Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Metabolizing Trauma with Intention

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Metabolizing Trauma with Intention · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
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discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, ballistic practitioners, loved ones, and
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anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
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world that we live in. If you've listened to this show even an iota
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of a bit, you know that I've had my fair share of traumas,
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and because of some of those traumas, if not all of them, I
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turned to this beautiful world of rebellion and as a teenager in a college and
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let's be real, I'm pretty much a wild child still, right, That
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innate wildness that is inside of me is the only way I know how to
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be, which has slowly started to diminish over the years as I've gone downhill
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with my health, and I'm struggling lately to kind of figure out who this
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new person is emerging and if I'm going to lose that wild side of me.
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Right, and people are probably listening, there's no way she could lose
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her wild side. Right, But what I'm there's this like this pill that's
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been hard for me to swallow, that I can't drop the idea that some
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of my shenanigans, my wildness, my wild and crazy, whatever it was
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I was doing drugs and promiscuity or whatever the hell was going on in my
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world that don't have something to do with why I'm sick. And so between
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my behavior being a wild and crazy person as well as trauma you out loose
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together it feels like a perfect storm. So here I am faced with trying
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to do some new treatments towards my health and my well being because, as
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we've talked about at Infantum, I have tried so many different things, and
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especially in the chronic pain world, we spend so much money and so much
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time and so much research ending up getting worse. And so now I'm going
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to start into a new way of being a wild and crazy gal. Right.
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So I'm finding that this excitement to find a better way to treat my
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pain and to treat depression, to treat PTSD, to treat anxiety is going
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to be with psychedelics. So one of the things that I'm really excited about
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is being able to tell my parents that I'm doing drugs? Is that a
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conversation that I've been wanting to have if my parents were so very long and
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they are in complete support of this mission, right, so I want to
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talk about this without further ado, I'd like to introduce my guest today,
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Doctor Layla Contractor. He so darling, Hi, how are you doing today?
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Thanks for being here with us, Oh, thank you for having me
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so. Doctor Contractor is a double board certified concierge an integrative child, adolescent
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and adult psychiatrist in Irvine, California. That's an Orange County. She works
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collaboratively with her pace to use traditional as well as evidence based alternative approaches to
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the treatment of psychiatric challenges. Her life's work has deep roots in the development
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of a deeper understanding of the treatment of trauma and children and adolescents at risk
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for hospitalization and suffering from depression and other issues. She is an advocate my
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god is she an advocate for children and adolescents to receive the services that they
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deserve and schooled and at home. This highly credential, old wise and humble
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little lady over here has built a successful career around this type of psychiatry in
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the world of integrative medicine, and we have her here today. So I'm
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rolling out the red carpet for you here, my dear, and i'd like
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to start, yes, yes, yes, I'd like to start with what
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happened in April of twenty nineteen when your world changed. Let's take it from
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there. Yeah, So it was a it was a regular work day for
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me. It was actually working from home, and I started to develop what
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was feeling weak and almost paralyzed, starting from my feet upward, and I
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had difficulty even typing simple notes. So I called my boss, told her,
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Hey, I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm going to go
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see the doctor, thinking that, you know, I don't know, they'll
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figure it out in a couple of weeks. I'll be back or even less
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than that. And that's started my journey. I went from doctor to doctor.
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Some of them were empathetic, some of them are just awful. My
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first neurologists basically told me that was all in my head, nothing wrong.
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I love that was a demand, right. I find it funny they were
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saying this to psychiatrist, as if I had not thought that as a possible
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option, So what was occurring? That's funny. So I just kept going
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to different doctors. Lost my medical disability things to that neurologist who didn't believe
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what I was going through. Oh my god, became a process. I
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met some amazing doctors who really validated how I was feeling, but also said
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they couldn't figure out why why was this happening. I even ended up going
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to Mayo Clinic again having full workups, and I posted all my labs,
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all the imaging everything I had on this group called physician Mommy group on Facebook
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on Facebook up and I thought, all these answers and I followed every lead
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because I had no clue what was going on. Every single lead I followed,
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and then I get kept getting these dms or private messages on the side
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from functional medicine or integrative medicine practitioners who kept saying, look, your case
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is kind of very typical of what we see, like you need to find
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someone, You need to see someone. And somebody actually recommended doctor Kelly McCann,
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who is in Costa Mesa near Newport Beach. I finally reached out to
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her. I met her, and I was pissed. I'm like this is
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riot. It's like this costs money, like all this money. And then
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on top of that, she diagnosedmaith lime. I'm like, how many people
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have lying out there? Me? Do ye? Like this whole team?
