101 Ashlea Dillard: Hypnotherapy, Regressions, & Ketamine Therapy Explained

Welcome to Going In Blind. I'm your host, Zach Tidwell. And this week, we're talking with a firefighter or former firefighter paramedic. She worked in the field for 10 years before transitioning into mental health. So now she's a therapist and a hypnotherapist who also works with psychedelic assisted therapies.

So I'm sure with her own background, probably seeing some horrible things, we'll get a very unique lens on all of this stuff. And I honestly, I don't think that we've... dug into hypnotherapy on here before. So very, very excited to do so. But before we do, just a quick or a couple quick announcements as usual.

If you are new to the show, there's a very powerful story behind it. So you can head over to ZachTidwell .com and read about what I'm talking about there. If any of that piques your interest, you can also reach out to me for speaking engagements and stuff like that.

If you've been listening for a while, please rate and review the show wherever that is, especially on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're watching, subscribe to the channel and share these things around. That just helps keep attracting these incredible guests that I've had the privilege of speaking with. Without further ado, Ashley, thank you.

Or I guess Ashley Dillard, because I didn't say your full name yet. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you for having me. And I'm excited to be here and talk about all the things. So I'm here for it. All of the things. Yeah. So I feel like a safe place to start here is what, you know, 10 years into being a firefighter is.

You've invested a lot of time at that point, so something had to have triggered that shift, correct? Everyone always asks me that question, and that there must have been some moment that made you decide to leave. But for me, it really was a collection of events. So it was kind of that...

slow boiling frog in a pot of water is it was a lot of things over time that kind of led me to the decision point of, okay, if I stick with plan A, keep doing the things that I'm doing, I'm going to have to make some big changes in myself.

I'm going to have to figure out how to take care of myself better and or just try to continue liking and doing the job or It's time to play big and step into a different role and choose myself and look at what's being presented to me and being okay with a lot of unknowns and a lot of uncertainty, but down in my gut knowing that that's the right path forward.

So it's really cool to me looking back. It's a cool way to see it where it wasn't just one thing that led me to the decision. I really had to sit with this. I really had to evaluate where my life was, what the quality of my life was.

And did I want to keep doing this the way that I was doing it? Or again, was there something bigger that was calling me a bigger purpose in kind of what that next season of my life was going to look like? Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's ever referred.

So typically there's not a one thing happened and then I decided to change, like to make a hard course change. It's, it's interesting, you know, at least at face value for you, it's like, yeah, I was doing one very meaningful job and then it shifted to another one.

So, but it sounds almost like from what you said, maybe there was some quality of life stuff that you weren't happy with. Yeah. I mean, I started to notice. It was really hard for me to wake up and be excited to go to the job. So I started feeling a lot of burnout, a lot of compassion fatigue, a lot of questioning around, you know, is this what I got into this work to do?

Or that question around, is this what I want to keep doing for the next 10 plus years? And so I think that's the point that I hit of I started to see a lot of changes in my own health, like physical health start to change. I started to notice relationships were being impacted and my behavior around that of, you know, coming home and my husband being like, why are you so, why are you being so mean to me?

Like, why are you so angry? And I'm like, I don't know. This isn't normal. Like this is how everybody is. And so a lot of those things of where I just wasn't. I lost a lot of like that spark you have at the beginning. And I think it really I just I'm a very strong empath as is.

And so I started to really absorb. everything and it became very very heavy and I didn't have a good way to offload a lot of that stuff it was just kind of that shove it down deal with it later or you shouldn't be feeling this way that whole dialogue we have in our head that it just stacked up over time and so when I think One of the biggest things that I saw was my physical health.

When a lot of that started to change and I started to see a ton more inflammation, a ton more results of chronic stress, some of the bigger stuff showing up, that's when I was like, I think I need to pay attention. And I think I need to listen because going down the same road in the way I was doing it was not going to lead me to a pleasant.

path and or that's why we see so many people end up getting hurt at some point anyways or all these chronic illnesses autoimmune stuff showing up is because we don't listen very well and so that was those were kind of some big things um the other thing I remember very clearly a lieutenant of mine having a conversation with me he recognized how frustrated how burned out I was and he told me straight up he's like if If something doesn't change in you, like, you're not going to make it.

And that was, it's always hard when someone, you know. paints the picture back for you and you have to really sit with this is now it's no longer just an internal dialogue for myself. Exterior is showing the same thing that I'm feeling on the inside. And that's hard when someone calls you out like that.

And so those few of those conversations and a little bit more of everything together, I think, is what led me to where I was. And also on the other positive side, though, is. after grad school and when I was in my internship is I got really, really busy, started to get very busy on the mental health side.

And so I had this big draw, this call, this passion of I'm doing this other kind of work now that's incredibly rewarding. It's such a blessing. It's so different in a way that was growing. fast as well and so I was having to make the decision around you can do both things you can't work 48 hours and then go see you know mental health clients for four days till you go back on shift again that's not going to work further burnout in school while you were a firefighter Yes.

Yep. Yeah. I did it all. Yes. I'm one of those gluttons for punishment. driving that there but that that makes a lot of sense yeah definitely more the mental side i would say like physically i was doing a job just fine like that kind of thing but also dealing with like chronic inflammation all the time and autoimmune markers starting to show up and things like that so it wasn't necessarily just the physical side it was a head it was a mental side so and i just didn't want to go somewhere where you know like the feeling of waking up and not being excited to do what you're doing is not a fun feeling and so that was really a big a big decision point for me and part of my journey and I've you know accepted it and I'm so grateful for it I had an amazing career I wouldn't take any of it back but I'm very glad to be in the place where I am now what was there was it the maybe the increased absorption that you have for other people's pain that was sucking the enjoyment out of it do you even know i think there yeah i think there was a level of that you have to disconnect yourself from your humanity to be able to survive so that became a survival tactic which is very hard for an empath or somebody that feels things to do that in the first place but When you start to do that repetitively over time, then you start to lose touch with humanity in general.

So now you stop seeing people as people. It's just a call. Everything becomes so functional rather than relational that I didn't like that. And that was what I felt myself slipping into that very heavily. Not seeing people as humans anymore and being disconnected from your humanity. And like I said, part of that's that survival tactic because you have to in a way.

Otherwise, it'll be so overwhelming. Everything that you see or everything you have to deal with. Everybody's worst day. To fully be immersed in that and to allow yourself to feel everything is... can be incredibly overwhelming or not sustainable if you're not doing it in the correct way so I think that was part of the toll that started to hit me too is that mentality of just you know keep grinding through that don't let the stuff impact you don't let you know death impact you or a lot of the terrible things that you get in the middle of or I mean just you know running the same call on the same homeless person over and over again those kinds of things like that all that impacts you on some level and to just shut all that off that takes that takes a price tag with it so that's where I think that comes from well that's tough because you have to be able to do that while you're doing the job like that is necessary but I think that's you see that in the military where as well and police officers where The problem is when you shut it off, you don't allow yourself to turn it back on when it's time to process.

And so the processing never gets done on the back end. And I'm guessing you've probably seen that having the education, you know, the mental health education behind all of that as you're dealing with all of this. It's probably been an interesting thing to be able to pick yourself apart a little bit.

