In this interview, I (host Ty McDuffey) have a conversation with Marc Geronimo about his experiences with administering psychedelic therapy. Marc shares his personal and professional journey into the world of psychedelics, including his experiences with psilocybin and ayahuasca, and how these substances have facilitated healing and insight in therapeutic settings for his clients.
This interview covers the scientific, spiritual, and therapeutic aspects of psychedelics, providing a look at their potential to treat mental health issues and facilitate personal growth. If you are someone who is curious about the therapeutic use of psychedelics or seeking deeper knowledge on the subject, this discussion will offer you some interesting perspectives on the future of mental health treatment.
Timestamps:
0:00 - How Marc got into psychedelic-assisted therapy
2:05 - Ty's first experience with psilocybin, Marc's experiences that set him on the plant medicine path
6:38 - The alien experience of ayahuasca and how it shifts base-level understanding of reality
9:18 - Scientific literature surrounding psilocybin & the default mode network, being one with everything
12:06 - Why do people in the same setting under the influence of DMT have similar experiences?
14:42 - The odds of indigenous Amazonian cultures finding & combining plants to create ayahuasca
17:26 - Is DMT released in the brain during near-death experiences?
20:40 - How does psychedelic-assisted therapy tie into hypnotherapy and talk therapy?
23:13 - How to know when you're ready to have a psychedelic experience?
26:40 - Conditions/psychological issues that can be effectively treated with psychedelics?
35:12 - Regulatory/legal issues surrounding psychedelic-assisted therapy
38:09 - Where is the field of psychedelic-assisted therapy going in the next 5-10 years?
40:53 - Criticism/skepticism from professors & peers in the mental health space
44:05 - Criticism of science and current regulations by the three-letter government agencies
45:45 - What is the most rewarding aspect of Marc's work?
47:41 - How Marc's perspective on mental health has changed since practicing psychedelic-assisted therapy
#podcast #mentalhealth #interview #psychology
In this interview, I (host Ty McDuffey) have a conversation with Marc Geronimo about his experiences with administering psychedelic therapy. Marc shares his personal and professional journey into the world of psychedelics, including his experiences with psilocybin and ayahuasca, and how these substances have facilitated healing and insight in therapeutic settings for his clients.
This interview covers the scientific, spiritual, and therapeutic aspects of psychedelics, providing a look at their potential to treat mental health issues and facilitate personal growth. If you are someone who is curious about the therapeutic use of psychedelics or seeking deeper knowledge on the subject, this discussion will offer you some interesting perspectives on the future of mental health treatment.
Timestamps:
0:00 - How Marc got into psychedelic-assisted therapy
2:05 - Ty's first experience with psilocybin, Marc's experiences that set him on the plant medicine path
6:38 - The alien experience of ayahuasca and how it shifts base-level understanding of reality
9:18 - Scientific literature surrounding psilocybin & the default mode network, being one with everything
12:06 - Why do people in the same setting under the influence of DMT have similar experiences?
14:42 - The odds of indigenous Amazonian cultures finding & combining plants to create ayahuasca
17:26 - Is DMT released in the brain during near-death experiences?
20:40 - How does psychedelic-assisted therapy tie into hypnotherapy and talk therapy?
23:13 - How to know when you're ready to have a psychedelic experience?
26:40 - Conditions/psychological issues that can be effectively treated with psychedelics?
35:12 - Regulatory/legal issues surrounding psychedelic-assisted therapy
38:09 - Where is the field of psychedelic-assisted therapy going in the next 5-10 years?
40:53 - Criticism/skepticism from professors & peers in the mental health space
44:05 - Criticism of science and current regulations by the three-letter government agencies
45:45 - What is the most rewarding aspect of Marc's work?
47:41 - How Marc's perspective on mental health has changed since practicing psychedelic-assisted therapy
#podcast #mentalhealth #interview #psychology
Interview w/ Marc Geronimo (2024-05-22 10:59 GMT-6) - Transcript
Marc Geronimo, Ty McDuffey
This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.
Ty McDuffey: hear something for services, so that's why you
Ty McDuffey: your receipt also you in stock quite
Ty McDuffey: Hey there, Marc. I'm good.
Marc Geronimo: Hey, how are you?
Ty McDuffey: How's the sound on your end?
Marc Geronimo: It sounds good. Can you hear me? Okay?
Ty McDuffey: I sure can. Nice. We got it first try.
Marc Geronimo: All right, that's fantastic. Yeah, it's great to meet you.
Ty McDuffey: Thanks for doing this It's a pleasure. For sure care if we just jump right in I have a couple questions I wrote down for you just to kick it off.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah. That sounds great.
Ty McDuffey: awesome So let's just start first and foremost. How did you become interested in using psychedelics and therapeutic settings?
Ty McDuffey: Yeah, that research is super interesting.
Marc Geronimo: I did a lot of hypnotherapy work for about five or…
Ty McDuffey: It appears at least to my eyes that the psilocybin and…
Marc Geronimo: six years and I made a lot of progress kind of finding triggers and…
Ty McDuffey: mushrooms is one of the best forms of medication on the market.
