Psychedelics, Menopause & Mental HealthWhat Midlife Women Need to Know with Ashley Turner

1. 0:00

   Welcome back to Pleasure in the Pause, a podcast dedicated to empowering midlife women to connect with their bodies pleasure and power through perimenopause, menopause and beyond. I am your host Gabriella Espinosa, women's health coach, menopause advocate, and pleasure visionary. Each week, I sit down with women's health experts, thought leaders, and storytellers for bold, thought-provoking conversations that educate, inspire, and challenge the myths we've been taught about our bodies, aging, and sexuality.

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   I also share solo episodes with evidence-based insights, real talk, and embodied tools to support you in thriving through midlife with clarity, confidence, and vitality. Because your pleasure matters in and out of the bedroom. So, take a deep breath, settle into your body, and let's begin. Hello, beautiful listeners. As we move into this new year together, I'm intentionally holding space here on the podcast for conversations that feel honest, nourishing, and expansive.

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   Conversations that meet us where we are in midlife without rushing to fix ourselves or searching for one-sizefits-all solutions. I've found that midlife has a way of inviting deeper questions about our health, our emotional well-being, our sense of identity, and especially questions about what real support looks like when it feels like we're doing all the things to look after our health. I know you're doing your best to move your body, eat well, manage stress, invite more pleasure into your life.

4. 1:42

   Maybe you've tried hormone therapy, yet something still feels unresolved. That space between actively caring for your health and still not feeling fully at home in yourself is where many women find themselves asking new questions. And that's the spirit of today's episode. Before we go any further, I want to name that this conversation is offered for education and thoughtful exploration only, not as medical advice or as my personal recommendation.

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   As midlife women, staying informed and open-minded about complimentary approaches to our health is part of how we stay curious and advocate for ourselves. And that's why I'm welcoming back Ashley Turner to the show who's going to help us do exactly that. Ashley is a licensed marriage and family psychotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, and the founder of Yoga Psyche Soul. She joined me last year for a conversation that resonated with many of you around the mental and emotional aspects of menopause, anxiety, depression, loss of confidence, and desire.

6. 2:59

   We talked about how menopause isn't just a physical transition, but a profound psychological and spiritual one. In today's episode, Ashley returns to share the next chapter of her personal and professional journey. She opens up about why after therapy, lifestyle work, yoga, meditation, and hormone therapy, she felt called to explore psychedelic assisted therapy as complimentary support during her own menopause transition. She shares how this work has supported her alongside hormone therapy and why she is now stepping forward more publicly as a licensed psychotherapist to support others navigating this terrain with care, discernment, and responsibility.

7. 3:50

   Together we explore what psychedelics actually are, what psychedelicass assisted therapy means, and why psilocybin has become part of an emerging conversation around mental and emotional health in midlife. We talk about the differences between micro doing and macro doing. How this work intersects with mood, emotional resilience, and neuroplasticity during menopause, and why integration, safety, and professional support are essential. This is not a conversation about quick fixes. It's a grounded, nuanced exploration of a topic many midlife women are already quietly wondering about and navigating.

8. 4:27

   I'm really grateful to share this conversation with you. So, let's dive in and welcome Ashley Turner back to the show. Welcome back to Pleasure in the Pause, Ashley. I am so grateful. So good to see you, Gabriella. Thank you so much for having me back. You're very welcome. You were here last year talking about mental health and menopause and that episode really resonated because you named something so many women feel but don't hear reflected that menopause isn't just physical, it's deeply psychological.

9. 5:04

   And so for listeners who may have not heard that episode, I'll definitely link it in the show notes. Can you briefly share your background and what originally drew you into working at the intersection of psychology, yoga, and women's mental health? Yeah, well, it's been a very personal

10. 5:30

    Journey. I started as a yoga teacher 25 years ago and was really drawn to the eastern spiritual and psychological practices. And when I started practicing and then teaching, I realized that it was having a massive effect on my own mental health, my sense of self, even personality traits, my view of the world. So I wanted to understand what was happening from a more western perspective. I went back to school to get my masters, become a licensed psychotherapist, and wrote my master's thesis on the integration of yoga and psychology.

11. 5:54

    And then I went on to become a licensed therapist and built out a whole school called yoga psyche soul integrating yoga, neuroscience, meditation and western psychology, mental health. Really focused a lot on depth psychology as well, shadow work, yungian orientation and sematic psychology of course. Cut to many years later that program was really successful. Trained a lot of professionals, yoga and mental health professionals in that integration and then had my daughter very late in life at 46 years old.

12. 6:31

    Birthed my beautiful miracle baby and was breastfeeding her for 2 years and then once I stopped breastfeeding her I was launched into very intense menopause symptoms and most of those symptoms for me were mental health symptoms. So I did have some physical symptoms but at 48 years old totally unprepared you know here I had just gone through a massive fertility journey and was 46 and you know was working with the best doctors in Los Angeles from obstitrician to fertility clinic to incredible acupuncturist holistic practitioners and no one once along the way ever alerted me like you are also going into perimenopause you're already going to be experiencing symptoms and you're postpartum And so we really need to come up with a plan for your hormonal health.

13. 7:21

    When I essentially hit rock bottom about 3 years ago and again primarily my symptoms were mental health, depression, anxiety, which I had never experienced before, extreme loss of confidence, loss of agency, not to mention cognition, focus, and I started going on my own journey of understanding menopause and what was happening. I want to say, by the way, I didn't want to admit that I was in menopause.

14. 7:46

    And I think this is a pretty common thing for many women is that we don't want to think we're that old or we don't want to think we have an a negative association. It's changing now because we're in the middle of such an incredible revolution. And yet we are still up against our own internalized patriarchy, internalized agism. So it actually took me an extra year, I would say, or so to really get my hormones tested and admit like this is menopause.