Oh, yeah. And you mentioned early on, you know, talking a little bit about. like the ketamine assisted work and the psychedelic stuff is in my very first ketamine session that i did um or the you know like i was actually the person doing the ketamine is i was walking through the graveyard with thousands of graves and some had names some had faces and the grim reaper was there with me and we're walking through this graveyard and i had you know several people who A lot of people who I've known who have killed themselves or terrible pediatric calls with kids involved or just so much death.

And essentially we're walking through this, you know, like not pleasant graveyard towards this huge like beam of light. And when we get there, the Grim Reaper, he goes, you've got to let this go. Like you've got to let these. souls these people be at peace like you did everything you could for them but you cannot carry this anymore and that was so profound for me and that was all still while I was online so I got to actually like really shift things towards the end or do some things differently but it made me very cognizant around how do I handle these kinds of calls or how do I handle calls in general so that I'm not subconsciously carrying everything with me because I was.

And you don't realize it because it's just so common. It's just another day at work. But in the terms of the subconscious and the level of the body is where everything was imprinted, everything was remembered. And so that was a huge wake up call for me is I have to start doing things differently because that was, you know.

nine eight nine years worth of calls who would have even been able to know what 20 years worth of calls would have been like at just that scorecard it becomes so huge is there a big like especially the military or at least obviously i was only in the marine so i can only speak to what a marine grunt unit is like but there's a have a very big let's shut up a drink thing which is it's you know part of its camaraderie part of it is but there's also it gets in the i guess i feel like that if you're already stuffing stuff down and then you get into that like i mean for me that's i leaned into that and that's not saying anything bad about the marine corps obviously i made my decisions on things but i leaned into this Things are good.

I'm going to keep drinking away and doing acting like things are good. Is is that a very similar culture like in with firefighters when you guys come off of shift or obviously you're not boozing while you're at the fire station on on for however many days you're there.

But is there still like that backside kind of party culture? Oh, absolutely. There is. I think it's kind of sad. funny at times we joke about this especially with people i work with a lot of people who have underlying substance use issues especially as a former military or current or first responder and it's almost so normal for the culture you don't even realize that it is like you uh You're the odd one if you're not in the middle of the behavior, if you're not drinking or you don't go out and have drinks or whatever like that is you're the odd one out.

It's that prevalent. And it's so every, you know, celebration or event is centered around alcohol. And it's unbelievable how many people, you know, end up getting DUIs or like some even end up going to, you know, inpatient or outpatient programs. there's a lot of people who like it's teetering that line of like okay now you're actually getting DUIs things are happening or you're going through withdrawals if you're not drinking enough frequently enough that it's a massive issue and I think it's very under or it's just normalized of like I've had some Military guys on my podcast, too, talk about going home and drinking like a pint of whatever was normal every single day.

I was about to say a pint isn't jack. That's small. Those are small numbers. Yeah. Yeah. But every day is and you just don't realize it becomes, again, so normalized that you don't even realize that's not normal anymore. But it's all about covering up. It's a coping strategy for covering stuff up, for getting your nervous system to shut up for a little while.

Like all the things that we're using it for, it's just the legal. easiest one to get i guess um but everybody has something whether it's you know alcohol sex drugs or rock and roll like everybody has something yeah oh absolutely america that no one talks about because then you're fat shaming people it's like we're we're still allowed to talk about this is this is an addiction uh it's i don't know why people tiptoe around that but it absolutely is um yeah it's I think in general it's because I was a functional alcoholic for a hot minute after I got out of the marines and like I really I think there's a lot more even like just in general out of the entire population a lot more people that are riding that functioning line than we realize be and where they don't realize it either it's just yeah it's interesting and I I've wondered as some of these plant medicines start to, you know, in the next 10, 15 years, as they start to really spread in our society, as I expect they will, if that some of that stuff starts to change.

But I don't know, because I know, supposedly, you know, current gen z i believe is drinking less than any generation before them like it seems to be i don't know how much of that is okay yes but we're abusing other substances still so it's you know not necessarily pointing to the fact that some increased awareness has arisen around maybe the impacts of alcohol when it's used in in less than just or in more so than a social environment but i think it'll be interesting to see but with you get really getting into the the hypnotherapy stuff i mean is where's the best place to start i know you do clinical hypnotherapy i guess oh because i'm curious on one hand How much of hypnotherapy in general is entirely dependent on the individual's suggestibility?

Is everyone a potential candidate for hypnotherapy or do you kind of have to suss out if a person, I don't know if manipulated is the right way, but if a person can be manipulated into that state? I think statistically they say like 90 % of all people are hypnotizable if you're looking at data and statistics.

It really depends upon the hypnotherapist or who you're working with. But it's amazing how little that you actually need to. be able to hypnotize people. And it's just like if you're coming in to do any kind of therapeutic work, you have to have a level of willingness. And that's even just making the phone call or going to the website or walking through the door, logging on for your session, whatever that looks like.

All you need is that little bit, that seed of willingness, and that will be more than enough to get you where you need to go. I personally haven't had any issues with people in hypnosis. What's really fun, though, is when people come back and they're like, I don't know if it's working or I don't know if, you know, like, well, for one, are you doing the things that you're supposed to do?

And two, like, do you do you believe that it can work, that it can like you can change? And it's another really like sticking point for us to work through. therapeutically or even coaching wise because if you don't believe you can change or you don't do what you need to do there's what I call the secondary gain which is what you get out of having your problem so if that's strong enough like if that is big enough that will almost self -sabotage you so those are all things that we look at and layers that we work through because we have to see like what's the payoff of your depression what's the payoff of your anxiety right now what's the payoff of you drinking alcohol all those kinds of things we have to look at because sometimes it's just those little things that end up being really powerful shifters for people but it's hypnosis in general is not mind control and it's not the people always ask are you gonna make me bark like a dog or you know do something stupid or say something stupid it's like I can't make you do anything that you don't want to do there isn't that level of control in that way if I told you to go out and eat five Big Macs and you're like, that sounds freaking disgusting.

I'm not going to do that. Yeah. I can't make you do that. You have to want to do the things. So that's why I talk about the willingness. Yeah. You just told me that you made your husband put up a wire fence, like right before we started recording.

We agreed to it. We did it collaboratively. So we needed to. So, but yeah, I, I wish that's not that easy. That would be cool. That would be sweet. no but it's yeah it's not mind control in that way you're actually when when you're in hypnosis you are fully conscious and you're fully in control the entire time so you're not sleeping you're not like it that's some of the myths and misconceptions around like what hypnosis actually is so i'm glad that we're talking about it because i like to bring a lot of information to it because it's a really super powerful modality literally the one that changed my life the most out of plant medicines out of other psychedelics out of everything hypnosis for sure was the biggest like crazy like wrecking bomb in my whole life of looking at everything so before because i get always a million questions open up with this stuff but before we move further into that with i just want to clarify you know, the, the idea of the payoffs that you were talking about and identifying someone being open to change or believing that they can change.

I mean, that's not, I just were, I want to make sure I'm on the same page as you. That's not unique to hypnotherapy. That is therapy in general. Right. Oh, absolutely. That's anything in general. That's anything, even just your own belief in yourself. That's like, you have to believe in yourself.

You have to believe you can do anything. And actually want that. Yeah. And want it. And that, yeah, that's universal. Not just with therapy. That's with anything. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something with that, but with the, I guess because you are coherent in fully conscious while that's going on, and maybe you can speak to this from a personal circuit or from a personal perspective and the hypnotherapist perspective, is it.

is the power of that modality the fact that you're i mean you're almost doing a dance there right if you're aware of what's happening and you're kind of letting it happen to yourself is that because you're almost it's it's like the the client is handing over driving to someone else Well, let me give you some framework to help explain it and then it'll bring it all together because it's a really good question you bring up.

