April Pride, host: Hey, it’s April Pride, your host here on the High Guide podcast. I’d like to take a moment to remind you that we do discuss cannabis and psychedelics, and this podcast is intended for audiences 21 and over. Also, I am not a medical expert. We do discuss interventions and protocols and you should consult your medical professional before moving forward with anything that we may discuss here on the show. Before we begin, I’d like to thank our show sponsor of like Minds. Check out of like Minds Co That’s of like minds mind. Esco To learn more about Seattle’s trusted source for psilocybin. Hi everyone. Welcome to the Hi Guide podcast. Welcome back to another episode, all about women changing their lives thanks to psilocybin. Once again, we’re joined by Jennifer Chesak, the author of The Psilocybin Handbook for Women. The second episode in this three part series inspired by her book. In this installment, Jennifer and I dive into parenting and psilocybin. How does psilocybin support the ever more complicated lives of women who are mothers or want to be? As we navigate the nuanced landscapes of motherhood and magic mushrooms. We invite you to open your hearts and minds to this timely topic.
April Pride, host: I also invite you to join Jennifer and me in Seattle on November 15th for a live Q&A. Thanks to our show. Sponsor of Like Minds. More information is available in the show notes of this episode. We talked about estrogen. We’ve talked about women impact that that can have on your psilocybin experience. It seems like women, I don’t know, are lives are ruled by our hormones and our cycle and won you know and the cycle of that birth and death. But thinking about women as mothers and using psilocybin to address some of the more heartbreaking parts of that lived experience. If you lose a child as a result of miscarriage or postpartum and women using psilocybin to help deal with that because that we spoke earlier about how anorexia or any disordered eating is super isolating. I just didn’t realize how many women were really suffering in silence. And you call it the noble silence in general is when women are suffering at all and they just don’t share. That is not what noble silence really comes down to in your book, is that.
Jennifer Chesak: Oh, no, I think I mentioned so noble Silence is something that’s can be related to trip logistics. So as we move into our time in terms of doing a trip, it can be beneficial to abstain from speaking. And that’s I think a, you know, a Buddhist thing is noble silence. And so taking a period of silence, even if it’s just the day that you’re tripping or in the during your trip, you might be a little bit more silent. And the reason for that, there was a scientist, her name is Abigail Calder, and she brought this up to me or I’m sorry. It was I’m sorry. It was a scientist named Dr. Suzanne Rush. She brought this up to me. She was saying that it’s possible that the language places sort of this schema on our default mode network and impact our trip or make us have less. It’s possible it could make us have less of an experience or a different experience because of the way language affects our brains, essentially. So taking that silence is a good idea. You don’t have to, but it’s just something to consider. But yeah, going back to to motherhood and some of these things that are can also be very isolating. You mentioned miscarriage or postpartum depression or, you know, losing a child in that postpartum period.
Jennifer Chesak: All of these things are so devastating to women and they’re not openly they’re often not openly talked about. So as a society, we’re silent about these things and people are just dealing with these things in their own solitude, essentially. And we shouldn’t do that to people. We should be talking about these things. But Mama del Amico said that she’s worked with several people who have either had a miscarriage or are dealing with some other type of situation like postpartum depression or just grief in general. And she said sometimes is not going to fix everything. You know, it’s not going to be this magical cure for these things. However, if you do the work with psilocybin in terms of doing a journey and then integration afterwards, it can be highly beneficial. And I think we’re seeing this already just in terms of grief in general, that we’re seeing some research come out about how it can be helpful with grief. It was for me, I’ve only dealt with pet loss recently and I have lost some friends as well. But it was super beneficial to explore my grief during a psilocybin session. So again, not a magic cure, even though it says magic mushrooms. But certainly if we are doing the work again with integration afterwards, there’s some potential there for some serious help.
April Pride, host: Yeah, because we the ways that we are dealing with grief that we’ve been that have been approved for us to deal with grief in some way, meaning it’s just easier drinking being one of those ways or prescribed benzos which the rate of women drinking has increased significantly, which your book brought to my attention. April Hare interrupting our conversation with Jennifer because I wanted to add some details from her book, some specifics about women and alcohol use disorder or oud. It’s a brain disorder. I’m going to read directly from her book. Over time, it can cause lasting changes in the brain that can make treatment efforts or recovery difficult. More people assigned male at birth have oud than those assigned female at birth. However, in the previous decade, the rates of oud and women increased by 84%, a much higher rate than the 35% increase in men. People assigned female at birth also have a higher risk of alcohol related cancers, health complications and conditions. An oud can disrupt the menstrual cycle. Women often develop oud at an earlier age than men, and research shows a stronger association between anxiety and depression and early onset of drinking in girls ages 15 to 18 than in boys of the same age.
