Jack McIntyre — All About Ketamine-Assisted Therapy: How Long Does Ketamine Last? Plus Anxiety and Depression, Rage, Nervous System Healing, Meditation and More – #27

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How long does ketamine last?

It depends. In terms of ketamine-assisted therapy, the effects can last anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the ketamine dosage. A higher dose causes longer effects in the body. You might feel dissociated for a few days afterwards, but its positive effects can be seen and felt in the following weeks.

That’s what Jack McIntyre felt in his body.

As a war veteran; Jack sought healing from his childhood anxiety, depression, and army-related PTSD.

After seeing a psychologist, he was referred to a government research trial in Australia for ketamine-assisted therapy.

And he decided to take part in it.

Ketamine therapy allowed Jack to access deeply rooted emotional traumas and suppressed feelings, providing an opportunity to work through them with professional guidance.

He learned how to channel rage in a healthy way, experiencing the transformative power of expressing and understanding intense emotions.

Interestingly, Jack’s noticed he was dissociating during meditation.

He discovered that, instead of being present in his body, he was using meditation to escape from his emotions.

This realization prompted Jack to explore alternative methods (like Ketamine therapy and body-based modalities) that would enable him to truly connect with his physical and emotional self.

Through ketamine therapy, Jack not only gained relief from anxiety and depression but also embarked on a journey of self-discovery.

By confronting his traumas and allowing himself to feel and process his emotions, he began to reconnect with his authentic self.

This newfound awareness and connection opened the door to a life filled with greater joy, meaning, and purpose.

Jack’s story invites us to question the dominance of the mind over the body. Often, we become trapped in our thoughts, disconnected from the physical sensations and emotions that are vital to our overall well-being.

Ketamine therapy serves as a reminder that healing and growth involve integrating our mind and body, enabling us to experience life more fully and authentically.

What is ketamine?

Ketamine is an anaesthetic used in medical procedures around the world. It is a medication used by doctors to induce a loss of consciousness in people. Ketamine has a range of effects, and is mostly used for sedation and pain relief. Recently, it’s become popular for it’s use in reducing symptoms of mental health issues.

Because it’s a dissociative anaesthetic, ketamine-assisted therapy sessions can leave you feeling a bit spacey and disconnected from yourself. This is normal – and Jack talks about his experience of this on the podcast.

Ketamine has recently been used as a treatment for depression, but is also used for pain management, and as a recreational drug.

Is Ketamine legal?

Yes and no. Ketamine is regulated and is legal for use as an anaesthetic in surgical and therapeutic settings by registered practitioners, and more recently in ketamine-assisted therapy sessions. However, ketamine is illegal in most countries for use as a recreational drug.

Ketamine’s treatment scope and potential uses are developing with recent research and studies.

What happens in a ketamine therapy session?

It depends on where you do your ketamine-assisted therapy sessions. Some facilities offer sessions with a counsellor or psychotherapist, and others allow you to be on your own with music.

You will feel the effects of the ketamine within a few minutes.

Jack arrived at the ketamine clinic at 5am, with his headphones, mobile phone, and an eye mask in his backpack.

He was taken to a room, hooked up to an IV machine that injected ketamine into his blood, and was left to listen to meditative, classical music for the next hour or so.

In this podcast episode, Jack talks about his various experiences with ketamine – interesting visuals, talking with his subconscious mind, and flying through traumatic memories with ease.

However, it’s important to note that everyone’s ketamine-assisted therapy sessions are different, because everyone has different things to process.

In this episode, you’ll learn…

• • The importance of releasing rage in a healthy way through boxing, running, and exercise 🔥

• • How Jack (a war veteran) overcame his anxiety and depression through ketamine-assisted therapy 🤯 (and if you’re wanting the specifics around “how long does ketamine last”, then tune in…)

• • How Jack experienced dissociation while meditating, and ending up feeling more disconnected from himself over time (which is way more common than people realise)

• • What ketamine-assisted therapy sessions are like from Jack’s first-hand experience

• • The surprising importance of your nervous system and body, and why you need to feel safe in order to express your emotions in a healthy way

Time stamps:

• • 5:56 – Identity and Mental Health Struggles

• • 11:01 – Somatic Therapy for Depression and Anxiety

• • 23:16 – Balancing Awareness and Survival Response

• • 33:58 – Slow Somatic Work Is Important

• • 41:29 – Discovering Who You Are and Managing Emotions

• • 52:00 – Healthy Anger and Coping Mechanisms

• • 57:04 – Releasing Rage From Your Body

• • 1:13:36 – Ketamine-Assisted Therapy and Integration

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Ellie Goode — Host of the Provocative “Sex, Money & Rage“ Podcast, Nervous System Junkie, and Plant Psychonaut 🌿

I created Sex, Money & Rage to talk about everything that’s taboo. BDSM. Plant medicine. Healthy Rage. Kink. Emotions. Boundaries. Money issues. Less thinking, more feeling. How to get into your body and silence your overactive mind.

Sex, Money & Rage provides straight-up, powerful nervous system tools to help you dominate life’s toughest moments.

All podcast episodes are located here.

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Transcript:

Ellie Goode

Welcome to the Sex, Money and Rage podcast. 

Jack McIntyre

You know, when you’re in that sort of dark place, it’s very hard to find motivation or to find purpose or to find anything that really calls out to you, just to really feel anything like. anyone who sort of experienced depression can probably relate. Like you sort of end up in this place where you sort of feel half dead, like you’re alive, but nothing really gives you joy. Even amazing things that happen around you, they don’t really seem to touch your heart and you just feel kind of I’m somewhere, like being under water or something and it’s horrible. And I’ve sort of dealt with that off and on throughout my life in different stages. Yeah, it wasn’t until I really sort of found a different way of approaching my mind and dealing with all that stuff that I wouldn’t make any progress.

Ellie Goode

Hello, Ragers, and welcome back to Sex Money and Rage. I’m your host, Ellie, and today I have an epic interview for you. My cousin, jack, has recently been part of a Ketamine-assisted therapy study slash trial in Australia for war veterans, and so we talked a bit about what that was like, what happens in a Ketamine-assisted therapy session, as well as nervous system work, how to channel and work with your rage in a healthy way, the limits of meditation, and how Jack actually found he was dissociating when he was meditating and running away from his feelings instead of being present with his body, and just the power of being in your body versus in your mind. And we also talked about what brought Jack into all of these alternative therapies and his experience with anxiety and depression and wanting to find who he was and enjoy his life. So if you’ve ever felt anxious or depressed, what’s the point of anything? if you’ve ever been curious about alternative therapies like Ketamine-assisted therapy or working with your nervous system, then this episode is for you.

If you have been listening and you’re enjoying the podcast, please hit the subscribe or follow the button, make sure notifications are ticked and then every Sunday you’ll get a little pop up on your phone from me, from yours truly saying listen, check this episode out. So it’s just a quick way to stay in touch. It helps me grow the podcast. It shows the algorithm gods, whoever they are, that this is a sick podcast. So, if you’ve already done it, thank you, thank you, thank you. And yeah, let’s jump in and I hope you guys enjoy this episode. I had so much fun, so check it out. I’m here today with my cousin, jack. How are you going today, jack? What’s new?

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, going good, going good. What’s new? Well, I’m in Canberra. It’s starting to get cold, That’s one thing, so making sure to be rugged up and all that sort of business. But yeah, things are good. How you going.

Ellie Goode

Nice, yeah, i’m good. It’s also getting a bit cold here in Peru. It’s it does it snow in Canberra Sometimes it does Hey in winter.

Jack McIntyre

Well, we’re pretty close to the snow fields, but sometimes you can see a bit of snow on the distant sort of mountain peaks. But it’s not, it’s not that common. But surrounding areas get snow, Yeah for sure. Yeah, Yeah, nice.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, Similar to here, like the tops of the mountains. Some of them have snow all year round, I think. Yeah, I’ve seen them with snow all year round, but we don’t get any snow, unfortunately, in in the town where we live, but definitely on the surrounding mountains, which is cool, Yeah, Yeah, Cool. So we’ve got a few interesting, interesting things to cover today, but maybe we can start off with, yeah, just a bit about, I guess, because I know you have been doing some ketamine therapy recently, which we’ll get into. But maybe we can start with sort of what. What made you sort of get into the ketamine therapy and and I know you’re into the semantics as well What, what were you like, I guess, before all of that, and what sort of prompted you to look at these alternative modalities?

