandemic and how legalization in Canada shifted consumption patterns. April shares candid personal anecdotes about managing cannabis use amidst personal life changes like ADHD and a pending divorce. With special emphasis on women's experiences, the discussion sheds light on the importance of understanding one's relationship with substances and the fine line between use and overuse.
Venturing into the realm of microdosing psychedelics, we explore the potential for personal transformation amidst the evolving landscape of legality and acceptance. April, alongside medical experts, has developed a psilocybin guide and personalized microdosing protocol to enhance individual experiences. Our dialogue underscores the importance of integration practices and self-control, sharing stories of using microdosing to manage stress and improve daily routines. We wrap up with reflections on embracing joyful moments outdoors, and how small shifts in perspective, especially during the Seattle winter, can contribute to overall wellness and self-discovery.
Connect with April on Instagram @getsetset and @aprilpride_
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Find Portia Chambers, founder of The We Experience on Instagram
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. Welcome to the this Is we podcast. I am so excited to have our next guest here with us. An award-winning pioneer in emerging industries such as cannabis and psychedelics, april Pride, is a podcast host, speaker and entrepreneur for over 20 years. After successfully exiting her consumer brand to the world's largest cannabis company, she has most recently founded SetSet, the world's first resource and community platform built for women who microdose. Welcome, april, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here, Portia.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm so excited you are here with us and so we are going to start. So I did a little bit of research, a deep dive in Instagram profiles and everything like that, and people are always like, why, just got to get to know my guests a little bit more, because that's your job, because that's my job.
Speaker 1:And I like doing it and I would love to start with you sharing a story. Before we kind of get into the nitty gritty of cannabis and psychedelics, I would love for you to kind of start your story and kind of where it all began. And I was kind of looking at a past podcast interview that you did and you shared your story about being, you know that, weed mom, and so you know I've never admitted this on my podcast before, but I don't necessarily think that I'm necessarily a weed mom, but I can really, you know, relate to that term and so share with us a little bit about that story.
Speaker 2:I am still in shock that I got to a place where someone would describe me that way. I grew up with, my parents, had me in high school and I know that you're in Toronto. So, to clarify, I'm American and I did work in Canada for a couple of years and everyone I met had a parent that grew their own weed and smoked their own weed. That isn't totally the people in the US. Parents were not as open about it. You know, like I found my dad's homemade cigarettes you know as he described them and I had a.
Speaker 2:Really I was, I was, I was totally straight, didn't even drink in high school and none of that came to me until college. And yeah, I didn't even have my own stash until I was 40. I would smoke it if it were around. Usually we were also drinking. So of course, that didn't always go right.
Speaker 2:And when my sons were about five and eight, I was presented this idea that hey, in the US, states are starting to legalize cannabis. You're a creative entrepreneur. I went to architecture school. I went to Parsons School of Design. I worked in interiors. I worked at this point when I was approached with this idea. I had my own fashion line in Seattle and one of my clients started working for Tilray's holding company called Privateer, which is actually based in Seattle as well, where I am, and she was the executive assistant to the CEO and said I'm seeing all the decks, all the deals, like I know what's going on and no one's creating anything that looks good, no one's using their designer eye and certainly no one's creating anything for women.
Speaker 2:This was 2015. So I did think about the fact that I had children and what would this mean for them in my own relationship with my father, who consumed cannabis, and how I thought of it because of his own consumption, and so I also thought of it as, like gosh, I'm a creative. There's just not a lot of opportunities in our lifetime to do something that could have a real financial windfall. And so when I realized, thanks to the conversation I had with this woman that creeps from LA and New York, we're not all over this, I'm like, wow, this could be really fun. I could have a really good time, create some really cool shit. Let's do this. I'm like, okay, what do I do? The kids are young, but it is their life too. So I decided to watch the Bob Marley documentary with them that had been on. That was on Netflix. It probably still is, knowing that I had watched it.
Speaker 2:So I knew there was a time when he is smoking an unbelievably large slip and they're going to wonder what is happening. You know we love this man. We hate smoking. What is he doing? Oh my gosh. So I knew it would inspire dialogue, which it did. And my older son, who I drove to school this morning. He's a senior and, god bless him, his car blew up, so I gave him mine, but I need my car today. So one of the perks of that is I get to actually talk to him now and he's setting up his bank account. He got his first big job and he's all about cash.
Speaker 2:So Alex P Keaton was like, well, can you make? I said I have this opportunity. There's cannabis in that cigarette, homemade cigarette, and it's this new industry. It's like alcohol, but people use it because it's helping them with symptoms from pain to anxiety, and so it's a little bit different. But for a long time it's been seen like something like alcohol. So I want to be a part of changing that message. And he just looked at me. He's like can you make a lot of money? Well, there is that potential. I mean, who knew right? Like, I really didn't know, but I was excited because I've always had startups but I'm not a tech person. So it was an interesting opportunity and I just took that as a. This is an eight-year-old. He really has no idea what I'm asking him to say yes to. I'm clearly going to try and do this, you know so.
