Julie Hilsen: 0:20

Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Life of Love, where we gather every week in the spirit of curiosity, compassion, love and acceptance to explore our authentic lives and living to our truest joy and the ups and downs of it all. So I’m just really really delighted to have the opportunity to just connect with Leslie Jeffin today. She’s a soul sister. We have connected and just I’m really really honored for her to be in this space. We’ve created this container to support everyone, men and women, in this journey, but we’re going to get into some feminine topics, that’s for sure. So, leslie, thanks for being on Life of Love.

Leslie Draffin: 1:02

Julie, thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Julie Hilsen: 1:06

I know, I know and I’ve been looking forward to this, and you and I both had life things come up and I always know it’s going to be a great episode when there’s just such grace and compassion leading up to it. So I never get upset when things have to be rescheduled because I know it’s going to happen right when it’s supposed to.

Exploring Sacred Earth Medicine and Connection

Julie Hilsen: 1:26

So I want to let the audience know that you are a somatic psychedelic guide, a sensual embodiment coach and a menstrual cycle educator embodiment coach and a menstrual cycle educator and you’ve been focused on helping women embrace their bodies. Their sexuality and psychedelics have been a major part of your journey and in the micro dosing and I’m just really excited for you to share your journey of healing and connection with the divine and I can understand why you’re so passionate about sharing it, because when something transforms your life, you want someone else to have that same transformation.

Julie Hilsen: 2:02

Thank you for being vulnerable and bringing forth these messages, because not all you know, not everyone wants to share the magic that can happen. If you see someone who’s radiating and just having a beautiful life, it’s not really a coincidence. I just wanted to kick this off with you sharing about your sacred earth medicine and what it means to you.

Leslie Draffin: 2:24

Well, julie, thank you so much for letting me share about this, because I think for one sacred earth medicine, which is what I like to refer to, mushrooms as has really been a really important teacher for me over the last few years, and it came to me after I had sort of exhausted the more Western medicalized model of mental health care.

Leslie Draffin: 2:44

You know I suffered from anxiety and depression for most of my life and really did a lot to try to numb out through alcohol, through an eating disorder, and when I finally started working with psychedelics intentionally, it was sort of like this missing piece of my healing puzzle and this sacred earth medicine. Mushrooms I really see as like a sentient being, these like interesting little. Some folks describe them as like alien beings that I really think have our best interest in mind. I think that they have this master plan that they really want us to start taking care of ourselves so we become more conscious of our role in the entire global cosmic universe and, in turn, probably start taking better care of our community and our planet and those people around us, and, in turn, mushrooms, which is how they thrive, right. So I think that that’s sort of where we can start right. It’s how I became familiar with them myself.

Julie Hilsen: 3:47

Well, I know that mushrooms are like. When you’re out in nature and you see the different types of mushrooms and how they’re growing, they hold magic, like to me, I picture little fairies living underneath them. I mean, it’s just like that energy around them. You can’t deny it. And when you see your first gosh when I saw my first they call them the Santa. They’re like crimson with the white specks Yep emanated muscaria. Ah, thank you when you see one of those in the wild for the first time you’re like oh my gosh.

Julie Hilsen: 4:23

You know, it’s like gosh, you know. So it doesn’t surprise me that, that you see them as magical too and and then I was just when.

Julie Hilsen: 4:32

When you say this interconnection, was this something that you were able to see once you took the mushrooms, or were you micro-dosed, or was it something you sensed, or I’d like a little insight as to how you came about this. And then I have one more question about the Netflix documentary with the mushrooms and what you thought about that. I don’t want to forget to ask it, so I’m asking two questions at once, right?

