60 - The Myths That Keep Us Stuck with Jason Gandzjuk

Ashley Ihemelu  0:01  
Hi, it's Ashley and Jess with the wellness reality check. We are two health practitioners, moms and best friends, bringing a dose of reality to the nuanced topics of Holistic Health. Hey, y'all, welcome back to the wellness reality check. Today we are sitting down with someone who isn't just a coach, he's a storyteller with a mission. Jason has carved a path that blends deep inner work with real world muscle, inviting people not to just think deeper, but to live deeper. On Instagram, he calls himself a mental health and mindset coach, but that barely scratches the surface. His work dives into the nervous system embodiment and the raw terrain where identity meets transformation. Jason doesn't just talk about growth. He's lived it. He pulls from personal evolution and layered life experience to help others navigate the subtle inner shifts it takes to show up fully, trust their inner intelligence and make meaningful change happen. His approach isn't just about surface level fixes. It's about getting into the roots of how we regulate ourselves, how we interpret our stories, and how we choose resilience over resignation. Today, we're peeling back the layers with him. We'll talk mindset and beyond, including how nervous system regulation shows up in everyday life, and what it really takes to embody transformation, and why sometimes the medicine we're looking for isn't something external at all. It's the work we do before it lands. Welcome to the wellness reality check, Jason, thank you

Jason Gandzjuk  1:36  
for having me on.

Jess Aldredge  1:38  
Well, let's dive in and just kind of start with, I feel like, when people ask, tell us about yourself that's open ended as well as your story. But, you know, I just started following you probably a couple of months ago, and somehow came across one of your posts, and I was like, dang. And I just, I really love your approach and things you share. How did you get to where you are? You know, tell us a little bit about your background and who you are.

Jason Gandzjuk  2:00  
Absolutely, I've had about 34 revolutions around the Sun in English, 34 years of age, around around 13, is actually the beginning of my initiation. What I mean by initiation, that's really when I would say there was a split in my psyche. My mom passed away. Prior to that, mom and dad ended up separating, having having a divorce. You know, at that age, a kid can't rationalize whether it was their fault or not their fault, so I compartmentalized feeling like I was responsible for everything that my dad and mom went through. Then my mom ended up passing away at 13 and got really sick, and that pretty much was the initiation into everything I've gone through, learned, experimented with things that haven't worked, and landing in this place with really having a deep understanding inner standing with really what it means to be healthy with, really what it means to heal background too. I used to race professional motocross, transition into cycling. So really, that athlete in me is what drove me to go through everything I went through with healing, experimenting, trying pretty much everything under the sun and moon and so many things I tried didn't really work, and that's really what led me to have the clarity awareness that I have now when it comes to actually helping people heal at a root level. And when I say root level, I don't necessarily mean how I feel like the holistic community uses root cause healing in a very surface level way. What I really tell a client when they start working with me is, and I say this nicely, I don't really care what happened throughout your teenage years, your 20s, your 30s, really, what I want to know is, what is the core wound? What is the core trauma? Have it being something that happened in the womb, early childhood, zero to seven. Typically, that's really when a trauma can actually take its root between our developmental phase of the root chakra, which is zero to seven. That's really what I want to find out those conditions are actually the conditions that make people sick. And the reason why I say that is because if you can actually really find the root. You work on the root, you remove the conditions of the root, and you heal the root, all the branches, all the other traumas that happen, let's say 14, 1719, all of those so called traumas end up falling down with that root. You remove the pressure, you remove the charge, and that's one reason why I spent years trying to do all this healing work, psychedelic work, plant medicine work. And I wasn't really healing the root. I wasn't healing the core trauma. And that, you know, was pretty much what led me to learn everything that I've learned to this day. So that's kind of a little sniff. Bit of really, my story is, got really sick at age 13, spent probably over $2 million working with a lot of doctors, therapists, practitioners, naturopaths, acupuncturist you name it, and really didn't have any sort of relief. Had some improvements, but then add regress, and that's what really forced me to take my whole situation in my own hands. And the beauty of that is you end up really learning your own body. You end up learning how to listen to your own body, and you reclaim a lot of power in that. And that's a really important thing when it comes to healing, is reclaiming power, and that's why I say true education is not telling someone what to do or what not to do. It's educating them on how to think for themselves. And that's really what my work is about, is educating my clients how to really reclaim their power, listen to their body and let their body guide them with what it is they need to do, when they need to do it and when they need to stop it, too.

Ashley Ihemelu  6:00  
I think that's so important, because a lot of what we're seeing online is this kind of, like, influencer guru culture, right, where everyone's just trying to, like, outsource the responsibility of their own healing. It's like, oh, well, if you've done it and you can sell the path, then I'll buy it. And true healing doesn't come from outsourcing your health. It comes from coming back home to yourself.

Jason Gandzjuk  6:27  
Absolutely true healing is really about being in the body. And I feel like when we say being the body, I feel like it's something we overlook, we take for granted. But actually being in the body is actually the beginning of really what true healing is, because you can't heal unless you're in the body. That's the thing. I've spent years trying to heal, being in my head, having the illusion that I'm healing, but I'm actually not healing, because I don't really know what it means to be in my body. So being in the body allows you to actually feel and that can actually get towards grief. And that's actually really, I would say, part of the core wound, the emotion that really enveloped that core wound, is grief. I never grieved my mom's passing. You know, I compartmentalized it. The athlete in me said, do more. So I made a deal with myself. When my mom passed. I had to prove to myself and my mom that I'd be the best athlete in the world, the best professional motocross in the world. And so that just drove me, drove me, drove me to doing so much. And in alchemy, I was living in the fire element. I was burning myself out from both ends. And of course, when you burn yourself out from both ends and you're sick, that makes the whole situation a whole lot worse. I mean, I was so fatigued where I literally couldn't even get out of bed, and I'm sick and I'm still trying to compete, because the athlete in me did not know how to stop did not know how to slow down and see, that's the thing. If you're not in the body, you don't have that sort of orientation on when it's time to go and when it's time to stop, when it's time to rest, you know. And we really can't digest everything that's happened in our life. If we're not resting, you have to rest, to digest.

Jess Aldredge  8:18  
You've talked a lot about Lyme disease on your page. Can you just talk about, you know, kind of, what your experience was with that, what your present day thoughts on, kind of, you know, you hear Lyme disease being the root cause of illness a lot. It's interesting that you lost your mother so young. I'm so sorry about that. I don't know if you're familiar with Mark woolens work, but he calls Lyme disease motherlessness. Can you just talk about maybe, how you now see Lyme disease?

