Ep174: Leslie Draffin ~ Microdosing, Menstrual Cycles & Breaking Taboos

Ever wondered how psychedelics could catalyse a journey of profound self-discovery and healing? Join us as we sit down with Leslie Draffin, a former TV news anchor who found herself at a breaking point in 2022. Through her candid storytelling, Leslie unveils how the pressures of her career and the 'pandemic''s impact led her to explore the therapeutic potential of psychedelic mushrooms. This transformative experience brought long-standing issues, including sexual shame from a herpes diagnosis, to the surface, guiding her toward a path of authenticity and self-acceptance.

Leslie shares her empowering transition from maidenhood to embracing the full spectrum of womanhood, notably choosing not to have children. Through her spiritual growth with mushrooms, she learned the importance of being open to receiving in all aspects of life. She discusses her career evolution from a news anchor to a podcast host, driven by the desire to have uncensored, profound conversations about taboo topics like sexual shame and the mother wound. Her experiences underscore the significance of understanding one's menstrual cycle and the empowerment that comes with embracing the dark feminine archetypes.

The episode delves into the unique connections between womanhood, psychedelics, and self-discovery. Leslie highlights how psychedelics can help women reconnect with suppressed aspects of themselves, facilitated by an awareness of their natural cycles. We also touch on the benefits of microdosing mushrooms for both men and women, and how it aligns with our biological rhythms. Listen in for transformative insights on the balance between leadership and intuition and practical guidance for those interested in starting their microdosing journey. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone seeking personal growth and mental well-being.

Where to find Leslie:
Instagram @LeslieDraffin
Podcast: The Light Within 
FREE GUIDE: https://lesliedraffin.myflodesk.com/microguide
BOOK A CALL: https://calendly.com/lesliedraffin/book-a-call

Chapters

• 0:02 Breaking Point
• 7:34 Embracing Feminine Energy and Power
• 23:11 Navigating Psychedelics and Menstrual Cycle
• 38:12 Exploring Men's Microdosing and Leadership

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Truth and Transcendence, brought to you by being Space with Katherine Llewellyn. Truth and Transcendence, episode 174, with special guest Leslie Drafin. Leslie is here today to talk about enough's enough, and we'll get on to what we mean by that. Leslie is a somatic psychedelic guide, a sensual embodiment coach and a menstrual cycle educator with a special connection with our theme today, which she's going to explain as we go, and right up front, I'm going to tell you how to find Leslie. So on Instagram she's lesliedraffin L-E-S-L-I-E-D-R-A-F-F-I-N. Or her podcast, the Light Within, which I had the pleasure and privilege of recording for an episode of that recently with Leslie. It's a beautiful, beautiful podcast. Plenty there for your nourishment.

Speaker 1: 1:16

This is not just for women. Some of those topics I just mentioned, people might think well, the menstrual one obviously is important for women mentioned. People might think, well, the menstrual one obviously it's important for women. But for any man who knows any women, I think is probably quite relevant as well, and I can feel the guys actually nodding as I'm saying this. So thank you, leslie, very, very much for coming on and also may I say thank you for your bold choice of occupations in your life. That stuff is out there. I mean, it's in there in the sense that it's really about stuff that's really central to us, but it's out there in terms of being not mainstream. So thank you so much for doing that and thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:58

Catherine, thanks so much for having me, and thank you for saying that. I get a little freaked out sometimes, and so it's always helpful to hear a little cheering. I know exactly what you mean.

Speaker 1: 2:09

So we chose this theme Enough's Enough, and you shared with me some of your story around when you reached that point in your life, when you hit that experience, and would you like to lead us into the conversation by sharing that with the listeners?

Speaker 2: 2:26

Yeah, absolutely. So. I really think that I had reached this breaking point of enough's enough in 2022. Even though I was at the height of my career. I was making six figures as a TV news anchor, and yet, internally, I felt for a really long time that there was something more I was meant to be doing, and while I really loved aspects of journalism, there were so many parts of it that were completely detrimental to my mental health, that were detrimental to my physical health.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I'd suffered for years from eating disorders and alcohol abuse that were really only made worse by being in the public eye, and when the pandemic rolled around, I was the essential anchor, the one that had to still go into work.