15. 8:10

    This is what you're experiencing. So that's a whole other, you know, kind of the shadow work of this menopausal transition of really making peace and reckoning with the aging process as a woman in the modern world, facing agism, facing the beauty myth and all of the things. So I started doing all my research and getting educated and shifting my lifestyle. I got on hormone therapy, which has been a lifesaver for me.

16. 8:34

    And what I found was even though I was doing all of those things, fitness, nutrition, protein, weighted vest, all the things, I still was experiencing a lot of difficulties in my mental health and challenges. And so I had to look deeper and realize, you know, this is not just a physical hormonal experience. This is a deep right of passage that we go through as women. It's a multi-year journey.

17. 9:01

    It is not just a six-month or a year. I'm now I don't have my period anymore. Menopause journey. This is a phase of development in psychology just like puberty is. And I think it's really important that we place menopause in the context of the full life cycle of a woman. It's a big piece of my work. I ended up launching a six-month menopause mentorship called Metamorphosis because I really feel that when we're in this perimenopausal and especially late perimenopause, the last two, three years before we stop bleeding and then that first year or two after stopping bleeding, that transition and we're straddling that threshold is just like when we go through puberty, which is a years'sl long journey.

18. 9:50

    I'm I think a lot about my niece who's 14 and who she is at 14 versus actually 15 but who she is at 15 versus you know 10 11 is such a different person. She's a young woman in the world. She's not a child anymore. So she went from being a child, a young girl to a young woman, the maiden archetype, right? And so we're doing the same thing in the menopausal transition.

19. 10:15

    We're moving from that mother archetype into I actually think we need a fourth archetype, not just crone. I think we need something in between mother and crone for the women that are in their 40s 50s because I don't really feel like many of us resonate with deep crone energy and wise woman I mean wise woman yes but anyway the 50s for me is still you know really activated time and even 60s of course but we are making a huge transition out of this fertility journey out of our fertile years our journey as a bleeding woman And it's not just physical hormonal.

20. 10:52

    It is a deep psychological shift. There's huge shifts. Our identity, our ambition, the way that we view the world, what's important to us, our priorities, and all of those things go into this, not just the biology and the hormones. I mean, you name so many things that I hear from all of the women that I work with. It also resonates with

21. 11:17

    My own experience. And that window of time where we experience everything that you've named can last such a long time. We talk about, you know, perimenopause is now recognized as that phase before you hit that one day of menopause. And we talk about it lasting anywhere from 5 to 10 years. But even when you reach that one day that defines menopause, the journey continues. And I feel like the narrative that we hear society even in the medical world is okay you've hit menopause great slap a patch move on do the lifestyle changes these are the things you need to do they address all the physical aspects that yes fine okay those are important to address but I hear from so many women and it's been my experience too that we're doing all the things all the things and still continue to experience I don't know if you call them symptoms but deep internal shifts that go beyond the physical right they go beyond the physical that really touch to the psychosspiritual which you name the metaphysical the universal and women are struggling I hear that women are struggling so thank you so much for naming that and for doing this very important work in that space since our last conversation.

22. 12:33

    Your work has continued to evolve and you've spoken about what you call I've heard you say coming out of the psychedelic closet which is what I'm very excited to talk to you about today. What does that phrase mean for you personally and what shifted that made you feel ready to talk about this work publicly now? Well, thank you so much for asking. So

23. 13:09

    Psychedelic work has always been a huge part of my personal journey for 30 years and I've woven it into my work and done different retreats with you know Iawaska has been a huge part of my journey for many decades very instrumental and a cornerstone piece of my journey and so I've guided groups small groups to Peru and to Europe and different you know to Machu Picchu and done Iwasa shamanic yoga pilgrimages and sort of underground sort of quietly with the students that I already have and watching this.

24. 13:35

    So there's been a few major pivot points in my life that have really facilitated life-changing experiences through psychedelics. I had one journey with psilocybin when I was about 25 27 that was a radical healing and a real opening and a total reframe of the world. And that's one of the one of the many powers of psychedelics is that what Aldous Huxley describes as opening doorways of perception and really opening our consciousness to other ways of perceiving what's actually going on here and who we really are.

25. 14:13

    So first of all, it's been a huge piece of my journey sort of underground. I haven't talked a lot about it publicly. And then when I was going through the menopausal transition, I ended up finding a mentor, amazing mentor and started doing MDMA couples work, MDMMA therapy with my partner, with my husband. And that was about four years ago. And it's completely saved our partnership multiple times.

26. 14:38

    We go about twice a year, about every six months, we do a 48 hour intensive where we just have one day doing the journey work. And essentially it's an indepth couples therapy immersion for about six hours the journey lasts but we're there the night before we're really in a retreat space you know held in a container with our teacher guide dear friend and it opens something so powerfully between us and really has allowed us to shift patterns in our communication.

27. 15:15

    You know, there's many things to say about MDMA, but one of it was actually originally studied as a couple's therapy intervention, a very powerful intervention in the 60s. That's why it was developed as the medicine that it was, and then it went underground. And that's a whole other conversation with Nixon's, you know, war on drugs. And so, all of these drugs ended up going underground and onto the street.

28. 15:27

    But even back in the 60s, they knew that this was a powerful intervention for couples with MDMA. It's what's called an impathogen and really helps us open our heart. So that was one thing. It really was assisting me in healing my relationship and really going through the menopausal transition with my partner who was we were both so confused. You know, sex drive drops, our connection drops, my whole sense of self starts changing and he doesn't know what to do with it.

