Navigating Psychedelic Healing with Micah Stover

Michael: With so much information in the world being thrown at us constantly about our mental health journey, about trauma, about healing, about what we should and shouldn't do. And then once we get that compiled with so much fanfare, and dare I say popularization of psychedelics like mushrooms, ayahuasca, and then other interventions like ketamine, people feel incredibly lost.

And so Micah Stover, I'm very excited to have you on today's conversation, today's episode, to have the conversation about what in the world we're supposed to do. So with that said, why should people listen to our conversation today?

Micah Stover: Well, thank you for the invitation to be here. I'm honored to be here. And this conversation, I think couldn't possibly be more timely and everything you said, I concur. I feel like we are in. A prolonged mental health crisis. And you know, I started working in this field in 2016. Gosh, that's hard to imagine. It's almost been a decade and a lot has changed in that time on the legal front, on you know, how the medicines are used.

And there is so much potential. And I also feel this deep sense that wherever there is great potential, there's also great risk. Like it can go either way. And a lot of what differentiates the potential for good versus the potential for risk is the amount of consciousness which is rooted in educational information and discernment that we bring to this.

And unfortunately, you know, I've heard people talk about it in this way before. The field of psychedelics in a lot of ways, as it stands right now is sort of like the wild west. Like there's all this stuff going on, but people don't have necessarily access to good information, pure medicine resources, they don't have the context or the history. There's so many ways that this could go wrong as well as, right. And so to me, as a practitioner who just believes so deeply in the potential of this work and wanting that to tilt in the right direction, the opportunity to have conversations like this where people who have trauma and feel, you know, the futility of, I can't seem to get past this.

How could this maybe help me? They listen and are able to take away some like sage. Sage advice that keeps them safe, that helps 'em heal. Then this will have been so worth my time and my energy.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. And you know, as someone who has practiced with plant medicine quite a few times in a healing journey, never actually for fun, though, I am curious about doing it for fun, it's always been in a healing modality because I got to this point in life where I was like, I've done every, I've done all these therapies, I have done all this body work of somatic work release name an acronym, I've done it. And yet I was still in these blockages. And because I'm very diligent about research, I spent a probably even too long to some consideration of just trying to weigh out the pros and cons of the experience of walking down the path of psychedelics.

And from my own personal journey, I have done things like LSD mushrooms and psilocybin and ayahuasca and I, I think that there's always, I love that you said risk, 'cause there is a risk associated with this. I think the biggest risk that I am seeing is that a lot of these. Plant medicines, a lot of these psychedelic medicines have become commercialized to the point that they're like a thing to do. and I fear that that's leading people astray and possibly looking for a one size fits all cure. What do we need to know about psychedelics that we aren't being educated about right now?

Micah Stover: Oh, everything you said, yes. And where to begin with this question because there's so many ways to address this question because there's so many different medicines, and I think that different medicines are advantageous for different wounds. For totally different reasons. And so that's a good place to start is just do you have a practitioner who's verse in the different psychedelics and or we might say, if we wanna include the synthetic ones, like you mentioned, ketamine or MDMA, inogenic medicines, medicines that alter our state of consciousness.

What would be a reason why it would tilt towards one versus another? and so from that place of knowing more, how do I make a discerning choice of what is best for me? You know? so that's one piece of the puzzle. To answer your question, I think the other piece of the puzzle is that, you know, I have been blessed with the incredible opportunity of spending like the past six years of my life, uh, living in Mexico and sort of taken under the umbrella and tutelage of elders of indigenous lineages who work with medicines.

And, you know, one of the things that they often talk about is this idea of right relationship. What does it mean to be in right relationship with a plant spirit? And for many of us who are from a much more Western sort of, you know, capitalist culture, I think that this is like a woowoo concept, except that when you go in the set and setting in which.

I mean, I often say to people, there is no psychedelic movement without indigenous people. So I think, a due diligence or responsibility to understand the way the original holders and keepers of these medicines approach being in relationship with these medicines. That's another component. Um, maybe I'll pause there 'cause that's already a lot of information. I could keep going, but I want it to be a conversation.

Michael: Yeah. And I wanna explore all of that and feel free to keep going. That's totally fine. for those who are curious, 'cause I'm sure they are. Tell us a little bit about your background, your credentials, kind of how you got to this place before we dive deeper into our exploration.

Micah Stover: Yeah, You know, I have come to believe through, through my journey that I think it was my karma to be here. I think that before any of the many professional trainings and certifications that I've accrued over the years, I mean, I had one very early on ceremony in my own healing path where the message that I got over, over and over again was trauma is the teacher pain, is the initiation, now get to work.

And it wasn't like mean, it was like, this is what you have been training for. And so I share that because I do think, you know, the greatest healers, facilitators, therapists that I know, you know, this idea of research is me search. They didn't just get professionally trained. It's not just theory, it's also experience.