Leslie Draffin: 4:59

Okay. So I think for me you know, I started working with mushrooms intentionally with a coach which I really just commend past Leslie for like just diving right in and being like this is how we’re doing it, because I’m a very DIY type of person and I could have gone about this in more of a do-it-yourself manner. But I guess it was just divinely timed that I found this wonderful coach. I had her on my podcast and the second I hung up the call with Bijou. I’m like we have to work together. So, working with her I really felt very held and protected and I felt like I was really able to explore this in a safe way and because I could do that safely, I think that’s why, really quickly, I started to understand just this more beautiful, gentle, kind cosmic message that I really did feel was that I’m not alone, I’m one of many, part of something bigger. Because I guess at that point in my life I had this inner feeling or question like what am I meant for? What am I here for? I was still a TV news anchor at that time. I was really struggling mentally, had really a lot of physical burnout, and so that idea of like what am I really here to do was very present in my mind, and I think that through microdosing and also doing a full dose journey, I really saw quickly, within like six weeks, that you know one, I’m meant to be here to shine a light and so I can help others. But part of that is because, like, we’re all one there, no one is different than me. I’m not, you know, some person who, like, is better than anybody else. Everyone has their own path, and yet we’re all one together.

Leslie Draffin: 6:40

And what I love about the Netflix documentary which I’ve watched, I’ve read some of his books is it’s such an interesting gateway for a lot of people into this world, because a lot of what we talk about with intentional psychedelic use is the call to it, and I think some folks think you have to have this super mystical call, like this internal feeling of like I’m meant to work with these medicines and, yes, I think that’s something that a lot of people do experience.

Leslie Draffin: 7:08

And also, like, I heard about it on a podcast and immediately got Bijou on my show and that’s how I was introduced to it and I watched the documentary too, and so you might watch the documentary and that might be a sign. You might hear someone talking about mushrooms and that might be your sign, but I really thought the documentary was. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually watched it, so I’m not super familiar with all of the little intricate details now, but I thought it was a really great example of a holistic approach to healing yourself that indigenous peoples have been using for millennia and it’s only like in our present culture has been othered into illegal status and I really think that therapeutically it has some amazing potential to help people who aren’t being helped by the Western model, like I was not being helped.

Julie Hilsen: 7:57

Right, right and no, I hear you say that because you were drinking, you were taking prescriptions, and so many times it’s like this pattern of escape it hurts. It hurts to feel disconnected, it really does, and so having that drink dulls the pain of it and so, yeah, I hear you, I hear you so strongly. And the one thing I saw, the documentary. It’s like I’m saying I think it was like four years ago.

Julie Hilsen: 8:27

It was a long time ago, was when they put some medium into the mushroom, like connect the network into the soil, and they illuminated the web, the interconnected web, and then the association with the trees. So that to me was just like what the heck? I was just so blown away. And then I don’t know if they talked about it in the documentary. And then, um, I don’t know if they talked about it in the documentary, you know, like the idea that when people see like bursts of light which they might think is like a spirit, that it, it’s probably the mycelial network sparking um or maybe I just had a dream about it.

Julie Hilsen: 9:14

I have these vivid dreams that I get insight and then I’m like, well, you saw that my family’s. Like no, it could have been another dimension. You have to watch the documentary Fact check Julie on this one but it is magical. I can’t say I know from experience, but I do pick up on the energies and the magic and the connected feeling. When I’m in nature and I happen to see mushrooms, I can only imagine. So yeah, give me some insight as to how you connected this microdosing with the menstrual cycle, because your history was more on the mental health and dealing with childhood trauma and shame issues, and who doesn’t have that kind of stuff going. But how did you connect it with the divine feminine? Our monthly cycle is just. I really want to illuminate this. What a magical thing that is alone.

Julie Hilsen: 10:15

And then to bring this microdosing into it. What have you seen? What do you want to?

Leslie Draffin: 10:19

share about. I think you sort of already started the conversation by speaking about the mycelial network. I really think that, and there was a story. I heard someone whose name was Darren LeBaron, who is, I believe he’s from the UK and he’s a mycologist or a psychonaut, and he was talking about this idea that you know, spores of mushrooms came to this planet and sort of helped to break down the rock into the soil and let it be fertile for life to begin and we’re talking, of course, forever ago, right, and that is such a deeply feminine idea to like create something out of nothing.