29. 16:06

    Right? So that's one piece that's been really helpful. And then separately, I've also been doing my own personal work with psychedelics on the menopausal transition. Really seeking other treatments because like I said, I was on hormones. I didn't want to get on an SSRI, although they're very powerful and helpful for many people and I needed some tools. Can I pause you there

30. 16:32

    Because you had already been doing all the right things as you just said, right? Therapy, yoga, meditation, hormones. What wasn't being resolved for you internally or emotionally that made you start to look towards psychedelics as possible support? Yeah, it's such a great question. I love that you asked that, Gabriella. Well, I think in a nutshell to describe it as my sense of self was really changing and I needed some tools to help

31. 17:01

    Me explore that. Even though this is my work, you know, I'm in a deep self-exploration kind of all the time. Also, I will say in the menopausal journey for me and I think for many women, what I see and hear in my clients is that we are in a cocoon. We are in a metamorphosis phase where we really need to insulate for a while. And two of my great teachers who run the red school, Shaunie and Hugo Woritzer and Alexander Pope out of the UK talk a lot about these five phases of menopause and going into that chrysalis.

32. 17:28

    I mean, I use more of that metaphor, but they talk about this word snudging, which means do as little as possible. Minimize your external commitments to give yourself permission to go in and be on a quest on a deep healing journey, awakening journey, self-discovery. And that's what I see as the psychosspiritual phase of menopause. You can look at the mirror, which is how we do in holistic health.

33. 17:53

    We're using the body and what's happening in the body as a mirror for what's happening in the psyche. The psyche and the soma are not separate. And so we understand physically that estrogen progesterone dropping is taking us through a massive remodeling on every system of the body. We know that so many people out there speaking to that that work is pretty easy to find now. Thank goodness of whether it's cardiovascular, cognitive health, obviously metabolic health, you know, everything is shifting with those hormones shifting.

34. 18:30

    They're not just sex hormones. So now let's look at the realm of the psyche or the mind and the emotions. We are also going through a remodeling and yes, a lot of it has to do with the hormonal shifts and a lot of it has to do with just this phase of development. We are becoming a new version of ourselves, like a reincarnation, a new aspect of ourselves.

35. 18:55

    And that takes time. If you think about just like a baby just stating right in the womb for 9 months, 10 months, and then you have that fourth phase of, you know, postpartum, fourth trimester. It's similar to us in menopause. And we need to find ways and supports to insulate ourselves and give ourselves that cushion to just be in a phase of self-discovery, you know, inner work becoming.

36. 19:08

    And so the psychedelics were a great tool for me to start carving out and connecting with myself in part with my teacher, in part by myself. And when I saw the shifts that were happening, which of course I already knew because I've been doing this for 30 years, I really wanted to speak to this because this is a huge piece of what has been healing for me.

37. 19:36

    And also those are, you know, and that I'm referring to macro dosing, you know, heroic dosing or really going on psychedelic journeys, but also micro doing. And micro doing for me has become a staple in my lifestyle. It's been a very important lifestyle shift for me and I truly believe that micro doing has allowed me to not go on an SSRI. I've really been contemplating it over the last couple years.

38. 20:00

    And once I started micro doing psilocybin consistently, I started seeing a natural lift. It was like an anti-depressant. Natural lift in my mood, much better outlook on life. Kind of back to myself. I really felt like I had lost myself like my buoyant, effervescent personality, optimistic, positive, engaging. I didn't recognize myself. And this tool of micro doing in particular really helped me get back to like, okay, yeah, this is who I am.

39. 20:28

    This is what I'm creatively feeling. I'm inspired. My mood is better. I'm much softer towards my partner. I'm not projecting onto him. And it's creating a lot less tension in our relationship because I'm managing my own feelings in a better way and this tool is helping give me some buoyancy again. Yeah, thank you so much for describing that. So it was that sense of self that that identity piece again that is so so

40. 21:07

    Pertinent for so many of us who are crossing that threshold and it happens at different phases so many different times I think it happens that question who am I who am I becoming and I think many and it's not linear it's important that

41. 21:19

    It's not linear it's very much a spiraling one of my teachers in graduate school would describe it as a labyrinth you know our life our journey with our psyche is a labyrinth We're winding around the center being the self or the essence of who you are, your soul, however you want to describe it. And life is constantly winding us around, but hopefully we're getting a little closer to that center with each twist and turn.

42. 21:31

    Yeah. And it isn't linear. And so we might go through phases where we feel really good like I was and then back to like, wow, I'm really questioning. And that's okay. That's actually normal. So to normalize the eb and the flow, the cyclical living in the feminine way of being is very important. Yeah. You don't always get there, right? We're always aiming to get somewhere and there's no there there, right? It is a continual journey.

43. 22:09

    And I really want to dive into micro doing what it is and psychedelics and psilocybin, all these words that you've mentioned that are maybe very new to our audience. So psychedelics, they've been around forever, right? And you're naming them as this new frontier of physical development of of emotional and spiritual development. Let's just really take it down to basics for those who are not familiar with psychedelics.

44. 22:35

    I think we have kind of some images that we have from the 60s. What are psychedelics? When we use the word psychedelics, what are we actually referring to? What belongs under that umbrella and what doesn't? Well, it's amazing this term psychedelics, the word and the etmology of it that was chosen to describe these medicines. It's eluding me right now the name of

45. 22:59

    The man who who named them. But psyche in ancient Latin means self or soul. Some people define it as mind. And psychology is the logos or the study of the soul. The study of the mind, the study of this aspect, internal aspect of who we are. Psychedelics, delics means making. So it's mind making or soul making. This concept that these are tools both plant medicines of all different kinds and I'll name them in a moment and compounds some of which have been man-made and chemical compounds that are helping to connect us into these inner realms.

46. 23:39

    And they have a psychotropic effect which means they're altering our consciousness. They're altering our state of mind and our state of being both. You know, again, I don't separate mind and body. They are one. They are integrated. So, it's having an effect on both the physiology and our psychology and our inner experience. So, different than a regular pharmaceutical that doesn't necessarily alter your mind state. Obviously, SSRIs and that that's a whole other you know that does actually help alter our biochemistry which does affect our mind state and the kind of thoughts that we're thinking.

