What happens when life’s toughest moments force you to question the life you’ve created and even who you thought you were? 

This week on The Psychedelic Mom, Anne Kiehl Friedman joins MIchaela Carlin to share her personal journey of awakening to her own self-worth. Central to Anne’s story is the concept of "blender moments"—periods of intense upheaval, such as her struggle with Lyme disease and a painful breakup, that forced her to reexamine her life and break free from societal conditioning and expectations.

How can ayahuasca and other sacred plant medicines deepen family bonds and foster collective healing within communities?

In this episode, Glauber Assis, a Brazilian sociologist and leader in the Santo Daime tradition, shares his experiences using psychedelics to support personal transformation, parenting, and cultural preservation. He explores the role of sacred plant medicines in nurturing resilience and healing, emphasizing the importance of honoring indigenous wisdom in modern psychedelic practices.

How does CBD help individuals manage chronic pain, reduce inflammation, and support overall health and wellbeing?

In this conversation, CBD expert Ali Stoddard shares her insights into the transformative power of this highly potent and impactful compound. She explains how CBD activates the body’s endocannabinoid system to foster healing and improve well-being, providing an alternative to symptom-focused allopathic medicine.

In this conversation with Emerson Nonduality, the core concept explored is the ineffable nature of nonduality itself—a direct experience beyond words or definitions. Emerson speaks to the fundamental realization that the belief in a separate self is an illusion, and awakening is a return to the simple and ever-present nature of being. He emphasizes that we wake up when we let go of the need for conceptual understanding, and instead, experience life as it is—without labels or separation. This realization leads to profound peace, even amidst life's challenges.

Emerson and Michaela explore the potential role of psychedelics in awakening, the concept of no-self, and the transformative power of accepting life’s intensity without resistance. They also touch on the importance of meeting people where they are in their journey, creating a safe space for radical honesty and true freedom.

This week on The Psychedelic Mom we meet Ash Ritter, an ethnobotanist and plant medicine expert who explores the profound relationship between humans, plants, and fungi within the context of an animistic worldview. Ash shares her experiences with Amanita Muscaria and other powerful fungal and plant allies, revealing how these natural medicines can help support our health and wellbeing, unlock ancestral wisdom and guide personal transformation. The conversation covers Ash’s extensive background in various lineages of herbalism, the role of different types of altered states in self-discovery, and the power of integrating plant medicines into modern life to connect to our own inherent wisdom.

In this week’s episode, Bayo Akomolafe joins Michaela Carlin to explore how the intricate relationship between humanity and the more-than-human world reveals that we are not the centers of existence but interconnected participants in a vast ecosystem. 

Challenging conventional dualistic thinking, Bayo urges a shift towards recognizing our entanglement with the world around us. He emphasizes that the urgency of our times stems from deeper relational crises, where our responses to climate collapse and social injustices often reflect a misunderstanding of our place within this interconnected web.

The intersection of dreams, psychedelics, and indigenous wisdom offers a powerful lens for understanding consciousness and healing. This week on The Psychedelic Mom, Mario Alonso Cordero joins Micheala to explore the significance of dreams as tools for psychedelic integration, discussing how they can reveal hidden layers of the psyche. 

By bridging modern psychedelic practices with ancient indigenous knowledge, Mario highlights the importance of honoring cultural traditions in the evolving psychedelic renaissance. His insights offer practical tools for dream exploration and advocate for a balanced dialogue between Western science and indigenous perspectives.

How do psychedelics alter brain function to improve emotional regulation and unlock new patterns of thinking and behavior? Can they truly reshape the way we think, feel, and experience the world? 

In this episode, Dr. Manesh Girn, a leading researcher in psychedelic neuroscience, unpacks the transformative effects of these substances on neuroplasticity and their potential for treating mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. The conversation dives into how psychedelics create profound changes in neural networks, enhance cognitive flexibility and promote long-lasting emotional and psychological growth.

Manesh and Michaela also discuss the critical importance of integration following a psychedelic experience, the growing body of research on microdosing, and how psychedelics can help individuals escape entrenched mental patterns. They touch on the challenges facing psychedelic research and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics beyond mental health, including creativity, innovation, meaning-making and flourishing.

What would you include in a medicine bag designed to support mind, body, and spirit in today’s world? In this episode, Michaela Carlin, The Psychedelic Mom, embarks on a fascinating journey to explore this idea, drawing from ancient traditions to imagine a future where psychedelics and earth medicines play a central role in fostering personal growth, community connection, and spiritual insight – and where we can all exercise our sovereign right to use them without fearing punishment.

Michaela shares her vision about the potential of medicines like psilocybin, ketamine, san pedro, and iboga, to support personal and relational healing and spiritual growth. She shares insights on the importance of ritual, the wisdom of elders, and the integration of these powerful tools into our lives, all while contemplating what it means to live in harmony with ourselves and the world around us.

Join Michaela Carlin, The Psychedelic Mom, as she welcomes mycologist Jasper Degenaars to explore the intricate relationship between fungi, consciousness, ecology, and personal growth. 

Jasper emphasizes that mushrooms are not just tools for the exploration of consciousness; they embody a higher intelligence and play crucial roles in ecosystems. He discusses how ancient cultures utilized fungi in spiritual practice and highlights the importance of community support and intentionality in harnessing their potential. Ultimately, he inspires listeners to engage with mushroom cultivation as a pathway to deepen their connection with nature, foster a greater understanding of themselves, and enhance overall health and well-being.

What is it like to serve an earth medicine that facilitates deep healing and spiritual awakening in the psychedelic underground?