So when I look at hypnosis, it's a very natural but altered state. So you go into hypnosis throughout the day during different points. You don't even realize that you're doing it so subconscious. When you talk about people being in the flow state or when someone's driving and they go from point A to point B and every turn, every stoplight, everything is so subconscious.

You don't even really remember getting there. That's a level of hypnosis. So we're tapping into a different brainwave state. We're going into like our higher beta into kind of past delta, more into theta brainwave states. So it's something you do all the time. throughout the day. When it comes to the mind, we have three aspects of our mind.

We have our conscious mind, which is obviously awake and conscious when we're awake and conscious. So it's taking in now 60 ,000 pieces of information each day, and it's trying to dwindle that down into what do we need to know? How do we, you know, operate in this world?

All those kinds of things. There's your subconscious mind, which is a lot of people refer to that as your heart mind. So it's where you hold all of your memories, your beliefs, your emotions, your perceptions. In the midst of the two of those is what we call the critical factor.

And that's a fact -checking gatekeeper. What happens is your subconscious mind has been taking in information since before you were even born. So belief systems, and that's why we run into like epigenetic type things and generational trauma and stuff like that. Because you're literally being programmed and your nervous system is being programmed before you're even born.

So when there's new information that comes into the system, let's say like when someone's working with me. We're dealing maybe with low self -esteem or self -value or worth, things around that. And we start to talk about how you are worthy, you are accepted, you are loved, you are important, all those things.

The conscious mind says, heck yeah, we love that. We want to believe that. That sounds amazing. But it hits the critical factor and the critical factor says like, time out. I'm going to be right back. Let me check with the subconscious and see what our programming is, what we actually believe about ourselves.

And if the subconscious mind says, no, I believe that I'm bad. I'm a piece of shit. I'm not worth anything. I'm never going to be able to do anything right. Nothing ever works out for me. It's going to reject all of those suggestions. So now a lot of that like positive affirmation work.

we're trying to do isn't as effective because a lot of it's not even making it through so through hypnosis we're able to take the critical factor offline and work directly with the subconscious and the conscious mind so like you mentioned someone else goes into the driver's seat but it's actually you staying in the driver's seat because your subconscious is going to kind of lead the show in terms of where we're going where we're going to stop what we're going to actually dig into what layer of the onion is ready to be addressed the hypnotherapist is this there is like the passenger in the front seat saying like Are you good?

Do you need a drink? Do you want another bag of Skittles? Like, what are we doing? That kind of thing is your subconscious is only going to bring up the stuff in that moment, in that session that you're ready to address and handle that layer of the onion, essentially, like I like to look at it.

So you're still fully in control. Nobody else is taking over control of your mind or taking you to a place that you're not. ready to go or that your subconscious mind isn't going to go there we're just there to support on the other side of it but everything that comes up just like with psychedelic work everything that comes up is meant to come up that there are no mistakes.

Sometimes you don't always get what you want, but you get what you need. And so trusting your subconscious mind and trusting yourself is a huge part of the work as well as what comes up is coming up. So hopefully that kind of answers or clears up that question, but you're still definitely the one in the driver's seat.

That was the last part was such a therapist answer. There's whatever comes up is meant to come up and what doesn't is okay. It's true though. It's true. I've had sat through plenty of psychedelic work with people and they're like, that's not what I wanted to go over.

Nothing about this ever came up. And I'm like, well, yeah, like that's not how this works. You don't get to choose it. Like whatever is ready to come up. comes up for a reason so you have to just let go and trust that it's a process and it only gives you what you have capacity to handle which is important too is sometimes some of the big stuff or what would call quote -unquote big stuff doesn't come up right away because you don't have enough capacity to handle it in the here and now so it's very cool how our minds work for us and they like it really in our favor but we just have to let go and trust that So how do you ride that line with regression?

Because I know that you do some of that work and maybe also define what that is for people who aren't aware. Sure. There's several different kinds of regression and it kind of depends on what people believe and what they're kind of dabbling into. But a lot of the regressions that I work with is going back to the where, when, and how.

a belief started to become true for you. So if maybe it's the belief that I'm not lovable, okay, like we're going to work with that and we're going to figure out, you know, based on what emotions come up around, they always manifest in issues you already are dealing with.

So if it's relationships or gosh, it could be money or all kinds of things is we dwindle it down to see what the emotions are and look for the belief. And then we tap. we use that to go back to the where, when, and how. So we have to find, it's usually an earlier, sometimes it could be, you know, 10 years or less in age, but it can, I've seen it even play into your 20s, 30s, where some of these impactful moments or impactful relationships started to make you believe this thing about yourself.

So that's where we go back and we deal with it in the here, in that moment. so much more resourced. You're going back as you, as this adult you, but we have to go back and rewire that belief so that it no longer exists as the way that you live your life.

So that's where many people get stuck, is you're living under that old framework, that old belief system, I'm not lovable, and that impacts everything in your life. So we go back and fix it. Work with it in that moment there, which the regressions are crazy powerful. Man, and they can be hard.

They're not always easy, I'm going to say. But man, it's wild to see when people come out of it or even myself. And I was like, I had no idea. That's what made me feel this way or that's what made me believe this. And if you would have never done the work around it, reframed it, you just continue to live your entire life.

out of that belief system. Can you give an example, I guess? Because it sounds like these are formative experiences that have become foundational beliefs in your schema of yourself, and they bleed over into everything else. For you, because you've said hypnotherapy has been so big in your life, was there something specific that stands out?

So there was a regression that, well, let me, I'll start from the beginning. So we went into the session with the goal of working on this feeling confident, feeling empowered to show up. So like, you know, being in the podcast world is like to put yourself out there and to put your content out there and to not feel like you're selling yourself short or holding yourself back.

So that was my intention going into this is I want to be able to like show up to not be worried about what other people are thinking of me and all that kind of thing. That was my intention going into the session. So then the hypnotherapist who I was working with.

took me, you know, into hypnosis and we did our, we're doing our regression. And I actually went back to a middle school memory, middle school moment with a, I had just transferred schools. I was brand new. And, you know, like back then, or probably even now, I guess most people grow up in the same school.

So it's people know each other for a very long time. Well, I was the new kid on the block and it. I was always taller than everybody, including the boys. Like I've always been super tall. So and middle school is just a terrible time for everybody. Yeah. But I was struggling so hard to fit in and be accepted.

I just wanted to make friends. I just wanted to, you know, feel like I belonged there. And this group of girls were just terrible. Like they were just mean girls as, you know, junior high girls are. So that time frame, not even just one single event, but those relationships with those girls impacted me to where I started to believe I can't be myself.

I can't put myself out there. I need to worry about what other people are thinking of me. Like all of that. Don't be too loud. Don't like really be yourself. All of those things came from those middle school. encounters with a group of girls now how would I have ever been able to get down to that and talk regular talk therapy I don't know or I don't believe so because I never did get there I would have never known that that was what was causing the issue so I needed to go back in into that moment and to deal with that relationship and you know the cool thing in regressions is you get to tell the people exactly what usually you want to tell them but you never got the opportunity to so I kind of like got to let these group of girls have it and you know to tell them exactly how they made me feel and then I got to totally work with you know that 12 year old version of myself to empower her to feel confident and to remind her who she really is and all these really powerful things coming back to the truth of who we are And I'm telling you, after that session, like, that clicked something different for me to where it was like, okay, there's a gift in being who I am.

