Like Attracts Like Podcast 815: Interview: Ryan Sprague // Conscious Cannabis Collective

 On today's episode, I am sitting down with Ryan Sprague from Highly Optimized. Ryan is a highly effective cannabis coach that helps people break dependency & create a healthy relationship with cannabis. He shares his powerful story from being dependent on cannabis, to uncovering the root of his pain and finding freedom. He now helps others transform their relationship with cannabis and use it as a conscious tool for expansion and self realization.

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Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/therealryansprague/

Check out Highly Optimized Website | https://www.highlyoptimized.me/

Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/highly.optimized/

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/Highly.Optimized 

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TRANSCRIPTION

Episode 815: Interview: Ryan Sprague // Conscious Cannabis Collective

By Pat Mahan

00:00:06:12 - 00:00:29:18
And we're going to talk about so many amazing things today. As many of you know, I normally just kind of do a monologue, not a dialog. So to have the honor to be here with Ryan is special for me, and I hope that it's special for everyone listening. I'm sure, because I talked with this beautiful human before that we're going to have a tremendous conversation on a bunch of topics.

00:00:29:18 - 00:00:50:16
But if you can, Ryan, kind of introduce yourself to everyone and let them know a little bit about what you're about. And yeah, perfect, dude. Pat, first of all, thank you so much for having me here. For everyone listening, thank you so much for tuning in. There are endless things that could be taking your attention. So the fact you're here with us is fantastic and I'm super grateful for it.

00:00:51:07 - 00:01:15:01
So my name is Ryan Sprague. I'm the cannabis coach, so my whole story is based on my own struggles with dependency and then finding the true magic of cannabis, the magic that is not in how much THC is in flour, not in how fucked up you can get. But in the beautiful ancient history of how this plant has been connecting with human beings and co-evolved with us for over 10,000 years.

00:01:15:01 - 00:01:36:07
And this might be a shock to a lot of people. But for more info on that, you can dive into Chris Bennett's work. He's an amazing cannabis historian and he really tracks cannabis back 10,000 years. And so it's absolutely amazing. And, you know, for me, a big part of my journey was, you know, getting into cannabis to help with my generalized anxiety disorder when I was 16.

00:01:36:07 - 00:01:55:01
And, you know, I had tried pharmaceuticals and at this point I was just saying no to any sort of drug, alcohol, etc.. And, you know, it came as a last ditch effort to help with this anxiety I was facing. And so at that point, I didn't really have much to lose. It was either live my entire life, you know, because when you're 16, you think this is all life is going to be.

00:01:55:12 - 00:02:15:08
So it was either continue living with this or try anything and everything that might help. And so at the recommendation of a friend, I found cannabis and to my surprise, it worked. And how I would describe it today is that I felt more connected to myself and I thought, Wow, this is amazing. But like most 16 year olds, I didn't understand about structure.

00:02:15:08 - 00:02:35:17
I didn't understand about, you know, discipline with the plant and things like that. So very quickly I fell into dependency. Right. And, you know, again, this was great in a way, because I was able to go to school and live my life and not be struggling with anxiety so much. But where is the line? You know, and I think a lot of people come to that as they start to get older.

00:02:35:17 - 00:02:58:18
You know, this is something they found that gave them some type of, you know, feeling that they enjoyed. But now they're finding it just gets its way into every aspect of our lives. And what I want to be clear on is that it wasn't cannabis doing any of this. To me, it was my own patterns, my own lack of emotional awareness, etc. And so when I got into school for psychology, I ended up realizing that I didn't want to wear khakis the rest of my life.

00:02:58:24 - 00:03:22:18
And so I was really enjoying cannabis. And this is around 2011 when, you know, talk of legalization was happening. And so I found this cannabis institute near my house, and it was just one of the first times pad that I felt a fuck. Yes from my heart. So I went there and I started learning everything about the science, the pharmacological aspects, the history of the plant, learning all about organic, regenerative agriculture, Korean natural farming.

00:03:22:23 - 00:03:43:17
It's also when I got into holistic health exercise, eating organic, everything. And so from there, my father and I really bonded over this because he was just a say no guy right when I was growing up. And when he saw how much cannabis helped me, he had no cognitive dissonance and hopped on board. And it was a beautiful pairing of me and him getting to share this experience together.

00:03:43:23 - 00:04:02:21
And he wasn't a cannabis user. He just was really interested in something that was helping me. And so we ended up going to the school together. He, you know, he really wanted to come see what it was all about. And in 2014, after I had been at the school for quite a while, I had helped numerous cancer patients cure their own cancer with the help of cannabis.

00:04:02:21 - 00:04:20:13
And I say with the help of it, because my intention here is not to tell anyone that cannabis is a panacea, that you can go live a terrible quality life and cannabis will just fix any of your how it works, right? But there are actual PubMed studies now showing that THC kills cancer cells and things like that. So the information's more out there.

00:04:20:13 - 00:04:41:17
Now at that point, Dana Farber here in Boston was shocked at these people coming in that took on holistic methods, cannabis and were carrying their own cancer. So in 2014, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and so I had the opportunity to bring him through the end of his life with cannabis. And so during that time, of course, he started using cannabis.

00:04:41:17 - 00:05:04:21
He wasn't going to take treatment and he started experiencing pain. And so I was administering RCO a.k.a Rick Simpson Oil. Rick Simpson is the gentleman that brought this form of cannabis into the mainstream. It's more professional. Name is Pico, full extract cannabis oil. And there's actually Chris Bennett has a whole section on how Jesus is anointing oil. He has a lot of evidence to suggest it was a primitive form of this pico.

00:05:05:04 - 00:05:21:16
And so getting to have extra time of my father, you know, ten extra months passed where his termination date was given. And during that time, getting to watch him, you know, connect so much to his life in ways that I had never seen before in him. And I connect in ways that I had never had with him before.

00:05:21:21 - 00:05:43:21
And we were always very close. So during that time, I realized, Whoa, there is a power here that is not being talked about anywhere. And so after he passed, I ended up dedicating my life to spreading the good word of this medicine and also making sure people understood not to blame the plant for their own shortcomings. So I worked at a dispensary for over five years with over 5000 medical patients.

00:05:44:12 - 00:06:01:19
I've helped numerous people set up their home, grows and get to cultivating their own medicine organically, taking on holistic health methods and everything like that. And so in 2019, I ended up leaving the dispensary and starting what is now how we optimized and we can get into any part of this journey is a side quest within all of this.

00:06:01:19 - 00:06:21:09
But since then I've created the Conscious Cannabis Collective, which is launching our full new program at the end of June. And so we have the fall program on Contract with Cannabis to become a cannabis coach, grow with cannabis and 12 months of mentorship as well. So super fun stuff, man. Wow, what a what? I mean, what a what a journey.

00:06:21:09 - 00:06:42:10
Really just in general to go from like only I only say this because I have like a similar thing where I was a it wasn't a just say no. I was literally just a not interested for the longest period of my life. So like my journey with substances and things like that, it has been interesting. I can't say that word enough because my father was a cop, right?

00:06:42:15 - 00:07:06:21
So. So there is if you want to talk about learning what projected beliefs are and society standards and like the right and wrong of things or whatever, and like wanting to be accepted but wanting to rebel also like I had, I had it all growing up. So I didn't really do anything. And until I was roughly 30 when I was 30, I broke my leg.

00:07:06:21 - 00:07:29:14
Right. So this was at the height of you and I have talked before like the ego pursuit of happiness and, you know, trying to solve problems with achievement and, you know, and acceptance and accolades. So like, that was like a huge part of this for me was like trying to when you're talking about dependency, it's just interesting because there isn't a thing that one is necessarily dependent on, right?