Reclaiming Feminine Power Through Psychedelics

Leslie Draffin: 10:55

And then, when we think about the womb itself and how we’re all so connected to the womb, being that we came from a womb or we have a womb, the mycelial network is very much, in my opinion, like the womb of the earth which connects so much of life. So that’s really why I think that it’s so beautifully feminine and I just feel like in my experiences with mushrooms, I have sat at the feet of the goddess. I’ve seen myself in the womb. I don’t have any children, but I’ve seen myself as a mother. My dog, who recently passed away, came to me as a human child in my very first intentional full-dose journey, guided me the whole time. So many of the experiences I’ve had with mushrooms have just felt so deeply, deeply feminine.

Leslie Draffin: 11:42

And when I started my work as a coach, the first thing I was doing was helping people with their menstrual cycles, because I had had such a problem with mine, based on a lot of shame, a lot of sexual shame. I was 18, had just lost my virginity and was diagnosed with herpes, and, as a preacher’s daughter from the deep South, that really threw me into the shame spiral that would lead to me drinking and really falling even farther into my eating disorder. And so when I started to come off of birth control in 2020, a lot of that stuff started to come back up my inner child, wounding, like you mentioned that trauma, and I went the sort of route to really learn about the menstrual cycle because I knew so little. We pretty much had an abstinence-based only sex education when I was growing up in South Carolina and it was pretty lacking in actual information South Carolina and it was pretty hacking in like actual information. And so when I started to work with psychedelics in early 2022, I was journaling and I stumbled upon this sometime last year microdosing and the menstrual cycle question mark I had written. I was like this is fascinating, maybe we’ll come back to it.

Leslie Draffin: 12:50

And I think that what I realized in my work with clients on the menstrual cycle is that there’s so much trauma linked to being a woman and when we start to align with our cycle, a lot of that gets sort of like unearthed. It might get a little roughed up, like you’re disturbing that soil, and yet I wasn’t finding that the modalities that I was using, which were mostly meditation, breath work and lifestyle changes, were really helpful in tackling the trauma that would become unearthed. I’m talking a lot of sexual trauma and a lot of forgotten sexual trauma that sometimes would be unearthed in working with the cycle. And so when I started my own healing journey with psychedelics, it was like months and months later that I had this aha that maybe I should get trained and bring that into my practice with the cycle. And so, long story short, that’s sort of how it happened.

Leslie Draffin: 13:43

I had worked with microdosing for almost a year and I took some courses with a great company called Double Blind and then spent about five months in an intensive training with another company, and then another four or five months with a different company, and finally had this idea that, you know, if the cycle impacts everything in our lives which I know it does it would impact your microdosing.

Leslie Draffin: 14:07

And so why is there not a microdosing protocol or a schedule of taking your microdose that is aligned with the menstrual cycle? And I combined those two things to create the cyclical microdosing method, which is the very first protocol that is based on female hormones, and I’ve seen it help people with periods. You know surface level stuff like PMS, pain, which doesn’t feel surface level to a lot of people, but those were physical troubles and the life changes and the changes in passion and purpose and pleasure and the trauma healing and the grief healing that I’ve witnessed over the last 18 months or so is incredibly profound because it just seems to me when you combine these two parts of ourselves, which it’s the natural rhythm of your self and this wonderful earth medicine, it just kind of skyrockets the healing for those in feminine bodies.

Julie Hilsen: 15:09

Hmm, you feel like the microdosing lets people actually feel and get out of their heads about it?

Leslie Draffin: 15:18

Yeah, for sure.

Leslie Draffin: 15:19

I think what happens is, and when we look at some of the ways that psilocybin works which is what magic mushrooms are it really does do the job of helping to reconnect parts of ourselves.

Leslie Draffin: 15:31

So many women especially, live in their head and not in their body, based on how much violence we’ve had done upon us us based upon the gaslighting in the medical field, based upon just life in a patriarchal culture, and so what I’ve noticed microdosing doing is sort of like the mycelial network, reconnecting the synapses within ourself so that we can feel the sensations in our body again, be it sensations of pleasure, which I work with a lot of folks who want to come to me for, either sexual trauma or problems with libido, which is an issue with me, and other issues, right, body image issues, issues with feeling like I felt when I first started that I meant for something more, but I just don’t know what it is, because when we’re in our minds we might be ruminating on thoughts like that, which is often anxiety, or maybe even some depression.