Speaker 2: 3:16

I never was the one that got to anchor for my house, and so I really ended up absorbing a lot more stress and a lot more trauma from the numerous people who would call the TV station, scared to death, and I was the only one there to take their calls, and so that was really something that impacted me much more deeply than I think I gave it credit for at the time, and this theme throughout my life had really been, up to this point overachieving, being a perfectionist, trying to prove to everybody around me that I was worthy, because of some pretty deep core wounds, including one around getting herpes when I was 18 as a preacher's daughter, so there was a lot of sexual shame there too, and I thought to myself if I could just prove to everyone around me how good I am, then of course I will find the love that I so desperately seek.

Speaker 2: 4:12

And what I finally ended up realizing and when I think I came to this realization that, like, this is enough, like I don't need to be in this space anymore was when I started to intentionally work with psychedelics, mushrooms specifically and it started to uncover within me and unfold within me one, the awareness of that wound and, two, this path forward that was, as you have said, very taboo, very underground, but one that I really feel at its core is to lead people back to themselves, to help people uncover who their true, authentic self is. And the truth of the matter was, though, at that point I wasn't even being my authentic self, not in every aspect of life, and that, I think, is when I finally realized enough's enough, I have to leave this job, I have to figure out what's next for me, and there was a period of shadow. There was a period of upheaval my Kali year, for sure but I think that's a good place to at least start.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Yeah, thank you. So that's a lot. I mean, how did you come across mushrooms? How did that come into your life?

Speaker 2: 5:21

You know, the first person who ever really mentioned microdosing to me, which is when you take a teeny tiny amount of psychedelics that's so tiny you're not tripping and it's often seen for therapeutic purposes. The first person who ever brought that up was my boss, my news director, because he had heard about it and I would say it was probably in 2020 or 2021. And he had wanted me to explore doing a story on it. I had a weekly healthy living series that I did and I looked at him and I was like, well, how am I going to do that if it's illegal? And I never explored it, but somewhere in my subconscious that little seed was planted.

Speaker 2: 5:58

Then, in early 2022, I heard a podcast much like this one where a woman was talking about the healing benefits of psychedelic mushrooms for sexual shame. And because I had had that herpes diagnosis, there were a lot of things coming up for me in my life that were symptoms of that sexual shame issues with libido, issues with worthiness and body image, and I really feel as well this disconnection to my authenticity. So I had her on my show, immediately hired her like the second, we hung up the call and I embarked on this really therapeutic journey with mushrooms. I didn't do any psychedelics until I was in my thirties. I was so scared of them and this woman was able to really hold a beautiful container where I felt safe enough to explore the things that needed to come up for me.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Yeah, so she was supervising you and coaching you through the whole process.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Yeah. So she did sessions much like I do, sessions where I would ingest my medicine about 30 minutes before we would jump on a Zoom call and it would be a bit like talk therapy and then some guided meditations. I vary slightly in the way that I do my work, where I also include somatic practices like breath work and movement and pleasure, but yeah, it was really helpful and healing and over seven sessions we did a lot of work around mother wound. That seemed to be a big theme for me in 2022.

Speaker 2: 7:34

I was turning 35 and I felt very stuck in the maidenhood because I am not a mother and I've chosen consciously not to be a mother of a human child, and that was really tricky for me. I felt really disconnected from that next archetypal stage in life and yet also very disconnected from the people who are my age. So we did a lot of work around that and then I had this intention of wanting to feel worthy enough to receive pleasure. But what mushrooms do is they'll give you what you need, not necessarily what you want or ask for. And so they heard Leslie say I want to become open to receiving pleasure, and they knew Leslie's got to become open to receiving period, so they showed me where I needed to leave the job.

Speaker 2: 8:19

I lost two of my dogs back to back. I had to fall so far into grief that I then just stopped white knuckling life long enough to open my palms and ask the universe to protect me and take care of me. And slowly I built that trust enough to feel safe enough to receive. A year later the pleasure came back online. But it's just so fascinating where this work is Like. Sometimes we don't know what we really need at the core.

Speaker 1: 8:44

I know exactly what you mean by that. We think we need X, but actually what do we even know, Because we have so many layers of us, haven't we? Isn't that wonderful and miraculous, really, that you were able to notice this woman and you had your show already by then? Do you start your podcast before you stopped being a news anchor?

Speaker 2: 9:10

yes, so I, like I mentioned, I'd had that weekly um a series on tv where I would get two and a half minutes a week to talk about healthy living, and it started very diet culture-y, very like this diet or Whole30 or like movement classes. And as my spiritual awakening happened and the pandemic happened, I had the opportunity to interview folks via Zoom so I could branch out from my little Texas town and find really weird things. So I had been doing that series since, I think, 2017 on TV and then what the pandemic showed me is I want to have really weird conversations that can be fully uncensored and long form, so let's start a podcast. So I started my podcast in January of 2021. And so I did those things concurrently, probably part of the reason why I ended up getting my contract not renewed for ethical reasons After I left for sabbatical for my mental health.