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So I was like screw it. So she gave me some supplements. I'm
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like, forget this. And I continued to deteriorate to the point where I
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was just in bed all the time and I would just save my energy to
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make sure I had energy. Once my three kids came home and one day,
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one of these sweet I wish I could remember what her name was,
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Integrative Medicine people just sent me a message. She's like, how are you
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doing? What's going on? And I was like, hey, it's worse
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And she's like, why aren't you trying what doctor McCann is saying. She's
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like, it's an herb. She's like, what do you have to lose?
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She's like, isn't is it going to get worse than what's happening to
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you now? Yeah, And that finally sunk in. That was October twenty
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nineteen. I took the herbs for a couple of days, thought it was
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not doing anything, and then what I got was called a Hirk's reaction,
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which is when you have a die off of whatever the virus, spectory,
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whatever you're trying. And so I knew that. Shoot, doctor mccanna was
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onto side thing that I did have lime and I was starting to feel the
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effects and I became a believer. But I went turn. I was like,
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look one thing at a time after McCann, Yeah, I'm glad that
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you say that, because I've been working with a lot of functional I've been
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doing all the diagnostics, and I've been talking about it often. But now
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I'm at this place where I have so much information and I'm kind of at
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this place where well, one group that I started that I have paid for
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because this is what I do, has me on this like rigorous supplementation that
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I cannot do. My little body is I'm trying to just learn how to
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eat again and so and eat for my body now versus what the body was
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before I was sick, because if I eat the way that I was when
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I was before I got thick doesn't work that it doesn't work for me at
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all. And so now that I've gotten myself to eat again, which has
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been a huge challenge, one that I did not know I was going to
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be stuck up up against but the year I was. Now I'm here with
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this group and I'm literally have to swallow, like I don't even know,
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seventy two different things a freaking day, and I can't do it. I
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cannot do it. And so I'm kind of like almost feeling defeated yet again.
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Not almost, I am feeling defeated again because I'm like, I'm spending
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all this money. I'm doing this again. I got all excited and then
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I haven't been able to hold down ninety percent of what so I basically just
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threw up all of the money on supplements. So I get it one thing
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at a time. That's slow, because how do you know what's going to
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work and what's not when you're taking seventy two things at the same time.
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I mean, dear Lord, so frustrating. I agree. I've at several
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places and time have been on that, and actually currently is one of the
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times where I'm back to like I don't know how many supplements. Oh god,
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it's but I think it's really important in the whoever you work with realizes
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that it isn't feasible. I mean, I really I was at a place
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at one point where I was I was getting so sick from all of these
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and I felt like I was just eating pills. Literally. I just felt
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like because I didn't have an appetite for anything else, right, So yeah,
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yeah, so okay, So what they ended up that you ended up
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with their diagnosis of wine? Was there anything else that they found, any
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other co infections or anything else? Smiling and I was doing that? Was
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they in December of twenty nineteen. I kept telling everyone else like, I'm
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not remembering things. I was like, I had notebooks in each car and
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my purse just to write things down because I kept forgetting yes, And They're
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like, oh, you're stressed out. Mom of three. They finally did
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neuropsych testing on me, and they showed my verbal memory was in the lesson
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first percentile WHOA, and so I started treatments for that, which were extremely
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helpful. Fast forward, COVID came. I had to stop all my treatments
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and I started getting really sick again. My story is complicated by the fact,
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and it's almost funny in a dark humor sort of way, is that
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one of the things that was making me sick prior to me becoming ill and
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April I was in perimenopause full blown. I was like, I'm a psychiatrist.
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I got this, and I give myself some prozac and tracidone and I'm
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going to call it a day. Oh. In hindsight, I developed pretty
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significant severe autoimmune reaction to the prozac and later Trent tillics that actually people kept
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thinking it looked like MSS and my senior gravis combined. Huh les. I
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was getting all these intensive treatments and as I was sitting I was getting IVG
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and it worked. It worked. It's a it's a it's a confusion treatment
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where you go five days a week. I was sitting there five to six
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hours a day once a month, and I feel better for a couple of
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weeks and then go back down. But as I was sitting in the chair
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one day, I was like, I wonder if it's my antidepressant. Oh
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wow, m anyways, and sure enough it was. Yeah. We just
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have to be very careful. And I think one of the things that I
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certainly have learned with these different drugs that they give you for whatever it might
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be. You know, pain, insomnia, you know what anxiety and depression.
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Every all of our little bodies are so very different, and you know,
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giving the two hundred and fifty, you know, pandman the same dose
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as this one for something to treat on right out of the gates, it's
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probably not the right way to go. And unfortunately, there's been a lot
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of malpractice, in my opinion, in a couple of different cases with my
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body, some of which set me backwards because I mean, it messed with
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my noodle so much, it made me doubt myself, it made me not
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want to live anymore. I mean, it was very, very scary.
