In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ (founder of http://www.lawayra.com) has a conversation with Robin Kurland. Robin is a licensed marriage and family therapist and psychedelic integration specialist with nearly 20 years of experience. Based in Sacramento, she works with trauma, addiction, sexual abuse survivors, and veterans, blending expressive arts, embodiment, and Internal Family Systems therapy into her healing approach.

We touch upon topics of:

  • Robin’s journey from dancer to therapist (00:44)
  • Her first spiritual experience with death (01:20)
  • The meaning of integration (05:02)
  • Using art and journaling after ceremonies (06:27)
  • Integration of difficult psychedelic experiences (07:11)
  • Long-term integration and internal protectors (08:39)
  • How expressive arts help with trauma (10:03)
  • Drawing as psychedelic integration (12:00)
  • Somatic and visual techniques for post-ceremony art (14:00)
  • How to use dance after a ceremony (16:15)
  • Dancing during ceremonies and movement as integration (18:12)
  • Interpretation vs expression in integration art (21:16)
  • Psychedelics and addiction recovery (31:41)
  • The link between 12-step programs and psychedelics (34:44)
  • Shadow work and Internal Family Systems (41:02)
  • Supporting someone with limited access to integration (26:46)
  • What is pre-integration and why it matters (49:40)

If you would like to attend one of our Ayahuasca retreats, go to http://www.lawayra.com

Find more about Robin at robinkurland.com or on Instagram at @psychedelicrecovery_

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Robin Kurland: Shadow is anything that got split off, put in the closet as a way to survive. So an example would be, let’s say I’m a little girl and I get really angry and I punch something and my parent. Maybe slaps me and somebody says, little girls don’t get angry, and oh, I have to take my anger and I put it into the shadows.

That’s how a shadow can be born. There’s also the golden shadow. So for instance, say I am a little girl and I’m just. Skipping around and laughing really loudly, and I get scolded. Don’t be so loud, you’re bothering us. Oh, so my joy is too much. So I have to put that in the shadow. So anything that gets split off and shoved into the corners becomes our shadow.

Sam Believ: Hi guys, and welcome to Ayahuasca podcast as always, with you to host Sam Leo. Today I’m having a conversation with Robin Kla. Robin is a licensed. Marriage and family therapist and psychedelic integration therapist. With nearly 20 years of experience based in Sacramento, she specializes in trauma, addictions and integration for survivals of survivors of sexual abuse, childhood neglect, and veterans.

With background as a dancer and artist, she emphasizes embodiment and creative expression in healing. In this episode, we talk about being recruited by plant medicines integration and expressive arts therapy. Integrating difficult Ayahuasca experiences, integration by dance and movement. Is it okay to dance during the ceremony?

Psychedelics for overcoming addiction, self-governing nature of Ayahuasca Internal family systems. Pre-integration whilst Integrion and more. Enjoy this episode. This episode is sponsored by Laira Ayahuasca Retreat. At Laira, we combine affordability, accessibility, and authenticity. Laira connect. Heal, grow guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you.

Robin, welcome to the show.

Robin Kurland: Thank you, Sam. Thanks so much for having me.

Sam Believ: Robin, tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to work with psychedelics? Ooh,

Robin Kurland: Let’s see a little bit about myself beyond what you shared. I, yeah, I used to be an artist. I used to be a dancer, and I had a traumatic experience that sort of shook my world.

I was in a partnership with someone that had passed away, and I actually have found him. When I went into his room, everything was moving in really slow motion, like the furniture was floating. I saw his spirit leave his body and that was probably the most spiritual experience around death that I had ever had.

And, it really shook my world and I thought, I’m just gonna go back to the studio and keep dancing. But it really changed my perspective. So I decided that I wanted to be a therapist on my own. I was using, drawing and dance and music to integrate this trauma and I thought.

I really wanna share this with other people. And so luckily I found this beautiful program at CIIS where I could get my master’s, but also continue with the arts and weave arts and spirituality into my work. And yeah, that’s what I do now, and it’s a really great way to honor him. This is, 25 years ago I had this experience but.

Yeah, it’s a wonderful thing to weave into my practice and into my life every day.

Sam Believ: I’m glad that you didn’t let this trauma break you and eventually led to good things, like now you’re helping other people. The transition from a dancer to integration therapist is it’s pretty steep. I can imagine.

