The Mission After

Mike Bledsoe (00:00)
Welcome to the mission after podcast where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host, Mike Bledsoe. Our guest today is Gary Hess, the founder and executive director of the Veterans Alliance for Holistic Alternatives, VAHA, CEO of Teloleth and partner of Dynamic Growth Solutions. Gary served in the Marine Corps for 11 years as both an enlisted member and infantry officer, experiencing the challenges of PTSD.

traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, and pharmaceutical dependency firsthand. He used cannabis to manage his conditions and catalyze post -traumatic growth. Now Gary is an advocate and activist for the use of medical cannabis and post -traumatic recovery for veterans and trauma survivors. Within Baja, Gary leads efforts to provide evidence -based education on the benefits of medical cannabis and works with patients, medical professionals, and lawmakers to reduce

obstacles to access. He has teamed up with Dr. Sue Sisley and the Scottsdale Research Institute to remove barriers hindering federal research initiatives and has successfully testified in Congress for the legalization of medical cannabis in Louisiana and North Carolina. Additionally, Gary is the CEO of Teleleaf, a telemedicine platform that provides affordable and convenient access to cannabis and a partner in dynamic growth solutions.

which offers solutions for indoor cannabis cultivation. Gary holds a Bachelor of Science in Community Sociology from Wartburg College and is pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Behavior and Brain Sciences, studying the effects of trauma and the effectiveness of cannabis and other holistic alternatives in recovery. By the end of this episode, you'll discover three major takeaways. One, the potential of holistic alternatives such as cannabis and psychedelic assisted therapies,

and healing and reconnecting the mind and body. Two, the role of mindfulness practices, breath work and meditation and processing painful emotions and achieving balance. Three, the importance of education and empowerment in the healing journey, especially for those who have experienced significant trauma and are seeking holistic alternatives for mental health. But before we dive in, I want to tell you about our new resource available at the Mission After website. It's called 10 Surprising Military Habits That Are Sabotaging Your Career.

and your life. This guide will help you identify and overcome those habits. So be sure to download it at themissionafter .org. Now let's get into the conversation with Gary Hess.

Mike Bledsoe (02:32)
Good to have you here. Yeah, you too, man. Yeah. I, we got to meet in Vegas, which was a, which is a real, we had like a whole day meeting amongst a bunch of different veteran organizations. And, that was, it was really enlightening for me.

It was the first time I got in a room like that with a group of veteran organizations and learned a lot about what was happening, some of the struggles that were going on. And you were in that room as well. And when you open your mouth and started talking, I was like, I like this guy. It's just the tone, man, that vibration. Yeah, that's it's it's funny you say that, though, it's.

You know, you sit in front of a room of people that, who are carrying out their own mission in their own way and that you have not sat or shared with before. And I know there was a lot that had to happen pretty quickly. And so you just kind of get right to the point of why you're sitting at the table and where you kind of see where your focus can make an impact on the entire equation. So, you know, we're just a variable that sits within the equation.

and hopefully we can make a difference. Yeah. Yeah. Can you fill us in on where the majority of your focus is these days in regard to what's going on with veterans? Yeah. So I would say the common themes are awareness, empowerment, and reform. And

And this is all rooted in my own personal struggle who experienced, you know, some significant trauma in combat and then came home and turned my health over to the Western model. And it just proved ineffective. It was insurance liability waivers, blood work diagnostics, and you had two options, pharmaceuticals or surgeries. And that was, you know, kind of fell into that traditional model for close to a decade after coming home. And at the end of the decade,

you know, the best answer was essentially shoot myself in the face and not being here anymore. And it wasn't out of not wanting to be here. It's just not knowing how to live in the present or not even not even having a conscious awareness of what's mobilizing my body outside of my conscious control. So just really understanding that mind body disconnect and how it's being treated.

in the ineffectiveness of the treatment options that we do have and pursuing holistic alternatives for my own healing and then also from an education and empowerment space to take what some of these medicines and approaches have done for me to reconnect with myself and facilitate my own healing and being able to pass this on to others who find themselves in their own predicament. Right?

