Episode 01 Transcript
Martin O'Toole 00:30
Duane Forrest
Chris Siracuse 00:32
Never gets old
Martin O'Toole 00:33
He is blummin' good talent, isn't he?
Chris Siracuse 00:36
He really is beautiful voice. Thank you, Duane.
Martin O'Toole 00:39
Thank you Dune for donating your time your talent, your words, your music, and that massive smile yours. Peace and love, bro.
Martin O'Toole 00:51
Hey, hello, it's our first episode.
Chris Siracuse 00:53
It is indeed and thank you for joining us. Welcome to the How To Die Happy podcast. It is our first episode.
Martin O'Toole 00:59
It is Hello, everybody. And likewise, thanks from me. So How To Die Happy bring in new stories and practical utilities for the art of living and dying well, living and dying? Well, we'll discuss
Chris Siracuse 01:14
living and dying well. And did we think about that? I love it. I think it's great. I hope people will get something out of it. So thank you folks for your your precious time. We know you have lots of options when it comes to podcasts. We we hope what do we hope Martin?
Martin O'Toole 01:30
And well I suppose what we hope we can do is bring together loads of modalities and methodologies from people all around the world, arguably far more smart than you and I Christopher certainly far more qualified.
Chris Siracuse 01:49
Definitely far more qualified
Martin O'Toole 01:50
to discuss stuff about about life and about wellbeing, particularly well being so the the common thread in this whole thing is random, the 10 common deathbed regrets. And the intention for us and for our guests and the collective of amazing people have come around, like literally just gravitate towards this mad idea very quickly. I might add
Chris Siracuse 02:19
too quickly, too quickly. For some of us in this room for
Martin O'Toole 02:23
the producer. I think the the collective intention is that we can just help people consider some some ways, some opportunities to reframe, to maybe unlearn maybe to heal methodologies around awareness. But it's not just about the mind, it's about the mind, the body and the spirit. Now one of the I think the number one, top eye shadow, I'm not sure if these are prioritize in reality, but one of the top 10 deathbed regrets is I wish I had taken better care of my body. So we're going to cover that too. At some point with some people. It's never ending this this thing. I mean, what we're trying to do here. So
Chris Siracuse 03:09
what is the journey? It is our It is our journey, and we welcome you to join us on this journey, and we want you to be part of it. So we've got our first episode, who do we have Martin for first episode, we
Martin O'Toole 03:20
have a wonderful man, based in London by the name of Liam Farquhar, and Liam is a legal psychedelic guide. I mean, I think obviously, it's nice to be able to say that it's good for him to be able to say that i i think that sort of strips out some of the wonder around what he does. I would like to say he's more like a modern day shaman. Not sure how he feel about that. In fact, I did say this didn't know you did. I'm not sure how he felt about it. I don't
Chris Siracuse 03:50
know how he felt about it either. I think that he's a very humble guy. And he very much believes in the idea that he is there to support an individual and healing themselves. truth but then that's what a shaman that is what a shaman does, so I think it's perfectly accurate to call him a modern day shaman. Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 04:06
so and what is the Hindu he works with? psychedelics, guiding people of all walks of life, having experienced all manner of trauma from major trauma to micro traumas. And he helps them to heal themselves. What so what do we discuss in the show them because we did lots of stuff
Chris Siracuse 04:29
we did we discussed trauma. Obviously that was the kind of the theme of the show. We discussed the the importance of setting the right kind of intentions when you go into a therapeutic setting like this. He talked about the distinction between healing and him being very careful to frame this as a healing experience. As opposed to I forget exactly how he characterized it.
Martin O'Toole 04:56
I think he was keen to say no point in any of this do we say we're going to heal you? I am going to heal you. Right? Because rightly so. He identifies that everybody's journey has been different. Everybody's journey to get here is different. But everybody's journey with plant medicines is different as well. Yeah, so I guess he was super humble about that in a nice, respectful way. But what else did we talk about? We also talked about the, the rise this this sudden apparent exponential rise in interest and in regulation, but also in acceptance of psychedelics. Yes. In the in psychological treatment and therapy.
Chris Siracuse 05:41
Yeah. And the potential pitfalls, let's say or downsides to large corporations getting involved with this. And I think what I really appreciated about Lehman, and we talked about this in the show, is his ability to see both sides of it, he framed it in, in the case of two extremes, the one being the hippies, and the other being the the capitalist. Yeah, to simplify this, and he said he can see, you know, pros to both. So anyway, yeah, I thought it was a great way that he framed that and willing to explore the nuance and psychedelics being more mainstream, so to speak. Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 06:20
And the final thing I recall we discussed was the importance through this whole thing of finding the right guide. Yes. One could say about any healing on learning, or self awareness, personal development journey, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. So yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Chris Siracuse 06:41
I really enjoyed it too. It was a great first episode. I think it's a great introduction to the show. I think it's a topic that is near and dear to both of our hearts and one that we wish to share with people. So do you think I'm gonna jump into it
Martin O'Toole 06:55
I reckon we just jump into it so we hope you enjoy the first episode of How To Die Happy if you don't listen to a couple more.
Chris Siracuse 07:07
Also have what we're calling chin Wags in between the interview episode so yeah if you're not keen on the episodes maybe check out the chin Wags yeah anterior
Martin O'Toole 07:17
well I guess if you're not ready for an hour and a half of listening to hear Nye chatting to leading authorities on the in the territory of well being and yeah, you can just you can dip your toe in the water with a 10 1520 minute chinwag which will be I don't know what we're gonna do with them. We're gonna just gonna pepper the week with them maybe. Yeah, making it up as we go along.
Chris Siracuse 07:39
We are making it up as we go along. And for people that don't know what a chinwag is, I was one of them up until two days ago because the Brits have their own jargon. Like I need a dictionary hanging out with Martin sometimes a chinwag is literally your chin moving, which means we're just talking Exacto with some funny, interesting, maybe introspective topics. We'll see. But regardless, Episode One, Liam Farquhar, psychedelic therapist. Guy, it's fair to say psychedelic guide and therapist. Yeah. Okay, so here we go. Enjoy Episode One, How To Die Happy podcast, let us know what you think.
