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What Does It Mean to Transform with Cassius Drake, M.D. · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists Podcast. My name is Gimickferson.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this
0:14
Speaker 1: show five four three two candem one our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to us. My guest today,
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Speaker 1: doctor Cassius Drake. Cassius, Welcome, thank you, welcome, good to
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Speaker 1: be here. Awesome. Doctor Drake is a co founder and
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Speaker 1: medical director of the Drake Center for Transformative Healing, where
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Speaker 1: he applies over two decades of emergency medicine experience to
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Speaker 1: holistic trauma care. Trained at Cornell University in the University
0:41
Speaker 1: of Texas Medical Branch and Board certified in emergency Medicine,
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Speaker 1: doctor Drake saw firsthand how traditional Western medicine can fall
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Speaker 1: short in addressing emotional and spiritual suffering. He integrates his
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Speaker 1: clinical expertise with bind body spirit practices to support healing
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Speaker 1: beyond physical symptoms, adding patients through nervous system regulation, trauma recovery,
1:04
Speaker 1: and comprehensive wellness within a medically supervised, compassionate environment. All right,
1:09
Speaker 1: Ketcha is obviously just a little bit about you before
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Speaker 1: we get going share with our listeners where you're from
1:14
Speaker 1: originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: Originally grew up in the Euston, Texas area, and now
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Speaker 2: we reside with my wife and sons and pets in
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Speaker 2: Oakland County, Michigan and Franklin, Michigan.
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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so very interesting to me this the
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Speaker 1: the the Western medicine, holistic care, Eastern medicine spirituality, the
1:47
Speaker 1: movement between the two, or lack thereof. How did all
1:51
Speaker 1: this start for you? And how did when did you
1:53
Speaker 1: decide I want to be a doctor?
1:56
Speaker 2: Ah? Well, yeah, that's a good question. So that I
1:59
Speaker 2: decided I want to to be a healer when I
2:02
Speaker 2: was twenty one years old. I was actually about to
2:05
Speaker 2: finish my degree at Cornella and engineering really away from that,
2:10
Speaker 2: and had an epiphany of sorts in a moment when
2:15
Speaker 2: I was home and a sparkling me. It was a
2:18
Speaker 2: Durgan movie actually, and I realized I had a calling
2:20
Speaker 2: to be a healer and this was really my passion,
2:24
Speaker 2: and I decided, you got.
2:26
Speaker 1: To dive in here. What movie? Tell what's the spark?
2:30
Speaker 1: What movie did you watch.
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Speaker 2: It was a movie. It was called Gross Anatomy. It's
2:34
Speaker 2: about some medical students going through going through medical school, right,
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Speaker 2: and there's this scene where there's this one student and
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Speaker 2: the doctor's given him. One of the littendants given me
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Speaker 2: a really hard time, and he's like, why are you
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Speaker 2: so hard at me? What do you want from me?
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Speaker 2: And she said, I just want the best from you.
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Speaker 2: People need healers. And that just went poof right to
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Speaker 2: my heart and something went, you know, just this light,
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Speaker 2: and I was like, I have to be a healer.
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Speaker 2: And my father was a position and my grandfather was
3:02
Speaker 2: a positioned so I kind of come from that tradition,
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Speaker 2: but it hadn't really called to me until that moment.
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Speaker 2: And then I decided, Okay, I'm going to go pursue
3:11
Speaker 2: going to medical school. And that took me a couple
3:13
Speaker 2: of years to go to medical school, and I did that,
3:15
Speaker 2: you know, very long pathway in medical school and residency
3:19
Speaker 2: and found myself as an emergency room position. And then
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Speaker 2: I spent twenty years as an er doctor, saving lives,
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Speaker 2: treating bodies, helping people to survive terrible physical issues, and
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Speaker 2: yet always feeling like there was something that was falling
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Speaker 2: quite short. There were there were some people that just
3:40
Speaker 2: sort of fell through the cracks that we weren't really helping,
3:44
Speaker 2: people who had chronic diseases, that were constantly being told,
3:47
Speaker 2: nothing's wrong with you. All your tests are normal, right,
3:50
Speaker 2: which was true. And yet you know this patient saying,
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Speaker 2: but I have this pain, I have this head, I
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Speaker 2: have this a dominal pain, I have whatever that this
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Speaker 2: thing that can't go away. And what was clicking for
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Speaker 2: me was there's this emotional component that just wasn't being addressed,
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Speaker 2: you know. And I began talking to people, you know,
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Speaker 2: what's bothering you? You know what, what's going on with
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Speaker 2: your life? And that led me on a journey of
4:12
Speaker 2: beginning to connect the fact that you know, it's it's
4:15
Speaker 2: not enough to just treat the physical body. You know,
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Speaker 2: you have to treat the whole person. You have to
4:20
Speaker 2: treat their emotional self, you have to treat their spiritual self.
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Speaker 2: And I went on my own journey of spiritual awakening
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Speaker 2: and healing out my own that sort of for me
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Speaker 2: happened through stress and burnout of that really intense work.
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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I gotta pause because you're saying all
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Speaker 1: this great stuff I want to I want to get
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Speaker 1: to First of all, you grow up your father's a physician.
