Why Sharing Matters: Catching Up with Past Guests

Hello, my friends.

I just wanted to drop some special bonus episodes into the feed that you probably have not heard unless you are a part or an early part of the Patreon for the Life Shift podcast.

If you don't know, I do have a Patreon.

It currently only has two tiers.

One is a three dollar a month tier just to support what I'm doing, helps cover production costs.

And then there's a five dollar tier which will get you episodes early and just the, I guess, warm fuzzies for helping me out with the Life Shift podcast.

But I used to have other tiers where people were so generous and were offering additional money each month to get bonus episodes and possible winnings of T shirts and all sorts of things.

And then I realized a couple months ago that I wasn't able to deliver what I wanted to, especially for those of you that were giving me the extra money.

So right now we're just kind of doing the early episodes.

You'll always get those.

So if you want to support support the Life Shift Podcast, please jump over to patreon.com thelifeshiftpodcast and you can find that information there.

But I come on here because I want to share a series of these bonus episodes that I did early on in the Patreon journey.

There are like 20 plus episodes in which I had bonus recordings with previous guests.

So I would go back and we would have a conversation about the experience of sharing their story on the Life Shift podcast.

Catch up on anything.

And I think these are super important and I know most of them did not see the light of day from outside of the Patreon.

So I'm going to be dropping these episodes.

Whatever you're listening to now is another episode.

So I'm gonna use the same intro for all of them.

But here is one of the bonus episodes with a former guest from the Life Shift podcast.

And if you like this, let me know because I'm thinking of bringing some of this back and talking to previous guests as I go into year four.

So, so enjoy this bonus episode that was once released on the Patreon feed.

I'm Matt Gilhooly and this is the Life Shift candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

Today's bonus episode guest is Adrian.

Hey, Adrian.

Hey, Matt.

Adrian was episode four.

So it's been a while since we heard you and I appreciate that you were one of a handful of people that was willing to get on record before this was really even a thing.

It was still kind of part of a school project, and I hadn't even launched yet.

So I appreciate you trusting me with that portion of this journey.

Yeah, I'm happy to help out for this episode.

I think it would be helpful to just kind of recap if you could give a short recap of what your story was and what you shared in your episode.

Sure.

My episode was about curing myself of PTSD with mushrooms.

I guess that's the tldr.

That was an interesting episode for me because it was so foreign to me.

And what was so cool or what my opinion.

What was so cool about the.

The way you shared your story and what you shared in your story is how much I felt like the universe or fate kind of intervened in.

In that journey to help you get to where you are now.

And I don't know if you see it that way, but the way that you told the story, it was very much like, wow, she put it in the universe.

And then the universe was like, here you go.

Yeah, I think that way, too.

It really did feel like there was almost like a destiny invol.

I, you know, I really wanted something, and I just ended up, like, crying and screaming to the universe to give it to me.

And it showed up.

You know, it wasn't even something that I had to work for.

It was just, like, I wanted it, and I didn't know how I was going to get it, and it felt like the right thing to do, and then it just showed up.

So there was a lot of intuition and a lot of serendipity, I think, in that journey.

Yeah, from, you know, from an outsider's perspective, it was just so interesting to hear that story.

And I know before we recorded, there was a little bit of apprehension about sharing it a little bit in, like, a public space or sharing your name or any of those pieces.

How did you feel after we finished the recording?

Like, after we pressed the stop button?

Was there anything that you felt sharing that out loud?

I was actually a little bit nervous going into that interview for all of those reasons.

I think it's because I had stigmatized that story for myself, and I was afraid of the judgment that I might get because it's a little controversial and it's not legal in all states.

It's legal in some places, but not in Florida.

And I felt a little better at the end having, like, talked about it and realizing how much good it had done for me.

And I think it made me feel a little bit safe for.

In being able to tell the story.

I heard from a lot of People, when you opened your podcast app that day that it launched and you listened to it, did you have any other feelings on top of, you know, what you felt after you just said it the first time?

But hearing it is a different.

A different ball game for me.

I feel like these stories hit differently when you actually hear them versus when you talk about them.

It totally does.

It felt like I was listening to somebody else's story.