In this episode, Michaela brings back Rose joined by her co-facilitator Rudra. Rose and Rudra (not their real names) agreed to share anonymously as two experienced facilitators who serve 5-MeO-DMT in underground ceremonies. 

Rudra shares his personal journey using 5-MeO-DMT to navigate his own trauma and challenges related to his identity as a gay man of South Asian descent. He describes how the medicine helped him reconcile his spirituality with his sexuality, leading to significant life changes, including his marriage.

The conversation also explores the powerful effects of 5-MeO-DMT, particularly its ability to promote self-acceptance, spiritual clarity and trauma healing. Rose and Rudra speak about creating a sacred ceremonial container by blending their diverse spiritual backgrounds; navigating the challenges of integrating profound mystical experiences into daily life; the interplay of energy and awareness; and the potential for psychedelics to reshape our understanding of self and spirituality. 

The episode further explores the broader implications of using earth medicines and psychedelics as a tool for personal sovereignty and consciousness expansion and the pros and cons of legalization and medicalization.

What is it really like to be an underground psychedelic facilitator? What are the joys and challenges of serving medicine in places where it’s illegal? What kinds of life paths bring a person to this work?

Join Michaela Carlin, The Psychedelic Mom, for the first episode in an ongoing series of interviews with brave medicine people working in the psychedelic underground who are willing to come forward and speak about their work anonymously.

In this inaugural episode of the series, Michaela speaks with ‘Rose’, a medicine woman serving 5-MeO-DMT.

Michaela and Rose dive into a profound exploration of what it’s like to guide individuals through the intense and often life-altering journey that 5-MeO-DMT offers. They share about the essential role of surrender in unlocking deep emotional and spiritual healing, the preparation and integration work required for such a powerful experience, and the vast range of reactions - from blissful unity to intense emotional catharsis - that clients encounter.

They also highlight a variety of ethical and personal considerations at play when working with this potent psychedelic in an underground setting.

Join The Psychedelic Mom, Michaela Carlin, in conversation with Brittney Hartley about their shared journey of spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction and role psychedelics have played in the process. They explore shedding religious dogma, embracing an embodied feminine spirituality, and what it feels like to traverse a profound existential crisis and emerge with a renewed sense of purpose.

Brittney shares her transition away from Mormonism and the deep philosophical inquiries that led her to become an atheist spiritual director. Also, her personal process of identity dissolution, the complexities of motherhood during her deconstruction, and ultimately finding meaning through connection and presence.

Can plant medicines catalyze both profound spiritual awakenings and physical healing from chronic illnesses?

On this episode, Michaela Carlin welcomes Mee Ok Icaro, a writer and sacred medicine advisor with an incredible story of healing a life-threatening autoimmune disease – and the sexual trauma that it was rooted in – through a spiritual and physical purification process guided by ayahuasca.

Mee shares the challenges of her initial solo ayahuasca ceremonies, her deep work dieting various master plants from both Amazonian and North American traditions, and her exploration of ancestral healing through Korean shamanism.

Michaela and Mee also discuss the challenges of Western medicine's limited perspective on healing; the potential of earth medicines in modern medical practices; and the remarkable power of plant intelligences to meet people across dimensions of mind, body and spirit.

How can ketamine and psilocybin assisted therapies help neurodistinct couples achieve enhanced safety and communication in their relationships?

Join the latest episode of the Psychedelic Mom podcast as Michaela welcomes back Dr. Jill Corvelli, a therapist with a specialization in working with ‘complex’ couples, to dive deeper into her approach to helping couples achieve smoother relationship dynamics.

Exploring the cultural, legal, and spiritual implications of psychedelics and the path forward for their use in modern society, this episode features Charles Eisenstein and Robert Forte in a conversation about freedom, the scared, and the potential dangers of commercializing these powerful tools.

They discuss the historical and cultural significance of psychedelics; challenges posed by their current legal status and the push to medicalize them; and what it might look like to move towards a system where psychedelics are recognized as sacraments with everyone possessing the right to carry their own “medicine bundle’.

Join Michaela Carlin on The Psychedelic Mom Podcast as she chats with psychonaut scientist Zeus Tipado about his evolving research on the brain under the influence of DMT. Zeus elaborates on his thesis about various states of consciousness, the complexities of visual processing while under DMT, how ‘predictive processing’ plays into hallucinations, and the use of virtual reality in DMT research.

Listen in as Michaela Carlin, ‘The Psychedelic Mom’, and Tanja Schelling explore the intersection of art, awakening and psychedelics. Tanja discusses how her art – unique creations combining visuals, audio and poetry – encapsulates themes of introspection, interconnectedness, growth and understanding, and how Instagram has helped her voice resonate with many.

Tanja also shares her personal journey with psychedelics, including transformative experiences with DMT and Amanita Muscaria, and discusses how these substances have influenced her art and perspective on life while also guiding her emotional healing. Tanja also delves into the intuitive nature of creativity, the importance of tapping into one's inner voice, and the role of suffering in unlocking deeper truths.

Exploring the cultural and spiritual depths of psychedelics, Acacea Lewis offers perspectives on the importance of cultural and historical context in the use of sacred plant medicines. Acacea, a cultural anthropologist and spiritual practitioner, shares her personal experiences with psilocybin mushrooms beginning from a young age, and how they aided her in overcoming suicidal thoughts. She also offers insights into the global history of entheogenic plants and the effects of their commercialization in Western society.

The discussion expands into spiritual practices, including the profound healing potential of Buddhist chanting, advanced meditation techniques and tea ceremonies. With reflections on profound personal loss and the journey through grief, this conversation highlights the integration of ancient traditions with contemporary practices for personal and collective transformation and offers heartfelt insights into self-discovery and continuous spiritual practice.