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Speaker 1: Did you say your grandfather as well? Or your mother?
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Speaker 2: Okaya?
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Speaker 1: So, but but that experience, with that experience or during
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Speaker 1: that time, were you ever like I want to become
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Speaker 1: a physician.
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Speaker 2: No, I mean I went to college to be an engineer.
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Speaker 2: Uh yeah. And now what it hadn't called to me
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Speaker 2: at that point.
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Speaker 1: But when and when you see this movie, when that
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Speaker 1: that when you have that epiphany, as you said, it
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Speaker 1: was I want to be a healer. It wasn't I
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Speaker 1: want to be a doctor.
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Speaker 2: No, because I want to be a healer. That's what? What?
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Speaker 1: What? What were you hearing? Or why healer?
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Speaker 2: There is something about that word that that's more than
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Speaker 2: just treating a disease. You know, to to to really
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Speaker 2: heal someone is to return them to a place, you know,
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Speaker 2: ideally better than they than they were when they first
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Speaker 2: came to you. Uh, to you know, a place of wholeness,
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Speaker 2: you know, not not just getting over their pneumonia, not
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Speaker 2: just surviving their heart attack, not just surviving their pendicitis,
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Speaker 2: but to really heal at depth. And you know that
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Speaker 2: led me, you know, through through my own journey and
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Speaker 2: personal healing, uh and spiritual growth that I did on
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Speaker 2: my own that was catalyzed about midway through my careers
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Speaker 2: where that really started taking for me.
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Speaker 1: All Right, I want to get to that, but before
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Speaker 1: we do, you did twenty years as an emergency physician,
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Speaker 1: which is a hell of a long time. Longer than
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Speaker 1: crazy long time, an amazing long time. And to what
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Speaker 1: degree during that time were you were you getting that itch?
6:30
Speaker 1: Was it always there?
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Speaker 2: It was?
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Speaker 1: And hold on, hold on, there's another part of this.
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Speaker 1: What if you're experiencing that. You know, I would imagine
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Speaker 1: there's some kind of tension between being a western physic
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Speaker 1: allopathic physician and jumping ship as it were, to the holistic.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, lots of tension in that and some of them.
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Speaker 2: You know, I would often you know, uh, you know,
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Speaker 2: to call to the principal's office for things like spending
7:04
Speaker 2: too much time with the patients so you know, not
7:07
Speaker 2: not moving you know, the patient through the system, because
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Speaker 2: I would take so, you know, some time to go, well,
7:12
Speaker 2: what's going on and try to really support some people
7:15
Speaker 2: and not just getting physically better, but making that connection
7:18
Speaker 2: between you know, my my IBS is more than just
7:23
Speaker 2: my stomach hurting. It's a manifestation of anxiety. You know,
7:27
Speaker 2: this migraine is more than just pain in your head.
7:29
Speaker 2: It's a manifestation of frustration. But then it's not enough
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Speaker 2: to just tell people that you have to give them
7:35
Speaker 2: something to do with the frustration. You have to give
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Speaker 2: them something to do with the anxiety. And this is
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Speaker 2: for me, is where the real spiritual part comes in,
7:43
Speaker 2: because you know, if it's frustration and it's out of
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Speaker 2: your control, well that's about connecting with the idea, well
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Speaker 2: things are going to be okay, or something's on my side,
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Speaker 2: or you know, I'm going to get through this, And
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Speaker 2: that's a different sort of perspective, but becomes the medicine
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Speaker 2: for the frustration. And you treat the frustration, the headache,
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Speaker 2: it's less, you know, or you know, if there's anxiety,
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Speaker 2: you know, it's well things are going to work out
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Speaker 2: in a real not you know, in a real emotional sense.
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Speaker 2: That becomes a medicine for that. But yeah, that was
8:13
Speaker 2: a real tension in that and then I and a
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Speaker 2: lot of frustration as an R doctor, I could never
8:19
Speaker 2: fully be that person in the e R that I
8:22
Speaker 2: really wanted to be. I just like I could never
8:24
Speaker 2: truly be the healer that I wanted to be. I
8:27
Speaker 2: was a great you know er doctor, you know, diagnostician.
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Speaker 2: I even became a medical director and ran a place
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Speaker 2: that we won awards for for patients satisfaction and all
8:36
Speaker 2: those things, but still found myself not really being able
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Speaker 2: to be the healer that I really felt called to be.
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Speaker 2: And it took a physical breakdown of my own. I
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Speaker 2: had a spine surgery that was a catalyst for me
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Speaker 2: to finally say, Okay, I'm not going to do this anymore,
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Speaker 2: and I'm going to leave this work.
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Speaker 1: When did that that was?
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Speaker 2: It was like twenty sixteen when I had my second
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Speaker 2: spine surgery, which was my fourth serious medical issue that
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Speaker 2: put me in a hospital during that twenty years, all
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Speaker 2: of which were stress related, and all of which were
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Speaker 2: related to that that tension that I'm just not doing
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Speaker 2: what I'm supposed to be doing and internal frustration that
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Speaker 2: manifested for me as physical disease. I was literally forced
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Speaker 2: to take my own medicine and to leave that work
9:34
Speaker 2: and to then you know, find a way to really
9:36
Speaker 2: lead that passion fully, which is when we started the
9:38
Speaker 2: Drink Center.
