Navigating Change, Transformation and Integration: The Condor Approach with Kole Whitty

In this engaging episode we sit with transformative coach and speaker, Kole Whitty, to delve into the intricacies of health, personal growth, and the healing journey beyond traditional modalities. Dr. Becca shares her own health crisis that led her to realize the continuous nature of the healing process, while Kole opens up about her challenging journey from trauma and drug abuse to becoming a leading figure in personal and spiritual development. This episode introduces the 'Condor Approach,' a program designed by Kole and her husband, which focuses on integration and support during life's transitions and transformations, not limited to but including experiences with psychedelics and plant medicines/teachers. They explore the importance of safe spaces, qualified guidance, and community in navigating the healing process, and the role of integration in producing lasting change. Kole's backstory, including her transition from being Miss Teen Utah advocating against drug use to embracing plant medicine in South America, sets the stage for a profound discussion on navigating change, healing, and making life more fulfilling.

00:00 Introduction and Personal Journey

01:20 Exploring Alternative Healing Methods

02:28 Navigating the World of Psychedelics

03:07 Introducing Kole

03:58 The Condor Approach and Life Transitions

04:41 Kole's Personal Journey and Transformation

07:17 Understanding the Condor Approach

13:50 Dealing with Life Transitions and Changes

20:16 The Importance of Self-Awareness and Authenticity

26:31 The Impact of Ego in Service and Healing

30:17 Understanding the Shame Spiral and Outcome-Driven Mindset

31:03 The Body's Process-Oriented Nature and the Journey to Desired Outcomes

31:42 The Role of Awareness in Personal Transformation

33:40 The Three-Tier Step to Building Awareness

34:43 The Importance of a Solid Foundation in Personal and Professional Growth

35:38 The Power of Live Events in Personal Transformation, how Condor Coaching does it differently

37:01 The Role of Diverse Perspectives in Personal Growth

45:23 The Importance of Authenticity and Real-Time Problem Solving in Transformational Events

47:23 Understanding the Transformation Trap and the Power of the Condor Approach

54:04 The Importance of Integration in Personal Transformation

55:45 The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Psychedelics and Plant Medicine Spaces

Join us for part 2 in the next episode!

Condor Approach Integration coaching book: https://www.amazon.com/Condor-Approach-Mind-Body-Psychedelic-Experiences/dp/B0BZKFWDM2

For more of Kole, or to check out their events and coaching options, visit the Condor Approach website:

https://www.condorcoach.com/

Listen to more integration coaching on Kole’s Podcast, The Psychedelic Coach. 

Follow on insta @mystikole for more good stuff. :)