Jason Gandzjuk  8:47  
One thing I will say, before I get into Lyme, it's important to not label anything, because as soon as you label it, you create charge towards it. And so that's actually one thing that kept me sick, is I had this story. I was telling myself that I have Lyme, I'm really sick, and I became a victim to that story, right? So really, the way I look at any illness, any disease, it's an energy that takes form, and that form is what we call matter. As an example, let's say you're a client of mine. You come to me. First question I'd ask you is, what is the matter? What I'm actually really asking you is, what thoughts, what trauma, what has happened that's organizing and creating the matter? That matter we can label and say Lyme. So really, underneath Lyme is we have a symbol of the divine feminine, just like he said. So I've seen patterns around clients that have had Lyme that really weren't mothered when they were young, and the reason why they have Lyme is because it's actually teaching them how to be a mother for themselves. And that's been part of my healing and part of my initiation with where I'm at now is. Is when I have all these challenging situations going on with life. Have it be a financial crisis? Have it be a crisis with my dad getting sick? I have to learn how to be a mother for myself. And here's the thing, to the degree that I'm not mothering myself, I can have symptoms return. Why? Is because the symptoms are actually a teacher. It's teaching me when I'm not living in my truth. It's teaching me when I'm not actually embodying the lesson that, let's say this so called lime, came into my life to teach me, right? So Lyme itself is a deep lesson. When I hear someone that has Lyme, as wide as it may sound, I say amazing. You've been given a gift. And I know you may not feel it and see it now, but I can tell you one thing, when you heal it, heal yourself, you'll see that actually, you wouldn't actually be able to do what you really want to do in life. You wouldn't be able to be the person who you actually really came into this world to be without it. It's giving you a heart. It's giving you a heart to feel in a way that you wouldn't be able to feel without it. It's hard, because when you tell someone learn how to Mother yourself as an example, I think a lot of people would be kind of confused and lost on how do I do that? Right? You can start with radical acceptance, accepting yourself, accepting everything that's happening in life, the things that you've done other people, the hurt, the way you've hurt yourself, acceptance and forgiveness and nurturance, being easy on yourself. You know, when you make a mistake, celebrate it. Why? Is because that mistake you made is giving you a chance to actually grow and become aware of what you weren't aware of before that mistake happened. Right? You make that mistake again? Well, become more aware, you know, but don't get down on yourself. That's the biggest thing when I say to Mother yourself, don't get down on yourself, right? That's the thing when a child comes home from school to Mom, mom brings the child in and gives the child love and nurturance and just lets the child know that everything's okay and you're loved, right? But when the child comes home and Dad's home, dad wants to go outside and play, right? So the masculine is all in relation to the outer world, the feminine is all in relation to the inner world. So learning how to Mother yourself is really learning how to be in touch with what's happening inwardly that's being in your body. Being in your body is a feminine act, and that's what a mother teaches us to do, and that's why I got so sick, is because I was really never mothered by my mom, so I really never learned at a young age what it really means to be in the body. Motocross takes you out of the body. Cycling takes you out of the body. Why is because you're pushing yourself to such a degree, it's getting you out of feeling what it is you need to feel. And so Lyme came into my life to teach me how to be in my body and how to teach other people how to be in their body too.

Jess Aldredge  13:05  
What were some things that helped you, especially initially, you know, kind of get into the body when your symptoms felt so loud and so and your body felt scary. You know, to feel into that because of the symptoms that you're experiencing.

Jason Gandzjuk  13:19  
I'll give you a layered answer, because I've been very gifted to work with amazing healers in my life. And I've been doing this work with this one Shaman. And when I say shaman, I don't mean a psychedelic plant medicine Shaman. I mean a real Shaman. And she does all of her work through a great spirit, her guides. And working with her, she actually brought me in my body for the first time, without any psychedelics, right, without any medicine, just completely sober, raw. And that was one of the first times I actually felt what it what it feels like to be in the body. And it was really, I don't want to say, like an awakening. It was a point where I had awareness around Wow, this is actually what it feels like to like, feel my heart, to like, feel myself. And so that taught me, because one of my other mentors told me, actually, when I was younger, and I started working with him, he looked at me in the eyes and said, Jason, everything is in your head. I'm like, okay, that what's that gonna do for me that doesn't really help me out, right? I wasn't mature enough to actually receive that. Fast Forward, learning how to be in my body and having the help of the healer, the shaman, that actually brought me in my body, I finally was able to conceptualize what he meant by that. Is, when I'm in my head. I have these stories of, oh, I have all these symptoms. I'm fatigued, I have brain fog, I can't articulate. Well, blah, blah, blah. I have Lyme, right? Well, of course you're going to be feeling that, because that's what you're giving energy to. That's what you're giving power to. But. When you're in your body, you don't associate with that. You don't associate with the story. I'm sick, so I need to do X, Y and Z to feel better. And having this kind of circle back is I felt like I had my dreams completely shattered through being a professional athlete, cyclist, I've had tons of concussions, tons of broken bones, and so you know that the Shatter of my dream is also what created a split in my psyche. And so I had to learn that that athlete in me that felt like he had those dreams shattered. He had to step down from trying to be the athlete he thought he had to be. The reason why I say that is because that athlete trying to be a professional motocross or in cyclist, took that same energy and asserted it towards healing. And so I treated healing no different than how I was treating competing, right? And see, that's the thing. When you learn that life is a paradox, there's a saying that God's the greatest trickster. When you learn that life is a paradox, it's like you want to be focused and you want to have discipline towards healing, but at the same time, you don't. And that for me has been the hardest thing for me to even find balance with is, yeah, I need to heal, because I want to be more of a loving person and be more whole, right? But I also need to learn how to live life and play. And I'm working with a client right now, and for him, his healing, the most important thing you can do right now is play and have fun. Like literally, play and have fun. Go play basketball, go out with your friends, paint, dance. You know, when you actually work with the real shaman in medicine space? There's a couple questions they're going to ask you. One, when did you stop dancing? When did he stop playing? And when did he stop enjoying good bedtime stories before bed? Typically, when you stop playing and you stop being in awe of life, that's when someone gets sick. It's the beginning of that sickness. And see, that's the hard thing too, is you don't just get Lyme disease overnight. You don't just get auto mute overnight. You don't just get sick overnight. So when it comes into your field, and it starts kind of, you know, taking action and manifesting, those are the conditions that are beginning to be shaped out of it. And then, let's say, one year down the road, you actually have the symptoms of Lyme, but it actually began a year before that, and that's why it's really hard to actually treat, is because all these conditions and the way the life has kind of been shaped around the beginning of the sickness, and actually being sick, there's so much charge being held with these conditions that It makes it really hard for people to change. That's why people have, you know, progress. They have relief, and they celebrate. Next thing you know, they feel like shit again. You know, it's like this back and forth, and that's been probably one of the most frustrating things with being sick is the cyclical nature of I feel good, great. Now I can do things I want to do, oh, I don't feel good. Now I can't do those things. It's, it's like a tease. It turns into like a torture, right? And it's wild for me saying this, that actually I'm grateful for how everything unfolded for me, even though it put my dad put me through hell, just as Carl Jung says, no tree can grow to heaven until its roots actually reach down and touch hell. And that's exactly what illness and disease will do, is it will actually bring you into hell. And the reason why is because, how can you create heaven? Unless you have the opposite of hell, you could only create heaven by being in hell.