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Speaker 1: I would imagine that it's very difficult to make that switch.
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Speaker 1: I mean, having gone through medical school, student loans bills
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Speaker 1: all that time, twenty years in doing all these awards,
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Speaker 1: it's it's one thing to feel there's something else or
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Speaker 1: there's something more, and I would imagine again that's another
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Speaker 1: thing to say to kind of step outside of that.
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Speaker 1: Did you have a family at this time?
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Speaker 2: I did, married, married, had kids, young kids, and a
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Speaker 2: mortgage and and everything that that that you would think
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Speaker 2: that it would happen at the time in my life.
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Speaker 2: And it was a hugely perfaith. It was really a
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Speaker 2: hugely per faith to say I'm going to leave this
10:33
Speaker 2: work that I've been doing for so long and to
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Speaker 2: and to go out on this mission of being the
10:38
Speaker 2: healer UH that that I've always wanted to be and
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Speaker 2: and and thus far it's it's been working. It's been
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Speaker 2: a journey, UH and not always an easy one, but
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Speaker 2: it's been a very exceedingly rewarding one, UH on a
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Speaker 2: personal level of seeing real healing and transformation happen. And
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Speaker 2: then development of the paradigm that we created at the
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Speaker 2: Drink Center, which came through UH some deeper healing I
11:07
Speaker 2: had to do from the loss of my sister, which
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Speaker 2: which was a whole different healing event that had to
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Speaker 2: do that that that inspired our way of the butterfly
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Speaker 2: paradigm for healing, that that that we used today.
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Speaker 1: The spiritual kind of awakening and journey that you went
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Speaker 1: on or started, how, how when did that start? How
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Speaker 1: did that start? And what did that involve?
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Speaker 2: So that spiritual awakening started after I'd finished all my training,
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Speaker 2: I'd gone through medical school, I finished my residency, and
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Speaker 2: then I was about two years into being in attending
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Speaker 2: in my early thirties, uh and and a very real
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Speaker 2: sense of is this all there is now? Is this
11:49
Speaker 2: just what I'm going to be doing? And and and
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Speaker 2: and as as things happened, there were coincidences and serendipities
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Speaker 2: and and and things and books and speakers that and
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Speaker 2: teachers that all show it up at that period of
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Speaker 2: time that led me on my own spiritual awakening uh
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Speaker 2: and journey of healing. I did some some deep study
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Speaker 2: with you know, spiritual paths and and different gurus and
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Speaker 2: teachers and learned a lot from many different directions of
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Speaker 2: what it really means to not just heal your body,
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Speaker 2: but to heal your mind, your heart, and your soul
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Speaker 2: and and and then to finally make that leap out
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Speaker 2: of emergency medicine to say, this is the healer I'm
12:28
Speaker 2: going to be, and I'm going to do this work
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Speaker 2: and and and and it works now and that part's
12:35
Speaker 2: really amazing.
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Speaker 1: So let's talk about when you decided to start the
12:41
Speaker 1: Drink Center. How did that come about?
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Speaker 2: Okay, so after I had the next surgery and I said, okay,
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Speaker 2: I'm not going to allow this job to keep making
12:50
Speaker 2: me sick. I'm going to leave this work. I'm going
12:52
Speaker 2: to do what I would tell somebody else to do. Uh.
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Speaker 2: The reinvention uh after that was to begin to Drink
13:00
Speaker 2: Singer for Transformative Healing, which is a center for healing
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Speaker 2: that combines some medicine treatment we use a ketymene as
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Speaker 2: part of our pathway, but also combines integration work, spiritual work,
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Speaker 2: meditative word creativity, so that we combine all of these
13:21
Speaker 2: modalities of healing. We bring the experience of having a
13:26
Speaker 2: ketamine experience. We bring a container of emotional spiritual guidance
13:33
Speaker 2: that supports people and once they see things from a
13:36
Speaker 2: different perspective, to make that the way that they see life.
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Speaker 2: And in our paradigm. We talk about going from the
13:45
Speaker 2: journey of a catapult a butterfly and transcending what you
13:51
Speaker 2: once were to become something different, something more evolved, something
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Speaker 2: something more beautiful, even though it may come through a trauma.
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Speaker 1: This to me sounds very exciting and amazing, And I'm wondering,
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Speaker 1: is this diametrically opposed to the Western medicine paradigm or
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Speaker 1: to what degree is it.
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Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it's opposed. It's an involved perspective of it,
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Speaker 2: you know, So so the Western and it's not you know,
14:22
Speaker 2: we don't say don't don't take medicine. We say there's
14:25
Speaker 2: a limit to where it's going to get you. Sure,
14:27
Speaker 2: And we also don't say, well all, don't just sit
14:29
Speaker 2: and meditate. There's a limit to what that's going to
14:31
Speaker 2: get you too. And so it's the synergy of everything
14:35
Speaker 2: that elevates the result. Right. So, we have patients who
14:39
Speaker 2: come to us, you know, for various reasons, you know,
14:41
Speaker 2: depression or PTSD from past trauma. Things they can't get
14:44
Speaker 2: through and they've done a lot of things. They've done therapy,
14:47
Speaker 2: they've done medications, and nothing that's really worked for them.