I get to show up. I get to take up space. I get to feel confident, empowered, all those things. Dunk a basketball. Yeah, dunk, you know, like, be tall, all the things. And it just really changed a lot. So, and honestly, I would say, oh, man, probably 90 % of.

A lot of people, when we're doing this work, something comes up from that time frame of life, that middle school time frame. It's so influential in ways that there's usually something that comes up. I'm often not surprised at all. So that's my personal example. With it, I've had regressions where...

People have gone back to like less than a year old. Stuff came up, they could see things like perfectly in the room that they were, but obviously pre -verbal up to people, you know, just a couple of years away from the age that they are now. So it's just so wild, the timeframe of things that can be so impactful.

It's also regressions are really helpful at processing grief and loss as well, too, where you get to kind of work through some of these really profound moments through life where we experience grief and loss in a totally different way. So regression can be used for a lot of different things, but definitely one of the most powerful forms of hypnosis and very, very healing for the nervous system as well.

And so when you said you were able to go back and basically say things to these girls that you never did and even to yourself, does it feel like you're actually reliving that while you're doing it? Or is that an exercise that you're doing with the therapist while you're in that state?

It feels, well. It feels very real from a lot of levels. For one, it's kind of amazing to see what your subconscious has taken an imprint of and remembers. So little details of things can be very surprising. I hear that a lot from people of like, wow, I didn't know it would be that clear, that vivid to see everything.

And the way that your body feels and the emotions that come along with it, I always tell people. it would be very hard to fake that the things that you feel are very very real and so you're feeling kind of all of that when it comes to trauma though that a lot of people some I mean sometimes that's something we have to go back and address something that's an open book that's causing issues and it can be hard for people but What we do, we have different techniques to if it gets to be too much, too overwhelming, we can pull back a little bit.

And we have techniques to allow people to be there in that moment without necessarily without for sure re -traumatizing or kind of that feeling of am I going to be able to get through this is like you're absolutely going to get through it. And we have lots of different ways to help you do that.

But I'm asking, like, is it immersive, basically? When you're revisiting that, is that, like, for you, is that an immersive sensory -wise? Does it feel like you're there again? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it feels like you're there. Sometimes, though, it doesn't always. It can feel a little bit like a third party experience, too, though, like you're watching it like a similar like in some of the psychedelic work as well, like you're kind of a third party or watching things like on a movie screen type thing.

But you're feeling everything like you're sometimes, though, you can even your senses come online so you can start to smell things like the temperature changes. You can feel things differently like those are. or hear things those are big indications too but it's incredibly immersive of the experience that you're in it's so weird especially if it was from when you know you're so little like i i'll be honest i have a hard time believing that someone you know when they're One year old, like that they're having a memory that's a real memory and not, you know, constructed memory that they believe is a memory.

But let's assume if you are or even if it's you as a toddler, like going back to that state with the actual. You know, you don't have any grasp of anything, even as even if you're three years old, like your ability to process anything, even outside of, you know.

single sentences really or you know small clusters of sentences and not having the capacity to actually have any sort of larger thoughts around things and then going back to there as an adult has to be freaking weird it has to be very very strange yeah it's it's definitely eye -opening i think and it's where i mean As soon as before, like I mentioned, before you're even born, your nervous system is trying to figure out like how it survives in this world.

And that builds your belief systems off of that. So like it's not uncommon at all. I mean, like we do a ton of regressions with people, like I said, under the age of 10. So you're talking about these big formative years. a caregiver or a teacher a parent a sibling a group of friends if something happened to where like that message got encoded into the system that you know I'm not wanted or I'm not good enough or that it can start even yeah like I said before you're even born and then you keep experiencing that same scenario or that belief system continues to get stronger over time so it's wild even when you As three, you wouldn't be able to process that kind of thing.

But your nervous system is taking in that information and trying to figure out a framework of how do we survive? How do we stay alive? How do we operate in this world? And if something happens, that changes the entire shift of the programming. And then that leads to multiple different behaviors down the road.

the road but they're always living under this framework that you know i must have done something wrong they don't love me and then everything goes from there so it's it's so wild it's just it's hard to explain it it's just very wild but once you do it you see how profound it really is do we know for a fact because i know there's been studies on you know uh fetus hearing its mom's voice or different music that it listens to and stuff but in terms of i guess do we know to what extent that kind of how how much of an effect those things have like i guess it in terms of it potentially causing something so drastic that it's something that someone has to address in therapy as an adult like this Oh, absolutely.

It's it goes down. And well, I mean, generational trauma can show up at any point and that gets they've shown now it's actually encoded in people's DNA. So the nervous system and the belief systems of your parents directly impact you. And you see this a lot, too, of how.

What your parents believed about themselves, like all of that data gets encoded within you as well. And how they felt about you, you know, being born, coming into this world can have a really huge impact as well. So if your parents were financially struggling or, you know, maybe they were done having kids or they wanted you to be a boy and you were a girl, like all of those thoughts, those beliefs, that.

Starts to imprint into your own programming and your own nervous system. And again, the studies are showing like this is happening from the DNA level. So you're actually born. Affecting gene expression. Yeah, absolutely. And you're being born with this already pre -programmed set of beliefs, you know, that I'm a burden or I'm not good enough.

So it is wild to see, you know, just how. impactful it is even with so another like because I like to give some of the personal side of things because then it makes it real and people can relate to that instead of a lot of mumbo jumbo but for me working through one of the big things that hypnosis brought up for me was my relationship to money and I had to look at my entire belief system around what does money mean to me?

What do I believe about all of that? And really dismantling this scarcity mindset. Well, through hypnosis, coming back to the scarcity mindset didn't just start with me. That started, that came from my parents because my parents, when they had me, they were both young, 19 and 21 years old, living in a trailer.

Like they didn't have money. They didn't have the resources set up to have a kid. And all of that impacts the way that I viewed money, you know, spent money, all those kinds of things as an adult. And so those are the things we have to go back and look at because all of that programming is affecting you in some way and showing up in your life.

So it's it's crazy. It's just so fascinating. I love it because it's just it's just the coolest thing to to look at. Yeah. Well, and even as a, as a small child, like you're still in that environment and whether you're fully keying in on everything that's going on, like kids understand things more than we realize, maybe not in the way that we understand them, but they pick up on stuff like that, that there's tension around the money and the food or whatever.

It seems like this is almost that the hypnotherapy is a tool to have in your toolbox as you're working with a client as opposed to, okay, we're going to, you know, come at this, we're going to put you through CBT. Instead, this is a tool in a toolbox that you have as you're working with the client as opposed to we're just doing hypnotherapy for X amount of sessions.

Is that correct? Yeah, I think it's, well, it's moved into probably for me one of the most primary modalities because what I was running into early on in my internship and early in my practice was the people kept coming back with the same problem. So the same anxiety, the same, you know, fear, the same depression.

the same relationship stuff whatever it was is like we're still talking about the same stuff through each session or we kept seeing the same patterns show up and i was kind of like okay there's got to be a different way to look at this because not every and that i was already immersed in the psychedelic world anyways but not everybody that's not their thing or they don't want to and then there's a lot that goes into that too so you can't just like one -off decide we're going to do this modality tomorrow there's a lot of planning that goes into it so I really wanted to find something that helped support my practice in a way of getting into the roots of things the deeper work because I know that the deeper work is what leads to the symptoms the emotions the behaviors anyways and so I The very first time I ever experienced hypnosis was when I was in fire academy.