the job loss, the family falling apart, the relational struggles, the disconnection with self, the height living in a hyper aroused, high sympathetic state and experience that chronic stress and not having a way out of it. And to be able to sit with someone who truly understands because they've been through that path themselves and just allow someone to be seen, allow someone to be heard.

and then to explore some other options outside of the traditional models that the insurance will cover that have proven to be ineffective. So I fall into the medicine space, the holistic alternatives, the psychedelic assisted therapies, which I focus more on the entheogen based natural medicines as well as cannabis, but the natural plant medicines to help.

facilitate the reconnection between the mind and the body and to do the intentional work to reshape that perspective so that we can experience our day -to -day lives in a different manner. And there's a lot of depth to that question, as you know. There's a lot that goes into it. But the reconnection of that mind and the body.

to close the gap of that disconnection is the healing path. And there are a lot of different ways to get there, but that is the way. Yeah, I think one way to, you know, I work with some folks, some veterans right now, and just one of the big themes is I don't know what to do with these feelings. I've just suppressed them for so long. And those feelings are in the body. And you're talking about this, you know, reconnecting the mind and body.

And a lot of times to military service, there's a disconnection between these two things. I mean, in fact, in Western culture at large, there's a disconnection. But in the military, it becomes even more dramatic because we're put under even higher levels of stress with more devastating outcomes. Like, people could die. OK, I got to I got to shove this down. We get really good at that.

until you can't just keep doing that forever and then expecting it to be okay. It will catch up with you. Sounds like you got out of the military for, there was a 10 year period when you got out. And if I remember correctly, you were medically retired. And is that right? No, I transitioned out on my own.

When I was hit in 2006, there was a clear shift. There was a clear shift in my psyche, in my energy, and my willingness to continue to do my job. My entire perspective shifted and it made it difficult to continue to get up and do what I was doing on a regular basis as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. That fire just... It was...

It was put out and I didn't understand it at the time, but that was the struggle when I came home. And just as you mentioned before, regardless if you experienced trauma or you just went through the training process to be able to go there and do your job, the military does a great job at training to live in that high sympathetic and that chronic stress state, that chaos becomes our comfort zone. Right? And so as we come home, if that response is not untrained,

And that is our default mode that we stay within and staying in that that high state of stress and the imbalance on that HPA axis is what keeps our bodies out of balance. And it makes it hard to come home and live to live a normal life. What were you were you diagnosed with anything? So you got out of the military and it sounds like you investigated the Western medical approach and.

curious what your diagnoses were because as people are listening to this, they go, the doc said I had this too. So maybe there's a solution outside of Western medicine. Sure. You know, coming out out of the service, it was, you know, discharged with traumatic brain injury, obviously chronic pain and spine, neck, shoulders, ankles. PTSD was a big one, but even sitting after coming home transitioning out of the military, you know, conversations about.

multiple personality disorders or, you know, being bipolar, right? Those conversations were thrown around. It wasn't an official diagnosis, but, you know, as I was sharing my experience with some of these doctors within the VA, this is, right, they're going straight to that DSM -5 model and trying to pin a label on it. This is what this sounds like. This is how we should treat this. These are the pharmaceuticals that are going to be tailored for this.

At the end of the day, it was having a suicide vehicle, one of the many experiences that were experienced within a relatively short period of time, but having a suicide vehicle run into the house that we were occupying and detonated and some of the loss that was experienced during that time, it created a situation where I did not have a file folder for it. My body could not take...

all of these experiences, put them in a file folder and process it and put it in a place where it could be processed. And so when I came home, unaware, any sensory experience would directly tie back to those emotional experience during that time. And it just kept me in a very hyper aroused state. So it's the inability to process.

what transpired during those moments, not having a file folder for it. Right? This could be the loss of a loved one. This could be domestic abuse. This could be childhood sexual trauma. For me, it was combat trauma, but it creates a disconnection between the mind and the body. Any sensory experiences that were coming through my cortexes, my body detected them automatically as a threat. And my mind built stories and self narratives around.

