Today’s podcast is quite different. It marks the end of the Mind Manifest podcast and is an episode where I turn the microphone back on myself. The inner healer is a clever and amazing thing. Some years ago, whilst I was becoming somewhat disillusioned with the limitations of conventional talk therapy for my more complex clients, I came across the burgeoning therapeutic and scientific use of psychedelics and became intrigued. My initial curiosity was - I thought - purely professional. A resurgent modality was showing promise in the clincial trials, and I was professionally (but dispassionately) intrigued. That was the extent of it. But research is, of course, me-search, and after my first few personal experiences with psychedelics, I realized that the true reason I was so interested was much more personal. I had some deep and unhealed wounds that had not been accessible to me by conventional means, and my inner healing intelligence knew as much. It knew it would have to leverage the intellectual curiosity of my mind, and therefore the only way to expose my being to the healing potential of psychedelics was by presenting them to me as something ‘legitimate’ in the eyes of the mainstream. Like I said, the inner healing intelligence is a clever and amazing thing. I do not think I am alone in this regard -I would posit that a lot of other health practitioners and researchers in the field (if they are truly honest with themselves) know that the prepotent reason for their interest in psychedelics is not the professional or intellectual curiosity of their ‘adult’ selves, but a similarly wise desire to finally listen to the unacknowledged yearnings of their own inner child. please listen and enjoy, and hopefully, this helps you or someone you know