Marc Geronimo: processing patterns and…
Ty McDuffey: It's not on the market,…
Marc Geronimo: kind of making myself a lot less reactive and…
Ty McDuffey: but it's been shown to be highly effective in treating some of these disorders.
Marc Geronimo: I'm working with clients and doing the same and I think I actually stumbled upon it. I don't know if it was a friend that told me but I found Anderson Cooper's 60 Minutes episodes just a 20 minute segment on the Johns Hopkins research where they're working with stage four cancer patients and I saw that and it just completely blew my mind, just felt like a whole order of magnitude greater healing than anything that I had experienced up to that point. And so that's what really kind of got me excited about in the first place.
Ty McDuffey: Yeah, I've pulled this story on one of the last interviews I did but my very first experience with psilocybin. I didn't know any of the research at the…
00:05:00
Marc Geronimo: Yeah.
Ty McDuffey: but just I guess intuitively that's exactly what I did nighttime laying on my couch eyes closed listening to music and…
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, I mean it's been unbelievable in practice and…
Ty McDuffey: just got super immersed in these very beautiful dancing swirling closed eye visuals that were interacting with each other and…
Marc Geronimo: in underground, where people are actually doing the kind of following the same protocol that Johns Hopkins use where you're putting a mask on and…
Ty McDuffey: it looked like they were dancing back and…
Marc Geronimo: laying down and really listening to music and…
Ty McDuffey: forth. I was just crying…
Marc Geronimo: going internal.
Ty McDuffey: because it was so beautiful.
Marc Geronimo: I think that's really kind of the defining difference…
Ty McDuffey: It was like a piece of art.
Marc Geronimo: where some people take mushrooms or…
Ty McDuffey: That just sent me on this path. I'm curious.
Marc Geronimo: do stuff for fun with it and…
Ty McDuffey: Do you have any personal or professional experiences that you could share that set you on this path?
Marc Geronimo: it's fun. But, the ego still very much active. there's a whole depth of healing that isn't really available until you really dive into your heart into your deepest parts.
Marc Geronimo: Yep.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, absolutely. I think. I've got a bunch of them, over the last I guess it's been four years. I've been doing personally a lot of Journeys meaning probably on average one a month and it's been kind of spaced out at different times depending on what my wife and I both needed to process and heal through and It feels to me like the first time I tried Ayahuasca tea that was probably the biggest impact anything has ever had on me in. ever I was gonna say anyone evening, but really ever, I mean it.
Marc Geronimo: I had set an intention that I thought was fairly innocuous. I was worried. I was really focused on my body and healing and working on overeating at the time that was kind of my main focus at that point and instead of having a journey that somehow about eating it had literally nothing to do with that but it had a giant impact on both. My overeating as well is just my base level of anxiety. and when I went into it, I took about two ounces of tea a little over two ounces of tea, which is a really good healthy amount and the first Maybe hour hour and a half I was so scared like the fear that came up was.
Marc Geronimo: A thousand percent of anything. I'd ever felt in this lifetime and this body I mean I couldn't believe it and kind of like what you're saying with you with yours. I was seeing stuff that didn't really make sense it with yours.
Ty McDuffey: definitely, I like that you use the term alien because that's exactly how it felt in my experience and…
Marc Geronimo: There's a visuals and dancing and it brought up tears with mine. It was like a dashboard of I guess either…
Ty McDuffey: we talked about sharing our experiences with Ayahuasca and…
Marc Geronimo: what looked like alien technology maybe something really Asian looking as far as all the dials and…
Ty McDuffey: my base level of reality shifted for quite some time after that because I felt like my understanding of…
Marc Geronimo: and I couldn't make out any of that. I didn't understand what I was looking at and…
Ty McDuffey: what this reality actually is had kind of shifted pillars a little bit…
Marc Geronimo: but for some reason it just freaked me out that the facilitator Pablo came over and…
Ty McDuffey: because I was thinking how is it possible that my mind is in this place over here? But then once I come back down from this experience,…
00:10:00
Marc Geronimo: had to do some grounding work on me to help me kind of settle…
Ty McDuffey: I'm just in Baseline kind of normal reality again,…
Marc Geronimo: but also stay in and I barely remember that…
Ty McDuffey: what even is reality?
Marc Geronimo: but the fear was just unbelievably overwhelming
Ty McDuffey: It's because it seems like two opposite ends of a spectrum there and it was Just a very strange thing to integrate back from I thought…
Marc Geronimo: but the impact the very next week after I Kind of digested all of it…
Ty McDuffey: what do you think about that?
Marc Geronimo: which was a lot but I could tell my base level anxiety went down by about 80% and it never came back. I mean I didn't even know I was that anxious. Honestly, I'd had a Reiki master that met with me once and did a little work and she told me there's so much anxiety in there. There's a real pissed off little boy in there and I was like, Yeah, I could see that that makes sense for my childhood and stuff, but I had no idea how much anxiety I was carrying around that It had such a profound impact on just being with patients being with clients as a therapist just being at home with my family. It just shocks me how much one night when you can surrender like that can just change your whole life?
Marc Geronimo: Wow.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah.