the maladaptive behaviors that kept me away from sitting within the emotion. And I could not, I could not sit within that emotion. I had to keep myself busy, right? And I did that through starting my own companies and working 18, 24, 48 hours, sometimes 72 hours straight until my body shut down. Because the most difficult thing for me was being idle, was being in a room, silent room by myself with my own thoughts.

and those sensory experiences, my body would not let me sit with that. Yeah, a lot of men and women get out and they become high performers in their career. So they either start a business or they start a career and they just kill it. They're so good at that. But anything outside of that starts to fall apart. And, you know, and I think almost unfortunately, I

I see this in, I come from the world of social media. Like I've, I've, you know, been around a lot of influencers and I see a lot of military and veteran influencers and there's a lot of messaging going around of like, you know, just suck it up and do the thing. And that, but if you were to get a look into the what's going on in their life overall, you're like, man, I don't think that's actually what I would want out of my life, but it looks good on, on Instagram.

And so, yeah, I think that I really enjoy working with high performers and I use the word high performers because you're probably resourced in one area of your life. Like you're a high performer over here, but you're not a high performer in all these other areas. But if you are able to perform one area, we can map that out to everything else. It's not an easy process, but

There's a process there. Yeah, just really walking it backwards, right? If you understand that behavior and walking it back to the thoughts that are generated by the emotions that are driven by the perspective, and that's where it all sits is within our perspective. The perspective is what creates the thoughts that drive the emotions that propels our behavior. And so being able to.

you know, integrate some of the mindfulness practices, sit within that emotion and understanding, okay, this is the behavior. If it's good behavior, right, in that one area of your life, you know, that's great, but there's a good chance that your life is out of balance in some capacity. So if I can go to other areas of my life, for example, why am I getting angry over some of this petty bullshit that is just, is fracturing all of my relationships, right? What is causing the anger?

Right? First of all, what is causing the avoidance behavior is being driven by the anger. What are the thoughts, the automatic negative thoughts that are creating the anger? Where do those automatic negative thoughts coming from? And within the military, what you're seeing right now is some of the language that's coming out is the deep moral injuries and not understanding the depth of that. And looking at these veterans.

not only the veteran community, I speak about the veteran community because that's my experience, but one of the common things that happens is anger becomes the default mode, right? And that anger is driving the behavior, whether that's healthy behavior or unhealthy behavior. At the end of the day, you know, the anger is unhealthy and it will catch up to you. But understanding why, looking at the behavior.

walking it back to the emotions that propelled that behavior, the automatic negative thoughts, and then the perspective that is shaping that. That's the root of the problem. That is what is creating this mental health or this health crisis within our community. You know, I think it's good to note that the DSM -5 is when they're diagnosing from that and they...

the system's built in a way that they're needed diagnose symptoms, but it's good to know that these are symptoms, not the root cause. And a lot of times people start identifying it's like, you have bipolar or you have PTSD or you have whatever it may be. and, that's, that's necessary to code for insurance billing, but it's not, it's not actually the problem.

The problem is something else and that's just a symptom. And unfortunately, a lot of the Western medicine has been built around isolating the symptom and trying to see how we can diminish or get rid of the symptom without actually going down to the root cause. And that's the true treatment modality, right? That keeps the, that creates the repeat customer, right? And whether you call it PTSD, whether you call it operator syndrome,

It does not change the fact of how this needs to be treated, but it's a collection of symptoms that are common with those who have experienced these unprocessed emotions and how their lives are playing out, both neurological, physiological, biological symptoms between.

the ways that we think, the cognitive distortions to physical rashes that break out just because of the imbalance and we're stuck in that chronic stress response and it's adrenaline and cortisol that continues to flood our system. That is the survival response and it's those unprosperous memories and emotions that are driving us into that survival response and the way that plays out as we continue to do that time after time is...

is a collection of symptoms. And so those collection of symptoms, you know, we sit with our healthcare providers and they take these collections of symptoms, they give it a name, they match it with the pharmaceuticals or a specific surgery, and they feel like they've done their job. That's not the case. And that's a clear reason, you know, for the crisis that we're in. And you have a community, not only the veteran community once again, but you have communities that are just...