00:07:29:14 - 00:07:55:19
Like, so you can't blame anything. You can only blame a human's belief as to why they might need the thing they chose to be dependent on. Right? So like for me it was like I didn't need any substances at that point because I was getting my fix from, you know, how much money I was making or what different levels of, you know, at work, you know, did I get a promotion and what, what human was I with, you know, in a relationship or car?

00:07:55:19 - 00:08:17:06
Did I drive like I was just on this, the hamster wheel? And so I said to myself, like the height of my achievement was Everest motorcycles for or I'd say like semiprofessional Everest motocross. And at the height of like ego, everything. I mean, I had everything and I broke my leg, right? I had just won this huge championship.

00:08:17:11 - 00:08:37:06
And I talk about it on the show a lot because it was like supposed to be the best day of my life. And it turned out to be is as many others had, like just empty, just it didn't it didn't do it again. And it was like that was the thing I put everything on to do it. And so I break my leg and I have to go, got surgery and all this stuff never taken anything in my life.

00:08:37:22 - 00:08:57:12
And they put me on painkillers, right? So like, that was the beginning of what what became an eight year I say journey with my like, I didn't even know where they came from. But my belief systems that, like, I never had touched at anything in my life and now all of a sudden I can't go a day without taking this thing.

00:08:57:12 - 00:09:12:05
Right. And it did seem to help me in the beginning. And then I started doing it when I didn't need it. And then it became this other thing and it led to and I'm grateful because it led to so many other things, cannabis being one of them. And my and I had a, you know, a wonderful journey with that as well.

00:09:12:05 - 00:09:35:05
But similarly, like, it's just so funny how the the belief shifts and then there's something that can help and there's so many people that probably aren't taking advantage of something like this because like me, they may have been brought up in this scenario where the projected beliefs or, you know, the the filter that is, you know, kind of covering this topic or that, That's what I really also wanted to have.

00:09:35:05 - 00:09:57:15
You want the filter that is kind of covering this topic is, I believe, at least at certain points in the journey preventing humans who could at least nothing else initially or progressively benefit from something that can help. It's preventing them from accessing that or the information that would lead to them using it, because the information that they have received has been tainted.

00:09:57:22 - 00:10:16:08
You know, they're not getting what you would call accurate information for however many years. It's illegal. You're locked up, thrown away all of these people that are, you know, in prison and in jail for like using all the and now it's okay. And like, reality just has completely shifted. Now, everyone that you guys know, it's okay now. We didn't I know it's wild.

00:10:16:08 - 00:10:39:11
Sorry for all the time you spent here, but, like, it's completely legal now. You're good, you're completely redeemed. So now, like, all of the people that are thinking about, like, Wait, so what? What do I think about this now? I grew up, like, thinking all of these things and now it's okay and you're saying there's health benefits and that there's this might be something I should pursue for my anxiety when before you threw me in my room and put me in jail.

00:10:40:00 - 00:11:09:02
Well, like, again, we all know we're humans and reality in general has no wired in meaning, right? Yes. Can't we apply any of the meanings that that there might that there might be? And I think that's for a really good reason. But it comes to highlight something like this that has been again, it has been projected upon with one meaning and there are still many people in the collective that have this understanding and they're preventing themselves from what what the benefits of this possible solution could be.

00:11:09:08 - 00:11:28:22
And then the other part is that the people who have kind of known that, hey, if if we are the universe and the earth and we're also still on the earth and the Earth has provided something that it appears is can give us a benefit, why are we not like why didn't why are we looking into this? It's not a separate thing from us, you know what I mean?

00:11:28:22 - 00:11:48:01
It's all that how you use everything? It's all. And some of the worst substances that people can say, These are the worst. I've had the best experiences from in my life. Now I don't do them anymore. I don't do those anymore because I've learned what I need to learn. But they were some of the best and worst experiences in my life that allowed me the perspective to decide what I wanted to do.

00:11:48:13 - 00:12:05:16
So like, it's just how were you kind of navigating that with this that I know it's doing very, very well and I'm so happy for you and everyone who's benefiting. But how are you finding that, like the belief systems of people who might be resistant to what it is that you're putting out? Yeah, this is a great question.

00:12:05:16 - 00:12:24:09
So, you know, what I tell everyone is this right? You can choose to believe whatever you want about any area of life, right? No one needs to agree with me. All I ask is that the beliefs that you believe are yours. All right? So are you sure that what you believe about cannabis, about health, about insert belief here is yours?

00:12:24:09 - 00:12:45:07
And it wasn't influenced by the people around you because this is one of the biggest thirst traps. Pat Wright of today's age, right? Is that because we're in such an intellectually dominant society and we've all been going to school since we were six, we believe because we read things in books and heard them from other people that we quote unquote know things, right?

00:12:45:12 - 00:13:07:22
When in reality, the only way to truly know something, if that's even possible, because we do not live in an objective reality whatsoever. We live in a very subjective reality. The only way to truly know something is to experience it firsthand yourself, and then choose discernment on what you choose to believe. Right. And so for me, right, like there was a long time when I was growing up that I took influence from the people around me.

00:13:08:01 - 00:13:35:09
And it was through experiencing. And they own my own pain point that I was going through anxiety where I realized and of course I didn't have this language as a 16 year old. But what I realized was, you know, like I realized that, oh, this plant is not objectively bad, right? And then the more I connected with it, of course, I didn't have the structure, the discipline, the consistency with making sure that I wasn't falling into dependency, but I started realizing, wow, this plant can actually help with a lot, you know?

00:13:35:09 - 00:13:54:19
But what I was lacking, like I said, was the structure, the discipline, etc.. And so now when I'm teaching people how to connect with this plant in a healthy way, I'm teaching them first and foremost, right? Like, what I love about this is that, yes, I'm teaching them all about cannabis. They're learning the science, they're learning how to connect with the ceremonial, they're learning how to integrate, but in a big way.

00:13:54:23 - 00:14:18:13
Unknown
It's actually not about cannabis at all because let's say someone has dependance with cannabis like I did, right? Well, I might end up believing that my problem is cannabis dependency, but it's actually the solution. And what I mean by that is it's the solution. I used to get through whatever actual problem I was dealing with. Now it wasn't an actual solution in the sense that I had to keep using it to keep that problem at bay.

00:14:18:13 - 00:14:37:21
Right. But the real problem is whatever trauma we've gone through that either consciously or unconsciously, usually unconsciously, we're running from and we're numbing out because we're too busy to handle it right. And in reality, it can be scary to have a space in your life and actually think about like, why do I feel like I need this thing right?

00:14:37:21 - 00:15:01:19
Whether it be coffee, cannabis, nicotine, alcohol, pornography, terrible food, whatever it is, right? Even things that are quote unquote, healthy like exercise. Right. Because when I first got into connecting with cannabis in a conscious way, I started being, you know, becoming addicted to other stuff and telling myself that it was okay. Right? So I flipped the script and switched the addiction to exercise or even healthy eating.

00:15:02:00 - 00:15:23:01
But again, that wasn't really dealing with the actual root causes, right? And so what I deal with with the people I work with is primarily based on, hey, yes, we have this thing right. We're going to learn all about it, don't worry. But let's talk about the root cause. Because if we can pull that root right, and I want you to think about a garden here, we can pull weeds at the root instead of just cutting them, They will not grow back.