Speaker 2:So that's how I ended up being a weed mom. I had kids and I went to go work in cannabis and then fast forward. It took over our lives. I, that's all I became. I became the only mom on the playground that any of the moms could talk to and it became what everyone wanted to talk to me about when my kids were around, so they had to listen to it. It became all I talked about, because I'm an obsessive, compulsive and I'm like working 80 hours a week along with having kids, and so it really yeah, it really took over our lives for a few years and then I became a person who consumed a lot of weed, especially during the pandemic, and then it took over our lives, I think in a different way that took a turn that I didn't see coming and they it took over our lives. I think in a different way that took a turn that I didn't see coming and they certainly didn't know what to do with. So I've had to reset my relationship with cannabis so it feels more balanced and that creates a lot of very again, honest dialogue in our household.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, whenever it comes up. It came up this summer. In June, we were looking at colleges and someone at one of the colleges asked what I did and I just looked at my son and he just was like, don't tell them, don't Just like this one time, can you just like be in tech sales? You know, yeah, and. But I can't, nope, not tell the truth. And so afterwards I was like, so what's going on with that? He was like, mom, I just, I get it.
Speaker 2:First you were the weed mom, now you're the shroom mom, but I just I don't like it. I don't like how it makes me feel. I don't like that it's what everyone sees you as, cause I don't think it's. You know how they see me at home, because I don't think it's how they see me at home. So, yeah, that's where we are. It's a pretty. I have a lot of. I'm conflicted about how much this topic has hijacked my children's lives for a decade. At the same time, what you know, I don't know. This is where we are. I'm a good mom to them and I think I'm helping more than I'm hurting. So, in the end, everybody not just my own family, but you know the people who I speak to so, as a harm reduction educator, yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, so many questions.
Speaker 1:So I feel like I feel like kids don't like when their parents are like famous, as I do, the bunny ears, because it's not that I'm famous, but there's a lot of people in my community I live, I live north of Toronto, so I live in a small community and I've been working in my community for a very long time, so I know a lot of people and my daughter's like like come on, like she's 17, so she's like come on, you gotta know somebody else, you know somebody everywhere. I'm like well, like what's the problem with that? Like okay, but sometimes I just yeah, not that it's two of the same, but I can understand the feelings that your son may feel, just kind of like that added attention it's yeah, they just want us to not be other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know like being a vanilla mom that just gets in the car, takes them to school, yeah, picks them up, doesn't ask any questions. It's certainly not trying to talk to them about the tick tocks that you're sending over. That's all they want.
Speaker 1:That's all they want, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I want to take a little bit, maybe a little bit of a step back to the COVID period that you had mentioned, because you had brought up something that I actually wrestled with as well and is finding that balance with cannabis Because, like you had said, people you know in Toronto, here in Canada, it's legal for us to grow and consume cannabis, so it's available for everybody.
Speaker 1:Basically, and I feel like for some of for many people, it was a great thing because they can then, you know, help with a lot of pain that they're dealing with, go to bed like, have good quality sleep and all of these different things. But for someone like me I did it for sleep, you know say that loosely at the beginning, but it very much became a crutch of mine in a hard part of my life and it took a long time, or it took a while, for me to kind of understand that I wasn't necessarily using it as the same person, as the same purpose of where I started. So I would, if you're comfortable, I would love for you to kind of talk about a little bit of that, because I feel like there's probably, you know, people listening, especially women listening, that are maybe cannabis users or looking to get into cannabis, that might feel as if it could be a crutch, or it could be something that they're leaning on more than what they maybe originally had thought.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I mean I think it's important to give a little bit of context here. One, I was totally anti drug as a child of the eighties and just say no, I'm not a dare kid, I'm more of a just say no kid. I'm a little bit older and again, having a parent that consumed and had trouble keeping a job and like there was, there was, there were things around that too that led to me having an opinion about his behavior around cannabis, or pot as he called it. And then I was totally sober. When my second son was born I didn't even drink.
Speaker 2:I had to reset my relationship with alcohol too, so have ADHD, which means, you know, we are more likely to form habits around our substance use and have issues with impulse control. So I had reset my relationship with alcohol and I had not drank more than maybe a handful of times a year for three years before cannabis was legalized in Seattle and then a year later I started my company. So when I started again I was definitely firmly a every once in a while recreational user, but certainly down right Like had no issues with it and grateful when I realized I could take this five milligram gummy and go to a party and I didn't have to show up like, oh, this doesn't cause me any anxiety at all, I can totally be here, right, yeah. So and my ex-husband, who I was married to at the time, was, like you know, is it really realistic that you're going to be sober for the rest of our lives, like I don't know, like you're not ending up in a ditch? I think you should do what you need to do, but I don't see any problem with you navigating cannabis Right. So felt like my partner was supportive of me trying to figure out a different solution that wasn't so black and white and um so fast forward.
Speaker 2:And weed was everywhere. I was in Canada, I was in the U S, everyone had weed, asked me to smoke. We were smoking at work. Like you know, we could do any, yeah, and we had a lounge. You know that was what was up, right?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, then I definitely had my own stash.