So at the experience of surviving and going from surviving to living. To thriving, but also not only the experience in that regard, but the experience of doing the work. So I spent two years in my own self-study that was precipitated by um, and I've shared about this before, but it's worth repeating in case your audience has no knowledge of me. 

After the birth of my first son had from a clinical standpoint, was diagnosed as postpartum psychosis. The way that that presented for me was not, uh, not wanting my child, but more a hearing of ghosts, a sense of like voices talking to me. It's interesting because in my time, in a more indigenous setting, they, they don't think of it as like a postpartum break from sanity.

They think of it as a, like, break from the ordinary dimensions of time and space and a portal through to my lineage of, of women, many of whom had been oppressed and persecuted. And so I have come to believe that those were the ancestors that were talking to me and part of the intergenerational cycles of trauma, I came here to heal as my karma.

So that's sort of my personal, how did I get here? Um, as far as professional training, you know, I originally studied philosophy in undergraduate school because why? It's a very conscious choice. I've always been a little bit what's the right word? I don't know, perplexed by psychology's need to like wrap up and define, diagnose and check things off as done.

Where philosophy tends to be more oriented towards being in the question as opposed to the rushing towards solution or diagnosis. So that feels like a very conscious choice that I didn't fully understand back then, but makes perfect sense now because as a psychedelic therapist, that there's really so much, there's so much meaning in being in the question with people as they're unpacking deeply repressed trauma.

Now, when I decided, and it was not a light decision that just came after a handful of ceremonies, it was after about two years of work and a lot of prodding by my mentor saying. I think you're being given a lot of invitations to step into this work. And I was already working in therapy and supporting people with their growth and healing.

But at that point I pursued a significant amount more training because I just, I think of this like, if you imagine a surgeon, how much school they, they do to go in and cut and open things up, except this is like metaphysical surgery, right? So in order to be able to feel that I can honor that, that central oath of do no harm, I needed a lot of training.

So that included, beginning with clinical training, I mentored with two maps, uh, clinical trial participants. Um, I still, one of them is one of my primary mentors and guides. and then I completed a program at the Psychedelic Somatic Institute, which really focuses on the somatic component in conjunction with psychedelic medicines.

And then as I've shared already, I've spent the last six years really kind of like trying to bridge two worlds, the science of psychedelics with the spirits of how the indigenous lineages tend to approach and hold the work together. So that's a little bit about how I ended up here.

Michael: Yeah. I actually really appreciate the, the background, especially in your personal journey. And then on the professional side, because, you know, it's funny because you often hear people be like, okay, well what are your credentials? And they all, I've got from here and an MA from here and a PhD from there.

And I'm like. Yeah. But did you live life? Right. And I think that life is such a, a great teacher for us. and it's funny because, you know, when you can add the, the parlay of the experiential plus the professional, it really does give you a leg up. and I think that one of the things, unfortunately that's happening, and you see this a lot in states like California, is if you classify as a church and you're sacrament as drugs whether elicit or otherwise, you know, you have the ability to just be like, Hey, I made a church and this is the thing that I'm doing now, obviously I'm paraphrasing. There's a lot more involved than just that. Sure. But, you know, I was with, uh, I was with a buddy. We went to a concert, we happened up on a small church, which was in the back of like a head shop and they had mushrooms for a sale.

And I thought to myself, oh, that's so interesting. So easily accessible. Now at 40 years old, I have a very different experience and appreciation for moments like that. It's not a dive in and let's go try this thing. But 18-year-old me would've been like, let's go. And that's a very different experience.

And so totally, I think that when I get to sit across somebody who has an expertise on both sides, it's very potent. Mm-hmm. I've always found that there are two camps of people. and obviously with your expertise, I think we're gonna open this up a little bit more. There's camp a. The people who are like, yes, I'm very pros, psychedelic.

Let's go do it. Actually, I'm at three. There's a, they're very pro. They're very, yes. There's B absolutely no way in hell. We're never gonna do that. Like, why would we ever do this? And then there's C and, and I find myself to be in more of the camp where it's like, yes, but there are tremendous risk and this is super scary.

So I need to make sure I'm doing it in the right facility. What do you think is happening right now from a societal standpoint? Are you seeing shifts from A to B or B2C? Or what is it that we, as the individuals, as we're starting to explore psychedelics in a healing modality and understanding, there's the yeses, the no's, and the maybes.

How do we prepare ourselves to do this in a successful way? Because I think so many people get locked into the Yes. And then it's a party thing. People get locked in the No, and they miss opportunity. And then people in, in the beat or in the sea camp like me. Maybe should have done it 10 years earlier. Right? So what do people need to know to make better decisions to actually experience this journey if they feel so called?