Liam Farquhar 08:27
And I do yes, psychedelic integration. So helping people understand process, get lessons and insights from an intentional psychedelic experience and helping them kind of embed those into their lives moving forward. And I also do the guiding as well. So I'm a psychedelic therapist guide. And I bring people through a whole process that requires an active participation before, during or after. So we're working with psilocybin mushrooms during the prep before and the integration after in London on zoom, and then having the experience itself in Amsterdam, where psilocybin is Lego.
Martin O'Toole 09:15
Yeah, when people get in touch with you, Liam, do you have a do you have to do a bit of a job holding their hands to talk to them about suicide and and it's it's used throughout the ages and putting down misunderstandings and misinterpretation or are the lion's share of people contacting you saying hi, I've done my research. I know what I know what psilocybin can do. For me. These are my issues. You know, let's go.
Liam Farquhar 09:48
There is some hand holding but yeah, most of the people who come to me are pretty well informed actually. You know, there's this whole psychedelic renascence happening at the moment and There's a lot of, there's a lot of information out there. Now in some of our very, you know, establishment publications that the economist did the leader with, I think this was how long ago this is about a year ago, but they did Yep, their lead story was on suicide, but mostly for psychedelics generally as well. Going through this whole, like rescheduling process, you know, since like Business Insider in the FT you know, all sort of kind of like pretty glowing reports about going to retreats and having very positive experiences and about the Yeah, the the benefits that that these new therapeutic approaches can have. There's so there's, you know, there's a lot of great good information out there, obviously, Michael Pollen's book, how to change your mind, the people in the space, call it the pollinator effect, had a huge, huge impact in in, yeah, kind of, like, you know, helping people, I suppose. Yeah, understand what the psychedelic renascence is what that means, but also sort of get over that, like hangover from the 60s and 70s, you know, the 60s and 70s were remarkable in many respects, but it was also quite excessive and irresponsible in other respects as well. So there's been a whole, yeah, kind of a reframing process that's happening. So when people come to me, they aren't quite knowledgeable, usually. But they're still, you know, you still have to very much temper people's expectations. You know, it's kind of framed as this big, like, healing event. And, you know, part of my role is to, really, I guess, remind people that it's not isn't well, one is not just a single event, it's a whole process and it's very different from the biomedical model that we used to where you pop a pill every day, that you know, very conveniently is the sugar coated pill that you pop each day in a convenient for the, you know, the pharmaceutical companies that produce them. And if that's the kind of numbing, it's a passive process, you know, you're not really resolving anything, you know, these experiences, you're diving deep into the emotional root. So it's, you know, and it requires, whereas the kind of biomedical model is passive, this is very active and requires, you know, active participation before, during, after. So, I really have to, like help people see that it's a whole process is not the single event requires work. You know, and these experiences or they can really do really is to help like, maybe expedite a process to catalyze a process, but it's not the process in itself. So I made that really clear upfront, and obviously I have to make it clear as well that I'm not I'm not selling healing, as well. Obviously, he's, you know, these experiences can be quite healing and like medicinal if you want to put it that way. But it's like no one I think can really play no one should ever promise that I think it's irresponsible to promise that because, like, the outcomes are so unpredictable. You know, we're working, working with the psyche here where, you know, the vastness of the psyche, so who knows what's going to happen, but yeah,
Martin O'Toole 13:38
I think I one of my considerations was around life hacking, and biohacking was you'd be you'd be familiar with the concept and I wonder how many people now are sort of going okay, right. I read a I read an article I read a blog. I watched fantastic frankly, the documentary on Netflix. Okay, cool. I'm pretty sure a couple of journeys on mushrooms are going to fix me. Hi, Liam, can you fix me up please and heal me forthwith. Because I need some help in psyche hacking. And I it's a valid point you made there I talked about this a lot to anyone or listen in terms of the healing journey and how everything's a hack now you know hacking is just everywhere and because we've so attention or and time pour and we're going through these you know, tiny devices scrolling you know, for the micro moment we have or we're sitting on the toilet or whatever. You know, okay, I need some healing, you know, in my feed, and it's a totally different vibe when you when you really get into the healing journey and people I was actually in a podcast this morning, where the interviewer, he's a therapist, psychology, so you know, you get it and we were talking about the the idea that people need to really understand that healing is a process you know if you think about it Take me for example, what am I 45 now? I only really kind of got super super well, two years ago. So it took me 43 years to really fuck it up. So am I expected am I then expecting to to heal and to unlearn everything in six months in three months cost? No, you know, it's it's a huge process. So I wanted me people come at you like that and say, Hey, give me the you know, give me them give me the the hero's dose.
Chris Siracuse 15:37
The magic mushrooms, some people may take literally, yeah, magically fix them.
Liam Farquhar 15:44
Yeah, yeah. And that's the culture we live in. Right? We want quick fixes, quick wins. And that's not how it works. You know, and that's another thing that I have to make quite clear from, as you said, it's a journey. So a big part of my process is helping people cultivate a sense of, like, compassionate curiosity to the journey to the unfolding and, and helping people. Yeah, be curious about that and, and enjoy all that, that that journey, and it's like a dance, you know, it's like a tango two steps forward, one step back. If those are the tango steps, I'm not sure. But yeah, that but that's, you know, that's all part of it, you know, our egos. our egos have a very different timeline to a natural healing process. Are you concerned right now that all now you know, and, you know, healing, wholeness? It's, you know, it's a lifelong journey. So, you know, let's see if we can like slow it down, and, you know, relax and enjoy the ride as it were. So yeah, so yeah, I have to make that clear, but then with the biohacking. Yeah, I mean, that's another whole conversation of like, people, less so my clients, I think I, you know, I put like, have a certain portal or certain types of people, I suppose. It's less kind of like hacking and, but that's a whole other conversation of like, you know, these these substances, these sacred in many respects substances. Or that, like the process being sacred, being reduced to, like, productivity hacks with micro dosing and stuff like that, you know, how can we be more productive? How can we be better? You know, economic units in the in the current model? So that's, yeah, that's the whole like, yeah, other thing. And there's, I suppose, like, tension between these, like big experiences that are sacred can be, and then these Yeah, the micro dosing, which, you know, the science around it, for now is questionable, whether it works or whether it's, you know, just a placebo effect. I mean, people say, just the placebo effect, but I think that placebo effect, pointing to something quite profound this, like inner healing intelligence within us, but yeah, whether it's anything beyond that, it seems like jury's out with microdose in front
Martin O'Toole 18:19
Have you. Have you read any Joe Dispenza work?