Ashley Ihemelu  19:00  
I think so many people like you said, find such difficulty in finding that balance. It's like this, walking the razor's edge of you know, caring for yourself well, and advocating for yourself, and not just standing by doing nothing, but also that surrender piece right to surrender what is? What would be some advice that you would give to try to help people find that balance. I find that the hardest thing to articulate for people,

Jason Gandzjuk  19:30  
what I would have someone do is I'd first get a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil. Would be even better. The soul likes pencils more than pens, because there's more feeling in using a pencil, and what you need to do is write down two sacred appointments. And a sacred appointment is something that's non negotiable. So let's say for you, a sacred appointment could be taking like a bath, right, or painting something that fills your cup up. So for me, in all honesty. It's doing my Qigong, it's doing my fashion maneuvers. To me, that's my sacred appointment, because that's a date that I'm taking myself on. So you write down two things that are sacred to you, that are non negotiable, meaning you can't be full without them. You can't be fully yourself without doing those things. You orientate and you build your whole day around those two things. So I build my day around my Qigong and my fashion maneuvers, right? So that's something you have stamped in place for you to be whole and for you to heal. Then what you do is you orchestrate the rest of your day around that, where you have fun, you have playtime, you have happy making. And that's something that I want to get into, is actually alchemy. Because alchemy is actually really, in my opinion, how we deeply heal. So how to find balance is you want to write down two things that are sacred to you, that are non negotiable. You do those things, and then after you do those things, build the rest of your day around those things and make sure that you have play and fun. Have that be five minutes of fun, 15 minutes of fun, and it creates balance for you, because your sacred appointments are things that allow you to feel good. And for some people, you know, the things that have you feel good, you may not necessarily have fun doing them, but you have to do it, because if you don't do those things you may not have the capacity to actually have fun, because it's hard to have fun if you don't feel good, right?

Jess Aldredge  21:27  
Totally. What do you say to the people that are trying to heal Lyme, doing ozone therapy and all kinds of protocols and supplements and thoughts treatment, and, you know, all the things that like you said, you said you spent $2 million you know, what do you say to the person who's just having a hard time kind of letting go of the need to do all those things, like a professional athlete?

Jason Gandzjuk  21:48  
What I've seen in my practice, and also very much with me, is doing all these treatments. You know, I've worked with some of the best Lyme specialists in the world. I mean, I work with Dr Dietrich clinghardt. Anyone that has Lyme knows who, of course, cling heart is I all the way out to Washington, worked with him, work with a lot of his colleagues. I mean, I've gone down all the avenues with, like, really aggressively healing Lyme, right? And it's interesting, because it kind of dawned on me when I'm in the middle of getting an IV treatment at cling hearts, and I'm like, because I wasn't feeling better. I was actually feeling worse. And full respect for him. I have full respect for Dietrich, clean heart, his colleagues, and everything he's done, he's helped many people. It just didn't work for me. Is I asked myself the question, Why? Why am I doing this all? And I had awareness that I'm doing this all is because I'm actually numbing what it is I need to feel I'm trying to out supplement myself out of feeling grief, right? I'm trying to out supplement myself out protocol myself with really being responsible. You know, really being responsible. So you know my my answer to your question would be to really sit honestly with yourself and ask yourself, why like, why do you feel like you have to do all these things to heal? Don't get me wrong, ozone therapy, many other therapies can help Lyme, for sure, but if you don't feel safe, if you don't feel safe, to be in your body, no therapy is going to do that for you, you know, so that's the main thing. Is people that are trying therapies and they're not really getting much progress, ask yourself the question, what is it that I need in my life for me to feel safe, for me to be home? And when you land there, there's not this sort of desire that you have to be doing all these things. I mean, I may take a few supplements here and there. I think supplements are great supplements. It's something that's secondary. But if I skip a day, or I skip a few days of taking my supplements, no biggie, right? Because I'm not giving my power away to something outside of me. Because I'm not like, I need these supplements to feel good. Yeah, taking the supplements, I may feel that little bit better, but what's most important is I know I have everything I need, actually, right here, and that's in my body.

Ashley Ihemelu  24:18  
In the holistic health world, I feel like it's thrown around, creating that safety, creating that regulation, creating that, you know, coming back to yourself, What does safety mean to you, and how would you describe it to your clients?

Jason Gandzjuk  24:35  
You know, there's different levels of safety. There is financial safety. You know, I've met a lot of people that feel financially safe, but they don't really feel safe in life as a whole, I've met people that feel, you know, safe in their bodies, but they don't feel financially safe, right? So there's different layers the safety, but as a whole, to feel safe is and of course, this is something I'm still working. And this is part of my evolution with safety, is no matter what happens, no matter what happens, you don't lose your sinner. What I mean by your sinner is your power. You don't give your power away. We give our power away to things when we actually don't really feel safe. Why? Because we don't feel safe enough to hold that power. So ultimately, that's really what safety is as a whole, is to not lose your center when, let's say, the pandemic happens, right, or we're going through this huge black swan, you know, horse fire year which people are building up like it's going to be some huge, you know, collective explosion. And who knows, right? But you never know. But no matter what happens, you you stay in your power, and you have the capacity to really inquire into your soul and ask your soul for guidance. And that's one thing I'm working on right now more than ever, is I can't really have a deep connection with my soul without feeling safe, because my soul won't open up to me unless I feel safe to let my soul come in. And that's really I feel like. What is the lesson for all of us with healing is having a deep, intimate relationship with your soul. You know you can say soul being your higher self. You can say soul being God. You can say soul being that which cannot be known, whatever sort of label you want to put on it. But what I mean is we all get sick for one lesson that we all have in common is to have that deep relationship with, let's say, God with soul, because that's when you live to your fullest potential, and that's why we're all here, right? I mean, there's not one person that's walking this planet that's not here to live to their fullest potential, right? The fact that there's millions, millions of souls right now that are waiting to actually be embodied into this world, that are waiting to come in, and all of us have a chance to actually dance here right now and see the whole play that's happening right in front of us. So the reason why we're all here right now is so we can actually really come together and live to our fullest potential and share that with the world. Because that's really what's going to create a change. That's what's going to have all these systems that are in place, that are, you know, creating people to be really sick and unhappy, is that's going to allow this, these systems, to actually break down. You're sharing your love with the world.

Ashley Ihemelu  27:44  
What would you tell the person that says, Well, I've got to work this nine to five that I hate to feed my kids and I am barely, you know, paying my bills and I'm trying to heal. What would you say to that person that feels really squeezed tight in today's world?