Micah Stover: Yeah. Again, such an important question. I mean, I'm not trying to make a plug, but I wrote a book to address this very question because I felt like, again, I started in this work in 2016 and how I've seen it evolve into where we are now and all the, what I call myths about people, people coming to me saying like, okay, I wanna do three sessions and then I'm gonna be better.

so, and you brought this up earlier, like, what are my concerns about it being, I don't remember the exact verbiage that you used, but like there's protocols and there's this and there's that. And I often think of this as like, my question is, are we commodifying something sacred? Are we really gonna do that?

Because that doesn't feel so good to me. In fact, it feels like we might be in danger over there. So, you know, for answers to that long and deeply explored, I would definitely encourage people who are in that third category to seek out wise counsel and or resources. My book, healing Psychedelics is geared towards people in that category, whether they are seekers on a personal level, trying to heal, or professionals who are thinking about holding this sort of space.

How do we do it in right relationship? When is it contraindicated? How do we walk into it actually prepared for the un unpreparable? And then what the heck are we gonna do after we come out of it? One of the, you know, maybe this is bias because I'm a mom of small kids, but I often like to reference this lovely little gem of a movie called Moana.

If you have seen Moana, I think Moana is a classic story of like the hero's journey, right? And I think of going out in this sort of deep healing, especially if it's coming from a place of healing, intergenerational trauma as a heroic journey. But we don't know, just like little Moana, when she's feeling called into her quest, there's all sorts of things pushing against her, parents, her fear, her own internal fear, her, can I trust myself here?

But also there's this benevolent ancestor that's saying, come. You can do this, trust your connection. And so then she goes out as best prepared as she can be. But of course, we can't prepare entirely because we don't know what all things are gonna be in that Pandora's box once we open it up. And this is what I always try to tell people when they are like, I think I wanna do this.

Understand that your coping mechanisms that you've become really attached to will no longer work. Like once Pandora's box is open, we can't just close it up and pretend that it's not there. That luxury doesn't exist anymore. So when folks come to me for counsel, or when I'm working with, because one of the things I do now is really focus on training practitioners who want to hold this space for others is like one of the ways you know, if someone is.

Ready to do this work is, are they ready to go through each stage of the process, including preparation, which often people, and this is I think, a byproduct of our immediate gratification culture, you know, Amazon Prime, everything can be here in a day, but some things are worth the wait. If we go to the altered state of consciousness too soon unprepared, it's not gonna be necessarily great.

So I always tell people, you know, and we talk a lot in preparation about, are you okay? Can you consciously consent to, things might get worse before they get better, but I still say yes.

Michael: Hmm. That's a great point. And that's one of the things that I always tell people in coaching with me. I'm like, we're gonna open Pandora's box whether you like it or not 'cause we have to go deep dive and explore why you are here. Not why you are who you are, but why you are here, why in this moment you've become this version of you. And that requires this deep, dark, dirty work. And I don't think there's a way around it. You know, I now having coached thousands of people over the years and then of course doing my own journey, I know that the darkness is coming before the light.

And there are these unlockings in these awakenings that occur in people, and they're like, holy shit. And it's just so necessary. and I wish that it worked. I wish that there was some very simple way, especially when we're talking about not only the trauma that we've experienced that have led us to this moment, but the generational trauma, the intergenerational trauma, the systemic trauma, all the experiences of life.

And life is hard. Like, I don't care what anybody says, life is fucking hard. And you come into this and I think people want, an easy button for a lack way to phrase it. Yes. But that's not always the truth of the backside. Right. And even in my experiences, while I've had really amazing experiences, I've had a couple that were really, really, really hard.

And I think that that is something that you have to expect. I found myself in this moment. Couple years ago before doing ayahuasca of asking myself this question, why do I want to do this? And to me, the answer kind of led to this place where I want to do it because I know there's something deep inside of me that the other modalities have an unlocked 'cause I can feel, I could like literally feel the stuckness. And I mean that in a literal sense. I could feel my body being stuck and, and so I really had a why, like, I didn't just do it for the sake of doing it. why do people come to you? Like, what are these optimal case scenarios in which people have made decisions and they're like, I need something different.

Like what is happening in their lives where they're like, I need somebody to help guide me. The other thing didn't work, maybe this will.

Micah Stover: Well, I think it sounds a lot like what you just described. I mean, that's what I'm listening for as a practitioner is something that sounds like that like I have tried. All these things and they haven't not helped, but there's still this, this like stuckness and I can feel it. I can feel that it keeps me from full freedom, happiness in my life, but I don't know how to get to it. And often that's because, you know, our survival instincts packed it down, vaulted it up because to have faced it as a child would've been crushing.