Liam Farquhar 18:26
Haven't I've seen talks of his Yeah, haven't read in the things.
Martin O'Toole 18:30
Yeah. He wrote, he wrote something called You are the placebo. Joe dispenza is a pretty, pretty cool guy, actually. And he, I think, was a chiropractor, wasn't he? And he sustained a really bad back injury, and was told it was never going to heal himself. Or rather, allopathic medicine was never going to heal him. So he got stuck straight into alternate therapies, and meditation. And through this whole process just happened upon the concept of neuroscience, neuroplasticity, epigenetics, our whole new world. And along that journey, incidentally, heal this spine, walked again, even though I think they told him he never would. And so he talks about, he talks about the placebo effect with reverence, as you inferred because we do and the science to show it isn't then we do have the ability to heal our own bodies. I know plenty of people who have done that right here. In fact, my meditation teacher, here in Bali, he taught He healed his own liver cancer, through meditation. So yeah, that's interesting. Um, you were talking about headlines and I saw a couple of headlines this week. I know you saw them as well, but I'm interested in what's happening right now in the world with this sudden media positioning. This warm fuzzy media positioning around around silicides. And because of course, as we know, 60s and 70s, the West discovered mushrooms in a big way. And LSD, obviously, and everyone went a bit nuts off the back of it, fighting against a hugely oppressive society in certain countries anywhere. I know in the UK, it was very stiff upper lip and class based. So there was this explosion of people saying, nerd, you know what, not then with that I'm actually going to take some psychedelics and I'm going to, I'm checking out of England and Europe and the world. Actually, I'm checking out this dimension, going somewhere else for a little while. And of course, it was criminalized. It was all criminalized and classified. And it's now all coming about again, isn't it? And I saw something which I think you might have shared as well, it was, it was a Newsweek cover, it said magic mushrooms may be the biggest advance in treating depression since Prozac. Wow,
Chris Siracuse 21:03
I mean, just the fact that they're equating magic mushrooms to Prozac. Wow, the and this kind of points to something because we were talking about healing, maybe this is a good opportunity to talk about what it is that you are helping people to heal from. Speaking of the Prozac, so when we talk about depression in this headline that Martin, magic mushrooms may be the biggest advance in depression since Prozac. I mean, there's a lot of Nothing's wrong with that headline. But you see what I'm getting that?
Martin O'Toole 21:35
Yeah, definitely. And of course, trauma is something that you you work with, isn't it? Liam, I know. Many people know my story. But I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. So I was super addicted to cocaine high functioning. And we talk about alcoholism and addiction. And people talk about it in different ways. But my own experience was understanding. And actually part of my healing process was in understanding that they were merely symptoms. And there were symptoms of something far more deep as you as you referred earlier on. And I think this is something that I'd love for us all to talk a lot more about. And it's and it's talking about the root of the issue. The core, why are we Why do we have this mental illness? Why do we have this this type of behavior or trait? Why are we narcissistic? Why are we abusive? so on and so forth? And of course, it's it's all linked to trauma.
Liam Farquhar 22:37
Ah, I would love to I mean, I've become such a trauma nerd. Honestly, like just any excuse, any excuse to talk about trauma. I just I think it's it's so fascinating. It's so it's so beautiful, in a way as well. The other side of it, obviously is, you know, trauma can be of course, they heard epic. And, you know, I just kind of like sometimes question that kind of post traumatic growth line, because, you know, sometimes people don't reach that, and sometimes it's just fucking awful, you know, but I talk about trauma a little bit. I like how I frame trauma. So trauma for me is quite misunderstood. You know, for me, it's anything that overwhelms our organism and our response to that overwhelm. So the overwhelm is anything that's too much too fast too soon. Which means that of course, trauma has those like big t traumas like, like war scenes, rape, abuse, violence, stuff like that. But there's also little t traumas as well, like, neglect, abandonment, you know, parents denying our realities. Bad, breakups can be overwhelming. And it's, again, it's anything that overwhelms our organism. So it's, it's also physical, it's whiplash, it's sports injuries. It's surgery as well, you know, the body can't differentiate between rape and genital. Yeah, genital surgery, it just sees it as an attack. It's also very personal. So what overwhelms one person won't overwhelm another person. And it's not just like, for the individual, like it can be, you know, we can have cultural trauma as well, of course, you know, just think about how overwhelming systemic racism is generations of it as well. And trauma is also inherited, you know, when we're seeing through the emerging science of epigenetics, that trauma is Yeah, it can imprint on our gene expression, like the wrapper around the DNA. And yeah, it can be inherited and we model our trauma we you know, we model the trauma from our parents because they had traumatized parents and their parents were traumatized all the way back. So we've modeled trauma and we can actually like, you know, inherits it on our gene expression as well. And so there's the body keeps the score, which I think is back at the top of the New York Times bestseller list now, and it's an academic book on trauma. So I think there's there's something quite telling when an academic book trauma is me, is that the number one spot for like, ages, I think, and now it's back up there. There's so many conferences on trauma and the moment there's something very Zeitgeist II about trauma happening, it seems. But it's like there's a line that I came across recently. So when like, the body keeps the score, but the mind tied to the score. And that's kind of like how trauma works. The mechanics of it. So yeah, how you know how bodies? Yeah, would you like me to talk about like the mechanics of trauma? Because I think it's like, it's, that's, for me the most interesting thing, because I think it points to how we're actually we're actually like addressing trauma in in the wrong way. genomics talk about that,
Martin O'Toole 26:07
for sure. And also, while you're on that, perhaps, Eckart totally talks about the pain body. I don't know if you're familiar with that writing, but essentially, it's one in the same so he's talking about how we store trauma in the body.
