An hour on microdosing

0:00Hello to everyone listening. It's me again, Olga Chekoy, with my podcast Women's Club, for any modern woman. This is where we talk about the things that actually matter and interview the best experts in Vancouver. And today Oxana Kirsanova is with us: founder of Yoga Bar, a yoga and fitness studio named best business in Canada two years running by the Canadian Business Bureau. She is also founder and CEO of Sea to Sky Wellness Club, named best business in Canada three years running by the Canadian Business Review Board. Oxana runs international retreats devoted to psychedelic wellbeing. She is a certified psychedelic-assisted therapy practitioner and a specialist in psychedelic care. In 2022 she was named one of North America's top professionals by Winner Magazine, and she made the New York Journal's list of 30 most inspiring women to know in 2025.

1:12Honestly, I'm stunned. Who exactly is sitting with me at this beautiful table? I'd happily ask you a million questions just as a businesswoman. But today Oxana and I are talking about microdosing, and answering every question we've got. So first of all — hello. Hi Olya, and thank you so much for inviting me and giving me this chance to step a little outside my comfort zone, because talking about psychedelics in Russian is not that easy. But I'm here today for you, for all our listeners. And I'll try to share everything I know. Thank you. I'm so glad you came. And I'll try to stay on one topic, because there really are a lot of questions. When we were planning this podcast, I had one idea in my head about what microdosing was.

2:11And once we started talking before we recorded, I realised it's a completely different story. But let me not run ahead with my questions — let's start at the beginning. What is microdosing, what are psychedelics. Let's start there. Yes, there are a lot of questions on this subject. I understand — I was there too. Many years ago I knew just as little. And I probably thought what most people think: that these are drugs, that you shouldn't touch them. But I'd like to start with a disclaimer. Everything I share today — and I say this to everyone — take only what actually makes sense to you. Nothing you hear today is medical advice. I'm not a doctor. I'm a certified psychedelic therapy practitioner.

3:16Your own judgement still applies, and if you have any health conditions, all of this has to be discussed with your doctor. Everything I say today has one purpose: education about psychedelics. There are so many myths around this subject, and today we want to clear them up. So what are psychedelics and how do they work? Psychedelics are a class of substances that change perception and thought processes. They interact with serotonin receptors in the brain, which produces changes in consciousness. Probably the main thing about psychedelics is that they help you see the world, and yourself, from a new perspective. You get access to the subconscious. Normally, when we're awake, the subconscious part of the brain isn't available to us. Here you get access to it, and to deep layers of memory and emotion.

4:26It's like an express ticket. A bit like hypnosis. Is that right — when we're in very deep sleep and images start coming from the past? Absolutely, yes. It's a very similar thing. There are different kinds of psychedelics. Psilocybin, which is what we'll be going into more deeply today. LSD and MDMA — those are synthetic substances. I don't work with them; I'm not certified to. Although at school we were taught how they work, how they interact, what effect they have on the brain. Ayahuasca is a traditional South American brew, often used in shamanic ceremonies for healing and spiritual growth. But today we're only talking about psilocybin, which is what's in magic mushrooms. Each psychedelic works differently. Psilocybin expands perception, it acts on serotonin receptors. Ayahuasca works a little differently. But personally, my work — I'm someone with twenty years in the wellness industry — it isn't my passion to work with something made in a laboratory. I lean more towards— Sorry, let me interrupt. In my head LSD was always something narcotic, no?

6:12Isn't it classed as a narcotic? Well, in 1960 all of these were placed in the Controlled Substances Act. They were all put on the Schedule I list under the controlled substances law. So LSD, magic mushrooms, ayahuasca — all of it counts as an illegal drug. But it's important to explain to people why that happened and how— We'll go a bit deeper into that, so people understand why it was done and what for. Okay, good. Let's carry on then. So we're staying with magic mushrooms — or, as you said, wonder mushrooms? Wonder mushrooms. Wonder mushrooms. Tell us what they're used for. We'll leave the rest aside and focus on the mushrooms. What are they used for? Well, magic mushrooms, wonder mushrooms — I only support their use in therapy. Because when I announced that we'd be doing this podcast, and that we'd be running an event together on microdosing, a lot of sceptical questions came in. Wow, this is beyond the pale, that kind of thing. And again, I want to say what I worked out for myself about mushrooms: there's recreational use — not drugs, recreational use, as you put it — and there's therapy. Today we are not talking about the mushrooms you can go and buy on Hastings Street, take, and then go watch Avatar.