00:15:23:01 - 00:15:40:02
And we will now have a space to choose what we want to plant in that garden. And that is one I truly believe we can become what adults are supposed to be, right? Which is, Hey, I'm taking accountability for every aspect of my life. No matter what happened in the past, I'm not going to blame anyone because those events happened.

00:15:40:02 - 00:16:06:17
And yeah, I would have rather they maybe didn't happen, but they did. And so I'm going to choose to live in reality rather than a could or should have woulda because if you don't choose to live in reality, you're going to live a life of suffering. And at the end of the day, if you want to be fit to actually have a legacy, to inspire people, to simply just be the person that can hold the door and have a genuine smile for someone that might change their entire life, you must take accountability for every aspect of your life right?

00:16:06:17 - 00:16:36:07
And choose to believe if you do like I do, that everything happened for you. Not because I can prove it on a scientific study, but because I'm telling you time after time after time, when I meet truly successful people. And I don't mean financially free people, I don't mean people that climb the corporate ladder. Those are attributes that someone that's successful may have, but someone who truly feels successful inside, It's because no matter what has happened to them in their past, they go, Yeah, those things happened, and now here is what I'm doing and here's what I choose to believe about it.

00:16:36:11 - 00:16:53:00
And so I tell everyone, like, you have a choice whether you've been led to believe you do or not, you do have a choice of how you choose to believe about life, what you choose to believe about life, and how you choose to view what has happened to you as either happening to you as a victim. Life happens to me.

00:16:53:04 - 00:17:24:04
Woe is me. All of that sob story. Or we can choose to believe, okay, these otherwise shitty things happened and now I get to choose the story I tell myself each day. And that's what we focus on in all the work we do. It's super fun. I love that. And it's so true because, you know, there's there's a thing where, you know, no matter what you've gone through, there's no matter what you've gone through, You can imagine not better or worse necessarily relative, but like there's someone who's gone through it, right, and an infinite universe and there's someone who's gone through at least something similar to what you are going through.

00:17:24:04 - 00:17:42:02
This is what I how I kind of like worked a lot of this. And there is also someone who's found perspective. What that means to me is that although, yes, there's a scenario that you may have kind of journeyed through, the perspective exists whether you choose to agree that it does or not. That's what I found for myself.

00:17:42:02 - 00:17:59:12
Like like I can choose to say absolutely not this thing, not this time, not this one, not with this set of circumstances or this person, there's no perspective that I can gain. So I went through that and I know what life that creates from that level of limitation or holding on to or resisting to. You were arguing with reality.

00:17:59:12 - 00:18:16:00
I know what reality that creates. And there were certain times where I was like, okay, I would kind of like or interestingly enough or synchronistic, meet someone who has a similar scenario, and I would listen to their point of view and I'm like, Hmm, that's not one that I was willing to accept. Yes, you seem to have accepted it.

00:18:16:00 - 00:18:33:01
Not that it's right or wrong, but there seems to be an acknowledgment and an acceptance. And in that acceptance, you seem to be a bit freer than I am. So I was like, okay, so that that's a perspective that existed and I wasn't either aware or I chose not to. So I started choosing like and it's not easy.

00:18:33:01 - 00:18:46:16
I started like I could feel how tight I was, but I started choosing to like light in things that I, that version of me didn't believe, but I wanted to. I wanted to be free of it right? But sometimes we hold on to what we're saying we want to let go of. So I wanted to be free of it.

00:18:46:16 - 00:19:05:18
And then like I would shift what I was like, Wow, I actually do feel better once you get past the imposter syndrome and feeling like you're tricking yourself, you realize that it is an equally valid perspective to have and that it usually comes along with a lesson of some part of you that you did need to let go of because it was stopping you from being your authentic self like something like that.

00:19:06:04 - 00:19:33:23
And so now you've heard of hindsight being 2020 and it's like, okay, so what does that essentially mean to me after you've gone through it, you can reflect back and be like, Oh, that was working out for me. I see that. So I have gone through personally and again, I only speak for me, I've gone through enough of those scenarios with things that I wildly thought I could not gain a perspective from or resisted, that I ultimately had some kind of clarity where I was like, Oh my God, that to So now I don't question it anymore.

00:19:34:11 - 00:19:54:10
Whatever I'm going through, I still struggle. I still feel I still allow. But like there's no part of me that doesn't believe you know what I mean? There's no part of me that doesn't believe that there's something here if I choose to allow it. And if I don't, that's on me too. But like, that's just so interesting. Like, yes, I believe that even though I can't see it now, there have been multiple times where I wasn't able to see it.

00:19:54:13 - 00:20:28:24
And when I led it in, it existed. We don't know everything there is to know, but as you raise an awareness, you become more aware of what there is to know, and then you can choose to let that in or not. You said something about like working with humans that are doing this right and and choosing to kind of let go of any stigmas or choosing to embrace it and allow it to to allow themselves, you know, through the work that you're doing to access the blocks or the traumas or the beliefs or the experiences that are behind what we'll call this conscious or unconscious behavior of seeking something to give them a solution.

00:20:28:24 - 00:20:57:24
Right? So I instantly thought of like the mushroom experiences that I've had or psilocybin experiences and how when unguided and I and I speak kind of like on both ends of the spectrum, when unguided you can have a human who takes psilocybin or does like a crazy dose of mushrooms at a concert, or does something that has very little insight to higher consciousness, the universal aspect of oneness, love or connectivity, Nothing.

00:20:58:18 - 00:21:37:10
But they had rad time at the concert and they saw a light and they said, You know what I mean? Like, it's it's it's an experience on itself. But then now you're finding that people are doing studies and doing works using the exact same chemical and similar or or the, you know, the same doses, but with the proper, I would say guide with the proper plan, people are having profound experiences where they are able to, through the use of this tool, uncover what those things are and then literally the very act of doing that almost prevents what you would call is an unconscious, codependent or unhealthy relationship with the thing.

00:21:37:10 - 00:22:05:15
Because it's automatically revealed to you that it's not the thing that's doing this. It's not. It's a tool to use, but it's not the thing versus someone else could be doing something or say like, I'm addicted to cannabis. I'm I know you're addicted to the reason you think you're addicted to it. So the guidance that you provide and the guidance that you know, a human has access to through these tools that are given here for us to use or the duration of time that we feel we need to use them until we don't?

00:22:05:15 - 00:22:27:08
Or do. I feel like that is just a very, very powerful experience that's provided. And and I just I think it's very profound, all of this, the idea of the beliefs and the tool and then getting addicted to the tool to confirm the belief and then letting go to expect like it's so just it makes me just hum.

00:22:27:08 - 00:22:47:23
And, you know, it's, it's awesome because, you know, especially cannabis like all psychedelic acts were bastardized for a long time, but none of them got it as bad as cannabis. Like cannabis has been shit on for years, right? LSD got it pretty bad. Yeah, LSD could get bad as well. Right. And so like, No, no, it is. It's so funny you say that though, because, you know, it's like these medicines, right.

00:22:47:23 - 00:23:04:00
That, again, are just literally a medicine, right? There are medicine, there are teacher, there are substance. We can even call them that. Right? Some people call them drugs, whatever. Right. I think that also the name on upon which we call them can change based on our intention. Right. So let's say, for instance, someone does want to go to a concert, right?

00:23:04:07 - 00:23:28:13
Someone does want to, you know, have an experience there. Right. Does that make it objectively bad? No, It's just understand that like, hey, for instance, if you're looking for a connection to source, a connection to yourself, etc., the plants and the medicines can only work within as much space as they have to work with it. And so the more stimulus you have going on, the less likely they're going to actually be able to fit into the very little amount of space you have.

