Notes from the Field: Microdosing in this Modern Moment
"Fundamentally irrelevant" microdosing coach here 🙋🏻♀️, dropping in to share some of our learnings & witnessing within our Microdosing for Healing Community so far this year.
Founded in November 2020, we're nearing 800+ individuals who've been through our coaching & course programs, and I love pausing once a year or so to reflect & share some of the big themes we're seeing lately among people coming to modern medicine practice.
1/ Radical Responsibility - The individuals we've supported this year are notably ready to take the reins of their own growth & healing. We're in a massive paradigm shift - moving from passive symptom management to empowered personal healing - and this is the first year I'm seeing real, clear, powerful evidence of this. People are showing up on a whole new level, laying down their stories and victim narratives and showing up as THAT person - the pattern-breaker and way-shower here to reimagine their lineage into a brighter, lighter future.
2/ Coaching + Practice = Accelerated Transformation We're welcoming a great many coaches across all disciplines and niches (executive, life, health, leadership, wellness) who desire their own growth as well as ultimately intend to weave practice into their own professional offerings. Medicine work held in the hands of a caring professional coaching and/or healing container will amplify, add nuance and expand the results & outcomes of both practices.
3/ Remarkable Nervous System Healing - As I shared last year, we continue to see tremendous nervous system healing, including the deep relief from or full cessation of migraines, seizures, age-related cognitive decline, brain fog, ADHD and anxiety. As many of you know, my own seizure disorder was healed by medicine practice, so I have been super curious to see if others would be too; this year we learned that I was not an anomaly, and others healed grand mal seizures as well.
4/ Relief from PMDD & Female Reproductive Dysregulation - If I had to choose one area of physical healing that really blew us away this year, it would be this. Women who have suffered immensely - sometimes for decades - and whose lives were ruled by what half of the calendar they were on - experienced a deeper layer of healing that greatly reduced their symptoms. When I read their testimonials and journey - all they have been through trying to heal - it gives me SO MUCH HOPE for everything that is possible. Not surprisingly, many of the same women who suffer from PMDD & reproductive dysregulation also share histories of sexual abuse and trauma. When these women heal their individual symptoms, they are also healing on behalf of generations of women --- and this is how we begin to heal our world. I could go on and on about this topic, but I hope every woman who suffers holds out HOPE for what is possible. We simultaneously look forward to more awareness & attention being given to this area of healthcare, as well as ever-deepening understanding around the interconnectedness of dis-ease and childhood trauma.
4/ De-Conditioning as Initiation - Even the most experienced therapists and healing artists (myself included!) still need to constantly practice de-conditioning from the 'conventional' and dominant ideologies when it comes to our healing. As a society we are so averse to discomfort, challenging or unfamiliar emotions, and equate mental health with being happy all the time. We do a tremendous disservice to our clients and species when we hold healing out to be a magical pill, tool or savior - instead, it is up to each of us to become worthy of the medicine, to bring our devotion to the process and be an active participant in the creation of well-being in our lives. Before taking our first dose - and throughout the process - it's vital we continuously shed the idea that healing means we'll never feel sad, bad or disappointment again.
5/ Expansive Intentions - The current mainstream narrative on microdosing is almost entirely focused on its mental health applications —this makes sense, given that this has been the paradigm we’ve been immersed in for the last century. While it may serve the prevailing narrative to treat microdosing as an apples-for-apples substitute for pharmaceutical medications, this couldn’t be further from the reality of real world practice. While we DO welcome many individuals coming to practice for mental health support, that is just one fraction of the participants in our community. People are also coming for nature-connection, personal growth, spiritual discovery, enhanced intuition, deeper expression and creativity, emotional development, improved relationships and communication, and leadership ability. We don’t appropriately revere & respect the magic and power of nature’s medicines when we treat them as just another pill or tool for exclusive human benefit. Spend one hour with our community and you will see the amazing breadth of intention, ages, backgrounds, professions and calling that drew them to practice. Let’s expand the notion of healing from something we do when we’re sick to something we do as part of everyday life in order to flourish, enjoy this beautiful adventure called life, and express our true purpose.
6/ Microdosing for Leadership - This year I’ve supported an increasing number of high-profile leaders in government, business and culture - highly visible individuals who hold a great deal of responsibility, influence and power to effect change in the world & society. It’s been absolutely fascinating to notice and behold Nature’s innate, timeless wisdom - from an evolutionary standpoint, who better to ‘carry forth’ her spores, embed and encode the higher level consciousness available to all of us - than the entrepreneurs, founders, creatives and artists… the very people who will imagine, enable and build the future world. Watching Nature weave people together, create openings and serendipities, summon people in - sometimes gently, sometimes unrelentingly! - is a masterclass on the administration of power and how to build an eco-system, Nature’s way. We humans love to think we’ve got it all figured out, that we’re in charge around here… but in her way Nature is teaching us that - in reality - we are the tools. We are the students. We are the vehicles for her greatest imagination. Witnessing leaders move from being sourced exclusively by intellect and reason - often underpinned by shame and insecurity - into leading from the totality of their mind-heart-spirit - sourced by the spirit of wholeness, love and legacy - is mesmerizing and transformative for our world.
I've witnessed again, and again, and again: the more we approach earth medicine practice with humility, trust, dedication and in service to something greater than ourselves, nature & spirit shower us with gifts and benefits beyond our wildest dreams.
A final note: Many of my colleagues are experiencing an uptick in judgement, professional shaming, a questioning of their value, and diminishment of their worth and abilities. "Alternative healing" that was once fringe-y, underestimated, ignored, and 'over there' is now getting its modern star turn, and - with that - humans will be humans... as they have been for centuries. Gate-keeping, laying claim, bullying, exploiting, copying, ridiculing, leveraging, taking credit for other people's work, shaming professional competitors, wrapping oneself in imaginary superiority & arrogance, making up artificial rules that benefit themselves and so on, as humans tend to do. Having been in the 'alternative fields' for close to thirty years now, I've experienced ALL of the above, and when colleagues ask me how to deal, my short-answer is this. Focus on The Work. Just keeping coming back to the work, and tune all of the LinkedIn pontificators and Mayors of the Internet out. Trust me, your clients and the people you are supporting couldn't care less about people arguing on the internet over your relevancy.
It's also important to remember that as the world grows increasingly unstable - and likewise people's individual worlds grow unstable - it's a human tendency to project, control, dominate and judge others rather than staying open, having curiosity or asking for help. Rather than getting defensive, retaliating, trying to prove yourself, or feeding that energy, try to have compassion and understand 99% of the time people are just scared/threatened/worried and their projections are insecure, unskillful attempts at self-regulation. We’ve all been there! Take the high road.
In the end, all that will matter is how many lives you touched for the better, how many people you inspired, and how many people became a more vibrant, secure, actualized person because of your work together. Surround yourself with those who are inspiring. Who support their colleagues and diverse approaches. Who hold out other people's voices & visions to make our world stronger and healing for more people possible. Who nurture curiosity & wonder and demonstrate those qualities in word & action.
In the coming months and years, we are going to see a tsunami of epidemic proportions in terms of the public's need for mental, physical, emotional and spiritual healing — to an extent we've never seen before in our lifetime. If we don't stick together, create frameworks of support & mentorship, mind our own swim lane, and roll as an interdependent human team on the frontline of healing, we are going to drown in the vortex of a desperate public together.
We all have a vital role to play, and the most successful, sustainable healing practices of the future will be built upon collaboration, community, curiosity and learning from each other. The Future of Healing looks very different than it does today - and it’s up to us to begin building it together. I can't wait to see you there!