I went from being. Marine offshore and gas engineer to running an Iowa screw tree. So I guess we all get recruited in any shape or form. I don’t know if you probably notice people that, had their lifestyles and that all of a sudden they ended up doing something else. Do you, have you observed that?

Robin Kurland: Yeah, especially with psychedelics, right? We have these. Realizations and openings where we say, oh my gosh, I’m in the wrong relationship or the wrong country. But I love the word that you used, recruited. There’s something higher happening beyond our control, and it very much felt like a recruitment.

It felt like a nice transition though, because I think therapists are very creative. Artists make good therapists and therapists are creative, right? Because we know how to be in the mystery and the absurd and the unknown, and we know how to go with the flow and trust in something greater, like whether it be God or the creative process.

So yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah. It’s a very common thread where people. They have one lifestyle and then all of a sudden, the reason I say recruit is because it happens very spontaneously and then more and more synchronicity start happening and it becomes obvious that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.

And that’s the world word work with psychedelics. And my engineering background helped me like build a medicine house and design cabins and stuff like that. And I’m sure your dancing background that led you to. Now integrating with art and dance. So can you talk to us about that?

To begin with, talk a little bit about integration, even though I know most of my listeners know it, but I wanna know your version and then we’ll talk about specific kinds of integration.

Robin Kurland: Yeah, absolutely. So I heard you say, ask a couple things. How I weave expressive arts into. My integration work and what my thoughts are on integration.

So integration is it’s a weaving. It’s a it’s a melding, it’s an alchemy. So we’re taking, and it doesn’t even have to be psychedelic. It could be a trauma or a vacation or something profound that comes up in your meditation. So it’s. An integration is an opportunity for you to ingest, digest, break down, and have it become a part of the fabric of your being.

I know that sounds a little abstract, but I can be a little bit more concrete when we get into the subcategory.

Sam Believ: No, it’s a great, it’s a great description. When you work with integration and I mean at my retreat, so I run an retreats called Laira and we have those integration journals and in the journals in the middle, there are a few pages with.

Is for coloring. So the, that’s the only thing I know about that is when people color their minds are relaxes and it gives them ability for more stuff to come up. And then I want them to sit down and journal some more. But that’s about it. So I’m really new to the topic. I want to explore it more and offer it to the people that come to my retreat.

So please educate us on the integration with arts.

Robin Kurland: Okay. It sounds like you’re doing beautiful work, by the way. It’s, yeah. I appreciate all that you do. And what a beautiful place you have. I’ll have to come and see you sometime. Yeah the coloring and the journaling, those are two very important things.

But if we were to look at, the integration of difficult experiences, is that an okay place to go? First we look, you and you probably see this all the time, so in a difficult experience could be anything from, like I said earlier oh my God, I’m. I’m in the wrong relationship or I’m in the wrong career.

But then we have more difficult experiences where people remember past traumas, whether it be a sexual trauma or just I thought I had a perfect childhood and now I see my father and my mother in a different light. And all of these are considered difficult experiences because it’s almost like a new trauma that your body has been carrying it the whole time.

Psychedelics is saying you summoned me and so here it is. Here you go. So those are a little bit more heavy. And so for people who have had difficult experiences, I would say the number one thing is to really get into a relationship with either a coach or a therapist. Psychedelics teach us that we’re all connected.

They teach us the importance of community. And so why would you shortchange yourself in that way? Treat yourself. You deserve it. You deserve to have that opportunity to really get into the nuances of your own experience. I think group settings can be really good, but it. But if it’s something like a repressed memory of a trauma or a suppressed memory of a trauma, I think it’s really important to have your own one-on-one experience.

From there, I would say integration long term is probably, I. Most definitely really important long-term integration. Sometimes people think I’m just gonna journal about it for a couple days. I’m gonna do some drawing. I’m gonna walk in nature. And those things are absolutely important, but the long-term integration gives this new material that’s come to the surface, an opportunity to integrate into your psyche.

And your protectors, your inner protectors your managers, your firefighters, they have worked so hard to keep whatever was suppressed in a locked box. And now psychedelics is, knocking things around and saying, here you go. And so your protectors are probably not gonna the idea of you staying present with this thing and integrating this thing.

They’re gonna work really hard to say, eh, let’s put it back underground and put some dirt on it. So our job. Is truly to keep it alive, keep in dialogue with it. And that could be through dance. Sometimes I have my clients, if they’re having a hard time accessing a part like their inner teenager or a protector, I might actually have them stand up and embody it because they just, they can’t.