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to the What Really Makes a Difference podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Becca Whittaker. I've been a doctor of natural health care for over 20 years and a professional speaker on health and vitality, but everything I thought I knew about health was tested when my own health hit a landslide and I became a very sick patient. I've learned that showing up for our own health and vitality is a step by step journey that we take for the rest of our lives. And this podcast is about sharing some of the things that really make a difference on that journey with you. So grab your explorer's hat while we get ready to check out today's topic. My incredible guest network and I will be sharing some practical tools, current science and ancient wisdom that we all need, no matter what stage we are at in our health and vitality. I've already got my hat on and my hand out, so let's dive in and we can all start walking each other home. I am so grateful that you have joined us for this episode because there is just so much good here. I know there are so many people who are looking for a change and looking for healing in their lives. So many of us have tried therapy, have tried coaching, have tried a lot of methods that have helped maybe still feel like there is this part of us inside. That we just can't get to through our conscious mind. And it is at that point that lots of people start to look for other methods that can help us go a little deeper. Things like psychedelics, ketamine, ayahuasca, or other plant teachers and spiritual journeys. There can be so much good in that space, and there can also be so much crap. And it can be a little bit challenging to navigate that. There are some dangers in that space. There's addiction and spiritual bypassing, and there are people who take advantage of other people while they are under the influence of the medicine, really. There is also so much good that can happen if you are in a safe place, if you have qualified mentors or shaman, and they can help walk you through experiences in a different way than many other techniques can. But how can we navigate that? How do we find a qualified shaman or mentor? Do we have to go to South America? What is legal? What isn't legal? And if your spiritual journey does give you some information that kind of rocks your world, how do you integrate it afterward? Is it just about having a journey and then going home and you're healed and life is wonderful? Or. Can it maybe cause some disruption and how do you keep that experience as a working helper in your life instead of just a thing that happened one weekend that you remember sometimes? These are questions that so many people have and that I also had. So I am profoundly grateful that I got not just one episode but two episodes of I brought her on because there is no one quite like her for cutting through the crap with all of the grace, all of the kindness, and all of the kind of like bird's eye view of this situation, but with reality, she's not afraid to get in the real dirt and in the real experience of things and give us ways that we can stay with her. More safe and have experiences that help us and that we can integrate. So we ultimately are making a life that is more our own and that's more fulfilling to us. And she's just a powerful coach and speaker and. becoming a person that I respect so much. This is the first out of the two episodes and in this one we talk about the coaching program that she and her husband do. It's called the Condor Approach and it is about integration for life experiences or about getting help in life transitions. It's basically for when you need coaching and community environments. to help you reach for something that is beyond yourself with support. So they do coaching for more than just psychedelic coaches or plant teacher coaches. It is not just in that space, it's in general, and that's what we're talking about in this episode. Integration, transitions, and giving the basics of her experience coming to the place that she is. To give you a little more insight into Cole before we begin our discussion, she had trauma as a child which led to wanting to step out of things or find relief from her inner world. So she, at a young age, started to get into drugs when she was a teenager and ended up having some really scary, terrible experiences with drugs that Made it so she pivoted entirely. She became Miss Teen Utah and her platform was anti drug. Then she became a health coach and a trainer and was integrating all things health but sort of felt like she was still always trying to outrun her story of previously being an addict and like nothing was really gonna make up for it and there was It's always something to have to reach for or something to be perfect at in order to prove her past. I know many of us can relate to a feeling like that of making up for decisions or things from our past. She ended up with a lot of health problems herself just at a place where she needed to reach for something beyond herself. In that space, She found some wonderful mentors and guides for psychedelics and for other plant teachers. And she dove into that world and started facilitating other people to be able to do that, working with tribes in South America and going to see sincere shaman and doing the work. Since then, she has actually pivoted to Coaching other people that want to be coaches or transformation leaders. So she has kind of been in the trenches in so many different arenas having to do with this topic. And that's why I'm just incredibly grateful that she's here. So without further ado, let's go into part one where we learn about the Condor approach, integration and Kohl's history. I'll see you on the other side. I am so grateful to be here with Cole Witte. And I know how lucky I am to have her here. So she is a founding member. She and her husband do what is called the Condor Approach. It's integration coaching for basically transformational stages in life or for just life integration Ends In general, they call it psychedelic informed because they do have a lot of experience in the psychedelic space with coaching, facilitating, holding space for people using those plant medicines, but it's more than that. So to give us a place for where you are at and what you do, can you please explain what the Condor approach is and why it's called the Condor approach? Sure. So first of all, stoked to be here. It's my favorite conversation. So any chance I have. To have it i'm all for it getting a little bit over a cold. So we're going to work with what's here for today So, you know i'll start by backing up a little bit of what would cause someone to dedicate their life to something That's a little Vogue, a little rogue, a little uncertain for a lot of people, or a lot, just a little sketchy for some. So, I grew up in Utah, in the Mormon church, and because of some childhood experiences, it brought a lot of shame and guilt into how I translated some childhood experiences. And I'm going to leave it there for today. But ultimately, there was, by the time I hit 26 years old, There was a lot of unresolved trauma and also just childhood experiences that I had created a lot of meaning that caused me to internalize shame and guilt and I was really hard on myself and it all kind of came to a head at 26 years old when I was at Disneyland and I sat down on the ground and started to cry because I was in so much physical pain I couldn't take another step. And I was looking at, I was having one of those moments, I don't know if you've ever had one, where you see yourself outside of yourself in like an ironic situation. And I was seeing the irony of being at the happiest place on earth. In the worst pain or one of the worst