#101 My awesome guest this week is Steve Mcdonald, a former helicopter pilot who served in the military services.
Steve openly shares his past struggles with trauma, PTSD, anxiety and depression. He shares the journey of looking at all aspects of his recovery and how psychedelics played a big role in his treatment. Whether you are suffering from any anxiety or trauma (or not), or are interested in the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics (or not), there’s something in here for everyone. Enjoy!
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About Steve: Steve McDonald is a futurist and founder of the non profit Agency for Advanced Development of Integrative Intelligence (aadii.org). He is focused on human development and the emergence of more compassionate, collaborative and resilient societies, both locally and globally.
He has a diverse background spanning military service as an infantry officer and helicopter pilot, emergency response as a civilian rescue helicopter pilot, and organisational development consulting across the corporate, government and nonprofit sectors.
Steve has practiced Taoist martial and healing energy arts for over 20 years and is co-founder of Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine (prism.org.au). He co-hosts a weekly radio show and podcast called Future Sense (futuresense.it).
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Links & Resources For Steve McDonald:
From Shock To Awe Movie
TRANSCRIPT
Guy: Steve, welcome to the podcast.
Steve: Thanks. Glad to be here.
Guy: This is a, this is actually take two and not that the listeners care, but is interested in the live aspects I can come in. Um, so question for you, which I ask everyone on the show is if you are on an airplane and you sat next to a stranger and they asked you what you did for a living, what would you say?
Steve: I’d say I run a nonprofit change agency,
Guy: nonprofit change any to see and yeah. What is that?
Steve: Well, it’s an organization that supports people to understand and navigate change. And our particular focus is on the, the consciousness aspect of the global paradigm shift, which under what is underway. So I’m talking about the end of the scientific industrial era and how everything seems to be changing at the moment. How our old systems like politics, economics don’t seem to be working very well and where we actually even seem to be going backwards.
Steve: And so I work with a model which explains those change dynamics to help people understand, uh, what’s going on and where we might be headed in the future.
Guy: Wow. So then if people are looking to build a new system economically, they would want to speak to you basically.
Steve: Well, I can identify very specific trends that are already clear in how society is changing. And one of the most simple is that we’re moving from a very individual way of living, which was the scientific industrial era to a communal way of living in the future. Yeah.
Guy: Interesting. Interesting. You know, I only hear the other day and um, that there was a study done on happiness and I don’t know if it was Harvard or somebody spent a lot of money on, um, what’s the number one key to happiness. And you know what, there was a human connection.
Steve: I was going to say that. And that’s a particular aspect of this paradigm shift. Uh, the, the new consciousness that is emerging, the main motivator and driver is deep human connection.
Guy: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Which I think, um, you don’t get us through social media. They might be connected to us here in our voices right now. A little bit know.
Steve: exactly. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s almost a disconnection in social media. I mean, you, you feel like you’re talking and connecting with people, but you don’t get that personal connection at all, you know, so yeah.
Guy: It’s not like they can come and hug us off camera and just say that was a great conversation or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Well, look, the reason why we here today as well as cause, um, I bumped into Ronit Robbaz. We went for coffee and a good friend of hers, um, Janine stumbled into the cafe who’s the producer of the documentary from shock to all, which I’m sure we’ll touch on as well.
Guy: And I instantly connected to Janine and she was like, um, you know, talking about the podcast and there’s like, love to support it. I watched the Docker, which was incredible what they were doing, the PTSD veterans, uh, with plant based medicine. And then she basically connected me to you tell me a little bit about your journey in his Lake house. You’re gonna want to have a virginity too. Right. So, um, it’s awesome to have you here. So why don’t you take us back a little bit to, to where we get to that point, cause I know you’ve been on quite a journey yourself and it all started with you joining the army. Was it?
Steve: Yeah. So I spent 15 years in the army. I did two different things in the army. I was a helicopter pilot and I also served as an infantry officer, which was just leading combat troops.