Ty McDuffey: That will change it. Okay, I like what you said there. Let's break that down a little bit further. Because at least my understanding of the scientific literature is the default mode Network when the brain is under the influence of these things.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah. I think I've seen that many times now with you…
Ty McDuffey: It's getting shut down or weakened and…
Marc Geronimo: with friends and family and…
Ty McDuffey: other Connections in the brain are being formed and…
Marc Geronimo: clients that have these experiences. I help them integrate a lot afterwards,…
Ty McDuffey: interacting with each other in ways that they don't normally do.
Marc Geronimo: the month after it's really key…
Ty McDuffey: And it's at least in my experience very similar to…
Marc Geronimo: where you are talking about …
Ty McDuffey: what you said let you a feeling of …
Marc Geronimo: what you experienced and how much it shifts things like I've had probably three different clients say this changes everything they just can't even especially that first night or…
Ty McDuffey: I'm one with everything. I'm not just me even like these trees and plants outside their breathing and we're all a part of this one thing. So do you have any? Further understanding of that or…
Marc Geronimo: two or…
Ty McDuffey: something that you could add.
Marc Geronimo: you're just still kind of half in and half out and have so much memory from it that you can just sit there and kind of ponder. What was that exactly like and why did it feel like most people say wow, I finally felt I was able to connect with myself at a level that I never have we do quite a bit.
Marc Geronimo: With groups and that's a whole nother experience where I feel like both the Ayahuasca and the psilocybin and pull back the veil of thinking you're alone thinking you're an individual and an island in this world and knowing gets you all of those things that most of us have had, some experience of just goes away because you can feel like that the essence of the person across from you without ever taking your mask off the next morning after a big Journey. you feel like some of these people are best friends that you've known your whole life and you really didn't know them at all, 12 hours ago.
Ty McDuffey: yeah, and just starts with You yes.
Marc Geronimo: Yep.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, I think. Yeah, for sure.
Ty McDuffey: I
Marc Geronimo: So in two Journeys that I was participating in I wasn't facilitating.
Ty McDuffey: Also have the blue box.
00:15:00
Marc Geronimo: I was just in a group and it was A really profound moment where it was…
Ty McDuffey: Okay, sorry once again, I met a public library,…
Ty McDuffey: so Some people are over here checking it out.
Marc Geronimo: to 30 of us in this one big space and…
Ty McDuffey: That's interesting what you said having similar experiences between people…
Marc Geronimo: I had this experience of realizing that no one.
Ty McDuffey: who are in a setting. What do you think that is…
Ty McDuffey: because there's a lot of reports out there with similar things being said.
Marc Geronimo: No one ever acknowledges…
Marc Geronimo: because it's a big part of my work is helping people heal from sexual assault a lot of rapes and physical abuse all sorts of trauma and that's kind of my go-to and what I do and so it dawned on me,…
Ty McDuffey: yeah, but
Marc Geronimo: deep in one of those States and this was a Ayahuasca and mushrooms together.
Marc Geronimo: in almost 50/50 and I realized that one ever acknowledges like okay, I hurt you, or I am the rapist or I am the one who will take responsibility for that So that others that have been assaulted can heal.
Ty McDuffey: so it's
Marc Geronimo: And so in that space, that's what I did. I felt like this really strong urge to acknowledge I've gone too far. I've passed a point where a girl wanted to stop and I went one too many times or something like that. So I own that in that space and I felt myself owning it for all people that have been in that position and it felt really powerful and felt really three and then all around the room women started to wail starting the process there.
Marc Geronimo: Just unbelievable.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah. No problem. Yep.
Ty McDuffey: over
Marc Geronimo: Yeah. Yeah. I think I had one other where I was facilitating just one-on-one with a guy and afterwards he came out and looked at me and said wow.
Ty McDuffey: because
Marc Geronimo: I can't believe your dad showed up and I was like, wow, I can't believe that.
Ty McDuffey: Yeah, and…
Marc Geronimo: because I was just stunned at the moment both my dad and I was having a because I take a little bit of medicine.
Ty McDuffey: the way that this stuff works is super fascinating.
Marc Geronimo: I'm facilitating and so I had an experience around.
Ty McDuffey: I just maybe for any listener out there…
Marc Geronimo: That with both my dad and…
Ty McDuffey: who doesn't know
Marc Geronimo: and my wife's.
Ty McDuffey: what we're talking about when we're talking about Ayahuasca.
Marc Geronimo: My wife was having sent.
Ty McDuffey: It's these two plants that are found in the Amazon rainforests and…
Marc Geronimo: Some role in it as well and he brought up both of those right afterwards.
Ty McDuffey: somehow the tribal people of that culture figured out that captain the complex chemistry involved in just mixing two bits of plant material and…
Marc Geronimo: And I think it just goes back to the fact that we really are truly all connected and connected to everything and I don't know that I have a formula for…
Ty McDuffey: it creates this totally alien experience.
Marc Geronimo: how that works or…
Marc Geronimo: anything, but I do feel like from doing so many Journeys and…
Ty McDuffey: the odds of that have to be one in a million of Trying these two plants together mixing them in this certain way.
Marc Geronimo: Past life regression and studying near-death experiences. They all seem to have the same.