7:58We're talking about them for healing, for therapy. Is that right? Yes, and I also want to say that I don't support recreational use. Plant medicine as a whole — these healing plants were handed to us thousands of years ago. They were passed down for work: to heal physical ailments, to grow spiritually, to develop. This is not something I'd recommend taking on recreational occasions. It's a medicine, and there is a great deal of wisdom in this medicine. So I take all of it very seriously, and I only work as a therapist, and we only use it for therapy. That was important to say, so that our listeners, and the people coming to our event, don't get the wrong idea — that they'll turn up and take mushrooms together in a group.

9:07That's not what this is. It will all be very gentle and closely supervised. A hundred percent. Yes. So — what are psychedelics used for? What for? Well, my clients — I mostly work in therapy, and therapy can look very different. Some people come with an addiction, to cannabis, say, or to alcohol. Some carry trauma from childhood that was never worked through. Very often we see sexual trauma that happened in childhood, and people aren't even aware of it, because in order to keep living, when trauma happens your brain closes that memory off and pushes it far down into the subconscious, where we have no access to it. And many people don't understand what is happening to them. That trauma — when we work with psilocybin, we bring it up, it comes to the surface, and we work with it.

10:12A lot of my clients come working with post-traumatic stress disorder, a great many of them. And of course spiritual growth — people who feel lost, looking for something new, looking to connect with spirit, with their own development, looking for answers. A lot of clients come to me and say, I want to know the answers to my questions. And I always ask: are you ready to hear the answers? You have to be prepared for it. There is so much wisdom in these healing plants, in psilocybin, in the mushrooms, that it really can deliver the answers to all your questions. But you have to be ready for that. Not everyone is. You mentioned ayahuasca. There was a period in my life when — I don't know if it was a thirties crisis or what happened to me — I started asking questions about what I'm living for, what my mission is. And I had this idea: I should try something like that, ayahuasca.

11:35I'd heard about ayahuasca. And when I started reading about it, I realised I wasn't ready. I didn't want to try it. I was ready to live through that thirties crisis, whatever it's called, but I wasn't ready to experiment on myself. I think it takes a certain kind of person, or some genuinely heavy circumstances that bring you to it. A hundred percent. That's why in our therapy we have the phrase set and setting. By set we mean mindset — we prepare the person's mindset. And setting is the environment the therapy takes place in. Those two things matter enormously. That's why my process with psilocybin usually takes up to three months, and why I spend so much time on the preparation: preparing your brain, your thinking, your subconscious. We work through all the what-ifs. My job is to prepare you as thoroughly as possible, so the session goes smoothly. With positive results?

12:50A hundred percent. And the results are always positive, however it may look at the time. Over the four to six hours the session lasts — in English there's that phrase, a bad trip. I always say there is no such thing as a bad trip. It's always good. You can cry, you can sob, you can let go of everything that isn't yours — all your pain, all your blocks, you can release it. Yes, it can look very intense, and that's why I'm with you the whole way through. A session usually runs six to eight hours, and I sit with my client for all of it. Are we talking about microdosing here — are those the results you get from microdosing? No, from macrodosing. That's macrodosing, right. But today we're specifically on microdosing, so let's not drift. Let me ask this instead: what's the difference between ordinary antidepressants, when we feel we need them, and microdosing?