Steve: And, uh, most of my time was spent here in Australia, but I went to war in Somalia in 1993. So I had five months in a war zone there. Uh, which was a life changing experience in many ways.
Guy: I can imagine.
Steve: Uh, and then while I was at war in Somalia, I really had a, um, an inspiration, I guess to leave the army that we felt like I’d done what I needed to do. I’d learnt what I needed to learn from that experience and I, I needed to move on to something else, you know? And what you would that have been 93 so you left in 93. I had that experience of, uh, being at war and having that inspiration in 93 I left in, uh, around about the end of 94.
Guy: Yeah, no, it was fascinating cause we were talking off air just now as well about your own experience with PTSD.
Guy: And one thing I want to mention as well is the fact that like, I think we all experienced different levels of trauma. I mean you would only see it about, was it Stan Grof? Yeah. Um, what did he say about trauma?
Steve: Well, his basic understanding is that we’re all traumatized at birth and just the fact of coming out of a nice, comfortable, enclosed womb into the outside world and the sudden, uh, change that happens. You know, he’s traumatizing to some extent.
Guy: Yeah. And then the body is holding that trauma within. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, and I want to give that context cause I appreciate not everyone would’ve been to the army or been in the forces and the experience, you know, some of the things you would have. But I think we all have stress and traumas in our lives anyway. I believe so. I think everybody’s traumatized to some extent.
Guy: Yeah. Yeah. Did you know this was going on for you when you left the army in 93?
Steve: I had some idea, you know, like, uh, I guess, uh, I realized I wasn’t 100% well when I came back, but I wasn’t unwell enough for it really deal with affect in my life in any significant way. Yeah.
Guy: When did it start to show its head, if you like?
Steve: Uh, probably with hindsight, probably while I was still in Africa, uh, I noticed just mood changes and those sorts of things. And then, uh, when I came back, uh, I, you know, had this motivation to get out of the army, which I did fairly quickly. And then I ended up flying a rescue helicopter for five years and had a lot more traumatic experiences during that. Jordan. Um, and so it was kind of a, some, you know, of all of those things. And plus I’d had some trauma when I was a child, which they say often makes you more susceptible to
Steve: trauma later in life. So I had what they call complex PTSD. It wasn’t just one for medic event, it was a whole series of traumatic events over quite a period of time. And then as is often the case, it didn’t strike me down straight away. It was actually, there was 10 years after my war service that I had a breakdown from PTSD, um, and a couple of years after finishing the flying job. And that’s pretty common for people to have it kind of sneak up on them later afterwards. Wow. Is it like a pressure cooker almost a slowly building within you think you could see it that way. And also for me, there were certain trigger events. Like I had a lot of change in my life just before I had the breakdown. You know, like my marriage broke up, I moved into state, I changed my job, lost my network of friends, you know, I had to create a new unit with the friends.
Steve: All those sorts of things just added up to trigger what was it, you know what was already there.
Guy: Yeah. Right. So it’s almost like the straw that broke the camel’s back and then everything comes out.
Steve: That’s right. Yeah. And then I was unable to work for seven months. Yeah. I’m going through treatment.
Guy: And what’s the normal treatment?
Steve: I went through the mainstream system initially, so I was hospitalized, I was put on antidepressants. I’m basically given a chance to rest in the hospital. Went into one on one counseling twice a week to start with. And I was put on a group therapy program, which ran for three months. And that was about 80 hours a week. Over three months with a few other people. Yeah. Wow. And how did you feel after that? Uh, I wasn’t fixed to blame means I was well enough to go back to work part time.
Steve: That still suffering pretty badly from depression and PTSD.
Guy: Yeah. And then was it after that, because we’d know we all have a catalyst, right, where we decide to like look for something different or for changes that when you had started looking at plant-based medicine at that point or cause you mentioned a bit of a awakening in your own journey as well.