00:23:28:21 - 00:23:48:08
And what I tell everyone is with great power comes great responsibility, right? It's a great escape. Go to be able to go well like that. Our performance song, I was going to go to work. Then I got high. I was going to sky high. Right. But if you're like what I call out and people, if you're doing that with cannabis, you're doing that everywhere in your life, because how you do anything is how you do everything.

00:23:48:13 - 00:24:10:18
And so very similar to how we can learn a lot about life from, let's say, growing a plant. We can learn a lot about ourselves. I would even say everything about ourselves from any one thing in our life, right? How we choose to eat, the pace at which we eat, how we consume cannabis, how much we consume, how we buy it, right, Like how we look at purchasing it.

00:24:10:18 - 00:24:31:03
Like, for instance, when I worked in the dispensary, people would come in, What's your highest percent for the lowest cost, right? Chances are they're doing that with food. Chances are they're doing that with relationships. Chances are they're doing that everywhere because they've been taught to believe that there's a certain value in life. And if they can get a lower price point, that equals better.

00:24:31:03 - 00:24:55:02
Right now for me, I actually go the opposite and I've noticed this in myself for many years. When I go to buy almond butter, let's say I look for the most expensive one. I go, okay, Then I go to the back and I look at the ingredients and I see what's in there. And usually I end up buying the most expensive one because I'm aware that typically when something is more expensive, it's going to at least say, Hey, make sure you still look at the ingredients because there's definitely marketing tricks.

00:24:55:02 - 00:25:16:00
But chances are this is more expensive for a particular reason, right? And then I can discern why that reason is right. So I'll suffice to say that we can learn a lot about how we operate in lives in our cells from anything in our life, Right? How we do anything is how we do everything. Every microcosm is an example and a, you know, really metaphor for the macrocosm, right?

00:25:16:04 - 00:25:34:16
And so it's very similar to how, like, you know, if you are yelling at your significant other well, it's probably not that you're just a bad boyfriend or husband or an abusive boyfriend or husband. You're probably doing that with your friends. Maybe your friends do that to you yourself, how you grew up. Yeah, exactly. Maybe that's how you grew up with parents that did that.

00:25:34:21 - 00:25:52:19
So again, it's like everything is information. And what I tell people is the second you choose to start believing that everything in your life is your responsibility to deal with, this is when you can start opening this up. And yeah, like you said, it's definitely not easy, but it can be simple. And there's a dichotomy between simplicity and being easy.

00:25:53:00 - 00:26:13:15
You know, like I think a lot of us, myself included, right? I've wanted life to be easy, but in doing so, I've actually made life a lot harder than it needed to be because let's face it, right? Like to go on my own story. My anxiety was stemming from like obviously was multifaceted, but one of the main things was, is this all there is in life?

00:26:13:15 - 00:26:41:17
Like I was getting to be 16 and realizing like, I'm just going to go to school and then get married and buy a house and just get old. And I'm 65. If I'm lucky, I'll retire like I was having like a, I don't know, a quarter life crisis, a midlife crisis, nihilistic or the myth that's this office the person that the boulder up the hill to watch it fall back down to it like what's the point exactly And so what cannabis allowed me to experience in that first time, trying it was that there was more what what that more was, I didn't know.

00:26:41:17 - 00:26:57:14
And in that moment I realized that I actually it was the mystery in life that was truly attractive to me. It was that everything had been planned out for me, right? Like by society, like this is what you do, This is how you get happy. Make sure you buy a new car every two years so you can keep up with the Joneses.

00:26:57:14 - 00:27:13:10
It was actually much less about the things that are laid out for me and much more about the fact that things had been laid out right. And so what I always tell people is, let's say you're going on a first date. What is more attractive and what is more exciting going on a first date with someone you really like, but you don't know where it's going to end up.

00:27:13:10 - 00:27:28:13
You have all these imaginations, or if that person says, Hey, Pat, I really like you. And so we're going to go on one date and then we're going to plant a second one by the third date. I'm going to ask you to go official on Facebook with me. So it's Facebook official. Then from there, we're going to go on ten more dates.

00:27:28:23 - 00:27:43:00
We're going to switch off whose house we go to. Then we're going to talk about moving in together. We're going to then find a house in this town. We're going to buy that. And then from there, we're going to start talking about children, right. Like I'm already getting tense from. All right. You're like, Yeah, You're like, What the fuck?

00:27:43:00 - 00:27:57:17
Even if you truly love this person, you're like, I could totally see that it's not nearly as fun and everything's laid out. And so I think what psychedelics and I do classify cannabis as a psychedelic. I think one of the biggest lessons they have to teach us and again, there's quite a few of these big lessons we can get in them.

00:27:57:17 - 00:28:14:21
But one of the first ones that taught me anyway was that you're never actually going to know anything about life, right? Like there is no objectivity here. Again, I didn't have this language when I experienced it. All I knew was, Whoa, life can be whatever I want it to be. And then from that point forward, I began questioning everything, right?

00:28:15:00 - 00:28:29:24
I being in questioning like, do I need to go to college? Is that really what I want to do? Are the people that I hang out with truly my friends like? And it wasn't because I didn't I wanted to, you know, catapult my life away. It was like, have I thought about these things? You know, have I thought about like, you know, who I spend my time with?

00:28:29:24 - 00:28:46:06
Have I thought about I'm a good friend? Have I thought about, you know, if I'm living in alignment with my life and during that time, what I realized was that, holy shit, no wonder I'm having anxiety and experiencing this because there was a lot that I hadn't thought of, and there was a lot that I realized like, fuck, am I being a good friend?

00:28:46:06 - 00:29:03:06
Am I truly in love with this idea of going to college and spending $100,000? You know? And those things, again, are not easy to face, but if you choose to just accept them and go, okay, let me just honestly tell myself the truth. They can be simple. And that's why I have that dichotomy between simple and easy. Yeah.

00:29:03:18 - 00:29:31:11
So listen, so what you just said was like, because so well, here, because I'm all about like, again, if there's no, you know, no objectivity, meaning that again, there's no wired in preprogramed meaning to anything. And that's a benefit. There was a part of my life where I struggled with that because I was so used to other people telling me what meant something and then trying to get the things that they said was valuable so that they would see me as valuable with it.

00:29:31:15 - 00:29:50:03
Yeah. So like, so once I once I like had similar experiences with it, with all of these different substances, it does something and it causes us to, like you said, ask questions. Right? So I started asking myself similar questions that you were kind of like articulating earlier like this and why is that and what am I and why do I wonder?

00:29:50:08 - 00:30:14:20
And like, that was what? So reality. I'm rebuilding a reality because I don't like a lot of the things about me, right? That's what most of us are like. We're pushing the shadows of the things that we don't think people accept us for a lot of a lot of what anxiety and stress is and the uncertainty outside of like traumatic experiences that happen to air quotes to us is like pushing the parts of our self down that we don't feel are valuable.

00:30:14:24 - 00:30:41:04
And then for me, I speak. I went out and tried to get that value in the world and put up the, you know, the illusion of like if I do this and have this will you guys let me into the party, right. Like, do you guys, you guys love me? And, and then I started. So like, anytime anyone would, like, turn their back on me or not accept me, I would value what they thought of me more than what I did because I chose to keep me down in the closet in the basement and perform.

00:30:41:04 - 00:30:57:21
So I would blame everyone for for saying like, I'm like, it's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault that I am this. It's your fault. But the truth is that I turned my back on me. We turn our back on ourselves when we try to act like something we're not to impress other people. So that's part of, like, building this thing that I built, right?