13:53Because listening to you, I got the impression microdosing works something like an antidepressant. What's the difference? That's a wonderful question. And I want to come back to your earlier one, the one where you said you'd lost your train of thought. Let me backtrack a little. Let me explain the difference between psilocybin and antidepressants. The biggest difference is that antidepressants simply put a lid on all your emotions. Think about it: you as a person, your physical body, your subconscious — we were born into this world to feel. We were born to feel love, tenderness, worry, sadness. Sadness is as good as joy. But in the world around us we're taught it isn't good to be sad. Not good to be angry. Not good to run.

15:08And so the antidepressants. The moment I start to feel sad, the moment I feel — oh, it's winter, there's no sun, my energy is low. Okay, off I go to the doctor, and the doctor says: depression. Straight away they put the label on you, hand you the pills, and you go home. Yes, they do love doing that here. And so all your emotions just get a lid put on them. When you work with psilocybin — microdosing, macrodosing — it's a completely different thing. This is the most important thing for anyone to understand, the biggest difference: psilocybin is not a narcotic. Because a narcotic puts a lid on all your emotions, all your feelings. Psilocybin does the opposite: it brings everything up and makes you work through it, live through it. When you go through something dark — like driving through a tunnel and seeing there's light ahead — that's therapy with psilocybin.

16:11You know there's light. But you have to walk through the dark yourself. And while you do, you're given the experience of how to live through that dark. And you start to really understand that this dark is part of your subconscious, part of your every day, part of being alive. And you start to love it the way you love the positive emotions and feelings. You start to understand that you're made of this. You're one whole. And you begin to love every side of yourself. There's no negative and positive here. It simply is. You look at it as yours, with love, with patience, with compassion. With acceptance, more than anything. Yes, exactly. It isn't bad or good, it just is. That's an enormous difference.

16:58An enormous difference between a narcotic substance and psilocybin. So it — was that about microdosing or macrodosing? Can you reach those results with microdosing? You can, of course, but it takes much longer. Usually the people who microdose — microdosing is a small dose, somewhere between 50 and 300 milligrams. A macrodose is between three and five grams. And when we do the big dose, three to five grams, we usually clear — I'd say — ten to fifteen years of trauma. You can go to a psychologist and spend ten or fifteen years on it, or you can sit down once and work through all of it in four to six hours. For me, listening to this, it looks like— I don't have the urge to do a macrodose yet. I probably don't have big traumas I'm desperate to work through. My interest is purely educational. The world is moving, this is becoming a trend, you hear about it more every day. And you don't want to stand there like some old woman at the market going, oh, drugs, here we go.

18:23You want to know what's going on, so that in any conversation you know what to say, or can hold the conversation, or at least have some information. So thank you for educating us. The difference is more or less clear now. Next I'd like to move to the history. Where did all this start? Where do these mushrooms come from, how do they grow, who grows them? All of that is interesting. They didn't just fall out of the sky. If you're saying this isn't made in a laboratory, that these are natural mushrooms growing somewhere, I want to know where it all came from. Yes, of course. And I think it's important for our listeners to touch on why mushrooms were labelled narcotics in the first place. Because a mushroom grows like a cabbage grows.

19:19True. I love chanterelles. Pickled, preserved, all of that. Yes. I think this is important to cover. Honestly — if someone reads the Bible, or is into Buddhism, even in Sanskrit many years ago. The use of psilocybin goes back thousands of years in our history. In Sanskrit, the drink that was taken with psilocybin had exactly the same name as the cell of our body. The drink containing psilocybin and the cell of our own body shared one name in Sanskrit. So that's where it all begins. The way I see it, psilocybin was originally used to treat physical illness, particularly stomach and digestive problems. Then it was used in rituals, as a way to find more connection with something spiritual, to expand your spiritual development.

20:39Today we use psilocybin not only to heal trauma, or to help heal some trauma. Today, 99% of my clients experience a very large spiritual healing. Connecting with something infinite, eternal. Yes, with the infinite and eternal. But think about it: two thousand years ago we weren't surrounded by concrete buildings. People ran barefoot; they could always take that energy from the planet. There were no mobile phones. People weren't so disconnected, so— From nature, yes. They were reconnecting with nature. So they were constantly in a spiritually developed state. Today, unfortunately, we aren't. Our system doesn't help us develop spiritually. If anything it puts up obstacles to it. Which is why every second client who comes to me has the same wish: I want to grow spiritually. So now we use psilocybin to grow spiritually.