Speaker 2:I was given free weed products constantly, and then the pandemic came and just before everything closed down, I had told or I guess it was the first week of lockdown, because I made an appointment with a counselor but I told my ex-husband that I wanted a divorce, and so we stayed together and lived together like husband and wife for 18 months, and I think that that's where the weed the heavy weed consumption, really like it took hold, and it was something I was super grateful for because, again, adhd, doing the same thing every day forever is not really what I'm good at or a happy place for me.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I just gave myself permission to do what I needed to do, to keep the peace and to be patient and be grateful for every day, right, like so, um, and a lot of people were drinking more during that time. That just wasn't that's just not my drug of choice, but cannabis certainly was. So then, in the fall of 2021, I moved out of my family home and I gave myself a year to just sort of you know, do what I needed to do again to make to get through a really hard time I did, had actually no idea how difficult that would be to separate from my boys half the time and I lived a 10 minute block or walk away, so it didn't matter. It just was brutal and as I was creeping I was like six weeks away from my one year deadline and I had tried throughout the year like take a day off, take you know had some luck, but I wasn't having a lot of luck.
Speaker 2:I'd started a throughout the year like take a day off, take, you know, had some luck, but I wasn't having a lot of luck. I'd started a podcast the year before about psychedelics and so I had researched and interviewed people about using psychedelics for substance use and I thought, okay, I'll try this. And the first few times I tried it I took too much psilocybin, even though it was a microdose, and I'd hit my vape pen at lunch and then I'm like basically tripping and trying to finish the rest of the day, even though it's a little bit, but I just wasn't ready. I took that as a sign is like you're not there yet, you can't, you're not taking this seriously, basically. So six weeks before I did take it seriously, I looked up three days later and I hadn't consumed any cannabis. I was like, oh, that's interesting. Okay, I wasn't really tracking, but of course this is what I wanted and it happened.
Speaker 2:So then I was contacted by a ketamine company that wanted me to interview their lead clinician, and I went through the process to become a patient of this telehealth company on my own before I agreed to do that. So I would like have an objective conversation with her and I qualified because guess what? I was depressed no shocker there and that also really really helped. A lot so low dose lozenges that you take by yourself at home. A lot so low dose lozenges that you take by yourself at home. And keep in mind this is like 18 months into a podcast about psychedelics and with an emphasis on integration. So the therapeutic use of psychedelics, how you can use what comes up in your experiences, whether it's a microdose or a macrodose, to make sense of your life and where you want to go, to be very, very intentional with your consumption. And so it's taken me um, that was 2022. So it took me a couple of years to really really reset it in a way that I feel confident, but I don't keep cannabis in my home.
Speaker 1:I was just going to ask that. I was going to ask if you still consume cannabis or no. I do, I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I like I do never want to lose my privilege, right, I always had alcohol in my house. I don't. I mean, if my friends come over they drink a lot more of it than I do. I just that's just not. I mean, I drink non-alcoholic beer, that's my choice. And then, but we God, I can't get in the house, I just can't. I will just get to the bottom of it. I know, just get to the bottom of it. And I just can't walk by a weed store. Just oh, I'm just going to pop in.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:This is something I have to take seriously, and I want to be able to say yes to a joint that my friends pass me Right. I want that moment with a person that I am connecting with and I don't want to have to say no to it. So that's how that's been my work around, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. To be honest, I know that feeling of like reliancy on it because I'm the same. I'm, I don't drink alcohol. We do not have a great relationship, me and alcohol. Um, covid made that apparent. Uh, that's when I decided to start drinking and I was like, why am I doing this? Um, we're not friends, um. And then I usually just kind of smoked for my own personal use, more or less Like I don't necessarily smoke to be social or anything like that. I feel like I'm okay and confident enough to be social and be sober, and I'm okay, and I always figure most people around me are drinking, so after they have their two they're all chill and relaxed anyways, that they don't even notice if I'm sober anymore, that's true. And that they don't even notice if I'm sober, that's true.
Speaker 1:And they just don't care. Like that's usually like the first drink. They're a little bit weirded out and then after that they just don't care. But cannabis has been one of those things. It's been an interesting thing for me and I do it because my mind is always on. I'm not diagnosed with ADHD. Tiktok says I have ADHD, we don't know, but there's a lot of similarities and there's a lot of things that I notice.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I started it like I'm just doing this to sleep and I'm just gonna, you know, smoke a little bit of a joint before I go to bed and it's gonna be fine. And then it was like, you know, smoking at 8pm turned into smoking at 7pm, then 6pm, then 5pm, then 4pm, and it's like I've had a really hard day. I'm self employed, my workday ends at two, I'm smoking at 2pm and then I'm like, okay, wait, yeah, I don't. This doesn't feel comfortable anymore. This feels like I'm literally just trying to smoke to get through my day, to get me to, you know, 9pm where I can sit on my couch and just chill out. And it took some time to kind of realize that and to understand that and and, like you had said, it wasn't an easy road to get out of it. No.
Speaker 2:Which I thought it would be oh yeah, and we can talk about that. Why it's not? It's not your fault. Oh tell me more Cause I thought it was my fault. No, it's not. I mean, I guess I only understand cannabis in terms of how nature intended it and how it was grown.