Speaker 2: 10:17

It was a real shady move by my job to, in the midst of my mental health leave, tell me they're not going to renew my contract. I never figured out what they thought was unethical News is unethical in my opinion, so I just let them be. But it could have been the fact that I was dropping the F-bomb and talking about orgasms on the internet in my podcast. But yeah, it started in 2021.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Very bold, very bold of you. But of course there was let's just say there was a certain amount of censorship going on at that time, wasn't there? So I think sometimes people don't quite know how to deal with some of these topics or people who are talking about them. And you mentioned about sexual shame and the whole mother wound and all of that, and I do think we still haven't fully got comfortable with the actual manifestation of the full woman in her full womanhood of any age. Do you agree? Oh, for sure, yeah, both internally and as a collective.

Speaker 2: 11:21

Do you agree? Oh for sure, yeah, both internally and as a collective.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Yeah, exactly, it's still a bit scary. I mean, honestly, I think it is a bit scary and I'm a woman. You know there's so much mystery and power isn't there to womanhood and it's a big thing to actually engage with. Yes, a big thing to actually engage with. So you doing that sounds to me like you were actually coming out into your full womanhood, being who you are, holding that space for all these interesting things to come in and be discussed.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Yeah, I think you're right and I think for me, I started on that path when I started to learn about my menstrual cycle. You know, I was raised in the south of the United States and for folks who are not American that is a very conservative part of the country and I were both adopted. My mom had had some health issues so she was unable to conceive naturally, so I was never around anyone with a menstrual cycle growing up and our super lackluster educational system around reproductive health was basically just saying don't have sex. It was very little about like this is your hormone pattern. And the little we did get about our period was like you're going to have it, it's going to suck. Don't talk about it, hide it. Here's a pad, put it in your pocket. Definitely don't carry it just in your hand as you go to the bathroom because that's nasty.

Speaker 2: 13:06

16 years and I think that's when I finally started to do that work with the archetypes of the maiden mother, wild woman, wise woman, even into the dark feminine archetypes. That for me felt really natural to go to first as someone who had lived mostly in her masculine energy. Dark feminine archetypes, dark goddess archetypes felt really easy to get into first because I was so avoidant of the gentle, merciful, compassionate mother, which I now know is because of my own mothership. But yeah, it was. I think you're really right. I think that that work and the work I continue to do with that is really, I think, what's made me feel safe enough to step into this very powerful and potent version of myself.

Speaker 2: 13:52

And I love that this theme is enough's enough, because a lot of people ask me, like how do you feel comfortable enough to say the things you say? And honestly, I'm just like I don't really give a F, like it's just like, come on, I mean, I don't know, give a F, it's just like come on, I mean I don't know what it is about me that most folks just don't. I think I don't know. I have a vibe that most folks just don't really mess with.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Once I start to say the things I say, it's very, it can be pretty powerful and pretty potent and for me it's like if you're not okay with it, that's fine. And yet if you're someone who's going to attack that, like enough with you, I don't need to have anything to do with you. And that was something I had to really get comfortable with post-TV, because in television. We're not allowed to say what we really think. We're not allowed to block the haters on social media. We got to leave the crappy comments there for everyone to see, because free speech and that was tricky, that was hard to learn after tv yeah, yeah, but obviously you had that kind of strong core within you.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Uh, that must have come from somewhere. Um, because you, you, you went through some really very difficult experiences and and, frankly, being a news anchor, uh must have taken a fair amount of resilience in the first place. I mean, not everybody could actually show up and do that. I mean, were you doing that at weird hours as well, or were you doing it Because you hear stories about having to do that at 4am and things like?

Speaker 2: 15:20

that, yes, my first anchor position was morning anchor. So I was a morning anchor for five years and that shift looked like show up to work around 2.30, get off around 11.30. And then when I became an evening anchor which is where I ended my career I reverse aged. I had aged so significantly in those five years. But, yeah, it was always kind of a funky schedule but I was really grateful to have the evening position, which is kind of like the one everyone wants, like the elite position, the main position for the last six or so years of my career.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Excellent so, but still, you've done some hard things over the years and it's so interesting you say about the years. And it's so interesting you say about being very strong in the masculine energy and then really connecting with the feminine energy and that the way into that to begin with was the dark feminine, that aspect I really get that. Could you say a bit more about why you think that was?

