The Makaranda Method: A Path to Wholeness with Eleanor Evans Medina

Get ready to be inspired by Eleanor Evans Medina, a holistic relationship coach and founder of the Makaranda Method, who joins us to share her incredible journey of guiding individuals toward self-discovery and healing. From our serendipitous meeting in Austin, Texas, to her unique methods for releasing energetic blockages, Eleanor reveals how mindfulness, eco-psychology, and the power of community can cultivate greater peace, freedom, and authenticity.

Who is Eleanor Evans Medina?

 Eleanor Medina, a holistic relationship coach and therapist, guides individuals and groups on a journey of self-discovery and healing. Founder of The Makaranda Method, she integrates mindfulness, somatic practices, and eco-psychology to reconnect people with nature and their inner wisdom.

Timestamps to help you navigate this episode:
0:00 Intro
2:46 FREE Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Calendar
14:28 Eleanor Evans Medina on Meditation
20:35 Mindfulness Meditation Practices
28:24 Meditation for Emotional Well-being
36:15 Connecting Earth Circles and Psychedelics

Connect with Eleanor:
@themakarandamethod
@eleanor.evans.medina
The Makranda Podcast

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:21 FREE Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Calendar
• 12:03 Eleanor Evans Medina on Meditation
• 18:10 Mindfulness Meditation Practices
• 25:59 Meditation for Emotional Well-being
• 33:50 Connecting Earth Circles and Psychedelics

Transcript

Lunden Souza: 0:01

Welcome to Self Love and Sweat the podcast, the place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections, break down barriers and do what sets your soul on fire. I'm your host, Lunden Souza. Hey, have you grabbed your free Self Love and Sweat monthly calendar yet? This calendar is so amazing. It comes right in your inbox every single month to help you have a little nugget of wisdom, a sweaty workout, a mindset activity, just a little something, something to help keep you focused and motivated and keep that momentum towards your goals. So every day, when you get this calendar, you'll see a link that you can click that will lead to a podcast episode or a workout or something that will be very powerful and quick to read. And then you'll also see, on the top left corner of every single day, there's a little checkbox in the calendar and what that is is that's for your one thing. You can choose one thing every month, or it can be the same, something that you want to implement and make this something that you can easily implement, like daily meditation or getting a certain amount of steps or water, for example, and staying hydrated and even taking your supplements. This can be something if you want to get more regular doing a particular habit and routine. You can choose what that checkbox means. So if you want your Self sweat and Sweat monthly calendar delivered right to your inbox every month on the first of the month, go to lifelikelunden. com/calendar, fill out the form really quickly and you will have your calendar in your inbox within a few short minutes. That's lifelikelunden L-I-F-E-L-I-K-E-L-U-N-D-E-N dot com forward slash calendar. Go, get yours for free and enjoy this episode. Hey everybody, welcome back to

Lunden Souza: 2:10

Today's guest is my friend, Eleanor Medina. She is a holistic relationship coach and she's a formally trained marriage and family therapist and psychedelic facilitator. She's dedicated to guiding individuals and groups towards deep self-discovery and healing. She founded the Makaranda Method and when we were talking before, I'm like it's like Macarena, but Makaranda, so the Makaranda Method in 2018. And this means nectar in Sanskrit. The method operates from the framework that the nectar of life is found in nature and love, and I just love that so much. And Eleanor is a mindfulness meditation teacher, somatic practitioner and money mindset and manifestation coach. Her work is rooted in eco-psychology and she volunteers with death and dying. Eleanor's work is reconnecting us with mother nature, fostering a deep bond with the natural world and she primarily works with wellness entrepreneurs seeking to grow spiritually and emotionally right Hello, right here. While developing soulful, successful businesses Through one-on-one coaching and group psychedelic retreats, Eleanor helps clients release energetic blockages and connect deeply with their intuition, leading to greater peace, freedom and authenticity.