They had sent me to do some work with a therapist who used hypnosis as a modality. And we did work around confined spaces, which was actually like a stress trauma response that I was experiencing. So I knew that it worked because it helped me immensely to do what I needed to do.

But I really found that. You know, I just put it out there and was like, OK, I need something else, something that gets me to the deeper level. And it was kind of like one of those profound messages that came through that was like hypnosis. That's go hypnosis.

So I found an amazing school and program. I wanted to get very, very thoroughly trained because there are some like crazy weekend workshops out there, which I just don't believe if you're going to be working in someone's subconscious mind that you would just be. you know, 48 hours of training and call it good.

So I wanted it very, very thorough. And so my school was like over 5 ,000 hours and nine months long to go through it. A real fair, like a actual counseling certification almost. It was massive. Wow. But I wanted it to be that way because I take my work very seriously.

So I wanted to get very, very thoroughly trained. And little did I know in the midst of my own training, it's what I call the great dismantling for myself. You are going through it at the same time you're learning it. And so here's where I'm dealing with this.

All these beliefs that had been under the surface or how I'd been living my life for 37 plus years and deciding, do I still want to believe this about myself? Do I still want to live this way? Or is this no longer serving me anymore? Never has. And so that doing all of that work in the midst of it is a lot to say, but it's been so awesome.

And that's why most people. We do some form of hypnosis when I work with them because it just works so effectively and so fast. And it allows us to work with the nervous system at the same time, which is a huge missing link in traditional methods. So, yes, long story short, it is a tool.

Again, not everybody does it, but I would say pretty much everybody I work with, we do it. And it's been really, really helpful to have in my toolbox to get. Especially when people come in, they're like, I just feel very stuck. I've been working on this for a long time, or I can't get through this behavior.

That kind of stuff is where hypnosis works incredibly well. So when, at what point is it, okay, this is an appropriate time for, instead of talk therapy today, we're going to do hypnotherapy? Or am I getting that wrong? How this structuring typically goes. So typically when I meet somebody first off, I just start to listen to them and I start to listen to how they talk about themselves, how other people talk about themselves, what they see coming up in their life.

And I can usually start to hear a lot of their belief system come up. So, you know. Things around, you know, things never work out for me or I can't do this or I'm afraid to do this. I'm inadequate. All this stuff, I just listen and dig out some of these beliefs that I hear.

Once I have some of that information, which is usually done in the first, sometimes even in the console, I start to hear things about how people speak about themselves. And then that gives us an idea of, okay, here's some ways that we can handle this. We can definitely stick to more of the traditional work, which will still always include the nervous system because that's my cup of tea.

I will not work with the mind without working with the body at the same time. We have to do both. But most people, I think nowadays too, they come to me specifically for hypnotherapy. But we kind of explained to them, here's what we can do. Here's some different avenues that we can take.

But if you really, really want to get into the deeper work, which is the work that I do, we have to use some different tools and leaning into hypnosis for that. And then typically the next session is when we would start that because those are usually two hour sessions.

And we start off, you know, working you through and getting used to hypnosis so that. You feel. confident going into it and you're more familiar with it because a lot of people just don't know what to expect so we have to get the first one kind of out of the way so you can kind of see oh okay this is what it's like uh there's nothing to be afraid of all those kinds of things in the first session and then we typically work from there i take the method of cleaning house because i'm like once you go into this work you you want to look for all the dust bunnies that are hiding under things and you want to clear those out because the less buttons you have the less buttons there are for things externally to get pushed so so when you're talking about working with the body what do you mean and why is it this non -negotiable with you like if you're going to work someone with someone why and how are you doing it one of the biggest shifters for me was looking at the nervous system and it was never anything that I learned definitely not growing up and I didn't honestly learn it very well at all going through you know traditional master's work when I came across And neurosomatics specifically.

I'm always a try the Kool -Aid before you buy it type of consumer. So before I would do any training or any modality, I'd always want to try it for myself first. And when I found neurosomatics and I started to do the work with that, it was like a floodgate opened in a totally different way of looking and understanding myself.

We've all heard of, you know, fight and flight. And now most people have heard of like freeze and fawn or sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system. And of course, my medic background like really soaked all this up because I love the medicine in the body. It's bread and butter. Yeah.

Exactly. But I was like, what does this actually mean? This, you know, sympathetic state and how do we see this play out? But understanding from the nervous system side of like, oh, my perfectionism. is a nervous system state of being in flight. It's a stress state or my hypervigilance or my inability to rest or my disassociation.

All of those things are things coming from the nervous system for a reason. I've never been in any therapist's office that ever really talked to me about that kind of stuff. It was always like, well, why your perfectionism? Oh, you just love control. Okay, well, that's not like super helpful to understand.

But when I started to look at it from the nervous system side, and again, when... and did the full training and everything, that really shifted things for me to understand. It's not just about being in control. It's my nervous system trying to stay safe in an environment because it's under threat prediction all the time.

So like you, you know this, like I did in my career. It was all about threat prediction and hypervigilance and needing to be aware all the time. But your nervous system doesn't know time, place, or event. So I can't. You can't come home and be at the gas station and know differently from being deployed somewhere.

Or like me, I can't be in a movie theater and not feel hypervigilant to look around for all the emergency exits. Those kinds of things are coming from the nervous system, from those survival mechanisms, those patterns. And that's where we have to do the work as well, because what happens when a lot of people are doing these big shifts and these moves.

in their mind and processing stuff the nervous system is always going to go back to the default mode network we've all heard that term thrown out there the default way of doing things because it's literally wired into your brain it's wired into your nervous system this is how we always do things this is how we stay safe this is how we survive so we have to using neuroplasticity create those new neural pathways and those new ways of doing things so that the nervous system doesn't go back into the default way teaching people, helping people master their nervous system to be more regulated, to go to the gas station and not get activated or to be in a conversation and not go into a threat response of fight or flight or to not be in sympathetic nervous system all the time and then come home and totally dump into numbing, isolating, doom scrolling because your nervous system is trying to downregulate.

All of those kinds of things, even people pleasing, like all those behaviors is what we look at in the nervous system. And that's where I help people work with their nervous system as we create these new belief systems and these new patterns so that we're creating a new default mode network.

I mean, I can, I obviously see the need for that with, you know, someone who's been to combat or someone who was in your profession or a cop or someone who's been through something. I hesitate to use the word traumatic because I feel like the word traumatic is greatly overused today.

And this is almost what I'm getting at with this or what I'm going to ask with this as well is that when we make it where I guess is. Isn't assigning someone's like people pleasing or their perfectionism to being a fight or flight response a little. exaggerated or am i too am i reading too far into that and i guess i where i'm i i have a very big bias again towards i feel like everything these days is trauma everything these days even if it's a healthy stressor is this gets it in our society there's a leaning towards over over I guess overvaluing isn't even the right term there, like.

Magnifying those things out of proportion, I guess it would be more accurate. So is that is is that literally does some of this work of the nervous system work apply to something as small as people pleasing? And is that I guess do those are they actually running on the same systems?