So like one of my most common expressions to say to people in sessions is that the worst of this is over. Mm-hmm. And you are not alone now. And so we can go back and look at this together.  And that's a really important thing to like, let's zoom in on that a little bit. I don't just, it's not just about the worst of it is over. Like trauma has a way of making us not be able to differentiate time and space. Unless we really get to the root and it's almost like we're reconsolidating the memory with some sort of corrective experience. So in this case, you think of the medicine not as the thing that fixes or consolidates the memory.

It's the elixir to get there. Underneath all the veils and the army of blocks and protection we've put up from that painful memory. But what is equally catalyzing and effective at transformation is the relational repair. We get wounded in relation and thereto we must heal. So it's not just that the medicine makes it all better.

So medicine lightens the defenses so that we can go there. And then the fact that somebody is gonna go into that with you and just not rescue you. Nope, because I believe and reflect back. you are your healer. And I'm here to remind you. And those moments with people in the psychedelic space because the science of psychedelics is they do increase our neurogenetic activity.

And so in that increased activity, elasticity, plasticity, this corrective experience, this reconsolidation of our memories, it's possible. And so people can come out of that feeling not fixed. I'm being very intentional here, but this thing that was so frozen and bound up and stuck is now like, it's like an ice block that's starting to kind of crack and melt. And if we really do the, third part of what I would call the arc of psychedelic therapy, which is integration, we continue to dismantle that, that frozenness, that's deep in the nervous system, that's in the subconscious mind.

Michael: What is actually happening within the body and the brain from a scientific and biological standpoint when we are taking these medicines, what is actually occurring?

Micah Stover: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, and there's a couple of ways to think about it. And so I'm gonna just, and probably way more than that, but I'll speak to it from my expertise and my training. So I mean, we know from looking at brain scans of people under the influence of psychedelic medicines, that there is this thing I just referred to, which is n neurogenetic activity and increase in neurogenetic activity.

So you can actually imagine it, let me try to use a metaphor. So it's more concrete. If you imagine looking at a brain, no medicines involved and it's kind of like lights are out and then you add the medicine and all of these neural pathways start lighting up. So like circuits are going that weren't going before.

And so in this we have increased stretchiness where things have gotten rigid and taut, if that makes sense. and scientifically, this is really fascinating because it is just a fact of nature that our neurogenetic activity naturally decreases. It's by the time our prefrontal cortex is complete in its development; it's like an inevitable thing of biology.

So we could use the metaphor that this is like getting an infusion of neurogenetic activity into the brain. So now we have some of that, you know, flexibility, agility that we did when we were younger, we're more impressionable which is why your facilitator needs to be really ethical and good, but you're also, if you're held in safe space, you're more like open to new ideas, not so stuck.

Right? So that's on a brain level, like a brain chemistry of what's happening. Like in a nutshell, cliff Notes version, a scientist could probably explain it better than I just did, but I wanna talk then also about the whole body, the whole somatic body, because I think people underestimate how, I don't even wanna say that's not the right word.

People forget that we're priming. we have forgotten that we are in fact animals. We human animals with two legs live up here in the heads. And it's almost as if we've disconnected from the wisdom of the body. So one of the things that is so profound to witness and experience in the psychedelic space is that there's almost like a reconnecting that goes on between the head, the brain, and the somatic body, like the rest of the body.

So this is why you'll see people have all sorts of various somatic expressions from trembling, shaking, muscles, limbs, twitching, jaw clenching, like all of these are people, purge people, you know, these are all somatic, primal releases. They're not cognitive. But if we went out in the animal kingdom and we observed the rest of the animals in the natural world, these are all ways that they would deal with stress or trauma that is inevitable as part of being a living creature.

We are just so cerebral. It's like our body forgot how to do that. So I think this is another one of the reasons that these medicines can be so potent in helping us. I mean, the third part of my book is I refer to it as it, it's called The Wisdom of the Wild. And a lot of that is because what I feel is that we are using these tools to return to the innate wisdom of the wild, including our own wild, primal nature. Like that is so much a, a reflection of our healing. Can we be more animalistic, less cerebral?

Michael: Yeah. You know, and I just wrote a note. People fight nature, they fight human nature. They fight against what feels real. And you know, it's funny because I often think to myself, I'm like, I'm just a hu, I'm a human, but I'm a animal. Like you can't tell me pe we're naked monkeys just walking around with clothing on pretending that we have our shit together and we just don't. And then more so now you add on this really unbelievably traumatic experience that happen to people and it shuts you down because it depletes your nervous system.

It puts you in this place where you're constantly in fight and flight. You're in this position where in life you can't seem to make heads or tails of anything. And the very thing that will often, and I've seen this in my own personal life, bring you back to reality, is like reconnecting to that, that natural space of being an animal.

But yet it's. And even in this moment, like we're doing this virtual podcast, which I get the irony what I'm about to say. Mm-hmm. But we're spending too much time disconnected from the very thing that we are, and I don't necessarily mean running around barefoot, naked in the woods. Not that that might not help you, but like, I mean, in general it's like the human part of humanity is missing.