47. 24:19

    Psychedelics are compounds that we are ingesting in order to shift our state of mind and state of being. So the plant medicines are all kinds of things by the way that of course and it's really important to honor the roots of this practice just like any practice yoga anything. Where does this come from? Ancient cultures from all around the world have been using psychedelics from ibogga in Africa to measculine in Native American traditions to iawaska of course and chuna in South America, marijuana can be considered one as well.

48. 24:44

    And then the compounds such as MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, LSD, all of these different DMT, this molecule that is present in several of these medicines and on and on. There's so many different medicines that are encapsulated in this category. So working with these medicines, it's really thought that a lot of the spiritual teachings, even yoga, there's many different scholars that believe that the yogis in ancient India were probably using some plant medicines and channeling because it really does open these doorways of perception, different ways of perceiving and channeling some of the yoga practices and channeling, downloading, you know, understanding the energetic body, the chakra system, the nadis, the meridians that we're working with. So cultures from all across the world have been using psychedelics for millennia of course

49. 25:49

    And in the 40s50s early 60s we began to have the science to understand what was happening with these and start to explore that the work of Timothy Liry and Ramdas at Harvard

50. 26:02

    And you know so many other people and understand the neuroscience and the mechanisms that are at play. Psilocybin was kind of broke through mainstream with this beautiful teacher in Mexico, Maria Savina, and then unfortunately was really colonialism kind of swept in and this very wealthy man from New York came and visited her and there was a big article in Life magazine about psilocybin but that also broke through into the mainstream culture in the 60s with that.

51. 26:29

    So, a lot of very sacred teachings and rituals, people that have been holding these medicines as the sacraments that they are for millennia. And it's really important to place it in that context and not just monetize it and minimize because those approaches to healing are so powerful. There's so many aspects of that talk about that are healing as well as the actual plant medicine or compound itself. Yeah, that's such a beautiful history

52. 27:05

    And thank you so much for walking us through that. And so you mentioned all the different types of plant medicines, but you specifically have been focusing on psilocybin. So in the work you're doing, psilocybin is the primary medicine you focus on. Why psilocybin in particular especially when we're talking about mood emotional resilience and then specifically the psychological shifts that happen during menopause well psilocybin in terms of the micro doing is really powerful and I'll just name you know MDMA can be really helpful for couples work as I said before and more

53. 27:44

    In like the psychotherrapeutic where you're actually having a therapeutic session under the influence of MDMA there's been you know the tell came out recently ly Amy Griffin's book about her journey with MDMA and really helping to reveal and then heal and integrate trauma. So that's like a whole other category as well. All of them can be used in different ways. Psilocybin really lends itself to the micro doing now we're starting to understand you know the different strains.

54. 28:10

    I've been partnering with an amazing company called Golden Rule where they provide micro doing amounts for psilocybin and a few different strains. Some of them are then blended with other adaptogens. They also have a wumauma which is San Pedro cactus which is really a beautiful medicine and they work with LSD. LSD is also used for micro doing but let's just focus on psilocybin right now. There's a lot of research.

55. 28:35

    Again, I'm working with this company Cybin and their clinical trials. And one of the things if people want to go down a little bit deeper rabbit hole on psilocybin, Andrew Huberman has an amazing podcast really going of course into the weeds on psilocybin and the neuroscience behind it and the effects. So there's two different things that we want to understand. Macro doing recreational use and then micro doing very different.

56. 28:59

    People call it like a museum dose, which is like you're out in the world, maybe you're going to a museum or you're doing you're at a festival, you're doing something fun. That might be, you know, like two and a half to three and a half grams of mushrooms. And then a macro dose, if you're doing a real sort of therapeutic deep dive or called heroic journey, that's more like a five gram dose.

57. 29:24

    And a micro dose is onetenth to 120th of that. So micro dose is one/10enth to 120th of even a recreational dose. So if you're talking a micro dose, you're talking about maybe 50 to 125 milligrams. So very small amount in a capsule or you know powder form and you're ingesting it daily. Micro doing is subperceptual. So it's not affecting your you shouldn't even really feel that you're not under the influence of anything but it's working on the interior level again both physiologically and psychologically.

58. 30:02

    There's a couple of different mechanisms in the neuroscience. One is that it creates neuroplasticity and the other is neurogenesis. So, we're seeing that there are different parts of the brain that are lighting up and forging connections that don't normally connect, right? So, it's helping you lay down some new thought patterns, see things in a different way. It really can help with mood and perspective. Psilocybin in general is a medicine that can help us again to have sort of unity, connection.

59. 30:42

    People often feel very connected to nature. That's a really helpful tool to be able to go outside and take a deep breath and say like, okay, I'm part of this natural world. There is a larger cycle at play. I'm being held in this great web of life. Life is beautiful actually because again, think about our conditioning in our daily round. We're in these little boxes on computers.

60. 30:56

    We're on our phone. We're on Zoom all day long. And we've lost our connection to the natural world. Part of that natural world is understanding cycles. Everything's ebbing and flowing just like the menstrual cycle, just like our life cycle. And when we just remember that, it completely dissolves so much of our suffering because things are going to come and go. Things are going to rise and fall.

61. 31:32

    They're going to change our m whether it's our mood, our relationship, you know, our weight, everything is rising and falling. And just normalizing that. So we have neurogenesis which is new pathways being activated and then we have this neuroplasticity which neuroplasticity means that our minds you know our neurology actually our neurons are often wired we say things that fire together wire together. We can get very wired and ingrained in our beliefs, not just our thoughts, but also our emotional patterns and then physical patterns, energetic patterns as well.

62. 32:11

    The neuroplasticity is that it softens those edges and now new pathways can be formed. So there's a framework that Robin Carheart Harris came up with called Reebus in psychedelics which means relaxed. It stands in acronym relaxed beliefs under psychedelics. And it means that our belief systems start to soften. Instead of all the stories that we have and we're so entrenched in believing those stories, projecting those stories onto ourselves, other people, the world, those beliefs start to soften.