Is there science backing that that that is actually what's at play there? Yeah. So if we look at the brain, when we're in a nervous system regulated state, we're in our prefrontal cortex, which is our logical, our reasoning, our emotionally regulated state, problem solving part of the brain.

It's in the front part of our brain. That's ideally where we want to be most of the time. But what happens when we experience a stress response or trauma response. But even when we just feel threatened in some way, we go back into the amalgam, which is our lizard brain.

That's the back part of our brain that's very close to our brain stem. That part of our brain is very primal. It's all about safety and survival. Anything that is considered a priority for that part of the brain is all about how do we stay alive. It doesn't have the ability to problem solve or to communicate or to stay emotionally regulated or any of those kinds of things.

It literally only cares about staying alive. And that's like literally how our brain is wired with our nervous system. So what happens when, let's say, even when you're in a conversation with somebody and let's say you pick up on some nonverbal body language or their face does something or their voice of tone.

Depending on what you've experienced so far or what's been imprinted into your nervous system, if that was considered a threat or some kind of stressful state, you're already going to jump back into your obligato. So now we're going back into the lizard brain, the lizard with the panic button saying, do something now because something needs to happen.

Then from there, we go into those states of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. So fawning is that. trying to befriend the threat, trying to, you know, make things okay. I'll take care of everyone else. I'll be the people pleaser, that lack of boundaries because that mitigated the threat at the time.

That's what the nervous system learned to do. And so that's where the people pleasing part that you're talking about comes into play is that's, that's a. A triggered response that comes from some kind of programming that the nervous system picked up of, we need to do this, we need to take care of everyone else, we need to always say yes, like all those kinds of things.

That's what kept us alive. That's what kept us safe. And so that's what it knows to do. It's very well practiced. And so that's the physiological side behind it. neuroscience side is it's a pre -programmed response for whatever reason that's where a lot of this is coming from of it doesn't always necessarily have to be the big traumas or the big stressors it's just those little things over time that the nervous system decided and took in that info to say this is how we do things so we need to be always paying attention of how we stay alive that's the brain's job essentially how do we breathe and stay alive and so it's taking in all that information and comparing it back to the playbook that we have of the past this happened this last time i'm recognizing some patterns so triggering into a response from there does that help like answer your question or make sense that way yes and when you brought it back to like the fawning i'm like okay yes you've been in a abusive relationship for years and you've that was your survival mechanism because you have kids and you want to leave the relationship and you've learned yeah yeah drawing it back to like something bigger like that and then breaking it back down made more sense with the and you get conditions to it um yeah that stuff that totally makes sense and side note because i've always wondered this and i've apparently never thought to google it do you know the obvious the lizard brain is something everyone throws out there do you know like why why we call it the lizard brain is that just because it's so primal like if you think about like uh Well, like literally thinking about a lizard.

All it cares about is how it stays alive. You know, like how I run away from the bigger lizard that's going to eat me in this scenario. It's incredibly primal. That's where I think the lizard brain comes from is because the lizard brain probably isn't worried about being emotionally regulated.

Like it doesn't have that kind of brain power. I always wondered because I know they think we descended from a shrew way, way, way back. And I was like, that's not a lizard though. So I don't, I don't know. I've always squirrel, but. yeah people call it sometimes like the mammalian brain i've heard that too it's just like thinking of it very practically safety and survival how do you stay uh how do you stay alive basic needs yeah so i feel like I've got, I mean, I get to ask endless questions about the hypnotherapy stuff, but I want to make sure we have time to cover some of this other stuff too.

So I, with the, I guess sticking with the body before we move into some of the psychedelic assisted stuff, as you're trying to basically decondition people or condition them to more appropriate state with these, these associations that their brain has formed. how like what is the is it drawing awareness to these things you know these cognitive distortions that are going on and trying to make them aware of them and through their own awareness you're trying to make these shifts it's a little bit of blending all of that together so awareness is the first step because again like a lot of these behaviors become so practiced and so subconscious you don't even notice that they're happening And they're very, very well ingrained.

So starting to get people to pull back a little bit and looking at the behavior and asking the question, why? Why do I feel like the towels need to be folded this way? Or why do I feel like I can't, you know, go to a restaurant and sit with my back towards the door?

Like questions like that of starting to be very curious and asking why begins the process of understanding because if we can't see it, we can't do anything with it. And so you got to be able to see it, see what's going on, why you're, you know. immediately reacting this way in you know conversation or you're feeling you know like you can't rest or that kind of stuff we have to look at the why first and then we can start to break it down to okay what's the behavior going along with the emotion that's going along with the belief system so that's the method to the magic is figuring out kind of trailing it all the way back to what's happening now, what are the emotions, and that sometimes takes work too because a lot of people, we push down emotions, we don't like them, we've never been taught how to do emotions, we...

don't even like the word all those things we have a lot of baggage with that yeah there's a lot and there's just a lot of misunderstanding around good and bad emotions and all this stuff is we gotta be okay with them just being messengers and chemical reactions of the body there is no good or bad they're all here for a reason but how what or how we do this emotion game we have to work with that because you have to have an open heart to this as well to allow yourself to feel emotions And then tap into the belief systems after that.

So looking at, okay, this belief system actually equals this nervous system response. And now we're connecting the dots all together. So I do a lot of work with giving people nervous system drills to do because, again, the more you can see. Your nervous system working for you and how you master your nervous system is really empowering because now you don't feel like you're out of control or you can't do anything with this as they help people.

realize you can be as regulated as you want to be even in an incredibly dysregulated situation and our nervous systems all impact one another so if you're more regulated in this dysregulated environment you're going to have a positive impact on everybody around you so giving people drills and helping them again to actually feel things coming up in their body and what does this feel like a lot of messages that we've muted for our lives it's getting to know a lot of them So it's connecting all of the dots and bringing everything together into synthesis as we were doing the work.

Well, what's cool about those skills is that transfers to other things. Like it's that when you start to pay attention to those things and I've noticed this through having been through therapy, like I really feel like I was taught. a more structured way to think about things that we've never been taught to think about like we you know we get taught information growing up but you don't actually get it's it's like another life skill that we were actually analyzing things and how to go about analyzing and actually understanding why you feel a way about a thing whether that be you know a belief that you have that's and again it doesn't have to be in a and i'm working on my self -context but it can be a okay why do i react this way to these kinds of things and the why do politics always get under my skin why why specifically that or what this angle of these things i think that's a very I don't know.

I feel like that's a missing thing from our education system. I don't know if that's like something we could fit into high schools or if that would be a good entry level college type of course where it's like, OK, let's have a class on just how to draw that awareness inward onto something and actually pick apart why why it is that you feel that way.

I think it would be good to start like. As early on as you could, because even when you look at kids, like when a kid throws a temper tantrum, you know, they're kicking their legs, they're. moving their arms they're yelling often and what usually happens is somebody tells them like stop doing that like you know you're embarrassing me or you can't act like that but what's happening their body is trying to move that emotion of whatever it is frustration or anger sadness their body is trying to help them move that energy that emotion and then we're telling them not to do that And then that's where some of this disconnect comes in as well of like, well, we've learned a lot over time, you know, not to have any kind of reaction to things or understand why we're feeling this way and what to do with it.