Ty McDuffey: Do you have any thought on that? Or have you pondered it?
Marc Geronimo: The same story and meaning as we die, we go through some process of crossing over and having a Life review and then there's some point in no return where you either cross over into this other place or not. And so I do feel like that.
Marc Geronimo: Reality of their being a home where our energy or our Essence is all coming from the same place essentially and so there is this interconnectedness there from my understanding from all the stuff.
Ty McDuffey: Yes.
Marc Geronimo: I've read and watched, there's telepathic communication. It's super easy to have a conversation. There's 360-degree kind of viewing where you can see all around you it's not just eyes that can only look, at 180 and so I think wherever we come from, in that way is still here now, it's just that we're blind to based on his bodies
Ty McDuffey: my father
00:20:00
Ty McDuffey: wow.
Ty McDuffey: this Is trailing back a little bit in our conversation when you mentioned near-death experiences things of that nature.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of like. when you hear stories of A tidal wave or tsunami, coming ashore and…
Ty McDuffey: My first time being under the influence of Ayahuasca.
Marc Geronimo: all the animals are already at the top of you…
Ty McDuffey: I was certain that I was going to die.
Marc Geronimo: the highest point,…
Ty McDuffey: I had opened some portal and…
Marc Geronimo: as far as they didn't get caught by surprise.
Ty McDuffey: was going through it.
Marc Geronimo: So there's some inherent knowledge or…
Ty McDuffey: Do you think that is perhaps similar to…
Marc Geronimo: communication. Network between plants and…
Ty McDuffey: what happens when we die. I know there's speculation out there that DMT is released in the brain and…
Marc Geronimo: animals and the Earth and…
Ty McDuffey: that's maybe the life in review that happens or…
Marc Geronimo: weather, it's so far out of our awareness.
Ty McDuffey: something similar to a dream state.
Marc Geronimo: I think that The plant medicines that have been used in indigenous cultures for thousands of years.
Ty McDuffey: I don't know if it's been proven or not. But I've heard that theory. Do you have any thoughts?
Marc Geronimo: I think very likely came from some sort of knowledge someone got taught at some point…
Ty McDuffey: I don't want you.
Marc Geronimo: how some of these things work together and then over time just like we have in society. They keep tweaking in figuring out if you put this on a wound it'll heal, I just saw a video
Marc Geronimo: Man, I wish I remember the details on it, but I believe it was an orangutan where they had a camera in a forest and they were watching it and it had gotten a big gash under its eye. And this was one of the first times that researchers were actually able to see it go and find a plant and grind it up and chew it and get a bunch of saliva on it and wipe it and they said this is the exact right plant. there's nothing else around that would have actually healed it and it totally healed us giant gash in a matter of a few days. And so I think there's some intuitive wisdom that the animals at least are able to tap into and I think maybe that tribal people that came before us had that ability to
Marc Geronimo: yeah.
Ty McDuffey: emotions
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, I feel like it's probably something really similar. I've watched a lot of documentaries and read different accounts of near-death experiences. And there are researchers that have verified a bunch of these where Basically, the general experience one example is dying during surgery and having basically the essence or the sole pop out of the body and it's looking down and at first kind of confused who is that? They don't look well and then there's a friendly person that joins them or energy that joins them and…
Ty McDuffey: So now that we've kind of Baseline…
Marc Geronimo: helps kind of calm them down as to what's going on and…
Ty McDuffey: what we're talking about here. How does this tie in with the other modalities of therapy that you use hypnotherapy?
Marc Geronimo: In those accounts like they're watching.
Marc Geronimo: They're watching things happen in surgery things. anesthesiologists who says s***, I turn the wrong knob or I did something wrong here and that's what killed the person or made them Flatline and they've been able to verify that these accounts are true because then that's where that is going around the hospital able to go anywhere in the world just by thinking about where they want to go and they will go and see their friends being scared or their family mourning their situation getting the news and be able to recount after they come back into their body having a memory of that being able to tell them no, I heard you say in the hallway this or I heard the doctors say that and sure enough those were true facts. So I think all of it is a dream state, right? You're in some sort of stay that
00:25:00
Ty McDuffey: e
Marc Geronimo: Isn't just conscious open eyes experiencing the world. So your Ayahuasca experience is very similar to that in the Ayahuasca experience. It's a little bit out of your control what happens in the dream, but you're still having a full-on experience with your eyes closed and going internal. So I think it feels a lot like that and I think some people have full ego death experiences, especially with Ayahuasca and psilocybin where you probably do feel like you're dying at some level and turns out it was really just the part of you that needed to break off or heal, and let go of
Ty McDuffey: You said not everybody is ready to have some of these experiences. I'm curious. How do you know when someone is ready? And what is kind of the integration process look like for that?