Liam Farquhar 26:22
Yeah, yeah. So I come from more like Peter Levine's model. So Peter Levine is probably like, he's like, probably, arguably, like the leading expert on trauma, at the moment, is like your favorite trauma person's favorite trauma person. So he sees trauma, overcoming trauma is primarily a physiological process, not a psychological one. So what his genius is, is that he reminds us that we're mammals, right? So, you know, we've got this very sophisticated rational mind his prefrontal cortex. But evolutionarily, that's quite a recent development. But our whole organisms, you know, and the brain is one part of that interconnected, interdependent series of systems in our whole organism has evolved over millions of years to know how to instinctively heal like other mammals do. So he was observing mammals in the wild, and he was like, why did very few mammals exhibit traumatize behavior despite being constantly overwhelmed, and he realized that they they know how to instinctively heal and their very survival of course, depends on their ability to do that, because they get overwhelmed and then you know, they need to return you know, they need to return out and look for food and socialize and do all those things. And the way that they do it is they shake, they they shake and tremor so and the whole mechanism behind that, you know, when when mammals and us whenever we're overwhelmed, we generate all of this fight or flight survival energy, adrenaline, cortisol and stuff like that. And if we don't discharge it, like then or soon after, then we go into freeze and all of that energy gets stuck into the body. And that's where you have like dissociation depressions. In fact, like most of our unwanted symptoms, I think, are better explained by that stuck freeze energy in the body, you know, and we don't shake and tremor because we've been socialized out of it, because shaking has associations with cowardice or being out of control and we hate being out of control because that's a few steps away from death, you know, so like, we actually our rational mind gets in the way of a healing process often so you know, I see healing actually the healing process as like really like tuning down that rational mind. So that's a very different approach to psychotherapy, which is very like in a stain with the story saying, you know, trauma impacts the limbic system and it impacts the body so you can't actually reach it by talking and thinking about it, you need to you need a deeper thing. So that's the kind of like body keeps the score. And then the mind types the score is, is you know, whenever we're overwhelmed our you know, protective parts of the psyche come in, and make sure that we don't access the memory of that traumatic event. And that's the way like internal family systems is a really powerful new therapeutic model new 80s new ish. So in telephony systems is a really powerful therapeutic model at accessing those parts and you know, rather than being top down which is most psychotherapy, which is like, you know, going in through the mind and all those protective stories that you just have to wade through way through until you get to the emotional root in terms of family systems is bottom up and you go into the body, which is a more direct route, it seems into the emotional root and then you work with those protectors. You Get them on site to witness them, you know, they kind of have their own personalities, they need to be witness. And then, you know, they learned that they can lower down their weapons and, and, and grant access to the exiles that need healing. So for me, yeah, for me like body body keeps a score mind high to score, Somatic Experiencing internal family systems are really powerful ways that addressing those things. And like internal family systems, again, is a very different model from traditional psychotherapy because like, you know, the one it's like, yeah, part so is the idea that we don't have like, there isn't one single ileum I'm made up our minds bodies, there's a multiplicity to it, the whole stadium full of parts, and they each have their own role and personality. But at the core, kind of the central idea to internal family systems that you know, everyone has a capital SL is essential self that has this drive towards wholeness, healing and happiness. It's very spiritually, it's an evidence based model. So they've researched that and it works, but so under underpinned by very spiritual, romantic ideas, almost, you know, and I really love it when those worlds come together. So this this selfie, and the most important relationship in telephony systems is, is the relationship between the client and their own self. And that's the thing, the self is what heals. So yeah, anyway, they're both trauma informed approaches. But I think, you know, when we define traumas, anything that overwhelms us, I think that that really broadens it out. And I think rather than seeing like people as sick, and you know, the therapist as being like, the healed one, and the one who's, you know, that sort of power asymmetry, like, because we're all on that spectrum, right rubric pops up on the spectrum. You know, I think it's much better, it's much better at seen as, like, you know, overwhelming things happened, our minds and our bodies created very natural, understandable, automatic responses to it. And there's a way to undo it. And we've all kind of like just walking each other home, that round that thing of like walking each other home. Having that understanding and helping us helping, you know, each of us. Yeah, overcome our traumas. But I really, I really feel like we don't need an expert to analyze us. We need someone to support a process where healing comes from within. Yeah, so that's how I'm framing it.
Martin O'Toole 32:31
I couldn't agree more. I think we, I feel we are our own healer. And I think we've, I don't know how it happened. But we've society has got to a point, suddenly, where we have this Savior, complex vibe going on, where everybody is just waiting to be saved, in any way, shape, or form from all manner of things. We seem to be abrogating responsibility for, for our own sovereignty, our own health, our own mental health, physical health is all being outsourced. And fundamentally, you're right, I think we have we have the tools within us to do all of those things and more, we've just forgotten them. And actually, you know, use that use the word, shamanic, actually, in our introduction, I referred to you as a modern day show, and I hope you don't mind. But I,
Liam Farquhar 33:22
well, yeah, I'm somewhere like I'm somewhere in between a shaman and a clinical researcher. And I'm neither of those things. But maybe somewhere in the middle. Just Just one. One more quick point on the Yeah, on the healing coming from within us as well. Like, it definitely does that we have this inner healing intelligence, this capital itself, and it's, it's dealing, I would say, we also do need others as well, you know, I think, like, it's both and we are like, extraordinarily interdependent and interconnected. And I think sometimes like healing journeys can be a product of this, like Western individualism that sees that as this, like Lone Ranger path, and it's about my healing my path, my journey. And anyone who doesn't, anyone who gets in the way of it be damned, you know, I think that can go to the extreme.
