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Making the Mystical Practical with Jill Sitnick · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Theriver's podcast. My name is Guimiferson
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  Speaker 1: and I interview incredible people who share the story of
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  Speaker 1: how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big thank
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  Speaker 1: you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: our sponsors. So five four, three, two and one, our folks,
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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  Speaker 1: my guest today. Jill sid Nick.
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  Speaker 2: Jill welcome, Thank you so much, thrilled to be here.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
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  Speaker 3: So.
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  Speaker 1: Jill is a trauma informed psychedelic educator, retreat leader, and
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  Speaker 1: coach who helps people move from surviving to thriving through
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  Speaker 1: safe grounded, psychedelic assisted healing. Through her work with the
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  Speaker 1: Journey Sage, Jill offers coaching, retreats, and education that equip
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  Speaker 1: clients and clinicians with practical tools for lasting transformation, not
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  Speaker 1: just fleeting insights. As an author and educator, she focuses
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  Speaker 1: on making the mystical practical so others can walk the
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  Speaker 1: path of healing with confidence and safety. All right, so
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  Speaker 1: just a little bit about you before we get going.
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  Speaker 1: Share with the listeners where you're from originally and where
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  Speaker 1: you are currently, and then we'll talk not too far.
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  Speaker 2: I'm originally from the Philadelphia area, New Jersey. Yeah, stay
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  Speaker 2: at Rye State Northeast, and I'm not too far away.
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  Speaker 2: I'm in Westchester now, my lovely love Westchester.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome. All right, So let's get into it. You know
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  Speaker 1: the drill. You've you've done these interviews. How the heck
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  Speaker 1: did this start for you?
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  Speaker 2: Well? I lived most of my life just kind of
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  Speaker 2: thinking that a rough childhood was a rough childhood and
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  Speaker 2: not talking about it and things of that sort. And
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  Speaker 2: very very quickly I lost my partner of over twenty years.
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  Speaker 2: I lost Carl, and about eighteen months after he passed,
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  Speaker 2: I had a a massive panic attack. I was a
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  Speaker 2: corporate girl. An email came through that was like a
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  Speaker 2: zero out of ten in terms of importance. I flipped out.
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  Speaker 2: My body went into hyper vigilance. I knew, I knew,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm putting quotation marks up. I knew that within
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  Speaker 2: a month I was going to be unemployed, kicked out
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  Speaker 2: of my house, and living in a car.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, wait a minute, I got to stop. Hearate that,
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  Speaker 1: what do you mean rough childhood?
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  Speaker 2: Different things that we're about to get to. Yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 2: my childhood. This panic attack with the hyper vigilance. Ultimately,
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  Speaker 2: because you have focused on trauma with your podcast. Ultimately,
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  Speaker 2: it came from being abused physically and mentally by my
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  Speaker 2: father and my mother's repeated suicide attempts because of the abuse,
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  Speaker 2: because of pretty dramatic depression and so, and also being
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  Speaker 2: a child in an environment that we were constantly moving.
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  Speaker 2: My mother basically shot herself when I was five, which
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  Speaker 2: created and she survived, which created a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 2: instability for the rest of my childhood.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So, but in but you know, I'm child of the eighties.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we didn't really understand trauma. I just was like,
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  Speaker 2: let's move it along. And because my childhood was so
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  Speaker 2: disruptive and different, I never talked about it, you know,
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  Speaker 2: talking to people about you went to thirteen different schools
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  Speaker 2: before you graduated, talking as an adult that my father
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  Speaker 2: was not in my life. You know, I had the
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  Speaker 2: generation of wait a minute, it's family, what are you
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  Speaker 2: talking about? So this panic attack really surprised me. I
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  Speaker 2: went back to my therapist, who had been helping me
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  Speaker 2: with the grief work, very long story short, finally started
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  Speaker 2: kind of telling her a bit about my childhood between
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  Speaker 2: talk therapy and the Wellbuchan prescription, which is standard practice
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  Speaker 2: for a PTSD. I was not getting better. I was
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  Speaker 2: getting worse. I was getting increasingly to the point of
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  Speaker 2: there's just no reason to be here. If this is
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  Speaker 2: what life is like, constantly being scared and knowing something
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  Speaker 2: bad was going to happen, there's no reason to be here.
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  Speaker 2: And so my therapist, who was at the time training
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  Speaker 2: to be a psychedelic assisted psychotherapist, she suggested this option.