Speaker 2: 16:27

I think it could be. At least this is my experience. Sometimes people are in their masculine energy as female body beings for safety, maybe because violence was done on them, maybe because they think and it's true that that's what society wants most from us and there can be wounds within that wounded masculine right Because we're not in our up-leveled masculine most of the time when we are imbalanced between the two energies. But what I have found and it was certainly my case, I felt like gentleness was weakness. I felt like softness was weakness. I felt like ick to to that very much so.

Speaker 2: 17:09

And so when I really started to do the archetypal feminine work, the um, like the dark goddesses were the ones I always gravitated for first. Hecate or Hecate whoever, however you pronounce her um, lilith, those types of archetypes where it was very much this wild, wise woman, sometimes the seductress, but more often like that seer or oracle in the woods, the one that was more into like the nitty gritty of life, felt very natural to go to, because I think what also came through for me was they felt very protecting. So if I and if my clients have had things happen to them I work with a lot of sexual assault victims, sometimes going into a feminine archetype that feels like I'll F you up, is the one that will feel like so protecting, yeah, when what's so fascinating and it was certainly my case what I truly needed was like the merciful mother, like the Kuan Yin.

Speaker 2: 18:17

I avoided working with Kuan Yin for years for years, and if you're unfamiliar with her, she is, I think, more of like a Chinese goddess. I'm not completely sure of her complete background, but very much mercy, compassion, and I avoided that for so long, but that's what I so deeply craved. However, I did not know how to give it to myself and.

Speaker 2: 18:41

I didn't see that really in my life because of my own wounded, patriarchal mother and it was almost impossible for me to go to that. And what was fascinating about mushrooms is they are what turned the tide for me to finally understand how to receive, like I said, the love I needed to receive from myself and from, I think, the universe in general, Because my relationship with my earthly mother has not really shifted whatsoever since I started to do this work. But I started to understand I could give myself what I needed from her, even though she wasn't going to give me what I needed if that makes sense and mushrooms kind of helped to show me that.

Speaker 1: 19:19

How fantastic Well done, and I get what you're saying about. It's easy to say to somebody give yourself the love that you need, but sometimes it's not one step. You're talking there about a journey where you gravitate towards that which you find accessible and then move from there and end up at the place of the thing that you really need, that you're by then ready for.

Speaker 1: 19:45

And I suppose the other thing about the wise woman or over here we call it the crone as well is they are past the gender issues, aren't they? They're past fertility et cetera. They're past menopause and they're just in themselves themselves. They're not vulnerable to the handsome young man, the exploiter, the narcissist, all those things. They're just not vulnerable. So they really do speak to that part of us that's invulnerable and strong don't they?

Speaker 2: 20:24

Yeah, I think for sure. I think what's also interesting is because I had such this challenge in this consciousness of going from maiden into mother and understanding what mother is and was, and how can I be mother if I'm not a mother? I just always assumed I'd go straight from maiden to crone, and I'm very into the triple goddess. I have the triple goddess tattooed here, and what's interesting for me, though, is when I added the third archetype, which is the wild woman. So, maiden, mother, wild woman, crone, the wild woman is the midlife woman.

Speaker 2: 21:07

They're the ones that are in perimenopause. Their life is in turmoil and they are basically past. They are enough's enough, like, if an archetype is enough's enough, it's wild woman. It's when you're 38 to 50 and all hell's breaking loose with your hormones. That's where I am currently in my life and it's just when I finally remembered and learning about that, I was like, okay, this can be a transition phase for me. And this was before I had done the work around the mother and now I feel like I have transitioned into that mother archetype in my own ways. But yeah, I think I say this all the time I long for the crone phase because the women that I see in that phase now, who are really conscious, are just such amazing teachers and elders and mentors.

Speaker 1: 22:00

And.

Speaker 2: 22:00

I'm just like that's going to be it, man, I can't wait, and I think because of the way that my whole 20s and early 30s was about image, was about what I looked like, was about being judged for what I looked like. Maybe that's also why I'm really interested in being in a phase of life that I know will be tricky to suddenly feel invisible to some people, especially the male gaze. Not going to sugarcoat that I'm sure it's going to feel very odd. And yet also, like you said, to be fully unto themselves, to be fully into that space where you're in the moon of life, where like your work is like your work and your worth is so much more. You know what you feel it is and maybe community based as well is so much more what you feel it is, and maybe community-based as well.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Yeah Well, I can tell you, by the way, that the male gaze doesn't completely go away when you reach that point in life. It's just that what they're noticing is different from what they're noticing when you're younger, and it's actually much more powerful than what they notice, and more and more men are actually able to pay heed to that now, which is very, very exciting. So just to let you know that, from the other side of that particular curtain and actually, you know, I think all these different phases of womanhood are full of mystery you know, whichever phase we're in, or whichever phase we're going to go in or have been in, you know.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Yes.