Speaker 2:There's a video that's on YouTube from Vice that they take these seed hunters and Hamilton Morris, who is a a drug expert I guess you could say I don't know. He has his own show, hamilton's Pharmacopoeia, also on Vice and they go into the Congo to find these virgin plants, a black Congolese strain of cannabis, which is a land race strain, which means it is one of the original nine plants that was on earth before we started breeding them and creating all these strains. So it takes them five days, they like almost die, but they find this field of virgin plants, and so the idea is they want to collect the seeds, take them back to Amsterdam, propagate them and then test them and see, like what's the cannabinoid makeup, you know what are the flavonoids, like all of that, and so what they find? And this is one of the most potent strains available, or it's been bred to become one of the most potent strains, and it's 10% THC, 8% CBD, as nature intended. And so when you see, when you hear that and you start to look at some of the PubMed stuff and talk to some of the researchers and experts that I talked to, it's like our our CB1 receptors in our brain that THC binds to were never intended to work.
Speaker 2:With 20% or more THC, the need to continue to get that dopamine you like burn out the receptors. You need more, you need more. It's so beyond what we are capable of navigating. Truly, our brains were not designed to work with this high level of THC. And CBD negates the psychoactive effects of THC. So you're talking about basically a one-to-one strain. So the effect on not only your brain chemistry but also the psychoactive effect you're not getting as high. You're not getting that euphoric effect that we are all drawn to if we're looking to escape or to really break from the day. So, yeah, alcohol makes me think. Right, like alcohol was created when the water was dirty and people were drinking ale. They weren't necessarily going for 140 proof, no Right. So when did that start happening? I mean prohibition right after prohibition. Bootleggers people just humans just want to get fucked up. Right, like, not all of us, but when you introduce something to our system, that is novel depending on what your brain chemistry is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to seek more and more of it. So, yeah, it's when commerce gets involved that making you dependent on this stuff is really good for business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, that's for sure and it's interesting that you had said that about, like the natural plant in the rainforest only being 10% THC and 8% CBD. Because when I think back, when I buy a joint, like when you go to the weed store, they're like, okay, this is 30%, and I'm like, damn, that's high, like I'm going to smoke that and I'm literally just going to be a slug, like I'm going to have five minutes of like oh my God, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:And then I'm literally going to be a slug, like I'm not going to be moving off my couch. But then sometimes I'll grab something that's a little bit lower and it's almost as if my body is just different with it, like the high is different, like everything is different. And so it's interesting that you brought up that point, because I think, for the longest time, more was better in my eyes and, like you had said, like that's probably how they marketed it and that's what you think. Well, you know, the last one you had was 25. You want to do like a 30%. You know it's dipped in whatever and I'm like, okay, like, I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a lot like this. You know, I know, similar to you, it's like I know where I have been and I don't want to go back there. So it's like kind of going and being like, yeah, I would love to try that, but maybe today is not the day to buy that. I'm just going to stick with my use and I know that I can stick within it and enjoy it and not feel you know too much, in a way, because I still like very much like being in control and I find sometimes like I haven't been smoking.
Speaker 1:I didn't only really started smoking cannabis regularly when it became legal in Canada. Yeah, my husband's a huge Canada cannabis person. Um, I was a big cannabis smoker in high school but when I met my husband, he's a big boozer. He's not an alcoholic but he likes his beers. He enjoys his beers on the weekends and for me alcohol was just never a thing. But he's found a pipe in my car once and he's like this is a no-go. If you want to be together, you have to stop this habit. And I was like, okay, I'm, that's worth it to me, I'll stop. It Wasn't a crutch in my life, it was just something I did with friends and whatever. I'm like sure, but fast forward and it being legal and just the accessibility and all of these different things. That kind of totally changed the viewpoint on it Absolutely and it became a huge crutch and, yeah, like it was just it's just very interesting it was marketed as a wellness product?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I think.
Speaker 2:I know I was. I was part of that messaging, so I get it yeah.
Speaker 1:Everyone was and well, especially in Canada like the only reason you were getting it like prescribed to you was for wellness reasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so medical, medical reasons, not wellness reasons medical reasons, but or you're growing it secretly in your backyard somewhere in your house. But yeah, it's just, it's a very interesting like. I have a very interesting look and relationship with it now and I try to be very like. I always tell people you know I'm a cannabis smoker. Like I have a very interesting look and relationship with it now and I try to be very like. I always tell people you know I'm a cannabis smoker, but I smoke in private. Yeah, I don't do it socially or out.
Speaker 1:And because it's kind of just like my thing, because I only want to use it for shutting down, I don't want to use it for anything else, because that's where it got me in trouble before. Yeah, and like the other day I even said to myself I was kind of stressed out, got home, you know, when you're like your head's just not in the space, you're having a hard time getting from like one mindset, like work mindset, into like home mindset, and you're just like it just feels all jostled and messy. I was like I could just go out just have a quick few puffs. It'll just center me, I'll align me, it will ground me, I'll feel good, I'll cruise into the day, the rest of the day, and then I'd just stop and be like Portia. Don't you think you could just do it on your own today? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Why don't we try that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why don't we try that today? And I was like, yeah, we are going to try that today and maybe I'll go for a walk to kind of separate that and maybe that will help ground me a little bit more.