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And have had a similar event happened over the past couple of weeks, and
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so there's been just some really like whoa, This is why I don't take
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pills. This is why I listened to myself and my body, and I
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keep telling people, don't put me on that stuff, don't give me that,
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don't try me. And sure as shit, as soon as I did
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it again, I don't know who I am. I don't remember the black
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holes all over the place, I don't remember where I was, who I
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talked to, And it's like that's from this one little pill. Know,
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like that's some scary stuff. So now, how did you get through that
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part because obviously you're doing better now. I mean, we're all going to
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be a little bit set here. I mean, it's just what we're doing
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unfortunately here in America. But so what did you do to get yourself feeling
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better? And where did I want to talk about the psychedelic side of things,
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because I know that's really what we want to start talking about here and
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how that came into your world through this? But how did you end up?
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What did you end up doing to start feeling better? Well, I
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had to get off of the antidepressants at that point. I was on trend
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tills and don't let anyone ever tell you there's not a discontinuation centrum or withdrawal.
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Yeah. It was horrific, and for months I was really suicidal.
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Understanding why I was suicidal, but every time I lowered, it was like
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white knuckle, white knuckling at bracing myself scary, it's scary, and yet
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for me I was like, oh my god, my cor patience. How
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I know they've gone through this, they've explained it, but to really feel
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how bad it was, and to know that I didn't have an option at
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this point, I and actually even previously on another one, I had had
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automune reaction very different from what had happened with these two. So I was
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like, that was off the table. So I almost felt like, what
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what now? What do I do now? And so I know in the
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long run, it was a universe's way of making me deal with my trauma,
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which I had not done. I know, you know, I just
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felt like what I had been through was nothing compared to my patients. I
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mean, you hear these like most horrific stories, and I'm like, my
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stuff, no way, you can't do that. Nobody else did either,
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And I talk about this. In fact, I talked about it on the
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episode that just came out a couple of weeks ago, specifically about do not
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a little tea versus big tea? You know our big our little teas and
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our big teas. You know what? What it is something that somebody sees
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like I'll even take it down to like a horror movie, right, Like
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some person somebody can watch a horror movie and have absolutely no nightmares whatsoever doesn't
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face them. There's another person who can watch nightmare, watch a scary movie,
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and they have nightmares all night. And that's how they rot it's the
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same kind of thing for me, Like, if you've been traumatized, don't
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make it seem like it's not that big of a deal just because somebody else
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has gone through something worse than you. Don't. That is a terrible thing
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to do. You have to treat yourself because you are you, You're not
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everyone else. So don't do that again. Okay, I won't. Okay
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I haven't been. But that brought me to I finally actually signed up for
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Integrative Psychiatry fellowship because seeing how much the integrative medicine had helped me, I
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wanted to really bring this to my patience. And anyways, it's through that
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and a huge chunk over lectures were actually on trauma, and so I got
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introduced to several trauma experts, most notably doctor Gabor Matte. So we resolate
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for this class. I was like, I'd already been doing EMDR for months
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and months. They've been unraveling, and I kept for having more and more
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memories about just how unsavory my childhood was. It's like stuff I didn't want
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to remember kept coming out, of course, and I met with him and
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in twenty minutes, in twenty minutes, he nailed it. I was like,
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how have I How am my psychiatrists? It's been in therapy this long?
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You know, off and on, we're supposed to be in therapy,
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we're supposed to store And he just got it. So I ended up signing
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up for his year long fellowship and that made me dive into my own trauma
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even deeper. And I went to see him at a conference because now I'd
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become a total groupie after meeting with him, because he I met with him
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and he's like, you need to read my book when the body says no,
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and call me after you've read it. I was like, okay,
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okay, I've read it. Yeah, And if you have not read it,
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I know you have, but I mean to your listeners. It's a
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fascinating book on a lot of this research has been buried on really the trauma
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ideology or kind of the how trauma can kind of wreck havoc in our body,
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whether it's als, whether it's breast cancer, colon cancer, CLARIDERMA.
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It's fascinating research which is unfortunately no longer being done. Yeah, it was
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a very interesting book. And I did his program and through that is how
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I got introduced to psychedelics because I went to follow him at a conference.
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I was on psychedelic assistant psychotherapy and nothing about psychedelics zero. And as I
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sat there and listening, I was like, how have I been? I
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suppose a traumasych interest. It doesn't know that this medicine which has been around
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for some of which has been around for thousands of years, as the ability
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to really feel us. It's so interesting when you I mean, you can
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google it like crazy, you know, like ayahuasca for example, right,
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Like that's a type of psychedelic that you use. I think a lot of
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people are throwing that out as that means psychedelics as a whole, and so
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there's but it's a type of psychedelic. There's all these, like psilocybin is
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another one. There's more to pull levels and types that you can use based
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on what you're going after. Essentially, what are we trying to get out
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of our bods? And when you read about these things, they're fairly scary.