Speaker 2: 23:30

Which I think is terribly exciting, and I've said this before and I think it's so true. You know, psychedelics are such a journey of mystery. But being a woman is a psychedelic experience in and of itself Because of the mystery school we get initiated into, depending on where we are in our menstrual cycle, where we are at, whatever age we're, in, whatever role we're playing. And yeah, I think it's partly why psychedelics can be so healing for women, because it really helps to usher in these different phases within ourselves and a remembering within ourself that all society pretty much in the modern age has been set up to make us forget yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Well, that is the military model, isn't it? You know, if you, if you want, uh, good soldiers, you don't want them to be stopping every now and again and tuning into their current hormonal state and their intuition and their imagination, and all of that, it's not what you want. It's not productive, it's not efficient, right? No, not at all.

Speaker 1: 24:38

But actually the great thing is, because of the technology we have now, we can actually be productive and efficient and all of those things, whilst remaining connected to all those mysterious aspects of ourselves, which is, I mean, look at us. We're talking on Zoom, about this, which is just so cool, you know, without having to pay. You know, like a team of roadies to come in and set everything up for every single conversation. You know, I remember the days where, if you're going to record something, it was a massive, big deal. You know, you had to hire the equipment, you had to get people in to set it up, they had to teach you what you you know, whereas now you just press a button.

Speaker 2: 25:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:15

So that we do have more space. I think because of that, yeah, I think so too.

Speaker 1: 25:22

So, coming back again to this work with psychedelics, you're working with people now doing this, so that's fascinating. What's it like when someone approaches you and has anyone shared with you what it's like for them thinking about looking for someone like you? You know that kind of um, because you don't wake up in the morning and you know what I'm. I I'm going to go and buy some milk today, but I'm also just going to find a psychedelic guide and actually I think they want a somatic psychedelic guide and I'll just do that before I do the vacuuming and then I'll pick up the kids.

Speaker 2: 26:02

You know, maybe for some folks it is like that. Maybe it is suddenly like a let's find this. I think, really, most folks who have explained to me how they found me they do hear about it on podcasts. I think that podcasting is such a beautiful long form modality that allows us to have really vulnerable and uncensored conversations around things that the algorithms of other social media platforms aren't really jiving with. But I think, for me, what I've found and this is something I've just been circling back to really in the last couple of weeks, so I started this healing journey to come back to myself in 2019.

Speaker 2: 26:45

And it's been a very interesting cyclical pattern where I'll pick up a modality, I'll train in something new. First it was meditation, then it was embodiment and trauma, then it was the menstrual cycle, then it was psychedelics and somatics, and what I think is at the core of it all is helping myself feel at home with me, like that self-discovery of okay, this is who I really am. And while self-love is a very tricky topic, self-acceptance, self-compassion, might resonate for folks more. It's, I think, really for me, coming back to the place where I can fully love and accept myself, no matter what, and so all these modalities I've picked up also help others find their way back to that feeling as well, and, whether people want to admit it or not, I think that's what we are all really yearning for, because we clearly yearn for connection. That's one of the core human needs, and with self too, which we can become very disconnected.

Speaker 2: 27:54

That certainly was my story from the age of 15 through 32. And so I think when folks start to explore in this realm right now, there's still a lot of right now, there's still a lot of male chatter, there's still a lot of bro talk online about mushrooms and psychedelics for biohacking and all of this stuff, and maybe they find me because they're looking for help with hormones and then maybe they check out cycle stuff and maybe that's how they do it. But I really think that everyone who's supposed to find this kind of work finds it in whatever unique way they're meant to. But I do think podcasts are a really good avenue for a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 28:36

Fantastic. Well, I'm delighted to hear that, because you know there would have been a time where getting to hear about something like this would be just really hit and miss, really unusual. And I get what you're saying as well about what you called the bro talk, because, frankly, with psychedelics, you can get high and you can go on a trip and you can have a crazy time, but that's not what you're doing. You're doing something that's actually much more nuanced than that, isn't it? And it's going into the self in a very, very special, very feminine way, you know, and I think that's really amazing. So tell us a bit more about the menstrual cycle work that you're doing and where that's relevant for people.