00:30:57:21 - 00:31:17:22

And that's not from the energy of who you are. You don't know who you are. You're putting away who you are, and you're creating an illusion when that started to fall apart. Because it does. Yeah, I started to I started to experiment with these substances. Why? Because I was looking for something. I was asking questions and looking for some clarity.

00:31:18:04 - 00:31:41:06
So my, my experiences with cannabis were like, so profound, really incredible for me because I am a self-proclaimed question asker and for the longest time I was scared of the answers, and that's why I kept living in loops. But once I started, once my reality became to suffer based that I was like, okay, I, I don't want to live this way anymore.

00:31:41:06 - 00:32:01:10
It's too much. So therefore I'm ready to look at the answers to the questions I've been asking but have been blocking because it can't be worse than this. So I started to like let the answers come up so the more I would, I would kind of experiment or do what I would call meditative or ceremonial. I have experiences with cannabis, started asking all these questions, right?

00:32:02:06 - 00:32:19:16
So they're all kind of like, Am I like you said, am I good person? Am I doing this the way that I would want to do this? Whose belief is this? Where did I get this from? So it starts to disrupt your regular patterns, right? The regular pathways and patterns of your brain and your unconscious line of thinking.

00:32:19:16 - 00:32:40:01
That's just triggering unconsciously on autopilot. And the reason this is all stemming from is because you're saying like, do I want to go to college? That was the statement that started this. Do I want to go to college now? I'm imagining, depending on what part of what camp you're in or what what programing you've been projected with as someone who might be listening to this.

00:32:40:01 - 00:33:01:03
Right. I'm imagining some parents hearing. Well, there you go. There it is. You've I've been listening this far, but now he said it. So here's a child, a good human child in the world who is on the path to success, you know, and was considering going to college. And then he gets a hold of this substance and starts smoking.

00:33:01:03 - 00:33:28:04
And like so many children, I see who question their path and going and getting a job for a corporation or going to college. Here's the young man whose questioning whether he should go to college. And I'm like, Whose dream was it for him to go to college? Exactly. So the idea that these substances allowed the breaking of the previously conditioned patterns to get you into a place where you for yourself, as you already said very eloquently in the beginning, is you just you don't care what the truth is.

00:33:28:04 - 00:33:45:23
You just want it to be that person's truth. Exactly. So now you're like one of the questions you shouldn't be scared to ask is, Why do I want to do this? And if you don't know the answer, because you're like, like, why do you want to go to college? Because I really, really, really enjoyed this. And they have the best program there.

00:33:45:23 - 00:34:05:05
And oh my God, the professors are amazing. And I just know that this is the way that if you don't have that, then why are you going? Because someone said that you should go. Society says that you should go because that's the old paradigm. Well, the old paradigm is also that this shit was illegal and that if you had any of it all, you got locked up in prison for years.

00:34:05:12 - 00:34:36:21
And now that paradigm is shifted and it's okay. So like, if you're not questioning everything, then what are you doing? So, so the fact that like some people might be triggered by that and be like, See, that's it, that's irresponsible. He doesn't want to go. But that wasn't maybe the path, or at least if you can analyze it and question it enough and then come to a conclusion, it's like, now I do want to go like now you know you want to go, but until you do that, that question is lingering and will cause you anxiety.

00:34:36:21 - 00:35:07:05
Yeah, there's a popular popular thing. I just love it. It says the unexamined life is not worth living. And and I can't I can't get away from it because, you know, you can listen to that and just be like, oh, that sounds, you know, very. It's terrible. It's not worth living as I listen to what it's saying. If you're not analyzing or asking these questions or using tools that can help you break those patterns to at least initially get you into that frequency of consciousness of yourself, What are you doing?

00:35:07:12 - 00:35:30:11
You're not actually living. You're a program that's running, you're being lived. You're being lived. Right? But not in like the kind of high conscious, spiritual being lived like ego quickly let go of control, like you're being lived by a program and you're unconscious to the program. So you think it's life and and I just that hit me so powerfully because, again, how someone can perceive what you said.

00:35:30:11 - 00:35:55:20
And I'm like, it's brilliant. I think it's absolutely brilliant. And anyone who is in that place where they're like questioning certain things, it doesn't mean you question it and you rebel against it because it's wrong. It just means find out for yourself if it's right for you. The reason I think like the thing we're all questioning that cannabis and these other substances have the potential to allow you to to kind of reveal to you is the ultimate question, which is who?

00:35:56:02 - 00:36:19:10
Who am I? Why am I here? No one knows. No one's ever known. Literally. Wait, hold on. Let me wake up from this dream. No one's ever known why we were here or how we got here. No, no one. So I have just as good of a shot as figuring out as anyone else. Technically, yes. The most brilliant minds ever have never figured it out.

00:36:19:10 - 00:36:42:13
It's like, okay, wait. So if I were to figure it out for me, like, if I. If, if the universe as me bestowed upon me the knowledge and the answer, and then I went to tell everyone else, did they have to buy it? No. No, they don't. So even knowing technically is not fully true. That's right. So you it's just you.

00:36:42:13 - 00:37:01:14
It's just you to you. It's a reflection of you. What do you believe in? Who are you? And if you're not questioning that at every turn, then you're going to be put into scenarios where you're either really resistant and intense and and blocking the flow of life that you are, or you're going to be asking questions about how to release that.

00:37:02:05 - 00:37:19:04
And I was saying college thing because that just set me off. Oh, sorry, dude. I mean, this is this is the stuff I love talking on more than anything. I tell everyone like, don't listen to me either, right? Like I say that I take take everything I say and test it in yourself, right? Like you can take what I say and be like, Huh?

00:37:19:05 - 00:37:35:24
That's curious. Now let me go see if I believe that for me. Right. Because I would be such a hypocrite if I came on here and said all this stuff and then was like, But you got to believe me that I'm different, right? I'm the one that knows. Yeah, exactly. But I don't know. And I that I don't know, you know, And again, that doesn't make me better or worse than anyone.

00:37:35:24 - 00:38:03:09
It just makes me always aware that like the most important thing, I think for every single person is that they live their own truth because it's less about convincing someone else that your truth is the only way that actually shows you don't fully believe it. But the most important thing is that, you know, what's really attractive out in the world is when you can see someone fully living their version of truth and they're not trying to push it on you.

00:38:03:09 - 00:38:18:24
Right. Right. Because at the end of the day, like when people are like, Wow, man, you just seem so joyous. Like, what do you do? You know, instead of saying, well, you got to do all these things, I go, I don't know. What do you want to do in life? Right? Like, that's where all this starts, you know, because that's how you truly become what I call unforgivable, Right.

00:38:18:24 - 00:38:36:23
Like that when, you know, you look at people like Andrew Tate, right? He's like a perfect example because he's so triggering in the world. Right? I'm not a fan, nor am I not a fan. I'm just I just see people that are doing this right, that dude could never say the things he says if he didn't fully believe what he was saying.

00:38:37:04 - 00:38:51:08
Now, the thing that triggers the fuck out of people is they all of a sudden think he's saying that they have to believe what he says, but he's not saying that in anywhere. He's not saying this is right for everyone. He's saying, I don't give a fuck what you believe. This is what I believe and it's triggering the fuck out of people.