We can’t always access it from the place where the problems are born, right? So stand up. What is, what does your protector look like? Is it a man? Is it a female? Is it an entity? What are they wearing? What do they smell like? What are their voices sound like? And so for them to really get into this part that is of themselves it really helps with.

The integration. I also very much encourage dance and sing. I think that any form of dance that allows you to. Be in relationship with this experience. And for instance let’s say somebody has had a sexual trauma that they had forgotten about that could be absolutely terrifying. I had my own experience with that.

If we have time, I can share with you. But yeah, it’s dancing is such a spiritual practice, right? It’s primal. And for people who have been abused, the we’re, we tend to be cut off from our bodies. And so anything that allows us to be in the body and, it could be a small dance, it could be a big dance, it could be to gentle music, it could be to heavy metal, whatever allows you to feel like you are really starting to build a relationship.

Sam Believ: Okay, so thank you for that description. But I think we talked about everything except for the art.

Robin Kurland: Yeah. What’s interesting is I do expressive arts, which is a little bit different than art therapy, right? So art therapy is visual or expressive. Arts is dance, music, psychodrama, poetry, voice. So any form of expression.

Sam Believ: So that’s my bad, because when I thought art, I thought that’s gonna be something about drawing.

So that’s forgive my ignorance, but.

Robin Kurland: No, you’re fine drawing. Absolutely. We do that too. I think, the mandala, I love the containers so people can really fill that space in and it feels really good, especially right after ceremony. Integration long-term. I really encourage people to be messy.

I’ve had clients who are so afraid to just put color. On a piece of paper. And so I’ll get on the floor with them and sit with them and color with them and draw with them and encourage them to just be messy. Perfectionism is a symptom of trauma. And when we’re frozen in our bodies and we’re so afraid to be creative and show our true selves, that’s a symptom of trauma.

Just I have I have crepes and I have chalks, and I encourage my clients to choose art materials that are a little bit messy versus the more contained materials like markers or pencils.

Sam Believ: I can tell you my kids are not traumatized because they’re very messy. But let’s let’s pretend that somebody was listening to this, had a ceremony yesterday, and they want to integrate with art.

They get themselves some crayons or some other messy. Visual arts aids. So what do they do? What they, what do they draw? How can one direct that experience so it’s productive?

Robin Kurland: Yeah, that’s a beautiful question. I might invite them to start with the feeling, what is it? What is it that you’re feeling in your body?

If that expression were to spill over onto the paper, what would that look like? And so I may spend a little bit of time doing some somatic experiencing. Another option too would be what did you see? What did you see in your ceremony? How would you describe it? And just let’s go ahead and drop down into our bodies and hold that image in your mind.

And then they could even extend their arm with their eyes closed and just begin to let the arms and the hands do the magic, right? So with eyes closed, you’re not thinking about how it looks and trying to match what you experienced in your psychedelic experience. It’s just letting it flow. So those are two options.

Another option would be to do it standing up if you have the ability to maybe hang the paper on the wall. That way they’re moving their body and maybe even making some, sounds like really letting it come through. So it’s a full, it’s a full experience.

Sam Believ: So what I just realized is we’ve been punishing graffiti artists wrongly.

All, all along. They were just traumatized and we were trying, ’cause that’s how it looks like the graffiti. Yeah. Had another question and I distracted myself with the graffiti part, but, and let me ask you the same question, but this time about the expressive arts as in dancing. So same thing, a person they just had and I was retreat yesterday and now they want to integrate their experience with dancing. What should they do?

Robin Kurland: Oh the first thing I would do. So if they’re able to, you can even do this, you don’t have to be a, an expressive arts therapist.

You don’t have to be a dancer, but just to be with the client and mirror them and invite them again, just starting with the body drop down into your body. What are you feeling? If that feeling could make a sound, what would it sound like if that sound were to create a a shape? What would that shape be?

And just begin from the shape. And then from the shape you can begin to move the shape, and then of course, inviting them to bring music. Music is very inspirational but again, starting with the body, starting with the feeling, creating the sound, creating a shape. And then from there, letting that flow.

And sometimes people are really intimidated by the thought of. Dancing and expressing themselves. There’s a lot of shame and embarrassment in our culture around moving our bodies freely. And so it can be really powerful to do it with them and just mirror them so you’re just following their lead, like they’re looking in a mirror.