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There's a lot of gunk that comes out of your bod, and so
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they've got these retreats. But we do need to be very very careful,
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and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about that because there are
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so many there are so many people doing the psychedelic thing. Now. Now
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it's the point that I signed up for like email marketing for all these different
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brands to see what they're doing. I mean, now there's like mushrooms and
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everything, and you're like, okay, come on, Like you're not selling
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me a gummy that has mushrooms. And that's going to be the route we're
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going to take. We're talking about something that's much more deep rooted in spirituality
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and emotion and getting out our gunk and getting out our trauma and getting out
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some of our pain. That's a little different than going to your dispensery and
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grab a quote unquote shroom in a box, you know what I mean.
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So with government, say, and getting involved with him and bringing psychedelics,
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and can we talk about what psychedelics have come into your world and what kind
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of therapies you've been working with for yourself and your patients. Yeah. So
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doctor gabor Mate's method of treatment involves it's kind of an eclectic mix. So
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it involves polybagel theory, which is the idea of how to regulate your nervous
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system that has been largely disregulated by trauma. Yeah, very systematic way,
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very effective way, because how can we even begin to talk about these things
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or experience these things if our bodies are so disregulated. His method also uses
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sematic experiencing doctor Vessel vanacop Worth the famous book and the Body Keeps Score.
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But I'm a believer that our bodies for all of this and in various ways,
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and the semantic experiencing really helps to offload kind of where we're storing it
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have an understanding of how our bodies respond to trauma. And he also uses
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another method of treatment called internal family systems and that was developed by doctor Richard
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Schwartz, and it really he wrote a book it's called No Bad Parts,
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But really how we have all these various parts of us that show up for
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different reasons, whether it's to help save us, whether it's to put out
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a fire. So it's a very interesting way. It's of looking at why
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does your body function the way it does when it's being traumatized. It has
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a good reasons, there's purpose behind what it's doing. So I found that
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to be actually some of the most effective treatment I've ever had. What's very
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interesting and vesselmanor talks about this. When you look at fMRI studies of a
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brain of someone who's had experienced trauma, your brokens area, which is your
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speaking area, often is understimulated or shut down, so we are actually not
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meant to talk about our traumas or find it very difficult to talk write.
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If you meet someone who's hasn't trying to do they want to talk about well,
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actually, I'm found by doing this show there are a lot of damn
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people that want to talk about it now, but it comes out, but
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they're often times, especially depending on how shut down your nervous system is,
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you really have this inability to talk about it. And sometimes just because you
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can't talk about it doesn't mean you should because it can lead to you feeling
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pretty dysregulated. Yeah, that's a good point because when it comes to this
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show, and we were talking about it earlier, I find that when that
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I actually do worse when I'm not doing my podcasting. Like I took a
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like a month off of it, and I wasn't talking about things, and
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I wasn't meeting people that have hopeful stories, that have big wins, that
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have gone through all of the muck and it's almost like I lost a piece
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of me by not doing this, and it is hard for me to do
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to talk about trauma, and there are days where I don't want to.
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But that's a really interesting point, because I am constantly talking about this now
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and I didn't want to, and I had to get to a place that
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I was ready. It doesn't mean that it's easy, but I certainly feel
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much better when I do, because it opens up a little bit of a
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mini aha every time I'm doing and I'm like, oh my gosh, and
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then I'm remembering things that I like to your point that you were like,
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oh my gosh, all these things are flooding in and that'sn't been happening to
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me lately too. That's coming out of me that I totally forgot, like
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completely and totally pushed back. And we're talking when you're like nine ten into
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your early teens, where that formative part was so screwed up, and I'm
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and I'm just it's very scary to think about all of the things that have
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happened and that I'm as that I've been as successful and as good as I've
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been in life considering, so it kind of gives you a pat on the
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back once you get through all of it. So why are we not supposed
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to be talking about it sometimes? So I'll give you an example. Some
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of my patients who have come in and really have this need to understandably,
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especially if I feel like they have someone who can validate what they've been through
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empathize, because what I could be leaving them with, and which often does
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happen, is now I've unraveled them and I haven't given them a way to
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help them put themselves back together, at least back together to be able to
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go out. And this is where it's really important to read the room,
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read the energy that what are my feeling from them? If I'm feeling overwhelmed,
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uncomfortable, chances are there and I'm picking up. So how can I
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help them? How can we slow down the pace? And we had an
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amazing psychologist, nam Ariel Schwartz, who does a lot of yoga for trauma.
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She really talks about this the dangers of having people just completely AWFLOA.
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You could be really destabilizing them and not doing them any favors. I mean,
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in some ways we don't have to know every detail of the trauma.
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We just need to know that it happened, happens now work with it.