Jason Gandzjuk  28:05  
That's a great question. You know, number one, what I would have that person do is get a piece of paper again and write down your why, your motive, your dream. Because, again, if a person's motive to heal, if a person's motive to change isn't greater than their motive not to heal, to not change, no healing and change will actually happen. So that's why step number one with every client I work with is, what is your dream? If they don't know their dream, then I ask them, Well, what is your greatest nightmare? Because we're going to use that the opposite to bring you out of it. So for that person that's working nine to five, that is having a hard time, you know, making ends meet, and is going through a whole process of healing and feeling very overwhelmed, and where to start is start with your Why? Why do you want to heal? Not just because I want to feel better and I want to lose weight and be stronger. No. Why do you want to heal? What are you going to do when you feel healthy, right? Get crystal clear on your motive, right? And hold that with you everywhere you go. The reason why I say that is because as soon as you get clear on your motive, you send that energy out to the universe. And what is the universe? Everything is a boomerang, right? So now you open up a door, and you're letting the universe know that you're ready to step into a new way of living. So you make very, very small goals that you're willing and able to do with your time and your energy and your willingness based off of your motive, your dream, and you slowly start working on that as many days out of the week as you can. So now you're you're building this other home, so to speak, while you're living in this home right, at least it's paying the bills for the most part. But now you have this other little home that you. Starting to build and create, and you just have to trust. And I'm not trying to sound cliche or anything like that, but I've seen some wild things happen. As an example, I've had clients that have painted mandalas during a healing session with me, and one month later, six months later, they're living what they painted in that mandala. You know. So it just goes to show you when you're actually very clear on your intention and your why, you organize that energy to actually bring it into your life.

Ashley Ihemelu  30:30  
Oh, I think that's so beautiful, because I think we get caught up in the action, like, not the action that you're speaking on, but like the the doing, the achieving, the kind of like rat race, right where it's just like we're following the rules and we're doing the things, but we're not really embodying the why we're not really, we don't even really have that answer at hand. So it's like, how could you know what your goal is, or where you want to go, if you don't even know where that is exactly.

Jason Gandzjuk  31:06  
And you know the reason why I start there, and especially for that question you asked me, is because what guides are yes and or no meaning. What guides when we say yes to something, what guides when we say no to something? Our values Well, our values are an expression of what it is we're living for. And see, the thing is, is a lot of people are living for somebody else. They're not living for themselves. So that's why their choices, they're making, as an example, are not optimally serving them to actually be healthy and actually do something with their life that's exciting and fun. So you get clear on your why. Now you have awareness around what to say yes to, what to say no to. You know, I say no to going out and partying because that doesn't compliment me and my why in my dream. So it's easy for me to say no to things that I know are not healthy for me, because I have my why and that guides every choice I make. How many

Jess Aldredge  31:59  
people you think stay stuck, because, like that, why, or like, if they were healthy, is so scary to them.

Jason Gandzjuk  32:08  
Very I'd say a lot of people, you know, and it's, it's a hard thing to come into contact with, really your power, because that requires a significant amount of responsibility. You have to hold it right. Like to be a practitioner as both. You know it's it's more than just helping people feel better. You have their life in your hands. They're literally saying, okay, here, help me live. Help me live a life, right? That's a lot to hold, you know, and that's one reason why I took a break for a while and thought I wasn't going to even return, because I got burnt out, because it was so much holding that responsibility and simultaneously having to hold everything together myself in my own life. I think every practitioner goes through a phase where they want to help people so bad that they're willing to sacrifice what it is they need to give themselves for the other person, which could look like not having boundaries. As an example, you know, over talking on sessions, having clients reach out to 24/7 and you're answering all these text messages and emails and like you don't have boundaries. You're just giving, giving, giving. And that's kind of a typical thing that we see with people that you know do get any healing coming off of being really sick, is they end up taking on the caregiver archetype, and they end up giving so much that they actually end up with nothing for themselves.

Jess Aldredge  33:37  
Yeah, it's almost like everything is coming back to this mothering piece.

Jason Gandzjuk  33:42  
Yeah, it's huge. And, you know, another really important thing that's also been a catalyst with having me learn how to be in right relation with the feminine, and also to mother myself, is being in a relationship, and being in a relationship with a woman that knows how to stand in her feminine and not sway from it when life gets hard and you're acting, let's say, you know, in ways that are not, maybe grounded and mature, but she stands in it, right, just as a mother does, right? That's been a mirror for me. It's been a mirror for me to see, wow. This is what it actually means to really be soft. You know, because so many men complain of not having their needs met in a relationship without them even realizing that the reason why those needs may not being met, may not be met, is because you're not letting your woman feel safe.

Jess Aldredge  34:35  
Yeah. Oh, my God, talk about that some more, because I feel like a lot. Well, I mean, how many people are as an adult in relationships that are, you know, creating a lack of safety and can't fully I don't know how people could be in a marriage, right? And you just feel unsafe at all times and like that alone can create illness, right? Like if you're constantly out of alignment with you. Or spouse or constantly feeling unsafe. Can you just talk a little bit more about that and how that happens where the the masculine and feminine, feminine can't, really can't grow into that or lean into that because of the other person.

Jason Gandzjuk  35:15  
How I'll answer it is, you know, we're all familiar with the seven main chakras, root through the crown. You know, Carl Jung is someone that you know went deep into each chakra and was able to correlate different themes. And for each chakra, we have seven year cycles. And while we go up through the chakras, starting at the root zero to seven, sacral chakra seven and 14, we go up in seven year phases, meaning we're going through the developmental phase of each chakra. So anyone that's around age zero and seven, they're learning what it means and feels to be safe. We're learning the lessons to feel safe, to be nurtured, right, to have our safety needs met. Now, I think for the most part, all of us have had some sort of significant stressful event around zero to seven, right, which affects our safety and security and our belonging, right, standing and being here in our body and knowing that we're always held by the Great Mother, earth, right? So we end up moving on to, let's say, the sacral chakra now seven of 14, but we still have unresolved trauma that happened between age zero and seven, right? And we still let it be unresolved. We don't do the deep work to actually heal it. And now we get ourselves in a relationship which is more heart chakra, giving and receiving, but it doesn't feel safe to give and receive, because the root chakra safety and security. There's still something that's that's not addressed, there's something that's still unresolved. So that is why it's really hard for there to be safety and security in relationships. Is because the root shock was pretty much screaming, hey, I don't actually feel safe because something happened when I was five or six years of age, but that is still needing attention.

Ashley Ihemelu  37:09  
What would you say? You know, I do a lot of, like, inner child work and trying to go back to those core wounds, but I don't have any memories before the age of 14. What would you say while we're like mining, while someone is mining for those zero to seven traumas or understandings?