Speaker 2:And I didn't do it. And I was so happy that I didn't do it because it was so easy to kind of fall back into that, that pause of like wait, am I just doing that Cause that's what I do, or that's what I've been doing for so long that I think that that's what I do, versus like okay, remember when you did it and you regretted it because it made you tired and then you lost your motivation and you really needed to get those things done, or you let someone down for whatever reason, like, if you can just take a moment and think of the reasons why right now it's just not a good idea right now for you right.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean I'm a bad person because I've done it in the past. I'm not a bad person If I take this money and I'm like I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:This is what I need.
Speaker 2:You know. But just give yourself a pause, and I can tell you that that is what microdosing psilocybin does for people when it comes to everything. My kid he started seeing a therapist and he doesn't want to see him anymore. And I was like, okay, well, name three things that you've learned about yourself in the time that you have been working with him. And he was like you know when I want to crash out? And if you don't know what crash out is, he showed me a great TikTok that explained it, which is basically when you do something that you know it's going to make your life harder, but you can do it anyway. And so I was like, oh, familiar, got that?
Speaker 2:Okay, he's like so I just I haven't been crashing out. And then he had to explain what it was. I thought I knew what it was, but I thought I was thinking of it a little bit differently. And, um, he said, so, I don't do that anymore. I said, well, what were your conversations with Jacob around that that you feel like you haven't been doing it as much? He was like I take a breath and I count to five, you know? Yeah, so we don't necessarily need to microdose psilocybin to do it, because my 14 year old son's figuring out how to be mindful, but in case you need a little bit of help and you need to figure out how to collect yourself over five seconds and really consider your choices. Like that pause is the difference in doing something mindfully and doing something habitually, I think, and it's not that much time.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. So tell us a little bit more about microdosing. I know some information and I have a variety of different milligram capsules at my house. Yeah Right, but mushrooms have never. I wasn't a big psychedelic person in high school, I think because I saw my ex-boyfriend once in high school on psychedelics and he like completely passed out, like fainted, like standing and then on the floor and then got back up and was like all erratic and I'm like not for me, not for me. I am good and I've heard like horror stories, so like I was so and I'm such an active imagination that I was like this could do me more harm than good, maybe in the wrong setting, with the wrong people. So very much stayed away from it and then microdosing kind of became something and I was like I think I want to try this, but I never had much success with it, not in comparison to what I have seen through other people and what I've seen on the internet. So please tell me more.
Speaker 2:So I want to ask you what do you mean? You haven't had success with it. What was your intention going into it and what? Yeah, what was not, what was lacking for you?
Speaker 1:So I think at the time when I bought it, I was going through a little bit of a hard time, so I was kind of I'll add context to it so I was going through burnout. I was before that. I was a very active person, working out five days a week, eating all the best foods, doing all the right things, and eventually everything caught up to me. It was basically emotional trauma and grief caught up to me after something that happened in 2019. Um, that kind of. Basically, it was like my tower moment everything just crumbled and my body just gave up and I couldn't do the things that I could do. My mind was like my mental health was suffering, everything was suffering. I wasn't happy, and so that's when I was.
Speaker 1:Cannabis was a huge crutch for me and I really wanted to get away from that.
Speaker 1:I really wanted to go back to the original intention of just using it for sleep and just kind of mellowing out at the end of the day and not necessarily making me survive the entirety of the day. And so I started to listen to some podcasts on microdosing and some different things and you know the scheduling and all this stuff and I found a distributor in BC, got it shipped, started taking them, started doing it for a bit and, just based on what other people were saying, like it just totally changed my life and it opened up my mind and I got all this creativity and it brought me closer to myself. I never found that and I don't know if it was because I was searching too much for it and I had an expectation going into it, um, or what it may have been. I found what I was seeking in psychedelics, in meditation, in something different, um, but I think I was really hoping it to be in psychic, like to be in mushrooms, um, I don't know, because maybe it's kind of the inner drug in me.
Speaker 1:It's so terrible to say but maybe it is that consumer in me that's like maybe this is that thing. It's kind of like like you had said. You know I can form quick habits and good or bad habits really easily and you know, addiction is one of those things, just like cannabis and reliance. So I think for me it was almost like I'm going to swap it for something that's better in my mind and it's going to kind of give me the same thing that maybe cannabis might give me, but it just not in the same realm. But you know what I mean Mentally, I think, and it just didn't and I just couldn't, it just didn't align and it's not like I gave up on it, like I went back to it and tried it again and tried it again.
Speaker 1:I've done bigger doses. I started. I thought maybe I'll start doing them when I go to concerts just to kind of mellow me out instead of doing like cannabis at concerts and different things. I had a micro, macro dose once. It was probably not the right setting. Um, it was interesting but it didn't deter me. But I'm'm still not. Microdosing is still very much something that I'm like how are they getting the? How are other people getting the results? And I'm just like still a bit confused by it, Not about the drug, but just like how is that happening to them and not happening for me?
Speaker 2:I know, but you've you were able to find that through meditation and I can't. I talk to people all the time that are like I don't get meditation but they're microdosing, and that's where you were.
Speaker 2:that I mean we need to have a lot of tools at our disposal because we don't know what's going to work for us, and microdosing is not something that's going to work for everybody for for a variety of reasons, but the intention with it is that you are increasing neuroplasticity. So throughout our lives we create these grooves in our brain right Like essentially it's our neural pathways. We have a trigger. My mom makes me mad. I storm out of the house and I don't talk to her. My husband makes me mad. I go find a joint and fuck him for an hour, you know, like whatever it is.