Yeah. And I think that this can help be a piece of the puzzle that you get to put back together. But people are very, very, very afraid even now to be in connection with other human beings. I think, that we are in the midst of the beginning of paying a price that we don't yet understand because of what happened in 20 19, 20 20, 20 21, and this idea that we are meant to be ostracized and separated from each other, that we make each other sick.

and of course, we've always made each other sick, we're bacteria, we're humans, we're animals. That's why it happens. And so now I think people are in this space. Or they are dealing with so much of this alone and they don't really know what to do. And so when they see advertising and marketing and these ideas about, Hey, come connect with us.

Let's do a ceremony. There's 400 other people here. They're like, at least there's something in someone. I Right. I pushed away from that when I started this, this, when I made the decision to take plant medicine, I was like, there's more than like 15 people. I'm not going, I'm not doing this. Yeah. And, and I found an amazing facility.

I keep that personal, but one of the things that came to mind, the reason I'm bringing this up, you talked about this idea of set and setting.  And I think that that's one of the things that people are not exploring because they're just desperate. Right. They're like, I need something. I don't care. I will go anywhere, anytime, anyplace something's gotta work.

I have so much trauma, anger, anxiety, depression, this addiction, that addiction. I'm removed from everything that makes me human. Right. Give me something. I want to walk this path with you in a way that feels very, very practical for people to understand this concept. 'cause you hear horror stories about like, like really bad stories from people who have gone and tried plant medicines and there's, theft and there's sometimes rapes and there's murders and there's like crazy stuff that happens and you're like, it's because people are so desperate and they unfortunately get taken advantage of.

Yes. You mentioned set and setting a couple of times. Let's dive into that. Why don't you kind of frame that for us and then tell people what they should be considering before walking a plant medicine journey.

Micah Stover: Yeah. There's so much here. I mean, I just wanna speak to that for a minute. There's a chapter in my book and it was actually. The determining factor 'cause I had been working on my book for a while. I also at that time had very small children. It's a lot to write a book and have very small children in a pandemic. And a one, a young woman who was very dear to me, did exactly what you described. She out of desperation and urgency went to a place that was very much unsafe and she really should not have been doing psychedelics at that time.

One of the concepts I talk about with people is like, there's the triage or er place and we sometimes have to go there. We're like gonna bleed out. And then there's the wellness clinic. And ideally in my mind as a practitioner, we want to go into these sorts of grand ex grand big scale experiences from the wellness clinic, not the bleed out, because we could bleed out that young woman is no longer earth side.

And when she left this earth, I was like. Whatever is holding me back from writing the book, I don't even care anymore because this is like, there is a real risk for harm here and people don't know. So now to to that, it just had to reference that as context to why this is so important to me. So set and setting, when I think of set and setting, first is the reference of set as your mindset.

What is your state of mind going into this? Are you in that triage? I'm gonna die if I don't do this now. And I always tell people, if that's how you feel, we got some work to do before we go into the session because I don't want you bleeding out. And sometimes that means people leave and they go find someone else because their urgency is too strong.

And in that case, you know, I worry for them because I hope for the best, but also it's my integrity to do no harm. We need to get to the wellness clinic. So that they have optimal outcomes for successful transformation, not retraumatization. We've had enough of that already. So this is one of the ways that I think about it.

Setting refers to the environment or the container in which your health, and this we could get into like a whole world of stuff, right? Because there's the clinical setting versus say, a more indigenous setting. And ike I said before, I really think of myself as being a hybrid. I try to represent a hybrid of the best of both of these worlds.

What I've learned from each of them. In the clinical world, you're almost always gonna be one-on-one, you know, and the environment's gonna be pretty controlled and maybe a little bit sterile in my opinion. but. If someone has very unprocessed trauma and hints of maybe like sexual abuse or something of this nature, and they're like clearly like, okay, they're not in triage, but this is gonna be a doozy.

I might direct them towards a more clinical path to start just so they can work on secure attachment and enough safety to drop into the depths. This also would inform what medicine I recommend that they start with, but that's, we can table that for potentially later. Now let me go to the more indigenous setting where, like you brought up this mention of 400 people, you ended up choosing something much more.

What I would say is reasonable. You know, I think group work is critically important because we have so much, uh, humanity healing that we need to do relational healing that we need to do, but I'm not sure that I think group work is, is necessarily the place to begin. Because what can, what can go wrong here is that if people have that unprocessed trauma and then you put a group of them and the larger the group, the more charged it gets.

People are just transferring out, projecting out their pain and their booboos onto other people who have no skill training to hold that projection. And so sparks fly, but I'm not talking about the good ones. So, you know, and then people say to me, but you are all about the indigenous world, and don't they always work in groups?