Leslie Draffin: 16:20

But what I found is when we can drop into the body with the help of microdosing, with the help of somatic work, it really helps us communicate again between those two places that often get severed, based upon just life in this modern world.

Julie Hilsen: 16:35

I know, I know it’s the commercialization of the whole thing and to me. I just recorded another episode which will be coming out right before this one. We’re talking about the three stages of divine feminine stages You’re a maiden, you’re the child, then you’re seductress one, and that’s when you’re, that’s when you be getting your menstruation, you’re coming into womanhood, you’re separating from your parents and you’re becoming a sexual being or, like you said, deny that you’re growing, because they don’t want to deal with you making a choice they might not agree with. Instead of celebrating this new stage of independence and authenticity, it’s put under this blanket of shame and control and the idea that you’re protecting this little girl, that she needs to be protected, that she’s not entrusted to make decisions or be able to defend herself.

Understanding Menstrual Health and Somatic Healing

Julie Hilsen: 17:49

And then I can see the first experience you had you were given an STD, so it’s like there’s a trust and then you have the layers of it. So I can totally have empathy and I feel what you went through with, that and so many women. It’s like this. You know you, your body is telling you that you need to explore, that you need to be free and authentic and powerful, but society is telling you you need to be shameful, hidden, and it needs to be covert. And then even the way that feminine products you know, like these tampons, it’s like, oh, you just plug it up, it’s just like I’m sorry, but it’s just not.

Julie Hilsen: 18:34

That’s I understand, like I really had disagree with the whole idea that you put this thing in you and it’s like it sucks up all your femininity and then you flush it down the toilet. It’s this garbage, you know, like to me. I would just love to introduce the idea that there are menstrual cups that you don’t need to plug yourself. You collect and you gather this beautiful part of you that your body didn’t make a baby this time. This is your fertility and it’s a magical, beautiful thing and it’s your moon cycle. It’s something to be revered, not plugged and thrown away. And it’s not dirty, it’s not. It’s beautiful and it’s not dirty, it’s not. It’s beautiful and it’s nourishing and it was potential. And so, if nothing else on this episode, I want to highlight that the menstruation and the way we’ve commercialized, how we, you know it’s this time you just get through I’m on my period, aunt Flo’s visiting, and it’s like all these undercurrent, like it’s a hassle. It’s not a hassle, it’s our body saying chill out, don’t work out, relax, nurture yourself. You know the red tent is such a beautiful idea for me to think about that and our culture has gotten away from it because we’re trying to be productive and we’re trying to show our worth and all these things. But it’s signs and we are nature. We are nature like mother beings and there’s a reason. So I honor it when people chill out and they take a break, when it’s that time of the month and it’s respected and I celebrate it because it’s a gift and not everyone can do that. It’s beautiful Little girls. I wish I could just hug them all and be like you know this is going to be okay. You’re working through a lot. So I know I just rambled on for a long time, but I just had to get that off Because it’s been bothering me for a long time, ever since I decided well, it was libido issues.

Julie Hilsen: 20:51

Because it’s uncomfortable. When you put that piece of bleached cotton there, you have nothing. It absorbs everything is what I’m saying. It absorbs everything is what I’m saying. Do yourself a favor if you can and you’re comfortable with looking into alternatives to that, like a Diva Cup or something, because it’s a beautiful alternative. It does make you more intimate with your parts because you have to put it in the right way, but it’s worth it because then you’re not depleted. There’s no other way I can say it and I hope I’m not offending anybody about talking about this so blatantly but please, if this doesn’t serve, you turn it off. Take what serves and leave what doesn’t. It’s out of love here, yeah.