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So being really careful with patients because we don't want them feel We want them
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feeling better, are hopeful when they're leaving, and not leaving them in a
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position to just decompensate. Yeah, like, great, you've unraveled me,
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and now now what you know exactly? And that's almost kind of how I'm
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feeling right now a lot, especially with all of the testing and stuff.
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I'm now here and I'm just kind of like, Okay, so now what
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do I do? Because I've googled it to the you know, to the
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tea and everything I read everywhere about lyme, it's not great, and it's
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there's all kinds of different remedies and all these different things. But I do
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want to circle us back into into the therapeutic aspect of the psychedelics and how
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that has come into play in your world and how you how you are approaching
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that in your in your business and your practice as well. So for me,
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after sitting at that conference, I am I really thought I ask us
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folk to me, it seemed like that was the medicine I wanted to work
23:52
with, and so I was working with a therapist that actually Gabor had recommended,
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did I work with? So I asked her. I was like,
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Hey, do you know anybody or anywhere where I could go for this?
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Okay, I didn't realize she was. She wouldn't she's extremely humble, she
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wouldn't call herself this bag. No, she was a shaman. Well,
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because we see that everywhere now everybod a damn shaman. Right, Well,
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she's okay, she's not a shaman. And so I went to my first
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retreat. Now she you know, has she's extensive trauma training, she's a
24:33
trauma therapist, she has done her own work. So that was the first
24:38
time, and after my first night, I could not believe I had not
24:48
I hadn't done this before. Yeah, it was like So I sat for
24:52
three nights and again it was her and another shaman. Very well, people
24:56
who are trained, very in trauma treatment, people who know even the helpers
25:03
there. This is a very well held thing. But the I couldn't believe.
25:07
It was like five It felt like five years of trauma work in three
25:11
nights. Yeah, That's what I've heard, and everybody that's done it says
25:14
about the same thing that they're like I I got so much done in such
25:18
a short span of time, it was unbelievable, and continue to go do
25:23
them. Do you have you done more than one time? Yeah? Yeah,
25:26
okay, okay. The thing that I find helpful is I feel like
25:30
it's it's helping. The problem with trauma is it gets stuck in your brain,
25:34
literally stuck. It gets stuck in the Lympics system, so you have
25:37
the you know, the migdala, the fight or flight area that kind of
25:41
super repped up. But what people want to talk about more is that it's
25:45
looped in this Slympic system with the Hippo campus, which is our memory center.
25:49
It keeps you stuck. It keeps your bodies, It keeps you stuck
25:52
at where the trauma happened. And so what the ayahuasca does the medicine is
26:00
really helps you helps your body and brain metabolize the trauma, move past it
26:07
so you don't have to be stuck there. Can you talk about that because
26:11
I find that to be a very interesting way of you because when we think
26:14
about our metabolism, we think about like burning our fat and getting in shape,
26:17
and we do that, and so when you're talking about the ability for
26:19
us to be able to basically burn feel the burn, but burn out the
26:25
trauma. To a certain extent, it sounds really really wonderful. Drinking ayahuasca
26:32
is challenging. It is very challenging, and you are put through a lot.
26:37
But the idea is to find meaning in this challenge and knowing that it's
26:41
helping you. So I'll give you an example. That first night, I
26:45
basically really got to visualize the perpetrator, someone who had really harm me,
26:51
and I felt the pain of being harmed. And then all of a sudden,
26:59
I mean I could see where I was, what was happening, but
27:03
I all of a sudden was almost as a bystander, not almost, I
27:07
was, I was a bystander to what was happening, and I just started
27:14
getting these insights like, man, yeah that sucked. That really sucked,
27:19
but it happens. It was an experience that my body happened to have and
27:23
it happens. And while this was happening, actually my body was shaking,
27:30
so you often will discharge energy that you've been stored, and it was just
27:34
kind of like, that's done. That's so cool. Yeah, it was
27:38
interesting. So with ayuasca, with any of these medicines that we work with.
27:44
You often go in with an intention. So my intention was teacher,
27:48
show me right, help me understand how my trauma affects my body. And
27:56
she when I referred to she we referred to I was almost like a spirit.
27:59
Sure, just considered like the grandmother a psychedelics. She kept me changing
28:03
it too, tell me how that trauma my body has experienced is affecting me.
