Paul Austin | Microdosing 101: How To Use Entheogens In A Safe, Structured + Responsible Way. Healing Soul Sickness Through Consciousness Exploration.

Oct 11, 2022

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When we look at microdosing, it is just not about the day you take a low dose of a psychedelic. We're looking at a microdosing protocol in terms of what you're committed to for the next 30 days as an intention that you want to cultivate and how microdosing can support you in facilitating that intention. - Paul Austin

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Wellness + Wisdom Episode 480

Founder of both Third Wave and Synthesis, Head of Third Wave’s Coaching Certification Program, and Host of Third Wave’s podcast, Paul Austin, shares important psychedelic microdosing protocols, how psychedelic medicine impacts our psychoneuroimmunology, how to be free of our fear of death, and how to create existential wealth for ourselves and our community.

What is the fundamental virus that is wreaking havoc and chaos on our minds and bodies?

Discover how to heal your existential malaise and soul sickness with the safe use of plant medicines and microdosing psychedelics.

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Listen To Episode 480 As Paul Austin Uncovers: [8:10] The Third Wave of Psychedelics at Synthesis

Third Wave
Microdosing Psychedelics: A Practical Guide to Upgrade Your Life by Paul Austin
The Third Wave Podcast
Third Wave’s Mushroom Grow Kit
The Synthesis Institute
RUNGA
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The use of plant medicines for thousands of years for ceremony and how it has shifted in modern times with this new third wave.
Paul's experience with psychedelics and what the first times were like for his wellness journey.
What he started noticing about psychedelics being used more and more in the wellness community.
The large number of clinical papers that are now being published on psychedelics.
Joe Rogan
Tim Ferriss
Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution by Terence McKenna
Finding the balance with using psychedelics so that we stay in the middle way.
Tao Te Ching: The Book of the Way by Lao Tzu
His experience starting a legal psilocybin retreat center called Synthesis to help find that balance.
Why Paul sees microdosing as a tool to embody the middle way.

[12:20] Microdosing 101: How to Experience a Safe Psychedelic Experience

The three practical things that always have to be present with psychedelics: it is safe, structured, and responsible.
Josh's experience with a poorly managed plant medicine ceremony in Costa Rica that shattered his psyche.
462 Ben Greenfield: Should You STOP Using Plant Medicines? Wisdom on Microdosing, The Muscle of Faith + How to Grow Your Spiritual Strength
Why a first-time psychedelic experience with ketamine or MDMA are good as they are shorter lasting and they're very soft compared to others.
The importance of having a prepared mindset ahead of the healing psychedelic experience.
How a therapist, guide, or trusted friend during your experience is extremely important for creating that safe container.
His conversation with Ben Greenfield about his decision to not use plant medicines anymore when Josh has mostly had really powerful, healing experiences except for the last time.
What can go wrong during an Ayahuasca ceremony: the shaman is not pure at heart, the participants bring negative energy, the medicine is not properly prepared, and many more.
390 Hamilton Souther | Plant Medicine: The Dark & The Light
Why being in a physiological safe place is so beneficial for someone who is ready to do the inner work to surrender, unpack and heal their trauma.
Josh Trent: Solocast | Healing The Father Wound, 100+ Hours Fasting, Vision Questing + Being Alone With Mother Nature’s Wisdom
How plant medicines can help facilitate a psychological near-death experience without physiologically putting the person at risk.

[20:10] The Impact of Psychedelic Medicine On Our Psychoneuroimmunology

Why the mind tells us that something is extremely unsafe but it actually wasn't physically unsafe like with a safe psychedelic experience.
What psychoneuroimmunology is and what happens to our neurons when we take a psychedelic medicine.
183 Dr. Kyra Bobinet | Living A Well Designed Life: 10 Lessons In Brain Science
Paul's own trauma growing up being ostracized, how that impacted his behavior, and how psychedelics have helped him heal and overcome that.
How MDMA and psilocybin dampen the fear response in the amygdala.
Who shouldn't take psychedelics including those who are pre-disposed to schizophrenia for example.
His advice for people using psychedelics for the very first time to help heal their trauma.
Why it's so important to let your emotions, whatever comes up, to be expressed rather than restrict and keep them held down.