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  Speaker 2: I originally said, no, child of the eighties, egg in
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  Speaker 2: the frying pan, and ultimately people my age will get
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  Speaker 2: that reference. And ultimately I went to She told me
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  Speaker 2: to go look at their research and at the time
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  Speaker 2: mapsmaps dot org had conducted two of the clinical trials,
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  Speaker 2: three quarters of the people no longer qualified for a
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  Speaker 2: PTSD diagnosis. And I think this is really important for
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  Speaker 2: people to understand. I was getting desperate. People are always like, well,
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  Speaker 2: how could you have just done this? How could you
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  Speaker 2: have just trusted this? You didn't have any real experience
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  Speaker 2: with drugs and things of that sort. And I can't
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  Speaker 2: emphasize enough for folks who don't understand PTSD just how
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  Speaker 2: your brain is hijacked into just assuming really awful things
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  Speaker 2: are going to happen. And so that's how I found
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  Speaker 2: MDMA therapy for PTSD. It took a year, three journeys,
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  Speaker 2: and at the end of the third journey with my
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  Speaker 2: therapist and guide, I no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis.
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  Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons I'm talking to you.
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  Speaker 1: So prior to that, Jill, you mentioned that that email
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  Speaker 1: came through and you talked about you not really sharing
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  Speaker 1: your family story with anyone. How were you subsisting? Were
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  Speaker 1: you like a perfectionist where you just a nervous queue?
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  Speaker 1: How did it manifest for you?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, fantastic question. My childhood experiences turned into
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  Speaker 2: an adult that was solely focused on safety and security.
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  Speaker 2: So everything I did, and I was lucky that I
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  Speaker 2: was a break kid in school, that was easy stuff
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  Speaker 2: for me. Moving through careers was easy. I was the
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  Speaker 2: classic person who lived way below her means from the
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  Speaker 2: very very start because I had to save because you
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  Speaker 2: never know what's going to happen. My hypervigilance and anxiety
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  Speaker 2: as an adult that I had that I just kind
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  Speaker 2: of thought was me was really all rooted in I
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  Speaker 2: need to be employed, I need to have a safety net.
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  Speaker 2: There is no other safety net. I need to create it.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's a lovely question. You know, people have
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  Speaker 2: various responses to abuse and disruption in childhood. Mine was
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  Speaker 2: severe into tendance. You don't depend on anybody and you
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  Speaker 2: make sure you have plan ABCDF in place.
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  Speaker 1: Well, so you have this experience, which is quite unusual
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  Speaker 1: at that time, right, not totally out of out of
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  Speaker 1: really unused, but it was somewhat unusual. Was that the
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  Speaker 1: first time you'd sought out therapy.
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  Speaker 2: I sought out therapy when I lost Carla. I think
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  Speaker 2: our society, this is my personal opinion. I don't think
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  Speaker 2: our society does well with grief. And there's only I
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  Speaker 2: actually paid. I used to joke around that I paid
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  Speaker 2: for someone to listen to me grieve. But I had
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  Speaker 2: had very negative experiences with therapists growing up because my father.
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  Speaker 2: I always had to go back to my father, so
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  Speaker 2: it as a child, I didn't quite understand reporting thatanisms
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  Speaker 2: or anything of that sort. So in my mind, I'm
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  Speaker 2: not about to share anything that's going on because my
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  Speaker 2: father is going to find out and it's going to
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  Speaker 2: be even worse. I did not trust adults, so in
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  Speaker 2: my adulthood going to a therapist. Uh, it kind of
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  Speaker 2: shows how deeply the grief was affecting me.
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  Speaker 1: So you did on your therapist recommendation, you did your
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  Speaker 1: first journey. It was with a guide and my therapist
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  Speaker 1: and your therapist. Wow, yes both there.
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  Speaker 2: I had the cadillac of MDMA journey therapy.
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  Speaker 1: So MDMA, Okay, give our listeners kind of the thumbnail
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  Speaker 1: of what that is, what that does for most people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So MDMA most commonly people will remember, will know
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  Speaker 2: of ecstasy. The you know, go to the rave, take
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  Speaker 2: some ecstasy, have a lot of fun, your heart rates up.