America in general, the global population who are looking for different options to heal. And that is the conversation that our work revolves around. Yeah. What were some of the Western approaches that you took? So during that period of time where you were experiencing a lot of suffering before you found things that actually worked, what were some of the things that you tried and ended up giving up?

Yeah, so you know, the big ones, pharmaceuticals, when you come home, you get prescribed the Adderall to wake you up, that dopamine release, right, to give you that focus. The SSRIs just in a sense to bring balance and then the Ambien to put you to sleep, right? So the gut disorders, the sleeping disorders, you know, those were the two big ones. Anger becoming the default mode, you know, being able to stay calm, but the medications and the over -medication.

And going to the VA, seeing the ineffectiveness of the Veterans Administration, getting my own insurance, going to private practices, it's all the same strategy. They have different names for the pharmaceuticals, right? And it's, this is the symptom, here's the pill. This is the symptom, here's the pill. Are you having the side effects? Here's a pill to help with that. At the end of the day,

you have anywhere from 8 to 12 different medications that you're taking on a daily basis and you're still ending up at the same spot. Fractured relationships, disconnection with yourself, degradation in your career, just all your systems from the outside looking in start to fall apart. Yeah, the one thing I want to note is people who...

follow me or listen to me, you've probably heard me say this before and I'll keep saying it is, the term side effects is a marketing term. They're just effects. So these are the effects of the medication. If we don't want people to focus on the total effects of the medication, we'll just call it side effects. And people go, that's just a side effect and they dismiss it.

but the reality is these are the effects of the medication. And in the case of SSRIs, I think that sometimes they are an appropriate band -aid, but I think what we're finding is exercise beats out SSRIs big time, just exercise. And I don't think that's necessarily a solution, but some of the effects of SSRIs is if you look at

what they call side effects is, you know, homicidal thoughts, suicidal thoughts. It's like, whoa. Like, is that not going to actually be better? I am. I personally, if someone wanted to prescribe me that and I look at the effects, the total, the total effects that are possible, not all the effects are going to affect everybody the same, but like that's possible. It's like, man, is that really worth it? And then the other thing is,

The physical manifestation, you mentioned rashes, gut problems, headaches, not being able to sleep. These are all things that are extremely common. Like, I don't know how many guys I've talked to been in combat and they're like, gut issues, headaches, can't sleep. It's almost become very predictable. And then the medications that come along with that become predictable. I can pretty much predict what they got you on, which is...

what you were saying, something to wake you up, something to get you through the day, an SSRI or SNRI, or an ambient to go to bed. It's like, those medications can just keep you even further disconnected as you're going through. Yeah. And that's exactly what they do. And the pharmaceuticals just exacerbate the conditions. And you mentioned, right, the SSRIs, they're a band -aid.

The pharmaceuticals are good in acute settings for short periods of time. But when you're meeting with a licensed psychiatrist once, maybe twice a year, and they ask you a few simple questions, how are your medications? Do you see anything that needs to be changed? No, stay on your medications. If you look at the general guidelines for something like Adderall or Ambien, right? They talk about, don't use for more than six months at a time.

Right? So there are clear guidelines that need to be adhered to. These are not long -term solutions, right? For almost a decade, these medications were prescribed and there was never a conversation to get off of them. There was never a conversation to say, hey, we are treating the symptoms, but what we need to do is intentional work to get to the root of the problem because what's happening is your mind and your body are disconnected.

And you are not being allowed, your body is not being allowed to rest and digest, right? And so this is creating issues with your primal functions, eating, sleeping, digestion, short -term memory, emotional resilience and regulation, arousal, the ability to wake up and to go to bed on that circadian rhythm, just keeping that balance within your life. Those things become very difficult because your autonomic nervous system is

out of balance because of the unprocessed emotions or the training that puts you in that high sympathetic state and they have not untrained you out of that. And so at the end of the day, and he says it in the operator syndrome book, right? He says operator syndrome is essentially different from PTSD and at the end of the day, we're arguing about names. But the truth is it's a chronic stress response.