And I'm like, we gotta be so careful here, because that is their world. They live more in community and village than we do. Mm-hmm. So when we drop down into their village and then we go, go back to our like, hyper individuated, autonomous American world, this is, it's not the same. Like we don't understand. We have to be careful, I think, to not unintentionally be appropriate of their village.

Michael: Yeah. And it's interesting too because I think that in those spaces of the, the massive group setting, I mean, we are energetic, energetic beings and you know, that's about as woowoo as I get, but I do believe that, right? And so I see that and I go like, you can feel the energy of other human beings and to try to be on a journey.

In your own right and yet be consumed by hundreds of other people. It's an intense proposition, I think, for anyone. And I, I think that what's so hard about it is, again, it's just the accessibility and people go, man, I need something. I don't care what it is. What, one of the things that you mentioned is this idea of the aftercare.

You brought this up a little bit ago, and I think that that is a huge piece of the puzzle that can often be missing because it, it does create this space where there's an opening, like you're depending on what you do, you might not be the same person after. I know that was true for me.

And I think that a lot of times people don't know what to do with that. what does aftercare look like? Walk me that path, like what is it that people should be considering what might happen, and then mm-hmm. What do they do with this newfound information of self?

Micah Stover: Yeah, it's such a good question. And there is a whole chapter just devoted to how do you pick your set and setting. What questions do you ask when you're interviewing a facilitator? Like, I really want to support people and thinking about how to do it 'cause it's so important, often I tell folks like, if you think of ceremony or a medicine session, if it's something more like ketamine as sort of this very sacred experience in the center, then the preparation on the front end and the integration that you do after are the pillars that hold up that sacred thing in the center.

So if you're not a person who's ready to do both the front end and the backend work, I can't work with you. People are so scared of the ceremony, the medicine session. I'm gonna just be so boldest to say that's almost always the easiest part. It's the landing back on earth with that new information and the, what the heck am I gonna do now that my old coping mechanisms don't feel so effective anymore and I've got all these new ideas and new clarity on my family of origins, on my relationship.

How do I live my life in the context of that? And this is where I think support is so critical because you know, in isolation of support, it can get really messy up there. It's not like it, you can't go back to where you were before, but the path forward isn't clear. So people can start in the absence of support making really bad choices.

And then they can get into this place of like, well, I just need to do more medicine. Because if I get do more medicine, I get more information, then I'm gonna be fine. And without even knowing it, especially 'cause there's a lot of monetizing of this work. We are on a spiritual bypassing track that's very dangerous.

And highly exploitative of people's finances. So now also, I wanna acknowledge that I've answered your question, but there's still a fair amount of ambiguity and that's, that's just because the path out, the integration is different for every single person. I have never worked with two people who had the exact same integrative path.

The only common denominator that's like absolutely essential, or I'll say denominators are one, the necessity of support. And two, the importance of like. Taking care of your body in a different way. Because remember what we talked about before about how we live up here and we're not like the other animals that also acknowledge the body.

People's bodies tend to start coming back online, like phantom limb feelings and sensations that weren't there before. So if we go just, well, I'm just gonna integrate with you Micah, and talk about this ceremony like a thousand times. No, that's not what I'm talking about. We also need to be addressing your body that's waking up from something like a coma.

And this is where I think it gets interesting. And I really encourage people to see integration as that wisdom of the wild re and part of the wisdom of the wild is returning to our intuition. What is your body calling for? and usually the good news is that people are more like able to be in tune with that after these experiences than they were before.

So I'm gonna give you one concrete example or maybe two to just make this esoteric thing a little bit more like concrete for people. So, as an example, I have a client, female. she's a survivor of sexual assault and trauma. And, and not surprisingly, that came up in her medicine session. She worked through a lot of unprocessed feelings around it.

It wasn't like a surprise, it wasn't a hidden breaking news bulletin, but her own response to herself and like forgiving herself for the experience versus blaming herself or how she got there, all of that was corrective and reparative. Now she's in integration and she's like, well, that was helpful, but now what?

I still feel kind of scared in my life. I'm like, I, I'm not free yet. I'm still stuck in some ways. So we're working on this. We're talking about what came up in the ceremony and what is she feeling called to, and one day she's driving home and out of the core of her eye, she saw a juujitsu martial arts center.

And she just pulled her car right in. Not a, not a cognitive thought. It was just like the, an intuitive somatic response. Ah, I'm working on safety and my body, I'm working on knowing that I can protect myself. That was one of the biggest parts of her integrative work. She's now like a black belt badass and that will always be part of her life.

Could I have predicted that that was gonna be part of it or forecasted that for her? No, but when she told me about it, I thought, my God, that makes so much sense for you.

Michael: Yeah. Powerful. I mean, and that's what it is, you know, and what I hear in that, because I've seen it in my own experience, is it's getting closer to self because maybe the older version of you, because of the fear, because of the hesitancy.