Martin O'Toole 34:17
I think it's a it's a fine line, isn't it ultimately, I think, my own experience anyway, I can't speak for anybody else. But my from my own experience, I actually I was helped on the ladder. I was helped them on the ladder by first by a therapist, additional therapist. But really, my, my big sort of linchpin moment was help from my brother, and, and that sent me off on my path, but he didn't even really need to say it. But essentially, when I began to lean on him too much, because he did walk this path he had done his own. He is his own healing journey. It's not for me to share the details of that on this. I would say lean on him and ask him You know more and more and he said, You know, I could see him sort of growing up you know, planting the seeds, but you got to want your own garden buddy and and i really really appreciated that to this day. However of course as you open yourself up to that vulnerability as you open your heart and mind or actually put mind in the, in the backseat of the of the earth rover and let consciousness do some interesting driving for a change. That's when you suddenly become open to, to reaching out to a Liam or to a Chris or to a Martin or to a mum or a dad or a best friend, you know, I think certainly speak from my own experience. Had I not had a network of carers, if you like, I think I probably would, I probably would have died. There was a time when I where I nearly killed myself. And I think actually having a couple of people around me were the people that helped me not do that. They didn't know I was gonna kill myself. But you know, this is what it is. This might be an interesting time just to so we have a we have as part of our team, and mangku priest, and he's sort of a Balinese priest and he's called King Tut. And we were talking to kid taught yesterday about trauma and people holding on to negative experiences in their mind. Yeah. might be worth me sharing that.
Martin O'Toole. 36:25
That is a perfect thing. Yeah, you really teed it up nicely. Liam talking about getting out of your mind and being in the body and also connecting the worlds of modern therapy and scientific research with maybe ancient traditions and more a shaman type vibe. So yeah, could we specifically asked him and this is going to be part of our weekly segment. It's called What do we call it thoughts for continuous called thoughts? Thoughts From Ketut, but we asked him, we asked, What would you say to someone who's experienced a traumatic, traumatic event, and they can't stop replaying that event in their mind or they can't get it out of their mind. So Martin, you want to go ahead and play his response?
Chris Siracuse 37:04
Check it out, and we'll talk about it.
Mangku Ketut 37:17
The first thing I have to tell them is about breeding and then try to be in your body. That can make your breathing, guiding you that bring your energy down, cutting your head, you know, because sometimes the energy stuck in that head, because bring your worry, everything that make you more sick. You know, you may not get out from that. So that's where the more important is you to get out from that is through the bread and bring you down. The normally if you took any walk, you can go to the nature walking, they just like bring you to the art. This is your thing this this might surprise.
Martin O'Toole 38:06
Like a Balinese Yoda,
Liam Farquhar 38:08
He has such a nice voice doesn't it?
Martin O'Toole 38:10
The guy just just exudes this wonderful feeling of like love and calm and peace. Yeah, it's a real special guys me. Yeah, you get it from his voice. There were there were some similarities, right? So he's saying get out of your head. He obviously he, his go to his meditation. So he's talking about the breath, get out of our head, breathe and on the most basic level breathing get out into the nature being two fundamental and very simple and doable things that anybody can do as part of a daily practice. We're going to talk about meditation every week on this podcast in some way shape or form because you know, I practice it religiously. And many people I know do and and I know for a fact it's super good for us all so we're going to talk about it but so what did you think about Kate's perspective there some resonance?
Liam Farquhar 39:07
For sure. Yeah, I mean breathing like breathing. There's so much healing potential in the breath and we're not particularly good breeders you know, especially when we're stressed or overwhelmed, you know, we you know, breathe into the chest, those shallow breathing and yeah, deep abdominal breathing just helps us unlock that, you know, breathe. I really part of my process is coaching people how to breathe properly, because it really is the thing that helps, you know, support the experience, one of the things that helped support the experience you know, when when taking psychedelics so yeah, breathing you know, cutting off the head is that my trauma, you know, getting getting the head out. And connecting to nature's is one way of doing that, you know, obviously relaxes the nervous system. It connects us to something bigger than us is beautiful. Before you know, a thing has all sorts of benefits. For me, like getting out of their head, the singing and dancing are like, have become extraordinarily medicinal for me. You know, because they, you know, trauma, energetically like overwhelm or trauma is like this, you know, it's this kind of like closed fits, you're like this, you're, you've got tunnel vision. And, you know, if I, if I start to get too heavy, yeah, kind of just sort of, like, unlocked them, you know, just moving with it. And yeah, I mean, one thing I would say about being stuck in in thoughts as well, because that is a very common trauma response, you know, in somatic experiencing is called riveting. So, you know, whenever we're overwhelmed out, you know, we kind of, like, we're stuck in that Free State, right? So we're actually frozen in that time, in that moment. And, you know, things might, you know, we may be, you know, objectively safe, you know, not in any danger, but certain things may remind us of that danger whenever, so we're still on a kind of nervous system level Mind Body riveted to this, that that overwhelming event. So for me, again, like it comes back to like shaking tremoring because our nervous systems are going like pop, you know, so we need to, like discharge their energy, and it's a very light and it's an autumn that shaking and tremoring it's an automatic process, like, you don't need to think about it. In fact, you need to, like, turn down the thinking mind, in order to kickstart that process, and psychedelics can, you know, can quite effectively turn that volume down, but then yeah, it's about moving, singing, being with people being in nature breathing, meditating, you know, realizing we're not our thoughts, they're just objects that come in and out of consciousness. Yeah, all those things,
Martin O'Toole 42:04
all of the psychedelic sorry psilocybin journeys that I've been on and ceremonies that I've been in, I've been in a lot I always tend to find there's a a phase in the journey where I begin to move so I find myself doing yoga actually more often than not yoga or Qigong. Which is interesting is the first time I did actually the first time I found myself doing yoga was during an Ayahuasca journey and I'd never done yoga that was kind of weird and it's a wonderful thing so actually when you're with the medicine like that and you start to move you you feel yourself releasing blocked energy you know you absolutely fundamentally really relax and release and and actually certainly in my experience, I find myself relaxing muscles, micro muscle release you know, muscles that you think you're releasing when you're sitting down or laying down but you're actually not because as we all know there there are layers and layers and layers of tension it's only when you get into deep meditation or a Shavasana for example after after yoga, where you're binded usually by the yogi to even just you know, plant your spine or plant your toxics on you know, into the ground melt into the ground is what you're encouraged to do and it's only when you find yourself in these specific situations that you do realize you are holding tension in your body which is linked to a trauma so me Okay, um, what? So what's your thought then on the fact that mushrooms have been around since the dinosaurs, as have all other plant medicines, and of course have been criminalized and kept away from people but now the pharmaceutical companies are on to this and they're synthesizing this and turning into a into a little pill. So now suddenly, the meet the media is talking about how accessible it is. I saw something else online from motherboard, which is the tech device platform and they were saying that psychedelics are a billion dollar business, but no one can agree who should control it. I couldn't help but chuckle I'm like, How the hell are you going to control the mycelial network? It's bigger than you. Yeah,
Liam Farquhar 44:41
I just wonder like either I find trees going here it's actually like trees wondering like Who the hell is going to control this network? You know, it's
Martin O'Toole 44:49
Yeah, whatever your perspective was, I you know, I'm not trying to be all anti establishment here, but I think it's my point sings to an obvious truth. Notice that these medicines have been around for 1000s, if not millions of years, and they were once put in a naughty box where no one was allowed to use them to open their minds to heal themselves. And now suddenly, now it's a no, it's going to be available in a pill form owned by a pharmaceutical company. This stuff's gonna start getting whacked out on a daily basis, all around the world. And of course, as a result, we've got countries and American states currently, one by one, legalizing psilocybin, aren't they?