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Speaker 2: Or they know everything there is to know about their
14:52
Speaker 2: trauma and themselves, but they still feel exactly the same way, okay.
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Speaker 2: And so we use ketamine, we use meditation, we use
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Speaker 2: a spiritual perspective to help them to see things in
15:03
Speaker 2: a different way. To help a depressed person just go oh,
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Speaker 2: this is what hope feels like. To help a person
15:09
Speaker 2: with past trauma, say oh, this is safe today. I'm
15:12
Speaker 2: safe today, okay. And then we say, now that you
15:15
Speaker 2: know what that feels like, now we're going to build
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Speaker 2: a consciousness from that new foundation. And from that place,
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Speaker 2: I am safe today. Your next thought is different from
15:28
Speaker 2: how do I let go of the past that keeps
15:31
Speaker 2: you just wrapped up in the past. I'm safe today.
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Speaker 2: You build a different you build a different consciousness from there.
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Speaker 2: And so that's the work that we do that contains that.
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Speaker 2: And that was the work that you know, I had
15:43
Speaker 2: to do for myself, which is really the foundation from
15:46
Speaker 2: this for my own journey of healing, which you know
15:49
Speaker 2: I said, the whole inspiration for the way the Butterfly
15:52
Speaker 2: was at six months after we started a drink center,
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Speaker 2: my sister took her life and that was the hardest
16:02
Speaker 2: thing I ever had to deal with, and and and
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Speaker 2: I found myself for a while unable to get past
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Speaker 2: it until uh, I sat and had my own sort
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Speaker 2: of experience, uh and ask myself the question what do
16:19
Speaker 2: you do when things can never be the same again?
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Speaker 2: Whether the answer that I got was you have to evolve,
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Speaker 2: you have to transform. You just have to transcend what
16:29
Speaker 2: you were and be different. And and so the way
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Speaker 2: of the butterfly paradigm is what it looks like and
16:37
Speaker 2: how it feels to make that journey to say, yeah,
16:41
Speaker 2: I had a caterpillar consciousness and it was defined by
16:44
Speaker 2: whatever pain that I that I was dealing with. And
16:47
Speaker 2: now I exist in a different place, a different place.
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Speaker 2: Not that I've forgotten the past, not that I ignore it, Okay, Yeah,
16:55
Speaker 2: and I'll say, am I at peace with the loss
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Speaker 2: of my sister?
16:58
Speaker 1: No?
16:58
Speaker 2: But I accept it as heart of my life there
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Speaker 2: and there's more to my life than just that hole
17:05
Speaker 2: in the ground. And so building from there is what
17:08
Speaker 2: we did.
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Speaker 1: It's so amazing Cassius to you know, you started out
17:14
Speaker 1: earlier on saying, you know, you watched that movie and
17:18
Speaker 1: it was you wanted to be a healer. I mean,
17:21
Speaker 1: it's like you didn't know what that meant really, but
17:26
Speaker 1: it was in your freaking gut that there was that
17:29
Speaker 1: was That's how freaking inspiring is that?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was there. It was just a fire just
17:35
Speaker 2: to be a healer. It took me thirty years to
17:37
Speaker 2: become the healer I wanted to be when I was
17:39
Speaker 2: inspired to be a healer. At twenty one, I feel
17:41
Speaker 2: like I'm finally that now I'm fifty six now and
17:45
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, in the last few years,
17:47
Speaker 2: I finally became that healer that I wanted to be
17:51
Speaker 2: when I was inspired to be one and twenty one. Yeah, when.
17:56
Speaker 1: I want to get to the Drake Centamore specifically, But
18:00
Speaker 1: during this process of you journeying through there, I'm imagining there.
18:07
Speaker 1: You mentioned some books and teachers and gurus, but were
18:10
Speaker 1: there certain teachers or even people who inspired you from
18:18
Speaker 1: Afar who?
18:22
Speaker 2: No? Many? You know. I spent a lot of time
18:24
Speaker 2: in the nineties and early two thousands going through the
18:27
Speaker 2: variety of New Age, you know, teachers at Cartilla and
18:31
Speaker 2: and others. I met a very profound and deep spiritual teacher.
18:37
Speaker 2: His name is cd Al Jamal, who is you know
18:42
Speaker 2: what I learned from him about healing on a soul
18:47
Speaker 2: level and a spiritual level. I had the very great
18:50
Speaker 2: blessing of spending three years learning from him, and that's
18:55
Speaker 2: the foundation of a lot of what we do on
18:57
Speaker 2: this soul level of connecting with unconditional love, but just
19:02
Speaker 2: knowing that it exists and and and being able to
19:06
Speaker 2: bring that and to be an example of it for people.
19:10
Speaker 2: So to be an attraction to healing, not telling people
19:14
Speaker 2: what they should do, but just being in them a
19:17
Speaker 2: demonstration if you do this, this is how it can work.