And I think the most interesting thing for me is that I don't always like to listen to recordings of myself because I don't really like the way that my voice sounds when I listen to recordings.

So I listened to this, and I was like, wow, that sounds really smooth.

But I think more than that, the tone of the interview just.

It flowed very smoothly.

And I think it's a testament to how far I've come and the progress that I've made, because I could audibly hear how much calmer I was when I did that interview from the place that I used to be.

I used to get terrible stage fright, but I had terrible anxiety about everything in my life.

And it was really difficult for me to just sit down and have comfortable conversations with people because I was just so amped up and wired all the time from all of my stress and my trauma.

And so going back and listening to that interview reiterated to me how much I've changed as a person.

Like to hear it flow out so easily.

I thought it sounded good.

It sounded like this wasn't the first time you shared the story.

So I'm glad that it came across that way for you, too.

After, like, listening and sharing it.

Did.

Did it cause you to think about anything differently than you had before because you're kind of a little bit more removed from that experience?

A little bit.

I think the way that my perception shifted was that I felt more comfortable talking about it.

So it wasn't something that I had shared often or really with many people in my life at all.

It was something that I kept very closely guarded because there was a certain element of shame that I had about sharing it.

And I was also afraid of the judgment from other people telling this story.

But for me, it wasn't necessarily about the method that I used to heal myself being controversial.

For me, I think I had a lot of stigma and shame about the fact that my mental health was not in a good place.

So being the person that I am, it was really hard for me to talk about where I used to be and how much I struggled with life.

Nobody likes to talk about that.

It's a very uncomfortable thing.

I think it takes a lot of courage for people to step up and talk about mental illness because for anybody who's experienced ptsd, there are a lot of emotional mood swings, there are a lot of emotional flashbacks.

There are, you know, it's constant fight or flight.

So there's a lot of anxiety.

You can have bouts of depression.

It's just.

It's very disorganized internally with the emotional state.

And I had judged myself for having been in that state, even though it wasn't my fault.

All of the things that led to me being that way, my traumatic experiences were not my fault, but I still had shame about allowing myself to be altered in that way.

So I think that the perception that really changed for me was that I felt a lot more comfortable talking about those experiences in my life when I realized that other people were finding value and connecting to them.

For sure, I.

I would say that a lot of people feel that stigma of I'm not 100 all the time, right?

Or I've.

I have some kind of mental illness that I need to challenge.

I mean, I would.

Or to find a way out of or to work with and find a nice balance.

But I heard from a lot of people about your episode in such positive ways and people reaching out and saying, you know what?

I admire one, what you just said that, you know, her sharing that really hard part of her life and how it got so very dark.

And they admired your tenacity in research and what you needed to do that you felt best would help you or at least was.

It was a.

Something you were hoping would help you.

And so they admired multiple aspects of your story.

Did you hear from anyone, feedback wise, that you didn't expect to, or did people you expected to not even reach out to you?

I did hear from some people.

Some of them I was really surprised about.

So I.

The kind of upbringing that I have was.

It was very, I would say, conservative and religious.

So some of the people from that part of my life had commented on the Facebook post where I shared the link and said, we're really glad you found something that worked for you.

I'm not sure if they listened to the whole thing and they were legitimately happy for me or if they just saw that I had recovered from PTSD and was feeling better.

But nobody made any kind of judgmental, you know, comments or said anything that was.

That was problematic.

And I had a lot of friends that did take the time to listen to it.

And I was, I was really surprised because, you know, it's kind of a long episode, and it's quite a time commitment for somebody to sit down and say, I'm gonna listen to this really long interview that you did and that you posted.

Like, you know, the gift of time, I think, is the greatest gift that you can give anybody.

To sit down and listen to my story for that long and then tell me that they were also struggling and that they were happy that I shared my story.

Like, you know, I can't.

It made me feel really good in.

A way that's difficult to describe, I would imagine.

And I hope that a lot of the people that have shared their story on the life shift are hearing similar things from people around them.

I know I've heard from people that, like, so and so reach out to me, and I never expected that they would listen to my episode.

I really like what you said is, you know, that time is, like, the best gift that you can give somebody.

And the fact that, you know, These episodes are 45 minutes to an hour long, and people are sharing sometimes really, really tough moments.