Chris Siracuse 45:36
Yeah, there's an interesting thing. I mean, the same thing happened with marijuana. Yeah, you know, it started off as recreation or as medically legal and became recreational. And there was a certain debate about ownership and about actually the quality of the marijuana and what this commercial influence would have on it. So yeah, I mean, definitely curious to get your thoughts on that. Liam, as far as how that would affect you and your practice?
Martin O'Toole 46:01
Yeah. How do you how just bolt in another question on to that, how do you select the psilocybin that you work with?
Liam Farquhar 46:08
So the first question of like, that tension between these two worlds, right. So yeah, I kind of frame it like on the one extreme, you've got the like, idealistic hippies. And then on the other hand, you've got the evil capitalists. And, as with most things, like the middle way is the way right, there's, and they both have good points. So, you know, the on, you know, the idealistic hippies, they're like, is that, you know, they're saying, rightly, that these experiences are sacred, that they're, you know, a lot of them are just natural as well, that there should be you know, I mean, they shouldn't certainly shouldn't be criminalized. You know, it's ludicrous. The whole war on drugs was, you know, it's on record, saying it was political, it was to clamp down to groups of people that were threatening at the time, black people and hippies, you know, the Black Panther movement, and the counterculture movements. I mean, that's on record. That's not conspiracy theory. So yeah, it was a whole war on drugs has been a huge failure in terms of helping people with addiction or crime related to drugs, or then reducing you, it's been a massive success in his actual purpose, which was, you know, criminalizing those two groups. So yeah, so there's, you know, you've got, you know, these substances have been around for a very long time and are sacred and, you know, have this whole like framework around them, you know, in like, with mushrooms, like the magitek, especially in Mexico. And it's ceremonial, and it's community base, and there's all these things that we're not very good at doing in the West. So yeah, they're like, you know, let's, you know, you know, we need to have that model as well as part of the picture. And then you've got the the evil capitalists and the other extreme saying, well, these are new medicines. And we have the model that we have in the West, which means that if these are going to be kristiana, wheat wheat, yeah, this is much like a deeper process set aside, when these new psychedelic medicines are being framed as a therapeutic process, you know, in a much deeper way than weeders. So, you know, it necessarily has to go through much more stringent process with the FDA, this whole rescheduling process, and that's extraordinarily expensive, and just requires a ton of money. So, you know, that argument is saying that we can't actually bring these new medicines to market without going through without using the you know, the capitalistic model. And then there's an argument on that side as well that business can be a vehicle at disseminating these new medicines. So they both have points. For me the The main thing is like the kind of Yeah, and I think they'll coexist as well. So you'll have like the McDonald's of the of the market, which is like the conference pathways or whatever, mind med. And then you have the farmers markets, which are more like guys like me and everything in between, and they'll be something for everybody. They have to coexist. They have to coexist.
Martin O'Toole 49:26
Yeah, I think so. It's going to be interesting. I think it's gonna be a really interesting space to watch. But, you know, I mean, from my perspective, I'm just, I'm just chuffed that it's finally it's on the agenda. Because, you know, I don't I don't mind admitting my own healing journey, and certainly my battle with addiction and trauma was hugely helped by psychedelics. I hasten to add not in this country, whilst I was in Central America, where they are legal, but Ayahuasca, Wachuma, DMT and psilocybin or played a huge part in, in helping me and this was all in guided ceremonial circles where it were, you know it was was responsibly handled by some amazing people who are in very close to my heart. Now you look at, as you say Peter Levine but also Gabor Mate, who's who's a famous psychiatrist, a psychologist who uses plant medicines. And I asked her to treat addiction. Lots of people say, Ayahuasca journeys is can be likened to 10 years of therapy. So, from my perspective, I'm just, I'm really happy it's on the agenda. And I guess Fair enough, if it's going to turn up as a synthesized pill, as long as you've been prescribed in the right way, this has been another question I have for you, though, of course, do you worry that we're going to get to a situation where I could go to a psychiatrist and say, you know, I'm depressed, and instead of getting my Prozac or whatever, psychiatrists, whatever pharmaceuticals, they give you, I get a prescription for Psilocybin. And I just go home and take psilocybin feels to me like that's, we're losing a real controlled, and as you mentioned earlier, almost sacred ceremonial perspective and respect.