April Pride, host: Research also demonstrates that sexual abuse, emotional abuse and emotional neglect before adulthood are associated with higher rates of oud in women than men. Animal models show that ovarian hormones may also play a role in alcohol seeking behavior. Thus, women with consistently higher estrogen levels tend to have higher alcohol intake. Finally, animal models indicate that drinking behavior changes throughout the menstrual cycle as hormone levels fluctuate. Also, I had known that the amount of benzos are often prescribed by men, male doctors to women, and oftentimes those male doctors are general practitioners and they’re not mental health specialists at all. They’re saying that after the opioid epidemic, that benzos are the next issue that we will be facing. And now that we know that women have been prescribed at a much higher rate than men and we’ve now got alcohol on the rise among women, it’s just so timely that we’re talking about these alternatives that there is no history of abuse potential Like psilocybin.
Speaker2: Oh, psilocybin. No. Yeah, there’s no real history of that at all.
Speaker1: Yeah, but it is hard for people to wrap their mind around the fact that I’m going to take a drug to get off of my drugs. Right. Because it’s all been so packaged and it’s been packaged so backwards and incorrect for so long that to think that the thing that we can go and buy at the local grocery store is, is what’s bad for us. But the stuff that has been, I guess, personified my little mushrooms and people eyes rolling back and it’s all trippy, trippy. That’s going to be what saves us. It’s what I read in the book about stigma. And obviously I’ve been talking about women in stigma, choosing cannabis since 2015, I have found that there’s less stigma in terms of my conversations around women choosing psilocybin rather than cannabis. Have you experienced.
Speaker2: That? You know, I’m not sure. I feel like people are still having this stigma around all drugs in general, you know? And so I think psilocybin is part of that. And, you know, I do talk about in the book, I talk about people weaponizing women, children essentially against them. I interviewed Hillary Argrow. She’s an anthropologist. She’s getting her PhD in that. And she looked into this extensively and she’s had her own experience where somebody reported her to Child Protective Services, the department of that in Canada, because she lives in Canada, because she’s very open about, hey, I’m a drug user and hey, we all are. If you’re drinking caffeine, you’re a drug user. Right. And that does help erase stigma and when when we talk about that. But she openly identifies as a drug user for her ADHD medication and someone reported her and she had to go through this whole like investigatory process about whether or not she was fit to be a mother. And that directly harmed her because it created even more stress for her as a parent. And she was, you know, really struggling with that.
Speaker2: And it was very scary. Again, she acknowledges that she had a lot of resources to help her with that, whereas a lot of people don’t disproportionately affects people of color that they might get reported and things like that. So yeah, I think there’s still a lot of stigma. What I hope happens is that as we have more of these open conversations about psilocybin and about cannabis and things like that, that there’s more understanding that we can continue to talk about this, we can be open about this, and the more that we are, the better we better off we are in terms of all of that. Now, that’s easy for me to say. I don’t have kids. No one’s going to take them away from me. But it is a real thing that people have to consider, even though psilocybin is not going to make you addicted to it. And we can do that. We can use psilocybin in very safe, controlled ways that aren’t affecting the kids that we’re caring for and things like that.
April Pride, host: I want to take a minute to explain a term that might be new to you. Whole fruit bodies, mushrooms have these amazingly intricate underground root networks that are a big part of what make mushrooms magical. The fruiting body is the part of the mushroom we see above ground, the cap and the stem. And those are the parts that make magical mushrooms magic for the true romantics who want to experience the purest form of psilocybin. Our whole fruit bodies, which are carefully dried and sold by the eighth of an ounce, are the way to go of like minds. Fruit bodies are cultivated and sourced in Seattle, where of like minds is based, It’s important to us to work with trusted partners. That’s why our whole fruit bodies come from the same guy who helps us create our amazing caramels. All of our fruit bodies are cultivated and sourced in Seattle, where of like minds is based, it’s important for us to work with trusted partners. That’s why our whole fruit bodies come from the same guy who helps us create our amazing caramels. Now let’s talk strains. We’ve got three excellent varieties of magic and our whole fruit bodies collection. There’s the potent and intriguing penis envy, the gentle, inviting hillbilly and the captivating Ecuador. Each strain offers unique experience tailored to different. References and explorations that we write about in depth on our website. We do understand that not everyone wants to chew on a dried mushroom. Maybe you’ve got a sensitive stomach or you prefer a different taste profile to dried up dust.
Speaker1: So I do want to mention that we also make scrumptious chocolate covered psilocybin caramels. We make microdose offerings. If you’re new to the world of psychedelics and just want a more subtle approach. So whether you’re seeking the purity of whole fruit bodies or the convenience of taste of an edible, or if you’re looking to take baby steps into tripping via Microdosing, the of like Minds website is a place to go to get started, explore a range of offerings, read up on the experiences of others. And if you live in Seattle, you can of course purchase one of our educational PDF downloads and as your gift with purchase, you will receive shipped via third party carrier a gift from of like minds to you at your Seattle address. Sign up for the of like minds newsletter and follow us on social media at Ublic Minds Co for all the updates to learn all the ways we are all of like minds. I find it interesting that you live in a place that is definitely not decriminalized even. Right? And you are just writing about these things. You are saying that you’ve had your own experiences, you’re not continuing with them and I understand how careful we need to be. Yeah. What has been the reaction from your community? You’re probably in a bit of a bubble anyway, but still you live in the South East.