21:58Before it was used as a treatment, as a herb. Now it's more an experience of something spiritual, where you start to understand that you are so much more than your physical body. And actually, Olya — sorry, while you're thinking of your next question — I think it's important to touch on why psilocybin was declared a narcotic and banned. Roughly around— the War on Drugs. That was a very famous campaign, in the 1960s, when people found that mushrooms were accessible. You could grow them in your backyard, you could grow them in your garden. People had access. And once they started taking them, they began to associate — there was a lot of association with protests against the war, with the cultural split, with rejecting traditional values. Which of course didn't help our system, our government. It made our government very frightened. Looking at all of it: people can think for themselves, they don't need to be told what to do.

23:15Suddenly you're not raising a flock of sheep that follows you around without asking questions. Because it starts with our school system, when we make our children sit for eight hours. Think about it — children physically are not able to sit for eight hours at school and study. This whole system is built to make people simply follow, to move as one big crowd, without questions. We don't think for ourselves, our creativity isn't developed, our cognitive thinking isn't developed. We're producing a crowd. But when you start taking mushrooms — and this began in the 1960s — people started protesting and saying: no, I don't like the school system. No, I don't like the conventional medical system. I don't like these laws. They started voicing opinions.

24:07And so they were banned. Mushrooms were treated the same as LSD, MDMA, ayahuasca, all the psychedelics. Written into the Controlled Substances Act, where they remain illegal to this day. Though I think there's another side to it too. As you said, any procedure — with macrodosing, certainly, and microdosing, I'm not sure, I'll ask you in a moment — but macrodosing has to be supervised. You can't take something uncontrolled. In my understanding, with those same mushrooms — you go, you buy them, you take them, and you don't know what the outcome will be. You don't know the result, if you've never done it. And if some person happened to tell you take this much, whatever it is, then you're doing it entirely at your own risk.

25:06What can that kind of uncontrolled use lead to? I don't recommend it, because if you don't know what you're doing, it's like — if you can't drive, don't get behind the wheel. That's a good comparison. Absolutely. Because even if you want to find protocols, if you want to look something up online, unfortunately our search results tell you these are drugs, and there's very little information. So no, I don't recommend doing a large dose alone. It's preparation, serious preparation. When I work with clients it takes me a minimum of four hours to prepare someone. Three or four sessions of preparation, then the session itself, and then integration begins, which matters enormously to the whole thing. If you do this alone, you can genuinely develop trauma afterwards, because you don't know what you're doing. You don't know how the brain works, what the effect is, what happens at the receptors in the brain. When you truly have no knowledge, you can experience great fear and great trauma.

26:26That's why I don't recommend it. Microdosing is quite different. With microdosing you can take it — that's the beauty of it, it's a small dose, you can take it daily. And it's written on the jar. There are various microdosing protocols. But the main thing is still integration. If a person doesn't know how to integrate it into daily life, again without a therapist, then they're just taking something and not understanding what's happening. As I said: it doesn't matter what car it is — if you can't drive it, don't get behind the wheel. Let's answer a question from one of our subscribers, because it worried me. She writes: I have dried fly agaric. What dose should I start with, and what time of day is best?

27:12I read it and I get genuinely frightened. Someone has fly agaric at home. And the first question is: where did you even get it? That's the other question, yes. As a specialist, how would you answer about this dried fly agaric? So there are two questions. The dose, and the time of day. I'm curious about that too — why time of day? Is there a difference? Yes. No, there's definitely a difference. But first I'll say this: don't touch your fly agaric. Don't touch your fly agaric. When you don't understand what it is, what kind of mushroom it is, or how it works — don't touch it. Give yourself the chance not to go through what might happen. What can happen, let's say. Here's what can happen. So there are many of them. Many, yes, and we don't know. Second, where was that fly agaric grown and where was it bought? Because every healing plant carries the energy of every person who touched it.