places I'd been in my health in my life up tell them and that's saying something So I'd been in a coma. I At that point it had like 20 something broken bones held at gunpoint car accidents Endometriosis, I'd had an ovarian torsion. I'd had a lot of health things migraines Up until 26, but this was that moment where my body was telling me, you don't get to take another step in the way that you're living life in the way that you are. And that's what got me into working with psychedelics. It was just the right friend at just the right time and just the right signs for me to lean into going that direction. That led me to South America. That led me on my healing journey. I've been off all medications since 2009. But what it came down to is I had to learn how to translate my body's language. I learned that my health was on a continuum from ease to dis ease. And what I do or don't do moves the dial. You're never healed, you're always healing. So where am I in my healing? Right? Heal thy for healthy. Do I heal thy mind? How do I do that? If I heal thy body, how am I doing that? And through My plant medicine, psychedelic master teacher experiences, that led me down to Peru. In Peru, the condor, which our business is called the Condor Approach, the condor is a vulture. It's one of the biggest birds in the world. And it flies the highest, it flies at 16 to 18, 000 feet. It's got like a 13 foot wingspan. Now because it's a vulture, the message that kept coming to me was that part of my path was to be a part of evolving the dead and dying system. And so a vulture is a part of nature's cleanup crew. It helps to break down the dead that the, you know, and help it be renowned and break down into the environment. And that's very much what the Condor has become. The Condor approach is on one level, really people that consider themselves evolutionaries. We know we can't go back to where we were, but how do we still maintain awareness around where we've been? with a perspective on the horizon of where we're going and having that high level view, but that the condor, as far as mysticism, is known as a messenger of heaven to earth. So someone that, for me, that is in that archetype of the condor, also as high as they fly, comes to the earth to get in the work, to be a part of the transformative structures, the breaking down of old structures, and the condor itself is the only bird of prey that eats on the ground. It doesn't go scoop it and take it up high. It actually stays on the earth to do the work, to break it down. And so the Condor approach is the combination of evolutionaries and people that want to be a part of evolving these systems that are broken, that are, you know, colonized, that are patriarchal, that are not working the way that we need them to. and also people that are looking for more freedom and flexibility and have done enough work on themselves that, like the Condor, they don't need to work so hard so they can ride the currents of the environments. They've done enough work on themselves. They're not so reactive externally. They can trust themselves that as the winds change, they can change. And that's the Condor really rides the drifts and can go an hour without flapping its wings. But there is still all of the effort of takeoff It's still a big bird, it still takes work to, to make big moves, but it knows how to trust itself. And so for us, the Condor approach is the approach of a new time, of a new era for the people that are here to do the work and really make changes for humanity. Oh, that is the most beautiful description of a business name I've ever heard. And I feel like, yeah. Addressing what needs help with the dead and dying is a subject we don't hear very much. We hear about growth, we hear about 10x, we hear about all that, but in order for that to have fertile soil to grow from, a lot of things that are not working do have to crumble and die and that can be A terrifying place for some people that can sometimes be even if, even if you've done the work, it can be hard to be in a position where you are watching things crumble around you. But from that view, knowing that you are sometimes called to be someone that is seeing things happening and being a part of a conscious pulling apart of what isn't working and building what is. I think that is so beautiful and I'm grateful you're present to do the work. Can you tell me about what you help people integrate with? So I've heard you talk about life changes and how you can use psychedelics and have incredible life changes, but it doesn't require psychedelics to be facing transitions where something that you were is dying and, or something that you're moving into is learning how to live and breathe. How do you coach people? Through that, what do you, what do you do in either space? Yeah. So this is a really great way to kind of pull all of it in and then we can, you know, kind of go a little bit deeper into different aspects. We are going through transformational processes consistently throughout our life. From car accidents to traumas, to a new job, to finishing college, to, you know, going from medical school into residency, into becoming a doctor, like all of these transitions require a new version of us. And so let's say for example, something that I've coached when I did private client work was a woman who had her first baby and they were calling it postpartum depression, but we knew in doing deeper work with her and looking at the whole picture in an intake process. I have a full form that I have people fill out that's not just questions about their mind. And what I mean by their mind is their beliefs or what they're struggling with mental health, but also what's gone on in their body throughout their lifetime, their beliefs. If they're first generation, if they were raised in a religion, if they weren't raised in a religion, but in a saturated religious area, there's certain environments. That cause and effect and in going through that process for this particular woman, there was, she had what we call multi construct strain. Now for me, a construct could be a job. It could be a religion. It is a construct. It's a structure. And so growing up, she had a mother that told her, you know, to be powerful and independent and she could do anything. And she did right. And she had this incredible job and she made six figures and did all the things. That she believed she could do a more feminist approach to life and being able to compete and out in the market. But then there was the part of her, raised in a religious background and out of a desire of her own to be a mother. And to be home with her kids. And so what was actually happening in having this first baby is there was a mourning process. For who she was, what they called postpartum depression was not just a hormone change. It was an identity change and ego death of sorts. We would call it a psychedelic space where the version of her that had worked so hard to go to school, have 10 years in the work field, be working with, you know, fortune 500 companies that that was going to change for at least the first two years. That was the agreement for herself, her partner, you know, their baby that they wanted that full commitment until the baby's a toddler, right? That she wanted to be home. It's easier said, and it's a nice idea. Her primal instinct struggled to be separate from the significance she had built in her career. Now that did not mean she wasn't grateful to be a mother and feel like that was exactly where she was meant to be. It was that in trying to It's almost like because she was trying to not think or not allow herself to mourn the life that she lost in her job and herself because she was afraid on an unconscious level that might mean she didn't love her baby or that she regretted