Steve: Um, yeah, sure. So, so I had a, it was prior to that breakdown back in 99, I had a, a small spiritual awakening, which coincided with me starting meditation, uh, and a, a meditative form of KungFu. And also meeting some new friends who gave me some books that I wouldn’t normally pick up, like channeled material in that. And uh, and all of that triggered some sort of instantaneous awakening. I was sitting on the couch one day reading one of these reading, the first channel book that I’d ever read and just, it was like somebody flipped a switch and I had this sudden expanded awareness and realized that this channel material wasn’t just fiction.
Steve: It was actually a trustworthy material, you know, and that really just made me thirsty for more information. So then I, from there I went on and read every book that I could find on different forms of spirituality. Yeah. Going down the rabbit hole. And then it was, it was a couple of years after that that, uh, all of those changes happened, which triggered my PTSD. Uh, and then I went on a pretty steep sort of healing journey, uh, did get back to work part time. And I’d, when I’d moved into state, I met a friend who had some experience as a teenager in Scotland with psychedelics. And both of both he and I were working in the change management personal development area, and he thought that those experiences were useful from the personal growth point of view. So that sparked my interest and I was totally drugged and I hated that time.
Steve: So I had no prior experience of, uh, of drugs, drug induced altered States. I’d had some altered state experience from meditating, which was useful when I did start, uh, try and plant medicines. But, um, it was a few years after that conversation that my friend rang me up and said, I’ve been invited to an iowaska ceremony. Would you like to come along? And I didn’t know what I was, it was, and my main interest at that point was from a personal development angle. Uh, and I was using interested in particularly around spiritual awakening, yells, wondering whether this could be a useful tool because you’d already had an experience the reference upon. Yeah. So I did. And so, uh, I, I went along with my friend, uh, and uh, with that question in my mind is this a useful personal development tool? And very clearly my first experience showed that it was, and it was a really useful byproduct that all of a sudden I found that my depression kind of went away quite quickly and you weren’t expecting that when you went completely unexpected and it was only then that I realized that these things were actually bitter sins that could heal you.
Steve: I had no idea.
Guy: Wow. Yeah. Can you still remember your first experience?
Steve: I can quite vividly actually.
Guy: Yeah. Cause it’s, I always struggled. I’ve only ever done it once. Right. And it was such a, for me personally, like it’s quite funny cause I researched for a year. I think I was delaying myself cause I was so nervous. I was terrified of doing it, but there was a greater pool that’s like,
Steve: I had no idea what I was getting in for. You know, I wasn’t a, I didn’t know enough to be scared.
Guy: I did the opposite works too many YouTube videos and um, but to this day I remember documenting it all. I wrote five blog posts and just put them out there to the world once I’d done it too. And even when I go back and reread them to this day, it still doesn’t really describe what happened even though I tried to do my best, if that makes sense.
Steve: Yeah.
Guy: It was like that for you. Like how would you describe it to someone?
Steve: Look, I went in with the question in my mind, you know, is this a useful tool for personal development? And I had at that point, probably about seven years of meditation under my belt and I’d done a lot of open eyed meditation through my Kung Fu style and it had some pretty weird experiences. Uh, just meditating, including open-eyed meditation where the ground started to ripple as if it was the ocean and those sorts of things. Oh wow. So, you know, I wasn’t a stranger to altered stage and when the medicine started to kick in, the first sign that I had was I started to see some colored patterns with my eyes closed. And I said to myself, you know, here we go. Let’s try this out. So straight away I tried to change what I could see to see if I could work with what was going on.
Steve: And immediately this small voice in my head said not power over at one width. Right. And I knew what that meant from, you know, my, my spiritual study in my, particularly my come through experience, right? So I just relaxed into the experience and what do tried to do when I tried to change it was it kind of looked like a plastic-y pattern that I was seeing. So I thought to myself, let’s see if we can change this to make it look like wood. And then I had that voice come in and say, you know, at one with, so I did my best to be at one with what was going on instead of trying to actively change it. And then suddenly I found myself inside a tree trunk and I travel up inside the tree trunk right up to the, the pine needles at the top of this pine tree.