And it’s also important to say, it doesn’t have to be a full on dance. You can just dance five minutes a day, it could be if you feel safer, you can go off into the woods and dance in the woods. Dance with the trees. Mimic, mimic what you’re seeing in nature and let that teach you what the dance is.

So there’s different ways you can incorporate that expression.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Not much of a dancer, but in the ceremony sometimes I feel the urge to dance and only in the ceremony, to be honest. What do you think about dancing during psychedelic experience?

Robin Kurland: Oh I think it’s wonderful. Do you see that a lot?

Sam Believ: Yeah. So we, the way our maloca, our medicine house is structured, it’s pretty big. And we have a stage, a pretty big stage where there’s also music, Madison music, Colombian Ayahuasca tradition is very musical. And then there is a kind of space in between pretty large space. And then there’s the mattresses where people are lying down.

So that spacing between the stage. And where the s are, we allow people to dance except for we ask them not to clap or not to make any sounds. Just dance that we allow that and a lot of people dance some more than others, some ceremonies, there’s just more sort of joy coming up. But yeah.

So I wanted to know your opinion on whether you think it’s it’s a good thing or a bad thing or anything between.

Robin Kurland: Yeah, moving the body is never a bad thing. I wanna challenge you to to dance more. It sounds like it’s in you and you have that craving. What’s funny? I have never danced during a psychedelic experience. I’m so much of a, like cocoon talking to spirit. I’m a big crier, lots of crying, lots of grief usually comes up.

So I’m usually like, I’ve got my hat on and my blankets and my animals around me. But as an integration practice, I do dance, lots of singing too. I’m not a very good singer at all, by the way, just having, opening that up and letting that sound out again is so primal and feels really good.

Sam Believ: I can’t believe I’m saying it because I’m not a dancer. But you should dance more in the ceremony, Robin.

Robin Kurland: I will. I absolutely will. Challenge accepted.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I done salsa for a few years, but obviously it’s much more. Much more structured, but I do enjoy singing. Let’s go back to the arts topic, because I remembered my question.

So I don’t do much art generally. My, my 4-year-old draws better than I do. But after my very first I was experience when I was seeing my hands were laying by my sides on the dirt floor, and I was seeing that my hands started to twist them. They would grow into the ground, those roots. And I then made a drawing of this.

I still have it, and that’s the only time I drew after ceremony. So that’s why I’m saying I’m really a newbie that, so my question to you is withdrawing is the merit of drawing only the expressive part as in like putting things on paper or is there, is also part to it, which is interpretation of what has been drawn and like trying to find some nuggets in it?

Robin Kurland: Ooh, what a great question. Yes is the answer. Yeah. So another reason to make sure that you’re in relationship with someone. I think it’s possible for you to look at what you’ve drawn and see if anything else pops out, but having someone else in the room to say, what’s this little dark corner over here?

What does this part want to say? I’m really curious about your colors. Tell me more about this color palette that you’ve chosen. Yeah. I think interpretation is a really exciting part of not only psychedelic integration, but just art and expressive arts therapy in general. It’s right, we’re letting this, the unconscious and subconscious come forward in this very abstract way, and it’s there to.

Teach us things. So yeah having an opportunity to, it’s just like dream interpretation.

Sam Believ: Is there any maybe way to analyze things Like, for example, if you have many sharp, jagged lines in your paintings, it means such and such. If it has, describe such a such object. Is there like a, like you have those dream al acts where you can is there a thing like this for art?

Robin Kurland: I don’t, there might be, but my. Training and just my way of being, I think it’s best not to put interpretation is that everything is different for everyone, right? I might look at a client and they have all these black, jagged lines and I might think, oh, this person’s in pain, and then I say, tell me about these black, jagged lines.

And then they say, this is my power. I feel it in my core, and this is what helps me get through the day. So we have to be careful that we’re not. Doing any kind of like cookie cutter interpretations just to really leave it open, because that’s where the the mystery doors open. We just wanna follow, in, in expressive arts, we always say that the art is like the third.

So I’ve got, there’s me, there’s my client, and then there’s this other thing, which is the art. And then you add a psychedelics in. Then you add in, this person’s spirit guides and their ancestors. So it’s a whole, it’s the ultimate collaboration. So you’re, so I try to stay open to whatever is in the room.