Speaker2: It’s a challenge here, obviously. I mean, we don’t even have legal weed essentially in Tennessee, which is just absolutely ridiculous. So it’s funny that my husband at this very moment is getting me weed at a dispensary in Illinois where it is legal because I rely on that medication for sleep and migraine prevention. And and he went because I’m too busy. So it is a challenge with the legal system that we have and I am a strong advocate for. We need to just decriminalize all drugs. And I know that sounds radical as something that Hillary Argrow, whom I mentioned earlier, she’s a big advocate for as well. And the reason for that is when we criminalize something, all it does is create harm and secrecy. So if we are the reason that we have all of this fentanyl out there is really because if people were just using heroin, we would have less overdoses. So but they don’t. Heroin is illegal. Fentanyl is much easier to transport, easy to sell. And we can even go back and look at the era of prohibition. It wasn’t so. People prohibited booze. And what did that result in a bunch of moonshine that was really harmful to people. And so if we just decriminalize drugs and openly talk about that, we can have safe conversations about that in terms of what are the safe practices, how can I assure that the product that I’m getting is exactly what I ordered or what I’m what I want to take, What do I want to ingest? But when we are so secretive about it and criminalizing it, people can’t have a safe or I shouldn’t say they can’t have a safe experience, but that safe experience is challenged quite a bit.
Speaker1: Right. And even just getting safe information. Yeah, right. You know what is real and is the person that’s telling me I’m going to feel this way and I should do it this way? Is their lived experience similar to mine? Am I going to get the same outcome because we’re going in with the same mindset, right? Like there’s just such a need for people who can benefit from one another because they do have shared life experience to find one another and to be able to talk about these things freely. But I think that’s right. That’s where the concern for legalities comes in. Yeah, we started I mention we started hosting these events in Seattle and this Tuesday was the second one. We had one two weeks before that. And I don’t know, I guess I thought that there were people meeting up all the time doing this underground. There apparently know that people are really, really searching for groups where they can openly discuss this and get more information and also just find like minded people so that they feel like they’re on the right path for themselves and that they’ve got support in that. So yeah, I think that decriminalizing this, that people just feel like they can even talk about it without concern, right?
Speaker2: All the hush hush. And I think that’s such a valuable part of the experience is that discussion afterwards with like minded people who’ve maybe gone through a journey, had some similar experiences, understand the constructs of what went on, you know, because when you start describing your own journey, which I do in chapter one of the book, you know, it’s what I’ve been talking about, that experience just in general circles with people who’ve not tried psilocybin. I feel like I sound extremely woo woo and there’s nothing against woo woo, but I’m very like scientific. And so people look at me like, But your science, Jen, is what one of my friends calls science. Jen Right. And so do I sound insane when I’m talking about these things that happened during my journey. And so when you can share that with someone else who’s also gone on a journey, even though their trip is completely different, they understand that wow factor, those mystical experiences that you’ve had and they can help you navigate that.
Speaker1: Okay, This brings me into a part of your book that I think is really important, which is there’s research with cancer patients, and after six months, 80% of them still had significantly increased lifestyle outcomes. And again, we can get into all the specifics of the data, but what you point out is that the larger doses and the mystical experiences that were invoked by those are credited with having impact on those long lasting positive experiences. Because I feel like it’s microdosing that people are really putting in the bucket of therapeutic and if you do more, you go bigger. This is just for fun. And I think it’s really critical that people understand that when you consume a large amount of psilocybin and you have an experience that’s close to all or is all inducing.
Speaker3: Also can be quite life changing. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Speaker2: And I do think that the I think the trip is a really kind of I mean, it’s not required, but I think that is where a lot of benefit comes from, is doing the journey, the deeper journey. It doesn’t have to be a heroic dose, but maybe just kind of a medium or large dose to have that trip experience in a safe contained way can be highly beneficial because you will get some of those mystical aspects. This idea of what we talk about in terms of ego death, which can sound really scary, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s not like everyone loses their sense of self. It’s more that you can you lose that sense of, Oh, I’m so focused on me that I forget that I’m part of this big, beautiful universe and that can be so mystical and highly beneficial. And that idea of oceanic boundlessness where you feel very much at one with nature or perhaps animals that are around you or creatures that are around you, trees. And again, here I’m sounding all woo, but that feeling is incredibly valuable to understand that you’re not alone in this world. And one of the mystical aspects of my journey was feeling this sense that I was connected by a thread of light to everyone I know and love, who I know, loves and cares for me and supports me back and feeling that sensation was so it was one of the most profound things I have ever experienced. And I’ve carried it with me and talked about it to these friends who I felt this connection to. And they’re like, I feel that too, right now. Talking to you, a really cool thing. Very valuable. I highly recommend it.
Speaker3: So, I.
Speaker1: Mean, the look on your face if people are just listening. Yeah, definitely. It was it’s an experience that obviously was touching. And most people say that psychedelic experiences rank in the top three of their life. Right? So I’m.