Steve: It was, and I was like, I became the tree and I could feel the sunlight on the pine needles. And it felt amazingly good. And I thought, you know, no wonder plants reach up for the sun. This feels fantastic. You know? So it was like a more than I expected. I, all I wanted to do was change it to look like, what am I became a tree. Um, for somebody that’s not even experienced pump asthma or anything like that before. How real is that? When you have an unexperienced view? It can feel extremely real. Um, you know, that particular experience of being the tree was, was momentary and it didn’t shake my sense of reality. But I’ve had subsequent experiences that have been more real than this. You know, to the point where I feel like I’ve popped out of this reality into something that’s more real than this and then I’ll come back to this.
Guy: That’s incredible.
Steve: As if it’s a simulation.
Guy: Yeah. Now you seem a pretty grounded, steady guy. Like you know I like to think, so if you haven’t experienced like that, what does that do to you overall do you think? In terms of just living life here now,
Steve: it clearly stretches your understanding, you know, of of what’s real and what’s possible. There’s no doubt about that. And when that happens, that’s the, the seed of the transformational change. So if we then have sufficient integration and support to wrap our head around whatever that was, then it can result in permanent growth and expansion from a conscious point of view. And that’s why these things are such good tools for personal growth is because they can trigger those transformational experiences that had the potential to result in permanent growth if with property integration. Yeah, totally. I couldn’t agree more. I almost feel like, cause I do a lot of meditating and,
Guy: and, and it’s almost like, it feels like the circuitry within me is upgrading constantly if I’m willing to feed it nutrient water it. Yeah. And, and it’s allowing me to, to lean into that and start to, to have a different level of awareness than I used to have. And that continues to grow and expand if we, if we continue to lean into it. Yeah. But it was really interested in about what you said as well. It made me think about surrender, you know, when you say be on one with it and not fight it. Yeah. You live your life like that. No, I do as well as best I can.
Steve: Yeah. I look, I’ve studied this, uh, Dallas, uh, meditative style of confluence. It’s a martial and a healing art over 20 years now. And that’s very much about learning to move the body in a certain way and learning to interact with another person to energy in a way that naturally flows, which w with whatever seems to want to happen.
Steve: And so that’s been a wonderful learning experience and guide for me to learn through that come through system in conjunction with the psychedelic medicines, uh, how to flow with the natural unfolding of life without surrendering your free will of course. So you still play a cocreation or part in it. Yeah, yeah.
Guy: Cause it’s, it’s a beautiful, I think it’s a beautiful place to be. Like I find pockets of it. Yeah. Obviously it’s not all the time, you know, but, uh, I’m no doubt that’s definitely something I can people that are doing it a lot.
Steve: Yeah. In my martial arts, a Dallas start, which is based on the, the yin and yang theory of, you know, balanced dynamics. Uh, so I, I, when I got that instruction of, you know, be at one with it, I understood that it meant flow with what’s unfolding naturally. Don’t try and mess with it, you know?