63. 32:36

    So even with micro doing our approach, our attitude, our thoughts, our emotional reactions can soften. Reebus is what that means is that we can soften those edges. I was saying, you know, an anecdotal example is me going on a walk with my husband after we drop our daughter off at school and we both took a micro dos. This is yesterday. And he just looked at me, he's like, "Wow, you're so much.

64. 33:04

    It's kicking in, huh?" Because I was just softer. I'm just gentler with him. I'm not so on edge. I'm not so convinced that my story is right. You know, that's an extremely powerful psychological tool for us. We work really hard in therapy to try to get people to soften their beliefs. And we have this tool, this plant medicine that can naturally help us relax those beliefs. So, those are a couple different frameworks and some of the neuroscience involved. I have a couple

65. 33:43

    Of questions because I heard you mention the word mushrooms. So, is it a mushroom derived medicine first and then is it working? You're talking about the neurogenesis and the neurom modulation and the neuroplasticity aspect of it. Is it working at a deeper sort of chemical level also in the body? Yeah, that's a great question. So, yes, we are talking about mushrooms. We're

66. 34:09

    Talking about psilocybin is a certain kind of mushroom. Not all mushrooms are psychoactive. Some are. Many different strains of mushrooms are. So, for example, with the company I'm partnering with, Golden Rule, they have three different single strains. I like to if people are starting on micro doing to start them with a single strain so that you can really develop a relationship with that mushroom and really start to feel into what that effect is.

67. 34:34

    So when we work, you know, it's really recommended in micro doing to do a 30 to 90day protocol just like supplements. You know, you're not just going to bop around and take everything under the sun and not really think about what its effect is. You want to really pay attention to how it's impacting you and develop a relationship with that. Just like herbs, just like supplement, many supplements, you know, these are plant allies.

68. 34:58

    These are allies that nature I mean most of our pharmaceuticals are developed and derived from plant allies as well and these different compounds and mechanisms that are activated. So we are talking about mushrooms psychedelic mushrooms and the second part of your question you were saying is do they work at physiology? Yeah. So yeah and that's part of what's being studied right now and there's so much great research going on.

69. 35:24

    In fact, also I would clue people in. Brian Johnson, the, you know, massive biohacking influencer, longevity obsessed amazing tech guru. He just live streamed his macro dose of psilocybin and they were of course taking all the measurements and had he was hooked up to everything and so everything was measured. So that's a really good resource if people want to go look into and I think he's publishing a huge by this point by the time this airs you know huge blog and all the data on that.

70. 36:03

    So if you're data obsessed and you really need that for sure there's a lot of science out there one of the things that psilocybin in general in particular I should say has been shown to be very anti-inflammatory so it can help dial down the cytoine response and reduce inflammation and so especially as we're going through the menopausal transition this is part of the intersection and there hasn't been a lot of research being done on menopause and psilocybin like so many other things But it is happening and that's really exciting.

71. 36:31

    I have a friend that is doing a study a scientific study right now on Wuma and menopause and then there's another study out of the UK happening right now. We could even give the link where you can go and sign up if you want to micro dose and be a part of the study in menopause and psilocybin which is so exciting. But we know that with the metabolic changes across the menopausal transition, inflammation goes up.

72. 36:56

    Our metabolic health suffers and so we can become more inflamed with the loss of progesterone. It's particularly estrogen. And so using something like a micro doing tool along with many other things to help dial down that inflammation is really helpful. And inflammation can contribute to our mental health. It can deeply contribute to the level of our cognition and our mood. So all of this is, you know, it's all systemic.

73. 37:23

    It's all entwined. This is not just like A plus B equals C. We really want to open our minds to the fact that this is a very complex system. Now, if anyone all of you been studying your hormones, you know how complex it is. This is one piece that can be very helpful. Yeah. And so I hear the term psychedelic

74. 37:48

    Therapy used a lot. And so it seems to mean different things depending on who's talking. So how do you define psychedelic therapy and how is it different from using a psychedelic micro dose um someone does on their own? Can you distinguish between those two? And do I I know you support people in your practice with psychedelic therapy and therapy. Yeah, I'm in the middle of getting my certification with an amazing school out of Boulder called the Integrative Psychiatry Institute. They have an incredible 10-month certification. So, we're studying

75. 38:27

    Psilocybin, ketamine, and MDMA. Those are the three that are really being explored. And LSD to some degree, but psilocybin and ketamine, I believe, is legal nationwide for use in clinical settings with a therapist. It's an incredible tool for trauma resolution, for again depression. Also, it's showing huge potential. So ketamine is one that is legal I believe nationwide and that's a great medicine that's a great starting place for people.

76. 38:53

    It's sort of much more accessible. You're doing a ketamine journey that's like so psychedelic assisted therapy to answer your question. You're in a clinical setting. You're supported with one or more therapists. You are on a real protocol which hopefully includes in the gold standard is that you have at least three sessions before your what we call your dosing session and then you have three sessions after your dosing day or session.

77. 39:19

    Then you might do another dosing day and then you have another three sessions of therapy. This is really supported and held by a strong therapeutic container where you are working through your psychological material. You're working with someone to build skills. That is very important. Even with SSRIs or pharmaceuticals, there's a term in therapy called no pills without skills. And I love that term. And I think it's really important for people to understand just like supplements, you know, just like anything that you're taking, any pharmaceutical, for high blood pressure or cholesterol, like no pills without skills means you're developing the life skills.

78. 40:11

    If it's cholesterol or high blood pressure, you're also addressing the stressors in your life. You're also addressing nutrition and fitness. If you're talking about psychedelics or a pharmaceutical for mental health or mood, you're also developing the psychological tools, the mental emotional health skills and self-regulation, emotional regulation and the stressors in your life and the things that are contributing to those mood shifts in the first place. So again, we're talking much more systemically, but psychedelic assisted therapy is working in that container where you're in a clinical setting with the same therapist.