Leslie Draffin: 21:40

And I mean when I started to work with clients as a menstrual cycle coach, the first thing I’d usually have them do is start to look at their blood, whether or not they were going to change what their feminine hygiene product was. At least you know, when you wipe, look at what the blood looks like. Because while we’re very much on the mystical, sacred, feminine side, physiologically we need to look at what the color is, because that tells us a lot about our health, right, Like if it’s dark, dark, dark brown, dark red, even black, like that says a lot about what’s happening with your body. And if it’s super light red, almost pink, that also has a message for you. So that was always kind of the first thing I’d have people do when I started to work with them is to at least look at it.

Julie Hilsen: 22:24

How many times have I been to the woman’s doctor, the gynecologist, the OBGYN? I’ve never had them ask me what color.

Leslie Draffin: 22:34

Well, I mean, and they didn’t even name the period as the fifth vital sign until after 2020. I think it was 2021 when the American College of Obstetrics actually said that your period is as vital as your temperature and your heart rate. Knowing your period and what’s happening with your menstrual cycle is important, but it’s only been in the last 15 years or so and I mean we didn’t even have a model of the clitoris until, like what? 2001, 2003. So it doesn’t surprise me, right, when we barely want to study women’s health.

Leslie Draffin: 23:04

But yeah, when I quit the pill and had a lot of period problems in 2020, thankfully I had a doctor who was not super pushy, and I guess it’s also just like my nature People don’t tend to push me, like when I have my mindset like that’s just what’s going to happen. But I had PCOS as a diagnosis a couple of months after I quit and the big thing they said was well, you could just go back on the pill. I’m like, why would I go back on the pill? That doesn’t address the root issue? And I think that that really says a lot about our culture in general and kind of what you brought up too with the feminine hygiene products. It’s like we wouldn’t be having the problems we’re having with our periods if we would pay attention to our bodies and it wasn’t until modern times that we even saw the rise of painful period problems as a whole.

Leslie Draffin: 23:53

Sure, there were outliers, you know, hundreds of years ago, but like it wasn’t until the turn of modern times, with the industrialized revolution and and the a lot of things, of things, including the rise of feminism truthfully, that we started to see more and more and more and more and more and more people with periods having issues of hormonal imbalance, right, and so why do I feel like that is? I feel like it is because, exactly what you said, people don’t know that they should rest. People don’t understand that it’s okay to not feel the same day after day after day and people don’t just learn to trust themselves and have that inner sovereignty. Because, unfortunately, we do place so much of our power in the hands of doctors who also aren’t taught this stuff. Like, truthfully, they really aren’t.

Leslie Draffin: 24:44

When I was talking to my doctor about all the things I was learning about my menstrual cycle, she just kind of looked at me glassy-eyed. I’m thinking to myself when was the last time you even went this deep? Because I know you have all these other things you have to be dealing with, obviously. But yeah, and having friends who are in medical school. It’s not a lot that they’re taught, and yet they’re the ones that we give all the power to. So I think part of my message is helping people take back their power and remember that you have the answers within you already. You just have to learn to listen.

Julie Hilsen: 25:15

Yes, and remember, remember, it’s a wonderful, it’s a wonderful place to honor. And you know, I did interview someone about embodiment, someone about embodiment, and she got really deep about embodiment sexually. This has been a great series. We’ve had some great episodes on Life of Love. We’ve gotten really deep into this. But when you say somatic, what does that entail? And if somebody wanted to look further into that, what would you say? What does that?

Leslie Draffin: 25:44

entail. And if somebody wanted to look further into that, what would you say? You know somatics as I talk about them and understand it is first of all having to do with your whole organism. So mind, body, soul, spirit no-transcript, but I think it’s true because of what I’ve seen with working with the cycle, like your womb, your vulva, your hips, your pelvis, your breasts, like they hold on to past images, stories, memories, beliefs that you might not consciously know are stored there, and so when people start to work with the body through somatics or embodiment, I feel like that’s really a wonderful addition to things like talk therapy, which I feel like has its place, but also for really self-aware women, can keep us kind of stuck.