28:24I always say mushrooms should be grown organically. They should be grown with a sound bath, with sound— Oh my God! The mushrooms live better than I do! Yes. And the fewer people who touch them, the better. And they should be people who are genuinely spiritually developed. Because there is so much wisdom in this plant that the energy of every person is simply passed on to you. So it matters a great deal where you buy it, who you get it from, and how it's grown. Exactly like going to the shop and looking at organic spinach versus non-organic spinach. It's the same thing. It matters. All right, leaving aside where it was bought — what's the risk if, say, I've got fly agaric at home, I'm in a bad mood today, and I think, let me try it.

29:16What happens? Diarrhoea, vomiting? Usually if you just take one mushroom, and take it on an empty stomach, mushrooms tend to cause very unpleasant nausea. You can feel sick, you can vomit. Nausea, vomiting. Also not understanding how your own brain is working, because you're in an altered state of mind. Hallucinations. Yes, you can have hallucinations. You can completely lose track of where you are and what's happening. Of course. From what I've heard from my own clients, across different experiences, some get very strong belching, and sometimes even heartburn. That's the worst of it physically. And then trauma, of course, if you don't understand what you're doing and you don't understand the messages these healing plants give you. You can end up with very serious trauma.

30:16A lot of clients come to me who once ate mushrooms at some party, and were left with trauma, and they're frightened, because it was a very traumatic event. And mushrooms — I've just thought of a question. The ones for recreational use, and the ones for — how do I put it — for spiritual growth, let's call it that. Are they the same mushrooms or different ones? Well, there are different mushrooms. The most popular one, I'd say, is Golden Teacher. It has a different energy — a mother's energy. It comes to you with tenderness, with care; it usually appears as a female figure. You feel that energy as coming from Mother Earth, very spiritual, and it supports you. There are others. The second very popular one is, say, Penis Envy. Very— Penis Envy?

31:15Yes. The name itself tells you it's a masculine energy, a bit harsher. I don't work with those mushrooms; I only work with Golden Teacher, because during a session that energy of love, tenderness and care matters enormously, and it usually comes through those particular mushrooms. So when someone takes them recreationally, they might take any of them, all of them. So they're the same mushrooms, just carrying different meaning — is that right? Yes. But you see, I don't work recreationally, I don't support it, because it's exactly like valerian, say. Valerian is a herb that calms the nervous system. You wouldn't drink valerian before going out to see friends. Same thing here. This is a medicine.

32:02It's a medicine that truly heals, if we use it properly — with respect, with love, with trust, the way it was handed to us by our ancestors thousands of years ago, and without abusing it. If we need it, we treat ourselves. If we don't, we don't. That's logical, yes. You didn't answer my question about where mushrooms come from. Where do yours come from? Where do you get them? Who produces them? Do you grow them yourself? If you're not comfortable, you don't have to answer, you can say it's your own private information. I'll put it this way: I prefer a very clean product, organic. In North America we love to mix everything with either sodium or sugar. There are a lot of products on the market — chocolate, gummies, sweets with mushrooms added.

32:59You do not need that sugar at all. I like a very clean organic product. Mine is grown especially for me by people who are spiritually developed, people who understand the connection, what these mushrooms are actually for. And I can assure you that we play sound baths to our mushrooms. Yes, I gathered — they grow under supervision, so to speak. Now, another question, a purely legal one. Are there legal restrictions on magic mushrooms? Are they still considered illegal? I mean, now— Looking around, it seems you can find them somewhere. A woman here ran a workshop, handing out mushroom chocolates. I was surprised. Yes, well, in Vancouver we're fairly relaxed about it. Vancouver is a bit easy-going that way.