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, I guess probably like as a bit of an introduction, i think, growing up like I grew up in Sydney, Australia spent a lot of time at the beach and sort of surf culture and skateboarding and all that sort of stuff running around being a bit of a rat bag My mates which is, you know, always good fun. But I think I’ve always been searching for something, not really sure what it was, spent a lot of time going to church and then just, you know, trying trying out different sort of things, you know, skateboarding or surfing or like just had a bit of an identity sort of issue growing up, i think, and never really were sure where I fit, or at least that’s what it felt like. And as I got, as I got a bit older, i started having experiences with things like anxiety and depression and just feeling it’s just feeling a bit awful, feeling like something wasn’t quite right, and that just kind of continued to sort of hang around like throughout my life. So I’m 32 now and I’m living in Canberra, so sort of I feel like at this point in my life I’m much more clear on who I am and the direction I’m heading, but it’s taken a long time to get to that point. So I spent some time in the Army.

I did four years in the Army And that was really kind of the catalyst for me for change. Prior to that I worked just about every job that you can do without having any kind of formal qualifications. I spent some time doing construction and laboring I did. I spent some time at the Australian Institute of Music studying. You know, i did telemarketing, i did bar work, gardening, i worked at a port. I was like just just everything And I think I was always trying to find that missing piece, like, oh, maybe I can be a tradie, maybe that will give me that satisfaction and sense of fulfillment.

Oh, maybe, maybe I’ll work in sales and I’ll. I’ll be like some sales sales guru or something And I don’t know. I’d sort of hop between thing And then I’d be like no, i didn’t really find what I was looking for there And I kept going until eventually I got to the Army and that was kind of the best fit out of all of them. That’s where it sort of felt like a bit like coming home in a way, when I, when I started with that, so yeah, and did some time in the Army and got out and had to transition back into normal life. And that’s when things kind of really got tough for me, because I lost that sense of identity and that sense of of who I was. And it’s been a bit of a journey to get to where I am now, where I feel like I’m actually closer to who I truly am than I’ve ever been. But yeah, it hasn’t been an easy road.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, yeah, so many things to touch on, but what so? you mentioned you had the anxiety and depression and just not sure where you fit in. Did the Army help sort of help you find your identity or help you figure out who you were, or what sort of helped you with that?

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, well, the thing about the Army is they sort of they kind of give you an identity like which you know everyone has the same kind of identity.

So you know, there’s some good things about the Army, but then there’s obviously some not so good things. Like it is an institution and you go in there and they basically strip you down to you know, base level and then build you back up into the person they want you to be, which is, you know, a soldier that follows orders and all that sort of thing. So you know, it’s it’s a bit it’s it’s not all good, but for me it really gave me the stability and structure that that I think I was looking for. And you know, i met a lot of amazing, amazing people, some great mates And yeah, so I think it clicked for me because it was sort of it was very challenging and it was.

You know, i had a lot of self doubt going into it, like I don’t even know if I can do this. You know, what am I getting them just been like, what am I doing? Like all my mates are back home just chilling out at, you know, at the pub or, and I’m here, you know, out in the bush crawling through the mud, it’s raining, it’s cold, and you know it’s all these these kinds of you know, moments that made made me sort of question what I was doing, but I don’t know, i just had this, this drive or this calling in me like no, this is exactly, this is exactly what I want to do, and yeah yeah, it really was probably the biggest, one of the biggest catalysts in my life for change, Like because prior to that I was just aimless, So I was just living sort of, yeah, like job to job, week to week didn’t have any real purpose.

And then after that, yeah, I was sort of on this path that unfortunately the army defined the path, but I nonetheless I was still on a path. So, yeah, it was really good.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, Yeah, That’s awesome. And so with the anxiety and depression, what? what was it like living with that? Like what? how did that sort of manifest itself in your life?

Jack McIntyre

Yeah Well, i think growing up there was, i don’t know, some things that happened that weren’t that great And then, flowing on from that, i don’t know, life just happens and things just build up. So yeah, i think growing up, you know, there was some stuff that sort of happened to people around me or things that I witnessed that had a big impact on me and just just sort of left me feeling just a bit lost and a bit a bit sort of dark, had a lot of issues with anger and things like that. So yeah, you know, when you’re in that sort of dark place, it’s very hard to find motivation or to find purpose or to find anything that that really calls out to you, you know, just to really feel anything like. Anyone who’s sort of experienced depression can probably relate like you sort of end up in this place where you sort of feel half dead, like you’re alive but nothing really gives you joy. You know, even even amazing things that happen around you they don’t really seem to touch your heart and you just feel kind of it’s almost like being underwater or something and it’s. You know, it’s horrible And I’ve sort of dealt with that off and on throughout my life in different stages, but yeah, it’s, it wasn’t until I really sort of found a different way of approaching my minds and, you know, dealing with with all that stuff, that I was able to make any progress.

Like I tried the talk therapy kind of road for quite a long time, yeah Which I think is is fantastic, by the way, like I did cognitive behavioral therapy for a long time. But I feel like that’s only really effective up to a point, because you kind of go in and you see a counselor or a therapist and you know at first it’s amazing because you get all this stuff off your chest and you’re able to. Really, for me anyway, as someone who’s a bit more introverted, to be able to just go in and just vent and just say things that I haven’t said to anyone, yeah, it’s very cathartic. It’s almost like, in a way, it’s almost like going to confession, yeah, so it feels, like that.

So funny story, actually a bit of a side note. I was in Rome at one stage and I actually went to the Vatican and I’m not Catholic, as you know, but I was over there and I thought, oh well, i’m here, you know, i’m in the Vatican, i might as well do confession. And so I went in there and I went into the little confession confession booth and I was like, oh, i don’t really know what to say. Like you know, i don’t know how to start this. I was like, well, what are they saying? The movies, oh, they say forgive me, father of Sin. So I said that and the guy responded in another language I wasn’t in the English speaking one and I was like oh, English is like oh, yeah, yeah, go next door.

So I went into the next door, the English one, and I did the confession and it was a little bit strange but I was like oh, like it works. Getting stuff off your chest is, especially if you’re carrying down, you know, some kind of burden. I’m burdening yourself. It goes a long way, but after a certain point I think you need more than that, and that’s where the body based therapies come in.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, yeah, definitely, i can relate to that. I did a lot of talk therapy as well And you’re absolutely right, like there’s definitely a like value in talk therapy and CBT. But I hit the same point. I got to a point and like, okay, this isn’t working anymore, like I don’t, like I’ve talked about like everything I can think of and like I still like I feel stuff in my body. And so I was like, okay, so that was maybe four years ago, four or five years ago. And so I was like, okay, i’m going to go and find like a body based practitioner. And I ended up finding, i think there was two somatic therapists in Brisbane and I found one of them and we hit it off. And that was the beginning of how I discovered somatic therapy and somatic, you know, experiencing and body based, yeah, therapy, which just changed my life, which is really cool.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s amazing when that kind of penny drops. Yeah, especially, you know cause, at least in Australia in my experience not that many therapists really go into the body very much, it’s very much in the head.

Ellie Goode

No, it’s very uncommon, it’s very much.

Jack McIntyre

you know what’s the yeah, and the question is normally what’s the story, what’s the what’s happened to you? Let’s talk about what’s happened to you, let’s try and reframe it like as some positive thing or, you know, whatever it might be. But if you don’t do with that underlying feeling in the body Or the charge in the system, it’s you kind of end up. Just you get to a point where it’s like okay, like I feel pretty good about everything that sort of happens in my life. Like you know, there’s been some good stuff, some bad stuff and maybe some trauma. But you know, like cognitively I can look at it and be okay, but I still feel like shit, what’s going on? So it’s sort of yeah.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, i know what you mean. Like, yeah, that was exactly what happened to me. It’s, i think, it’s pretty common. Like you know, it’s happened to a few people I know, and it was interesting because I was actually reading a blog post today from Seth Lyon, who you probably know of him. I read Lyon’s husband And he was just explaining you know, like which this is what I experienced as well was, you know, people have this fight or flight energy in their system.

You know which, which is basically anxiety. Right, it’s this fight or flight activation. But if you don’t know how to release that from your body, like if you’re just stuck in that fight or flight mode, if you’re always, basically always anxious, having panic attacks which is what was happening to me He’s like, after a while, like that takes so much energy that you end up then going into depression, which is a freeze response. So he was explaining that.