Lunden Souza: 3:23

Thank you so much for being here to greater peace, freedom and authenticity. Thank you so much for being here, Eleanor. I'm so happy that we created the time and space to connect and for those listening, yeah, I had to jump through a little technical and then also gardener gymnastics outside my window to make sure that we could record this podcast today, and I'm just so happy we landed here and made it happen. So thanks for being here. How are you? Me too.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 3:47

Thank you so much for having me, gosh. I feel, just hearing you read my bio back, I almost got a little teary. It just feels like that was exactly who I am and what I'm creating in the world, and I'm so grateful to be talking about love and movement and our bodies and sweat and all the magic that you bring. Thank you for having me, Lunden.

Lunden Souza: 4:14

Yeah, thanks for being here.

Lunden Souza: 4:17

Eleanor and I met through NABA and maybe you guys listening have heard me talk about it especially a lot recently.

Lunden Souza: 4:25

But this is our community and we had an event in Austin, Texas, recently and Eleanor was there and I was there and, just in NABA style, we just all connected. And next thing, you know, we're in a big Uber XL all going to the springs in Austin to have, yeah, some time in the Springs and in the sun and in the water together and it just felt like, yeah, it just we, it landed and we were there and we were all, yeah, just had known each other. It felt like I had, you know, we had known each other for a long time and of course, I'm even more excited to get to know you here in this episode and in future moving forward. But I don't know how you felt, girl, but I felt like I'd known you for a while and we just all like meshed and had a blast and I just love connections like that, for sure it felt to me Lunden like we were a sister gang from years before.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 5:22

It felt so easy and all the women who I met majority women at this natural art of being alive experience the NABA experience and it felt like we all wanted to support each other and hold each other and get to know each other. Who are you and what are you all about and what are you creating in the world? There was so much interest in what we were doing and and sometimes people have shared that with women. It doesn't always feel like that.

Lunden Souza: 5:57

And.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 5:58

I've been really blessed to have amazingly positive women and female experiences in my life. However, you know coming in, I didn't know anybody really coming to the. Napa event. So this was a completely new experience for me and your warmth and curiosity and instinct connection felt so good.

Lunden Souza: 6:22

Yeah, sisterhood gang. I love how you said that, but that's really how it felt. We just all, yes, tribed up, ganged up, grabbed our towels, went out, explored. Yeah, we're just genuinely interested in each other and our growth. And it's different because it's not like probing in other people's lives and wanting to know for the sake of looking inward. It's like, no, we've all decided that that inward journey is so potent and so powerful for us that then when we connect with others that are doing that too, it's like it's that genuine interest of like not only how are you, but really how are you and like how can I support you and what are you trying to create in this world and what do you feel like your purpose or brings you purpose and meaning, and how can I contribute to supporting your ripple and all of that. So that's really what it feels like. But I like the visual of a sister gang, a squad of sisters, and, yeah, we do have a lot of amazing and incredible men in our NABA community, but we are predominantly women and that's been really cool too right, because that stigma or that women degrade other women or whatever. That's not happening.

Lunden Souza: 7:33

And I forget who said it, I think it was either Aubrey or Lindsay, I think that said to me after the first day. They were like Lunden. Anybody could have walked in that room just as they are and been accepted and received and felt, seen, heard and understood. And that really hit where it's like, yeah, it's not about what, it's about how we can all connect and collaborate to make whatever your what and your why is amplified even more. So I felt that way too, just walking in that room, and I didn't come alone. I had known some people, whatever, but it still feels you know that way.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 8:11

And I also felt like I had to. I mean, I really love who I am and what I'm doing and what I'm creating in the world and I felt like, whoa, look at all these amazing people. I better step up my game and come to my be my brightest, fullest self. There's no dulling myself in this. It's like we need each of us to be bringing all of who we are, not this oh, hold back, don't shine too bright. None of that. I really felt inspired like I never had really never have before in that NABA event, at that NABA event, and I just thought, wow, I'm in the right place.