Guy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. So you have this experience, it’s taking you by surprise, not, um, it’s helped with your depression. Yeah. So then what happens? You, you then go,
Steve: uh, then I wanted to do it again. You know, that’s a pretty natural thing. Uh, and I found over time that it cleared my depression very quickly. Completely. Yeah, completely. Um, the PTSD not so much for me personally. I mean it definitely chipped away at it slowly, but I didn’t get a fast resolution at all. And it was only years later when I had an opportunity to try MDM a in a healing context. What does MDME? MGMA is a, a drug that’s currently being trialed in clinical trials to treat a range of things be including PTSD in particular, in conjunction with psychotherapy. And it’s often called, uh, an intacted gin, uh, or an empathogen. And it’s, I guess it’s a particular flavor is that it’s particularly hot expanding
Steve: and it shuts down the fee of centers in the brain. So if you’ve had traumatic experiences in an MTMA assisted psychotherapy session, you might be able to think about those traumatic experiences without re-experiencing the anxiety. And that’s the problem mostly for people with PTSD is when memories of the an old experience come up. It’s like you’re back there and experiencing the trauma now. Whereas MD Maya creates like a safe zone. And you don’t have that, um, that angry, anxious experience when you’re recalling things. Yeah. And to some extent it seems to, uh, create a plasticity in the central nervous system and allow it to rewire itself. It certainly felt like that for me. Wow. And did that help you PTSD? Massively. Yeah. So all of the treatment that I’d had conventionally, you know, the, the time in hospital, the drugs, the individual counseling, the group, uh, therapy sessions, uh, all of that added up did list for me. Then one session at MD may did how
Guy: as mine. Well, how does that make you feel though when you, if you’ve put yourself through all the conventional therapies out there and you know, and I’m sure everyone involved is doing their best. How, you know, it’s not a criticism, but you come out of it and you still suffering and then you go and do this one.
Steve: And how does that effect, how does that, how do you feel after that? You feel annoyed. Very bloody happy to be honest with, you know, it’s, it just to be free to have that background anxiety, which I didn’t even realize I was carrying. It wasn’t until the next morning after that session I woke up and I felt more peaceful than I could ever remember. And then I realized how much anxiety I’d been carrying day to day and it had just become part of my normal background noise, you know? Um, and, and that was wonderful. And the first instinct then was I, you know, I want to help other people to have these experiences as well. So I, uh, at that, around that time I also got involved in creating a psychedelic research organization here in Australia called prison. So I could have like research and science and medicine and we’d been working for years to try and get legal clinical trials.
Steve: We psychedelic medicines happening here in Australia and we recently succeeded in getting approval to run a trial together with [inaudible] hospital in Melbourne two, which is to treat needy things, lighting and, uh, anxiety internally, terminally ill patients. And that’s just about to start now. We also have an MDM, a trial in the pipeline that the first one I mentioned, this was silicide infer measuring mushrooms and the MD my trial, uh, hopefully will, will beginning to, it’s soon that we’re still yet to get approval for that one. Got it. We’d love to be working with the same kind of people. We’ll have people, it’ll be working with people with treatment resistant PTSD. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Just a small number of people. But so, you know, in that respect, my experience with plant medicines and with MDA in particular is very similar to the characters in the documentary for shock, that war who used those same medicines to resolve their war related PTSD and depression. Yeah.
Guy: Amazing. And um, I, I watched that documentary literally about two weeks ago for helping them prepare for this interview today. And uh, I know it was incredible. Like I was with those guys the whole way through in the way. Um, it just covered the aspects, but what really hit home for me is how debilitating it can be. Having PTSD. Like it’s like it really hit home for me. Like it was like, Whoa, that’s pretty heavy. And then to see the effect in a very open, honest way it being covered and what impact it can have on [inaudible]
Steve: life is quite incredible. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. When I had my breakdown I was a real mess. You know, I couldn’t care for myself. That’s why I needed to go into hospital. And I can remember the second day in hospital trying to eat some soup and my hand was shaking so much, I could hardly keep any soup on the spoon, you know, so it can really knock you around.
Guy: Wow. Yeah. And then yeah, you certainly see the, the, you know, the things that really matter in life, right?
Steve: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I did do a wonderful job in that documentary of really taking you there, you know, so you’ve got a real insight into how this disrupts your life and then the huge turnaround for the medicine.
Guy: Yeah. So how did you get involved? Cause you were on tour with the movie here in Australia.
Steve: Yeah. So a really close friend of mine, Mitch shorts, is a film director from Austin, Texas. And he was one of the producers on from shock to war. He got involved, uh, when the project was already part way through. And Mitch and I worked together on, have worked together and continue to work together on a number of different projects. And so I found out about it from him and I said to him, you know, we should take you someone tour in Australia.