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, it's kind of amazing because some people can't take some of these plant medicines for various reasons. They're on ssris or MAO inhibitor or they have a history of schizophrenia or something like that or bipolar disorder. They don't want to trigger and make worse. So the hypnotherapy is something that I've been able to really use a lot that I've learned with Ayahuasca with psilocybin and MDMA and all using all these different plant medicines. You learn a lot about how we heal because you go through a healing process or someone, friend goes through healing process and we integrated all the time. So I'm constantly getting insights as to how to help someone heal faster. So in one example
Marc Geronimo: That I just used yesterday is realizing that. Being a hypnotic State just with plant medicine. I can bring someone to a place where there's very little chatter there in a peaceful State and then We can bring up something that normally would really stress them out or cause a lot of pain and so with some people will say with body dysmorphia or they're really struggling with how they look in the mirror or with aging. I can do mirror work in hypnotherapy that's very similar to if you are on a plant medicine and actually looking in a mirror the medicines taking you to that place of seeing yourself much more clearly and in those cases.
Marc Geronimo: If the person is really able to go deep into that state, they can have a huge transformation similar to plant medicine where you do start to realize your value really doesn't have anything to do with your looks or your money or your accomplishments. Yeah it really is totally intrinsic and once obviously anyone making that shift is just gonna be a lot happier and more at peace
Ty McDuffey: That's awesome. What are the specific conditions or psychological issues that you have seen that can be effectively treated with psychedelics.
Marc Geronimo: Sure.
00:30:00
Ty McDuffey: And what is a typical session look like?
Marc Geronimo: Man to me. It feels really intuitive as far as where they're at and if they're ready, but I guess mostly if they're really Have a lot of conviction that this is something that's calling to them. I think I was mentioning. My mentor Pablo said a medicine will find you, when it's your time and that's exactly how it felt to me. I felt like I really wanted to have an experience like this and…
Ty McDuffey: No.
Marc Geronimo: I just mentioned it to two or three people and within a…
Ty McDuffey: Yes.
Marc Geronimo: Pablo showed up in my world and I was able to have how the experience
Marc Geronimo: I think what I found as far as it working or not working with extreme cases where people are think they're ready, but they're really not in those cases. The ones that don't work.
Marc Geronimo: Are usually someone that's suffering from narcissistic personality disorder or something like that and they want it for the wrong reasons, they're trying to have an experience…
Ty McDuffey: Don't expect they needed companies.
Marc Geronimo: where they gain power or more control or somehow grow in that way and…
Ty McDuffey: that's
Marc Geronimo: they really don't ever surrender to the medicine because that's really the key. if you can't let go and surrender then you're really just gonna fight it the whole time. It's kind of just this big ego battle against the medicine and…
Ty McDuffey: When you're telling Carrington and parent.
Marc Geronimo: and it still has helpful benefits, but it's nothing like if they're able to surrender and let go I've seen.
Ty McDuffey: S why don't you?
Marc Geronimo: Two different clients truly release all narcissism and one that was a legitimate sociopath who was able to fully surrender because he got to a point where he decided the way he had been doing life up until this point just was not working for him. He wasn't getting what he really wanted ultimately And as I just coached him into hey when you get there,…
Ty McDuffey:
Marc Geronimo: just whatever happens. if you can accept it, that's even better. But if just allowing it alone can make such a tremendous shift in inside and…
Ty McDuffey: of
Marc Geronimo: then as he came out, I think it took a week or so before he really Found a new Baseline because it was such a dramatic shift and he went from being like a corporate exec who is menative and nasty and very punishing, to anyone that ever crossed him to someone that is now almost solely focused on just being a great dad and a good husband and supporting his family and shifted out of that. High status, VP role into a tech role or you could actually just be home a lot more and have a lot less stress. I mean, it's just dramatic change.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, I've seen major depression in my wife in particular her whole family has a history of major depression on her dad's side. They descend from Native Americans that were forced into the Trail of Tears and had just massive abuse and so she kind of had this very heavy energy that she could just slip into these really dark places for extended periods of time and now after about three years of that
Marc Geronimo: Work she's probably been doing sessions every two months or so a lot with psilocybin seems to be just an amazing antidote to treatment resistant depression people that have tried ketamine have tried all sorts of other things and…
Ty McDuffey: right
Marc Geronimo: and you're not gotten the results they're looking for and for her, it's been the biggest game changer.
Ty McDuffey: let's just
Marc Geronimo: And as far as what session looks like it really depends what I'm working one-on-one with someone. We really just start off by spending a lot of time. Maybe an hour really dialing in an intention for the journey.
Ty McDuffey: .
Marc Geronimo: What they really want to get out of it, maybe even two or three intentions. Sometimes we'll do something really deep like
00:35:00
Marc Geronimo: Healing the underlying cause of my anxiety for instance people that are chronically anxious and…
Ty McDuffey: it's because
Marc Geronimo: and just I'm sure everyone has an answer somebody like that. That's just, always in that fearful State and so that's what I'm talking about in these situations. That would be a really poor intention, but then we'll also set kind of more you'd think superficial or tactical intentions like, Becoming a morning person, where maybe you have in my case.
Ty McDuffey: fun
Marc Geronimo: I had a lot of conditioning around mornings being bad just based on growing up and having parents screaming at you to get up and get going and just that basic level of conditioning and having to go to school when you didn't want to and things like that. So that's kind of the beginning as setting those intentions and then I also like to set an intention a lot of times. A relationship intentions. So yeah, if they're in a significant relationship, we might send an intention to heal or remove anything between us so kind of going back to our conversation earlier Where we're talking about everything being connected.