28:10
So it's not my trauma, it's not who I am, right,
28:14
it's the fact that my body just happened to experience it. And it was
28:17
interesting she kept having me rephrase that, rephrase my intention before she took me
28:23
into the journey even further. Yeah, that's that's insane because just hearing I
28:29
mean, with a lot of trauma, especially in women, we deal we
28:33
at least I can speak for myself, and I certainly have heard other women
28:36
talk about it is the word shame, and I know that there's a lot
28:38
that that comes in our world from shame. And we've respond to shame differently,
28:44
And I know for me, I acted out on it. I acted
28:45
out in rebellion, and I acted out in other ways that were more harmful
28:48
than the initial trauma. That happened in the first place, right, so
28:52
just continuously traumatize myself and then would put myself into situations where I could have
28:56
gotten in more trouble or gotten more traumatized than that happened. Some of that
29:00
my own fault and some of it from other people that I have no control
29:03
over. But it's just interesting how that intention. And I'm trying to be
29:07
more intentional even with my eating because that might find disordered eating, giving intention
29:11
to the bite that I'm taking, and I know it might sound woo woo,
29:14
but for me it's really working. Even just saying the strawberry is giving
29:18
me nutrition so that I live a healthier you know, just like silly little
29:22
things like that, it totally makes you slow down your eating. It made
29:26
me slow down my thought process. I didn't even really want to like watch
29:29
TV or do anything. I was just like chilling, just thumbing through like
29:32
an anti inflammation fans anti inflammatory magazine because that's what I buy at the supermarket.
29:37
But it's just it's it's neat that that experience is different for everyone,
29:41
and so it's good to hear what yours is like. And it's been different
29:45
everybody that I've asked that's done it. Their stories are also different, but
29:48
the one thing that's unique is that it is harder than anything they've ever done,
29:52
and that it was an enormous challenge to do it. Those are two
29:56
things that I'm not afraid of. So I think I'm good. But I
30:00
was reading something also that it can cause a little bit of anxiety when you
30:03
first start, when you get there, when you get to the place,
30:06
because you're an especially people that have anxiety because you're worried about what's going to
30:10
happen. I'm always worried about what's gonna happen. That's just who I am.
30:12
Did you experience any anxiety with that with going through it? Certainly not
30:17
after you've been for a couple of times, but for your first one,
30:19
did you have any anxiety or worry about it? I just remember feeling so
30:23
desperate to get better, I think, And I didn't read up anything about
30:29
it. I actually implicitly trusted my therapist slash shaven. That's good, I
30:33
guess. So, no, it's good, but I know I read I
30:38
was just like Gabor said it's gonna work, whereas I say it's gonna work,
30:44
It's gonna work. I do remember having a little bit of apprehension.
30:48
Yeah, I actually I think in subsequence or after that first retreat, when
30:52
I went back, I had actually more anxiety, No, because now I
30:56
knew what was going to come up for me. So, but you keep
31:02
going back? How many times have you done it? I have gone I
31:06
have sat nine times? Whoa nine times? That's crazy. There's another there's
31:10
another really cool chickie in my life that's done it similar. I mean,
31:12
I don't even know. I think she's done over a dozen of them.
31:15
So is there? And that begs the question, so why so many?
31:19
Like, if you get so much out in this first session, am I
31:22
this screwed up? I gotta do twenty of these puppies? So why is
31:27
it that week that people do keep going back? Do fix themselves if you
31:32
will? And I don't know if that's the right verbiage for it, but
31:33
I you're not the first person that I've talked to you obviously that has gone
31:37
multiple multiple times. So I want you to speak on that one. Well,
31:41
it's not a one and done. I was really hoping it would be.
31:45
But you know, there's different intentions you work on. So one of
31:49
the things that I deal with is right sighted weakness, which I have finally
31:53
really had to accept that there is a psychosmatic component to it. What is
32:00
a childhood experience? Oh, right sided weakness. So according to the other
32:06
shaman who where I go, he had actually very severe right sided weakness to
32:12
the point where by h nineteen they were talking about cutting his leg off because
32:15
it was in so much pain. WHOA. Even though yeah, they couldn't
32:19
find there's other reasons, some some shaman field that it's not you're not really
32:23
fully giving your gifts to others. There's different explanations. But yeah, there's
32:30
always work. I mean until we die, there's always some work to do
32:34
ourselves. Well, I'm definitely on like my ninth or tenth life. I'm
32:37
exhausted. I am just exhausted. On a day, I had an intuition
32:44
reading done once and the woman's like, your soul came here and it likes
32:47
to have experiences. And I was like, tell my soul I'm good with
32:50
book learning, Like I'm good. I'm good. Like you can chill on
32:52
this whole coming back thing. I talked to somebody the other day that she's
32:59
a guest. My shell should be coming out in a couple of weeks,
33:00
but we talked about how she's convinced that I've had past lives and that I
33:06
have future lives. That it's like so neat, and I love that idea
33:08
because even though I joke about it like I'm exhausted and all that, I
33:13
totally feel that if that actually is legit, then I for sure have been
33:16
doing this for some time in some weird way. I swear it as I
33:22
like a Cleopatra. Come on, we gotta find some We gotta find some
33:24
really cool bitches from the past that I could have been so now in order
33:30
to do something like this and do this safely, because I think, especially
33:32
people that have gone through trauma, safety is a big issue for us.