Sam Believ: Yeah, I agree with that because for a while I was teaching people on how to smoke the tobacco ceremonially and how to interpret things that you see or feel. They always ask me like, oh, what the, what does this mean? Or My tobacco is burning black. What does that mean? Even though there are specific instructions that I guess some shamans told me, I told ’em that, you always have to ask what it means to you because you’re a psyche communicates to you through the language.

Only you can understand. It’s kinda I speak Latin and a Russian and if you can translate what I say through English. And I guess there’s, there, there are similarities with that expressive language. And of course there are some patterns, but I guess we can’t really meash them all together.

Robin Kurland: Yeah, that’s a beautiful example. I love what you said. There’s that, that there’s a special language and it sounds like you’re already doing that with these people that are coming to see you, which is wonderful.

Sam Believ: Okay, so if we can, I’d like to go back to the topic of integrating difficult experiences.

We host on average 70 people a month at our retreat, and there’s most of the time they. We do it in a very careful way, and we do have some integration con containers as well, but occasionally there are people that are maybe more sensitive or their trauma is bigger and they require a very specific post ceremony integration.

We do have some coaches we work with as well. I’ll be more than glad to add you to that list as well, but. The situation is that some people, they have a very strong experience and they experience more of a reactivations and maybe they feel a little bit disconnected. So what of course the best thing for them to do is to talk to an integration coach and integrate.

But let’s say, let’s get a hypothetical situation where they can’t afford it or they have no internet or. For some reason they cannot book a session with you and integrate with you. What do you think is the best way for those people to integrate, like those really difficult experiences where there are, let’s say re-traumatized.

There are really big trauma that came by and they are face facing that.

Robin Kurland: Wow. So what I’m hearing you say is if you have a client who has a big trauma come up and they don’t have the funds or the accessibility physical accessibility to an integration coach, is that right? Boy, that’s a tricky one, I would say to encourage them to find at least one safe person in their life.

Because when those traumas come up, it is, it beco, even though the, like I said earlier, even though the body has been carrying it for years, to see it and feel it and have it be real for the first time is like having a new, a very brand new trauma. And so just like with any trauma. You’re assessing for suicidality.

That’s a big one that I see with my clients that have, suppressed or repressed memories come up. So safety would be the number one important thing. So if they could e even if there’s like a friend in a nearby village or a nearby town, making sure that they’re not isolating would be so crucial because it can become very scary, very overwhelming.

The brain is trying to figure out wait a minute, I’ve been working so hard to keep this. Locked in your body all of these years, and now it’s like everywhere. And it’s, people start having nightmares, they start having flashbacks. All of the symptoms that come with PTSD. Finding a safe person, making sure that person is not isolating or alone.

If there’s any sort of like nearby activities like any kind of group activity that they can continue to show up for. Yeah, those are probably the biggest ones. Community and, and staying connected.

Sam Believ: So when someone goes through an experience that is so difficult and stuff came up and maybe they are a little re-traumatized, is it safe to say or is it acceptable to tell them that it’s for the better?

I know it can be difficult at the moment. You’re going through those experiences, but. The reality is that repressed trauma is coming up, and if you do it right, you’ll feel better afterwards, better than ever before.

Robin Kurland: Absolutely. And that is the truth. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and it’s so true.

You’ve probably seen that many times. I had a repressed memory of abuse come up during a psychedelic experience with with a coach. He was present and it was absolutely terrifying. But my intention was so simple for this session. My intention was simply, I want to be able to feel love.

The people around me that love me, I can’t feel it. Something is blocked inside of me after all this work all these years. And then here it was this. Six years ago. And and it’s, my life is completely different. I’m the most free, the most joyful I’ve ever been. But man, was it dark? It was not an easy road to get here, but that was a long answer to your question.

Sam Believ: The longer and the better.

It’s almost be careful what you wish for situation with psychedelics. ’cause when people, so many times and every time we have a new group, I talk to people and I always tell them, you gotta do the work. You gotta do the work. And then, and that’s the work, 20 years of therapy, 15 years of therapy comes with 15 years of therapy emotions in a week.

And of course it’s not entirely true there because the. That simplifications of counting iOS course psych like experiences with years of therapy is not really precise. But let’s talk a little about a little bit about your own experience. So you’ve have you have battled with some addiction.

I know your favorite psychedelics are mushrooms and ketamine. And obviously at this trauma resurface talk to us about your experience, how it began maybe how your trauma was formed, your PTSD and your journey of recovery. Feel free to, this one can be a very long answer. We have

Robin Kurland: that’s.