79. 40:37

    Many times there's two therapists involved. You have therapy, a dosing day, therapy, maybe a dosing day. Often it's two dosing days and then the next. So ketamine is legal, I believe, almost nationwide. I have to check on that. Certainly is in California in a clinical setting. And then psilocybin is legal in the state of Oregon and it's legal in the state of Colorado, I believe. Again in clinical settings in very specific environments and MDMA not yet and that is you know unfortunately it did not pass FDA approval last June but there's so many great advocates and studies being done that the there's a lot of thought that hopefully MDMA will be passed legally you know in the near future and psilocybin continuing to be decriminalized in different constituencies around the country

80. 41:41

    When you're having psychedelic assisted therapy You're like you said, you're in a clinical setting with a therapist and you're working with these substances that are legal in the state that's being practiced. Legal in that clinical setting, it's called decriminalized. Yeah. In those clinical settings, there's a lot of underground therapists, of course, and there's a lot of amazing underground

81. 42:05

    Therapists and there's a lot of amazing underground psychedelic practitioners who are not licensed therapists. So it's there's a lot of different you know layers to navigate but that is one route you can work with people underground and then the places where it's decriminalized or legal it's legal in those clinical settings in a very specific way and so in those settings are you being given a micro dose or a macro dose?

82. 42:18

    Yeah. So those settings would be a macro dose. That would be a psychedelic. There's two. So there are two kind of descriptions. One is a psychedelic dose, which is that mindaltering dose. And then there's another lesser dose called a psycholytic dose, which is maybe someone is coming in to do ketamine for an hour, like during their regular therapy session for an hour. They might just take a lozenge, which is could be a psycholytic dose, a much smaller effect, but still enough to have access to sort of more material in your consciousness in your body.

83. 42:56

    Most people, if you're doing a psychedelic assisted therapy, you're taking more like a recreational or macro dose. So that would be maybe two and a half to five grams, three and a half grams around there is really effective. More of course is not better. More is not better. We want to always start low and go slow with psychedelics. And so when you're talking about then moving on to micro doing that's something that an individual can do on their own.

84. 43:23

    You can yeah I would highly recommend even with micro doing working with someone who can guide you in that because there are a lot of therapeutic benefits to this. And it's really interesting, I think, with AI now and AI therapy and people just kind of turning to chat GPT for things or this sort of the onslaught of the coaching world and I think regular psychological work and psychotherrapeutic work has sort of gotten a bad rap in a certain way.

85. 44:02

    But there's so much benefit to working with a therapist who's trained in working with the unconscious and remembering that we are deeply relational beings and the benefit of a therapeutic container where your unconscious arises. You're projecting onto the therapist. You might have transference. These are mechanisms that are very healing for the psyche and for the individual. And it's not just about going back and rehashing your past.

86. 44:28

    That's sort of what I hear a lot on Instagram. Oh, therapy is just about going back and rehashing your past. That's absolutely an misnomer, a very limited view of what psychotherapy is. So, in any case, micro doing, yes, you can definitely do it on your own. And I highly recommend working with a guide who's trained the unconscious and trained in working with plant medicine and psychology or a therapist who's working with micro doing.

87. 44:54

    So that's the responsible way to go about it. I would say that's the that would be the gold standard, right? And there are a great a lot of great micro doing guides out there for sure. And I'm doing a micro doing and menopause program. And that's what I'm really passionate about right now is because I've seen the immense benefits in my own life. I'm really passionate about holding a group therapy container for women or people going through menopause and using this ally of micro doing psilocybin.

88. 45:36

    Amazing. Okay. Thanks so much for explaining that. And why do you think, you know, I'm hearing so much about micro doing out in conversations that I have with women. I'm hearing it a lot in Yeah. Casually in conversations. Why do you think micro doing psychedelics in particular is resonating so many midlife women, especially women who are capable, functional, and already doing a lot of inner work? Yeah.

89. 46:04

    Well, a couple things. I think we do need to address alcohol in this situation. And that many of us have, to myself included, you know, have turned

90. 46:16

    To alcohol over the years. It's a very culturally accepted self soothing mechanism or coping mechanism for people that are going through stressors. We just want to like take the edge off, have a glass of wine, go out with our girlfriends, mom friends, our partner. This is a very normal tool that people will use. Now with menopause, we understand we cannot metabolize alcohol in the same way and it's very detrimental to our mental health.

91. 46:42

    Alcohol is depressant and so there's this sort of sober curious or at least under real understanding in the general wellness I think ethos of community that alcohol is not a great tool for us to turn to. You know, occasionally. Sure. Of course. And if you're having more than two drinks a night at a time, you're gonna probably have a hangover. You're not going to be sleeping while you're definitely jeopardizing your sleep.

92. 47:08

    And it's not a helpful tool in terms of accessing helpful parts of our consciousness or self-regulation, anti-inflammation. It's the opposite, right? It has a real detrimental effect on our health. So, I still drink. I like my cocktail or wine here and there, but I think that because there's this sort of, you know, sober curious or just understanding that we do need to find other ways of coping and self-regulating.

93. 47:33

    Of course, those don't have to involve any substances. Let's just put a fine point on that. We know we don't need any substances or anything to help us feel better, right? However, that being said, micro doing psilocybin actually has physiological benefits and psychological benefits. And so, it's a way to support ourselves with a plant ally, with a tool just like supplements, just like our nutrition to really support our well-being.

94. 47:58

    And we need tools. We need all the tools we can in this modern world to support ourselves and our well-being. And especially understanding the complexity of what's happening in our body mind in this menopausal transition. It's very daunting. It's very overwhelming for many people. Now, some people don't have that many symptoms, but personally, I've had a lot of symptoms and it's a lot to overhaul your lifestyle and then start to reckon also with maybe your relationship or where you are in your career.