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  Speaker 2: It's definitely a little bit of methanphetamine in there at
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  Speaker 2: a clinical dose though, and when you have a clean
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  Speaker 2: medicine clinical dosing. What MBMA does for PTSD patients is
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  Speaker 2: it calms our bodies down. One of the ways that
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  Speaker 2: I describe PTSD is I want you to imagine, whether
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  Speaker 2: you're afraid of heights or not, you're on the side
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  Speaker 2: of a mountain and you're on a ledge that's about
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  Speaker 2: five to six inches, like just a little bit short
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  Speaker 2: of your feet.
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  Speaker 1: I can feel it.
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  Speaker 2: Right right, you can feel that. Yeah, imagine that feeling
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  Speaker 2: imagine what the MBMA does is it allows you to
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  Speaker 2: calm your body down so you can start to address
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  Speaker 2: those spears. And for me with the child abuse, very specifically,
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  Speaker 2: those spears were that I was a thousand percent sure
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  Speaker 2: that if my father was in the room, he was
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  Speaker 2: going to have his hands around my neck. And so
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  Speaker 2: that's what MDMA in a therapeutic environment with really qualified
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  Speaker 2: facilitators does for people.
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  Speaker 1: When you said clinical dose, is that a lower dose
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  Speaker 1: than is commonly experienced When people.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and this is out on the internet. This
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  Speaker 2: is not Jill giving any sort of medical advice. MAPPS
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  Speaker 2: basically says, do not go over two hundred milligrams. Like
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  Speaker 2: most psychedelic therapy, there is an initial dose and then
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  Speaker 2: the client has a choice and hour in whether the
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  Speaker 2: client wants a booster dose. That's pretty standard protocol with
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  Speaker 2: at least MDMA and psilocybin. And that's exactly what happened.
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  Speaker 2: I had an initial dose, see how the medicine feels,
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  Speaker 2: see what this is like, and then an option for
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  Speaker 2: a booster dose. When you're doing things recreationally, I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if people even know what dosage they're taking. If
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  Speaker 2: you're up all night. You've probably taken more than two
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  Speaker 2: hundred milligrams, or you've taken something else along with it.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the only reason I mentioned DOSA is because
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  Speaker 2: it's out on the maps dot org website. Anybody can
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  Speaker 2: research that.
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  Speaker 1: So you had that first experience, what did you come
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  Speaker 1: away with.
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  Speaker 2: Unfold I came away with that didn't work. I totally.
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  Speaker 2: I came out of the journey. I was I woke
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  Speaker 2: up immediately. I was very closed off. We were having
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  Speaker 2: some snacks because we fasted or I fasted, and I
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  Speaker 2: was on the verge of teers. I was like, this
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  Speaker 2: didn't I don't feel any different. This didn't work. I
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  Speaker 2: just wasted everybody's time. I spent a bunch of money.
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  Speaker 2: Da da dah. An hour later, an hour later, I'm
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  Speaker 2: in the car with my boyfriend. My boyfriend picked me
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  Speaker 2: up and I'm looking out the window and I'm crying
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  Speaker 2: because I'm like, I'm I'm so worthless. I'm in inconvenience.
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  Speaker 2: I wasted everybody's time. I didn't do a good job.
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  Speaker 2: And suddenly three different memories from childhood came up, and
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  Speaker 2: those memories were basically me being shuttled around after my
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  Speaker 2: mom shot herself. Basically, relatives kind of took care of
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  Speaker 2: me off and on. My father did not, and that
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  Speaker 2: little five year old learned she was an inconvenience. She
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  Speaker 2: was extra hot in the room, she was the hand
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  Speaker 2: me down clothes, she was the one being moved in
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  Speaker 2: the middle of the year. And I suddenly looked, I
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  Speaker 2: could I have my hand up, because it's almost like
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  Speaker 2: those memories were on like a television or a movie screen,
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  Speaker 2: and I could see them from my adult perspective, and
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  Speaker 2: I was like, wait a minute. I wasn't inconvenience. I
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  Speaker 2: was I was a five year old kid that needed
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  Speaker 2: to be taken care of. I didn't cause any of
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  Speaker 2: this to happen. This was not my fault. And almost
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  Speaker 2: immediately that feeling of being an inconvenience and not good
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  Speaker 2: enough went away, and I turned to my boyfriend and
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, I think I know how this therapy works.
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  Speaker 2: And it was almost for the next next week, almost
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  Speaker 2: memory by memory would kind of come up, and I
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  Speaker 2: would be able to look at those memories and from
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  Speaker 2: an adult perspective and shift that perspective that that little
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  Speaker 2: child was not at fault for really anything that happened
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  Speaker 2: to her. So that's huts.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, huge. During the experience, were you experiencing any kind
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  Speaker 1: of psychedelic hallucidations or anything like?