Liam Farquhar 51:29
Yeah, exactly. So this, this is the nuance, you know, and I think the the main issue for me with these two camps is like, Who's capturing the narrative who's owning the narrative. And what would be a real shame is if that biomedical model captures the narrative like, this is the way to do this experience. And it strips it strips, the experience strips the process of its sacredness, that would be a real shame, but maybe there's an argument that, you know, just like people, maybe have a Starbucks, and then, and then, you know, like, Oh, I want something a bit more like, you know, a bit more sophisticated, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, it will open these, you know, these big companies like compass pathways or open the gateway to people. And it will bring, you know, it will help guide people towards more. Yeah, like a different model. So, you know, maybe there's that argument as well. But that is an issue. Yeah, that is an issue that everyone is, everyone in this space, and myself and others are concerned about, you know, that, you know, are we, you know, and there's an argument as well against that kind of capitalistic model, that, you know, it's this model, the right model to disseminate these experiences when many argue that the sort of like the capitalistic, hyper individualistic model where we are encouraged to constantly compete and compare, you know, those things that led to a lot of our mental health issues to begin with, is that the right model to disseminate these these new these new experiences, you know, that's, I think, a legitimate argument as well. But it's also worth keeping in mind that it that, you know, these these, you know, these companies, they're working on very specific patient groups. So, for psilocybin at the moment is treatment resistant depression, and major depressive disorder, MDMA is PTSD. You know, so when these if, when they're rescheduled, it will only be targeting those groups, you know, and maybe over a long time, it will be broadened out, but it's worth keeping that in mind as well that you know, once these go through the rescheduling process, and it's not like it's going to be opened up to everybody that may come but that's a way that might
Martin O'Toole 54:05
I suppose I'm just thinking ahead. My own experiences with psychedelics has been very community based so and every shaman you taught the planet would would say that set and setting are two of the most important aspects of this kind of journey. and I both have you guys seen fantastic funghi the Netflix documentary Excuse me, but they they talk about they talk about the same thing there that the the part of the experiences is part of the healing processes is who you're with and where you are. And of course, that sings to exactly what you're doing with this with this new consultancy, because you are that guide, which I think is is epic, and I suppose Do you are you getting the idea already that there are more and more of you popping up is it is the guidance I don't say market because it devalues it but it is the guidance industry suddenly in exponential growth
Liam Farquhar 55:14
yeah there are more there are more retreats and guides popping up which is yeah good in some respects but also presents some issues as well because it's not regulated so it's kind of wild west you know I'm a member of the Guild of guides which is a fairly new organization in the Netherlands that is trying to we're working to promote Yeah, well there's a code of conduct but also yeah promoting or the advocacy of safe responsible guidance and what that means so you know no promising healing no like saying will we will treat your depression definitely none of that you know, because you're saying look like micro dosing services you know, promising healing with micro dosing is like you can't you shouldn't do that it's irresponsible it's unethical. So yeah, there are things like the Guild of guides coming up now they're all there's a lot of well intentioned people in this space whose hearts are definitely in the right place. But don't understand trauma don't understand the psyche don't understand basic therapeutic approaches and models and you know, they just have a few healing experiences or you know, healing experiences or positive experiences themselves I think they're ready to hold space for others like it's a whole you know, it requires it requires a lot of personal work to do this work you know, like there's like other kind of intellectual stuff and your understanding case studies that I've been doing and you know third understanding therapeutic models internal family systems Somatic Experiencing union psychology graphy and psychology you know, reading all the scientific papers and protocols and you know, all of that sort of stuff experiential obviously like working with the substances that I'm working with extensively but like really importantly is me having gone through my own deep personal process with my own internal family systems and Somatic Experiencing therapy and meditation and yoga and you know time and space and you know, men to do men's group work as well you know, like all of this sort of stuff because these are very these are very sensitive, delicate spaces to hold and you need to be aware of what you're bringing into that space you know, there's there's a lot of potential for transference countertransference projections you know, so if the guide isn't aware of of his own his or her own processes, then that has the potential to create all sorts of issues you know, and we're seeing it right because it is the Wild West you know, unfortunately there are cases of seams predominantly men making sexual advances or like you know, not respecting boundaries let's say in in that space, which is you know, just especially if we're working with lights you know, sexual trauma all that sort of stuff like yeah, so like going through deep personal process doing our own work, you know, Shadow Work, whatever, however you want to frame it is really important. So yeah, it's like it's both really exciting time and a time to like, pause and be like, okay, we need to be really careful because all it's all it's gonna take a few people one or two, like, you know, big fuck ups basically, to undo a lot of the work that people in the space have been working so hard to again, like, you know, re Yeah, like re like recondition people's or reframe people's attitudes towards psychedelics, you know, it's been done very slowly and safely. So people in this space who take this very seriously are like, we need to be careful we need to be
Martin O'Toole 59:24
the center and the guy. The Guild is a wonderful idea but I as you lead it, everyone's a life coach, right?
Chris Siracuse 59:31
So yeah, especially here in Bali. Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 59:35
we have our fair share of DIY shaman. So um, as you may or may not know, another another weekly segment of How To Die Happy is Be my guest. So up on our website, we have a little page with the list of forthcoming guests, and there's a link to a really cool little voicemail feature that people can use. So we think Courage people to we're encouraging people to leave messages for the guests. So you get to be their guest for a very short while. And we've got a couple of questions from audience members. So I'm just going to, I'm going to we're going to go through a couple still got a bit of time and we certainly do and do key again. man, I love this, Dwayne forest, everyone, winter for us gotta get the full musician. You did all of our music, for nothing but peace and love. So thanks, Duane, question number one.
Peter O'Toole 1:00:43
Hi, guys. This is Pete from the UK. I'm interested please to know, what is the active compound in suicide and and how does it work? What does it actually do to the brain.
Liam Farquhar 1:00:54
So psilocybin breaks down into cillessen. That is the compound. And yeah, it works on the serotonin systems, specifically the five, five HD TP receptor. And what what essentially does is it reduces blood flow deactivates the default default mode network, or reduces blood flow to the default mode network. And the default mode network is a brain hub that is associated with the ego. So that sense of self that sense of eyes and sort of personality continuity. But ego is also a set of defenses as well, and acts as a filter. So what it accepts it puts into conscious awareness and what it doesn't accept it, it puts into the shadow the unconscious and you know, depth psychology and modern neuroscience both show us that the vast majority of the psyche is unconscious. So by you know, dissolving that filter, by deactivating that filter of the ego, the default mode network, it just allows unconscious material to surface. And that's where a lot of the therapeutic potential can be as well. Because you know that you know that Jung Eun idea of the shadow, these things that we're unaware of, that's really what the shadow is all the things that we don't identify with, whether we're good or bad, you know, it could be painful experiences, it could be you know, our lighter qualities, our playfulness, our love our silliness, you know, whatever tenderness, so they're just things that are yet in our shadow, and we can bring them, bring them to the surface to witness because those shadow aspects are controlling us, you know, they're, they impact what we think what we believe, you know, our belief systems, who were attracted to who were not attracted to situations that were drawn to whatever it is. So, you know, that's the path of the Union, again, idea of individuation of, you know, reaching wholeness. It's bringing all those unconscious parts into conscious awareness. So it's Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of my practice as well, helping people realize that, you know, we all have a shadow, we all have these, these parts of us that we don't identify with. And it's, again, back to like cultivating that sense of open, compassionate curiosity to meet that to really welcome those things. So yeah, that's the mechanism. Yeah, dissolving that filter, the default mode network brings up to the surface. That's what it does to the brain, obviously, like, there's the whole body and
Martin O'Toole 1:03:46
yeah, okay, nice. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with the same guest. Actually, he's left a couple of questions. So let's hear from Pete again.