Okay. And before I forget, I wanna circle back to the scenario that you presented me with, where if you have somebody who is unable to who has no access to integration therapy. One thing I forgot. To mention is to encourage this person to go slowly, because you probably see this a lot when people come out of psychedelic experiences.

They’re like, oh my God, I have to change everything all at once. So we have to, right psychedelics just blast through the psyche. Floods us with the 15 years of therapy. So slowing it down, and even some like gentle exercises like mindful walking meditation in the woods can be a really beautiful way to integrate.

Journaling might be a little bit scary because you don’t wanna keep retraumatizing yourself, but anything that gets them to slow down and just mimic nature. So sorry, I wanted to make sure, ’cause that’s a really great question. So with my own experience boy, oh boy, where should I start?

Yeah, I do have a history of addiction. I moved to San Francisco to start a dance company after being in a dance company and dancing for many years in Philadelphia. And I became very addicted very quickly. And, all this time, no idea that I’m carrying this trauma in my body. I had some sense just because I, even on drugs, I think I had a good relationship with my body.

I knew I was carrying something, right? The extremes of reaching for something outside of myself to numb out. I knew something was there, but it just had nothing to point to. Fast forward, of course I get help. I get clean, I get sober, which I still am by the way, and. During the journey it eventually led me to 12 step programs.

And I know a lot of people have some negative experiences or some thoughts about 12 step programs, but the 12 steps themselves are actually really spiritual. The honesty, integrity, perseverance, being of service. Willingness, faith, courage, all of these things are addressed in the 12 steps.

And so I had just finished doing a round of the 12 steps and it felt like the most powerful pre-integration for a psychedelic experience. And I had experimented with psychedelics in college. I went to college for the arts. And we didn’t have sports teams and campuses. It was like. The streets of Philadelphia were our campus, and we would’ve these big warehouse parties, and there was always, LSD and mushrooms.

So I had dabbled, but I’d never had a meaningful experience. So after I had worked this, the 12 steps this round I knew I was ready to go deeper and have this experience. And so my first meaningful experience was with mushrooms and it. It cracked me open in the most beautiful way. There were thi things that were, I almost picture it like, like dust that settles in the corner.

If you walk into an old room that you haven’t been in a long time, the windows are boarded up and there’s cobwebs everywhere. So even though I was happy, I was thriving, the mushrooms just came in and opened up the curtains and cleaned up all the dust, and I just felt the most incredible deepest love for myself, and I wept because I realized in that moment I don’t think I’ve actually ever truly loved myself before, and I’m so in love with myself now.

And I know you’re probably very familiar with this feeling, and so this cracking open and this cleaning up and this letting the light in has just completely changed my life. It changed the way I am and as with my partner and my business. And the thought of poisoning my body just does not even occur to me.

And I think that’s why I love working with psychedelics and trauma and addiction. I see people stuck in relapse. They’re chronic relapsers, they can’t stay sober. And the talk therapy and the 12 step groups I don’t believe is enough. I think we have to go deeper and go to the root and go to the wound and heal the wound because if you love yourself.

I know that sounds so simple because learning to love ourselves is quite a journey, but I do believe that there’s a link between psychedelics and long-term sobriety.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Obviously, for those who don’t know, 12 Steps is a part of the aa program. I’ll call it anonymous, and I’ve interviewed few people on the topics and what you’re saying is something is missing.

I like the joke that AA is missing one more A, which is Ayahuasca. And that could be very complete experience because if you, if I would assume if you do ayahuasca and then you do 12 steps, that could be a very powerful integration for your psychedelic experience. And people don’t know that.

The founder of aa was actually. Offering them to do LSD and and they didn’t because they thought that it’s just another substance. But I think eventually they’ll get to it. So just to throw it out there.

Robin Kurland: Yeah, and it’s interesting because I’ve also seen clients who begin to abuse psychedelics.

And so it’s not for everyone and it’s a tricky dance. I think there, there are, I know many wonderful, beautiful people. I’ve never done psychedelics and have great lives in long-term sobriety, just through 12 step in therapy. So

Sam Believ: definitely yeah. Everything is possible.

And I like to say that psychedelics is just a catalyst or it just makes everything more powerful and more and more quick. But I’m definitely convinced that it’s one of the many ways to do it. And regarding abusing psychedelics, I think definitely it is a possibility. I’ve met people that had no hundreds of ayahuasca ceremonies, but they’re still the same.