And it's the imbalance of the HPA access that is keeping us in a high sympathetic state that essentially keeps all of our fluids. If I was an automobile, it's like I am in gear and now my fluids are moving through the motor and there's never a chance to rest and for that motor to cool down. And we get burnt out and it starts manifesting itself as sleep disorders, gut disorders, anger becomes a default mode.

and then anxiety, depression, you name it, the plethora of symptoms that come with this, low testosterone levels, you just go on and on and on. There is an imbalance in that autonomic nervous system and the imbalance internally is creating the imbalance externally. And in order to fix the systems, the career, the relationship,

with family, the intimate relationships, the professional spiritual relationship with self, right? We have to stop chasing the external ghosts and treating the external symptoms. We have to go within and reconnect with ourself, allow our bodies to feel and process that painful emotion and let it take its toll, let it play out in our system. What was what was your turning point? Like what you're on these medications, you were seeing psychiatrists.

every six months. What was the point where you're like, I've had enough, I'm going to seek something else out? Yeah, so I had brought three Marines down with me. They were having the same problems that I was having. And it was three members of Muskel Sniper Platoon. And...

I brought them down and said, hey, you can live with me. You know, I'll give you an opportunity. I was running a large general contracting firm. I said, I'll give you an opportunity to get up on your feet. And you know, the rest is up to you, but I think we're going to be stronger together. Go back to the turning point. One of the Marines that came down and started working underneath me, he was addicted to opioids and he used cannabis to wean himself off of the opioids.

Now I'm running a contracting company with over 100 employees and you know cannabis was just not a conversation that I was willing to have at the time, nor was the use of it allowed within the company. And to say that I, you know, my perspective did not accept cannabis, the medical use of cannabis at that time is an understatement, right? It was my job to maintain the regulations so that we had a strict...

adherence to our drug policy. And so at the same time, this was an open conversation who I saw a gentleman who was clearly struggling. We had been in the same situation ourselves and he was using it to effectively wean himself off of the opioids and he did an incredible job with it. It got to the point that I was out of options and this is probably 2015, 2016. I was out of options and literally the best answer.

I was killing myself. I didn't want to be here anymore. And I smoked a joint and it did everything that the medicines were supposed to do. It brought balance to my primal functions. It allowed me to eat on a regular basis. It allowed me to go to sleep. It allowed me, there was no more bloating. There was no more heartburn. There was no more discomfort in the gut. It facilitated my digestion. It provided for emotional regulation, right? Those deep, painful...

conversations and memories, I can now sit and have conversations and speak about these things without my body being hijacked. My short term memory, cannabis allowed me to focus in order to do my work, in order to sit at a desk, in order to sit still. It allowed me to focus on my work without, again, my body being mobilized and feeling like I had to move. It allowed me to go to sleep. It allowed me to wake up. It empowered me.

where I finally found a tool that I could use that was effective and very productive in doing the intentional work to start bringing balance to my system. That was a game changer. The truth is, I finally gave in to the stigmas being from southern Louisiana. I used cannabis, I smoked a joint, I did everything the medicines were supposed to do. I was incredibly happy because I now had a tool, but I was fucking pissed off.

because they had been lying to me for years. And now I have a community where I've lost more Marines to suicide than I have in combat. And here's a natural plant that could help us. And they've been fucking lying to me. Right? So I, that mobilized me into the current profession that I am now and the mission that we continue to carry is to educate others in these holistic alternatives and to provide access to them.

And that's exactly what we did. We've created a telemedicine access platform nationwide. We have physician groups in every single state throughout this country that if you need access to cannabis, we make that conversation very easy. We have licensed doctors that can have this conversation with you and give you access in the state that you are in. And then we have programs that teach you the intentional use of it. Right. I'm not just going to smoke a joint and sit on my couch and you know life is going to get better. You got to put the work in.

You got to have the intentions, right? And what I mean by intentions is, for example, before I started using cannabis, I would, I, you know, I take my wife on a date to a sushi restaurant and consciously, this is a safe situation, right? There's not a threat here. There's not a fight that's going to break out. I'm not going to be ambushed. There's not a suicide bomber that's going to walk in.