19:22
Speaker 2: And let me tell you my story with it. And
19:25
Speaker 2: and many of the things that I've gone through in
19:27
Speaker 2: my life have just given me the thing and I
19:29
Speaker 2: needed to say to someone in the moment that became
19:31
Speaker 2: the thing that they needed to hear, you know, because
19:34
Speaker 2: I'd gone through it myself. Uh and and and so
19:37
Speaker 2: my my journey of healing has really been to be
19:42
Speaker 2: an example of what it looks like to heal. He
19:47
Speaker 2: had I had a lot. I had a lot in
19:49
Speaker 2: my bucket, and it was fuel for for this transformation,
19:55
Speaker 2: you know. So you know, many many teachers, many many lessons,
19:59
Speaker 2: U many wounds of my own uh that that required healing.
20:05
Speaker 2: That now we have this combination of all these different
20:10
Speaker 2: things and that you know. So I'm from the South,
20:13
Speaker 2: so you know, I use gumbo as an example. You know,
20:15
Speaker 2: gumbo has like thirty ingredients, and you pour all this
20:18
Speaker 2: stuff in the pocket, something amazing comes out. Right, you
20:21
Speaker 2: take any one of those ingredients out and it's not
20:23
Speaker 2: the same, okay, you know, And and and that's you know,
20:26
Speaker 2: sort of our healing program. It's just it's all these
20:28
Speaker 2: things from all these different perspectives, and we stir them
20:31
Speaker 2: all up and we bring them out as we need to, uh,
20:34
Speaker 2: and the end result of something amazing.
20:37
Speaker 1: So give us an idea of if you can kind
20:44
Speaker 1: of I realize it's all different, different people are different,
20:47
Speaker 1: but kind of a case study, if you can recall
20:50
Speaker 1: someone who walked into your clinic for a particular reason,
20:54
Speaker 1: how are you working with them?
20:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, I mean there's lots of ex
21:00
Speaker 2: samples of that. You know. One of my favorite stories,
21:03
Speaker 2: one of the most profound stories that we have of
21:06
Speaker 2: just like wow that really worked, Okay, as a patient
21:10
Speaker 2: who came to us for for PTSD and she had
21:14
Speaker 2: witnessed a very traumatic uh event of a loved one
21:21
Speaker 2: uh uh losing his life and that she had witnessed
21:24
Speaker 2: that it had not been able to get past it,
21:28
Speaker 2: and so she came to us to do our program
21:30
Speaker 2: to get through that. And the way that we do
21:33
Speaker 2: that is we begin, well, we just we sit with
21:35
Speaker 2: them initially, and we just get their story and we
21:37
Speaker 2: understand where they're coming from, and and and to gather
21:41
Speaker 2: what we call their caterpillar consciousness, uh, you know, which
21:44
Speaker 2: is hers defined by I can't this happened to me,
21:47
Speaker 2: and I can't believe it's happened, and I can't let
21:50
Speaker 2: it go, and how could I ever be different? Uh?
21:52
Speaker 2: And and then we talked about, okay, well, now do
21:54
Speaker 2: we know where you're coming from. We talk about if
21:57
Speaker 2: this works, what is that gonna look like for you? Okay?
21:59
Speaker 2: And most people have never even thought about that. All
22:02
Speaker 2: they've thought about is just managing the symptoms, and the
22:05
Speaker 2: idea that you could just be healed and be different,
22:08
Speaker 2: it's not even something they even consider, okay. And so
22:11
Speaker 2: we start to say, well what would that look like?
22:14
Speaker 2: And we start to put a little framework around what
22:16
Speaker 2: we call, you know, their butterfly consciousness and initial idea
22:20
Speaker 2: around that. And then they have a treatment, you know,
22:22
Speaker 2: and that can be a kenemine treatment. It can be
22:26
Speaker 2: a meditative, mindful experience. We could be a creative experience,
22:32
Speaker 2: but they have ideally a mystical connection with a different perspective.
22:39
Speaker 2: And there's one case of talking about you know, she
22:41
Speaker 2: had a kenemy treatment and within that experience, she felt
22:47
Speaker 2: a washing of the scene okay, that that was stuck
22:51
Speaker 2: in her mind, and that scene was finally gone, okay,
22:54
Speaker 2: And so she came out of that and when with
22:56
Speaker 2: a real out being out of that person, a state
23:00
Speaker 2: of fight or flight she'd been in for years and
23:03
Speaker 2: finally had the space to actually open her eyes and go,
23:07
Speaker 2: that's not happening right now, okay. Right. And so then
23:11
Speaker 2: now that we have that space, now we have to
23:13
Speaker 2: put something new in there, okay. And so in our
23:16
Speaker 2: integration process we talked about, now that you have this space,
23:20
Speaker 2: because you know, it's none of these things you know,
23:23
Speaker 2: we just instantly do it. You have to make it
23:27
Speaker 2: the way that you see life. And and so we
23:29
Speaker 2: talked about, now that you have this new opening, what
23:31
Speaker 2: does that mean tomorrow? Okay? What does that mean today?