Ty McDuffey: that's
Marc Geronimo: I kind of look at it that there's these two people that are really super connected because they're in this, romantic relationship, but often there's stuff between us there's things we're on not able to say we have fear around it or…
Ty McDuffey: Yeah.
Marc Geronimo: things we've done we have guilt around that we haven't really shared yet judging ourselves for things like that. or even fights and arguments and stuff that hurt that left a mark and so those are kind of the three types of intentions that will play with a lot and then I generally will.
Ty McDuffey: he
Marc Geronimo: Take whatever medicine and Pablo es protocol is really amazing for veterans.
Ty McDuffey: of course just
Marc Geronimo: We don't a ton of Veteran work with combat veterans in particular that are out of the military. We won't work with them when they're in because you pretty much still need all that armor to get through whatever it is you need to do, but once you're out it can be really debilitating. And so with veterans he has a veteran protocol where you'll start with MDMA for about two or three hours take the medicine lay down put a mask on.
Marc Geronimo: Really be separate from other people. Even if it's a group that everyone's separated you're not able to touch or interact or anything. It's all minted via internal job. and so you'll sit with the heart medicine for a while and it really opens up the heart. It allows for a lot of emotion to move similar…
Ty McDuffey: look more English. to
Marc Geronimo: what you're talking about with one of your Journeys and just I felt like my eyes were just leaking at different times wasn't even necessarily having a huge emotional experience.
Ty McDuffey: I have a question about the Regulatory and legal side of things.
Marc Geronimo: It was just merging out this sadness or…
Ty McDuffey: You can feel free to answer and not answer. but
Marc Geronimo: I'm Things like that will come out on heart medicine.
Ty McDuffey: Can you talk about how the current state of?
Marc Geronimo: And then a couple hours in…
Ty McDuffey: psychedelic assisted therapy The legal side of it affects your practice and…
Marc Geronimo: if they're going for a longer Journey then we'll add some of the spirit. So that's more of the psilocybin Ayahuasca things like that that will really open things up a wide.
Ty McDuffey: if there are any changes that you would like to see made.
Marc Geronimo: and I think it's pretty special combination because you have kind of a soft start compared to drink in Ayahuasca tea. feeling the Parts open and then
Marc Geronimo: Sorry, and then at that point. just getting a little distracted.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, so then the spirit medicine kicks in and people then I'll have extreme experiences past lives. I've had some where I've had a lot of Native American lifetimes and one was one of the most heartbreaking where our tribe basically got annihilated and then it faded to Black our entire culture was lost and
00:40:00
Marc Geronimo: the amount of grief that I experienced from that and was able to release from that was just unbelievable. And so people have experiences like that or they might go back to Childhood and process something with their mom or dad or a coach or a priest or something that was really traumatic loss of someone that they couldn't process at all when they were younger and then as come out of it. I really don't
Marc Geronimo: Spend a whole lot of time talking or anything like that. I kind of want to let them be with their experience but clients will sometimes want to share three or four things and I just kind of take notes on that and then really that's kind of a wrap on that session until we integrate and in the group work, we basically all spend the night and in the morning have some breakfast together and then have an integration Circle where everyone's talking for a five minutes or so about whatever it is. They want to share from the journey. those I think are some of the most profound experiences because When we come in and we meet all these strangers and then you have mystical insane experience and feel really connected.
Marc Geronimo: It very quickly breaks all the stereotypes in your head of who everyone is that you judged on the way in that,…
Ty McDuffey: Yeah, it certainly does. I was curious to get your take on…
Marc Geronimo: we can't even help a judge he's clearly an executive with a lot of money based on that outfit or…
Ty McDuffey: where you think this field of medicine is going five 10 years from now,…
Marc Geronimo: whatever right or…
Ty McDuffey: but it seems like the consensus.
Marc Geronimo: the opposite or this is a middle-aged teacher or…
Ty McDuffey: Between you and some other people that are in the space is that MDMA will be one of the first Domino's to fall hopefully psilocybin in a few years after that you have any thoughts on that…
Marc Geronimo: kind of those generic assessments. We make all the time just get ripped to pieces in these integration circles as you really feel the truth of…
Ty McDuffey: where we're at five 10 years from now.
Marc Geronimo: how similar our experiences really are internally when you actually take away kind of all the pretense and pretending, kind of compared to say a Facebook post, it's like the exact opposite people are really sharing their deepest truths with each other and some of their biggest pain or struggles and really quickly find out how much we really haven't common.
Ty McDuffey: it's okay.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah. Sure.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, for sure. I think right now.