Lunden Souza: 9:04

Yeah, yeah, same Love that. Thanks for sharing that. And yeah, it just forces you to yeah or inspires you to, drives you to your heart, is pulled towards, yeah, that more fuller expression of yourself. Or I often describe it as the one pant leg on where you're like, okay, wait, I got one pant leg on of this version that I'm becoming. But let's like the one pant leg on where you're like, okay, wait, I got, you know, one pant leg on of this version that I'm becoming, but like, let's get the other pant leg on. You know, and it's like that's what I think of it. It's like I know the pants fit, I can tell I got one leg in, but it's just like old pants, new pants.

Lunden Souza: 9:38

You know, for me, I just have that visual of stepping into a new, better fitting, more my style, more who I am now, and I'm not even like a fashion person. I just one time in meditation I know we're going to talk about this a lot, but I just had this visual of like me having one pant leg on as I'm stepping into this new chapter and, like you said, expansion being around people that, yeah, I want to up level and peel back these layers and put these new pants on or whatever that might mean or look like or feel like. But yeah, I love that and so I know well before we pressed record here and I hopped on here to Riverside where we're recording this and, like I said, I was a little behind because of technical stuff and then I went to go tell the gardeners downstairs that they could be a little bit quieter and then I came and hopped on here and Eleanor had her eyes closed and she was like meditating and just in this place of peace and bliss, and I just kind of was like hi, I'm here. And so I know that meditation has been so powerful in my life, especially among the belief that you just said that don't shine too bright, don't be too much. That was the story that on the very first meetup with all of the first people that started moving and shaking with NABA, austin asked us what are you leaving behind in order to become this next version of yourself? Because, like LFG, we got to build NABA, we're building this community, all the things.

Lunden Souza: 11:03

And I said I'm leaving behind the story that I need to be quiet or that I'm too much, or that I can't be whatever In that front facing space. I don't want to play small anymore, and so meditation has helped me tremendously get in that feeling of owning who I am and not feeling like it's too much or not enough or all the things that I know. People listening we've all heard those tracks playing in our heads and so I know that you, you know meditation is your thing and I saw you do it when I signed on here, and so I know how meditation has supported my brain and body. But from your perspective, you know, what does meditation do to support our brain and body in a way that most people, let's say, if they really understood that would just be like I can't not do meditation, because that's how I felt when I learned that connection. I'm like, oh, game on. So how is that? Yeah, connecting the brain and body there with meditation.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 12:03

Yes, thanks for the question. I'm curious to the listeners, those who have meditated before and those who haven't and my curiosity as a meditation teacher is who's taught you how to meditate? How have you learned to meditate? And for me, I was working with a psychedelic facilitator. I had just graduated with my master's degree in marriage and family therapy and we were doing some medicine work with people therapy. And, uh, we were doing some medicine work with people and and she told me she gave me the homework to meditate and I'd been a yoga practitioner practicing asana for nine years on a weekly, like, I think I. I think I was, uh, practicing five or six times a week for nine years, like in a studio.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 13:05

I was obsessed with yoga, all in specifically the Western style of yoga that I was introduced to. But that experience of asana really did something for me because I felt more calm, more relaxed, more open, less anxious, essentially, after these yoga practices and this meditation teacher, this psychedelic practitioner, she said how's your meditation practice? I'm not talking about yoga, I'm talking about seated formal meditation. And I was like well, it's not like I'm not doing it well, maybe kind of okay.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 13:49

None, yeah, I'm not she looked at me sternly and she said Eleanor, do you want to be a good therapist or not? And I said well, of course I do. Kidding, I you know, I just spent four years in graduate school studying this. Of course I do. And she said then you need to sit down on a cushion in silence and determine which thoughts are yours and which thoughts aren't, because if you're confused, you are never going to be a helpful guide. I was like, oh my God. I was like, okay, well, I've never really meditated before. So what does that look like?