33:57Things are opening up. And a great deal of funding is going into study and science right now — research, experiments. Johns Hopkins is working on it. The international association MAPS is working on it. There's a lot of research. A lot of it aimed at what we call alternative medicine. Which is interesting, because this really ought to be conventional medicine. But we call it alternative. We have a lot of that — acupuncture is also considered alternative medicine, but really it's traditional. And everyone goes, and it helps everyone. Exactly. So a lot of effort and energy is going into it now. The University of Ottawa launched the first year of a master's degree in psychedelic studies — that's a big breakthrough.

34:55In Utah — Utah is considered one of the biggest states for this. Canada is actually first in the world right now for research and development in psychedelics. A lot of schools are opening that train therapists. Utah, and Dallas, host very large conferences where you can genuinely get trained — or rather educate yourself in this field. In the US, Oregon was the first state where you can now open psychedelic clinics. Local ones. I wasn't surprised about Oregon, honestly — it's the mecca for this. So it's all slowly gaining momentum. And I'm sure that even where this information isn't available yet, more and more people will come to this kind of medicine. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, maybe a few more, we add mushrooms to acupuncture and herbal treatment.

36:02There really are a lot of myths on this subject. Tell us the most common ones. Probably the most popular one is addiction. Oh yes, that's interesting — if this is classed as a narcotic, then presumably the question of addiction— I love this question. Because when I work with a client and I see how the healing process goes — going through trauma, very intensely, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally — after a six or eight hour session a person walks out looking like they've been hit by a train. Yes, and now I'll ask you something. Why does someone take drugs? I don't know, because I've never taken any narcotic substance myself. But I know drugs help you escape reality, and you start to feel good.

37:16I can't answer that either, because I'm equally far from drugs. I think the worst thing that can happen to a person is drug addiction. I've never once had the thought of trying it, so I don't even know what drugs do. I only know the bad side of them. Presumably if a person turns to drugs, it gives them some positive effect. Usually they're escaping reality. Drugs, alcohol dependence, drug dependence — as we say, Gabor Maté, I love his book, where he talks a great deal about trauma. He says addiction was never the problem. Addiction is always— Addiction means dependency, yes? Addiction, dependency, yes — it was always the solution to a problem. When you take narcotic substances you're trying to run from your feelings, your emotions, from something in your past. You don't want to sit with all that unpleasant discomfort. You run from it. Psilocybin works the opposite way. It opens all of it up.

38:42It opens things up. So if I asked a client — hey, want to try it again, to feel good? — they usually look at me and say, there was nothing good about it, thank you. So there's no dependency as such, because you wouldn't even want to repeat the experience. When you go through it and you realise that in six to eight hours twenty years of trauma have gone. People do come back. Most of my clients come back again and again, because they understand how much it's worth. You can't buy this anywhere. But what trauma, if they're healed — why do they come back? Because there's a lot of trauma. Like you said to me today: I don't have any trauma. And I'm sitting there scratching my head thinking, everyone has trauma. We just don't know about it. We grew up in communist countries, in a completely different system. Believe me, there's a lot of trauma. Some of it stops you from living and moving forward. And there are gentler, more accessible methods — psychotherapy, say, which can help. It's softer, and something that isn't a very large trauma can generally be healed through psychotherapy. But there are genuinely big traumas — a person who lived through a death, a war, losing people close to them, some terrible illness. Things psychotherapy will not resolve in a few appointments. And in my case, thank God, nothing like that has happened, and I hope nothing will.

40:20So no, resorting to macrodosing hasn't crossed my mind. That's why I said I have no trauma — though of course everyone has their own quirks. As you said, we all came out of— Born in the USSR, I love that song, and we all came out of it, I think, with the very same traumas. A hundred percent. I keep watching all these bloggers posting reels about it, and I laugh, and I think, God, how true this is. It's all served with humour, with laughter, but there's nothing funny about it really. Sometimes it genuinely gets in the way of living. You know, when covid hit in 2020 and everyone ran out to buy toilet paper — I remember laughing. I didn't go either, because I thought our whole childhood happened without toilet paper.