Speaker 2: 29:29

Yeah, so when I started into coaching, the menstrual cycle was where I went first, and I was talking to someone the other day about the reason I think I did that first. One, it was because that's where I was in life, but two, it felt like an acceptable way to move into health and wellness coaching, even around a taboo topic. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I've been put on this planet to just break taboo and connect with people over law. I've looked at my human design and I my life purpose is basically to like buck the trend, say double middle fingers to the establishment and just help people regardless of what the rules are. And that's very tricky for a very good girl because that is me I very much was like good girl archetype.

Speaker 2: 30:20

So the cycle work that I'm doing now has really evolved. I first started where I was helping people understand their hormones and how to live in tune with them, and now I find that I often get women who I work with who are in midlife who aren't really that concerned with their cycle. They want to maybe connect with the womb because they understand that the womb is very much a power source. Maybe they've got womb trauma related to birth or related to sex in general, and so now I created a microdosing protocol based on female hormones, so at certain points in your menstrual cycle you're microdosing a certain number of times a week, and at other points you're microdosing a different amount of week.

Speaker 2: 31:05

And that has been one a way to help people understand their cycle. In a way that also relates to microdosing. But I think what you mentioned before it is really nuanced. It is the trickiest way to microdose and it's also the deeply feminine way, because no other big protocols were created by women, and so that's what I'm working on now as far as the cycle goes. But I often say from my personal story, if I had a religion, it would be the menstrual cycle, it would be my cycle, because that's what I follow most closely, it's what I align my sacred rituals with, it's what I align my life with, and so whoever works with me, if they're in a female body, they're going to get that flavor a little bit, whether or not it's in that deep cyclical living, work or not.

Speaker 1: 31:59

I understand. Yes, so by you following your own cycle, you're embodying something yourself which will then provide a particular kind of vibration for people, even if that's not what you're directly talking about with them.

Speaker 2: 32:12

That's a beautiful way to put it. That's a much better way to put it.

Speaker 1: 32:17

Just playing back what you said to me. This is one of the reasons we have other people in our lives, isn't it? Because sometimes they will say something that's actually useful. I love that. I love that. And what effect does that have on somebody doing that microdosing protocol around their cycle?

Speaker 2: 32:36

You know, I think the first thing is really it helps them connect with their changing hormones in a way that's more intuitive than sticking to a certain cycle tracking method. I've done it all really. I've done the apps, I've done the journaling, I've done the have a big chart, and so it's a little bit more of sensing the energy within yourself, sensing okay, where am I now? And I have them track their cycles too, pretty generally nothing too specific. So it does help connect with that energy of the cycle.

Speaker 2: 33:12

The other thing that I have noticed is it is reducing cramps significantly, and I was shocked at that. So when I created it, I had this hypothesis that it would absolutely help with mental health challenges that come up cyclically PMDD, pms and that it would help with our overall mood and because of how much more often people with female hormones are diagnosed with things like anxiety, depression and PTSD, and how helpful mushrooms can be for those issues. That was the other reason I hypothesized a cyclical approach might be really transformative, and it has been. But I was, I didn't. I completely underestimated the power of mushrooms for pain. So the people who I have worked with this on are going from pain at like a seven, eight, down to like a three, four, and I'm talking menstrual cramps, which I think is pretty significant.

Speaker 2: 34:05

Now sometimes they may see that those cramps do come back after they stop microdosing, because you don't microdose forever. It's something that just comes into your life for a little bit of time and then you take a break. And the other thing I think that's really been helpful is with mood, with overall mood. I've had some folks who came to me that would have angry outbursts. They would be snapping at their kids and after working with microdosing for six to eight weeks they would say to me something like I remember one client. She was like I just I was at the bus stop dropping the kids off for school and my husband was there and he said something to me and I just knew in the past I would have flipped out on him. I knew I would have just like snapped and I was able to pause long enough to see the big picture and understand where his remark was coming from. And that ability to respond versus react has been another really big benefit from the cyclical microdosing and for microdosing in general. Because I do want to say you don't have to microdose in tune with your menstrual cycle. That is kind of like the junior to senior level, like microdosing in general can be as simple as microdosing three times a week and that can be incredibly beneficial. And that's where I started.