Lunden Souza: 14:43

Hurry up and teach me, because I've been in school for four years and I'm learning all the things and I need that tool.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 14:48

Exactly.

Lunden Souza: 14:49

Straight up right.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 14:50

Okay, how did I not know this before? Okay, so she said sit on a cushion and I want you to literally hold still and close your eyes for an hour every single day. I was like an hour. I've never done this a day in my life. And she said an hour. I've never done this a day in my life. And she said an hour. And I said, as a good student as I am, I said okay, and I sat every single day for an hour.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 15:22

And the first day I sat, I felt myself probably for I don't know, I was very much in the how long has it been world?

Eleanor Evans Medina: 15:34

But I felt myself lift out of my body and really drop into a deep place, to a deep place and what I now know studying meditation. This was in 2018, so many years ago now but what meditation does is it actually allows for us to have neuroplasticity within our brain. So what is this Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural pathways and connections that allow for us to improve cognitive and mental flexibility. So, when we are able to think new thoughts or say, oh, is that my thought or is that their thought and what are my thoughts? And I didn't even really realize that I was thinking, but I was, and she said the one piece of homework that my teacher gave me was so, now that you're aware that you have all these thoughts going on, meditation is not about not thinking we coarsely think. It's just about noticing oh wow, look at, there's a thought, it's going by, oh, and here's another thought.

Lunden Souza: 17:03

And the more quickly we can notice that we have a thought and then bring ourselves back to something like our breath, for example, yeah, notice the thought and then not react to it, right, because all the thoughts and all the things and all the chatter especially for those like you mentioned, who haven't meditated before, like you're talking about your first time it's like can you notice the chatter and can you hang with the chatter? That is your own mind, because I remember, you know, when I first started meditating, it's like you have an itch, and then did you do the laundry, and then did you do that and did you think about this and what's that noise? And is that a hair on your shoulder? Is that a fly? And do you need to like everything? Why?

Eleanor Evans Medina: 17:45

am I thinking about my fourth grade teacher?

Lunden Souza: 17:49

Yeah, right, exactly. Or why did I all of a sudden get angry at somebody? And your body's going to be like, okay, we can't get her to move with memory, okay, let's get her to remember that angry time that that person did that thing to her and just you know. And it's like that breaking up and then the re-getting back together of the brain and body that I love. Yes.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 18:10

Yes, yes, and it's a simple, at least mindfulness meditation. I'll just preface too. There's thousands of ways to meditate. I could talk about this topic forever, but what I teach is mindfulness, and what mindfulness means is doing what you're doing while you're doing it. So, for example, when you're brushing your teeth, just brush your teeth, feel the bristles on your gums, notice what it's like, notice the little buzzing sound and just be with that. That's it, no thoughts.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 18:54

No, like making the bed at the same time or going to the bathroom, just brush your teeth and we just start doing what you're doing while you're doing it, and it just starts practicing. I think one of the things that we that leads us astray in this world is this idea that we need to multitask, that we need to be doing so many things at one time. Gosh, I remember I went to an event called Habit Hackers and in Habit Hackers, they were like okay, so I want you to brush your teeth and I want you to do squats, and then I want you to go to the bathroom and read the news and be making your smoothie at the same time, and that's how you should start your day.

Lunden Souza: 19:36

And I'm like in learning this meditation practice and I'm like no, that visual reminds me of the little mouse on Cinderella that tries to gather all the corn and then he has it all stuck under his teeth and then it just explodes. The little guy, gus Gus. That's what it reminds me of when you try to do all the things and then you're like, and it's on, it's like that little mouse that tries to get all the corn and then it all flies everywhere and you're just like I wrote, as you said, that I had to pull out my notebook and write down do what you do while you're doing it. It's fucking gold.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 20:11

Right. And what regular meditation practice does is it improves our attention span, and it also allows for us to strengthen a muscle of focus which increases.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 20:30