Maybe shame and guilt play a role too. Wouldn't ever step into that place and take the risk and find out who you really are. And I think that's one of the really unfortunate things about, um, being under a microscope in the society that we live in, that everybody has this expectation of they have to be this thing all the time.

And it's like if you can just lean into being more of yourself, like that's where you really understand integration 'cause one of the things I always teach my clients is one of the cornerstones of healing is doing what you want because you want to do it and not doing what you don't want to do because you don't want to do it.

And that's a long way of saying agency and sovereignty, right? Yeah. And. And on the backside of the journey, it's that, it's like, can you get closer to self? One of the things you mentioned that, that I wrote down that I wanna circle back into, 'cause I just think it's really, really important. You said that once you start to walk this path and do the integration work and you're healing this trauma and you're opened up and all the things are happening that you no longer will see that the old coping mechanisms work, that the old coping mechanisms stop working. What does that mean and why?

Micah Stover: Hmm. Yeah, but I'm glad you asked that question so I can make it more clear. I think I'll use myself as an example just because concrete is helpful with these abstract concepts. So, you know, one of the ways that I coped with my trauma as a young woman, I developed an eating disorder.

you know, that might seem like, is that, is that a, that doesn't seem like a good coping mechanism. Coping mechanisms usually aren't good. They usually involve self-harm. But for example, the intergenerational thread of trauma in my life had a lot to do with sexual violence and misogyny. And so for the young girl, me, the capacity to make myself desexualized by not eating and shrinking my body to be more little girl, less woman, felt like a really good strategy.

Right. And even though I had gotten better and was not like, you know, dying of starvation, by the time I had my son, probably many of the complications in my pregnancy were related to. The harm that I had done to my body and still the control I was imposing on my body because of the legacy of this eating disorder.

Now, after I started my psychedelic therapy, it was no longer even possible for me to impose those restrictions on myself. I would try to restrict to over exercise, to deny myself food, whatever, count calories, and my body was like, you we're hungry. So again, I go to this concept of the wisdom of the wild.

My body was like coming back to life and saying, no more starving. There's a hunger that's like literally for food, but metaphorically for life, for pleasure, for fulfillment, for all of these things. And so this is what I mean when I say the coping mechanisms don't work you. You are not gonna be able to.

Harm yourselves in the same way. And even if you try, because it's so familiar, it won't give the dopamine hit that it did before. It will like, ugh, fall flats. And that's where the integration becomes so important because well, okay, what am I gonna do now?

Michael: Hmm. Jiujitsu. Right. And I think jujitsu, yeah.

Micah Stover: Or any number of other things. Like I had a client who ended up spending like, you know, a month for wilderness on his own, like of himself, no technology. And that was what he needed. You know, I could give you a million examples. And they're all fascinating and they're all so reflective in this beautifully poetic way of what the wound was and how the spirit of our like psyche and soul has an innate wisdom, how heal that wound.

Michael: I think so poetic think it brings you up to listening to it, right? And it's like that's the hardest thing that people do in their healing journey, is honor themselves. Yeah. Is honor what they actually need and, and whether or not we're talking about the interventions that we've been talking about today, I think it still holds true.

It's the hardest thing that people do is recognizing that what they have in terms of their wants, needs entrance, sovereignty, and agency have to actually be on the front side of all the decisions that they make. Because whether you like it or not, the decision you're making literally in this moment is tied to every moment of the rest of your life. And I agree with you, the healing journey is not linear time is. And between those two dates on the day you're born and the day you're died, the day you die, everything that you do matters. and also while simultaneously holding the competing idea that it doesn't, which I think is really fascinating as well.

It's a whole nother conversation for another day. Mm-hmm. But one of the things that I, I want to encourage people to do is like, recognize that we're not necessarily talking, that this suits everyone. And I, I think it's really important to, to talk about this side of it as well. Who should not be doing this?

Who should be staying? I mean, and I know it's like a big blanket statement, but it's easier to say everyone should do it, but who should maybe be considering that this isn't a viable option for them?

Micah Stover: Yeah. I mean, this is such a important question. I'm so glad that you're asking it, and it's such a tender topic to discuss because, you know, the heart of me wants to say that everyone who wants to heal and feels called to this, they de they have a right to explore however, that the like.

Part of me that feels ethically so wedded to this notion of do no harm feels like a moral imperative to say. And certainly, this is informed by my clinical background that we really, at this point in time, I don't think it'll be like this forever. But at this point in time, we do not have enough research to adequately be able to say how these psychedelic medicines interface with a person who has a pretty pronounced neurodivergent presentation.

Presentation. Whether that's a, they're on the spectrum, whether that means they have a personality disorder, you know, we just don't have enough research to know how these medicines interact because the neurological composition is different.

Michael: Yeah, that makes sense.