33:37
Safety and trust, and those turn into depression and anxiety and disorders and alcoholism
33:42
and drug use not we all know these things, and I'm a walking billboard
33:45
for like half of that crap. So when it comes to doing this and
33:49
choosing them, what is the best way that we go about trying to find
33:52
I mean, obviously we have a you right now that we can DM you,
33:55
and we can get in touch with you to find out. Let's say,
33:58
somebody's not listening to this episode and they just want to listen. They
34:00
want to find out how to do this, How do we help guide people
34:05
to the right places, because it's turned into such a thing now to do
34:09
that. Everybody wants to do it. And I know here in the United
34:13
States that it's not it's not the same as if it's in another country.
34:16
Am I correct in that? I? I mean, I've read so many
34:19
different things viewpoints on it. So yeah, I'm I'm super particular. I
34:23
mean, honestly, i'd actually, ironically I'd signed up to do the retreat
34:28
somewhere else another retreat, and I backed out. Yeah, and I kind
34:32
of just honored it. Yeah, And I think that's wise. And again
34:36
I think they were amazing. I actually think it's a very well held place.
34:39
It's hard, so California likely, I'm hoping the governor will sign it
34:44
is decriminalizing solocybin. I'm dmtre Iowaska. But you know, I'd have to
34:51
say largely it's hard. Again. The people I go to I trust because
34:57
they have been they know how to hold this space. They've been trained in
35:00
various trauma treatments. Don't just google it, guys and go to a retreat,
35:06
all right, Like, let's be really, you have to be extraordinarily
35:12
cautious. And I wish I could give a better answer. But I see
35:15
a lot of people claiming that they're Shama, and they may very well be,
35:17
so I don't want to say that they're not. But it really has
35:21
to be somebody that you've met with. When I look back, I really
35:24
did about a year and a half of extremely intensive trauma work before I even
35:30
came to the medicine. So the other thing I see and I get up
35:31
patients in my office, I mean everybody, I think, I know the
35:35
desperation. I felt, Yeah, you just want to get better and if
35:38
this offer, but if you're actually not prepared. There was one night I
35:44
sat and the intention was and the shaman told me that to do this teach
35:51
me about my childhood experience, and the entire night I just wanted to hang
35:55
myself. Oh my god. And again. But but I know, heavy
36:04
fello, It's okay. It's been a heavy a couple of weeks every year.
36:07
So I'm very sensitive to this topic. But I say that not for
36:12
shock value. I say that that had I not been prepared, and had
36:16
I not known that aahuasca was just trying to show me just how bad it
36:22
was for me as a kid, that that's how bad I felt. Had
36:27
I not had that preparation or the people like I may have done something stupid.
36:34
I might have done so I might have seen that as a call tax
36:36
I don't know. I don't know what I would have seen, but I
36:37
knew. I kept staying with my breathing. I kept thinking of my three
36:43
children, but it kept coming back, and it was actually as as horrific
36:47
as it sounds. Doing that for five to six hours, it was extremely
36:52
validating as to why did I why do I just really never remember being happy
36:55
as a kid? Like what I think there was a lot of valuation and
37:00
that the experiences I had were pretty awful for me. Yeah, and I'm
37:04
glad that you put it for you, because there are a lot that circles
37:07
back to almost what we were talking about, the big tea little teas.
37:08
But it is for you. It is you, So do not judge yourself
37:13
against others and what has happened to them or not happened to them, What
37:15
happened to you, what could have happened to you? What did all of
37:17
that? Because you can go down every slip with your slope and point at
37:21
other people and not actually work on yourself and value where you've come from and
37:25
what your body has experienced, because there are places I've been that I don't
37:29
even remember. You know, there's things that have happened to my body and
37:32
in my heart my soul that I don't even know about. I have no
37:36
clue. So there are parts of me that are a little bit apprehensive.
37:38
But I know that I'm ready for this. I've been talking. I've been
37:42
talking about doing this for I don't even know, probably two or three years,
37:45
and but I haven't done a ton of research on it. I've mostly
37:47
just done what I'm doing right now, which is talking to somebody who's been
37:51
through it multiple times and has said the same thing. The safety part of
37:55
it, that there's anxiety that comes up, but also to go with someone
37:59
that you get your references. Don't just willing Nelly find someone online and go
38:04
do this like you have to come from someone that has referrals, can talk
38:07
to you about the experience, can tell you what you might be up against,
38:09
so on and so forth. But at the end of the day,
38:12
we can only be so prepared you know what I mean. I mean to
38:15
the point that you won't end up ever going because you'll never be prepared enough.