Marc Geronimo: Most of what we do, we're working with plant medicines that are legal but probably illegal because they're Unown there. So they're so rare some of these heart medicines and things and then with this psilocybin, that's clearly not legal Ayahuasca isn't legal in most of the us so we have to go places where it's legal. So you have to go to Costa Rica or Colorado or Oregon in order to do these groups and have people feel comfortable and otherwise people are doing things underground where it's really unsafe. I've had clients that have done work here in Austin and underground communities and had traumatic experiences on this because there's people running it that are disordered themselves and that's kind of
Marc Geronimo: The wild west right now. there's no real good regulation of any of it. So that's the part that I find that's really unsafe. So you really have to find someone that's done it that really trusts the facilitator that's gonna hold space and protect everyone, from each other for that matter or…
Ty McDuffey: What have you received any skepticism or…
Marc Geronimo: from someone wanting to touch someone or heal someone because you get all these ideas in your mind and…
Ty McDuffey: resistance from peers of yours in this space?
Marc Geronimo: if you follow them all while on medicine,…
Ty McDuffey: And if so,…
Marc Geronimo: that's where it gets more dangerous,…
Ty McDuffey: how have you looked at that?
Marc Geronimo: I think but what's happening right now with the trials with psilocybin and MDMA here in Austin, there's a couple practices that are in clinical trials and I really hope that in the next year to two years that MDMA becomes legalized and I think that alone would have a tremendous impact on psychicadelicus therapy because it's something then that could be advertised and could be really scrutinized and managed in a way that what you're getting that it's a safe environment. There's no chance of being hurt by it because of unscrupulous people involved. Yeah, does that answer your question?
00:45:00
Marc Geronimo: Yeah.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, I think it's gonna be unreal because the more research that's done. most of the research that's out. There is about what we've been talking about kind of the psychology and…
Ty McDuffey: All right.
Marc Geronimo: the benefits of releasing depression or anxiety, and kind of the common things that so many people struggle with but we've been working a lot my wife and I because she has a rare disease. I don't know exactly what you call it. But where she doesn't make something called IGG for which is a part of the immune system that suppresses the immune system when it sees okay, everything's getting better. Let's kind of Ratchet everything back and instead she has probably six different autoimmune disorders that flare up at different times because there's nothing tamping it down. But what we found is that for all those flare
Marc Geronimo: she has lots of different pain and rashes and things that people go through all the time rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and these physical manifestations of things that in usually have something to do with early trauma, but that relief that she feels from these Journeys is unbelievable because not only is the psilocybin able to
Ty McDuffey: Know great.
Marc Geronimo: Urge out a lot of the inflammation which is what's causing all the pain but it's also an immunomodulater. So it's actually able to do the thing that this IGG 4 isn't doing I don't…
Ty McDuffey: yeah, I think especially today it's easier than ever to be critical of Science and…
Marc Geronimo: It's actually turning it on or not. But I think as we go through real research of Some of the physical ailments that people are having and…
Ty McDuffey: the research and some of the process for…
Marc Geronimo: applying all these medicines to it and…
Ty McDuffey: how some of these investigations are being done and…
Marc Geronimo: seeing what it resolves. I really think there's gonna be you…
Ty McDuffey: the money that's involved in it and…
Marc Geronimo: a handful of these medicines that are around the world that are really change people's lives and…
Ty McDuffey: why certain things are legal versus illegal? So, I agree I Feel Like We As Americans should be more intuitive.
Marc Geronimo: give them not just Band-Aid, but actually resolving the root cause of some of this stuff so that they don't have Lupus anymore.
Ty McDuffey: And listen to our bodies listen to people's first-hand experiences instead of just going with whatever three letter agency tells you a safe and…
Marc Geronimo: They don't have these flare-ups anymore.
Ty McDuffey: not safe.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah for It's a great question. I think. I did get a lot of
Marc Geronimo: I think negative feedback or kind of criticism from a professor at one point that was teaching. I don't remember what class was some psychology class in the master's program and I realized then that professor she was a follower truly waited for all the research to be done on anything and really didn't believe that you should in practice do anything that hadn't been researched and proven out and I remember because we were talking about EMDR which I don't know if you know much about that, but it's a modality where you use these little tappers you hold them in your…
Ty McDuffey: It's more of a personal question,…
Marc Geronimo: They vibrate back and forth and it's meant to process trauma and…
Ty McDuffey: but what's the most rewarding aspect of your field of work to you?
Marc Geronimo: Old Wounds and things and she told me Because I had used it in hypnotherapy with a client who had a high anxiety and she's like, that' what do you mean? it's not research for anxiety. it's for depression or for PTSD. And I just kind of chuckled and I kind of backed off because her show but I realized that there are therapists out there in particular that are there wired that way they just wait until something is fully proven out and kind of got a stamp of approval from somewhere and I'm just not one of those. my
00:50:00
Marc Geronimo: Sweet spot is being much more of a Creator. So when I'm in a session with someone, I'm not really thinking about I'm going to use this modality or I'm gonna make them do this thing that'll make their mind do this. I'm much more intuitively connected to them, especially after drinking so much Ayahuasca.
Ty McDuffey: That's awesome. This is the last question that I have written down for you.
Marc Geronimo: I feel really intuitively connected to them and…
Ty McDuffey: I really appreciate your time.
Marc Geronimo: and just kind of allowing for the path to show up as far as what's gonna help them heal the quickest and…
Ty McDuffey: How is your perspective on Mental Health in General changed since you started practicing like you are now…
Marc Geronimo: so I'll try things all the time…
Ty McDuffey: until now?