00:38:51:08 - 00:39:14:23
And that's like a gigantic red pill to swallow for a lot of people. And again, I bring him up because he's such a triggering person in the world. But this happens in a microcosm. I'm way in in anyone who is truly living their truth, Right? Paul Chick, for instance, everyone fucking despised Paul in the eighties when he was coming out with bosu balls and all these things when bodybuilding was big, he was like, Hey guys, Yeah, you probably shouldn't do steroids and do these things right.

00:39:15:05 - 00:39:32:06
But at the same time he was like, Well, this is what I'm going to do now. Everyone is like, Hey, Paul, what was that thing in the Bosu while you were doing? Because they figure it out throughout the years, like, Oh wow, actually doing steroids and doing individual body parts didn't really lead to anything that positive, right? People were killing themselves on steroids and all these kind of things.

00:39:32:06 - 00:39:48:03
Right. So again, just a microcosm example of it. But, you know, I think when it comes to cannabis, the way in which I give people some practical advice from to take from this episode and try on their own because again, you don't want to just believe what I say, right? You want to take it and see if it holds up in your own court of law.

00:39:48:03 - 00:40:10:14
But this is how I've viewed cannabis and the way in which it works, right? So I give everyone this three ways to understand the way in which cannabis works, right? The first way is that it's feminine medicine, right? So we've heard this in many different indigenous cultures that cannabis is very feminine, right? That's why when you connect with it, it's so easy to sit on the couch and do nothing because what is the feminine versus the masculine?

00:40:10:14 - 00:40:35:16
Feminine is ability to create and have a space and think, but it's not action. And so if people understand this, they'll be able to understand why they might have this lazy stoner stereotype in their mind that people that connect with cannabis is not the fault of cannabis. No, that's the fault of the individual because he or she that connected with it did not provide a masculine component of intention before they connected with it.

00:40:35:16 - 00:40:54:23
And they also didn't provide discipline in themselves to go, Hey, if I have shit to do, I'm going to connect with this cannabis. And that's what I'm choosing to do with my action, right? And then I'm going to go get my shit done right. And so if you understand it's feminine versus like caffeine, for instance, like usually people don't drink two cups of coffee and sit down for 8 hours and just stare at the wall, right?

00:40:55:04 - 00:41:17:20
Because again, caffeine is much more masculine. It's much more like, let's get shit done right. But again, that's not the fault of cannabis. That's the first way. Understand, it's feminine medicine. The second way. And this is something that is pretty much objective for all plant medicines in different ways is that it is a mirror. And so when people say cannabis makes me anxious, cannabis makes me paranoid, That's again a huge externalization of power, right?

00:41:17:24 - 00:41:50:11
If you believe this thing objectively has power over you, that is not a power couple dynamic that is now a disempowering relationship. And so if you choose to believe right, that if anxiety comes forth in your experience that cannabis was just wiping your windshield clean, right. In a metaphorical sense or in a scientific sense bringing you from beta brainwaves into the alpha and theta, which is the doorway to your subconscious, aka your body, and now you're experiencing what was already there without the things that normally, quote unquote, protect you from those undesirable feelings.

00:41:50:11 - 00:42:06:04
And all you know is you just want to cope with things all day because you just feel this uneasy feeling. Now you have the opportunity to actually feel those things in order to heal them. Right. Again, simple, not easy. Right. The third way is that it is imagination, medicine, and personally, this is my favorite way to think about cannabis.

00:42:06:11 - 00:42:26:12
So if we think about the world at large, what is lacking more than almost anything imagination. Because in order to really imagine, you need space in your life. And what is the number one thing people say when you say, Hey, how are you doing? Oh, I'm so busy, right? I'm I'm just so busy all the time as if it's some badge of honor when in reality we didn't come here to work a job, pay taxes and die.

00:42:26:12 - 00:42:45:00
Right. So if we think that's what we're here for, we're going to have a really rude awakening when our life flashes before our eyes. Right? So in order to create a whole new experience of life, right. In order to have anything in life at first has to be imagine this microphone was an idea before it was actually manifested in a 3D.

00:42:45:00 - 00:43:07:06
Right? This can right here was in someone's imagination before it became an actual product. Right? And so in order to imagine a new life for yourself, you have to first be able to imagine it right. And so from imagination, we can then look at our belief systems, right, and what we think we know about life. And from that we can actually start asking ourselves why do I believe that about life?

00:43:07:06 - 00:43:23:07
And what then do I want to believe about life? A.K.A pulling the root and planting what we want to be there. And from that we set ourselves up to be able to actually create a new experience of life. Now it's not like you connect with cannabis even intentionally with ceremony and everything and you magically have a new life.

00:43:23:07 - 00:43:43:19
It still takes you figuring out the other side of what I always say is cannabis plant medicines. They can give you the what, right? But it's up to you to figure out the how and when. I figured out that when I had that downloaded to me, I realized that, Oh my God, we talk about and how we optimize my business, the highly optimized way, which is our four step process for connecting with the plant.

00:43:43:23 - 00:44:05:09
And then I realized, Oh my God, the highly optimized way, it's the how. And I didn't plan that. And that was like one of those 20 separate entities, right? That again, just tells me I'm getting warmer to something that's for me. And whether it applies to anyone else, I don't really care. Right. So our four step process for connecting with a plant consciously, if someone's like, All right, I'm picking up what you're putting down here and I'll go try this out and see if it applies to me.

00:44:05:22 - 00:44:22:09
The first thing you want to do is you do not want to be a daily user of cannabis right now. I'm not saying that it's objectively bad to do that. There are definitely reasons, right? If you're dealing with medical issues, if you're in cancer treatment, even if like, for instance, you're in a creative spurt, right? You might have a week, a month, whatever.

00:44:22:10 - 00:44:41:12
This is everyone's choice to make for themselves. My my point here is not to tell anyone what's right or wrong, but if you want to have a consistent conscious relationship with the plant, you want to be able to take breaks in the plant. Otherwise you're in a codependent relationship, right? It's the same way that if you want to have really good sex with your partner, you probably don't want to be like, Can you make me food?

00:44:41:15 - 00:44:53:08
Can you help me wipe my ass? Can you help me do this? Can you help me do that? Because it's not exactly attractive, right? That partner wants to see that. Like you're a unit. You can live your own life. And and again, you might lean on them like, Hey, I had a rough day. I want to talk, right?

00:44:53:08 - 00:45:11:03
That's. That's not what I'm talking about. But at the same time, with cannabis, if you can take a three day minimum break per week, it's going to preserve the transcendental spiritual properties of the plant said scientifically, it's going to keep your endocannabinoid system flushed and not clogged. Right. And when you do that, it's just going to work much better.

00:45:11:03 - 00:45:29:03
Your endocannabinoid system, the largest regulatory system in your body, it's also the only one that has two way communication between mind and body, right? No other regulatory system in the body does that. So first step, take a three day break per week. Now, when you're connecting with the plant, these next two steps apply. Create an intention, right? Because again, in family medicine we already run out of that.

00:45:29:03 - 00:45:44:24
Created intention could be as simple as I'm looking to experience happiness. The most important thing of this is to surrender how it gets given to you. So you might make an intention to experience happiness and what you might feel. First is that anxiety come up. Maybe the plant showing you what standing in the way of you accessing happiness in your everyday life.

00:45:45:04 - 00:46:03:14
Do you want to feel like you only can connect with cannabis to invoke happiness in your life? No, that's very disempowering, right? So ideally you want to be able to capture lessons from this plant and then go apply them to your sober state of reality. So create an intention. Step two. Step three Create a ceremonial container from which your intention can play out within.