38:20
Like at that point, you got to pull the plug, your guys
38:22
and do something like this. If this is something that is of interest to
38:25
you. And so with that being said, if people are interested in talking
38:31
to you further, how can they find you in relation to this as well
38:36
as what you do for a living, which is outside of you and talking
38:38
about talking about psychedelics? But because we haven't, I mean, we could
38:43
sit here and talk for another hour or so about all of the other things
38:45
that we want to talk about. But where can we find you? And
38:49
what is just absolutely just driving you to help others right now in your life
38:52
because I know that that I know what mine is and that's this show and
38:55
giving my pain purpose. So for you being here with us today, what
39:00
can we what can we leave our audience with? Besides I get to talk
39:04
to my parents about doing drugs. I might actually record that conversation and play
39:10
it for y'all. I think for me and as somebody who's I feel like
39:19
my specialization is trauma is to really you'd call it post traumatic growth. But
39:24
helping people come to that other side, right, finding meaning and what they've
39:29
been through, helping them and a function live up to their potential. And
39:36
it can be it can be all various types of trauma, whether they're an
39:37
athlete who's had a horrible injury, whether you've had just terrific sexual abuse,
39:44
you know. And we talk about little teath, but what I find often,
39:46
which is a lot more subtle, and we would consider a little tea
39:50
is constant invalidation or even your parents like that. Neglect. Neglect is one
39:57
that can be subtle. Just be really ignored by your parents and having your
40:01
parents out to lunch, not because they were bad people, but because they
40:06
were doing the best that they could do right. Right, That's a huge
40:08
one that I see a lot that's hard to place your finger on. Yeah,
40:12
neglact, that's it. Yeah, everyone's kind of sitting in there in
40:15
their car their dusk right now, not in their head, going yeah,
40:17
I think I was probably neglected, I know. W Yeah, we feel
40:22
this element. I think a lot of it within our age bracket too.
40:24
We find we're all we're all raised in like the seventies and early eighties or
40:29
what have you, and there's a lot of us in this bracket where it
40:31
was kind of like baby boomer parents, and I was kind of like,
40:35
well, you know, good luck with all of that. Just you know,
40:37
go to college and mary and pop out kids and anything that happens in
40:39
between. We're not really sure, but have fun with all of that.
40:45
And here we are. Do we podcast about how fucked up we are going
40:52
to other countries to throw up for five days? This white the baby boomers
40:58
have done to us. Ah, that's really I know. Okay, So
41:04
we're gonna end this with this note because this is fun. This is really
41:08
really important stuff though, and I definitely don't want to make fun of it
41:12
at all, but it is. It is something that is important to me
41:15
and where the journey that I'm on and where I am going with this.
41:17
And it's so nice to meet people with you that have come back from it
41:21
alive, stronger and healthier and more wise in within yourself and being able to
41:28
let go of a lot of stuff. And I know that that's hard for
41:30
all of us to do, because it's hard to stare at our look at
41:32
ourselves in the mirror sometimes and face our demons, and we all have to.
41:35
And it sounds like, you know, you've done a lot of it,
41:37
and I know I have. I'm just kind of like getting to the
41:39
point where I'd like these like full blown five day or benders to get some
41:44
of this out because I'm tired of chasing this, and i know my listeners
41:49
are as well, tired for me, and also tired for themselves and tired
41:52
for their loved ones or whoever, because a lot of people will listen to
41:54
this show because it's for them or it's for others that they're dealing with within
41:59
their life, because i know how hard it is on my parents and my
42:00
friends and my sweetie when I'm just like like I've been for the past couple
42:05
of weeks, just been very very hard, and they don't know what to
42:07
do, and so we can we can help them, you know, by
42:09
helping ourselves as well. So I'm just grateful for your time today with us,
42:15
So thank you, And obviously I'm reaching out to you to talk to
42:17
you about everything that I have to get started on with this because exercise the
42:22
demons, you know, well, we can find it. Doctor Leila Contractor
42:28
at Leila l A l A I l A Contractor md dot com. Her
42:34
website is beautiful and it talks all about her services, what integrative medicine is,
42:38
all the treatment areas, how expensive she is not, and information to
42:44
contact her as well. So reach out to her. If you have any
42:45
questions, feel free to slip into my DMS at the Paintin podcast dot com.
42:49
If you want me to connect you with her, I'm happy to do
42:51
so. Thank you again for your time today. I really appreciate it.
42:54
Thank you for having me no problem. You are exclusively invited to share this
43:00
finding meaning in what you've been through in life VIP pain journey together, let's
43:05
get to the heart of how to heal with you by my side. Do
43:08
you know someone who is living in and with chroduct pain or has been dealing
43:12
with some of the traumas that we've been talking about today on this episode,
43:15
If you do, send them our way here to the Pain Game Podcast,
43:17
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43:22
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43:28
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