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  Speaker 2: Oh great question. So MBMA is not like LSD or psocybin.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't at therapeutic doses. It does not traditionally give
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  Speaker 2: you hallucinations and things of that sort. You might you
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  Speaker 2: might have some sort of spiritual thing going on, depending
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  Speaker 2: on what you're there for, things of that sort, but
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  Speaker 2: it's you're not closing your eyes and getting the beautiful
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  Speaker 2: images and things of that sort. You are cognizant. You
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  Speaker 2: are awake when you want to be awake. I think
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  Speaker 2: you can tell I'm a chatty person. I was chatting
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  Speaker 2: only the doctors, especially if a question comes up like huh,
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  Speaker 2: why did I think that way? The doctors very traditionally
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  Speaker 2: will say, well, let's ask the medicine, and you wind
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  Speaker 2: up putting on a little imask.
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  Speaker 3: Uh.
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  Speaker 2: We voice recorded all of our except for the second one.
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  Speaker 2: We had a we had a technical issue. We voice
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  Speaker 2: recorded so that I could hear. You know, an average
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  Speaker 2: session is like five to seven hours and you really
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  Speaker 2: only remember like forty five minutes of it. So having
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  Speaker 2: a voice recorded and getting to hear what I said.
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  Speaker 2: I was completely so. I sounded completely sober. There's no
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  Speaker 2: it's not like you've had three margarita's and your kind
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  Speaker 2: of swords. No, if you would have no idea listening
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  Speaker 2: to the recording that someone was actually on medicine.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, So you do that first experience, what happens next?
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  Speaker 2: Uh, it's like a it's like a campfire where you
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  Speaker 2: know it's it's lots and lots and lots of perspective
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  Speaker 2: and new ideas in the very first week, assuming you
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  Speaker 2: give yourself the time to do that. A lot of
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  Speaker 2: people don't understand how important those first couple of days are.
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  Speaker 2: I took off work. I had like the whole weekend.
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  Speaker 2: I took off work to really meditate and let my
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  Speaker 2: mind work. If you jump right back into life and
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  Speaker 2: you don't take the time, you're not going to have
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  Speaker 2: the results. So that big fire for that first week,
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  Speaker 2: and then it starts kind of dying down, and after
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks you're just kind of using that analogy.
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  Speaker 2: You've got ashes. My doctor likes to say that you're
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  Speaker 2: very dilated after a journey, and then the dilation kind
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  Speaker 2: of closes up. And when I felt that dilation closing
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  Speaker 2: up or that fire kind of going into the ashes,
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  Speaker 2: and I still had hypervigilance and fear, That's when we
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  Speaker 2: started working on the second journey. That's how we knew
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  Speaker 2: if I still had those symptoms, That's how we knew
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  Speaker 2: to schedule another one.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so you do the second one, Okay.
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  Speaker 2: First one was in September. Second one was in December.
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  Speaker 2: My doctors just allowed my natural flow. If you look
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  Speaker 2: at the clinical trials, because of time constraints, they gave
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  Speaker 2: a month in between. I'm not going to argue either way.
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  Speaker 2: We just kind of followed my way of thinking kind
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: of stuff second one because I knew it worked. Second
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  Speaker 2: one was far more productive. Again, my doctors just kind
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: of let me talk and wander through things. And the
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  Speaker 2: insights after the second one were just absolutely tremendous, so
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  Speaker 2: much so that the third journey. So the second journey
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  Speaker 2: was in December. The third journey was not until May.
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  Speaker 2: That's how much unwinding happened after the second one.
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  Speaker 1: What was changing for you this time? You talked about
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  Speaker 1: that insight of realizing, hey, I'm not an inconvenience. I
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  Speaker 1: was a little girl. What did things change for you
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  Speaker 1: during this time.
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  Speaker 2: It's a lot of and I'm sure your audience is
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: very familiar with this term. It's a lot of reparenting
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  Speaker 2: at a very fundamental level, because if you're talking to
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  Speaker 2: a friend who was beaten as a child, you would
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: obviously say to that friend that was not your fault.
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  Speaker 2: The issue is that, at least with me, and it's
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  Speaker 2: pretty standard with most people. When we're children, we think
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  Speaker 2: we are the sun, the moon, the stars. Everything revolves
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: around us. So therefore, if something happens, it is directly
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: related to something about us. So most of those very
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: early perspective shifts were very fundamental that people would be like, well,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: that's obvious. Well, it's obvious to late forty five year
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  Speaker 2: old or woman in her late forties, but it's not
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: obvious to you, know, that three year old my father had.