Jason Gandzjuk  37:29  
Yeah, you know, and that's the thing, the psyche. The psyche is fascinating and so intelligent that the psyche will actually hold certain information and traumas from you to protect you, because if the psyche gave you that information, let's say right now as an example, it may actually hurt you so much that it would actually create more trauma. So it only allows what is ready to come up to your conscious awareness when you're ready to receive and do the work. But to answer your question more specifically, is, do soul soul regression. You know you can do soul regression yourself, where you can do some drumming, some rattling, and just feel, feel the rattles, feel the drum, and just feel the music pulse through you. And then ask your soul, dear soul, guide me around age six and nine and take me where I need to have awareness. And so you let your soul take you on the journey with events and information and data that you haven't been able to become aware of yet. You know that's something that I learned from Paul check, who's been one of my main mentors. You know, he's the one that's actually really opened up my whole awareness around soul connection, really what the soul is, and learning how to do your own, own soul regression. Because I, too myself, had very little awareness and recognition of anything that happened, pretty much from 13 before and working with Paul, him guiding me, and then teaching me, I started to have all these memories come up around age seven, age nine, of me being in my room when I was 10, crying because mom and dad were fighting. Right? All these memories my psyche kind of kept for me because I wasn't ready, but going through the practice myself, let my soul know that I'm actually mature enough to receive it and become aware of it. Now

Matt Cundill  39:33  
you're listening to the wellness reality check. The Wellness reality check.com, psychedelics.

Jess Aldredge  39:40  
You everything that you've set up, that I've read, that you've written, has been so fascinating. Can you talk about because I think a lot of people you know do plant medicine, that type of thing, to try and access some of those memories or maybe heal from them. What happens when someone is not ready to see receive those messages? And and they're showing them through plant medicine, or maybe have facilitators that aren't experienced enough to support someone in holding all of all of that

Jason Gandzjuk  40:10  
with psychedelic work, plant medicine work, they're phenomenal tools, but they're tools, right? And that's why I say on Instagram as an example is you can't talk about psychedelics without talking about your sleep environment, your light environment, nutrition, lifestyle, not surface level, but actually really talking about nutrition in a way that's individualized for you. Not just saying eat good food, right, but being very specific. And the reason why is because we need to have the capacity, meaning we need to have the space in our bodies to actually go into medicine work, to have the expansion of what we're experiencing on the medicine for to actually land and stay. And if you don't have the capacity, meaning if you don't have your basic needs met around nutrition, around sleep, around being able to do things that are happy making for you, and learning how to pretty much turn the negative into the positive, and learning how to move your body in ways that feels good for you, like good for you, not a way of self sabotage, because you're doing things thinking that if I do this, I'm going to look better. No, do things that actually feel good in your body, right? Those are just basic, foundational needs that we all have to have met. If those needs are not being met, and we go to do medicine, psychedelics, with someone that really doesn't know what they're doing, it can create more fragmentation and more of a split in your psyche. And I've done more work with clients, with them coming out of medicine feeling very lost and confused than I actually have facilitating medicine to people. Wow, because it opens up Pandora's box, and a lot of people are not ready. And it's not saying that they're not, you know, you know, strong enough, or, you know, evolved enough. It has nothing to do about, you know, comparing anyone. It's just they don't currently, at that time, have the bandwidth to hold everything that came up on the medicine without really being held after the medicine, and so now they have all this data, but they don't know what to do with it, and it's very confusing, because this is why you have to really understand symbolism. You have to understand metaphors. Because a lot of things that come up on medicine, it's a symbol you don't like literally. Take it exactly the way it is. You know, as an example, when I did Iboga, you know, I was right in the middle of, like the Holocaust, and it was just war and murder and just dead people all around me, including actually all my friends and my family. And I couldn't differentiate whether this is actually really happening in my life right now, or is this something that's coming from the medicine. It felt so real right now. I can tell you this, that was a really hard ceremony for me, and that took me months to integrate, and I'm actually still processing right now, and that happened, like a year and a half, two years ago. But I say that because if it wasn't for me understanding that that was a symbol, that was a metaphor, that would have broke me and had me more fragmented than I even was before doing the medicine.

Jess Aldredge  43:24  
Yeah, that makes me think of people that have just experienced something extremely traumatic, and then think that, you know, they're going to jump into that right after that happens, to heal from that, but they're probably not in a place with to have that capacity to handle something like that, exactly.

Jason Gandzjuk  43:40  
And, you know, getting an alchemy here, because alchemy applies to this question, is basic alchemy. I'll just go over a basic view of alchemy. We have the four main elements. We have fire, water, earth, air, right? Fire and Water have an intimate relationship with each other. Air and Earth have an intimate relationship with each other. Now, if you actually kind of take a step back and you think about it, fire and water is free energy. Fire's relation to desire and movement, right? And the system that I learned from Paul check, fire is Doctor, movement, water is Doctor, quiet, right? Meditation, Qigong, yoga, you know, doing things that create rhythm and flow. So fire and water is what I call free energy. It doesn't cost money to go outside and move and go on a walk or do a workout in nature, right? It doesn't cost money to meditate and connect with your soul and do things that are creating rhythm in your life. Now, air element doctor, happy, earth element doctor, diet, these things cost money. It costs money to eat good food. It can cost money to do things that are happy making for you to go on trips, vacations and stuff, right? And also air element is what shadow work doing, inner work, right, working on. Your Mind. So a lot of people jump right to the air element without learning how to work and use free energy, fire and water. So I tell people, until you've learned how to master free energy, you're not ready to step deep in your mind, aka doing psychedelics. Because everything that comes up through the psychedelics in relation to what was in your mind, if you haven't learned how to master free energy, you're not going to have the discipline and capacity to actually do the work you need to do with everything that came up. And so what does what does that look like, not really having consistent, sustainable change in your life after a medicine experience? And that's a deal, and that's a contract that we actually signed with mother nature when we came into this life, we all signed a contract. If your energy falls below a seven on a 10 scale, you don't have the energy to really fully participate in life, right? And when we participate in life, we're actually helping Mother Nature. We're helping our great mother so for energy falls below a seven, we start having symptoms of fatigue. We start creating an environment for us to have a parasite infection, a fungal infection. Energy keeps dropping below now it's around a five or four. Now we have Lyme. Now we have autoimmune so that's the thing. Free energy is getting your energy to a seven and greater, right, and if your energy is not there, you're not going to have the energy to be investing into the things that take more energy than ever. You know? I mean, that's the thing. If I tell a client to go do their Tai Chi practice for 20 minutes every day, and they don't have the discipline and structure to commit to that for a minimum of 100 days, and they won't do that. That's free energy. Doesn't cost money to go do your chi on practice, does it? Are they going to have the discipline and energy that's necessary when I give them certain assignments to deeply connect with their soul and let their soul guide them back into their childhood life? Probably not. So that's why you always have to start with the basics. And unfortunately, the basics in our society today have been the hardest things for us to actually do, because people aren't educated enough around what the basics actually do, because you can't make money off of them. You can't make money off of it, exactly, you know. And that's why I give a lot of credit with everything I do to Paul check, C, H, E, K, he's got the Czech Institute. And I actually started going through the Czech Institute when I was 17, you know. And actually went through the Czech Institute from 17 to 25 you know. And you know, again, kind of going back to my story is I didn't go to school. You know? I mean, I went to school up to around fifth grade, and then I was homeschooled. And then after I did a few years of homeschooled homeschool, I pretty much got out of the whole schooling system because it wasn't teaching me how to think. It was teaching me what to think, and pretty much everything I've learned has all been through self education. Paul check, I actually, I worked with him. He was one of my trainers that I had a motocross so I learned all about his work, how to eat, move and be healthy when I was 1617, you know, I learned about eating gluten free before people can even pronounce the word gluten he's got a system called the last four doctors that you'll ever need. Doctor, diet, doctor, quiet, Doctor happiness and Doctor movement. That's the thing. Each doctor is like a leg. You're you have on your chair. I'm sitting in a chair right now. It's got four legs. What happens if I remove one leg? Makes things very unstable. What happens if I remove two legs? Very unstable. And so that's part of the work with helping yourself get the energy to become aware of the conditions that have actually made you sick in your life is you have to master each of the four doctors, which is basics. It's just basic foundational principles. You got to eat good food to feel good. You got to get good rest, to wake up in the morning feeling inspired to live your day. You have to do things that are happy making for you, where you're not dependent on another person doing it for you, and you got to move your body in ways that actually feels good, that gives you enough energy to where you have energy to live your life and be happy. And then if we're not doing those things consistently, we will get sick, because if we're not doing those things, that means we're missing the lesson that we actually came in a life to learn and experience, and that's to live and share a love with the world I