it, which wasn't true, so there was an avoidant mechanism inside of her doing this like rollercoaster of emotions because she's elated to be a mother and Mourning the significance and the drive. And she loved her brain and she loved her strategy and she loved that masculine structure of getting things done, but she wasn't trying to change it or trade it. And so when we actually from a coaching perspective and what the Condor approach offers in a situation where it has nothing to do with psychedelics, but she went through a transformative experience where there was a breakdown. It's a breakdown of the old version of her, where how we could approach something like that is she wrote a letter to her former self, to the woman that was the CEO, to say, no, we can go back to that. But right now we made a choice and she was able to mourn it. She was able to really be with it and be with the new version of her. That's the mother and talk about the future version of her when the baby gets older, where she'll get to reintegrate some of the parts where she's just changing focus. She's not losing anything. It's just that her priorities have shifted, but there, she didn't realize the depth of attachment she had built around her career, that it was like she built this entire existence that was crumbled like a house of cards. And it took her so many years to establish it felt in an unconscious level, like she just. Like, blew it all away. Like, she just destroyed it. Which wasn't really true. I know people, in fact, I'm struggling to think of anybody that I know who has really lived a life that hasn't had some business fail or a relationship fail or switched into one realm from another, thinking it would be fantastic, and then feeling like you're on a slippery slope. So, I'm Exactly. That space, I don't feel like has a whole lot of support. I love, I love how you advise that, and I'm sure you have different methods. So if people are going through transitions, or wondering what they can do in those spots, you do have quite a few free resources, and different ways that people can work with you, right? Can you tell me what that looks like and, and what it looks like to really be aware you're at a transition? And Yeah. The, you know, the first key step that quite often does benefit people in exploring psychedelics is that it helps you on some level, take the power back into your own hands and some radical self responsibility and sovereignty. And that's where the benefit can come in. And so aside from going down that path, it's about how do you increase your self awareness for the purpose of transformation, not degradation. I was always improving myself, but it was because the driver of that was that I was trying to make up for everything I thought I wasn't, anything I felt I'd ever done wrong, and it was an overcompensation. Driven by guilt and shame. And that is very common. Most performers that I know, or pleasers that I know, including myself, it, you, it, it's like trying to outrun something, or prove something, and that's like, you almost have a compulsory feeling inside of you that you have to keep pushing. And what you're saying is To look at the reasons why you're pushing correct, because ultimately going back to what I said about the health is on a continuum that runs from ease to disease. If you are living your life in a state of unease and stress, that's where we see adrenal fatigue, autoimmune issues, Lyme disease type symptoms, Lyme disease recurrence, or where it kind of takes over the body, because the body's in such a state of stress it cannot heal. And so where, what can you control, right? If you got bit by a tick and you have Lyme, you can't change that. But there's other ways that you can lower the, as Alex Scharf in My Business Coach calls it, lower the pressure and noise. in other ways in your life to give your body an opportunity to heal. That means you're going to have to have an awareness outside of just what you're consuming with your mouth. It's how are you honoring boundaries for yourself and others? How are you with people pleasing, putting other people's needs first, right? All of those things you have to develop, or you have the opportunity when you develop a radical awareness of what drives you to do what you do. And it, you might end up still doing the same thing on the other side and how you serve people. But when you do it because of you truly in your heart feel that's what you're called to do versus obligation or shame or guilt, that's the difference in your health. So cause the thing is in the Condor approach, we've done over 300, 000 in contributions, scholarship, underserved communities, people that don't have access to these types of tools. And so I'm still helping people. In tons of different ways, the difference is now, one, I don't need approval from anyone, right? And being a white person, a white bodied female in the psychedelic space, you do get questioned around where did you learn? Who did you learn from? How are you contributing to indigenous communities? And I had to do the deeper work to get clear with the elders I needed to be clear with. God, the way I needed to be clear with, and beyond that, I don't care what anybody says. And that was important work for me to do because now I don't play small with my actions. Where when I first got into this field and wanting to help people, when you as a coach, as a doctor, as a healer, are so focused on the other person getting results, not Where they actually are and what they want to do and what they're able to do. It becomes about you and your outcome and you wanting to be successful or you wanting to help them. But now you've pedestalized yourself looking down on them that where they're, where they are is not good enough. And so you want the breakthrough for them so bad because you want them to be happy and healthy. Yes. But then it becomes about you. And so there's this very interesting, intricate, sticky situation you can get in with your ego if you are not operating from a, just kind of clearing the lines. I see it just like plumbing, you know, where it's like if you go to a house that's been kind of like the faucets haven't been used for a while, you turn on the faucet, it kind of runs dirty for a little bit. We, if we want to be of service and most authentically as possible, we want to clear our lines. So that what is coming through is not only genuine, but also authentic. And I think that even people that have been raised to be contribution driven and service oriented. It's always genuine, but it's not always authentic because that day they didn't want to, they didn't draw a boundary. They feel obligated because it's family. And so it no longer is authentic the service. That's where we see passive aggressive behavior. And on a deeper level, if we had a parent that gave significance and love for high achievement and took it away, we might not call that trauma. But in our field, we would call that a lower T trauma where the person develops a high performance mechanism inside of them. Because if I don't perform, I don't get loved. If I don't get love and attention, I get cast out of the tribe and I will die out in the wilderness. And so it's a primal instinctual thing. And so when we do that work, then we actually have a greater fountain to pour into others. Because it's like we have cleared out those pipes so more can pass through, you know? And so for me, when I did that work, it meant that I didn't need anyone to change. I was able to fully accept them and love them and say, I will support you in changing the ways that you want. To me, you don't, you don't have to, you don't. Now, if you're not happy, you might want to change some things, but I don't require it as a coach, as a healer, helping people build