Speaker 2:or I have an assignment, you know and I'm just not going to do that until a day before it's due, right, like you create these grooves, these patterns of behavior. And then you know you wake up at some point as an adult and you're like I'm still doing this childish shit. That is not, that didn't work for me at the time but was like very age appropriate. Now it's not really age appropriate and it's still not working for me. So I know enough to know that I should be making different choices around my behavior.
Speaker 2:So microdosing, meditation, time in nature, basic self-care of getting the right sleep can increase our neuroplasticity exercise in nature. Basic self-care of getting the right sleep can increase our neuroplasticity exercise. So all of those things increase, like I said, neuroplasticity. Which means snow falls down. You get new you're, you're, you're developing new ways of thinking because snow is falling in, filling in those grooves, and then when the trigger happens, you just don't do the knee jerk of oh, this is the way I go, look at that path, that's what's working. You can make different choices. And so when you're microdosing, the idea is like okay, I'm going to microdose for this three month period, I am going to figure out a way to react to my children with less disdain, with more patience. You create an intention for yourself that is measurable and that isn't like my whole life is going to transform. In three months I'm going to be a different person and I'm going to have a million dollars in the bank account. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Because that's how some of it sounds.
Speaker 2:It's not quite like that. It takes a long time. You have to start out on a microdose journey and give yourself 18 months.
Speaker 2:18 months, yes, yes, just like when you start meditating it's people notice that something about you has shifted before, before one self actually notices, they're like are you? Yeah, you just kind of don't even acknowledge the good stuff that's happening because that's not in our nature, right, we're more likely to be like oh, the bad stuff is still happening, but you've got all this great stuff that you've, behaviors that you've adopted that you know weren't part of the plan, so you're ignoring them. So I think it's like I also feel that microdosing doesn't work for everyone, and the exact moment that they need it to right, like you, just you might pull it out. When you lose a parent, when you're at the end of a relationship, there may be times of transition that it could find be helpful not particularly, not necessarily, in a moment where you're seeking change, but I do find that the most of the people that I talk to that are happy with it is they've been stuck and they like either need to make a change, but they don't quite know what it is, or they're very clear on what that change needs to be, but they don't want to do it and they just need that push, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the other part of this is how I set up my company, set set, which is short for set and setting, which is, you know, like dogma around psychedelic consumption, what's going on with your brain, how's your mindset? And then what's going on with the people, places and props around you when you're in that altered state, like, are you setting yourself up for an ideal experience With microdosing? Setting is our everyday life, like are you eating well? Are you surrounding yourself by people who make you laugh and are checking in on you? Yeah, are you making good choices in general with your time, because that's going to help your microdosing, just like, go more smoothly. Having a buddy really helps too. Yeah, really helps.
Speaker 2:And so you have to make choices around how you're integrating what those small nuanced epiphanies that happen when we're microdosing, when we're meditating, when we're spending more time in nature and there are simple tools and practices that you can adopt while you're microdosing or after you've had a macrodose journey like journaling is a big one for me. Not everyone wants to spend their time doing that, but I find that it's very, very helpful for me. And so if you're just doing what we've been conditioned to do with medicine, which is take a pill and be on with your life condition, to do with medicine, which is take a pill and be on with your life. It's really hard to like get the most out of these experiences with psychedelic medicine. You really have to be patient and you have to be pondering right. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think at that point in my life I wasn't pondering Like I think I was just like, fix me, now I'm so angry, how did I get here? I was just like, fix me, now I'm so angry, how did I get here? This little pill should fix me. I'm just going to do the schedule and in you know, two months I'll feel good and I'll be ready. And I was like, oh, but like it was the same with meditation, like it took time, yeah, and it took a long time. And yeah, I meditated for a year straight and that was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ch, and yeah I meditated for a year straight and that was fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, changed my life Totally yes, absolutely Changed my life. So let's, I want to. Now. I'm so curious about the 18 months because I'm like I've never heard of that, of the whole integration of it all. So what would, for those that are listening, that want to start a psychedelic journey, a microdose journey, what would that 18 months look like? I know that you can't take them every day. I do know that, and there's different patterns out there which I had realized. And so is it adapted or do you kind of change it as you go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, when I started SetSet last year but I've been working in psychedelics for almost four years like trying to figure out exactly how I was going to bring something to market to help people with integration watch on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts so I started that first so that I could investigate the space. And integration was what came up with people who have been doing this a lot longer than me Like that's the difference between taking drugs with your friends and having a good time and using these technologies to, you know, inspire transformation in your life. Like it's like. It's like that. So you know, I'm in this space and I really appreciate all the hard work that so many people are doing, because, I will tell you, it's very early and earning a living doing this is very difficult, like super difficult. People are still scared to do something that here in the States is schedule one. It's still not legal in Canada, so that means that you can't really talk about it openly and you're certainly hard to market on these platforms that are shadow banning you and, yeah, it's just, it's hard to get the word out about what you're doing. So this is a passion project for people who are in psychedelics for sure. So I understand if you need to charge $600 to teach someone how to microdose or $1,800 to work with someone to microdose, but that's not why I'm in this. I just really don't understand why we would keep something that could change someone's life away from them because we need to charge so much money, and I know that people have taken a lot of time to learn the skills that allow them to really help someone navigate this space.