Ashley Ihemelu  49:23  
think a lot about, because Jess and I talk about foundations and how important they are, just in healing and having, you know, a life of balance and consistency, and how so many people want to Skip the foundations and go straight to protocols or detoxes or psychedelics, right? What would you say to someone that is feeling like they're on the hamster wheel but they won't commit to foundations?

Jason Gandzjuk  49:54  
If you feel like you're on the hamster wheel and you won't commit to foundations, you. To really be honest with yourself and ask, Why? Why? Why is there resistance, right? And then I hate saying this, but I've had to say this to some clients before. In the past, you're not ready to heal, you know? And I'm not saying that to be rude towards anyone, but if you're not really willing to do, the basics, there's still lesson for you to learn from the sickness that you've inquired into your life, and that goes with, actually, something I say that many other people say too, is, you know, I don't treat any disease. I don't treat any illness, right? That's why, as an example, you know, a while ago, I remember, I think two years ago, I got a client that had a really interesting disease. I don't remember exactly what it was, and it was something that actually, I really haven't heard of. It just had a really interesting name, but it was part of, like, the whole autoimmune complex. I remember sharing that with my dad, and my dad said, you know, do you feel like you can help this person? You don't feel like this is something that's out of your scope of expertise. And I said, Dad, no, but in all honesty, I don't really care what they have. I don't care if they have cancer. I don't care if they have, you know, cardiovascular heart disease, if they have diabetes or anything like that. You treat the person who actually attracted and acquired the disease in the first place, who called it into their life. You treat that. You treat the person, not the disease. And so back to your question, they still have to learn why they've acquired it into their life if they're not willing to do the basics and the foundational principles

Jess Aldredge  51:33  
you've said that, like, illness is the body's last successful strategy. Like, what does that mean? I love that post that you have about that, because I think that when people get sick, they just have a really hard time thinking that there's anything positive about it, right? And I love that post of yours. Could you just talk a little bit more about that?

Jason Gandzjuk  51:53  
There's something called the pain teacher, anytime you have pain, knee pain, back pain, financial pain, pain in a relationship, pain around you know, whatever it may be, pain. Teacher is teaching you something. It's trying to bring awareness into your life. That's the function of pain, is awareness. That's the main function of pain. When the pain is coming into our life and we're not giving attention and awareness to the pain, more pain will come in and see, that's the thing. Illness its last attempt to try to bring you into truth, and illness ends up turning into illness when we've ignored pain for so damn long we've suppressed it so it will actually make someone so sick to bring them back into truth. It's the body's last attempt to pretty much say, okay, come on, let's do this. Let's live in truth. Let's actually show up and do what we came here to do. And if you don't, you're going to continue to be really sick until you learn how to actually be in your truth. And how do you do that? Though, you first have to let go the things that you know are not you being in your truth. Let go of the stories you have and the limitations you have around you know how you look at yourself in the mirror as an example not having radical acceptance, because a lot of the ideas and stories we have in relation to self and others, if you actually inquire into that enough, you'll realize none of it is true. None of it is true, you know. So what I mean in that post is that's the thing, when you're really in truth, deep truth, there's not space for sickness to actually exist. There's not, you know, and that's the thing that's why in shamanism with medicine, for example, like with Aya, even San Pedro Iboga, is the whole point with having the medicine cure someone and heal someone through a disease such as cancer or autoimmune or Lyme, is it's creating so much Light to where there can't be any darkness in the body. And the illness itself, in this example, is the darkness. You bring so much light into the being that there's no space for there to be any sort of darkness. That's what pretty much knocks it out. And that's the thing. The more you live in truth, the more you'll start seeing your symptoms will start fading away because they lose function. That's the thing. Symptoms come up because they're little messengers and notifications that are going off saying, Hey, you're not living in your truth. You don't have boundaries there. You're people pleasing, etc. And so when we start listening to the feedback from the notifications of the symptoms, we start learning the reason why we actually have the symptoms in the first place, brain fog is an example. Get out of your head and listen to your heart. Listen to what your heart knows, not what your head knows. Fatigue. Learn how to rest and learn how to be and learn how to actually be still. There's messages with all of these symptoms we have, and now, main point of it all is really to bring us into truth.

Jess Aldredge  54:57  
What that you saying about the darkness and. Light made me think about mold. And you You also have talked about mold a little bit. Like, what are your thoughts on mold illness, and why some people get sick and why some people don't from mold? You've actually talked about that too, about, like, how you can't heal with using psychedelics if you're being exposed to mold,

Jason Gandzjuk  55:16  
absolutely, you know. And that's the thing, it's different for everyone you know. Meaning, if someone's been really sick from mold, sometimes they'll be incredibly sensitive to environments that have mold, like, let's say, for example, me, I'm very careful when I say healed from something, because, in all honesty, where I'm at my journey, it's not about healing from something. It's about just learning how to grow and evolve and learning how to love more fully. That's what it's about for me. And so when I was really, really sick from mold, and got out of that, started getting myself better. I would be in an environment, for example, in Costa Rica, very damp, very humid, very wet, and a lot of the medicine ceremonies are all in yurts. And I remember walking into the yurt we were at for a whole week doing a retreat at and literally, within minutes, I'm starting to feel all the symptoms of what you feel when you're living in mold, which is normally brain fog. You got a headache, and you're just feeling very discombobulated. And for me, another main symptom that I had being in mold was suicidal ideation, literally making me to the point where it's like, I don't even care to live anymore. So with mold, I feel like the main lesson for mold is really to get us in touch with our emotions. Again, as simple as that sounds, but that's exactly what mold does, because mold brings you deep into your body. It does as much as it may feel like it brings you out of your body, it actually brings you very deep into your body to feel what you haven't been able to feel in process. And that actually is part of the connection with grief for me and learning how to actually begin grieving. Because you'll see mold will strip you down so bare, literally, it will strip you down and take everything you feel like you have in life. It'll take everything away from you to the point where you'll feel so weak and so stripped down from everything, that you'll just start crying and breaking down. That's the thing that actually has to happen for you to start getting to what hasn't been able to be felt in process in the first place. You know, I mean, as an example, you know, when I got covid, which honestly was a blessing, it was a freaking shamanic journey for me, because I had so much unresolved stuff come up around my mom as an example, you know. And the reason why that came up is because, literally, covid did knock me on my ass for a few days. I was so fatigued, you know. And I think covid is more of a mind virus. I apologize if I can't be talking about covid on here when, when you can kind of fall into what you're feeling with the mold, and really, with anything that feels really hard and like really feel into it, you end up actually kind of hitting on the jackpot. And the jackpot is what actually called that thing into your life in the first place, you know, so it's hard saying this, because I don't want to say this for everybody, but I'd say the common theme is it doesn't happen by coincidence. You don't live in a moldy environment, by coincidence, right? I mean, it's very unfortunate because of what it does to the person, what it does to their finances. I mean, mold is a really hard thing to navigate, but once you get through it, one you can help a lot of people, because a lot of people are suffering from mold and they're not aware of it. So you can educate them that, hey, a lot of your symptoms may be coming from old test your home, at least start there, right? And then next is you have gratitude for things you normally wouldn't be grateful