41:13True. We'll survive. Our backsides aren't as delicate as Canadian ones. You were first in that queue. Right — macrodosing is clear. Microdosing is not clear at all. Let's talk specifically about microdosing: what it's good for, what it actually is. We more or less understand macrodosing now. But microdosing — how does it work? Microdosing is usually considered 50 to 300 milligrams. You have to find what's called the sweet spot, the dose that genuinely suits you. There are different schedules for taking it, different protocols. Again, I only recommend an organic product, clean, with nothing added. It very slowly changes the neuroplasticity of your brain. If you have elevated stress, a lot of anxiety, it helps your emotional state, improves it — greater awareness, connection to the body, higher productivity, more creativity. And of course microdosing works slowly on all the conditioning that has been set in you by culture, by systems. All of that gradually starts to fall away, so you can build and re-create your own thinking, starting from a blank page.

42:45I've heard about this, actually. Years ago I was talking with my sister and she said, have you heard, some guy decided to eat some mushroom and became a completely different person. That they change you that much. There are some — I won't name them, it's probably frightening — mushrooms that completely change consciousness and you simply turn into another person. That exists too. But the work — I don't recommend giving it 100%, as in: I ate a mushroom and I'll change. That's what we call spiritual bypassing. You can't hand all your trust over to a mushroom. I'll eat this now and it will do all the work for me. No, that isn't true. And what work, anyway? You never know how it will turn out. Which is why integration matters so much.

43:36After every session, even when you're microdosing, a small dose, integration matters. With a macrodose we start with preparation, then the session, and then integration begins. So it isn't simple at all. No. Many people don't understand that integration is 99% of the work you have to do. If you don't do that work, you end up with spiritual bypassing. You can dress a certain way, wear the beads, eat organic food. But if you don't do the integration, if you don't grow spiritually— What is integration? Good question, what is integration. Integration is the process of understanding and applying the experience you had during the psychedelic journey — in everyday life. If some message is given to you through the healing plant, if during the experience you had in that session, in that therapy, a message came — you have to integrate it, you have to know how to integrate it. Integrate meaning? Into daily life. What does that mean?

44:44Bring it in? Bring it in and keep going. Let me give you an example. Look at our brain: neurons that fire together wire together. Which is why 90% of our everyday life runs on the brain's default mode settings. We run on habit. I always say there's no such thing as a good habit, because if it's a habit, it's a bad habit — you're doing it unconsciously. And that's how we live. We do the same thing over and over, we think the same thing over and over. These fears — a fear is just a pattern in your brain that has built up over many, many years. Financial fears. Who doesn't have financial fears? I certainly do. You see, you'd be a good candidate for a macrodose — we'd work on financial fears together. Because it's a pattern in your brain that just keeps playing the same song.

45:44Those patterns, when you start microdosing or macrodosing, slowly begin to break up, and slowly a new pattern starts forming, where you begin to understand that you don't need to be afraid. But again, to create them — what do you have to do to create them? There are various methods. They don't just appear on their own, so it needs— Supporting, it needs supporting. But then— Sorry, I'm going quite deep here. So we're changing one awareness for another, but that also becomes a habit. It's changed for the awareness that actually fits you at that moment, where you understand that— It's a choice. You choose: where am I spending my energy? Am I spending it on fear, or on moving forward and not being afraid of anything? What will you choose? The choice is obvious.

46:34Oxana. So you choose what genuinely fits you, and you support it. There are various methods. Every client is different: some do yoga, some do mindfulness, some meditate, some do breathwork. Keeping a journal, writing it down, spending time in nature barefoot so you can connect with the energy of nature, of Mother Earth. All of that is what integration means. Many of the messages that come from the healing plants during therapy have to be translated. But if you're working without a therapist — and even an ordinary psychologist, if you go and say, I had a session — they aren't across it, they don't know how to help. Which is why at our club we run free integration meetings. Once a week, on a Saturday, I help people integrate their experiences.