Guy: Yeah. Fabulous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so then how was it received
Steve: really well? Really well, uh, we, we, we would pleasantly surprised that, you know, the curiosity and um, support from the audiences. And we had a, a question and answer session with a panel, including me, you know, at the end of each showing, uh, around Australia and uh, got a lot of therapists in the audience, actually a sprinkling of people who were suffering from PTSD that one of the things about PTSD is when you’d got it, you don’t want to go look at anything that’s going to bring it up for you. You know, so a lot of PTSD suffers, wouldn’t want to go and watch a movie about PTSD cause it would trigger their own PTSD. So more much more in the way of therapists and medical professionals in the audience. Yeah.
Guy: Yeah. Fantastic. And a mixture was directed the spirit molecule in front of mr [inaudible]. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s cause like I was saying, it was because of that film I went and actually started looking at pump this medicine and the missile tryptamine cause it really challenged my own beliefs at the time when I state wow.
Steve: You know? Yeah. You know, so definitely recommend that documentary as well. It’s great. Yeah. Amazing. So, um, for leading all the way up, so you’ve just done the film tour and what do you, what is your vision for the next five years? You’ve got many, it seems you’ve got many things on the, on the, on the goal. Yeah. I’m particularly interested in how human consciousness is changing and how that plays out in the real world. So my work is mostly oriented around helping people to have a deeper understanding of human nature and who we are and what we’re changing from to and how that’s likely will impact everyday life in, in the real world. And I’ve had the benefit of studying this amazing body of research from an American psychologist called dr Claire w graves, who through extensive field research and analysis really mapped out how we change when we grow through life from being a young infant through to a, an adult.
Steve: And the various ways that our worldviews shift as we go through transformational change and how all of that is tied to our life conditions and influenced by our life conditions. And his work is, is a really, really good map. Uh, and the people that he studied, some of them were ahead of the mainstream. You know, it’s like human evolution is a bunch of people bopping along in a conga line, you know, through the evolutionary process. And some folks are up the front of the line, most are in the middle, somebody on the back. And he captured the full spectrum. So he, he found some people in his daughter’s set who were well ahead of the mainstream and they were really Pathfinders for the future of society. And by studying their motivations, their values, their worldview, we can understand what society is going to be shaped by in the future.
Steve: Yeah. Well what was the name of this person? Clear. W graves. Claire w graves. That sounds fascinating and amazing body work. He died before he published it, so it’s not well known, but uh, I’ve just had the pleasure of writing a forward to a new book on his work called the change code, which is going to be released in a couple of months time. I’ll get into that for sure. So, all right. You’ve been on a hell of a journey. Anyone listening to this today that would be curious about looking at, I mean, should we wait till we have PTSD before we go and do this or do you think we should explore it anyway? Like what’s your take and view on all that? I think most people who explored psychoactive medicines probably don’t have PTSD. You know, not in a serious way. Many people do it out of curiosity or for various different conditions that they might want to get insights into or heal.
Steve: Yeah. Um, but it’s a tricky time at the moment because there aren’t many places in the world where you can go and legally have an experience with these things. And even if you go to somewhere like Peru, uh, it’s, it’s full spectrum in of the quality of service that you will get there from facilitators. Like any industry, there are opportunists who just want to take your money and send you home. And there are other people who were deeply dedicated and experienced and know what they’re doing. Yeah. So I guess my first pieces of advice would be do your homework. Um, speak to somebody, you know, ideally who’s been to somewhere somewhere and who will recommend it. Uh, and um, make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons. You know, don’t get pressured into doing it by a friend. Make sure that it’s deeply what you really want to do and it’s on your personal path, uh, and that you’re not going to have any regrets afterwards because somebody pressured you into doing something you didn’t really need to do a want to do.