Jess Aldredge  58:38  
for a safe home, that's for sure, no, and I'm always so thankful for my experience with mold. But can we go back to the suicidal thoughts you and I had a brief conversation in DMS, because I really, really, truly appreciated how you spoke about suicide. My dad took his life, and I was like, Wow, I like, really resonated. Because, you know, you have all those thoughts when someone kills themselves in your life, like, what could I have done? But the way you spoke about it really touched me. So could you just talk a little bit about that? You really talked about how it's like you truly just can't live in this body anymore.

Jason Gandzjuk  59:11  
Yeah, and you know, the thing is, is, I don't, I don't blame anything for anything, and with mold, what mold does? And this is what I tell a lot of people, and it's unfortunate, because I think a lot of relationships and marriages have ended because of them living in the moldy environment. And let's say you fall on your bicycle and you have a wound. You scrape your knee, right? It hurts for sure, right? You just scrape your knee knock some skin off. Well, what mold does if you're living in a moldy environment? It's like me poking my fingers in that scab right, that area that you cut from falling down, it amplifies everything to bring it more up to the surface, you can actually heal it. And so that's what they what I did with the suicide ideation. And yeah, mold can cause suicide ideation in people that don't have a history of it. I've had a history. Of it, and a lot of that history that I've had, of it is also the transference of what I went through being in my mother's womb. You know, my my mom didn't take her life, and she was really not in a place at really any time in her life to really be happy and to feel loved. I mean, she went through a lot of trauma when she was very young, with her mom beating her physically, emotionally, etc, and so I absorbed a lot of this energy when I was in my mother's womb. And that's why, in all honesty, even when I came out of the womb, when I was a little boy, I was really never happy. There was, like, just something that was just off. I really didn't, like, want to be here. My mom obviously didn't really want to be here. She didn't reclaim her life. And so that's why there's that saying that Carl Jung says again, and I'm referencing Carl Jung, because the guy is a genius, is whatever tasks and needs the parents don't complete and finish will get left for their children to finish and complete their unmet task will become your task to complete and fulfill, right? And so that's why working with the suicide ideation myself has been probably one of the hardest things for me to really heal at a deep level, is because it's not just my suicide ideation that I'm trying to heal. It's also the suicide ideation that's come from my mom, and also probably the whole lineage as well. You know, I mean, a lot of the healing work we're doing is very generational. It's very deep stuff. We're healing in this life is just a little snippet as an example. But when we heal what's in this life, it allows us to go deeper into what's happened in past lives too. You know, we kind of have to do things in phases, right? And that's the thing, you know, pretty much my work is complete with the client when they feel like they're in a place where they can handle and navigate all the challenges that will happen in the life without them losing their center, you know. So they're equipped with the tools and resources to where, when, you know, for example, they step into maybe a psychedelic experience one year after completing their work with me, and they have some deep trauma come up that was, you know, stuff that was really lodged in from generational stuff. It doesn't spook them. They have the tools and resources to where they actually know how to heal it, process and integrate it and become more whole. Like I said, education, teaching people how to think for themselves, and teaching people what it is they need to do for themselves.

Jess Aldredge  1:02:29  
I think that's such a great distinction what you just said, of like, kind of what the goal in healing is, right? Like, we're never fully healed. We're always going to have things and layers and all of that, but the goal is to not get so rattled by life's experiences. And I think that's something I certainly struggle with. With my health, I'll be really good, but, like, I'm still not at the point where I can handle a really big hit and not fall, you know, completely have another cycle of that illness. And I think that that is really a great way to look at it, like we're never going to not have, quote, unquote bad things happen but or stressful things happen, but can my body be more resilient in handling those things? I think that's a nice way to look at it

Jason Gandzjuk  1:03:10  
absolutely and then just back to the suicide ideation is, you know, it's layered. You know, I have it coming from the imprint of what I went through being in my mother's womb. And also I've had 10 plus concussions, like traumatic concussions, where I've actually been knocked out for seconds and minutes, tons of broken bones, tons of impact to my body, hit head on by a truck, actually on my road bike when I was training. So just a lot of impact to the head. And there's plenty of scientific studies that show direct correlation trauma to the head leads to suicide, ideation and stuff, but also, what has really heightened it and amplified it is the cyclical nature of being sick and then feeling better, and then being sick and then feeling better. It brings you to a place where you feel so hopeless that you end up actually orientating your energy towards death and suicide, because that's the only thing that actually feels like, what will give you relief. It actually feels like it will give you relief and rest, right? And it's not that you want to actually physically harm yourself. Really. What you're wanting to do is you're wanting to have a psychological death. That's really what it is. I mean, I know, deep down inside, I would never mean and intend to hurt my body and hurt myself. Really, what it's about is wanting the psychological nature that's had me so sick for so long, wanting that to die, you know, and that's the hardest thing is, you know, when you share with someone that you've gone through this and you're going through it still, and they've not been sick before, you know, they can look at you kind of like you're you're crazy, right? Gosh, you know, you, you, how can you think that? Right? But it's very hard for people to relate to another person that's going through that unless they've been able to be on that side themselves.

Jess Aldredge  1:04:57  
It's really, it's making me so emotional. Just you talking about. It's really true. It's a hard thing to keep living through. You know,

Jason Gandzjuk  1:05:05  
very, very and you know, the hardest part with having that happen in your life and grieving it is understanding that if the person went to that depth of actually, really taking their life, landing in a place of deep acceptance and knowing that they're actually in a place of wholeness and happiness now, where they can actually dance with you in life the way they actually are wanting to dance with you, but they couldn't dance with you in that way because they were in too much pain to bear. That's the hard thing with it.