Leslie Draffin: 26:47

So if you’re interested in finding out more about somatics or understanding how your body is trying to talk to you because that’s really, I think, a good way to put it the message that your body is trying to give you you can start doing things like breathwork. Or you can start doing things like breathwork or you can start doing, you know, things like grounding right, Like just being out in nature. I think is a really good one too. And finding ways to slow down, like we’ve talked about with when we bleed. Coming back into safety in the body which is another big part of the work I do with somatics and somatic psychedelic work is helping folks find ways to ground in their safety zone so that when things do become unearthed be it through psychedelic medicine or talking about trauma or issues with your cycle you have sources and resources within yourself to help you move through it without completely blocking it sources within yourself to help you move through it without completely blocking it.

Leslie Draffin: 27:51

But if we have time, I’d love to share a very specific example of how I realized the body held on to memory.

Leslie Draffin: 27:54

Do we have a second? Okay, yeah, absolutely so. When I was first starting this work, it was in 2020, late 2020. I’d already come off of the pill. I had been on my spiritual awakening for almost two years.

Healing Trauma Through Somatic Movement

Leslie Draffin: 28:05

At this point, I had a big issue where I’d lost my libido completely post-pill which is actually fairly common and I started working with this group out of Australia called Yoni Pleasure Palace and they had this membership called the Golden Yoni, and in it there were some practices that you could do that were basically internal vaginal massage, and so you would, with breath and sound, do sort of like a trigger point massage on parts of the vaginal canal.

Leslie Draffin: 28:35

You could do it with your hands, or I was using a glass wand that had a little bulb at the end. It was curved with a little bulb, and as I’m doing this sort of in a very meditative state, like candlelight, listening to music, going very slowly, I was sort of mapping my vagina by starting at the entrance and going a little farther in and using it sort of like a clock right 12, 3, 6, and 9, and putting a bit of pressure on all of these points while I breathe through it About an inch or two in on the upper right-hand side. I put some pressure on that area. I feel this like pinching sensation, like almost like the pins and needles when your leg goes to sleep. Not super painful, but certainly like okay, that was weird, totally different from the other areas, yeah, very different.

Leslie Draffin: 29:27

The second that I felt that this voice of a man that I dated after I got divorced literally just came into my head and the things he used to tell me he was super narcissistic, and these comments he would make about my body and about me, and just these super derogatory things flooded into my consciousness and I had not thought about this guy for years. My goddess, like, that’s there. It was stored there, that energy of a past lover. But that specific cut down that he had said to me was stored in the fascia of my vagina, my gosh. So I breathed through it and then I also did a cord cutting afterwards. But that to me, I think, really solidified the connection between things deeply in our subconscious that we really can’t often get to and clear out with traditional talk, therapy methods and the way the body holds onto it. And then again you add in psychedelics on top of it and it’s just this like perfect, like I said, healing puzzle. It sort of completes the healing puzzle.

Julie Hilsen: 30:30

To me it’s like a release, it’s like you can get out of your head, just get in your body and just get there. Get there Because consciously I’m sure you’re like, well, he was just a dumbass, like we’re not even together. It was so deep in your subconscious and I have heard that you, that women you know, retain every sexual partner. So that could be, you know, that could be some things to to really explore and, like you said, cord cut and you know the whole, the whole paradigm that sex is love, sex is not love, because love and sex can be two different things.

Julie Hilsen: 31:13

Yeah, but women are programmed to say, oh no, sex is love and men are programmed to say sex is not love and and To understand that that’s something in our society not that one’s right. I think they’re both right at times. Part of your divinity is knowing yourself. What your intention is. Not to judge can connect our hearts to our wombs and our breasts are part of the whole thing, and that you know we, we store these traumas, so thank you for sharing that. I mean that’s. That’s a huge light bulb of you know this. This is real, I mean, and you intuitively knew, like you knew, that you needed to get the what you needed and you, you, you went there.

Julie Hilsen: 32:09

So that at that time, yeah, I mean, it’s a journey, it’s like universe. What do I need to heal? How can I move on? You know, move on to the next challenge. I’m ready to to be done with that one.

Julie Hilsen: 32:20

And even if we could just have something in our society where women would go through a ritual when they break up with somebody, just to cut all the cords like a drumming ceremony, I that would be so much fun, like, okay, so the girls go out, you go out and have some drinks and you talk about your ex and you know like, or bring over a thing of ice cream. But maybe we need to do drumming and cut cord cutting ceremonies instead of meeting at the bar and, you know, running into some other jerk at the bar. Right, yeah, you know, like, have space for that. Like it is, it’s a trauma and women we absorb so much.