You know, initially, you know, when you go through a really crazy situation or event or it doesn’t even have to be that crazy, it can just be apparent you know neglecting you or ignoring you or what have you. So initially you go into fight or flight, but if you can’t, you know, run away. And if you can’t fight then you will shift into freeze, and that’s that kind of explanation of you know the fight or flight energy being anxiety and the freeze response being the depression, and how they can combine, was just really enlightening for me because I was like, yeah, like that’s how it felt, you know, like I was having these you know panic attacks at work, and it just got so much that then the depression came in, like you said, and you have these, like you know what’s the point, and it’s just kind of like being half dead.

Yeah so it’s it’s really interesting.

Jack McIntyre

It’s a totally different way of looking at things. That kind of nervous system framework with the fight, flight, freeze, it makes perfect sense And it’s funny. Once you start learning about this sort of nervous system world, you start to see it in. Obviously you see it in yourself, but you start to see it in people around you, like I’d see it in people I worked with or you know just, you know just friends. You see how they’ve got the accelerator of their nervous system like to the floor, but they’ve also got the break in the handbrake on as well. So they’re they’re pushing and trying and you know like basically running off stress and adrenaline, and usually you know a lot of coffee as well, and they’re just like in this crazy kind of you know, workaholic sort of mode almost, but then at the same time They they’re not connected, they’re not really embodied, they’re not really aware of you know what’s happening around them, they’re very much in their head. And I say they, i’m talking about myself as well, obviously, yeah. So I think for me, like that was a big piece of the puzzle. It’s like it’s like okay, like, because it gets funny, right.

We have all these labels for things like anxiety, depression and that really like, like what does that mean? Like what does it mean to have anxiety or to feel depressed? or it’s like it’s something that you feel, it’s, it’s it’s your experience of the world, it’s your experience of life And it’s you know, it’s great. You know you look at animals and you don’t really see that many animals that have a lot of these mental health problems that we have, and there’s probably a lot of reasons for that. But I think we need to remember that, at least on some level, we’re very similar to animals, like, yes, we have, like you know, the higher functions of you know, like cognitive abilities and things like that, but like we’re still mammals, we’re still animals. So there’s a lot of crossover and a lot of similarities. So I think, especially if you’re someone that’s grown up with a lot of violence or trauma or just you know, doesn’t even have to be big stuff. Just like you know, everyone has some kind of issue with their parents. I think.

So, yeah, those things can kind of just get stuck in the system. And you know, it can be very helpful to go to sort of go a little bit into that And then be like, oh, okay. So when somebody, when somebody yells at me, i get really triggered. It’s like, why is that? It was maybe because you know, someone in my family did that when I was young, and now when you know someone at work does it, it takes me back to that place And it’s like, oh, okay. So you get that little bit of a mental side of it of like, oh, this is what’s going on, but that doesn’t really change that much.

But then what I like to do is, if I feel like something’s coming up for me, it’s like it’s super simple. It’s like you just, you just look around, you look around the room or wherever you’re at, and you realize, oh, i’m actually not in that traumatic memory or I’m not in that place. I’m here. I’m here, there’s safety in my environment, i’m safe. Can I feel my feet on the grounds? Like, am I aware of the sensation of my feet on the floor? It’s like, yeah, okay, i can sort of lock in on that, great. So can I feel my weight in the chair. Yeah, okay, cool. So, like, like, i’m here, i’m safe, is there anything going on right now? Is there anyone coming to get me or anything bad? No, okay, cool, and it’s just. It sounds so simple.

But it’s like just letting your body and your system know that, hey, everything’s actually okay, like, and whatever’s.

You know.

Maybe you got the racing heart or the tightness in the chest And and that’s real and it’s valid, but it’s just sort of reminding yourself very gently that like, like we’re here, we’re not in the past, we’re not in that that memory, we’re somewhere safe.

And it’s amazing, like, at least in my experience, it’s amazing what such a simple thing like that as orienting to the safety in your environment can do. It really does work wonders. And the more that you do it, you start to kind of build that connection with with your own system and with yourself And it sort of gets stronger and stronger to where, rather than having to do it for, say, five minutes to try and get the system to drop down, it might take five seconds And you can just be like, can I feel the ground? Yep, okay, sweet, i’m good, and it’s really just like it just brings everything down. So I don’t know if your experience with orienting has been kind of similar to that or if you have a different sort of approach, but for me I found that the simple stuff, really like the foundations of somatic work, it just it goes a huge way.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, yeah, no, i like I completely agree. It’s blown my mind just how powerful those simple, you know shifts can be. It’s like you know the. The. The thing for me, that sort of pulled it all together, was feeling your feet on the ground, noticing your breath and looking around the room, like at the same time, and then like layering these sensations or these you know senses together where you know sometimes, and then it’s like can I hear the birds or can I hear a sound? and can I, you know, consume or orient these four or five different senses in the environment to connect, to notice, okay, i’m safe, and like you’re right, like your whole system dropped, your shoulders drop, like it’s like your body just does this collective sigh of relief Exactly, i’m safe, yeah, yeah, and it’s.

It’s like building that external awareness while feeling, say, a really intense emotion like terror or or fear or what have you come through. And it’s balancing that external awareness of your environment and that safety with this powerful, you know, fight or flight charge that may be coming through. Because you know, if it got interrupted when we’re a child, you know, say, we got really scared, but it wasn’t safe to express that fear, you know, when we’re an adult, we’re going to get triggered. That fear just wants to complete that response. That survival response just wants to complete. And so if we can maintain that awareness of the safety in the environment that gives, while also letting that charge have a chance to complete at some, it’s super powerful.

Like it’s, it blows my mind. I could you know. I’ve just been reading more and more about it because I think the scientific lens like, really takes the blame out of it. You know, because it’s like, oh, like, you know, your nervous system is responding in this way And so it can take the pressure off of like, oh, like, i’m just, this is a survival response. You know, this is just I did this to survive, rather than like, oh, i’m a bad person and why can’t I get my shit together. So, yeah, i find it good.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, that’s a big one, isn’t it? That’s a huge one. Yeah, because there’s so much, yeah, there’s so much self blame and shame arounds Like not being okay.

Yeah you know if, whatever that means. But you know, even if you just really stressed out, it’s like no one likes to admit that, hey, like I’m actually not I’m not doing that great right now, but like there’s this real stigma about it And I think you know there’s obviously a lot of reasons for that. But the nervous system lens, it kind of cuts through all that even, and it cuts through all the labels and the diagnosis and everything. And it’s just, it’s like well, what’s happening in the system? Yeah, your nervous system is dysregulated due to, you know, what you’ve been through. It’s like it’s it’s actually really normal.

Yeah everyone like there’s nothing.

Ellie Goode

Everyone, yeah, yeah exactly.

Jack McIntyre

And you know some people might be further towards one end of the spectrum with the dysregulation than others, and you know it’s like it’s okay, yeah. So, like I know, for me it’s just been a game changer And it’s something that I continue to work with on, usually a daily basis. Like I’ll spend a bit of time, like dedicated time, usually each morning, where I essentially just get up and I just go and sit in my backyard and just sort of just be there and just be in that moment and maybe have a cup of tea or something, but I’m just sitting there. There’s no, there’s no phones or books or anything. I’m just there and I’m listening to whatever’s going on around me whether it’s birds or, you know, noisy cars in the street or whatever it might be And I’m looking around.

I’m looking, you know, the plants around me and keep keeping my eyes open, which I think that’s a big one as well, because I got really into meditation for quite a while And, yeah, you know everyone knows about the sort of hype and benefits of meditation at this stage, like with mindfulness therapy and all those sorts of things. So, look, meditation is great, but if you’re dysregulated in your nervous system and then you are trying to meditate all the time. You kind of just it’s your bypassing your system and you’re kind of just going into a bit of a bit more of that freeze that we were talking about.

Yeah, dissociation Yeah this association, absolutely Like. I know that was what was happening to some extent with me, like I’d be not feeling great And I’d be like, all right, i’m going to go and meditate. And I’d sit there and I’d close my eyes and go internal and focus on my breath. And you know, like you get, you get pretty good at it after a while, like, and I could sit there for half an hour or an hour with my eyes shut, being really still in my body and just allowing the breath to come and go, and you sort of at least for me I would go into some kind of altered state that was very blissful and very peaceful and calm And I’d feel like, oh, you know, it doesn’t matter what’s happening around me, nothing can touch me and all these sorts of things. And you know, i could feel it’s great.