From a scientific perspective, it increases the gray matter regions associated with learning, memory and emotional regulation. So sometimes we feel like we can get hijacked by our emotions and meditation allows for us to stay in this gap, Like you said, gives us a spaciousness right in between thought and response. Viktor Frankl has a really powerful quote that says something to the degree of in between the thought there is a gap, a stimulus and a response. There's a gap and in that gap lies our freedom. And this is what meditation teaches us to be in the gap of what our thoughts are and whether or not we choose to believe them and go down that neural pathway. Or we just simply say look at that, there it is. And then my teacher always says call yourself back when you notice your mind wandering, like you would a little puppy Like come on, come on back to the breath.

Lunden Souza: 21:53

Come on back to the body, not like there I go again. I can't meditate, my thoughts are I can't do this. I said I can't do it. Right, you're so right. There's a tonality that we get to notice in that gap of how we're then calling ourself back, that when we don't notice it, it's like oh yeah, maybe that's why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, because I'm like military myself into doing things perfectly, when really I can just like come here, sweet girl, Come on. Yeah, exactly that's right, exactly. Go for it.

Lunden Souza: 22:28

No, you're all good. I just I'm thinking of yeah many moments and I was I talked about this on stories either today or yesterday, I can't remember, but I think it was yesterday about, like that. What Dr Joe says is like laboring for that present moment, like being like, no, we're going to be here now. No, we're going to be here now. Okay, you're over there. Okay, cool, we're going to be here now. Okay, you're over there, okay, cool, we're going to be here now.

Lunden Souza: 22:59

And coming back to that has been so helpful for all the new connections I've made through NABA, but then even through my work and what I do I talk to a lot of families and a lot of one-on-one clients and breathwork clients and podcasts and a lot of conversations and meditation has just, yeah, helped me do what I'm doing while I'm doing it and be there, present, and hear the words and hear and connect and not think, oh, how far have we gone, how much time do we have left? What am I doing next? How can I get this through sooner to then do the next thing? That was my original pathway and pattern and until I built new pathways through meditation and through that rewiring process, I've noticed now and this word comes up over and over for me recently, and even at the NABA event, a couple of the speakers said this word capacity and having the capacity to do the things you're doing without it needing to feel so heavy and stressful. Meditation's helped a lot with that, because you're here and your brain's not here competing for future or past you or whatever and all the things ping-ponging ball around. It's like you're here in this moment and so I feel like when I look at my calendar each week and I see the calls and the podcasts and the people and if I was to calculate those hours it's like whoa. But I love being in the present moment in each of those conversations, in each of those meetings, and meditation has helped me a lot.

Lunden Souza: 24:25

Like you said, the attention span, the memory of what you heard in that conversation, when you're present, right, even people's names. That's something I'm working on getting better and better at to be in the moment. That's a very present moment, aware thinking thing. Of course, if you're thinking about something else, oh nice to meet you and you just hear their name and it goes in the one ear and out the other. So even just deepening my connection with myself through meditation helps me deepen my connection with others because I'm more present and here and like with you. You know, and my friends have told me before, like, oh my gosh, before you're just like going a mile a minute and you know we're afraid of stopping the freight train. Now it's like we know that you're there with us and we love it, you know, and so, and it feels good for me to experience.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 25:10

Yes, you know, I took your. I'm in the process of taking your course in NABA, which is just so wonderful, by the way, and one thing that that this makes me think of from your course is is when, when we're present and when we're right there tracking people and we say things like and I hear this all the time, you might even say it too, maybe not you Lunden, but the listeners oh, I'm terrible with names the more that we say that, the more true that's going to be really focusing on learning people's names.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 25:59