Speaker 2: 35:24

I didn't start microdosing with my cycle until a year or so after I'd been microdosing I obviously had really studied it. But I think that no matter who you are, no matter what protocol you choose, when you're in a female body and you do decide to intentionally work with mushrooms, be it around the cycle or not, you're still going to experience some benefits like that responsiveness, like the elevation in mood and I really think, if you're willing to be open to it, the very healing, mother-like qualities of mushrooms. I think mushrooms are deeply feminine Of the psychedelics. I think that they're childlike in their femininity in some ways and also kind of mothering. It's different than ayahuasca, which is very much grandmother and there's some grandfather energies and masculine energies in the psychedelic realm too. But I think that because of the way the mycelium network works, which is the mushroom network underneath the earth, how connecting it is, it does have a womb vibe and that can be really healing, whether or not you're going to play with your psychedelics and your cycle at the same time.

Speaker 1: 36:35

Yeah, yeah, wonderful. I think it's fantastic. A question just came through for me just then, which you may or may not have any answer for Do you think that men have any equivalent to the menstrual cycle?

Speaker 2: 36:51

I mean, I think that. So their daily hormones are very constant, day after day, and that's the big difference, right, Our hormones are consistent month over month. There's our consistent day over day Um, and I think that in certain parts of the day maybe, but I haven't really looked that deeply into it, um, but you know what? I think that men can absolutely benefit from working with womb energy and and working with, because we all have some type of a womb, wound based on the fact that we were from womb um, and I've found that, um, that can be really healing to go back into that type of vibe, even if you're not someone who has a womb yes, yes, I don't know why the question came in.

Speaker 1: 37:40

it just felt like you. You know we're all human and so we've got an awful lot in common, men and women, and obviously this thing about women having the womb and having that cycle to do with that is unique to women. But I suppose as well I was slightly prompted to do that because I was talking to a male friend a while back who had uncovered a lot of sexual guilt and shame and he discovered the only thing that really helped was mushrooms. He was doing it unsupervised. He just happened to realize that there were a lot of mushrooms available in the countryside near where he lives, and so he started doing that and it just made an extraordinary difference to him, and I was just wondering whether for men there's any.

Speaker 1: 38:31

This might be something. I'm going to keep my ears open on this actually going forward, because if for men there was an equivalent to that beautiful sort of wave of following that cycle, whether it's in relation to the moon or whatever it might be, that could be a very interesting thing. Or maybe for some men it's different than from others, or maybe it's just something I just made up that doesn't exist. I like those inquiry questions where we have no idea what the answer is. Well, I think the moon is.

Speaker 2: 39:00

Yeah, I think you're right about the moon. I think the moon is what I often have people who aren't menstruating work with. That's certainly what I worked with when I quit birth control and didn't get my period for nine months, so I do think there could be something to be said about having that connection to the moon. What's also really interesting about mushrooms? So I tend to microdose in the morning. I'm a morning person. It's when I have the highest energy in order to focus on the rituals. But I have a teacher Her name is Michaela De La Mico, and she was talking earlier this summer about the vibe difference between microdosing mushrooms, which is the probably most common thing to microdose psychedelic mushrooms and the second most common thing to microdose psychedelic mushrooms and the second most common thing to microdose which is LSD.

Speaker 2: 39:47

So mushrooms, she was saying, are a darkness, they're a nighttime, and right at a nighttime being they come out in the deep darkness of the earth, and so working with mushrooms at night, traditionally in indigenous cultures, is when it would have happened. And so she was just kind of talking about the fact that microdosing mushrooms at night might be more the energy that they want you to have, whereas microdosing LSD might be more the energy of the morning time because of the brightness, because they come from ergot, and some morning glory has some also vibes of LSD in it, and so I think that you're onto something about the moon itself and how beautiful that little connection, because I think, while men don't have a menstrual cycle, we're all cyclical beings, and when we pause long enough to get in touch with our body's natural rhythms regardless of what those rhythms are, be it of the menstrual cycle or just the circadian rhythm we can really benefit because it's helping us get slow.

Speaker 2: 40:50

And something we haven't really spoken that much about, but that is very central to the somatic side of what I do, is nervous system regulation, and so psychedelic work can be a heightening. And when we also do it with this element of somatics, where we're really trying to ground ourselves, where we're trying to go slow, where we're trying to feel safe enough to process what's going to come up, yeah, I think that that's another element where healing can really come through.

Speaker 1: 41:22

Well, honestly, I could keep talking to you about this, leslie, for hours and hours, but we're coming up to running out of time, so listeners are going to have to actually check in with you to get much more detail about this. So a question I always like to ask is in relation to leaders today. So there are a lot of people in leadership positions. There are a lot of people who may not be in leadership positions, but who are trying to be really good leaders in their own lives and who are trying to be part of the solution, and some of these people are listening to this podcast. Because this podcast does attract those sorts of people, is there something you'd like to say to those people who are trying to be good leaders and trying to be part of the solution?