Speaker 2:But my goal was to make sure that we made this accessible. Integration needed to be accessible. Education needed to be safe. It needed to come from a trusted source. That is not me, the podcast host. It is from medical experts, from mental health practitioners, and so I partnered with a licensed therapist to create a psilocybin guide that I create. It's a PDF download. It's also available in audio ketamine as well, which is legal here in the US, which is legal here in the US. And then we worked with a cohort of 10 women over 12 weeks to develop a microdosing protocol, and the purpose of the protocol is to figure out how to personalize it.
Speaker 2:To go back to your question like what does this protocol look like? It's different for everybody. Some people don't want to take a microdose on the days that they work. They don't want to take a microdose if they're going to be with their kids. Right, it is sub perceptual. You are not supposed to feel it. If you don't feel it, you're not doing it wrong. That is exactly right. So, taking rest days there are three rules. If you can't feel it or you're not supposed to feel it, you are supposed to take rest days in between your doses and you need to give it time and you need to be committed to an integration practice. Right. Like those are kind of the rules of microdosing other than that. Like if people are black and white and real hard core on this is the way you do it. Like that is not the point of psychedelics. You know we're supposed to be like softening the edges a little bit around what the expectations of our everyday are, you know. And so what we?
Speaker 2:There was some indigenous wisdom that came to me through Jennifer Chesick's book, the Psilocybin Handbook for Women, when she interviewed a woman named Michaela de la Maiko, who is an indigenous who works with indigenous cultures, and they advise women to work with microdose psilocybin I think primarily is what she was referring to in the psilocybin handbook for three months, so they go through three of their cycles because psilocybin is a serotonin agonist, as is estrogen. So depending on where your hormones are on your monthly cycle or in your lifetime cycle will impact the experience that you have with psilocybin. Yeah, oh yeah, it's a really big deal. Same with cannabis.
Speaker 1:Same with.
Speaker 2:THC, right. So, um, so, three months is really what the advice is to like. Learn to personalize your protocol. And for our micro psyched is the name of our protocol. It's $97. You can download it. It's DIY. It's at least half the price of the micro dosing courses that I've seen online. And once you own it, you own it Right. So it's got reflection questions. All the your integration tools are in there and you're learning about this part of your life. At each week you're learning a new lesson, a new theme. It's based on the neurobiology of change, like what is happening to your brain when you choose to take this medicine, and what you will find is that these are all your choices, right. Like, yeah, the medicine is there to support your choices. Yeah, you have to be the one to change your life. You have to figure out how to do hard things. Yeah, right, and define the people who can support you in that time. But it is not a mad. These are not magic pills. There is still work to be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like when I first started discovering microdosing, I really felt like they were kind of sold like a magic pill in a way, and like you had said I love how you brought up the point that you shouldn't feel it, because when I first started, people like when it first came out, um, people are like, oh my god, I took my microdose and I'm like totally buzzing here and I'm like, really, are you supposed to? I don't feel like that's safe because, like they're telling you to do it like in the morning and like go to work and stuff. Like, because I'm a huge advocate of like I don't smoke and drive, like I wouldn't, because, like I didn't do I didn't microdose, because I was like, am I allowed to drive? Like it says I'm allowed to drive because, like I have to drive my daughter around, I don't want to be stoned or take, you know, take something in the afternoon, expecting not to feel it, like not feel anything, and by like three o'clock when I have to go pick her up, I'm like I can't get you Like to me, that's like embarrassing. How would I be able? Well, it would be a mistake, obviously, if it was my first time, but you know, but it would still be very embarrassing for me to have to find somebody to pick up my daughter, because I accidentally did this and I didn't know that this was going to happen. So I like I appreciate that you brought that up because I felt like that was a huge thing for me when I first started.
Speaker 1:Or looking into microdosing, where it was that confusion of some people are like I'm feeling all the things, and I think that's where I felt the letdown, whereas like I'm not feeling all these things, I don't know what you're talking about, like I don't get that. Maybe my tolerance is too high. Maybe I should take two. Maybe I should take two, maybe I should take three. Like I'm like over, like not overdosing, obviously, because they're low, but um, but like I was just like I don't know, but I now I find I take them in. I tend to take a little, like do a little bit of micro dosing when I'm in stressful situations, um, because I really what?
Speaker 2:yeah, tell me about that um, when I feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:So we had to take out my dog. So this, this will be my example. So, um, about a year and a half ago, we had, we had two dogs, two very large dogs, and one of our dogs literally just died like no reason, not just died one night. Oh, it was awful, it was very, very tragic for all of us. So now that we have another we have we had two, now we have one so anything that happens with the one, you immediately the trauma comes back.
Speaker 1:So something was wrong with our dog. He was like collapsing, he couldn't walk and he's 150 pounds. So it's not like it's a little dog that you can just pick up and move around, it's 150 dog. Dog can't walk. We're in trouble, yeah. And so something had happened. He had like fallen down the stairs because his back leg stopped working.