But it wasn’t translating into the rest of my life. Like I’d do that in the morning or throughout the day, and then I’d jump in the car and, you know, go for a drive And someone would pull out in front of me And you know, up until that point I’d been very Zen and calm and someone pulls out in front of me. I’m like, oh, you’re fucking, like you know, carrying on like a, like a pork chop, so, um, yeah, i love that It wasn’t translating, whereas, yeah, and then, and then I beat myself up about it I’ll be like, oh, why am I getting angry? Like I shouldn’t be getting angry, i’m supposed to be. You know, I’m someone that meditates. I’m supposed to be just calm all the time, and then my, my, my approach on that’s a bit different now. But, uh, so I think meditation is great, it has its place, but for me it got to the point where I was disassociating And then once I once that kind of landed for me and I realized what I was doing.

Like once I was aware that, oh hey, like I’m actually I’m, i’m becoming less embodied the more that I meditate and I’m becoming, like, more distant from my own life, life the more that I meditate. Once I realized that it was very hard for me to keep doing it, because I knew I had all this kind of stuff in my life that I was running away from And I was just running away to, you know, the meditation cushion, and because I could go there and have this little, i don’t know moment or feeling of whatever bliss or peace or everything is okay, sort of thing. But nothing was changing, nothing was getting solved, and it wasn’t until I was like all right, let’s actually feel what’s happening in the body. Let’s feel that anger, let’s feel, you know, some of that grief and that pain and start to just just connect with what’s there. That’s when things started shifting. But I’m sure, like most people, i didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to like there’s a reason that we run from this stuff.

It’s pretty uncomfortable stuff to feel.

Ellie Goode

Oh my God, Yeah, definitely, Yeah, like there’s a reason, it’s buried deep inside of us, You know and I think that, yeah, that’s a really important point of you know, people who meditate or practice even mindfulness, they might have really really good internal awareness, you know, in the sense of noticing, you know their thoughts and different things. But then it’s like, yeah, you’re meditating in a very controlled, quiet, usually environment, right, Everything’s calm. You’re usually in your room, There’s, you know, not much going on. And so then you know, put that person, like you said, in like a, you know in a car in the middle of traffic, or put them in the middle of their family argument, you know, and just like, how’s that? Are they actually? you know?

I think someone said that in a meditation book of like, if you think you’re enlightened, go and spend a week with your family in a cabin somewhere and like see how you are at the end of that week, kind of thing, and and and. So it’s like, yeah, like you know that disconnection from yourself, but then the somatics, it’s like it’s bringing that internal awareness and the external awareness together to then because, yeah, like this big shit that will come out of your body and it’s, you know, like often you know we feel like we’re going to die. You know, when we go through these life situations, you know, even if we’re not actually going to die, you know, like when your parent yells at you and you’re a child, like it can then make your system, your nervous system, think like there’s a massive threat. You know I have to run away, like I have to get to safety. And when that’s your primary caregiver that’s doing that to you, you know like your whole, like I think Gabel Marti talks about this you know, as children, like you prioritize connection over, like connection with your pig, with your caregiver, over like your own, like safety and well being, and so if it’s not safe to express that emotion or that charge, like it just gets locked inside, and so once the stuff starts to come up out of your body, I mean I know I was like Holy shit, like this is intense.

You know, and, and, like you said, there’s a reason we run away from it. You know, and and, and I think too, like, as we build capacity, you know, nervous system in our body like the bigger the stuff that will come out. So it’s it’s a real practice, you know, being able to like hold, hold that space for it to come up, and and you know, i mean there’s been times where in the past, stuffs come up and I’m like I feel like I’m going insane, like this is a wild shit, like I don’t even know what this is coming from. You know, and to maintain that groundedness, like you said before, and the connection to the environment, i think is is like such a key part of it.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, Yeah, i think it’s some. I think it’s really good. You mentioned capacity and that’s something that doesn’t get talked about. Well, at least in the circles that I sort of like, my friends and stuff, it’s what. I never hear it, and it’s so important, this idea of capacity that, like Your system can only kind of handle so much and everyone’s gonna be at a different point because, especially now, you know we hear so much about these big, you know cathartic releases like in there, quite explosive.

Like you know, you go into a Hologropic breathwork course or like the Wim Hof breathing and it’s it’s very intense and you know you, you’re stimulating your system. It’s like let’s bring everything up now, let’s get it all done, let’s get it all, let’s get it out in one go. And You know it doesn’t always, it doesn’t always go that well, like I know, for me, kind of early on in my sort of When I first was just getting into the somatic stuff, but not really like I wasn’t really doing the work, i just heard people talk about it and I thought, oh yeah, like I have all this stuff kind of trapped in my body. Like you know, the body keeps a score like have all this trauma or pain or anger or something Somehow in my body I need, i need, i just need to get it out. I just need to get it out, with no kind of thought to Looking after myself. In that process. I thought, oh yeah, it’s just in there, i’ll just get it out.

And I know for me, i had one experience in particular with psychedelics where I did ayahuasca in kind of a non-traditional setting and The goal was to heal. Like my intention was like, just I Need to, like I need, i need to work through some of this stuff, whatever, it is not even sure what it is. I just need to, you know, work through this feeling and try and try and let go of whatever I’m holding on to. And I went into that experience, you know, as prepared as I could. I took it really seriously. But my system was just not in a place where it could handle like a relatively large dose of of plant medicine. And it was. It was traumatic, like it was. You know, some good came, did, come out of it. But for my system It was like I couldn’t hold that, that energy that came up. I couldn’t hold that level of Anger and pain that surfaced at that point in time because it was like I didn’t have the capacity and It ended up being a bit of a, you know, a bit of a train wreck In terms of that ceremony and that was a big, a big big.

You know, lesson for me that you can’t rush this stuff like It really is. You know, slow and steady wins the race. Like, doing a little bit each day Goes a long way. It makes a huge difference. We’ve been trying to do it all at once. You know you’ve got to be careful because, especially if you’re, you know, involved in the world of plant medicine and psychedelics and you know They’re all the rage now, obviously, you know, even on Netflix, their shows about psychedelics, and you know people who I never, you know you need to thought odd, yeah, they would do psychedelics. You know, start saying, oh, i tried this, or it’s like wow, like it’s just everywhere But people aren’t having the conversation as well of you know, hey, if you do too much or you don’t have the capacity to handle these experiences, like, look out, because She can get real.

Very quickly yeah very quickly, yeah, and you know, can take a while to integrate. So, look, that was, that was a huge lesson for me. And Finally enough, that experience is what led me to go deeper with the body based, somatic type work, because I Was basically flung into disassociation and Needed to find a way back to to my body sort of thing, and it was through a Bunch of different courses that I did on the nervous system and You know people like Peter Levine and Irene Lyon and some of these Kind of figures in that sort of scene. Their work really helped guide me back into a place where I had the experience of safety and Groundedness and, but it wasn’t overnight, it was chipping away at it and that was probably two or three years ago now.

And I Can’t even The way I, the way I was feeling when I was in that sort of space after doing that ceremony and, you know, still doing counseling and and traditional therapy, but also doing a lot of meditation, compared to how I feel now, it’s Like it’s a night and day difference. I’m so much more embodied now and I still have obviously have a long way to go, but it’s, yeah, i’m, i don’t feel like I’m running away from my problems anymore And or running not even my problems running away from my feelings anymore. I’m trying to actually sit with them and listen to them and see what’s there, and You know, some people seem to be able to do that from birth, but it’s taken me 32 years to acknowledge that. Hey, i actually have feelings and maybe I should listen to them sometimes instead of trying Be stoic and I don’t know some Yeah, some idea of what it means to be, you know, an adult.

Ellie Goode

If you are listening to this and you’ve tried meditation, you’ve tried journaling, you’ve tried CBT or talk therapy and all of it is just not Really helping anymore or it’s missing the mark, you’re still in your head, you’re not really feeling your emotions, then go to sex money, raise comm, sign up for my free emails. I talk about how to get into your body, how to get into your nervous system, to release this stuff at the source. It’s all about how to go towards your feelings, how to feel them physically in your body and release the survival stress, the fight flight, freeze energy from your nervous system and once you do that, it helps take the load of your body, of your physical body, so you have more energy to fight illnesses in your immune system. You get your life force back, which is something that anxiety and depression rub from you so often. So if that sounds good, if that sounds interesting, if you’re curious to know more, go to sex money rage calm, it’s free. It’s just something I’m super, super passionate about.