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  Speaker 2: There was a really explosive incident that I don't remember
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  Speaker 2: a whole lot. I don't remember specifics about my childhood,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: but I do remember there was one where I got
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: thrown around the room, my mother got beaten. It was
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: an absolutely terrifying time. That memory got brought up often.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not good enough, I couldn't save my mother. I'm
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  Speaker 2: too much. My dad had to beat me. I universe
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  Speaker 2: is scary. You never know what's going to happen, because
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: he just he was like a bull in a china shop.
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  Speaker 2: He just kind of came out of nowhere. I had
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  Speaker 2: multiple beliefs created from that very traumatic experience, and so
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  Speaker 2: a lot of times, I mean, maybe not formal formal reparenting,
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  Speaker 2: like when you go back to that child and da
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  Speaker 2: da da, but very much kind of a viewing the
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  Speaker 2: memories and saying, ah, that's not how that really was.
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  Speaker 2: That adult had trauma that he never addressed, and it
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  Speaker 2: bled over to how he treated people. So that's how
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: it kind of works.
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  Speaker 1: Now that I mean, again an incredible profound insight. But
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  Speaker 1: from what you're saying, it sounds like you were able
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  Speaker 1: to feel that through your bones, not just intellectualize it,
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  Speaker 1: which is the difference.
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  Speaker 2: You got it. You nailed it right on the head.
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  Speaker 2: I was addressing my subconscious versus my conscious. You know,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: there's a famous Carthard Harris talked about the idea that
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  Speaker 2: psychedelics are a the blizzard on a ski slope that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: has ingrained grooves. Right. I like the analogy I think
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  Speaker 2: psychedelics are the melting of all that snow and all
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  Speaker 2: of that ice, and the integration is when new snow
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  Speaker 2: gets laid and you can create, you know, the more realistic,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: in my case, version of how things went. I like
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: that helps me. Helped that analogy helps me with the
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  Speaker 2: melting part, because now I feel the way I know
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  Speaker 2: that I've healed is that those memories do not bring
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the physical experience that you just talked about.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So let me just remind everyone speaking with Jill sid Nick, So,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: how you were a corporate girl. Here you are having
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: these experiences. How did you get to the point where,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: by the way, were you working during this time? Yes?
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And what were you doing? What were you doing?
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I was at Microsoft. I had spent twenty years
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: in K twelve and then I was recruited over to Microsoft.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: So all of this happened when I was working at Microsoft.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, how do things switch such that I'm going to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: be coach, I'm going to help people move through these
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: How did that happen for you?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Well? I think so I was a high school English
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: teacher way back when the dinosaurs roomed. It's how I
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: started my career. And then I moved into technology, which
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: ultimately then led to the work at Microsoft. There were
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: a couple of things going on. Everybody knows tech companies
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: kind of shift and change and things of that sort.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: So there was a couple of things going on there,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and I think I'm the classic psychedelic cliche in that
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: this changed my life. I need to let other people know.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: In addition, I had a really strong feeling that the
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: marketing around this, like, whenever it becomes legal and it
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: was supposed to be legalized last August, whenever this becomes
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: legal and available for people, that there's going to be
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: this you know, hey, it's ten years of therapy in
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: five hours, and then people are going to go right
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: back to their life and they're not going to understand
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: the integration part and how hard this is, and you're
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: going to have resistance. And so I said, you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: people had always said there was a book in me
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: because my childhoods was just so wacky. So basically I
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: took time off I wrote the book. Microsoft couldn't have
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: been more lovely. They were like, are you sure you
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: really want to do this? Why don't you just take
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: us a bed da da da? And I was like, no, no, no,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: we're good. We're good. I did that. I wrote the book.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And we're talking about rescuing Jill.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I wrote the memoir. Okay, folks who have
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: experienced child abuse, they understand the memoir. Folks who haven't
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: are kind of like, why does she talk about her
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: father so much? So just warning people. But the memoir
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: was not Hindsight twenty twenty. The memoir was this is
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: how I felt going into the first journey. Here were
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: the intentions, Here were the first kind of perspective shifts.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And I go through the three journeys, and the third
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: journey was so powerful that I included transcripts from it
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: so people could see what a psychedelic assisted psychotherapy session
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: looks like when you're being actively reparented.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: The need to share your journey and share your experiences
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: with other people who could benefit from it, I find
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: very inspiring and powerful.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think you bring? I mean, obviously, listening
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to you, you have so much wisdom and passionate about this,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: But how do you articulate what you bring to the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: table when you're working with people?