00:46:03:20 - 00:46:23:19
So when we were talking about the concert, right, if you're like, my intention is I want to go have an amazing time at this concert with my friends. Maybe a concert is the right ceremonial context and container for that, right? But if you're looking to figure out a challenge you're moving through, right? If you're looking to experience what the hell anxiety you're feeling, you probably don't want to be at a concert, not because it's objectively wrong.

00:46:23:19 - 00:46:46:14
It's just not the right. It's not the droid you're looking for to put it that way. Right? And so you want to have a ceremonial context that applies to that. Now, when I talk about ceremony, this is a term that's defined a lot differently depending on who you talk to. Now, what I choose to do, and this is just me personally, because I study shamanism is, I use the stage, I use the palace onto I have my bio geometry set up, I create a sacred space, I build a temple space in my room.

00:46:46:19 - 00:47:00:13
I do these things. You can do all that if you want. You don't have to though, right? My intention here is not to make you think. You have to do all the spiritual stuff to make this work, because that wouldn't be practical. And that's one of my other belief systems about cannabis as opposed to other medicines. It's simply more practical, right?

00:47:00:13 - 00:47:22:12
I don't say it's better than other ones, but most people don't have a lot of time or money to go down to the jungle for two weeks and do ayahuasca. Right. Although it can be powerful. Yeah, exactly. And so after you've gone through your ceremony, your final step is integration. And if you're choosing to connect with cannabis and your intention is to have it be a medicine or a teacher or an oracle or a source of divination in your life, integration is not optional.

00:47:22:16 - 00:47:38:12
This is actually where the work begins because you can have a PR experience. Well, I felt connected to myself. I felt connected to the world around me. I got these answers. I had these ideas right. But if you don't actually do the work after to figure out the how and actually integrate that, then you're really just using a substance.

00:47:38:12 - 00:47:53:06
And again, it's not a judgment, it's just a clear distinction. Because if someone here is like, yeah, I've had these experiences, but it hasn't made my life better, well, are you integrating? Because if you're not, you're not fulfilling your end of the bargain of connecting with a medicine or a teacher. You can be having fun on a substance.

00:47:53:06 - 00:48:07:21
That's not my place to say anything. I know for me what I discern now based on having plenty of fun in the past and now realizing holy shit, my whole life can be better if I do it this way. I choose what I know, what I choose to do, you know? But again, my intention here is not to tell anyone what's right or wrong.

00:48:08:00 - 00:48:24:15
Just simply provide my own experience and if it resonates, cool round with it and try it out for yourself. I love that. I love that. So now what would you say your personal if you don't mind sharing, what's your personal relationship with with this process with the cannabis? Because it's one thing to be the teacher and help someone through a process.

00:48:24:23 - 00:48:43:00
But ultimately I think people would be very interested to know what your relationship is with it. Now, as the teacher, you know what I'm saying? Oh dude, 100%. This is a great question. And so for me and again, guys like I want to be 100% clear here, this is not me making rules for anyone, right? This is just me sharing my own experience.

00:48:43:04 - 00:49:04:23
And if it resonates, like I said, cool, try it on for size. Right? So for me, what I found works for me and I'll get into why is no cannabis between Monday through Friday? Why? Because one of my biggest patterns was numbing out my stress with cannabis. Now what is stress it's information, right? That either something is just like a busy week, let's say.

00:49:04:23 - 00:49:20:00
Right? Or it's a disempowering pattern or program. Right. And I'll tell you the one for me it was that to be successful, I had to work hard, right? So I kept redlining myself, overstepping my own boundaries, saying yes, too much, etc., etc. And what I would do at the end of the night was just come out with cannabis.

00:49:20:00 - 00:49:36:03
And what ended up happening was I wasn't actually fixing any of these aspects of my life and I kept needing more and more cannabis to feel comfortable in life. Right? And for me, I don't want to merely survive. I want to thrive. So for me, Monday through Friday is when I'm doing all my stuff. I'm podcasting, I'm coaching, I'm doing all these things.

00:49:36:11 - 00:49:51:14
I want to know how I feel at the end of the day, completely sober so I can go, Yeah, I'm redlining too much. I have to put a boundary up or Hey, actually I feel great. We can keep this going. And so Monday through Friday, no cannabis, Saturday and Sunday, there's the option to connect with the plant. Why?

00:49:51:14 - 00:50:08:20
Because I have the space to actually be able to have the medicine work with me. So what I normally do is Monday through Friday, I, like anyone else, triggers coming up. I get frustrated. I have, you know, you know, bad days, quote unquote challenging days. And so I keep track of all of that in my notebook That's right next to me right now.

00:50:08:20 - 00:50:31:04
I keep track of just little things like, yeah, Wednesday I had three podcasts and I just felt kind of out of my element, right? Things that maybe I don't have an answer for. I just things I noticed. And on Saturday and or Sunday, what I'll do is I'll create an intention or many intentions out of like, Hey, on Wednesday I felt this kind of weird feeling after I'd done three podcasts, please show me, help me and teach me as to what was going on there.

00:50:31:07 - 00:50:56:22
And so I decided to go directly into what I fear most, which is these challenges coming up. And the only reason for that is not because I'm awesome or any of these things, but because I've realized that that's actually how I have my life improve. And so from there I get high ideas. I keep track of those because again, with cannabis being practical, I can like sit up during a ceremony, write a full notebook of stuff, and then go right back in, right, try to get to five grams of mushrooms.

00:50:56:22 - 00:51:17:05
It's just not exactly practical. Right? Again, mushrooms are fantastic. I've had great experiences, but it's just not as practical, right? So then I have this list of ideas, and then on Sunday, what I'll do is in the morning after that first ceremony, I'll then look at my week and I'll say, okay, I've noticed in these ideas that for instance, like I need to not do more than two podcasts per day.

00:51:17:10 - 00:51:31:02
So I'll go through my week and I'll go, Oh, that's the day I have three. Hey, I got to reach out to this person and go, Hey, actually, sorry, I just I only do two podcasts a day now because I just realized that was course forcing me to read by myself and burn myself out. So I make those changes.

00:51:31:06 - 00:51:49:22
And then on Sunday I'll decide whether or not I want to have another ceremony. Sometimes there's some things that I haven't gotten to. The first ceremony. Sometimes I realize other things that came up like, Oh, well, actually that Heidi reminds me of this that I didn't deal with yet, right? So that's how my relationship looks today. And it's also very important to note that I grow all of my own cannabis.

00:51:49:22 - 00:52:07:20
I've been doing this for the last ten years. And so a big part of what I teach in the Conscious Cannabis Collective is not only how to connect with it in the way that I've talked about and have someone be able to discern for themselves what frequency, how they want to connect with it in all their own belief systems around it, but also how to cultivate their own medicine as well.

00:52:08:00 - 00:52:37:01
And this is much easier than people think it is, right? It really just takes consistency. And so in the growing cannabis portion of the Conscious Cannabis collective, I've laid out all of the ways in which I do this right, and my process is really based on three steps organic soil, Korean natural farming and bio geometry. Bio geometry is probably like the most interesting part of that because it's not typically applied to cultivation yet anyway, but quantitatively I noticed that my yields improved.

00:52:37:06 - 00:52:53:01
Also, my potency improved. Those are not things I truly care about because my medicine is just for me. But they were quantitative metrics to show, Oh, my plants are actually getting better results, they're happier. And it's kind of like how with feng shui, which is bio geometries like little brother. It's not actually, but that's how I think about it.