I Know it’s like why couldn’t we like just come out of the womb, like having emotional maturity? It’s always like you know, like we go through. I mean, kids are very expressive. Kids are very in touch with their emotions, i feel. But it’s like, as we get older, like we lose touch with that and we hold it in because it’s not cool to be Sad or it’s not cool to just be ourselves. And so we start, like you know, putting these walls up and controlling. You know, the I guess, the mask or the You know identity we show to the world and then it.

You know, we go through all these sort of hardships as we’re my younger and then it’s almost like your 20s and 30s or your Adult life is just untangling at all and, like you said, learning how to feel your emotions. You know, like Who knew it would be? so you know such a challenge, but so many people don’t do it, so many people still don’t Feel their emotions, yeah, and you know they’re disconnected. So I think I mean I’m right there with you. You know, like at least we’re learning it now and yeah, yeah, exactly, it’s a. And so I guess, like you sort of touched on some of the benefits of being more embodied and doing the somatic work, but yeah, maybe like what are some sort of noticeable things that you’ve seen in yourself? You mentioned earlier that you feel like you sort of know who you are a bit more. What does that look like?

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, the whole sort of yeah, knowing who you are thing. It’s something that’s ongoing. But I feel like we all have kind of layers of identity, at least for myself. And the more I do this sort of work, the more I peel back the layers of who I thought I was and I realized like, hey, that was just, it’s just a role I played or that was, you know, just something, that that was just a way of being in the world, that came about as a reaction to certain events. That happens, you know, when I was younger, so that’s sort of.

You know, when we started the podcast podcast, i sort of touched on how, you know, i had a few different sort of identities or played these different roles at different times in my life. And I think I think it’s, you know, in a way that kind of continues. But it’s a bit different now. It’s like it’s like sort of peeling back the layers of who I thought I was and realizing that, hey, that’s not who I am. There’s, there’s something deeper than that. So that just continues to just blow my mind because so, like a big thing that’s come up for me lately is just kind of like dynamics, like energetic sort of dynamics in relationship And I’ve realized that I tend to have a tendency to fall into a little bit of almost like a caretaker type role or a bit of a sort of like rescuer or just the kind of dynamic where it’s.

It’s not really balanced, you know, and I’ve been drawn to work in, you know, the mental health kind of field and because I want to help people and that’s that, that’s true, like that’s, that’s a true part of me, like I actually want to help people, i care about people, i want to see people doing well, especially people who’ve been through similar experiences to me, and that’s, you know, that’s something that’s kind of at my core. But the way that that plays out sometimes shows up as me over-extending myself and giving too much of myself to other people and, you know, not having enough energy or just like a life force left for me and for my stuff. Because trying to you kind of get into this, especially if you work in mental health like anyone who works in mental health or that sort of sector, you probably know what I’m talking about It’s very easy to burn out because it seems like there’s an endless stream of clients who have like very heavy, very serious issues and you really feel for them and you want to help them as much as you can, and sometimes you end up kind of sacrificing your own well-being to try and help someone else and you end up feeling drained and you feel like you’re giving everything that you can possibly give and it’s still not enough. And that’s something that I’ve realized recently and I would not have been aware of that, i don’t think, if I hadn’t done a lot of this kind of work with the somatic therapy and even with meditation, just having that kind of self-awareness. But it’s really clicked for me lately, and so when I talk about, like, getting closer to who I actually am, i’ve started thinking more like I’m on this path to, you know, to work in these spaces as a counselor or, you know, even just as a support worker, and you know that’s something I really care about.

But it’s like, is that really me, or is that just another role that I’m playing? It’s like what’s actually behind that? And it just keeps going Like, and obviously you know I’m not one of these people that says like, oh, you need to get to the point where you have no ego and you’re just. You know, you’re just still set a point of being and all that sort of stuff. There’s a place for all that. But you know, if you’re living in the world like the real world, you need to have an ego, like your ego is not a bad thing. The ego protects you. It sets boundaries and enables you to. You know, defend those boundaries and just operate in the world and just yeah, like you need it.

So but yeah, that’s been a big thing for me lately, is that and it’s just, it’s just, it’s a great journey. Like it’s not easy, but this it’s a real journey of self discovery for me, like going through what seems really simple but it’s almost like starting a relationship with yourself, like that’s real and trying to honor yourself as you go through life and different phases, and like it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. So that was kind of I sort of got a bit off track there. You sort of you know, in terms of what’s changed in a more kind of sort of less abstract way, i think that within myself, at least, i’m in my head a lot less.

I used to be very much in my head and get dragged into all kinds of different you know ways of thinking that were just not helpful. So that had been the case for most of my life. I think, you know, be very quick to jump on some kind of bandwagon, some new idea about you know, whatever it might be, but it really just, it really just doesn’t matter. Like a lot of the things that I would spend time thinking about just really had no impact on my life or no impact on the way I felt. Like you know, even during the whole COVID thing, you know I was doing a lot of, you know, research into alternative sort of viewpoints and you know, should we wear masks, should we not wear masks, all this sort of stuff, and I’d spent so much time thinking about it and obsessing over it And it’s just, it doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter.

Like, just, if you just be in this moment now and do your best to be embodied, whatever comes up, you’re in the best possible place to face it, like whether you have all the answers or not, if you’re connected with yourself and you’re, you know, grounded and not up in the clouds in your head, but you’re living or trying to live from a more body-based, gut instinct level of awareness, whenever a challenge or an issue comes up, you’re perfectly positioned to respond to that because, in my opinion, the greatest authority of you know what to do in life. It doesn’t come from anything external, it doesn’t come from the media or the government or you know some guru or religious leader. It comes from yourself and learning to, to hear that kind of inner voice or inner calling, like if you, if you’re in touch with that, like you’re sweet, you have all the guidance to me. So that’s probably been the biggest thing and that continues to develop. You know, over time, what would other people say in terms of what they’ve seen changing me?

I think that probably say I’m a bit more grounded, yeah, a bit more grounded, maybe have a bit more of a just, maybe more of a calm sort of stable sort of energy. I feel like I don’t get my. I don’t get my feathers ruffled quite as easily, and that’s not because when something happens I’ll sit there and be like I need to take three deep breaths and then everything’s going to pass or you know any kind of quick technique like that. It’s more like maybe someone would say something that I don’t like and and I feel that and I’m like, oh, i didn’t like that. I can feel that anger in my body It’s like, well, that’s okay, and then just just being with with what comes up. So that’s still got a long way to go, as we all do.

But yeah, another big thing that I think I’d like to touch on is just just just just anger or rage and just how that shows up in in our lives, because I mean, i can only speak from my own experience, obviously, but I’ve had a lot of anger for a long, a long time, like, like since I was quite young And it was for me, that’s probably been one of the biggest emotions has been anger or rage, and I think when I was younger I really didn’t know what to do with that. So I’d bottle it up and I’d push it down and try and just, yeah, just didn’t want to, didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to feel it, because when it came up it was, you know, it was a bit scary. When I joined the army like people who’ve been in the army would know like a big part of the army is anger work. How do you harness that anger and harness that aggression in a way that’s controlled And you can almost sort of use it as as fuel almost, and I’m not saying I’m not saying that this is healthy, i’m just saying this is what the army does. So, coming from a place prior to my joining the army where I was pushing everything down and boiling it up, and then going into the army where they are very much encouraging you to let that anger out, whether you’re doing an obstacle course or a bayonet assault course or some kind of you know whatever it might be like more you know MMA type stuff or whatever they really want to see that that controlled aggression and teach you how to tap into that. So for me, like when I was in the army, it was just like I’d go to work every day and we’d be doing even if it was, you know, the morning run or you know the gym, or maybe we’d be out in the bush doing something or different exercises tapping into that aggression. My like I wasn’t angry because I had this, had this release, like almost every day at work, like you know, being in the military, and for me that was just like everything in my life got better because I wasn’t bottling up this, this anger. I had a healthy outlet for it.

What happened when I got out of the army was that I didn’t have that same environment where it was acceptable to express anger in a healthy way. And my kind of go to thing has always been exercise. Like I’ll go to the gym, i’ll do boxing. You know, i did Muay Thai for a while in Thailand, like that was my way of coping. That was sort of my first kind of coping mechanism.