But I think what that does is it just.

It shows that we're all just human, and we all have these different battles or whatever it may be, and we have similar ways out of it, whether that's emotional or kind of the journey that you took.

So I think that's.

I think that's great that.

That people were reaching out to you.

I bet people were reaching out to you for advice as well.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I can't tell anybody how to do something that's not legal, nor can I specifically advise them to do it, but I can tell them to look at research papers that I looked at and to make that decision for themselves.

I think that after this experience, I believe that we all intuitively know how to heal ourselves and that when the right thing comes along, you recognize it.

And for me, it was just something in my brain needed to be rewired.

And, you know, the plants facilitated doing that for me.

And so for.

And that's not the only way.

You know, that was the beginning of my path.

Therapy wasn't effective for me to that point because I kept having all of these emotional roller coasters, and I just.

I didn't have a good baseline.

But once I had.

You know, once I had taken the mushrooms for several months, I just noticed my baseline getting better and better.

And all of the things that I was doing in talk therapy and, you know, trying to work on myself were much more effective because now my body was resonating with the things that I was trying to tell my brain.

So, you know, that was part of.

That was a piece of the puzzle for me.

Might not be the same piece that everybody else needs, but that's what worked for me.

Right.

Well, I think part of your story, too, and I highlighted this when we were talking, is your.

Your approach to changes in your life and the way that you have a strong research side of you to make sure that what you're doing makes sense, that.

That it works for you.

And I think that's another layer that people can take away.

Not necessarily your solution, not necessarily your experience, but that we should be taking care of ourselves.

And we need to find what works for us and do that research.

Not just, you know, some kind of fad thing or some.

Something that some stranger told you to do, but rather research it, figure out what works for you, and then move forward with it.

And in your case, it helped you dramatically to change your life.

I completely agree.

Besides that, I've also been biohacking myself since about 2019 because I used to have a lot of chronic health problems.

And part of that is really getting intimately familiar with my own biochemistry, with what's in my genetics.

So I understand what my predispositions are.

I understand how the things that show up in my diagnostic tests, blood work, other tissue samples, how that relates to my genetics.

And so I'm very meticulous about the things that I put into my body so I can think about what works and what doesn't work and whether or not it's really helping me.

So anytime that I take a supplement, it's not because somebody says it might work.

It's because.

Because I've come up with a hypothesis and I've had my levels tested, and I'm trying to get them ideal.

Or it's because I see that I'm susceptible to something that is manifesting in a test, and this is what science says can help to adjust it epigenetically.

So I think that's important to consider, too, because that affects a lot of mood disorders as well.

Like there are genetic imbalances, there are nutritional imbalances that can lead to us feeling this way, and that can make us more likely to have PTSD or to make it difficult to recover from it.

So understanding all of these things about yourself, I think is really important on.

The healing path, and it ties directly to your comment about time being a gift, and time can be a gift to yourself.

Right.

And putting that time and effort into that research that you did got you to where you are now.

And it continues to.

I know you go through your waves of new research and things you want to try and things that you.

That you might want to address, but it speaks to your character.

And I think someone hearing your story hears that and goes, okay, maybe I could do some of my own, put some time into myself.

So I think that's another way you inspired people through your story.

Thanks.

One of the things that I think has been instrumental in eliciting change in my life since that time is a practice that I got from a book called how to do the Work by Nicole Lapera.

And she talks about why people have difficulty making positive changes in their lives.

And it's because they're not good at keeping promises to themselves.

And so, like, how many times do we tell ourselves, I'm going to make this change in my life, I'm going to be better, I'm going to change my diet, I'm going to start exercising, and we don't stick to it.

And so we get into this pattern of breaking promises to ourselves or understanding that we don't keep promises.

And so we think of ourselves as not trustworthy.

And so one of the exercises that she talks about in the book is picking a small daily promise that you can make to yourself and keeping it, no matter how much resistance you feel to it, and continue to do it and watch your life change.

And this is a fascinating experiment because so I picked.

I was gonna wash my face every night before I went to bed.

Just like, you know, hot washcloth, way to relax and just kind of like, get all of the stress, you know, let it melt away.

And so the first couple of days, I was like, yeah, treat yourself.

And then after that, I was like, why am I doing this?