Speaker 1:And it was that immediate back in that moment where my I'm staring at my dog who's passed away in my living room, not sure what to do, feeling helpless, um, and blaming myself for this, and so immediately I want to soak a joint because I just want to get out of this headspace. I don't want to be in this. This is not fun, this is hard, but I can't, because I have to be an adult and I might need to drive my dog and I need to be be able to say all the things and remember everything and not escape from it. I need to be present in this, and so what I did is I'm like I'm just going to go grab a few, like my two little micro dosings, and I'm just going to take two.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I just took two and I was just like I'm just going to take two, and after a few hours it's just like everything started to calm down and everything just made me feel better, and by the time I got home it just felt good. And those are the times I feel like I lean on them. I think it just is. I don't know if it's just a placebo effect or if it's because I know there's other things in there that provide calmness, like there's other like little fillers, um. So I'm just like, even if it takes a little bit of the edge off, I'm grateful for it, and so that's when I tend to kind of lean on them. But I'm, after this conversation, I'm going to go back, I'm going to do my three month regime.
Speaker 2:You need a journal.
Speaker 1:I need a journal, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know you already have a dog. I'm guessing you take your dog on a walk. Yes, yeah, that time you can. Okay, you can time your microdose. They often, most people, recommend that you take it in the morning because it can be energizing for people can give people more energy.
Speaker 2:I actually like to take mine around three o'clock when I think I'm going to need a um, an afternoon coffee or so. It doesn't mess with my sleep and that is the time that I'll take my dog on a walk or I'll sit at my desk and finish up my emails stuff I don't really want to do. Oh, you know, that's another time of day that, like 10 years ago when I got a diagnosis of ADHD, that's when I would take an instant Adderall, right, so I could get through the afternoon emails, dinner, bedtime. But now I take a microdose of mushrooms and I don't feel anything, I don't have the like fuck, maybe I won't be able to go. Oh sorry, maybe I won't be able to go to sleep.
Speaker 2:So in that you know, along those lines I'm all about harm reduction I think it's better for me to take a mushroom with some lion's mane or psilocybin with lion's mane, than it is to double down my Adderall for the day.
Speaker 2:You know, I just I really do believe for my nervous system that is a better choice, I think, for you, choosing to double up, even on your microdose, versus grabbing an Ativan or a Xanax because you're in a stressful situation. I think that that long-term, that's probably a better choice. So I am not in a like why do you need to do anything? You should just like be able to stand up and take it the punches as they come right, like that's just. We're all in fight or flight constantly, so when we're actually hit with something that is traumatic, we're already maxed right. Everything's fried, and so if you choose to take something that allows you to actually show up in that moment and not freak the fuck out and not be helpful at all, I think taking some of my mushrooms and other adaptogens are that's the way to go Exactly.
Speaker 1:I used to to take. I'm a big homeopathy person, so before I used to take my homeopathy. So I feel like it's kind of the same same, yeah, same thing. Um, in stressful situations, because sometimes, like that trauma's not resolved yet, I'm not ready to face those demons while I'm trying to help my other dog, like this isn't the time to bring this up body, mind, soul, like I just need to be able to go through. I need to, I just need a little break in the water, let me find some calm to get back in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean listening to you talk. There's a, there's grief that is still unresolved. That could be a very perfect intention for the next three months to like allow yourself to feel how grief will feel. It will. It will, I think, will open you up to be able to, you know then move into other things that you want to deal with. Yeah, it's pulling back the layers of the onion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Damn onions. Well, this is amazing. I feel like I could talk with you all day, Like my my mind is blown. I I love conversations like this. I love learning more, especially in things that I'm curious about and especially things that I'm already doing. So it's it's exciting to learn more and to get different information, because sometimes we get stuck in just being in our tunnel vision and only having you know the same three people that we're following and we're only listening to their. You know expert advice more or less. So it's nice to broaden, to broaden your viewpoint and the people that you lean on and the people that you look up to for information.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate this conversation. It was very enlightening for me and I'm going to walk into my next cannabis store looking at things a little bit differently, and I am gonna go back and and start my microdosing journey. I think honestly like this is the perfect time coming into the holidays, not saying like stressful, but I have downtime now. I have time to kind of be alone. There's less going on, um, so for me I think it's like the best time to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, no, yeah. The darker days here in seattle is a nice time to just up the joy factor. Yes, with external stimuli.
Speaker 1:Yes, I went for a walk today and it's like frigid and it's so windy and my intention this year I walk my dog regardless. I love walking, but my intention is to enjoy it regardless. If it's snowing, if it's like freezing, if it's icy, doesn't matter, I'm just gonna enjoy it and be appreciative that I can be outside and be walking and I'm safe and it's fine, like today. I'm walking and I was like, oh my god, the sky is blue today, like it was gray yesterday. So, yeah, we don't see many of those come the winter time, and so I'm appreciative that I'm able to be outside and not stuck in an office somewhere. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, thank you very much for the opportunity to yeah like shed some light maybe on some questions that you didn't even know you had. Yeah, it's good to be able to always share our stories right, exactly, it's the best. Well, thank you so much.