I suppose was was the gym or running or just some kind of physical activity, because it gets you in your body, gets you out of your head. But when I got out of the army I had a few different injuries, like I got a bad shoulder and you know just a bunch of stuff. That means that I can’t train the way that I would like to train, i can’t go and hit a punching bag the way I would like to to really try and shift and move some of that energy. And so everything started building up again And it’s just like, oh, what am I going to do? I was trying to talk therapy and everything. It wasn’t until I sort of uncovered the nervous system world where they talk about healthy aggression and, you know, healthy anger, because being angry is not a bad thing, it’s like it’s a very natural.

Ellie GoodeHost

It’s what you do with it.

Jack McIntyre

It’s what you do with it, right, exactly So if you have a healthy outlet for it or a healthy way of expressing it and that doesn’t mean even expressing it to anyone else You can be completely on your own. It just it goes a long way And you know there’s a lot of different techniques for that. But, yeah, just that’s been a big piece for me And that’s something that I continue to work on is to try and not let myself get to the point where I feel like I need to bottle things up or I need to push things down. And I think one way to do that is, you know healthy boundaries, because usually if I’m angry about something, it’s it’s usually related to boundaries, feeling like a boundaries been overstepped or, yeah, some kind of trust has been violated or something like that. So I think for me, yeah, the anger work’s been another huge piece, because tying it back into the freeze response if you’re not in touch with your anger, if you’re not in touch with that kind of healthy aggression like that’s, that’s your life force, that’s the part of you that is, you know the survival energy, like if you’re out somewhere, say in the woods or in the bush, and you know, a bear pops up, you get this rush of adrenaline. You get that, that charge, that’s what’s keeping you alive And that’s very closely linked to healthy aggression or anger.

And if you’re suppressing that and pushing that down, you’re basically blocking or damning up your life force. So and that shows up as depression or fatigue or not having motivation to get things done that you know you need to do and you want to do. It’s just like you have. You have no fuel in the tank because you’re you’re blocking that life force from flowing. So that’s been another big piece of the puzzle for me And yeah, it’s a tricky one because I think you know shit happens. But having the having the tools and the sort of framework to look at it a bit differently rather than just thinking I’m pissed off, to be able to then go in and actually sit with that feeling and you know, try and try and work with it, it does make a big difference. I mean, have you had much like? was that a big sort of piece of the puzzle for you?

Ellie Goode

Oh yeah, absolutely Yeah. I mean that’s why I put rage in the title of the podcast, because I was just, it’s been, it was sex, money and rage are kind of being the three big things that have that I’ve had to work through in some way or another. So, but yeah, rage for sure. I was afraid of my anger for so long And when it started coming up I was like, holy shit, this is a lot of energy, this is a. There’s a lot of rage here.

And but yeah, i love what you said about you know anger being. You know it’s a survival response, like it’s the fight in, fight or flight, you know, and and it’s it’s something that, like you said, is asserts boundaries And when that suppressed, like we like anger keeps us safe, rage keeps us safe. It’s an action oriented emotion And so if we’re suppressing that, you know someone’s taking advantage of us, we’re not going to speak up. You know we’re not going to push back if someone’s, you know, treating us badly. And it was interesting, like as I got more in touch with my anger and my rage and really started to embody it and feel it like in my hands, my hands would start clenching like a tiger, you know, like a, like a claw or most, or I could feel it all through my jaw, you know, through my teeth and feeling like I want to growl like a tiger. And really, you know, often when I have rage come up, feeling like, okay, how can I embody this like an animal, would you know? you know, do I bear my teeth? you know, do I growl? Do I, you know, rip a towel? like, like, what? like, not that an animal would sit there and rip a towel, but, you know, like to, to destroy something in some way, in a controlled way. There’s been times that I’ve had rage come up and I’ve hurt my throat because I was growling so forcefully. So it’s definitely something you know learning to control, let it, let it out in a controlled way. But as I got more in touch with my rage, i stood up to a lot of people in my life and ended relationships and things. So it’s very, very powerful. Like you said, it’s a life force, much like sexual energy, you know, and, and it has a lot of power, you know, and it’s, it’s really beautiful And and I don’t think rage is, you know, good or bad in and of itself.

It’s, it’s how you use it, you know, do you inflict it on yourself, do you inflict it on the people around you, or do you find a healthy way to release it? and, and you know, let it out, because it’s energy. And as long as we’re holding that energy in, like that’s taking energy away from us, you know, from our nervous system, and so that’s where we’re getting sick. You know we’re getting, like you said, fatigued and and not, you know, but then also not sleeping well, so you know, the more dysregulated we are, the more issues You can have in your physical body. So I’m yeah, i’ve found reach to be, yeah, really, really beautiful experience.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, so yeah, absolutely, absolutely agree with everything that you said. Yeah, especially with the growling, like I think that making sounds to express anger is for me probably one of the best ways to kind of to work with it, you know, and allowing yourself to snarl a little bit and growl and get that kind of distortion in your sort of voice, almost that kind of the sort of gravelly growling sort of thing, something about that seems to seems to wake something up and allow you to really feel that sensation and to work with it and to move it. Yeah, maybe don’t do it. You know, in the middle of a shopping centre, people might be unless you want to attract some attention.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you have a quiet place, i think that it can work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I probably would also say that you know things like martial arts and Jiu Jitsu. I mean, i’ve done a lot of Jiu Jitsu but from what I understand, that’s that’s a great way to work with that and to remain in calm when that sort of fight flight system gets, gets tripped. But you know things like boxing, even running, even running can be a good way.

It’s like, yeah, you can do where you can find that edge of physical discomfort, and it’s like you sort of like you get a second wind and you sort of feel like, no, like I can do this, and it’s like it’s a great feeling. People who’ve done a lot of running or a lot of, you know, in CrossFit or whatever it might be, would know what I’m, what I’m saying. Like it’s like this, this other energy comes over. You Like, once you’ve been working out for a while and then you’re like, oh, i feel this fire, like let’s go, it’s, it’s a beautiful thing, yeah, but like I said, you know it’s anger is neither good nor bad, it’s just just what it is. It’s what we do with it. Yeah.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, yeah, it’s funny you mentioned running. I am. I felt this. I didn’t feel rage, i guess.

Before I started running, i just felt really like, just like a sloth, just really like blob, like you know, didn’t want to do anything And I was like I just feel like I need to move my body. So I went for a run and, yeah, it was like every I actually read an email about this, but every step I took it was like I was pushing the rage into the road And there’s something about doing, doing sprint site It’s a set of sprints and there’s something about just pushing, like you said, pushing your body to that limit and pushing to the edge. And I actually started like growling while I was sprinting. I was like whoa, there’s all this rage that’s coming up. And I think also, like the good part about exercise is it’s like you’re it’s raising your heart rate, so you’re going into a sympathetic state which helps to move some of these energies out.

So it was really cool And and I was just like, yeah, like having these rage, you know charges come out of me while I was sprinting and and it was funny, i had like a few Peruvians like looking over me like what the fuck is she on about? But it just, it, just it felt really good. So, yeah, it’s, it’s. It’s like finding these, you know, i guess, tools that match the energy that we’re feeling, like you know, whether it’s sprints, whether it’s listening to heavy metal music, whether it’s doing martial arts, like you said, finding some sort of physical or whatever activity to try and match that energy that you’re feeling And then it can help it move through the body, i find, which is really cool.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You mentioned that when you were running you would have like, as your feet were landing, you sort of have big growling or releasing sort of sounds. I can definitely relate to that. I was actually did a bit of boxing for the first time a few days ago and it’s just instinctively, just throwing some punches, the, the sound started coming out like like sort of growls, just just, i don’t know. Just sound wanted to come out And I was like, all right, i’m going to let it out And It changes the experience, if you like. If you’re just doing it and you’re like very, you know, maybe jaw clenched and no sound coming out, it feels one way. But if you’re exercising and you’re grunting, it’s like grunting and making these sort of vocal noises. I’m not sure what it is, but something happens, like something happens, that’s. It feels good, it feels really good.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, it’s like you can feel it like come out of your like abdomen, because for me, like I feel it, like you feel it in your body, and so it’s almost like the growling. It’s like I can feel it traveling up out of my abdomen through my throat and like out my mouth, kind of thing.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, Yeah, it’s not like you’re pushing from your throat, it’s coming from deep, like your diaphragm. It’s everything is kind of opened up and it’s. It feels doesn’t even feel like sound, feels like energy just coming out.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, yeah.