Right?

Some of those discomforting thoughts started to sneak in, and I realized it's like this unconscious pattern of I don't keep promises to myself.

And I kept doing it.

And I would try to find excuses for, like, I don't feel like doing this.

No, I'm going to wash my face.

And I kept doing it, and the more and more I did it, the less uncomfortable I got with it.

And I've been doing this for a year and a half now, and I have to say it, like, washing my face is one of my favorite things ever now.

But there was a period of time where I was like, no, this is silly, or, oh, I don't have a clean washcloth, or whatever.

You just come up with the stupidest reasons not to do it.

And I Started to notice that as I was doing this, it became easier for me to follow through in other areas of my life.

And I was like, well, let me just make sure this isn't a fluke, because you know how I like to do experiments, right?

So I told some of my friends about this book, and they said, will you lead us in a book club and walk us through the book, since you've already read it?

And I said, great.

So he told them about this exercise before we even started the book.

And I said, before we get to that chapter in the book, I want you to pick something that's a small daily promise that you can keep to yourself.

And I said, you're gonna resist it and you're not gonna like it.

And they didn't believe me.

But I started hearing all of their stories.

Like, one of my friends said she was gonna start making her bed every day.

And as time went by, she was just like.

She's like, oh, this.

She started to feel like it was silly or make excuses for why she hadn't made her bed.

And, you know, it's like, well, I'm just going to sleep in it again anyway.

But that's not the point.

The point is that we rationalize homeostasis.

And so if our homeostasis, our familiar, comfortable place, is not keeping promises to ourselves, if we can't do it on a small scale, how will we do it on a big scale?

This has been an integral part of my personal evolution, too.

Yeah, we could all take a page from your book or that book that you recommended.

I know you've.

I know your life is.

It's very busy these days with.

With lots of work and side projects and home projects and everything.

And I know that you've have listened to some of the episodes of the life shift.

Were there any that.

That stuck out to you or any that you could relate to in their stories?

Yeah, I think I resonate a little bit with everybody that talks about chronic illness, because that's something that I've dealt with.

And so I understand how difficult it is and how, you know, how exhausting it can feel just day after day fighting with your own body or feeling like you want a new body, or when you have a good day, thinking about how long it's going to last before the next.

Before it's over, and then the bad days come back.

So, you know, there's a little part of me that identifies with all of those stories about chronic illness very strongly.

Well, I appreciate that you one pushed through the kind of nervousness of sharing your particular story and the pieces that came along with that working in corporate America and other, you know, just worried about sharing your mental illness past and those elements of your life.

I appreciate that.

If someone is listening and they're kind of thinking about, they want to share their story either on the podcast or just in general with other people.

Is there anything that you could share with others about being a part of either this podcast and this community that I'm trying to build of people, or just in general to people that are afraid to share their story?

Wow, that's a really great question.

I think that sharing stories is important because, you know, you might feel one way about your story, but you don't realize how many other people feel that way about a similar story in their life and how much it can help them.

Brene Brown talks a lot about vulnerability and how we eliminate shame when, you know, when we shine light on the thing that we feel shameful about and when we talk about it.

And I think for me, I've removed a lot of that shame I had about my struggles with mental illness by talking about it with other people.

And as a result, other people have said, wow, I've struggled with this, too.

Let's talk about some of the things that have worked well for us, like how do you, you know, how do you manage your life?

How did you get to a healthy place?

And I was like, wow, this feels really good.

Instead of feeling shame about my past, I can feel hopeful about my future and, you know, warm and fuzzy about my present.

Well, I appreciate you just coming, first of all, just being on the show, but then coming back and then sharing a little bit more and about the experience and diving a little bit deeper.

And I appreciate you being my friend and having our journeys together.

So thank you, my friend.

I appreciate you, too.

I really enjoy our conversations and I, I love the fact that you, like, you always check in on me and ask me how my day was if I'm like, if I'm super busy.

And, you know, I think you worry about me a little bit.

It's a little part of my nature.

But I appreciate you and those of you listening to these episodes.

We're going to be catching up with a bunch of former Life Shift guests and where they are and what they felt about their story.

So hopefully you're enjoying this and we will see you on the Patreon feed.

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.