Steve: That’s pretty significant. And thankfully with the benefit of the internet these days, there’s a ton of information out there. Uh, you know, from people who’ve, who’ve had these experiences and who are prepared to recommend places to go. So what, I’m interested, would you go back to, do you continue to take pump his medicine? Like did you, like I remember I’m Graham Hancock listening to an interview with him saying he would go once a year and that you’d always learn something and come back or like, is that the same for you with this or do I have continued, yeah, through the years, uh, I’ve traveled overseas a lot. The problem is that in many countries this work is illegal. Uh, and so, um, you need to be mindful of that. And if you do end up doing it in a country where it’s not legal, understand the risks that you’re taking around that.
Steve: I think there’s a strong push to end prohibition globally at the moment. And I think that’s going to accelerate in the, in the next few years. So I think we’re going to see it becoming more open and legal in different countries. Uh, and cannabis seems to be leading the way there. I was going to say, since it was CBD all, and now isn’t it? It’s starting to see that change. So there’s a, there’s a sort of a wave of change sweeping the world or you know, more and more people are doing this and understanding that it’s actually not, uh, what our governments have told us. You know, the, the, as part of my involvement with psychedelic research, I’ve looked into the laws around prohibition of these drugs and can say without a doubt that the laws are not based on scientific evidence. They’re based on social bias and politics.
Steve: Uh, and more and more people are realizing that and pressuring governments to go to an evidence based science space legal arrangement. Yeah, well, I know Tim Ferris has been back in a lot of [inaudible]. Yeah, yeah. It’s psychedelics and research. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s been very supportive and you know, more and more people like him, uh, donating to the research organizations and calling for, uh, legal reform grassroots up, isn’t it? Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s because it is illegal in most of the world. It’s hard to really gauge how many people out there have, for example, drunk Oscar. I think it’s a lot of people globally that has to, you know, I hear a lot of stories and I don’t think there are many countries that are untouched by the plant medicines. So I think there’s more people than we really know who have had these experiences. Yeah. It was, it made me think of the movie fight club.
Guy: It was the right thing once you’re in, you know, but I kind of.
Steve: Yeah just don’t talk about it. Yeah, yeah. Very true. And of course, documentaries like from shocked at war, which are very, very powerful, uh, spreading the message. And one thing that really impressed me about the documentary is it’s a great bridge between mainstream society. And the psychedelic world, which is seen by many people was fringing weird, but he, you’ve got down to worth folks, army veterans who’ve had transformational experiences, um, you know, somewhat unexpectedly, uh, and uh, and uh, you know, speak very warmly about the experience of how it changed their life. And I think it’s good for mainstream people to see that. And you know that it’s not something super weird.
Guy: Totally. And you know, that’s on this last thing, cause I’m the least unsuspecting guy, honestly, when you meet me and talk to me and I’m like, that is passionate about any of this work.
Guy: Like it’s not like I’ve got dreadlocks or you know, I’m washed in three weeks. So it’s still like, it’s like, but that’s the perceived persona in, in society quite often. Like it’s an escapism where it’s not for me. It’s like we’re living in escapism and this is a self-discovery. It can be,
Steve: it’s right. I mean if you look back at the history of how our prohibition came into being, you know, it was very politically driven know, and particularly in the 60s was tied in with people having these experiences. You know, realizing that we shouldn’t be shooting each other in Wars and then going protesting against the government, be getting involved in Wars and then the government decided to crack down on the drugs to shut up the protesters, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I’m a month ago. Lots ones. Um, I was asked a set of questions on the show and you probably touch them but, still be interested to hear answer.
Guy: And I always ask is if what’s been a low point in your life that you, you lit a look at as a blessing? I mean,
Steve: I guess as I mentioned, the breakdown that I had from PTSD and I think my understanding of Clare graves, his work for the fact that when I went through that experience, even though it was one of the most difficult experiences in my life, I also knew, cause I, I’d read a book on his work just before I had the breakdown, you know, and it was like a map of transformational change. And so in the midst of it, even though it was very, very difficult, I knew what was going on. I knew this was a transformation and not like a dead end. And so it gave me hope that I would come out the other side of it, perhaps better than I was when I started healing. And it took quite some years for that to really unfold for me. But I can honestly say that that was a transformational experience that changed my life ultimately in a very positive way. Yeah.