Jack McIntyre

But yeah.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, it’s super cool, it’s super cool, yeah, no thanks for. for touching on rage, yeah, it’s, it’s. Yeah, it’s something I. It has a special place in my heart, for sure, but so, so I guess what made you decide to get into the ketamine therapy then? Just out of curiosity.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, yeah. So I mainly did that at the recommendation of a therapist I was working with. So this is going back probably about, i suppose, nearly a year. I’ve been working with this guy for some time and he’s great He’s, he’s an awesome therapist. He’s not a somatic therapist, he’s more, a bit more cognitive, but he’s amazing what he does. So you know, and I do think there is a place, like for both, i think that Traditional talk therapy still definitely has its place. It’s just for me It wasn’t the full picture, but having the somatic practices that I do every day, combining that with regular Counseling or therapy, that seems to be the winning combo, at least for me. But he sort of recommended it as something to try, mainly to help with Like sleep, sleep issues and just sort of like general low mood, and so I’m sort of was like, ok, i’ll, you know, i trust this guy, i’ll give it a go. I wasn’t in a bad place when when I started it, but it was.

Yeah it was more just like OK, like you know, this is all this stuff whether it’s MDMA therapy, ketamine therapy, psychedelics it seems to be kind of you know, the forefront of. It seems to be a big part of the way that mental health treatment is going. I was like, ok, let’s give it a go. Yeah. So I went in and It’s all completely above board, legal, all that sort of stuff here in Australia. By the way, it wasn’t some dodgy sort of sort of set up underground. Yeah, no, no, it’s all completely above board. So the way it works is I’d go into a like a hospital and they would It usually be about four people doing it, and You get your own sort of like little room or and like bed and all that sort of stuff And it’s, it’s a ketamine infusion, so it’s sort of like a drip, ok, and it lasts about an hour, maybe a little bit longer, and the experience is very gentle. Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty weird. Like I’m not going to lie, it’s a pretty strange experience.

Ellie Goode

Yeah.

Jack McIntyre

And the way that they run it is the first two weeks. It’s kind of like You’re basically You’re basically Putting a lot of it into your system. So I think you do six sessions within two weeks. So you do like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday sort of thing. So you go in each of those days and do an infusion And yeah, that’s pretty full on, because The experience itself is not exactly pleasant. Like stuff comes up.

So for me, you know it would always be first thing in the morning. You know I’d get there at like five in the morning or something and go in and You know they do all their, you know checks and all that sort of stuff, make sure everything’s good to go. And then you basically lie in a bed and Have like a eye mask on. So I have my own sort of eye mask that I take and it’s like completely blackout so no light can get in. And then I have noise cancelling headphones and I’ll listen to usually just instrumental, ambient, classical type music, that sort of thing. No Parkway Drive, no heavy metal, just just soothing, nice, you know, calming, calming sort of stuff. So yeah, and they give you the infusion and you lie there And usually what happens to me is the first sort of five minutes or so I’m like, oh, you know, i don’t feel anything, i just feel tired because it’s so bloody early in the morning. But then usually what happens is at some point I realized like, oh, something is definitely different. And you start to It’s a bit different from you know, things like mushrooms and some other psychedelics. For me it feels like my awareness. It becomes a single point and it’s not confined to anything physical. So it’s a little bit similar to doing like a float tank, you kind of like if I lie, still, you kind of don’t have a sense of your body, so you sort of Whatever your awareness is, because your eyes are shut as well, so it’s not your vision, because normally most people think, oh, if they’re looking around they’re like that’s, that’s my awareness, that’s my, you know, that’s me, but your eyes are shut, so there’s something there. The core of your awareness is kind of unhooked from. You know the physical sensation of having a body, and then she just gets wild. I don’t know, i don’t know how to explain it, like, but it’s.

I’ve had experiences where I felt like I was traveling down some kind of tunnel or vortex type thing. I had an experience that felt like I was, you know, like going into the matrix, like how, in that scene where Neo touches the mirror and he becomes, oh yeah, goes into some sort of thing like that. I’ve had experiences where it felt like I was almost like an orb, like a floating kind of orb of awareness, and I was able to go back into memories from the past And it was almost like virtual reality. Virtual reality Like I could go into the memory and like fly around the room And just be like, oh, i’m going to go in this room And I go in there and look around and everything was like Like photo realistic sort of thing.

So I don’t really have any explanation for what the hell ketamine is or what that experience is. apart from that, it’s, it’s wild, it’s very strange. I don’t really know how to explain it, but Some stuff came up a few times for me on it. It was definitely some tears during the infusion, you know, processed a lot of grief and feelings of loss and things like that. But the biggest thing is being it’s been a great way for me to work through fear, because I think for a long time I had a fear of I don’t know if it’s a fear of death, but Kind of just a fear that the universe is in Fear, that the universe Wasn’t a benevolent and safe place and was something scary and that I couldn’t let my guard down, and it really helped me to work through a lot of that sort of thing.

I’ve heard some people say, actually online, that the ketamine experience is quite similar to a near death experience, like in the sort of higher doses, and I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s that’s what I’ve heard other people say. So it really helped me work through a lot of my existential kind of Stuck points or issues to do with, you know, being here in this life and what comes next, and heaven and hell and God and all that sort of stuff that I probably had a lot of conditioning towards due to growing up, going to church. So I think, yeah, like it was, it’s been really helpful to develop a sense of equanimity with all that stuff and the shifts that I’ve seen from it in terms of particularly like particularly that kind of fear, have been pretty amazing And I don’t think I could have got there in the same amount of time any other way. Like it’s been some pretty big shifts, but that you know, like most things, there’s pros and cons, there’s some of the downsides of the experiences, for the sort of few days afterwards, maybe three or four days afterwards I’m a bit spacey, like I’m not really. I’m not really embodied, i suppose would be a good way to put it which for me is like that’s everything, like that embodiment. So I think it’s it’s great, you know, if you’re someone who’s in a position where it might be helpful for you, it’s a very, very valuable thing to possibly try.

But I think long term it’s It’s not really the way to go. It’s sort of like. It’s sort of like going into a pressure cooker for an hour and having a bunch of stuff that you’ve been hanging on to. So sometimes, often subconsciously, come up and you get a chance to face it and and work through it. But then afterwards you know everything’s been stirred up and there’s lots of Different things churning around in the system. So there’s definitely an integration period after the sessions.

But yeah, i think long term it’s not something that I’ll do. At the moment I do it maybe once every two months Or somewhere, somewhere around there, and I’m probably only going to do it maybe once or twice more, because I think there’s great value in it, but for me, the disassociation sort of, and disconnection that I feel for the few days afterwards, it’s that’s. It’s really not worth it to me. Like, for me, that’s that’s everything being embodied, is everything for me these days And I feel like I’ve kind of worked through most of the things that I can work through with the ketamine. But yeah, what a crazy experience. Like, if anyone has an opportunity to do it, you’ll see what I mean. It’s just it can’t I can’t put it into words, i bet.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, it sounds, yeah, really interesting And yeah, interesting like that. Like you mentioned, you know, it was really good helping you work through fear and being able to go into memories and and fly around that, that you know having that distance and separation, but then and then also seeing, yeah, like that, the sort of the con I guess is more like that not being embodied and feeling a bit disconnected, and do you do find that you become more embodied, like it’s just for a few days that you feel disconnected or and then it’s sort of you get back to yourself, or is it. How long does that last? Yeah, probably.

Jack McIntyre

I mean, it sort of varies, usually about maybe four days somewhere around there. And each time I do it like because normally I do it in the morning come home and because it’s it’s an anesthetic, essentially like it’s a dissociative anesthetic. So I come home and I need to have a rest, have a sleep, but then I wake up and usually the first thing I do is I go and sit out in the backyard and do some somatic stuff to try and, you know, come, come back to myself And I feel like for a couple of days it’s it’s harder to to connect. It’s almost like, if you imagine the embodiment or somatic practices, and it’s almost like a muscle that you, that you, that you train and that gets stronger by doing the, the, the practices. For a few days after ketamine it’s almost like that muscle is like a sleep And so it’s a little bit harder to connect. Right, it’s not not in a bad way, because I know that that’s just. That’s just the physical effect that it has on my body.