Peter O'Toole 1:03:56
I'm guessing it's different for everyone, and maybe case specific, but is there a general idea of what to expect from the psilocybin experience? Well,
Martin O'Toole 1:04:08
I can answer that one. But go
Liam Farquhar 1:04:14
Yeah, yeah. No basis short answer. Because you know, so stats, then slap graph, standard sub graph is a guy have studied extensively, because he has overseen more psychedelic sessions than anyone else. And then he's had a 60 year career studying psychedelics as part of a therapeutic process in his 90s. Now, legend Stanislav grof. I recommend everyone check him out. They haven't already. Yeah, and he framed psychedelics as non including psych psilocybin as nonspecific amplifiers of the psyche, which means that they, it's bringing, it's bringing whatever's in the psyche. To the surface to be witnessed and again like you know the psyche is vast so we're always working with yeah our own individual psychic material so it's always going to be unique so like it's always going to it's going to be different from person to person and even in the same with the same person it's going to be different experience to experience as you may have experienced yourself you know we can so it's you know it can have like the shadow the unconscious parts that are related to our biography but you can have transpersonal you know that's kind of you know the the Young's idea of the collective unconscious that our conscious our psyche isn't just the personal unconscious is the collective unconscious that kind of connects us all so we can it can tap us you know help us tap into that you know beyond our concepts of space time all of that sort of stuff so yeah I mean it you know, it can be fought yeah you know, like literally there's a whole universes worth of potential experiences common I mean common ones are yet stuff from your from your personal history coming to the surface to be witnessed that there's that you can have like what sorts of birthing experiences like being reborn stuff like that? Yeah, you can Yeah, I mean the mystical experiences are quite sometimes not common experience but what can happen is that you can have that sense of unity of like being like connected to everything else you know that points to various ideas of like yeah and that can be a very can feel like a quiet for people quite a religious spiritual experience like that becoming one with everything people say it's like God and and God being the closest word not like you know, angry bearded man in the sky wagging his finger but like God, God being the best word we have to describe this like spiritual experience of oneness. That idea that like you know, beyond the material well beyond the quantum world, we have this sub sponsor like infinite timeless formless like ocean of of consciousness or something like it and the Unified Field kind of points to that and God kind of points to that and consciousness and the points are that you know, and it's they and the Hindus have been on to this for a long time obviously. You know, it's interesting for me to see like the wealth right and the Buddhists and you know the wealth like spirituality and science overlapping now like quantum science, kind of corroborating a lot of these ideas that have been around for millennia beyond this idea that you know, there's this common ground that things spring from and return to, but yeah different different things for like psychology philosophy, quantum relativistic physics. Yeah, they will they will kind of point to that so you can have a direct experience of
Martin O'Toole 1:08:18
it Yeah, a flavor of it and I've talked I've talked to a number of monks if you like Buddhists and Hindus who will and I taught them about plant medicine and they will they will say you can get to the same state through meditation but they will admit that through a very very deep and constant practice fact all all of the masters from from all around the world and actually in all the ages they all they all use some very common practices it's an IT IS breath centered, of course breath and meditation, but they will admit that it is not going to come overnight like that. So I'm not suggesting that that psychedelics are a hack in that regard but they certainly do get they do sort of like a laser cook key on the more often than not in the right setting.
Liam Farquhar 1:09:21
It's like yeah, the way I frame it is like there's you know, there's different ways up the spiritual mountain, religion, spiritual traditions, you know, whatever they are, they all kind of like came from the same source for me, and they all end at the same place, and they're just different ways of, of going up the mountain. What psychedelics can do is, like, less like a helicopter trip, for brief visit to the top and be like, okay, like, that's the point. And it's not like you still need to go up the mountain because that's how you learn the lessons you know, you don't you don't you know, you don't learn the lessons of the that great journey. In that great height by just briefly visiting it, you still need to go through that process, but it can at least give you experience of like, Oh, so that's what it is right? Got it. Now, we're gonna do
Martin O'Toole 1:10:10
the work and sticking with your mountain metaphor. These things are all best done with a Sherpa. Which of course, is Liam. Well, I could talk about this with you until Christmas 2025. But we've, we've had more than an hour of your time, Liam. It is with regret that we have to call this a day, man. This is our first episode we are, we're we're roughing this, we're making it all up. We've had some technical issues because of a submarine, chopping the fiber optics up in the ocean somewhere around here. So thank you so much for your patience. But also thanks for your time and energy Lima, I really do enjoy talking to you. We've had a number of these conversations. And I can just, I could just sit listening to you for a long time. And next time we need to write some of this stuff down because you give me some some more points of people to check out and, and watch. But for anybody who wants to know more about Liam, you can find out on our website. There's also a link to his website, brighter pathways. So he's London based, but quite obviously, due to regulations. The psilocybin work is done in the country. Nevertheless, he's in London. And he can chat to you, presumably by the miracle of the internet, like we've done today. And yeah, thanks, Liam. Been epic. very welcome.
Chris Siracuse 1:11:39
Yeah, thank you, Liam. It was a pleasure. We do want to give you the chance just to leave people with any closing thoughts. Maybe since the name of the show is How To Die Happy. Hmm. I'm just doing this. I don't know. But maybe you could tell us what makes you happy lamb? What do you think?
Liam Farquhar 1:11:57
Oh, lots of things. Yeah. dancing, singing, being with friends, community, having those those loving relationships where you can just reveal the full spectrum of your being. I think those relationships are so treasured and sacred. So for anyone who has those people in their lives, I really yeah, encouraged coach people to really get treasure that and maybe drop them a line. Just letting them know how much you appreciate them. So yeah, I think I'll close on that.