Guy: And then you can look back on that and be grateful for the learns that was taught you.
Steve: Absolutely.
Guy: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s great to hear. Um, cause I see it all the time, even with our retreats, you know, there’s people suffering and the, and, and it’s like want to be able to really help. But obviously the, the greatest teacher is for them to reveal the diamond within yourself and um, and, but when you, when you see that change and even when I look back upon my own different things in life, I’m so grateful now because they’ve shaped me to where I’m at today. But when we were in it, it can be really hard.
Steve: Absolutely.
Guy: And totally. What does your morning routine look like?
Guy: Do you a morning routine?
Steve: I normally like to wake up with the sunrise and so I’ve kind of trained myself. As soon as this first light breaks, I’ll wake up. I usually pick up my phone and have a look and see what’s happening in the world for the day. Cause I, I work any as a futurist, I speak as a futurist and I work with change. So I like to keep tabs on what’s happening in the outside world. I don’t have a TV. So my main way that accessing the newsiest room are fine and I just do that in small doses. Yeah. So I’ll do that. Uh, and then, uh, get up. Some days I might go for a walk before breakfast. Uh, and I work from home. So, you know, you still have a meditation practice? I do, yes. So it’s my Kung Fu. I do a very traditional Dallas form of kungfu called Tachi Twan, which is a moving meditation essentially. And uh, I do that probably about four times a week. Uh, and it’s so good for me that if I don’t do it for two or three days, I really start to notice the difference. And that’s what has always driven me back to do it again. You know, it’s that feeling of feeling bright on top of things physically fit. That’s kept me doing it for 21 years now.
Guy: That’s always a good indicator, isn’t it? If you, if you could take a week off, which is healthy, you can go, Oh, I really noticed this.
Steve: Yeah exactly.
Guy: When there’s a good practice now. That’s awesome. And, um, if you could have dinner with anyone tonight, right? From any timeframe, anywhere in the world, who would you think it would be and why?
Steve: I think it’d be Nikola Tesla. Oh yeah. Because I’d love to talk to him about his insights into frequency and energy. Yeah. And I firmly believe that frequency in physics is really the future of medicine.
Guy: Yeah. Wow. There you go. That’ll be a good conversation.
Steve: Would be great conversation.
Guy: Yeah, totally. And, um, everything we covered today, is there anything else you’d like our listeners to ponder on before we wrapped up?
Steve: Yeah, I’d like to just say that the world is looking pretty challenging at the moment. And he’s quite challenging for a lot of people. And the way that I see it is that we’re in the middle of what I call a Slingshot dynamic. And if you imagine a Slingshot to find a Slingshot, you’ve got to pull the elastic band backwards and create tension. And so what’s happening in the world at the moment is that everything’s being pulled backwards to create the tension for a big leap forward in human consciousness.
Steve: And this is demonstrated in the daughter in clay graces research and everything that I’ve read about his work and everything that I see in the outside world tells me that this is what’s going on. So I think a lot of people are losing hope because they see the backwards movement, they see the regressive values, people going back to old sort of rigid right-wing values and these sorts of things. And think that we’re, you know, we’re, we’re done for, but it’s actually just a transition period and we’re going to come out the other side of this far more capable than we were before.
Guy: That’s a great analogy. Just hang on right when I say short gets, let’s go. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And where can I send everyone if they want to checkut more of what you do and you have a podcast as well.
Steve: I do have the podcast called,
Steve: what’s your sense? And the website for that is future sense. Dot. It sent it.
Steve: Uh, I have a blog called eman8.net and that’s E, M, A, N, the figure eight.net. Uh, and uh, there were some other links yet that they’ll find on the blog,
Guy: we we’ll link in the show notes anyway. So if anyone’s listening to this on the audio, they can just press pause and scroll down and it’ll all be there for you as well. Steve mate, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for the crash today. Really appreciate it. Thank you!