their business. Because at the end of the day, None of that actually matters. I want people to have a place where they feel safe to be themself, to be honest with themself and explore themself, and you know, and not, can I get them the outcome, because then it's actually about me. You know, you just encapsulated in only a few minutes basically the most intense two years I've ever had in my life. Was unpacking just that. I worked with a provider. That was an incredibly brilliant practitioner and a minister and genuinely wanted my good and was so well versed in things. But when I started not healing as fast as his. Uh, patients usually would and it started to mess with his stats and his success. Then it really shifted into something that was different. There was, I got to feel what it was like when ego was not on stage and when ego was on stage and it made everything just a lot stickier and a lot harder. I finally ended up stopping work with him and, and it taught me a lot about as a practitioner or as a coach or I mean as, Any person in any field, when you have a skill set and you want to share it, I think the driver of being of service is amazing, but when your ego gets in there, it really muddies the waters. I now can't really suggest that other people go see him because I know about the muddy water that can come in, which is frustrating. But when I. Stepped out of that space with that doctor and into a different mentor. He was all about what you've been talking about. Going into what it is that is giving me a clear yes for things or a clear no for things. And I realized I did not have that. A clear yes or a no. My instincts to serve and help and love in my business, in my family, in my neighborhood, my community, in the world were so high that all I knew was the instinct to do that and I wasn't questioning A, the cost, but B, where it was coming from because I learned there can be a clear yes where I am aligned and then there also can be Sure, I'll do that, but really I don't want to, and then I'm going to do it anyway, and then I end up resenting you. I learned that the biggest block to a loving relationship was actually me saying things that weren't true, like saying I am good with doing something when I'm not, or stepping forward to serve when I'm tired. It was me trying to be the person that I had held up on a pedestal that always serves, is never tired. It's always friendly. It's always happy. Holding that person I wanted to be instead of the reality of how I felt right then caused me just a myriad of problems and not until I looked into why I do that did it begin to help. So if you're doing that to people in many different stages of life or of learning or in monetary capacity I, I just can't think of a better work that there is to offer, really. Yeah, you know, that when someone's in a situation, especially if they're chronically ill or they're struggling with things. A lot of times they are already in shame spirals of not enoughness or too muchness, right? Like my dis-ease and my illness is too much for the people around me, right? They can't understand I'm an inconvenience and I'm not enough because I don't have enough energy to do all the things I used to be able to do, or I'm committing to, or I'm comparing to somebody else. And so those shame spirals are already there. So for a healer, a shaman, a facilitator, whoever a parent. When we are outcome driven, we are more likely to trigger the shame spiral further. So if you're not getting the results, whether it's as a patient or, you know, going on a psychedelic experience, working and sitting with these master teachers, if you already have a propensity to blame yourself, shame yourself, guilt yourself, then that's all that is going to do in response. Is if you go to someone that's like, look, most of the people that come to me, they have gotten more results by now. So what's actually going on and you're not doing it right, which is usually why people are in the health state that they're in is because they're already doing that to themselves. And so it's how then do you, how, even once you have the awareness, that doesn't mean it changes. Because here's the thing, the body's process oriented. So we can have a big realization in our head or in our heart, but the body takes time, right? It's like going to the gym and working out. Just because I decide tomorrow that I want to have a six pack or I go start, you know, doing squats with heavier weights, I want to build a bigger booty or whatever. That's not one day in the gym tomorrow. That means now I'm going to enter a period of being in process. To that outcome that I want and so especially when it comes to our bodies and how it might be Expressing I like to first start. Yes. We have a realization of the mind then What do we do with it? Right because from what it sounds like you're saying you already were starting to have the awareness around these things But then it was a process of experiencing it and taking that knowledge into a wisdom that you understood on a deeper level. And then you probably had to start exploring tools and foods and relationships and environments and how come today was a great day. And yesterday was a terrible day when really the environment overall didn't change. You just start to see as your awareness increases certain patterns and trends. And that's what I started to do with my own healing journey was how come I get migraines on Sunday nights? How, like there was just certain things when I started to track that It was like, Oh my gosh, I'm getting headaches on Sunday nights because I don't want to go to work the next day. And my body's like, I know how to get you out of this. You said you can't handle your job anymore, so I'm going to help set you free. But even once I got that awareness, what's the action to start to deconstruct this sequence of habits my body's developed to be a pain body? And for me, my pain was the emotions. I refused to feel and that was usually the times in my life where I had the most chronic pain Was also at times where there was a lot of emotional pain that had been stacking and the physical pain was the perfect Distraction from having to be with the emotions of what I was really feeling Yes, and so it was like me trying not to feel is what made it hurt so much because It's like almost having this push and pull at the same time. So it's like a contracted stuck state which was if I'm very stressed out I can't move my neck and part of that like when I'm deconstructing and coming up with Understanding my body's language, which is one of the things that we teach because we talked about how can people work with us? It kind of breaks down into a three tier step one is you've got to build awareness first You can't start guiding people without that awareness because here's what happens Someone comes to me and said, I want to join your, your coaching program. This is what I want to do for a job. They come to their first five day live event. Cause when you do our program, you get three, five day immersive experiences. The first time is going to illuminate all the places in your life where you, where you are not coherent, cohesive, and in harmony with your beliefs, yours, not ours. And so when that starts to get shown to you, your first kind of quarter, Is your life getting in alignment? And I like to look at it like some people are coming to our training and they've been living in a craftsman style bungalow house of a life and they're now they're ready to build and expand. But we, we, this isn't a remodel for them, which means they're going to have to break all their walls down, all their structures. They're going to have to build a wider foundation and start to build again. So they might be in a job that doesn't work for them. They might be in