Julie Hilsen: 33:00

I know that I started doing like belly dancing online. I just started following this lady and it was just so much fun, just to practice and even if I didn’t show anyone how I was progressing, just the idea of owning your hip movement and connecting, you know, it’s not just your hips, it’s your legs and it’s your whole body, and then you incorporate the movements and it’s just like it’s really embodiment, and I think that would be a somatic exercise too, just to own your inner goddess. Belly dance, you know, I just love that yeah.

Leslie Draffin: 33:35

I used to feel super resistant to dance when I first started this and I took this amazing series from a studio in Austin and it was esotericism, so like esoteric and erotic together, and it was a dance class and it was like fully dark, like candlelit, only no mirrors and kind of what you’re saying, I think, probably with your belly dancing, like the connection back to the sensual self, because so many people think sensual equals sexual, but that’s not true.

Leslie Draffin: 34:06

Like the senses and the body itself really can help, I think, to one, of course, awaken our pleasure but also heal our trauma Because, just like what I was saying, when we’re into somatics and somatic embodiment, trying to find safety within ourself through things like breath, work or nature, movement, sensuality and pleasure, I think really also help to heal trauma by creating a safety zone within ourself, by helping us know that we’re safe. And it doesn’t look like all the time going straight for the genitals. It’s belly dancing, it’s feeling into the music, it’s just eating a really awesome smoothie bowl and thinking about how juicy and delicious like the mango tastes, oh yeah.

Julie Hilsen: 34:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, and it’s, it’s your owning it, it’s yours, yeah, and that that was. That’s the final Goddess. The final stage is that the she said it was a craven mother. She doesn’t give a shit, she just owns everything. You know like. She’s wise and she’s authentic and she doesn’t give a shit.

Julie Hilsen: 35:20

She’s, she’s just the embodiment of herself love it, I love so you just, you just brought it all together in that you know, like, when you, when you can, we can play with mango on your tongue and be like yeah, this is, this is it you know, oh my goodness, I our time has gone so fast. I wanted to. I wanted to let everyone know that you have an offering which is an amazing mini course about microdosing and your cycle, so you want to share how people can get that and it’s just a generous thing you’re giving to my audience. Thank you, Of course.

Leslie Draffin: 36:03

So the five-day mini course on the cyclical microdosing method is perfect for anyone who’s listening, who is new to microdosing and or new to syncing with their cycle. So in day one we talk about what microdosing is and the benefits, and day two we jump straight into how do we track our cycle and why should we do that as someone in a feminine body. And then day three, we combine them. We talk about why, why do we microdose in tune with our cycle and how do we do it intentionally. And I also in days four and five, how do we navigate challenges and, most importantly, how do we look at what comes up?

Leslie Draffin: 36:38

Because, like my example where that man’s voice was right in my head, I had to integrate that and move that out of myself. Same with some of the other intentions I’ve worked with in psychedelics that and move that out of myself. Same with some of the other intentions I’ve worked with in psychedelics. So it’s a it’s every single video is 10 minutes or less, um, and it’s just a great introduction for anybody who wants to have a better period but, more than that, wants to deepen their feminine healing journey by connecting to their body.

Leslie Draffin: 37:02

And so I can give you um, just a little link that you can put in the show notes and if folks also want to follow me, you can find me on Instagram at Leslie Draffin, or at my podcast, the Light Within which Julie will be a guest on later this year. And yeah, that’s generally where I am. I’m just running amok on the Internet talking about all the taboo things.

Foraging and Connection Through Nature

Julie Hilsen: 37:24

Yeah, I love it, I love it and I am happy to shed light onto it. And you know, just a different perspective, a different understanding. And then do people need to be worried about regulations involved with microdosing? Or is it a religious? You know, I know a lot of the places in Florida with ayahuasca. It’s a religious. They sign, it’s a religious ceremony. Like I was curious about that with the microdosing.