00:52:53:15 - 00:53:10:10
Feng shui basically says, Hey, you know, when you go in a room and if it's all chaotic, it just feels funky, right? Like, Oh, what if you could actually formulate that room in a perfect harmony? So when you walked in, you went, Wow, I just feel like expand seven here. Bio geometry does that to everything, and it's too deep of a rabbit hole to get into fully.

00:53:10:10 - 00:53:27:11
But again, it's very simple. And what I notice is the people that have support through this process of not just, you know, creating their own healthy relationship with the plant and being able to open up about whatever those root causes are, but also in cultivating and being able to ask their questions they get the best results. And so I grow my own medicine.

00:53:27:16 - 00:53:50:18
I interact with it twice per week. Right now I'm on a month long break. I just felt like, Hey, I'm this feels good right now, so I'm going to do that. So what I want to also articulate here is that when I first got into this, I created a very strict structure like money. If you're Friday, never I'm going to interact with it right after about two and a half years of doing that, I went, Well, isn't that just another addiction?

00:53:50:18 - 00:54:11:04
Right? If I'm if I'm if I'm only saying that I have to stick to the structure. So really liberating myself after a certain amount of time. This is what I help clients do too, is asking yourself like, okay, if you're dealing with these root causes, right, and you're handling this type of stuff and you're aware and you have accountability and these kind of things, let's say I'm at Paul Czech's house on a Thursday and it's a shamanic sound healing workshop.

00:54:11:04 - 00:54:26:06
And he goes, Hey, Ryan, fire up a bag. Am I going to say no, Paul? Actually, I don't do this on Thursdays. Right? Right. Well, that would mean I don't fully trust myself at that point. So what I do is I discern in the moment, and that's why right now I'm on a month long. I just felt, Oh, actually, right now I feel completely full.

00:54:26:18 - 00:54:40:17
I'm taking track of all the things that come up, but I just don't feel a call to the plant. Other times I might go on vacation and connect with a plant seven days in a row because I have the space to do it. I'll might read a book, do things like that. So I want to show people kind of the trajectory here.

00:54:40:17 - 00:54:57:10
In the beginning, what I normally say is if you've been dependent for a long time, take a three month break that completely resets your endocannabinoid system. During that break, make yourself clear structure for what to stick to for a certain period of time. And this is a little bit different depending on each individual and what their habits were with it during that time.

00:54:57:10 - 00:55:13:19
You're going to be dealing with all of this stuff that you've been numbing out with it, right? And then once that is dealt with, you will naturally feel less of an inclination to use cannabis as much because you'll just feel happy, you'll feel in a higher vibration, you won't need it. You'll be more connected to yourself, you'll be able to articulate things.

00:55:13:19 - 00:55:29:18
You'll be connected to what I call the psychic senses, clairvoyance, killer audience, these kind of things. And so you'll be able to naturally create that structure and then allow it to flow as it does. And so that's kind of a full trajectory of how my relationship looks and also how I came to that and how I kind of got other people in that as well.

00:55:30:02 - 00:55:47:03
I love that. I absolutely love that. So what what is next for you? What do you have going on? How can people kind of like not only find out more about this, but also connect with you and and, you know, kind of like navigate this process with you? Also, like, I would love to kind of share that with everyone listening.

00:55:47:10 - 00:56:07:14
Yeah. Pat, first of all, I want to say thank you so much, man. You I like charged my so much, man. When I get to have these conversations with other people that I can tell are living their truth and are just so fun. Like for me, the measure of anyone is how much fun they're having in life. And, you know, with everything I do, I believe that, you know, healing is a big term out there these days, right?

00:56:07:22 - 00:56:21:10
For me, I believe healing can be the best part of your day. It can be so much. It can be light. Of course, it can be challenging. But I think that for a long time I felt that it had to be challenging and I was going to these different groups and again, just discernment wise, not my flavor of ice cream, right?

00:56:21:17 - 00:56:37:18
Everything was very somber. And I'm a goofball. Like if anyone knows me, like laughter truly is my favorite medicine. And so I say often we have the most fun homework on the internet bar none. We have a lot of fun. We hold great space for everyone going through their stuff, and we're really creating a community, a movement and what we're doing.

00:56:37:18 - 00:56:52:23
And so right now the best way to get in touch with me is on Instagram at the real Ryan Sprague. Funny story about that. I made that name just like I thought it was funny. And then I decided one day after I wanted to be Marcus, like, Hey, I should, you know, look up and see if my name is Google.

00:56:53:03 - 00:57:09:18
I don't know, maybe someone stole my information or something. So I look up Ryan Sprague and the dude who has the same name as me. There's many, obviously people out there, but the dude who, like, you know, popped up in all the search results, he is a the host of Mysteries Decoded and a regular on ancient aliens. I was like, I'm fucking kidding me.

00:57:09:22 - 00:57:39:20
So I reached out to him, right? That was like, Dude, hey, sorry about my name, man. You're totally real too. And we had a great chuckle over it. And he's going to come on the podcast and it's going to be like on the psychedelic podcast, cause what a psychedelic experience in a completely sober state of reality that was, you know, And so that's the best place to find me at the real Ryan Sprague, The business account you want to keep up with the podcast is at highly optimized, and currently by the time this launches, you guys will be able to hop on the waitlist for the most crazy offer we've ever made whatsoever.

00:57:40:09 - 00:58:03:23
The Conscious Cannabis Collective is going live. We're taking everything that we've built with the connected cannabis program, growing cannabis and we're also throwing in a bunch of extras. One being 12 months of mentorship for a crazy deal. And so if you guys are interested in that, hop over to highly optimized me and join the waitlist today. You'll also download the free conscious cannabis guy that I'll give you a bunch to work with and hope to see you there.

00:58:04:10 - 00:58:21:14
I love that. I love all that. And I'm going to have all the links also at the bottom of this in the description for everything. It's so exciting and I'm so pumped for you. And really, I. What is something? Is there anything we missed or anything you would want to leave anybody with before we kind of start off?

00:58:22:06 - 00:58:37:04
Yeah, it's a great question. So what I would say overall is that, you know, again, like dive into the things that make you uncomfortable. You know, like one of the best parts about our community is that we can all agree like, yeah, this is fucking hard, right? And none of us are like, we're an ascended master and this is supposed to be easy, right?

00:58:37:04 - 00:58:56:04
Like being Ascended Master, I want to talk about this real quick. Is not nearly as common as you see it on Instagram, but at the end of the day, if you can be around a community of people that allow you to be more you and that will also validate you for who you are. Because guys like a big part of the reason I'm able to do everything I am today is because I know my power zones.

00:58:56:04 - 00:59:10:04
I also know what I'm not that good either. And that came from being around people that were like, Hey, man, you do this thing that's really cool. And I'm like, Wait, that's not a thing for everybody. And vice versa. I could do that for them. And so when you're around a community like that, your development just goes through the roof.

00:59:10:04 - 00:59:26:12
And so what I would say is whether it's our community website or another one, follow your heart, it will never lead you to the wrong place. It will probably feel mysterious as hell. But like I always say, did you enjoy opening your Christmas presents and taking a peek before Christmas morning, or did you like being surprised on Christmas morning?

00:59:26:12 - 00:59:39:14
Right. I know for most people when I put it that way, they're like, Fuck yeah, dude, surprise. It's like, Cool. That's what the heart brings to you. If you follow your heart, you'll always end up in the right places. With the right people and with the right things around you. And so follow your heart. It'll never lead you astray.

00:59:39:24 - 00:59:44:09
I love it. Ryan, Thank you so much for coming on, man. I've enjoyed absolutely every single second of.