But it’s really rare, at least with ayahuasca you can abuse ketamine really easily because it’s just very pleasant. But with Ayahuasca, it’s just the process is so hard, it’s hard to abuse because of how unpleasant it is most, not most of the time, but a lot of the time. And then also what Ayahuasca does sometimes, it’s it’s self-governing in a way that if you come too often or too soon or you haven’t done the homework.

The medicine itself will be like, it happened to me once. I was going too fast, too quickly, and I just wanted everything straight away. And I was like, oh, you, why are you back so soon? You did do the homework and he gave me a terrible trip. It’s I can discipline you

Robin Kurland: instead. Do

Sam Believ: well try to use that.

It’s it’s it’s not as it’s not as pleasant.

Robin Kurland: It is very, yeah, it’s not as pleasant for sure. I appreciate you saying that.

Sam Believ: The top love

Robin Kurland: and,

Sam Believ: Oh, go ahead. Yeah tell.

Robin Kurland: I was just gonna say, that, that reminds me of, the shadow work of all of this. There’s a shadow side too.

To working with psychedelics and there’s a shadow side to integration. Which is again, why I know I keep repeating myself. We just don’t wanna do it alone.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Doug knows about shadow work. What do you know?

Robin Kurland: I love talking about, I wouldn’t say I am a shadow expert. There’s some people who are Jungian psychologists who have specifically studied shadow work in the technical sense.

But the best way to describe shadow work for people who are listening that don’t, maybe don’t know shadow is anything that got split off. And put in the closet as a way to survive. So an example would be let’s say I I’m a little girl and I get really angry and I punch something and my parent, maybe slaps me, this is hypothetical, this didn’t happen.

My parents didn’t slap me. But the, so I get slapped and somebody says, little girls. Don’t get angry and oh, I have to take my anger and I put it into the shadows. That’s how a shadow can be born. There’s also the golden shadow. So for instance, say I am a little girl and I’m just, skipping around and laughing really loudly and I get scolded.

Don’t be so loud. You’re bothering us. Oh, so my joy is too much. So I have to put that in the shadow. So anything that gets split off and shoved into the corners. Becomes, becomes our shadow. And so I see that a lot of times people with anger, men and women, both terrified of their anger, but then it ends up coming out anyway because it’s inevitable.

It’s a part of being human. And anger is a beautiful emotion. It elevates us, it energizes us, it, it directs us. But because of that experience, it gets shoved. It gets shoved into the, into the closet. And with psychedelics and psychedelic integration, I love watching people build relationships with their silliness again, or their anger again.

And to have a fuller experience as a human reminding people it’s okay to be loud, it’s okay to be angry.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I love the topic of shadow work I have even, used to give little workshops on it to the people at the retreat. Some people call ayahuasca shadow medicine because it reveals your shadow and it ties nicely to our topic about very difficult processes and integration.

Recently I had an experience with one veteran who has, through ayahuasca, discovered this shadow. And it’s basically this sort of part of him that has repressed the angry part, the aggressive part. And he when he shared that with me, obviously I’m not a therapist, I’m of very limited understanding.

I, I told them to. Try and see if you can accept that part. And so give it some love and try and tell it. Thank it for what it did. It was necessary to protect you for whatever reason was repressed. So that kind of brings me into what would you think is the best course of action for a person like this, because it is a terrifying experience to see that there is different parts of you.

And also I. No, you mentioned a few times some terminology from internal family systems, so maybe you can tie that answer to that modality.

Robin Kurland: Absolutely. Yeah, what a great question. And for sure I will. The way that I work I blend five different modalities at any given time. I call it the dance of hames, which is the Hebrew number five.

And then number five translates to freedom, curious, and change. So when you are working with a shadow, it’s, I think the, I think, sorry, let me slow down. The best part is to start with what they’re feeling in their body, and then if they could name what that part is. What is that part?

Okay. It’s my angry part. We don’t even have to get technical right away. So in IFS, we have, the manager, the firefighter, the exiled parts. We wanna kind of color outside the lines a little bit. Like maybe somebody says, this is my inner dragon, or this is my inner child. Maybe they’re not sure.

And so this is where maybe expressive arts can come in handy. Let’s stand up and show me what this part looks like. And then they can stand up and say, this part is. Angry and it wants to make, fists and grind their teeth. And by embodying that part, it allows them to get in touch with it more.