23:35
Speaker 2: What does that mean the next time you know, you
23:37
Speaker 2: open a door and you think you're going to see
23:41
Speaker 2: what you saw before, okay, And we talked about how
23:44
Speaker 2: to very practically stay in that space, using creativity, using
23:48
Speaker 2: virtual reality, us using mindful techniques of how to really
23:52
Speaker 2: anchor that new view. And this was so profound for her,
23:57
Speaker 2: the story that I'm telling you. All right, So she
23:59
Speaker 2: had such a transformation that she left and she went
24:03
Speaker 2: on a on a camping trip with her with her boyfriend,
24:08
Speaker 2: and and she was you know, sort of the later
24:11
Speaker 2: in life and and and didn't worry about things like, uh,
24:15
Speaker 2: you know, becoming pregnant and things like that. And and
24:19
Speaker 2: so she went on the camping trip with her boyfriend
24:22
Speaker 2: and she came back with child. And so you know,
24:27
Speaker 2: after from from being told don't even worry about this, this,
24:32
Speaker 2: don't even worry about protection is not an issue for you, okay,
24:36
Speaker 2: her body changed in such a way, okay. And and
24:39
Speaker 2: not being in that state of constant stress all the
24:43
Speaker 2: time and emotional disease, her body relaxed, her hormonal milieu changed, okay,
24:51
Speaker 2: and out of that came a whole new life okay. Right,
24:54
Speaker 2: And and and so you know she had you know,
24:57
Speaker 2: had a had some energy from that that she painted out.
25:01
Speaker 2: And and now she has this beautiful child and and
25:03
Speaker 2: and a lovely husband and and a brand new life
25:07
Speaker 2: a butterfly.
25:08
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like the caterpillar hit about it literally.
25:13
Speaker 2: And that's just one story, you know, we I mean
25:17
Speaker 2: I could I could talk at our on on all
25:20
Speaker 2: the different stories that we have like that. That's just
25:22
Speaker 2: that's one of my favorites.
25:25
Speaker 1: Just kind of uh briefly here ketamine for our audience.
25:32
Speaker 1: Why ketamine? Whah? What does it do? Yeah?
25:36
Speaker 2: Ye, ketamine is a catalyst. Okay, So you know, psychedelics
25:40
Speaker 2: have a way and ketamine the psychedelic is a synthetic
25:43
Speaker 2: derivative of PCP, and it's been used broadly for for
25:48
Speaker 2: many reasons, and a lot of people use it to
25:50
Speaker 2: as a treatment for depression as a solo treatment for
25:53
Speaker 2: depression just because it makes you feel better, but then
25:55
Speaker 2: it wears off aing you another one. But also when
25:59
Speaker 2: used as part of an overall paradigm and with attention, okay,
26:03
Speaker 2: it can be a very powerful catalyst to spark that
26:07
Speaker 2: new view, to shift your perspective in a way that
26:11
Speaker 2: talk therapy can. What I what I tell people that
26:13
Speaker 2: it often does is, you know, people often use psilocybin
26:17
Speaker 2: as sort of a gold standard for psychedelics and have
26:19
Speaker 2: this idea that you got to go in and fight
26:21
Speaker 2: your demons. And that's what it's about. Uh. And what
26:24
Speaker 2: I tell people is, you know, if you could fight
26:28
Speaker 2: and defeat your demons, how would you feel? Okay? Ketamine
26:32
Speaker 2: often just puts you there, okay. So you find yourself
26:35
Speaker 2: in a place of peace and a place of hope
26:37
Speaker 2: and a place of safety. Sometimes there's a real emotional
26:42
Speaker 2: release and then you just find yourself in a fundamentally
26:46
Speaker 2: different emotional place, and often with an insight that can
26:50
Speaker 2: become the foundation for that butterfly consciousness, you know, full disclosure,
26:56
Speaker 2: I had my own, you know, before before we started
27:00
Speaker 2: this work. And my insight I got was what Because
27:05
Speaker 2: my question I took into it was this is the
27:06
Speaker 2: right thing for me to do? Because I've been struggling
27:08
Speaker 2: with it for years and every time I tried to
27:10
Speaker 2: do this work and it never really worked. And so
27:13
Speaker 2: I'd say, heay, is just the right thing for me
27:14
Speaker 2: to do? Now? This is the question what starting the
27:16
Speaker 2: Drinke Center, starting the Drink Center and doing this work right? Yeah?
27:20
Speaker 2: And the answer I got was a very profound, amongst
27:24
Speaker 2: other things of just do the work and everything will
27:26
Speaker 2: be provided, okay. And so that's become my mantra. That's
27:30
Speaker 2: been my mantra now for six years that we've been
27:33
Speaker 2: doing this work. And I don't go back and go
27:37
Speaker 2: back and have another psychedelic experience. I live from what
27:40
Speaker 2: I got. And this is what we teach people. You
27:43
Speaker 2: know that you need you know, sometimes you need a catalyst, okay,
27:46
Speaker 2: And that's what the kedemy provides. But it's not the
27:49
Speaker 2: foundation of the healing. It just opens the door or window,
27:52
Speaker 2: and then you have to decide if you're going to
27:54
Speaker 2: have faith in that view or not, okay. And so
27:58
Speaker 2: you know, our journey, our person journey with it has
28:01
Speaker 2: been having faith in that view, do the work, and
28:04
Speaker 2: everything would be provided. And as long as we hold
28:07
Speaker 2: on to that, the Drink Center keeps going and growing
28:10
Speaker 2: and evolving, and it changes and it's it's not a
28:13
Speaker 2: steady slope up. It goes up and down. And there's
28:16
Speaker 2: been a whole lot of healing and stuff that we've
28:18
Speaker 2: had to do in it. But as long as we
28:21
Speaker 2: hold on to that idea that I got, that foundational belief,
28:26
Speaker 2: just do the work and everything provided, everything continues to
28:29
Speaker 2: be provided. And when we lose track of that, it
28:33
Speaker 2: goes off track, and then we get back on track
28:37
Speaker 2: and it keeps working. So that's that's what we teach people.