I'm consciously aware that this is a safe situation, but as I sit down and the sensory experience starts to take place, there's just too much and it becomes overwhelming. I can feel my face getting hot. I'm not attuned to the conversation. I can feel my breath getting very shallow. I can feel my muscles being tense. I'm starting to sweat. I go into a panic attack and...

By the time I get to the urgent care, my blood pressure is 200 over 143, right? I'm eating at a restaurant in a city that I grew up in, but my body does not feel safe and immobilizes outside of my conscious control. And so when I talk about the intentional use of cannabis, now I go back to this sushi restaurant where my body fears this experience because of what is going to play out outside of my control. Microdosing, I consume a little bit of cannabis.

It reverses the stress response. It allows my human brain, the logical brain, to take over. It allows me to be in the present. I can go into this restaurant. I can create a different experience, and I can come out the other side with a positive outcome. And now what I'm doing is teaching my body that these situations are safe again. So whether it's conversations with people I grew up with when they asked me about the military, whether it's conversations with my parents.

whether it's being able to sit in one place and do office work or go or take my wife to dinner, I could now had a tool that allowed me to control my behavior, which at one point I lost control of. So I used it proactively, but also used it reactively. I now had a tool where if there was an unconscious trigger that I was not aware of and it sent me on a tailspin, I could go consume cannabis and it literally reversed the stress response.

You can see it through fMRI imaging of what transpires. It literally reverses that stress response. Now I'm back into the present. I can reevaluate the situation, and I can generate a different outcome. This started to allow me to put my life back together, right? These are the aspects of my life that I was good at. These are the aspects that I was absolutely terrible at and that were broken. How can I fix these things now?

And so I started waking up and pursuing every day with intention. And if I could string a couple good moments together in the morning, I could have a good morning. I could string a few good moments together. I could have a good day. I string a few good days together. I started having good weeks. And I just started 1 % every day. I could see that progress. And I was using this drug that would make me a non -performer, a stoner that had no medical value. Right?

I was using this plant that carried the weight of this stigma to improve my life. This was outside of everything that I've ever fucking learned or I've ever been told by my parents. But then it got to a point where I did a lot of work over probably a three or a four year period. And I started getting to the point where I was using cannabis in certain situations more than I should and became reliant on it and just told me that there were things that I could not access.

And so there were things that were deeper. And in early 22, I scrounged up enough courage to go on a psychedelic -assisted and the entheogen -based retreat. And it gave me the answers that I was looking for, answers that I was looking for for a very long time. It took me to the doorstep of some of my biggest fears that my body did not even...

allow me to access these. They essentially just tucked it away and said these things didn't exist. And so it brought me to the doorstep of those painful memories. And what you soon learn through these ceremonies and these programs is that the only way out is through. The cure for the pain is in the pain. And it'll bring you to the doorstep, but it's your choice to go into the darkness, to go into your shadow and to sit with those painful emotions and let your body process them.

It was an incredibly kinesthetic experience, but it just released energy that was trapped within my body in a way that is very difficult to explain. But the connection that you feel with yourself, the connection to nature, the connection to others, the interconnectedness of everything that you experience in life, you realize very quickly that that is the answer and that is an incredible path to healing.

that is incredibly effective. And that's what a lot of our work focuses on now is reconnecting the mind and the body to process that painful emotion, combat trauma, childhood sexual trauma, domestic abuse, loss of a loved one, car wreck, you name it. Everyone has a story. Yeah. I'm hearing you talk about, you know, it's going to take you into that darkness. It's going to have you face.

these emotions that you've been unconsciously avoiding maybe your whole life. And I think a lot of people hear that and they go, well, why would I want to do that? I obviously, you know, when, when someone's never had that experience before they may go, well, I can't handle it in my day to day life. Why would I be able to handle it in a, in an altered state? What do you say about that?