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: The experience is everything in this space. I feel very
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: strongly that a practitioner can only bring as much as
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: he or she is healed. And I know that might
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: sound trite or that might sound like a cliche, but
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: when you're actively working with other people's subconsciousness, and I
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: don't even know if that's the proper way to say
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: that plural, you cannot put your hand in their wet paint.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And the ability to not do that requires that you
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: have done work and you're not responding to their stuff,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: you are purposely making sure to work with them. And
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's what I bring to the table. I
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: have a really strong understanding of not only working with
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: MDMA specifically for PTSD, but because I had nineteen years
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: of trauma, I have continued to work with different psychedelics
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: to understand how they interact with trauma with the CPTSD.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: So I have a broad range of knowledge of the
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: whole entire process, the active resistance you're going to feel
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: that I still feel to this day.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Say hold on, hold on, say more about that. You
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: what do you mean by that specifically?
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: So are you familiar with parts work?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Of course? Yeah?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, So if we take that analogy, there's a part,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: there's a part of us who has successfully kept us alive.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: There's a part that is playing some sort of role,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and it might be an it might be an overwork part,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: it might be a I'm going to be scared and
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: not live part. Those parts who have kept the status
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: quo and have kept you alive are very often going
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: to be the loudest right before a journey, because in
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: their mind, what can life look like if they don't
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: have a role. And I know that kind of got
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: into the weeds for folks who so I hope folks
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: listening can kind of dive into ifs.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Just know that.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Every single journey, I always go in thinking I'm not
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: going to be able to shift this. There's no way.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: This is how I feel, this is who I am.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: I'm sure not with enough work I shift it.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I really admire your courage because I'm someone who is scared.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Like you said, I really related to what you said.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of resistance to this, but I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: was desperate and sometimes I feel like I need to
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: get to that point to jump on that cliff. But
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I really admire what you've done in your courage. So
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: how do you work with people? Who do you work with?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about that, and then we'll
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: wind up. Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Well, so I'm super clear. I am not a therapist.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I did not go back to therapy school. I certainly
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: incorporate a lot of ifs and a lot of reparenting,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: because really most people who come to me, they're super
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: high achieving, they're like me, and they're like, hey, I've
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: got some sort of block here, or I know something's wrong,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: and inevitably getting ready for medicine journeys, whether they're with
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: me or with someone else. I help them understand what
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: their intentions could possibly the GPS for the journey, kind
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: of understanding how do I phrase it, things of that sort,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: because medicine is not a crystal ball. It's about you,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people come to me like I
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: want to figure something out, Well, okay, what's stopping you?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Things of that sort. I will absolutely refer out anybody
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: who is actively in crisis, and I also do a
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: lot of Q and A. People are free to just
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: contact me they've got questions about different medicines or the process.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Is it right for me? You know, I'm a safe place.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Because I'm not a therapist, I'm certainly a coach. I
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: can help with a variety of things. But there's no
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: pressure with me, and I get a lot of I
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: get a lot of that. I get a lot of
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: people they don't really understand the medicines, they don't understand
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: the dosage matters. I get a lot of fundamental questions
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: from folks, and I'm happy to do that for them.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I wish I had in some ways, I wish I'm
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: trying to be the kind of resource that I wish
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: had been around when I was going through the therapy.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: That makes sense, Yeah, definitely, all right, Once again, Jill
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: sid Nick. The book is called Rescuing Jill. How MDMA
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: with a dash of mushrooms healed my childhood trauma induced PTSD? Jill,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: how do people learn more about you and your work?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I named my company the Journey Sage just
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: because I like to educate about the journey, and so
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: that's my website, the Journey Sage, and you can find
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: me on YouTube. I'm trying to doing more shorts nowadays
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: just because of the YouTube algorithm. But I'm trying to
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: answer the most common questions I get all the time
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: on YouTube. So it's a free resource for folks. So
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: I always encourage people to check that out.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have all that linked up here at the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Jill,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: awesome meeting you. Love to have you back. Thank you
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: so much for being here.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, this is a pleasure. Thank you so much.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: All right, take care.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Not on SAT.