95. 48:35

    Again these bigger, you know, mental health arenas that are coming up very strongly at midlife. It's something that's very accessible. It's relatively affordable. It has both a psychological and a physiological benefit. And it really works. It really works to help. Also, I want to really emphasize the cognition and the focus. These were two things that I personally was really suffering from. Extreme difficulty focusing and cognition and my mental sharpness, follow through, execution.

96. 49:17

    And when I micro dose, on the days that I micro dose, I see a marketked shift in my ability to focus again. And I really see a shift in my motivation, my focus, my ability to stay connected and follow through. And these are things that we need support with. So if you're curious, I think it's a really powerful tool to explore. Not for everyone.

97. 49:45

    Who is it not appropriate for and why is that? Also, great question. The contra indications. Yeah. Well, contraindications are definitely I will say if you're on an SSRI, it's

98. 49:57

    Not necessarily a contraindication for micro doing. A lot of people, this is a whole other conversation we may not have time for right now, but many people are able to taper off of their SSRIs, anti-depressants, with the use of psychedelics. And I'll encourage people to watch the master class that I did with my colleague Tiffany Herd from Golden Rule. She did taper off of her SSRI using micro doing psilocybin.

99. 50:21

    And so she speaks to that. I am not a psychiatrist, but it's really important to work with your psychiatrist, too. If you're tapering off SSRI, there can be many side effects. People can have very detrimental side effects tapering off their SSRIs. But that being said, psychedelic micro doing helpful in tapering and also not going on SSRIs like myself. So the shift in my mood has been so significant that I've been able to not even approach going on SSRIs where I really was considering it.

100. 50:46

     So that's one thing. But the contraindications are definitely if there's a mood disorder in your immediate family. So personality disorder, bipolar, schizophrenia, borderline, those would be contraindications or at least you want to work closely with your psychiatrist to explore that option. High blood pressure is another one. And I think those are about the only two for psilocybin, you know, and again it's start low and go slow.

101. 51:24

     So you might be starting with 25 milligrams or 50 milligrams and just one day a week or two days a week. There's a couple really powerful protocols out there. There's a great book actually that I have right here which is a great one myelio paw. So mycelium is mushrooms and this is all about using mushrooms in the menopausal transition. And there's another great book called the psilocybin guide book for women and that's by Jennifer Chess, incredible medical journalist that came out last year.

102. 51:48

     So that's a great place to start also. We could link those two books. And the there's, you know, several different protocols for micro doing. Maybe you micro dose one day and you're off two days, on one day, off two days. Another protocol on three days, off one day, on three days, off one day, which is what I'm doing right now. But again, this is what my micro doing and menopause course or it's not a course. It's a it's really a group journey. Let's go there. That's always where I wanted to go to next because you saw a

103. 52:24

     Gap, right, in menopause care, mental health, and even in psychedelic spaces that made you feel that this program needed to exist. Yes. So, talk us through the portal, which is the name of your program. How is it different from traditional group therapy or from a standalone micro doing program? Yeah. Well, it's that it combines both. That's the short answer because for me again I started my six-month menopause

104. 52:51

     Mentorship which was great and that's called metamorphosis and really walking people through and you can buy that now on my standalone self-study course on my site but you know walking women through what I call the six dimensions of menopause transition because we are multi-dimensional beings so the physical journey of menopause the mental health journey mindset emotional journey getting more into the hero's journey journey, the dark night of the soul, the reckoning that we're at midlife, the energetic nervous system, and this is where we address our sex lives as well because that's all connected to our nervous system and the energy body.

105. 53:16

     And then the spiritual, we are spiritual beings. We know that this spiritual initiation that we're on and then the archetype of what I call the wise woman or the empress. So that's my sixmon bigger metamorphosis. And what I saw from doing that for the last two years was like what women really need is a group container like group therapy. Someone that's guiding them, a older sister, a colleague, a friend, a guide, a therapist, someone that can really walk them through this journey along with a close-knit group of people where they can come and share.

106. 53:53

     Group therapy is one of my superpowers. It's I believe so strongly in the power of group dynamic because when we come together we realize we're not that different. We're not that unique. Most people there's someone else in that room that has a similar story, right? And there's an alchemy. We start activating each other. Someone says something over here that triggers something in you and then you're sharing and it heals something in someone else.

107. 54:19

     So having that group dynamic is really important. And then with the support of micro doing and being on this exploration together and being held again in a tightknit container, we go on a three-month journey. So you're doing a 90-day protocol. We're all exploring it together. I come from the priestess tradition as well, working with a lot of ritual, women's circles, cyclical living, connecting to the wheel of the year and honoring that we are cyclical beings and our menopausal journey is the epitome of that is that we've gone through the cycle of our fertile years.

108. 54:57

     We're coming to the end of that cycle. This is a season of wintering, deep wintering. It's the same season when we're in our menstrual phase, right? We have four phases of the menstrual cycle. The follicular phase is the spring. The birthing, the ovulation phase is the summer. Big solar explosive energy, expansive energy. The ludial phase is that fall descending energy. And then the wintering phase is when we're in our menstrual cycle.

109. 55:22

     The tide is out. Our energy is low. We have more connection to our unconscious. So when we're in the menopausal transition, this is a wintering phase, extended wintering phase of our life. Could be a year, two years, six months. We need support during that wintering phase. In ancient cultures, we would go and connect to our elders and be held by our sisters and be taken care of and our children will be supported.

110. 55:50

     The whole tribe is working in this more cohesive environment. So, we need to rebuild some of those systems to support us. So, that's for me what the portal is to really be held in this container where you you don't have to hold it all. You're holding it all for so many other people. You get to be held in this and assisted by me and also the medicine and the group.

111. 56:16

     And so where are women sourcing the psychedelics who are going to be taking part in the portal? Well, I'm so excited because I'm partnering with this company, Golden Rule, and they are femaleowned and femaleled based out of Colorado. And they're incredible. Everything is done in-house with them. They are growing the mushrooms. They are processing the mushrooms. It's in high integrity. And again, my colleague Tiffany from Golden Rule and I just did a master class.