Marc Geronimo: because these tappers are just things vibrating your hands. I'm not gonna break your brain holding some things that vibrate in your hands. I'm not giving you heavy drugs or psych meds or anything like that. so it's a great way to experiment with both hypnotherapy and I've had some people use them on plant medicine just to experience what that's like and we just, keep having great results and To me, that's it. there has to be some explorers like us that are willing to take some risks and really helping someone heal above everything else,
Marc Geronimo: Yeah.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah.
Marc Geronimo: Absolutely, and I think the more that we listen to our intuition, I think that was those one things I did in my Prime mid 30s is I don't even remember why this happened but It was kind of before I found plant medicine. I was just doing a lot of healing work and one of the things that I sat with one day was what do I really regret so far in life, truly regret wish I could go back and undo and every single one of them had one thing in common. And that I overrode my intuition. I knew I had a feeling like this doesn't feel right. I shouldn't do it and I used my mind to rationalize. No, it's fine. Just do it. you already made this plan or whatever. It was and every single thing had had that in common and so ever since then I've really
Marc Geronimo: leaned into my intuition more and more especially with when it comes to helping people or making any real important decisions.
Marc Geronimo:
Marc Geronimo: Yeah great question.
Marc Geronimo: I really love that when I can truly help someone have a major transformation. I have one client. she told me at one point that she feels like her life started at 40 after she started doing this deeper work and we started with hypnotherapy for a while and then eventually she did some plant medicine and now she's off doing it all over and
Ty McDuffey: right
Marc Geronimo: that's great and really rewarding in its own right but she has two little girls and they now have a mom who is so fully expressed and open-hearted and able to reflect on how she's doing as a mom and as a wife and all of it, it's
Marc Geronimo: realizing that those kids now have a completely different life than they would have had, because so much happens in those first 10 or 15 20 years…
00:55:00
Ty McDuffey: exist
Marc Geronimo: where you're just getting imprinted on by your parents and…
Ty McDuffey: Right. Yes provided by Mother Earth.
Marc Geronimo: how dysregulated not they are and…
Marc Geronimo: how they react to things and how much anxieties in the space and…
Ty McDuffey: Yeah, it's amazing and…
Ty McDuffey: in our day and age of big Pharma and…
Marc Geronimo: how much they're overreacting and…
Ty McDuffey: pill pushing. I think this is a super important conversation.
Marc Geronimo: having big raged fits…
Ty McDuffey: Thank you for being willing to have this discussion with me.
Marc Geronimo: whatever and so as I am helping parents heal, and that's definitely the most rewarding
Ty McDuffey: For sure, I'll let you know when I post this and we can follow up and discuss the reaction and…
Marc Geronimo: Yeah.
Ty McDuffey: just go from there. It was a great conversation and…
Marc Geronimo: Okay. Yeah, absolutely.
Ty McDuffey: a pleasure to meet thanks for your time Marc. You too. Bye.
Marc Geronimo: wow,
Marc Geronimo: I think starting out because I did my undergrad on psychology. So we did some and that was in my 20s and We did some kind of mock counseling with other students in the class. And I remember I was in the Marine Corps at the time and going to school on Saturdays at night and I was working with this warrant officer who had a teenage daughter and she was acting out and I remember just thinking I don't know what the f*** to do. I don't know how this guy I'm only 22. She's only four years younger than me or whatever and I'm thinking he's really overreacting and what am I gonna tell him stop being a jerk or what? I really didn't know.
Marc Geronimo: how to handle it and so I didn't go into a master's program for a long time because of that one experience of not really having the tools and really not having any Good tools, in therapy right now, we don't really have a solution for narcissism. That's why it's everywhere. we don't have a protocol that goes. when you identify that they have narcissistic personality disorder, you do these seven things and then they won't like that doesn't exist and it still doesn't exist outside of plant medicine. So it's in the field. There are so many things that we just have to accept as
Marc Geronimo: Unfixable at the moment and as soon as you add plant medicine to it. Almost all of that goes away. It really comes down to whether or not the person wants to let go of that or that surrender we were talking about earlier. So I feel like it's given me Power to help people heal that is almost immeasurable and I can't even really put it into words. Now for people that haven't experienced it. They just have to experience it to have their own revelations in their own breakthroughs and healing and yes, I think that's the biggest thing is just feels like we can finally really help people that really need it and especially the more if you think about
Marc Geronimo: people that have really had traumatic difficult childhoods or assaults in college or get in getting beaten things like that that really? Horrendous, these medicines can help them lift the pain from that permanent. Where they just look at those old experiences like something they read in a book like it could happen. They know it, but they can talk about it, so.
Marc Geronimo: To me that's the biggest difference and it is like all that matters. that's why I'm on this, talking with you right now and being willing to risk myself, my being public about it all and talking frankly about how it works because the more people that can start to experience this you can really heal a planet, it's with the medicine that's built into the planet. I wrote.
Marc Geronimo: exactly
Marc Geronimo: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Love to talk again sometime.
01:00:00
Marc Geronimo: Okay.
Marc Geronimo: Yeah you too Appreciate it. All right. Take care. Bye.
Meeting ended after 00:55:53 👋