So it’s not so scary. ’cause when it’s outside of ourselves, it’s like this monster that really has control and is driving the bus, but to dialogue with it. And then, like I said, take it one step further and do the drama therapy you get to embody, which sort of softens it a little bit. And through that softening there can be integration.

Sam Believ: But basically my recommendation was somewhat correct, right? Regarding not repressing, but embodying and nor accepting the parts of ourselves.

Robin Kurland: Absolutely. Absolutely. And there’s, and all of these beautiful ways to accept, you can journal to this part, you can embody the part, you can dance with this part on the dance floor, or even just talking about it.

Something as simple as just, putting a hand on your heart and a hand on your belly with your eyes closed with a mantra. I love my anger. I accept this part, be with me today.

Sam Believ: Okay, perfect, thank you. Let’s go back and talk a little bit about expressive therapy. What is ecstatic dance?

Robin Kurland: I have to say, I really don’t know much about ecstatic dance. I’m more of a five rhythms girl, but ecstatic GaN what I do know is that, and I’ve been before, it’s just a, it’s a way to get in touch with your primal self, which I believe any form of dance can do that for us. But ecstatic dance is dancing with other people, feeding off of each other’s energy and less letting yourself be and letting yourself loose.

Sam Believ: Yeah, I’ve tried it once and I didn’t like it at all. Felt very uncomfortable.

How does one breaks dancing very funnily, and how does, how do, what do you do if you’re like, you just can’t, it is like, this is just not me.

Robin Kurland: You might be more of I am a more of a five rhythms person, so five rhythms and I, I. I don’t have them memorized, but it’s like a softer, gentler circle.

And this is something that I do on Sunday mornings when I can. The DJ is also like a therapist and there’s a wider variety of music versus just this one type of music that they do at Ecstatic Dance. Ecstatic dance is the new kids of Burning Man and five rhythms. It’s like we’re the oldies from Burning Man.

Different flavor.

Sam Believ: Gotcha. Last question Robin. What is pre-integration how it’s done and, why is it important?

Robin Kurland: Ooh, that’s a big one. Yeah. Let’s see. How much time do we have? Just a couple minutes. Pre-integration is like cleaning your house before you have company. You are inviting a powerful medicine into your psyche and into your body, and so you wanna do a little, you wanna do some work to prepare so the medicine doesn’t have to work so hard to get through all of the obstacles.

So I typically only have psychedelic experiences with my clients who have been working with me long-term. I have done short-term pre-integration before and it feels a little bit rushed and a little bit choppy because I do tend to work people with, primarily with with PTSD. And in pre-integration, really starting to give voice to what we wanna work on.

What are our traumas, what are intentions? And also taking a look at what are we already doing? What does your community look like? Are you moving your body? What kind of foods are you eating? How’s your sleep? Are you isolated? How much sunshine do you get? So there’s an assessment of the whole person. It’s this holistic view into.

Examining, who I am or who your client is. And then from there we start to, to maybe connect some dots. Bring in a little IFS, tell me about your protectors. Tell me about your managers. Tell me about your inner teenager and your inner child. The other thing that I would maybe introduce in pre-integrated that I definitely introduce, but if you’re, if you have limited time, is to any, anything that’s somatic, what’s your relationship to your body?

How are you feeling right now as we’re having this conversation? And. I think that would be a really nice way to prepare someone for a psychedelic journey if time is limited. But like I said, with the long-term pre-integration that I do I’m pulling in all of my five modalities and breaking things apart.

But it makes space to let the medicine in and do its work.

Sam Believ: Thank you Robin. Thank you for this answers and all this answer and all the previous ones. I think it was a really interesting episode. Before we wrap up please tell our listeners where they can find you and if they wanna do integration with you how they can find.

Robin Kurland: Yeah, this was so fun. Thank you. So robin kand.com is probably the best and the easiest, but you could also find me on Psychology Today, psychedelic support. And I do have an Instagram page that I’m not on there very often, and it’s psychedelic recovery, but robin curlin.com is probably the easiest.

Sam Believ: Thank you, Robin. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us. I’ve learned a lot and yeah you’re always welcome at Lara whenever you choose to come.

Robin Kurland: I would love that. Thank you so much for today.

Sam Believ: Thank you guys, and you were listening to Iowa Podcast as always with you Hall, Sam and I will see you in the next episode.

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