So when you teach people, you know, with anger, it's just. needs to move like you don't need to push it down you don't need to repress it but you don't need to act on it just let it move and whether that's going for a walk or that's you know put it splashing some cold water on your face or going out and laying in the grass things like that as things we could all stand to learn that would help us again understand the emotions that are coming up but then what to do with it instead of just pushing them down or again acting on it which is the two things not to do when it comes to emotions but it would be so cool if people could you could understand that and you could then that helps people be able to talk about it because that's the other disconnect is people don't even know what they're feeling so then their spouses or their partners get pissed off at them because they don't ever talk about their emotions, but then it's like asking somebody to speak Chinese.

They don't even know what they're feeling or how to explain it. So I think you're right. If we change the framework early on, that would probably be awesome, but we got to do the work here now. Yeah. Well, on the other side of that is it's very uncomfortable.

So people also will hedge away from that, which is, that's not something, I mean, I think it gets easier if you you know it's like anything else if you've done it more you become more accustomed to that but like that's that discomfort doesn't feel good and we avoid it like you that's a self -awareness thing that kind of you just have to be cognizant of but yeah i'm guessing you know this is i would imagine that these Because you work specifically with ketamine, correct, in your practice?

Yes, I work with ketamine. I'm guessing that probably erodes or at least alters some of these barriers. Yeah, so I, well, here in Colorado, like they've opened the door to a lot of different psychedelic work. So it's been cool to learn and I've gone and done training in all different.

methods of it so it's cool to understand what each one does because they're all so different but with ketamine specifically uh it's by nature a disassociative and it's not necessarily a classic psychedelic and that not everybody gets the visuals that people assume you do off of psychedelics ketamine is i've had people go through ketamine sessions where it's just all dark and you're just feeling a bunch of emotions and thoughts are coming up and stuff like that so it's not like psilocybin or lsd the classic quote -unquote classic ones where you're gonna get visuals off of them but it's really helpful to give people that third party experience to things and to give them a little bit of distance and space to work through stuff.

I found that it's helpful, similar to hypnosis, of getting people that movement out of places where they feel stuck or to also kind of hit the control, alt, delete, reset. So it really helps with that. That neuroplasticity side of things like we've been talking about of explaining it like if there's a hill that's covered with snow and a bunch of sleds have gone down and those well -worn pathways, those are those default ways of doing things.

Those get very well established, very well trained, and it's very hard on your own to not move outside of those behaviors or to stick with it. So ketamine and psychedelics are like... six feet of fresh snow on that hill and now we have this new amazing canvas to work with and that's part of what ketamine does i think that's helpful um it's shorter sessions so usually it's a couple hours versus some of the other longer psychedelic medicines that are out there, but really helpful for a lot of different things, helpful for depression, helpful for anxiety.

I think some people are even using it a lot for suicidal ideation as well. So, um, but it, it's a really interesting cause I never use it until. in this form until i was in the mental health side i always use it on the ambulance for other reasons yeah yeah so i was like this is wild um that this is like a treatment but um it's really been awesome so i it's a cool medicine to work with is it an iv that you're hooking up to because you said these sessions are still a couple hours i mean how how i'm so curious about how how that plays out like or is this Yeah.

Can you speak through that? Because I'm also curious on the other end of as a clinician and with the state opening up around this stuff, I mean, is there still, I guess, what have the complications been of integrating that into your practice just as a, you know, as an entrepreneur and a clinician as well?

So there's different routes that the treatment can be done. I use Troki. So if somebody comes to me for ketamine work, this is somewhere that I'm like very, very stickler about that not everybody is on board with, but that's okay. I do extensive preparation with people before we go into any medicine session.

So we're doing a lot of work leading into the session itself to prepare you and to help. get you ready essentially to go into your actual medicine session. We have to work again with the nervous system first. We have to work with that, being able to let go of control.

A lot of things go into the preparation side before we ever do any kind of medicine session. And then you have to go through a medical eval too. So you meet with a... prescriber to do you know the whole medical side to make sure that everything is good and then you get a prescription for it so i do the trochees so those are lozenges that people swish in their mouth and then they can either spit it out or swallow it there are places clinics or other medical providers that will do the IV or the IM, like a shot route to it.

There's also some clinics that do like an inter -nasal option, like a spray as well. So it kind of depends on what the clinic does and what their capacities are to do. But I've sticked with the trochees. That's what I've done historically. So that's the method that I like.

And I think it works really well to do that. And yeah, like I said, you have to go through the medical eval side of it as well. And typically I'll do when I'm working with ketamine with somebody, we commit to six sessions because I found that usually one session isn't quite enough.

You're going to need some stacked up over time to really get you through kind of what you're working on or to give you a good foundation moving forward because since they are shorter sessions. and every session again is so different and you're going to get what you get kind of scenario so i like six sessions works really really well and like keeps a really nice window open for that neuroplasticity so after the actual medicine session is an amazing time to work on these behaviors things that you're wanting to change and shift and do because you have those open neural pathways to be able to do that so we do integration after each and every session too to take apart what came up in the session.

How do we work with it? How do we move through and integrate it into life on the other side? So I take it pretty seriously. I do a very like kind of thorough job to it because I want to use the medicine responsibly. I think that's a huge thing with the psychedelic movement and the popularity and the accessibility is to make sure people are finding people who do it.

and responsibly and are set up well to do it so that you have a really amazing experience and outcome on the other side. Yeah, I mean, there's going to be, I'm sure there already are places that are almost like there were pill mills. I'm sure there's places that are doing the same thing with some of these medications, and that will probably slow the...

progression in some of these areas in terms of places opening up to it unfortunately because there's there's always somebody but the how how different is it working with someone who's on ketamine as opposed to hypnotized because you said that sounded also pretty dissociative in the sense that that's how you're trying to access their their subconscious mind so then hypnosis people are like i said conscious and they're usually uh there's dialogue and talking that's happening in the hypnosis side in kind of mean with the usually the dosage we go on the higher end of dosing there you can do a lower dose and do more of a talking session but i do the more on the medium to higher dose and you're in the experience for just you like we're not talking we're not doing anything you are I make playlists for everybody depending on what we're working on you are in your journey until kind of the medicine wears off and then we talk about it and kind of you know like go over things afterward but there isn't there isn't a talking element to it when somebody is in a deeper psychedelic experience with ketamine yeah it's just you you're in your journey so they're just going on a ride and you're there to make sure they're safe and then be there for them when they come out of it yep exactly yeah and if anything comes up in it if they need something of course that's what i'm there for too or to help work things but it's usually like yeah people are in it and then they come out of it so yeah no talking usually how and i mean how long are they actually in the the trip from it When your sessions.

It's dependent on the person and it's dependent on the session. So how fast people metabolize the medication. what's on the docket for coming up material wise for them it can be anywhere from you know like 30 minutes to an hour to upwards of two plus hours and each session is totally different so i always tell people that like don't think oh this is how it was the first time this is how everything will be it can be totally different every single time so um but it i always leave kind of that window open because we just don't know for sure how long the session's gonna be so but usually i haven't seen one that goes at least for my with the trochees i haven't seen one go above like two and a half hours um i'm not the iv i think as far as i know they control the drip and the rate and so i said i think you could be in it as long as you want to or as long as you have medicine for until you turn off the iv so in terms of your clients, I mean, whatever they, in terms of the experience they're going to get, it's just, they just get what they get, whatever comes up.

Yeah. We typically will talk about like an intention going into the session. So I like to use the mantras, like help me, teach me, show me. So instead of like, I don't want to have, you know, anger anymore. How about show me how to be more at peace or teach me to be more patient?