a healing crisis. Things that take a different amount of time. But they want to go faster. They want to skip steps. They want to start making money helping other people. But the foundation has not been established for them to build up. That style of life because the more you support others, if you don't have a solid foundation for tools and they have a bad experience, harm can still happen no matter how effective or efficient or heart driven you are. And if you don't have a foundation for that, it can destroy you for two years to have to face you failed and all those little things when you're stepping into a career. Right? And so phase one, is building awareness. And we have lots of free courses, we have websites, we have lots of things to start. But the way that I recommend it is we do three day events. They're 1, 000 for all three days. You come immerse yourself, get introduced to the world. And it's like being dropped in China in a place where you don't speak the language if it's new, but you might know, okay, well, that's the sign for bathroom. That's a restaurant. Like you have a basic awareness of yourself. But you don't speak the language. So the first time you come, it's a bit like a fire hose. We're giving you information. You're like, I'm never gonna remember it all. You're gonna remember everything you need to, right? And then we have videos and portals. It's about surrounding yourself with community for these types of conversations. It's about being in it because now it's an embodied experience. We're including your body. Versus just a cool concept in the mind through virtual and video. And you know I love AI. I love it. I love how it can help me impact lives and save time and support people more. But it's not a replacement for human connection. It is a tool to help me connect more. So the live events is when we're taking all these Cool concepts that they might've been learning virtually already and putting them into practice because we end up being in conversations around racism, gender dynamics, political structures, patriarchal systems, colonization. Because we have a very, very diverse group of people that come to our trainings from different age demographics. My business coach came and spoke at one of our events. And he said, this is the first time that I walked into an event and I could not tell you who your demographic is because it's so different. And what that does is that provides us an environment to have the conversations no one else is either willing, capable, or skilled to have. When I've got someone raised from the hood in Detroit, Who has been, you know, transphobic, homophobic, or at best, just not in support, we'll say, of gay relationships or whatever, to have someone then be able to sit and have a very productive conversation with someone that's non-binary, or two-spirited or, or a trans person or a transitioned gendered person, like whatever. But they can do it with respect. We are there to help with the terms of engagement of these challenging conversations, and our intention is not to get to agreement. Everyone is there because they want to understand different. The goal is not acceptance. The goal is building tolerance, that you can have a beautiful life and it not disrupt mine. And that actually takes working with someone's nervous system. You can't read about that. And even all the ways we think we're a good person, and then you come to an event. And say you look like I do, and you say I'm not racist, but then in the conversations you can feel in your body the activation of racism or supremacy working through you. Because you start to see your judgments in reflection, even if you don't say it out loud. And that's very confronting. And so when we are able to teach. And model and show people, yeah, we talked about writing a nervous system. Yes, we talked about body mapping. We talked about your own personal experience. But as you sit and consider it for yourself and hear other people that are not like you, you can't help but self reflect in what you thought you knew. And so for some people that can be too much and they're better off to start in consuming the content first. And when they feel ready, when they've done some maybe breath work, some yoga, they have some ability to self regulate, which all that really means is that if you get overwhelmed, you know how to ask for help on site. We have healers, therapists, doctors, nurses, we have people of all kinds. So we have support for everyone there. Now we are certainly. you know, not a replacement for any medical care. Someone should not come to process trauma. It's that if something was to come up, we even have a healing tent. We have people that know what their skill sets are to handle that. If, and when something comes up. Someone doesn't have to stand at a microphone at the front of the room to process it because some things are For the first time can be a little intense. I find it fascinating that in the topic of transformation and perhaps like integrating new stages of life or Moving forward after you've had big aha's like, oh my goodness I am being passive aggressive here here or I don't actually understand boundaries, or I have been working at this job for 20 years and suddenly now it's not the job for me. As I understood, that's part, that's integration. that you help with. I find it fascinating that in that conversation of integration, you purposefully bring in different perspectives that may create conflict so people can feel what is happening in their body and where they are blocking themselves. You know, now what do I do? Totally. We don't try to dig or invoke or trigger. We don't try to do that. It's that people feel so safe. They can finally ask the questions they never could ask anywhere else because they trust we've got their back, right? And so this is the problem I have with a lot of transformative containers I've attended is they are trying to trigger you. But again, then they're outcome driven versus us. People are not getting triggered according to like the clinical meaning of being triggered, which is someone's actually having like a PTSD remembrance of a traumatic event. But people feel a way and it does bring up things, right? And they feel safe enough to actually use their voice. For some people, they're standing up to the microphone and their voice is cracking because they have never said it out loud, you know, maybe a white person being able to express like the shame they do carry, you know, because they're now realizing though they are not a racist, that the systems of oppression that they benefit from, they were unaware and that unawareness is making them feel bad again, you know, and so it's that, yeah. When, when a container tells you, or has to say, we, we are inclusive, we're diverse, and it's a safe space, but I go to the photos. and I can see that their demographic does not reflect that, then for me, they want to be, but they don't truly understand what is required to create a space safe enough for this many diverse lived experiences to not only coexist, but thrive together because they don't need to be the same. When we take ownership for our feelings, when we take ownership for the things that happen to us individually, and we don't have to compare. And we don't have to say, Oh, well, Oh, because I was raised in the Mormon religion where I was told we were oppressed people. That was my understanding in growing up that as a Mormon, I came from an oppressed people. Now, in traveling the world and spending time in Israel and in Arab villages and different religions and whatever, living in Brooklyn, having clients from so many different parts of the world, I learned the very significant difference. of the idea of oppression and the experience of oppression. And this is like