Speaker 2: 42:08

eat mushrooms. I mean, that's what came forward first. I think, as someone who was also in that position of being a leader, of trying to figure out how do I also lead with love myself, maybe other than mushrooms could help you, I would just say that I hope that you can find within yourself the ability to also be not just the leader, but the one that allows themselves to be led by their own intuition.

Speaker 1: 42:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:48

To know that so much of our world really lifts up leaders. And there can be a part of you that doesn't want to be that and might feel wounded by that position and might feel like if I'm a leader, I can't be weak, I can't be compassionate, I can't be all these other little beautiful parts of me. But I think that to be your very best self, whether you see yourself in a leadership position or you're trying to be that element, when we can really integrate all these other little parts, that might even be the complete shadow of leader, which is follower, that's, I think, when we become our best selves.

Speaker 1: 43:28

Yeah, thank you, beautiful, I love that. Yeah, thank you, beautiful, I love that. And I think you said to me earlier on in the before we came on, when we were warming up, before you said something about some information about microdosing that the listeners could tune into. Would you like to say something about that?

Speaker 2: 43:47

For sure. If you're listening to this and you have questions or you're ready to dive in, I have a free microdosing guide called Activate your Inner Magic. This is a beginner's A to Z how to microdose. It includes some of the top asked questions about microdosing, journal prompts, a habit tracker and a guided meditation to help you on your journey, and in that book you'll also find a link on the very last page to book a call with me if you have additional questions or if you're ready to dive deep.

Speaker 2: 44:20

I am, as this airs, in the midst of hosting a group program around mindful microdosing, which you can grab the waitlist for that just by downloading the free guide. You'll be on my email list and so I'll let you know. I'll probably launch another section of that in January. And then, if you love a quiz I'm very much like Cosmo girly from back in the nineties I love a quiz. I created recently a quiz that's really fun and it helps you find a ritual for microdosing that really fits your unique life. A lot of the cookie cutter rituals are just journal and meditate, but if you're someone who's more artistic, if you're someone in the feminine body, that might not work for you, so I'd love to give you the link for folks to take that quiz. It's certainly a very quick way to be introduced to my world, because I'll send you an email with a ritual crafted based on your answers, and that's also a nice little entry point to the work.

Speaker 1: 45:22

How wonderful. Okay, well, I will get those links from you and put those in the show notes for everybody and also to remind everybody you can find Leslie on Instagram. And also to remind everybody you can find Leslie on Instagram Leslie Draffin and her podcast, the Light Within, and Leslie almost final question that I love to ask people is we've talked about a lot today. It's been very rich. Has there been a favorite?

Speaker 2: 45:50

part of our conversation today from you. I think the favorite part of the conversations for me were really about the ways that mushrooms help us step into these different phases of the archetypal feminine for people in female bodies. That's not a conversation I've actually had on a podcast before, so I really appreciate you asking those deep questions and I think that you just gave a lot of really amazing space to get the little nuanced, mystical aspects of mushrooms and psychedelic work out there. A lot of people ask me the nitty gritty, how do you do it?

Speaker 2: 46:27

And so I really appreciated the fact that this conversation was so obviously about transcendence.

Speaker 1: 46:36

Well, it's my pleasure. I'm genuinely fascinated. I have a historical relationship with LSD and a little bit with mushrooms, which didn't really agree with me. Lsd was more my thing and it was really transformative for me. It was a very important part of my development and I don't think many of my clients are aware that if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have been able to deliver such a good job for them. You know it wasn't in the marketing material. Let's just say that, although I do now tell people about it, you know, at the drop of a hat, because things have changed now, so one can do that. So just to close, do you have a reflection question that you would like to leave the listeners with? That will help them to really connect with some of what we've been talking about today across the coming week.

Speaker 2: 47:37

I would say and this is something that I have folks work on, when they're working with intention around a microdosing or even a somatic practice what do you want your life to look like in one or three years time, and what step can you make today to help you move into that direction?

Speaker 1: 48:01

Beautiful. Thank you very, very much, Leslie Draffin. It's been a pleasure and a privilege having you on the show. Thank you for everything you're doing and have a fantastic day.

Speaker 2: 48:12

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 48:18

Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating reviewing. You can find out about Transformational Coaching, pellewa and the Freedom of Spirit workshop on beingspaceworld. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.