Leslie Draffin: 37:51

Yeah, you know, unfortunately it is still seen as a schedule one drug in a lot of places here in the States. There are some places that have either chosen to decriminalize it or legalize it. The big States that we are mostly talking about are Oregon and Colorado, but there are many other cities and some in the South sorry, the Northeast states are looking at legislation to at least cut back on penalties. So, yes, it is important to know the risks associated with working with this medicine. It is. There are a couple of mushroom churches that I’ve I know about, but it’s slightly different than ayahuasca as well, like, as far as the religious sacrament of it, same with peyote. It’s a bit different than that. But I will say I really think that something that makes me encouraged is the folks that I know who are working in the MDMA space with psychedelics really think that we could see MDMA get changed on the federal level for therapeutic use in the next year because of the amazing studies we’ve seen with MDMA and things like PTSD and so forth and mushrooms, I believe, will be right behind it. So I really think that in the next two to five years we could see this. But if you’re someone who really wants to experience this and wants to do it somewhere that it is legal.

Leslie Draffin: 39:08

There are a lot of places retreat centers doing journeys, full dose journeys in places like Jamaica, mexico, places like that. Just, please, do your research, talk to people who have been there, and the biggest red flag is if they do not offer any prep or integration. That’s a red flag. You want to make sure that, whatever experience that you choose, you are well-informed about what’s going to happen and someone’s going to be supporting you afterwards, because that’s a lot of the work I do. People will go to these trips and come back and have no support and shit gets wild and they have no one to talk to, and so that’s part of my job, too, is to help people integrate sometimes challenging and traumatic psychedelic experiences on the high dose level.

Julie Hilsen: 39:55

Gotcha. Okay, Well, you’re a resource in that, Thank you. And yeah, I’m just wondering, as you’re talking, like I wonder if you could call in, just get quiet in your meditations, and call in the mushroom guides just in a meditative state without them, just ask to be part of the network without taking, Because I mean, honestly, I can go into meditation and want to have the same feeling as having a glass of wine without drinking and I can feel the same thing. I can be in that place. I can also be in a happiness place. So I’m just curious if anyone if you or anyone has ever tried.

Leslie Draffin: 40:34

So that’s actually what I tell people to start with. And I worked with a teenager last year she had just turned 18 and I’d worked with her earlier in the year around her cycle and that’s what I had her do. Between the times that she had mentioned, she wanted to microdose and I was like, well, start working with the spirit of the mushroom first and thinking of things like gratitude, reciprocity.

Leslie Draffin: 40:56

How can we give back? And I also say, if you’re listening to this and you’re like where on earth do I get mushrooms? If you start to work with the spirit of the mushroom and you ask the universe to provide you with a source, most of the time you will find one like there it just seems to fall into your lap, um, and and, yeah, there there are some details about how to safely source in that guide too.

Leslie Draffin: 41:21

Um, but no, you absolutely can work with the spirit of the mushroom, and I have like little baby mushrooms all over my house and you’re going to listen to this podcast and you’re going to start seeing mushrooms in your garden. You’re going to start seeing it on people’s clothing, you’re going to hear about it on the news and then, yeah, you’re going to be like, oh, that’s the spirit coming to talk to me.

Julie Hilsen: 41:40

Oh, I love the magic of it and you know, it’s just, it’s just part of living in a mystical way is being open and just being present. So I’m all about that and I’m so happy. I’m going to let you know how the mushrooms show up in my life.

Leslie Draffin: 41:55

I do.

Julie Hilsen: 41:56

I have books. I have you know. I love foraging and I won’t pick I shouldn’t say forage, I’m more exploring because I’ll be like, oh look, there’s lion’s mane and I’ll like pick it out. But I don’t pick it, I just notice and it’s like a scavenger hunt. When I go hiking I have a really good friend, but man lobster mushrooms. Those are delightful. I can find those at the store. I’ll buy every one that they sell. You cook those in some butter and you’re just like what. So yeah, I’m just. This has been a delightful conversation. I thank you so much. Thank you for having me.