to just understand that within myself and take ownership for the privileges I have and recognizing that we all have privileges, not this comparative thing that can happen in these conversations where it's like, well, my family was Jewish in the Holocaust. Oh, well, my family are native American. You know, the tribe we're from got totally wiped out. There's no pure, Blood, you know, whatever. People get locked up in that because they're actually feeling like a victim. And when we sit and spend two days talking about understanding what we call the oppression trap triangle and you taking responsibility for where you are versus trying to blame or outsource or compare, all those are driven by your wounds. And when people can show up and take ownership and not say you're making me feel bad, but saying like, wow, I'm feeling angry right now when I hear you say that. And it can be a dialogue that is protected, that's guided and everyone's voice is considered, is present. It changes everyone's ability to hold space for that and their family dynamics. In their relationship dynamics. I mean, at every live event, my husband and I end up having something happen where there's some kind of charge between us or frustration or, you know, we're working five days in a row sometimes for 12 hours. So it's a lot, or it can be. We don't go behind the curtain or handle it after the event. We handle it right there, when it shows up, we talk it through and we model what we teach. Because if we don't do that, again, I've gone to so many transformational containers. Where I can tell that the two people leading it are not cohesive right now, or there's something going on. And it's distracting, and my body kind of, you know, clenches a little bit or contracts a little bit. And so we said, the whole point of this process is to be handling things in real time. So, yes, we have a lot of teaching, but that brings things up in people. We are so skilled at this point because we've spent years being coaches. T. O. S. spent 25 years clinical as a nurse, 23 triaging in New York City emergency rooms. We know how to handle people. And so when we can model. And I will say that we are master coaches in how we can model handling challenging conversation than whether someone's a really experienced coach or brand new to the space, but has a level of self awareness where you've listened to some Tony Robbins, some Abraham Hicks, some level of like having a deeper understanding of your emotions, of your body, of how you impact the world around you. Everyone gets tremendous value because for some people they've never seen it modeled. Right. And they're like, wow, that was powerful. Like to see you all handle something in real time and in front of all these people and we can tell that it's real, you know, that is something that I, we want to set the standard for more events is to, to be authentic. When we have financial struggles, that's what we talk about. Right? When I get 30 overdraft fees because of a charge back and a whatever, we share that because I'm tired of people glorifying transformation. Some people get addicted to transformation. You know, we call, we call it the transformation trap, tirelessly repeating a painful process. So they might get into car accidents regularly, fall off a horse regularly, get fired from jobs regularly, or go to every Tony Robbins event, every landmark event, every psychedelic retreat, Bufo, Cambo, Ayahuasca, all of it because they are addicted to the transformation. And they struggle to build beyond it. Yeah. They don't know what's beyond the chaos of change. Right? And so for us, the Condor Approach is a data driven way for you to see what's working and what isn't. So that your breakthroughs last. So that your breakdowns don't last longer than they need to. Because a lot of people are suffering unnecessarily. There is hard times. Challenging times. Painful times. But for me, suffering is when we think it's never going to end. When there's no evidence of change. When my health isn't turning and I've tried everything and I'm doing all the diets right and I'm doing all the tests and I, you know, can't figure it out because I'm uniquely broken. All of those Like pieces and parts of yourself that you find through this process. The Condor Approach, you can get the book on Amazon. It's actually on back order right now, but when you can get it. Congratulations. Yeah, it's a good problem. Except for the people trying to get it to keep messaging me. I'm like, it's not like it's another company does that. I don't know. Um, but the Condor Approach, I watch people when chaos isn't happening. They don't feel safe. Cause they grew up in a house where there was a lot of fighting or a lot of change or they moved a lot, right? And so stillness is scary. Or if they had an abusive parent that you didn't know, you know, mental health, you didn't know when they'd snap or yell or whatever. And so the Condor approach brings a way to take all of these things someone's experiencing, processing, considering into a workbook that has measurable, simple scoring that we call the Ease Score. And the stress score, the ease score is really about how is your body doing? Cause the more ease you have, then you're probably going to have less aches and pains because it has you mark little bits and pieces on a body. So you start to see trends. For me, when I am financially stressed, it hurts in my middle back between my shoulder blades. Now what journaling process, Right? The spine, I like to think about it two ways. If I just top level and if I had more time, I'd break it all down. But from a top level that I look at when I'm body mapping, what is the function of the body part being impacted? And then what is the chakra or chakra as some people call it? Because they all have emotional associations. And we might be going, that's probably a woo conversation for another time. Ha ha ha. So, with my spine, middle, back, spine is structural, right? Back is support. Like literally just think of what that body part does. So it's behind me. It's support. It's my spine. So it's structural. If you look at my, a lot of my x rays, I used to have a 40 degree scoliosis curve. So there was a lot of structural problems, right? But it's when I'm not feeling financially supported by my heart's work. My heart, it's connection. It's, it's not, I'm, deficit, scarcity, not enough. Like I'm giving, I'm pouring out with my heart and it's not enough. Financially, rent's late, bill's not paid, whatever things that can be coming up. But I learned that from tracking the body, what was going on in my life, and then what we call, so we have the ease score, then we have the stress score. Stress can be financial stress, emotional stress, family stress, work stress, in essence. But you start to see like, wow, when I'm more family stressed, my lower back hurts. I tend to see more family things with the lower back. And so for us, your genetics, when we say it runs in my family, what we're saying is the trauma does, the coping mechanism does not just the genetic predisposition to disease, but the genetic predisposition to adaptations, ways of being. And we're either trying to be like them or oppose them, you know? And so it creates that. Like, I can't tell you how many people with, say, scoliosis. When we did the intake process, and that's one of the things we teach our coaches. So that's when someone, you know, I talked about the entry level. This would be the point when someone's a coach and they want to really understand the body mapping and the childhood experiences and how that impacts health now, because I can look at someone's intake form and already tell you what will happen, not what will happen in their psychedelic experience, but what on the other side is possible