That's something I'm putting my attention on. There's such a different neuro-linguistic programming that we're able to do when we say things like oh yeah, I'm getting better at remembering names, I'm being more present with people as they tell me their names, and I think that's an important one for us to highlight. Whatever we say, whatever words come out of our mouths, are creating our life. We know this, and meditation allows for us to notice the thoughts before they come out of our mouth. Notice the thoughts before they come out of our mouth, right, because it's one thing to think them and it's a whole other process to speak them.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 26:46

And so when we can give ourselves the awareness of the programming that's inside, we have so much more cognitive flexibility, not to mention all the other self-awareness that meditation brings in and the emotional intelligence that it supports us with, and the emotional growth and reducing anxiety and depression and emotional regulation I mean it goes on and on stress reduction, I'm just like this is magic.

Lunden Souza: 27:18

The best medicine in one form for so many things that it just, yeah, it's like that domino that knocks down a lot of very other powerful, awesome dominoes. I agree it's like how can you not? But you can't meditate for someone else, right? You can't let them have, you can't have the experience for them. You have to let them have it themselves.

Lunden Souza: 27:41

And for those of you that are listening, that have been thinking about meditation or trying it more, let this be your personal invitation to self to just fuck around and find out and see what happens, because my friend, kara, at the event in Austin she had never meditated for 45 minutes, she just did the 15-minute ones here and there anditated for 45 minutes. She just did like the 15 minute ones here and there. And we did 45 minutes and she was like, oh my gosh. And then today she wrote me or sent me an audio message and was like I didn't do my meditation yesterday, oh my gosh, never not doing that again. And she's been doing like 45 minutes to an hour because she's just like I can't not. And so you have that moment, that breakthrough, or even I must, yeah. Or like you have a good workout, or those things where you're like, oh my gosh, I've unlocked it for myself because only I could. And now this is just part of who I am.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 28:29

Exactly, exactly, and I think one thing I'd love to offer our listeners is my question at the beginning was who's taught you to meditate? And I have an amazing series that I created a couple of years ago called mindfulness with the moon, and it's a 29 day meditation series that starts with the new moon and ends with the new moon. That starts with the new moon and ends with the new moon. I lead a 10 minute Dharma talk. Dharma means teaching, so a 10 minute teaching on something mindfulness meditation related, and then I lead a 20 minute guided meditation afterwards, so each one is 30 minutes, and I go through all of these lessons that I learned in my mindfulness meditation teacher training that I did with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brock who are the most incredible, in my experience, meditation teachers of our time, specifically in mindfulness or insight meditation.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 29:36

And my husband, john, is an amazing musician and he does all of the songs that he weaves together behind every track of Mindfulness with the Moon. So it's on Spotify, it's on Apple Podcasts wherever you can find it anywhere. Also on Insight Timer, which is a wonderful meditation app with thousands of meditation teachers, so you can find a style and a teacher that you really like, which is a wonderful meditation app with thousands of meditation teachers to so you can find a style and a teacher that you really like. And I also recommend silence. There's something really powerful about being in silence and being in nature.

Lunden Souza: 30:14

Yeah, agreed, I don't meditate. Well, first of all, I'm excited about this mindfulness with the moon practice. I love just doing practices around the moon, so I'm excited for this and we'll link everything in the description. But what was I going to say? I don't remember where I was going to go before I went back to your mindfulness with the moon spot. Anyways, I'll remember when I remember and I'll figure it out when I figure it out. But that's very exciting because, yeah, we want to be able to. I know what I was going to say. I'm excited about that and I very rarely meditate in silence.

Lunden Souza: 30:58

Very often meditate in nature, on the lake, sitting out in the grass, all that. But yeah, that's something that I know, that I'm very much conditioned by the music of which I listen to meditation on. It's like Pavlov's dog. I start salivating when I hear the music of what I listen to when I meditate. So I think that, just based on what you said and no force, just thinking about it for myself, I'm like, yeah, being out with just whatever the sound of the wind and the birds and nature, and just seeing what happens, that for me feels like tapping more into the unknown, just as I think about it right now because I'm like, oh, I kind of know the meditations. I do. I switch them up a lot, but I kind of know the sequence of once the music starts to go this way, then it kind of taps me and I think sometimes to time in a way that just being in silence with a set timer, knowing that if I needed to do something next it's there for me. But I think that's a cool next step in where I want to go with my meditation. So thanks for reminding us of the power of silence and being in that. But I think that's also that next step of like, okay, then in that silent moment, probably getting to know even more thoughts that want to come up, and all of that Tell us about.