[25:40] How to Follow a Safe Microdosing Protocol

Why the ego tries to keep us safe yet it also blocks us from living a life fully expressed.
The microdosing protocol that they follow at Third Wave.
Paul's experience first limiting his alcohol intake and then also microdosing for the first time to help him with his social anxiety at 24 years old.
The intentional LSD microdosing practice Paul followed which included doing it 2-3 times a week for a month or more while in social situations to help this anxiety and confront that fear.
How LSD compares to other psychedelics and when people might specifically microdose it to help them as Paul did.
Why willful participation is incredibly important in order to see a change in transformation based on the intention you have set for yourself.
Access Paul's free minicourse on how to safely microdose psychedelics.
209 The Altered States Economy: Jamie Wheal

[33:10] Being Free of Our Fear of Death

Exploring the two parts of who we are: the Spirit and the Beast.
Paul's first macrodosing experience with LSD at 19 years old that led him to experience a death of the ego.
Clinical research done at Johns Hopkins which showed how high doses of psilocybin catalyzes a mystical experience almost on demand for 80% of people during which they are essentially connecting to Source or God.
The fear of death that many people have in Western countries and how that holds us back.
How the mystical experience with psychedelics have helped people to see that death is nothing to be feared so that they can live their lives to the fullest.
How psychedelics helped Paul be free of all of the external expectations from his friends, family, and society so that he could pursue a path that felt most true to the downloads his experience gave him.

[37:40] Healing Our Existential Malaise with Plant Medicine

Paul's experience with psychedelics of going back and remembering his ancestral roots before he was born and integrating that into his life.
Iron John: A Book about Men by Robert Bly
His experience living in Turkey to teach English and then moving to Thailand where he started his own online business.
What drives Paul to help humanity with this existential crisis many people face by normalizing the intentional and responsible use of plant medicine as a tool for growth, adaptability, creativity, leadership, wellbeing, and beyond.
The level of soul sickness and existential malaise that we're witnessing in the world, especially in our modern Western culture.
Why psychedelics are a good tool to help us heal our soul sickness.
Unpacking why by nature a lot of the love people receive from their family, friends, and community is conditional compared to God and Source's love which is always unconditional.

[52:40] How to Create Existential Wealth for Ourselves + Community

What If Money Was No Object? - Alan Watts
How we can reframe our mindset about wealth from just finances or money to start seeing it as existential wealth - the wealth of being.
The deep honor that Josh feels for him as well as Paul to be able to do what they're doing for the world and their communities.
Exploring the idea that the vibrational match, as an individual and society, is what we need to become in order for existential wealth to truly exist.
How to heal the false beliefs and stories that we tell ourselves such as, "I'm not lovable."
The fact that the things we're told we need or need to do; we really don't need them at all for the most part.
How plant medicine helped Paul realize that things outside of himself that we perceive as important really aren't and that experience led him to choose an unconventional path and travel of the world with just a 25L backpack for 6 months.
What actually matters in life according to Paul's experiences.
Why it's 100% real that you are made up of the six closet people that you have in your life.

[1:04:00] The Fundamental Virus of the Mind and the Soul

Paul Levy
Josh and Paul Levy's plan to talk about Wetiko - The Fundamental Virus of the Mind and the Soul on an upcoming Wellness + Wisdom podcast.
Paul Chek | All is God
How plant medicine has helped Paul do the inner work, integration process, and make peace with his shadow self.
Why Josh believes that chaos is always seeking order and no matter how sad it is, there is a place for evil in this world and we have to honor the mystery of that.
332 John Wineland: Your Guide To Masculine & Feminine Polarity
The trauma that Paul has experienced in his life and what core healing methods helped him the most.
Paul's breakthrough mindset shift when he realized that it was his stigmatizing community that was the problem, not him, that helped him feel free.
Jason Silva
What to expect from Paul and his team's mentorship coaching and how they have helped their clients.

[1:19:40] The Ups + Downs of the Current Psychedelic Industry

Where Third Wave is at now and what Paul's hopes are for it in the future.
Breaking down the difference between a "unicorn" and a "zebra" when it comes up to start-ups and the success of a business.
The fact that we have witnessed how governing agencies who claim they want to help really just want to extract and control an industry the more something becomes mainstream like with the hemp industry.
How decriminalizing and legalizing some plant medicines is impacting the industry in different states.
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies - MAPS
Usona Institute
COMPASS Pathways
The downside of using synthetic psychedelics such as patents and the government's regulation over them but health insurance can help cover the treatments.
Cultural transformation that has already taken place by using plant medicine to help people heal and how Paul envisions that continuing and expanding even more in the future.
Paul's experience being a part of Netflix's History 101 episode about psychedelics from footage he did for a German documentary.
What to expect from Paul's Microdosing Mini Course and the other many resources they provide for people at Third Wave.
How we can live our life well according to Paul.
Paul's last pieces of wisdom about psychedelics and microdosing for this podcast episode.