47:38It's an amazing session, genuinely amazing, because everyone shares — people come from everywhere, someone's just back from the Amazon after ayahuasca. Unfortunately there aren't enough therapists here who help with integration, and it matters enormously. What do you mean, there aren't? What about you? There are few of us. So we educate people. Only me. You see, this is what I mean — you're so humble. That's the mushrooms' work, you know. Yes. Integration really does matter. All the work happens once integration begins. Is microdosing taken in courses? In courses — you mean a schedule? Look, take vitamins as an example. I recorded a podcast recently with Anya, our nutritionist, and with vitamin E, say, you take it in courses — a month, then you stop. What about microdosing? Well, when you work with healing plants I always say every person's experience is as individual as a fingerprint.

48:44It depends first of all on the task, on the goal. I always ask: what is your goal, what are you after, what do you want to get from this? So it's very individual? Very individual. Very individual. There are standard protocols — four days on, three days off, or one day on, one day off. And again, the big changes start in the time when you are not taking the mushrooms. When integration begins. On the dry days, presumably. Usually yes, there are courses — you can take it for 30 days, 60 days, then take a break. And you and I have an event in February. I wanted to ask what will— First we should advertise our event. Oxana and I are running an event on the 23rd of February. It will be a talk on— On microdosing. A talk on microdosing, and sound therapy as well.

49:48Tell us what will happen there, beyond the talk. In the podcast we've already answered a lot of questions, but in a podcast nobody can call in and say, I have this particular question. At the talk everyone will have the chance to ask their own question and speak with Oxana. But I specifically wanted to ask about the sound bowls. And as I understand it, this will be a practical session. So there'll be some kind of microdose. Tell us — I'm making this up as I go. Usually I talk for about forty, forty-five minutes, and give everything I know, all my experience: what microdosing is, what it's for, how it helps, how to take it. We talk about harm reduction, we talk about the science, we talk about protocols and about the benefits. Then, if people want to try a microdosing tea, they're welcome to. And then our Vika plays these wonderful sound bowls.

50:56Sound therapy, which genuinely heals through vibration, because our physical body is energy. Vika plays the bowls and it's usually a divine experience. People often say, wow, I've never been so relaxed in my life. So bring your questions. Bring cushions, a blanket. Bring a yoga mat. Bring your stress, your anxiety and your fears, because you'll be leaving all of it with us. That sounds wonderful, honestly, and I'll be taking part in it myself — I'm genuinely curious. I think we've answered all the many questions I had. My last question will be about side effects and contraindications. Well, yes — of course we need to know everything. That's an excellent question, a lot of people ask it, and I can genuinely give you the best answer: yes, the biggest side effect, the biggest change that happens, is that you begin to live your life far better, far more fully, more happily. You value the small things — every breath, people, love, care, tenderness. You're reborn, and you become so much a part of all of this, of this galaxy, of this world. That's probably the biggest effect I see: people start living a full life. But that's wonderful. It's wonderful. When my clients work with me, that's all they see.

52:56A full life. Tell me the bad part. There is no bad part with me. No contraindications at all? Diabetes, high blood pressure? No. People come with diabetes, people come with high blood pressure. Thyroid, low iron. No, all of that is completely fine. People come and psilocybin works with it. So no, none at all. I'm telling you seriously: the biggest effect is that they start living a full life, and life changes only for the better. That's wonderful, and I think that's a beautiful note to end our podcast on. We've talked for a whole hour, and in that hour of this talk, of our conversation, everything became clear and understandable to me. Thank you for putting it so plainly. Your wonderful Russian. My clumsy Russian.

53:52How do I say it in Russian — and you managed it all beautifully. I'm sure we'll meet for another podcast. We'll look at you as a person, at all your achievements, because we could talk about those endlessly. Thank you for the information. I'm already looking forward to our meeting on the 23rd of February. Lovely, I enjoyed this. Thank you so much, Olya. Come along, we'll be very glad to see you. Bring your questions with you. There you are, friends. If you still have questions, write to Oxana. I'll leave all the details in the description of this podcast. And thank you for the time you spent with us today. Bye for now, until next time!