My understanding of it is at first I thought when I was doing the ketamine, that it was taking me out of my body and out into the universe or you know God knows where, because that’s what it felt like. But more recently I’ve sort of thought the opposite, that it’s actually. It feels like it’s taking me in. It’s taking me into my subconscious or into my psyche, but on like a almost, like I’ve been shrunk down and have gone into my subconscious and I’m flying around in there and everything I’ve seen there is, or everything I experienced, they’re all, it’s all parts of me. She hear people talk about big psychedelic experiences where they go out and they see aliens and they’re like maybe these aliens or entities are actually really out there. But with the ketamine experience it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like everything that I’m experiencing. It’s like it’s like my own internal landscape of my subconscious And once that kind of clicked for me, i was like oh OK, i think I have a better, better idea of how to work with this now.

Coming out of it, it’s like I’m not going to be able to do it. Coming out of it, it’s sort of like the doctor said to me it’s basically what’s happening is your subconscious mind and your conscious mind are sitting down and having a chat, they’re having a meeting And that’s what the experience is And it’s. There’s been some research that it promotes like neurogenesis or like neuroplasticity, so like helping the mind or the brain to learn new ways of doing things, so similar to psychedelics, things like mushrooms or whatever. So I think it’s important in that sort of week or so following to do the practices and the habits that you want to try and bring into your life. Well, you know, that’s that’s how I approach it, but, yeah, it feels very much like a journey into the subconscious, whereas my experiences with same mushrooms didn’t really have that same kind of kind of quality to the same extent.

Ellie Goode

Interesting, interesting. Yeah, i actually had Yeah on when I have mushrooms. it feels very introspective, sort of what you’re describing with the ketamine, which is interesting. So, yeah, do they? do they like your, your psychologist Does? do they give you instructions or say, you know, sit in the room with you? Are you just sort of alone with your headphones and your eye mask, sort?

Jack McIntyre

of. Yeah, some places do that, but I mean, i actually don’t know that there’s that many places in Australia that do the ketamine therapy, but from what I’ve heard over in the states that’s pretty common. They basically do a therapy session. I can’t really imagine doing that. Yeah, it’s. I can’t imagine holding conversation during it. It’s when I do it, it’s like it’s. It’s. Yeah, it’s a solo journey And yeah, once I put the, the music playlist on and, you know, put my mask on, it’s like I’m, you know, i’m going on an adventure and I’ll be back in an hour.

I’m not sure if that’s just due to dosage Maybe they do smaller doses, but I’m pretty sure that the doses that that I’ve done have been quite. You know, people talk about this thing called the K-hole and I mean I said I’ve never done like full disclosure. I’ve never done ketamine in any other setting, so I haven’t had any experience with it in a recreational sort of sense. But yeah, i imagine that the infusion is somewhere in the realm of, you know, a K-hole which is, you know, quite, quite an intense experience.

Yeah, but apart from that, like I don’t really, i mean I have done mushrooms and you know different psychedelics and plant medicines in the past, but it’s been at least two years now since I’ve done any kind of micro dosing or any kind of, you know, plant work at all. It’s just been for the last little while been trying the ketamine. But I really liked the feeling of being clear and not being even something like micro dosing as great as it is or as great as it can be, it’s still. I just like the feeling of just being just completely, 100% clear, because I feel like that’s when I’m able to think and operate as good as I can. And I did work at a actually worked at a rehab for a while, for about six months, and just like doing support work, and that was wow. That was a very eye-opening experience for me.

Ellie Goode

Was it like a drug and alcohol rehab?

Jack McIntyre

Oh yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, so it’s a drug and alcohol rehab and it was a place where people come either voluntarily, or maybe they’ve come straight from jail or they’re court ordered to be there, and very big mix of different people from all walks of life And they’re usually there for a minimum of eight weeks and it’s a full program. It’s up to about a year. So they essentially live on site and it’s like it’s a community. It’s very much a community And so the model is called therapeutic community or TC And that is sort of the. It’s about people with lived experience coming together in a common setting and the tagline is sort of community as methods. So the community, like the relationships that are built and learning how to have proper boundaries and deal with responsibilities and authority and all these different things all are encompassed in this sort of therapeutic community model.

But yeah, i worked there for six months and yeah, like that’s, it was a game changer, like in so many ways, like seeing people who in the past maybe I would have had some bias or some judgment towards, like people who have come straight from the hospital detox unit where they’ve just detoxed off be it alcohol or methamphetamine or whatever it might be And they come in and they usually don’t look too healthy Maybe it might be a bit underweight or just because they’ve been in serious drug addiction for a long time And then seeing them two, three months later and they look like a completely different person because they’ve been eating properly, they’ve been working through their stuff, they’ve been doing a bit of exercise and had healthy people to speak to around them, it’s like holy shit, like doesn’t even look like the same person And it’s just like getting to be a part of that and getting to hear some of these people’s stories was oh, it really affected me in a positive way, because I think it’s so easy to have judgments about people. Like maybe you see the homeless person on the street corner and you think, oh, what are they doing? Why can’t they just get a job? Why don’t they just do this or that, and it’s very easy to sort of sit back and sort of have these judgments. But when you actually talk to these people and hear their story and hear what they’ve been through, it’s like, wow, you’re fucking incredible.

Like some of these people that I’ve met and worked with are so unbelievably strong and just have so much life in them that it blows my mind And to hear what the amount of trauma that some people have been through and then to see how they are in the world and they still have love in their heart and they’re still kind to other people it really restored my faith in humanity. I think working there which is I didn’t expect that when I signed up for the job, but it was a really positive experience. But once again, i learned a lot about myself and about boundaries and overextending myself and those sorts of things. So working in that sector is very hard, but yeah, what a great experience.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, yeah, it sounds super rewarding. Yeah, yeah, that’s super cool, super cool. Yeah. well, we’re sort of coming up, I guess, to the end of time, but what do you see as being, I guess, next for you? What do you sort of see as being, I guess, the next step in your journey? What do you think life will go next? I don’t know if that’s a too open-ended question. I mean, we don’t know the future, but yeah, It’s good.

Jack McIntyre

Yeah, i really, as we were talking about before, trying to peel back those layers and find out what’s really at the core of who we are. That’s the biggest thing for me, following that impulse of I don’t really know what comes next, but I’m trying to be honest with myself and be real with myself, and I know that that kind of inner guidance of my true self will show me and will lead me to where I need to be. In a more practical sense, what does that mean? I’m probably gonna keep working with people in some capacity, be it in the drug and alcohol sector, mental health. I would love to work with veterans and ex-military because I think there’s a real need for that. There’s a real need for that in not just Australia but across the world The whole kind of army or military sort of system, including deployments and all that sort of stuff, and it takes its toll on everyone who’s involved in it in some way. People think that they can go to somewhere like the Middle East and come back and be unaffected. I don’t believe that. I think it affects everyone in some way. I really feel a bit of a call towards working in those spaces.

But outside of that, i’ve been really just had this fire for music again which I haven’t felt in a long time, like I’ve been playing guitar for probably 20 years and singing for a while and writing music for a long time, and just the last month or two it’s just been like, oh, i gotta really put some music out. So that’s the most sort of pressing thing on my kind of agenda is to record some music, maybe start a YouTube channel, record an EP professionally or do an album or something, and it’s just something I have to do. It’s just. I’ve been putting it off for a long time and seeing other people around me, like my sister she’s extremely creative and seeing her succeed with her art has been very inspiring to me. So I think, yeah, it’s just. Those are probably the two biggest things, but once again, i don’t know exactly what’s next, but I feel good about it. I don’t feel stressed about the future anymore. I feel like I have everything I need within myself to face whatever comes next and to thrive.

Ellie Goode

Awesome, awesome. That’s so good to hear. I mean, that’s like. I think the ultimate goal is just to feel like, yeah, you can handle whatever life throws at you, and just to be excited for the future, even if you don’t know what that is Like. That’s so cool, That’s awesome. All right, well, thank you, Jack. So much for coming on the podcast. We’ll wrap it up there.

Jack McIntyre

Thank you, yeah, thank you, thanks for having me. It’s been great.

Ellie Goode

Yeah, no worries, thanks for listening and making it this far. Once again, just hit the subscribe or follow button. Smash it really hard. It’ll make my day and make sure notifications are ticked so that I can spam you throughout the week. Just kidding, it’ll just send you a pop up Notification when new episodes are live. That’s it for me. Have an epic week, do something crazy fun that you wouldn’t normally do, and I will catch you next time. Thank you all for all of our tournaments.