Coming into the session with an intention kind of helps lay some groundwork, but it's also like buying a ticket. You don't know where you're going, but you're getting on the plane, you strap in, and then you tell the captain, like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we went to the Bahamas?

And they'd be like, that's great input, but go ahead and just find your seat and buckle in. You just have to go with what's coming up. So the people that try to control it or try to fight it, that's why we work so heavily on the front end of all this to try to work on letting go more and feeling safe enough to do that because trying to control it is just not going to get you anywhere with any psychedelic.

So you have to be willing to just let go and know, trust that exactly what came up was 100%. what was supposed to that there are no mistakes like there are no bad sessions you get something out of everything there's your therapist answer again I know I'm very well therapist -y so but that's true though yeah I have to let go so no expectations yeah I'm just teasing but it's yeah I don't know it's have you ever had someone go through one of those sessions and then it's like pretty clear like hey man you've obviously been holding some stuff back quite in our sessions huh uh yeah it when the sometimes the people who haven't cried yet sometimes that'll be the first session or um yeah it's just wild to see I've had people you know get pissed before because they're like this isn't what I wanted to come up or I don't like what's coming up, make it in.

I told you, once you take it, there's no taking it back. You have to ride it out. But there's a lesson in everything. That's the beautiful part is it's not just coming up for no reason. It's a teacher and it's giving you a message. Then you hang up and you go do the work.

That's the whole power in psychedelics. It's always interesting. Even in hypnosis, the same thing comes up. I'm like, oh, okay, like there's some deeper stuff you haven't tapped into yet that's now coming up. But it's just so healing. It's the coolest. Yeah, that has to be interesting just seeing those dynamics play out on your end.

And especially as I'm sure over the years you've gotten more of a feel and an intuition to it as you've developed more and more of your skills as a clinician. It's fascinating. Yeah, it's such a gift, honestly. I'm always baffled of like, this is what I get to do now.

This is so cool. And to see people heal and come out the other side of things is just like, how do you even put a price tag on that? Because it's, I mean, I've had the really honor and privilege to work with a lot of veterans, which is just such a special group for me.

But man, I to see things of like you, we've talked about alcohol, somebody who's been a functioning alcoholic for 24 years to see them put the bottle down and not pick it up again or to totally save their relationship or to literally not decide to take their life.

Like, how do you even put a price tag on that kind of stuff? It's just so cool. And I'm just so blessed to do the work. And yeah, I'm here still healing and growing too. So I haven't arrived by any means, but we heal together. That's the cool thing is nobody comes into my world and doesn't make some profound impact on me too.

So it's all, it's so much bigger than we can even put words to, but it's just such a gift to do this work. Really, really blessed. I love it. And it's cool that. I mean, you didn't just happen upon this, right? Like you'd invested a lot of years into something else, found out it wasn't the right fit, and then took the risk to step out in a different direction.

And now you're here. Seems like it's, I mean, pretty damn fulfilling and obviously very, I mean, just almost potent impact -wise again. I mean, you're stopping someone. At the farthest extent, stopping someone from taking their life, which is, yeah, how do you put a value on that, right?

Or how do you even comprehend that your work with someone has made those changes? That's pretty crazy. And I mean, that's one person having that impact on many. It's just a lot of power in your hands. Well, then they go about out, though, and then they have their impact, which is what it's all about.

Right. You know, it's like it's just I'm just one person. But then, you know, people will go out and they'll impact, you know, dozen people or more. And then they go out and impact. And it's it's just so profound over time how big of a deal it is.

It's just like you can we can make such a big difference that. even on the individual level but it makes such a global impact as well it does and like if people i mean hear that again one that that difference in one person rolls over into their relationship at home and then their workplace and then their communities and someone that they've impacted sees that and is inspired to try and make the same changes and it does it's it's just this cascading of events and it's Yes, that is a very warm and fuzzy way to look at it, but that is also what happens.

It's not every time, but that webbing effect, that is a real thing. I mean, that's part of the beautiful thing about humans and that idea of paying it forward, whatever it is, in whatever capacity you're looking at that from. That does happen. We pass that along. Have I missed anything that I that I should have asked about here before we start to wrap this thing up?

Gosh, I don't I mean, I could talk about this stuff all day, of course. I know it's tough with all these conversations. Yeah, but I think it's just, you know, like what I try to always encourage people for one is that decide that you're worth the investment, decide that you're worth it and that make yourself a priority that whatever it takes.

and don't give yourself an expectation or a deadline is know that this is a journey there is no finish line but it's one step at a time and keep trying things till you find something that works and be open to the toolbox because it doesn't have to be the traditional way of things it can be so many different things and there is so many different things out there now it's incredible what there is but just see yourself as worthy of the investment and know that you you have to keep investing in yourself it doesn't just stop you don't just arrive and so that's my biggest message is that you are worth it so make the make the investment yeah and also in I think in those capacities, you have to be selfish.

Like if you want to make the change, it has to be for you, not for someone else. Because if that's, you know, you see that with people getting sober. I know I've seen that in my own experience, getting sobers. They really, the impetus has to come from you at the end of the day.

Like it has to boil down to you actually wanting it. And no amount of someone else telling you that. Like it, it truly has to be intrinsic, whether that's forced intrinsic motivation or, or not like, you know, self -forced, but yeah, it's awesome what you're doing. And I know you have a podcast as well.

So where can people find the podcast and your, your practice? Well, thank you. Yes. I, my podcast is called sit around the fire and it's a mixture of, um, People sharing their stories and their experiences and kind of what they have gone through because I think there's a lot of value in hearing other stories and finding the commonality where we can relate to one another.

And then there's also me. getting on there and talking about things like we did today. So all the things that I'm passionate about or learning about or things that I have learned in my life, it's all very relevant to stuff either for me or stuff that I'm working with with people.

So to make sure of both those things. And then you can find me at ashleydillard .com. That'll connect you to kind of all the places of social media, email, the podcast, or if you would like to do work. with me as well too you can find me there and if i'm not the right fit either let me know i can help i've got a good network of people too so keep reaching out um but i'm here if anybody needs support questions or anything i welcome all of it Ashley is not spelled the way that you think.

So look at the episode title and go look for it. Look at the show notes and click on the link there. Cause I'll have it there. Yes. Good call. Thank you. Thank you so much for, for coming on here and delving into all this with me. This has been, this has been great.

And I think we're a hundred, a hundred some episodes in now. And this is the first time we've gotten to talk about ketamine therapy and really dig into hypnosis. So this was awesome. very cool yeah i'm excited and so glad to talk about it and yeah keep exploring if you're hearing this and you're curious just keep exploring things so yeah thanks and thanks everyone at home for listening to another episode of going in blind i think i'm gonna probably leave it at Whatever is meant to be will come up and it's supposed to happen that way.

And however, she said it was a lot better than how I'm saying it now. So we'll leave leave it on that. You know, if you if you've got a change that, you know, you need to make again, try and it's a lot easier said than done. But if you can get to the point where you're doing it for yourself and being selfish in that way, again, it will come back around when you do make those changes and serve the people that you.

maybe trying to make those changes for right now and aren't having success with it whether that be your mental health or a lifestyle change or addiction but as always reach out for help people are out there and want to help you so ask for it because they have to know that you're struggling before they can help but now I'll get off my soapbox and I will see you next week bye maybe And this isn't working.