Lunden Souza: 32:17

I know that you do retreats and the Makaranda method. Like give us an insight into that. I'm guessing there's meditation. I know you do psychedelic facilitation.

Lunden Souza: 32:26

In fact, I want to honor our time today, but maybe we can talk a little bit more about psychedelics and neuroplasticity and meditation, because that's something that I've had a recent really cool experience about and after our conversation today, I feel like I might feel or actually I know I would feel good sharing that with you and maybe we can discuss that in a future episode, because I'm super into and practice psychedelic medicine and I have preferences in just certain areas over the last six or seven years that I've dabbled in and experienced and then like my preference in terms of what I feel like helps me a lot with that neuroplasticity, both using meditation and all of that.

Lunden Souza: 33:04

But so, anyways, for those listening and if you want to, I'm officially asking you let's have a deeper dive discussion in that arena because I think it's so fascinating. So I want to go there, but tell us about, like, your retreats and what you do and the Makaranda method and like yeah, this was a new word for me and I know people listening it might be new for them. So tell us a bit about that.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 33:25

Yes, Thank you. Oh my gosh, wow. The psychedelic world is extraordinary and I am honored to speak with you about that, speak with you about that perhaps at another time to talk more about what that has been like for you. And I hold a lot of different retreats. I hold one-on-one retreats and then I hold group retreats called Earth Circles, and my work is to reconnect us back with the earth. The earth is the most incredible planet, in my opinion, and so unique. We know nothing like earth in all of our solar system and beyond, of which we've done quite a bit of exploration now at this time and psychedelics, in particular mushrooms I'll talk about psilocybin mushrooms, because those are the psychedelics that are currently legal where I live in Colorado. They bring us back, they remind us to come back to the earth.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 34:36

I remember in one of our ceremonies where my husband, john, does the live music for all of the journeys, which is extraordinary. I remember in one of our ceremonies where my husband, john, does the live music for all of the journeys, which is extraordinary we bring in our big sound system and the sound system hits the body like a mist of sound. We have the specific traction sound speakers that come from the UK that are extraordinary. And I remember one client who'd been struggling with depression for years. She found herself John was playing music, with ocean waves crashing, and she felt herself swimming. She was like I became a mermaid and I took my depression and I took it off of my body and I gave it to the earth and she took it for me and I saw all these beautiful colors and she thought how could I possibly be depressed when this world is so colorful and beautiful? And she's since grown and learned how to work with a new way of being. And since grown and learned how to work with a new way of being, and Makaranda it means nectar in Sanskrit, and so what I do is I help us get back to the nectar of life.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 35:49

In my opinion, and what I see in my clients is that we trap ourselves in the past and we think that because it happened in the past, it's going to happen again. And it's one of the things that the default mode network in the brain creates. It creates, oh, take the path of least resistance. So if we think it's going to, oh, we're going to go that way, we're going to have that thought. That person's going to respond this way and it takes us out of being in the present moment. And so, basically, what psychedelics do at its most simple form and not all psychedelics, but if we're talking about psilocybin is it just allows for us to look at new pathways, new possibilities.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 36:37