28:40
Speaker 2: That's how we use it, not as a you know,
28:43
Speaker 2: pantacea or do this ketamine. It's going to fix your depression. Now,
28:47
Speaker 2: it's going to give you a different view on life.
28:50
Speaker 2: And then you're going to have to grow into that
28:52
Speaker 2: view on life. And that takes time and it takes practice.
28:55
Speaker 2: You know. We use the example of you know, you
28:57
Speaker 2: have a plant e just with the water and nurse
28:59
Speaker 2: it and let it grow, and you can't wash it.
29:01
Speaker 2: It just has to grow, and that just takes time,
29:04
Speaker 2: and storms will come and challenge it, and it gets
29:06
Speaker 2: the opportunity to become stronger and you have the opportunity
29:09
Speaker 2: to grow your faith and trust of it. So that's
29:12
Speaker 2: how we use it. It's just sort of opening the door.
29:15
Speaker 1: I'm really curious here, if you look back to yourself
29:21
Speaker 1: as a physician prior to this and look at yourself now,
29:26
Speaker 1: how are you different?
29:29
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I'm so different, Oh so different. I
29:33
Speaker 2: don't even know where to start with answering that question,
29:36
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I could never go back and
29:38
Speaker 2: be an er doctor again. I know, I look at
29:41
Speaker 2: I'm glad I did that work at a time that
29:43
Speaker 2: was like my caterpillar consciousness as a healer, okay, and
29:47
Speaker 2: it was very heavy, and it was very scientific. Honestly,
29:51
Speaker 2: it was even a little righteous, and you know, I
29:54
Speaker 2: had to go through my own sort of growth and
29:56
Speaker 2: maturity as a human being and learn some humility on
30:01
Speaker 2: what I can and can't do. And that was an
30:02
Speaker 2: interesting journey. I'd say. Now I'm a much more humble, grateful,
30:10
Speaker 2: patient healer that just believes in the process and believes
30:16
Speaker 2: that if you create fertile enough ground for someone to
30:22
Speaker 2: stand on, that amazing things will grow there. And I
30:25
Speaker 2: don't have to force it. I don't have to make
30:28
Speaker 2: it happen. I don't have to be the healer. I'm
30:32
Speaker 2: more of just you know, trust me, if you look
30:36
Speaker 2: in that direction, you'll find what you're looking for, you know.
30:38
Speaker 2: And there's more of a guide on the journey than
30:43
Speaker 2: I am. The one that has to save the life.
30:45
Speaker 2: I did that for a while, and you know, ironically,
30:47
Speaker 2: I saved a lot of physical lives. I mean, I
30:49
Speaker 2: can't even tell y'all many hundreds, thousands maybe in my
30:53
Speaker 2: twenty years in the er, no one ever sent me letters. Okay,
30:56
Speaker 2: no one ever sent me thank you cards. No very
30:58
Speaker 2: rarely did anyone ever like come back and say thank
31:01
Speaker 2: you for doing that. And now we do this work
31:03
Speaker 2: and people send us things and and send us cards
31:06
Speaker 2: and gifts, and they say thank you for saving my
31:08
Speaker 2: life in a different way right than than than they
31:14
Speaker 2: ever did before. And and I can't tell you how
31:16
Speaker 2: rewarding that is. There's no word for how rewarding that is.
31:20
Speaker 1: Do you speak to like young physicians now.
31:24
Speaker 2: Not as much as I should.
31:26
Speaker 1: You know, how would that go? What would you say?
31:30
Speaker 2: I would tell them a journey. I would tell them
31:33
Speaker 2: exactly the story I'm telling you that I started out
31:35
Speaker 2: to be a healer and I and I have you know,
31:38
Speaker 2: given you know, I've given talks to groups of doctors
31:42
Speaker 2: on how to raise their patient's satisfaction score, for example,
31:45
Speaker 2: because that that's a big deal in building and in hospitals,
31:48
Speaker 2: and that's sort of how you measure. And the thing
31:51
Speaker 2: I pointed out went to him was like, look, you
31:54
Speaker 2: don't get any points for making the right diagnosis. Okay,
31:57
Speaker 2: that's a given. Okay, so they making the right diagnosis,
32:01
Speaker 2: prescribing the right medicine. That does not get you any
32:05
Speaker 2: extra points. What gets you extra points is how much
32:09
Speaker 2: the patient felt like you cared about them beyond just
32:13
Speaker 2: their diagnosis. And and and so the phrase that I
32:15
Speaker 2: would use with doctors is doctors treat and healer's care
32:20
Speaker 2: and patients can feel the difference. And and you know,
32:24
Speaker 2: part of my journey on that was really being focused.