Micah Stover: And it's tricky because I wanna be really clear to listeners 'cause I've had this happen where this conversation comes up and then people who are like, I mean, I'm kind of, of the mindset that we're all more neurodivergent than we are neurotypical.

So it's like the thing along a continuum. I definitely think I'm neurodivergent. I gave up on typicality a long time ago, so don't I wanna be clear that my message is not, if you are neurodivergent, then you should never do this. But I think that if you have a more pronounced expression of something, whatever it is, borderline personality disorder, you're on the autism spectrum, proceed with caution.

Make sure that part of your care team is a psychiatrist who knows about how, who has more expertise in this so that you can be in a space of doing no harm. The good news on this front is that because we're, I think we've turned a corner where psychedelic medicines are, you know, I mean, there's always gonna be some fighting, but more or less, most people who have sanity are in agreement that these are valid, valuable tools to help the mental health of the future.

So there's a lot more research money going to this now than there was before. So I am hopeful that within the next, you know, three to five to 10 years, we're gonna have much more concrete data and research to be able to support people who might fall into these categories and knowing what options are most safe for them and why.

And the last thing I wanna say about this, because this is a big deal too, is that many people, because remember what I said about psychology, like the medical system in general has an impetus to want to diagnose and prescribe because then there's a sense of closure and completion. We solved the case, so I have many clients who have been diagnosed as having A, B, C, or D, but don't identify with that diagnosis at all, which may mean they don't actually have said diagnosis, they were misdiagnosed. Or maybe they do, but it just, they're, the stigma around it makes them not want to. Either way, we have great opportunity for healing work in either of those camps just would be what the healing work is. Looks a little bit different.

Michael: And I think that last point especially is very important because the number one cause of death in America is medical error.

And I don't think people really understand what that means. And it's things like misdiagnosis, it's things like wrong medications, it's things like, you know, wrong, wrong surgery. Yeah. Things happen, we're human, you know, and it's like, you gotta be, you gotta be an advocate for your own health, you know? And you have to be willing to be like, I get what you're saying, but you know, let's throw that DSM in the trash and have a real conversation, which is really difficult in the world that we live in.

That's consumed by pharmaceutical companies being in bed with insurance companies, being in bed with doctors and hospitals being in bed, blah, blah, blah, blah. The government, and then it's a whole thing that's, we're not gonna get into now. But it's all, so much of it is built against the advantages for you to go have a long, healthy, successful life.

So I love holistic interventions. I love non-traditional interventions, like what you offer. 'cause it makes a lot of sense to my brain. As someone who did work for a Fortune 10 insurance company for over five years, I have seen the insides of the beast. Hmm. That said, this has been an amazing conversation, Micah.

I'd love people to connect with you, to learn more from you, to grow with you. Where can they do that? Where they can they meet you?

Micah Stover: Yeah. Thank you. I've loved it too. Um, so you, people can find me on my website, which is my name, micahstover.com on my website, people can sign up for a newsletter. I usually send out a monthly newsletter that's got all kinds of information, like links to podcasts like this one as well as other courses I'm offering or things of that nature retreats that I may be offering.

You can find my book there. Healing Psychedelics is the name of my book. Again, that's a great way to, you know, know me more, but also really like we've been talking about through this whole conversation. Equip yourself. I love that you used the word Sovereignty and agency earlier. Those are two like pillar concepts and words that I talk about with people in my practice.

It's like, in order to stand in our sovereignty, in order to act from agency, we need to be equipped with good information that is then the anchor that holds us really grounded in our sovereignty, and then we can act with agency from that place. So healing psychedelics is really intended to, to help people, you know, root into that. So those are great places to find me. You can also find me on Instagram @micahsugarfoot  but yeah, those are great spaces.

Michael: Yeah. And of course guys, go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com. Look up Micah's episodes for that and more in the show notes. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Micah Stover: Hmm. I got goose goosebumps when you ask that question because I love it. And I actually, in the very end of my book, I talk about this, like, how do you write a story that doesn't have an ending? Because it's my belief that, you know, the healing journey is a life's journey, but the pursuit to live not from the wound is such a noble and worthy pursuit.

So when I think about what it means for me, just in my life, in my body, with my children, and with my clients who are my care, what it means to be unbroken, it's that I have come back into the wisdom of the wild of my own body. I am embodied, I say yes to what I want to and no to what I don't like. And even if it's scary, I do it anyways. And there's so much seizing of life that comes through that. So I really think so much of being unbroken has not got anything to do with being healed or finished. We can be messy and wild and still have pain, but we're like anchored in ourselves.

Michael: Yeah, beautifully said. Thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation. Thank you so much for listening. If today's episode brought value to you in any capacity, share this with one person in your life. Let them hear the story. Let them hear the message. Let them go on perhaps their own healing journey. Thank you for being here. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

And Until Next Time.

My Friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.