112. 56:42

     So, I'll send you the link. Everybody can watch that and really get a sense of what we're up to and why we're up to it. It was a huge tool for both Tiffany and myself. And so, we're really excited to bring this forward and myself in this new container with the portal micro doing and menopause. Amazing. So, if a woman moves through these 12 weeks, what kinds of shifts do

113. 57:07

     You hope she experiences emotionally, psychologically, and her relationship with herself? Oh, I love that question. Well, I think for me, and I can only speak from what I've experienced in my journey has been

114. 57:20

     When I went through menopause and really hit rock bottom, the sense for me was like the bottom dropped out. You know, I have always been a very positive kind of powerful, engaged, buoyant personality and held a lot in my life like many of you out there who are also, you know, highly functioning, high achieving, visionary women, high impact. And I just felt like the bottom dropped out when my hormones crashed.

115. 57:44

     And yes, I was able to stabilize with hormone therapy and lifestyle changes. Of course, they go hand in hand. But I still wasn't really that sense, which is the number one thing women say is, "I don't feel like myself. I just don't feel like myself. I don't recognize myself." I was still feeling that. I was still feeling like uncomfortable in my own skin. Like, I don't really know who I am right now.

116. 58:08

     And working with the micro doing, I feel like the bottom is coming back. Like that I'm being lifted up. I'm back in myself. I feel connected to myself and I feel of course much more emotionally stable and steady and my capacity cognitively is back which is huge. It's enormous cannot be underestimated. So both I would say the cognitive and also the emotional psychological you know well-being and sense of thriving and sense of feeling really good and having the energy and the brightness to pursue the things I want to pursue.

117. 58:49

     And then thirdly, I would say is the spiritual component of really feeling connected and feeling on purpose and feeling fulfilled and feeling like I am connected to a force larger than myself, whether it's the women that I'm serving and our community, God and Goddess being open as a channel for that, but that spiritual fulfillment and connection which is in many ways ineffable, but it's essential for well-being.

118. 59:16

     So for me it was both an emotional component, cognitive and the spiritual as well as physical energetic. It really did support all of that. So that's what I would hope for women going through this as well along with just feeling like you've got your tribe, you've got your community. We're here. We've got you. I've got a beautiful app. We're very connected. It's a very tight-knit group of women and we need each other in this world.

119. 59:41

     And you know, I believe that the wisdom, the embodied wisdom of midlife and elder women is what will save this planet. We need feminine absolutely awake. And we need every single midlife woman and elder woman using their voice, feeling activated in whatever way they're inspired and showing up because we create change. We cannot wait for it to be created for us. We are the grassroots bottom up force of changing culture.

120. 1:00:20

     And this is not just for us. This is for our daughters, our sons, our partners for the whole planet, for the actual security of our planet. So we need midlife and elder women awake and living and thriving and together doing it together. Absolutely. So beautiful. Thank you for that. So for anyone who's listening who feels curious but still a little bit cautious, what would you say is the most

121. 1:00:48

     Grounded first step to explore this incredible modality? Yeah, watch this. Watch the master class that I did with Tiffany. It's called micro doing and menopause. It's a great overview. You'll hear both of our stories and just feel into it. And if

122. 1:01:01

     You're curious, set up a call with me. I'm happy to talk to anyone about it and help you walk through your own decision- making. It's a personal journey, but we deserve all the tools available to us to thrive.

123. 1:01:13

     Yes, absolutely. And I will link those books that you mentioned. They sound like incredible resources as well as some of the podcasts. So, what excites you most about this next chapter of your work with midlife women, Ashley? Yeah, I'm just excited to continue, you know, I'm sure like you, it's so thrilling to be a part of this revolution, you know, on multiple fronts, both the menopause and the psychedelic space.

124. 1:01:25

     Are just exploding and there's so much science that's backing up what we already know anecdotally and it's really exciting for me to see what's going to happen in the next 5 years 10 years in our lifetime because I really feel like the menopause revolution and actually psychedelics it's unlocking a whole other dimension of consciousness on our planet because midlife and elder women have been suffering and struggling and not living in their full capacity because we haven't even studied the science now that we're understanding what we need to thrive and taking it on and it's normalized in culture.

125. 1:02:17

     It's really exciting to see what we're going to do with it and the change is already happening. So, I'm really excited to see and hopefully, you know, trickle down, top down to really shift culture around aging, around thriving and longevity and really empowering feminine ways of being, you know, integrated with the masculine. It's not better or worse. They're they need each other, but let's reinstall feminine living, embodiment, intuition, emotion, nature, and cyclical living.

126. 1:02:54

     It's very exciting to see where this is and I'm so excited to see this next evolution of your work. Thank you so so much for bringing your personal story, your courage to sharing that story and your insight and expertise in this space. I so appreciate this conversation. I learned a lot and I'm very curious. So, I'll keep learning. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, Gabriella, and

127. 1:03:20

     Everyone listening, please reach out, DM me. I'm here for you and thank you so much Gabriella for having me on and all the incredible work that you are doing. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. I'll put all

128. 1:03:32

     The links to the program, to the portal, to your website, how to reach you to talk more about that and your links for for social. So, thank you again, Ashley. Wonderful. Thank you everyone. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Pleasure in the Pause. Want to help me spread more pleasure in the world? Please hit subscribe to the podcast and share this episode with a friend, a sister, or any woman you care about.

129. 1:03:57

     Because when we share these conversations, we remind each other we are not alone. Together, we create ripples of empowerment and support that reach far beyond ourselves. Your support means the world to me. Thank you. Remember, your pleasure matters. The information shared on this podcast is for educational andformational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making any decisions about your health or treatment. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or Pleasure in the Pause.

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