32:28
Speaker 2: Uh you know, I I'm very honest, I wasn't wasn't
32:31
Speaker 2: always this guy. Uh And and I had my times
32:34
Speaker 2: of a righteousness and even a bit of professional arrogance
32:38
Speaker 2: and made the right to diagnosis and gave them the
32:41
Speaker 2: right treatment. And they said, well, why aren't they satisfied? Okay,
32:44
Speaker 2: Well they were satisfied because I had terrible bedside manner
32:48
Speaker 2: for a while. Uh And and and it wasn't enough
32:51
Speaker 2: to just say here's your prescription, go home and take it. Uh.
32:55
Speaker 2: It mattered if you sat down and took a little
32:57
Speaker 2: more time and made some eye contact and asked your
32:59
Speaker 2: question with patients and did those sort of things. And
33:03
Speaker 2: what really, you know, my own journey was that I
33:06
Speaker 2: had a moment where I'd gotten a patient complaint or
33:09
Speaker 2: two or maybe three, and was told, hey, Doc, you
33:13
Speaker 2: know you got to do something about this. And I
33:15
Speaker 2: finally went, okay, it's me and stop complaining, telling it
33:18
Speaker 2: was everybody else and people just being you know, you unreasonable,
33:21
Speaker 2: what have you? And I decided to consciously change my mindset.
33:26
Speaker 2: This was during my own stage of spiritual awakening, and
33:29
Speaker 2: so before every shift I would go to the hospital
33:32
Speaker 2: chapel and I would take five or ten minutes and
33:35
Speaker 2: I would just meditate. And the prayer that I meditated
33:38
Speaker 2: on it was I chose that it was the prayer
33:40
Speaker 2: of Saint Francis, which begins with Lord, make me an
33:42
Speaker 2: instrument of your peace, Okay, And I just started with
33:45
Speaker 2: that and I meditated on that before I went to work,
33:49
Speaker 2: and it changed everything. It changed everything. It didn't change
33:54
Speaker 2: my diagnostic skills, but six months after that, my own
33:59
Speaker 2: person no patient satisfaction scores had gone up so high,
34:03
Speaker 2: and I made such a change that I got promoted
34:05
Speaker 2: to medical director and I ended up I ended up
34:08
Speaker 2: running the place for seven years. Uh and then the
34:12
Speaker 2: whole r won on award for scoring in the highest
34:16
Speaker 2: percentile in the country on patient satisfaction, and and it
34:21
Speaker 2: just all began with that moment of me changing myself first. Okay,
34:25
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna change myself first, and I'm just gonna
34:28
Speaker 2: set an attention to really be a healing presence beyond
34:32
Speaker 2: just a good diagnostician. And and and that that was transformative,
34:39
Speaker 2: you know, that transformed my my uh by by practice
34:43
Speaker 2: and ironically made me less happy in the work because
34:49
Speaker 2: I just wanted to be that healer guy all the time.
34:52
Speaker 2: And and and I really my my tolerance of all
34:55
Speaker 2: the other stuff that you had to deal with, which
34:56
Speaker 2: is kind of until I finally finally left that work.
35:01
Speaker 2: But that's how I talk to doctors about that, about
35:05
Speaker 2: what it takes to really make that change.
35:07
Speaker 1: That is incredible. All right, as we wind down here, Cassious,
35:11
Speaker 1: how do people learn more about you and the Drake Center?
35:14
Speaker 1: First of all, so we answer that who comes to
35:16
Speaker 1: the Drake Center?
35:18
Speaker 2: You know, various people who are seeking healing from depression
35:22
Speaker 2: anxiety PTSD, people who find themselves stuck in life, in
35:28
Speaker 2: a transition in life, be it a midlife crisis, a
35:31
Speaker 2: relationship has ended, you're in a career change. We work
35:36
Speaker 2: with people who perhaps have explored other types of experiences
35:40
Speaker 2: or psychedelic experiences, and don't know what to do with that.
35:44
Speaker 2: And maybe they had a powerful experience, but they need
35:46
Speaker 2: to integrate that into their lives in a deeper way.
35:50
Speaker 2: We do that work with that vibe variety of people,
35:55
Speaker 2: and they want to find us. Our website is the
36:00
Speaker 2: Drink Center dot net and they can find our website there.
36:05
Speaker 2: We're also on Instagram, The Drink Center. We're on Facebook,
36:09
Speaker 2: The Drink Center for Transformative Healing TikTok, The Drag Center Michigan.
36:16
Speaker 2: My book The Way to Butterflies available on Amazon with
36:19
Speaker 2: which talks about my journey with the healing from my
36:22
Speaker 2: sister and how we came up with that paradigm.
36:24
Speaker 1: Altogether awesome, and we'll have all that linked up here
36:27
Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast
36:30
Speaker 1: dot com. Kashus you are. You're incredibly inspiring. It's yeah,
36:36
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really amazing, and it's you are
36:41
Speaker 1: why I love to do this podcast to get to
36:44
Speaker 1: talk to someone like you. I mean, it's it's incredibly
36:49
Speaker 1: inspiring and you're amazing. I'd love to have you back
36:52
Speaker 1: at a later day. Yeah, appreciate you.
36:54
Speaker 2: I love you back. Thank you having give an opportunity
36:56
Speaker 2: to share, you take care, and the common busy to
37:04
Speaker 2: retire