Power Quotes From The Show

[click_to_tweet tweet="There is some level of soul sickness in modern society today. Plant medicines are a phenomenal tool for healing that soul sickness because what they allow us to experience is unconditional love. - Paul Austin of @thirdwaveishere" quote="There is some level of soul sickness in modern society today. Plant medicines are a phenomenal tool for healing that soul sickness because what they allow us to experience is unconditional love. - Paul Austin of @thirdwaveishere"]

How to Prepare Your Mindset for a Psychedelic Experience

"What the mind might say before taking perhaps a higher dose of psychedelics could be, 'What if I have a bad trip?' or 'What if I lose my mind?' Often times these thoughts come down to set and setting or the mindset before and how we prepare for the experience. That's just a simple point of communication with yourself and you can remind yourself, 'Hey, challenging experiences happen. You are safe in this container...

...Do note and this is very important: you should not do a psychedelic if you are pre-disposed to schizophrenia or something similar. Assuming that has been vetted, these are more or less physiological safe substances and even if some thoughts or emotions come up in an experience." - Paul Austin

Let Your Emotions Be Freely Expressed

"If something comes up for you in a psychedelic experience, what you need to focus on is: Surrender, allow, accept, and breathe. Because often times the challenge that comes up in a psychedelic experience is when we try to block, suppress, or constrict when we really just need to allow all of these emotions that we normally repress: sadness, shame, anger or guilt to come to the surface." - Paul Austin

How to Heal Our Soul Sickness with Unconditional Love

"There's a sense of existential malaise and some level of soul sickness that we now have in Western society. It happens for us because the things that we've been conditioned to find value in from the house that we buy to the car that we drive to the trophy wife to the sports teams that we were stars of in high school have all been such a big part of the mainstream narrative but people are now understanding just how sick we are because of this...

...A lot of people will go into plant medicines or psychedelics because they have depression, PTSD, anxiety, or they're struggling with addiction. Sometimes they go into it because maybe they want to be a better parent or they want to be more creative or they want to be a better leader. Whatever the external thing is and what I often find, which is just as true for myself, is there is some level of soul sickness there that we're asking for help with. Plant medicines are a phenomenal tool for healing that soul sickness because what they allow us to experience is unconditional love." - Paul Austin

Links From Today's Show

About Paul Austin

Paul Austin is an entrepreneur, author, and coach, who sees psychedelic use as a skill, cultivated through clear intention, supportive mentorship, and courageous exploration. Mastering this skill is crucial in the story of humanity’s present-future evolution.

In cultivating this emerging framework, his vision is to help facilitate our society’s transition from a competitive, zero-sum mindset to a collaborative, social entrepreneurial approach.

One that re-integrates purpose and meaning into the workplace, establishing the truth of interconnectedness between our personal values and professional pursuits.

It is his belief that psychedelics will act as a major technological tipping point in facilitating this transition, helping Western culture to step into a ‘new story’ that is based on interconnectedness, abundance, and harmony.

Healing with Microdosing

Currently, he is a leading voice on the use of psychedelics for personal growth, creative insight, and professional transformation.

As an early adopter of microdosing, a practice now widespread in tech and entrepreneurial circles, he landed on an inspiring vision to bridge the wisdom of plant medicines with the world of creativity and technology:

When used with intention and reverence, plant medicines fundamentally shift the perspective of those in leadership positions, leading to harmony between personal well-being and professional success.

Sharing Microdosing with Third Wave + Synthesis

Paul has founded two companies in the emerging psychedelic space, Third Wave and Synthesis. He is currently the CEO of Third Wave. He leads Third Wave’s Coaching Certification Program, and also hosts Third Wave’s podcast. Outside of these activities, his focus is largely on coaching and training, as well as public speaking.

Because of his work at the intersection of psychedelic use, personal transformation, and professional success, he has been featured in the BBC, Forbes, and Rolling Stone.

When not working, he enjoys hiking, reading, cycling, and the occasional acid trip.

A Year-Long MICRODOSING EXPERIMENT- Janet Chang + Third Wave