This is part of that education process, right? If somebody would have told me that is well without ever having experienced this, I would have said, you know what, hell with you. You know, I have a tough enough time getting through my own day. I don't need anyone to bring me to the doorstep of pain. But the truth is, is I was out of options and I didn't want to live anymore and I would do anything to shift that. And that is what brought me there. But.

Now that I've been there and I understand how these medicines work, I think the most important message that I would communicate is make sure it is the right fit for you. And the reason I say that is make sure you trust the container. Make sure you trust whoever is facilitating this experience for you. Make sure you do the preparation that is necessary.

to understand and get to some of those painful, unprocessed emotions that you might not even know is there. Understand the core stories and the narratives that you've built around them so that you can set the right intentions to go into this. And then once you go through the ceremony and the journey and having the right people there to guide you in that process, is integration becomes the lifestyle. Integrating the self -care habits to continue to reconnect the mind and the body.

Here's the truth is that this is not for everyone. It's not right. My the the demographic that I deal with because it is just purpose, cause, passion for me is those who have experienced significant trauma and their life is in turmoil and they are at their wits end. You know, when I meet people like that, I just I just want to embrace and come with me. Let's you know, let's have a discussion. But these medicines can also be used for creativity.

to inspire, to achieve a higher version of yourself. And you don't have, this is not just for people who experience trauma, right? These different modalities, platforms, medicines can be used in so many different ways, but they interact with us in a way that no pharmaceutical or person will ever be able to interact and create an experience within us.

And unless you have experienced that yourself, it is very hard to put words around what those experiences bring to the table. Yeah. So, so you found, so it sounds like cannabis created was, it was like your first step. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm going to use this and I'm, I'm at my wits end. Sounds like you used it intentionally in that I wanted some relief and then.

Would you say you got lucky in a sense and that you ended up finding a positive way to use it? Whereas sometimes I think a lot of people stumble into it and then they just end up smoking and playing video games all night. Yeah, they, you know, I say luck, late laboring under correct knowledge, right? Is what it was. You continue to put the work in for the right reasons with the right intentions. And so even before I used cannabis, I was searching for the answers, right? If you could give me a pill that did the same thing that cannabis did,

I would ask for the pill, but I was just looking, why was I getting so angry? Why was things that were so petty? You know, once upon a time, I would go into the deepest, darkest places under the heaviest levels of adversity, say, hey, follow me. And I wouldn't hesitate to go into that. And now I was in a position where I could not leave my own home without my dog.

you know, without an act of Congress saying, hey, you know, we need to go do this. And I'm just understanding how did I get here? I want the answers. This is not the life that I want to live. And so I was digging. I knew what I wanted. I didn't know how to get there. And I tried every option. Pharmaceuticals were one way. I went through cognitive, you know, cognitive behavioral group therapy, you know, with my spouse, EMDR.

prolonged exposure, right? These were the gold standards to treat our conditions coupled with the pharmaceuticals. And, you know, there were times that it provided relief, but they were ineffective and did not get to the root of the problem. I...luck is always a part of it, right? But there was clear intentions of wanting to live, wanting a better life.

not understanding what was going on with me and understanding, you know, where that disconnect, I didn't understand why, but understood what and that what was driving me into the ground. And I just, I continually sought for the answers to help change my situation. And so experiencing cannabis at the recommendation of someone I trusted deeply, someone I served with and the connection and just,

how it just, it cleared the inner voices. It just, it cleared the noise. It allowed me to sit and engage in the present conversation. And it just absolutely blew my mind. And I'm like, what is this? How can I feel like this on a regular basis, right? If, what are the situations that are,

creating the disconnect, what are the situations that are creating the anger, the hypervigilance, right? Now I had a tool that I can go into these situations with and understand how to use it effectively to start untying that ball of yarn. And that allowed me to do a lot of work. And it was incredibly difficult because I came from a family that just stigmatized it, right? You were a drug head if you used this. You were a non -performer.

And then trying to find a healthcare professional, you know, one of the white coats to have an honest conversation with you. It was incredibly difficult. Yeah. So when you got, when you moved from cannabis into the psychedelics, that was two years, a little over two years ago. What's, what's life been like? You know, it sounds like I know when we talk to you, you've been through.

more than one ceremony and with different psychedelic plant medicines. What's that? What's the last two years been like with that? It's it's it's been.