And the psychedelics, I'll say, are not for everyone, and it has to be the right time and the right place. And you have to be in my opinion, if you're going to work with us, there has to be a super solid meditation practice, because if we're not familiar with the roads that our brains and our minds and our thoughts are taking, our journeys are not always as fruitful as they could be. And so, working with clients, I have a whole lot of different ways that I do this, but we have groups that come together and we all talk about what we're doing and what we're working on beforehand in several sessions. Everybody has a session with me, everybody has a session with a naturopathic doctor that I'm working with, and then we have a retreat several days, and then we have integration afterwards up to three, four, five, six, seven, all the way up to a year worth of integration, which is what I really love, because it's not just a one and done kind of thing. This isn't a quick fix modality.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 37:48

This is really getting to know ourselves on an intimate level and um and getting to know nature and bringing ourselves together in community, and I feel deeply honored to be able to share this work. I hold enormous amount of reverence for the mushrooms themselves and I absolutely love what they offer us.

Lunden Souza: 38:17

Same Samesies and I'm so excited when we discuss this further and that deep dive and that deep connection and I love the experience that you mentioned about that person who just took her depression and to me it's like. I know psychedelics can have a stigma and everyone deserves to own their beliefs and their truth and whatever, but I'm feeling like that's to me and my model of the world. That's an amazing option compared to and doing it in community. Rather than taking a not to discount any medication or whatever but rather than the only option being offered in our healthcare system to take a medication every single day in silence. I'd rather be in a group in a circle, sharing my shit, metabolizing my emotions, clearing the shadow stuff, being around people that can hold space in that area, instead of, in the morning, waking up and brushing my teeth and thinking about something else and then needing to take my mood stable.

Lunden Souza: 39:19

I don't discount anything, but I don't like when it's only one way is the only way right. We need those tools and all of that. So it's been super helpful for me on that journey and I'm excited when we get to tap into that more. But I love the way you and your husband have interweaved your guys' gifts and your healing, and when you said the sound missed you, I somehow had a feeling of what that might feel like and it sounded and felt very awesome and very refreshing. And so all the stuff regarding your mindfulness with the moon guide and then your retreats. We'll link all of that in the description.

Lunden Souza: 39:55

I'm excited to talk more about ways that we can use both and right Meditation and psychedelics and breath work and maybe other modalities to help get our brain in this more sponge-like. It's okay to change exercise. I want to change type of state, right? So I feel like we're going to be able to dive deep in that area and I'm excited for that. Thank you so much, Eleanor, for your time and your love for what you do and just your sweet soul. How can we connect with you, like on social media, your website, whatever? Sign us off with some quick ways to tap in for our listeners. Yes.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 40:35

So I felt really connected with my maternal grandmother. These days, psychedelics have really opened up my connection with my ancestors and so I'm now really going by Eleanor Evans Medina. My middle name is Evans and it's my grandmother's maiden name, so her name is Eleanor Evans and my name is Eleanor Evans, Medina. Medina is my husband's last name. Um, so to honor her, uh, you can find me at uh, Medina Evans Medina on Instagram. I think it's eleanor. e vans. m Medina. I think so too.

Lunden Souza: 41:15

We'll double check before we post it in the description.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 41:18

And then the Makaranda method. Makaranda is spelled M-A-K-A-R-A-N-D-A.

Lunden Souza: 41:28

Love it, it's the best.

Eleanor Evans Medina: 41:30

I post all the time and I love it and I share really put a lot of time and attention into what I'm creating and putting out there to to connect us with the four pillars of the Makaranda method, which are mindset, movement, nurture and nature. And so I would love to um continue to connect with your audience and thank you for this beautiful time together. Lunden, you are a gift and I'm looking forward to continued conversations in the future. Thanks for tuning in everybody, yeah, same.

Lunden Souza: 42:05

Thank you guys. See you at the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Self Love and Sweat, the podcast. Hey, do me a favor Wherever you're listening to this podcast, give us a review. This really helps a lot and share this with a friend. I'm only one person and with your help, we can really spread the message of Self Love and Sweat around the world. I'm Lunden Souza, reminding you that you deserve a life full of passion, presence and purpose, fueled by self-love and Self Love and Sweat