that they're going to think or feel. Just based off of cause and effect because for us how our body's operating is a consequence Consequence with sequence that's cause and effect Yeah, so then the things that happened caused an effect and just by seeing someone's intake form their current health and their current job I can tell you their most likely outcomes psychedelics because we are binary trained So if someone's high performance There is two most common, and this is a total generalization, the two most common pot, like, potentials on the other side of a psychedelic or entheogenic experience is that they're afraid of losing control, and so when they start to lose control they kind of panic, shortness of breath, fear, I don't like this, sick to their stomach, heart palpitations, because it's actually their fear of losing control. Or, nothing happens. And so now they're angry because they did everything right, and they did, I did dieta, and I fasted that day, and I took just the right amount, and I lemon tected the right amount, whatever they were told they had to do to get the best experience, and nothing happens. I'm laughing. Because you can't control it. That's me. Which is infuriating. I find I can move through it a little easier now, but I'm still angered by it when it happens. When I've done everything right and I don't understand why what I wanted to happen is not happening. That is exactly where my journey dumped me. And it was the most powerful starting place for my life right there. So I'm right. And so all of that brings lessons. Yeah. So for us, you know, and this is a great place to kind of drop in here. We, we, for us, the only time there can be a bad trip is when there was intentional neglect by the facilitator. Now, can you integrate those experiences and still have a very powerful outcome as a result? Yes, because it always teaches you something. But for us, what most people classify as a bad trip was actually because it was either dark, they were alone, they didn't feel supported, or they had like a deep religious background or seeing things or. You know, their judgments on substances or some, you know, something else is making it why it was a negative experience. But for us, every experience can be integrated to be a powerfully transformative and life changing and life affirming experience with supported integration. Now not everybody needs to have, say, an integration coach. But if you don't at least have community or someone you could talk to, I've worked with so many people that went down to Peru or Costa Rica, had some mind bending experience, came back, had no one to talk to. And that isolation caused a problem because now they felt more separate from their environment. You know what? I think I'm going to pause you right here because we are right at a spot where it's perfect for a break. I did not expect that there would be so much in this space. Of discussing integration before and I'm so grateful you spoke to that because whether you are interested in psychedelics or other plant medicine, or whether you're not that integration piece is vital, but I know you have some exceptionally good information to share about the good, the bad, or the ugly about going into a journey space or learning plant medicines. So we're going to pause right here and do a part two. So let's pause and tune in for the next one to learn all about good, bad, and ugly of psychedelics and plant medicine spaces. We'll be right back. Oh, I really am going to be the person that makes you wait. But trust me, it will be worth it. The conversation next time is full of so much. Goodness. But first let's summarize some of the takeaways from this one. First of all, I love her insights on the condor flying as high as a bird can fly 13 foot wingspan. It's still comes to earth to get into the work and to be a part of the transformation and breaking down of the dead and dying systems and structures. That it comes to earth. It stays on the earth to be a part of that evolution. I think there's so much symbolism there. Not only in the work that needs to be done collectively as we're breaking down structures and systems that are not working any longer in our communities and in our cultures. But also as we're doing that work ourselves, I think sometimes we think that deep inner work is done on mountain tops. And it's done only when it's quiet and only in the light. And in my experience, in the experience of so many others that I've talked to really the work is done on earth in person, in your life, paying attention. And being honest and doing the work that's necessary. Present time. So I, I love that insight into the condor and I'm going to keep that with me. I also like how she talks about transformation traps, where, um, people get addicted to being on a journey or having some reason for transformation. And they might be bringing themselves trouble in order to just solve the trouble, like getting in those loops. and I loved her insights on getting out of that. Shaking yourself awake from having to be in those leaps loops in the first place. I lastly, I also really liked how she talks about the necessity of pausing on integration instead of going from transformation to transformation, really pausing on what it is you are getting. In those experiences of change. And I love her resources. She has lots of free resources. She has a podcast with her husband TA called the psychedelic coach podcast. They have lots of transformation and integration resources, also her book, the condo, her approach, and her live events. I put links for all those things. In the show notes. So for our next time, I am so happy to be able to share this information with you. I actually based the conversation for next episode, based on questions that I have received from people in the audience And from others that I know patients and friends who are interested in some of these plant medicines or plant teachers, Or having a spiritual journey to get some help that's kind of outside the box, but they've also heard stories that have happened where there's been abuse or neglect, or they may know some of the coaches offering services to other people. And if they know the coaches personally, they know what they would probably stay away.. So it's how do we choose a coach? How do we choose what to do? How do we know what is safe? And we talk about basically the good, the bad and the ugly of all of it. She's been in this world for over 15 years, lots of different countries, lots of different settings. Thousands of people that, she has seen or heard or helped facilitate. So we go over critical aspects to consider when you're choosing a setting or a facilitator. So that you can set yourself up for a safe and transformative experience. We also talk about reasons that people seek out these facilitators or ShawMan or plant medicines or teachers. And what they even do. We talk about what the most popular plant teachers are, what they are and how they're used and where they come from. And we talk about the difference between a journey in the jungle or state side, what the legality is, state side, what the impact of all of that is and how to feel and be safer when you are in a journey. We talk about what questions to ask ahead of time and how you can better prepare before and integrate afterward. So that's why we did part one on integration that sets the stage for part two, to help us settle deeper into that understanding. There are just such valuable tools for personal growth. In the plant medicine or psychedelic space, but there's also a load of crap around it, too. So next episode is where we can speak honestly, about that with a master coach and I am fully willing to put in the work to bring that forward to you then. I'll meet you here next week. until then.