It's been a journey. You know, psilocybin, you know, my first experience was combo psilocybin followed by Bufo, the actual toad venom, not the synthetic. And it was incredibly life altering. And from that initial experience, I was called to serve the medicine. This is the healing path that I had been looking for for a long time. And when I experienced what I did, I was called to serve the medicines and I went on that path and

If I was going to be able to educate and talk from an experiential level to others who were needing these services or programs or platforms, then I had the experience of myself. So I went and sat with some indigenous tribes. I learned to facilitate the medicines, bufa avarius. I went through some pretty intense shamanic practitioner courses, learning to facilitate ayahuasca, wachuma, bufo, combo.

And not only learning to facilitate the medicines, understanding the preparation and integration process, but also using it in the indigenous ways, facilitating the medicine while under the medicine, being able to connect with spirit and help guide others in that process. And it's incredibly powerful. They have been doing this.

We as a human species have been doing this for a very long time. And the last two years have been incredibly educational, incredibly powerful, understanding the dos and the don'ts, understanding that you have to meet people where they are. Even if you think this is a good platform that would serve them, if they are not ready for it, it is not ready for them. And so learning that,

Being able to identify.

the common denominators that drive the struggles in people's lives and understanding the different platforms, holistic alternatives that can be integrated. It doesn't need to be a plant medicine ceremony. It doesn't need to be a synthetic psychedelic assisted ceremony. It needs to be something along mindfulness practices, something simple as ice bath, breath work and meditation that allows us to slow down and to connect.

and understand through the felt sense and connect with some of those sensory experiences and understanding what those are tied to, be able to sit and process those emotions. It doesn't matter if you're performing at a high level athlete or someone who has experienced trauma, right? That mental maintenance process and shedding perspective is the same process, right? The intentions and why we're doing it are going to change, but the process is the same. And so,

Understanding that process and taking that time to open that conversation and answer questions people may have and meet them where they are and make recommendations to allow them to bring more balance into their lives is something that drives that purpose, cause, passion for me on a regular basis. Beautiful. Where can people find... So you're running an organization that allows people to find cannabis.

in all 50 states, how do they, how do they, if they go, I want to try that out. How do they get into that? Yes. So our we have three organizations, the first with the Veterans Alliance for Holistic Alternatives, that is the Education and Advocacy 501 C3 and then Medical Cannabis Access is teleleaf .com or teleleaf where you can do it from the comfort of your home.

get a cannabis access, cannabis recommendation, medical recommendation from the comforter of your home. And then if you are interested in psychedelic assisted therapies or entheogenic retreats and pursuing that path, the warriortribesassembly .com is where you can find us. And so we've created these organizations.

you know, to help educate and empower others to use these holistic alternatives on their own path to healing. We are here to assist. We are here to guide. We are here to educate and to empower. And for anyone who's curious, feel free to reach out at any time. Excellent. Excellent. Anywhere else that people can find you, social media accounts or just those websites are good enough.

Yeah, all of those sites have their own social media accounts. LinkedIn is if, is probably if you want to get a message across to me, that's probably the best place. But Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you know, all the norms. Cool. We'll be posting those links up in the call and the show notes. Anything you want to leave people with before we go today?

Yeah.

There's hope, right? There's hope if you find yourself in darkness and you feel like you can't get out of it. Please reach out. We see you. We hear you. We I've walked that path myself as as many others have. But I would love to have that conversation with you. Don't give up. Don't give in. That is not the answer, even though it may seem like it. Excellent. Thank you, Gary.

Appreciate you taking the time to meet with us and sharing your wisdom with us. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it, buddy. Yeah, man. I'll be seeing you soon. Sounds good.

Mike Bledsoe (49:55)
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Mission After. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about our free resource, the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide is packed with valuable insights to help you overcome common challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take control of your career and life. Head over to the missionafter .org to download your copy now. It's completely free and could be the game changer you're looking for.

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