Ashley Ihemelu  1:05:39  
I love what you say, because when we meet challenges, you know, whether it be in your physical body or in a relationship or stressful events, sometimes we feel like it's not working. Right. What we're doing is not working. And I've been trying to teach myself that, like, yeah, it does mean that it's not working. Something that you're doing is not working, and that should be liberating, you know, like that should be that should be freeing in it of itself. You know, it doesn't mean that it can't be fixed, but it's like, what we're doing is not the right path, right? It's, it's guiding us towards something different.

Jason Gandzjuk  1:06:22  
And, you know, to kind of just go around back with the psychedelics. And, you know, people feeling called to do psychedelic work or having concern around doing it is, it's an amplifier. It really is. It amplifies things. And a lot of it depends on the dose and what medicine you do. But I also did another post about how psychedelics are showing our modern world how metabolically broken we

Jess Aldredge  1:06:48  
are. Yes, I love your post that was in our

Jason Gandzjuk  1:06:51  
and so this is a really important thing to understand for practitioners, people that serve medicine, and anyone that has interest in medicine or the metabolism too, right? I mean, everything goes hand in hand. But if you kind of take a step back and look at the metabolism in simple terms, energy and information, that's the metabolism. I mean, it receives energy and information, and it governs everything in the body. Meaning, does it govern things in a way to where things speed up, or do things slow down? Pretty much like, you know, you can say part of the engine of the system, and see, that's the thing for the most part you have. You can say two branches. You have people that fall into the branch of being a fast oxidizer, which, according to htma testing, being a fast oxidizer is someone that's pretty much burning through energy too fast. You know, the way they respond to stress is they speed up. They put their foot on the gas pedal and they go 100 miles per hour, right? So everything is happening at a faster pace than what is optimal. Just because things are happening fast doesn't mean that's good. Things have to be happening at the right speed, right pace, right time. Other branches you have a slow oxidizer. Slow oxidizer is where the metabolism is pretty much running too slow, meaning their detoxification, their digestion, their valve movements, their thinking, everything is happening slower than what would be optimal. So you have fast, slow and see this is a thing with with psychedelics, is our metabolism. Is what is actually processing this energy and information in conjunction with our psyche. But a metabolism is governing it. You have someone that's a slow oxidizer, where the metabolism is operating really, really slow. You can easily see that in a psychedelic experience. You'll see that typically, when the medicine doesn't actually start, you know, taking effect for them until, you know, people are already halfway into their journey and ceremony, right? They're metabolizing things really slow. And they metabolize all the information that they're going through coming out of the medicine. Very, very slow. So they kind of get halted with their integration. It affects integration. It's like it's taken them forever to try to figure out their integration. Is because all the processes in their body are happening too slow, and that's affecting the way they're assimilating and processing and learning how to integrate and embody all that information. Then you have a fast oxidizer on the other hand, which perfect example would be me, and I've had attitude, you know, I can go from ceremony to ceremony to ceremony to ceremony, because I feel like I'm processing and integrating everything so quickly, I'm really quick to move on to the next, next, next, next, right? So I don't land in the middle, which is where you want to where you actually are able to sit and be present with everything after the medicine, and that requires a healthy, balanced metabolism.

Jess Aldredge  1:09:48  
I don't think anyone's ever talked about that before, but now everyone's going to take what you're saying and just do some GLP ones. And you know, no optimize their metabolism.

Jason Gandzjuk  1:09:59  
You know? I mean. The thing is, I've just seen this being in medicine ceremonies so many times where I've been able to see patterns. And that's the thing. I'm fortunate that I got into medicine already, after I've had close to a decade of understanding of this basic physiology, you know, and having a really good understanding of just the anatomy of the body, energetic anatomy, Qigong, tai chi, all these things. So when I can be in medicine space, the way I'm analyzing and kind of evaluating everything is through that lens, right? And I see that there's pretty much two main categories of people in medicine, people that process things really slow, and people that process things really fast, right? And we kind of want to be in the middle, right? There's a time to process things slow and there's a time to process things fast, but typically, a lot of people, people will get stuck in one or the other.

Ashley Ihemelu  1:10:49  
So I currently live in Costa Rica. I have for over five years, and what I found, and we've done an episode on this, is that people just go back to a ceremony or plant medicine, and they're kind of using that as their crutch, if you will. I don't know if I'm wording that correctly, but it's like they there's no integration, and there is just constantly running to the medicine to have kind of this lovey experience or this enlightenment,

Jess Aldredge  1:11:22  
like you've said before on the weekends, like almost like using it recreationally.

Ashley Ihemelu  1:11:27  
Yeah, could you talk further about that and why that might not be promoting true, lasting healing?

Jason Gandzjuk  1:11:36  
The thing is, if you do a proper shamanic ceremony, you're not going to want to go back into doing another one anytime, too soon, to be honest, like a proper one.

Jess Aldredge  1:11:47  
Yeah, it sounds like giving like having natural birth, like, I don't want to do that again.

Jason Gandzjuk  1:11:52  
But I think just for the listeners to really understand my point, so it makes sense in layman terms, is having a really good understanding that when you do psychedelic plant medicine work is it takes a lot of energy, and it's pretty much like an Iron Man a marathon for the psyche and the body has to go through that too. And that's why, when I do a deep ceremony, it takes, it takes me time to recover, no matter how strong and, you know, energetically supplied I am, it takes me time to recover. But the key thing that I want to mention here is a lot of the main reasons that people are actually really wanting to do plant medicine work and psychedelic work is because they have some pretty significant mineral imbalances, derangements, you know, their mineral kingdom is completely out of order. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, and again, a lot of people say this, so I'm not trying to copy what they say, but minerals really do run the show. Minerals really are at the top of the hierarchy. You know, they're governing a lot of other, you know, processes in the body. And so when you do plant medicines and psychedelics, is you're burning through a lot of essential minerals that are actually necessary to keep your mind and your mental emotional health intact. And so when people are going in in a ready, depleted state, and they're doing psychedelic plant medicine work, you're actually causing further depletion because you don't have the resources, the minimal resources, to actually meet the basic requirements. It's no different than, you know, working out and not having enough energy. You know, working out, you expend energy. Energy goes out. Qigong, tai chi, is working in where energy comes in, meaning, the movement you're doing is taking less energy from you, so you can actually gain energy when you work out, the movement you're doing is taking more energy from you, and that's why you expend energy out. Psychedelic work, plant medicine work is like a workout, and you can't be going into these intense workouts back to back to back. You need to have plenty of rest. And how do you know when you're ready to go back into another medicine ceremony is all the lessons that you've learned, or lesson or lessons that you you know became aware from your medicine ceremony, when those are actually lived, when you're living them, because if you go back in the medic, the medicine will definitely give you a pretty rude awakening if you haven't been able to at least complete the minimal homework assignments, right?

Jess Aldredge  1:14:14  
Really good. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I would love to just end with you kind of explaining how people can work with you, what it looks like to work with you. I know you told me that you're just doing one on one work right now, but how can they find you and how can they work with you?

Jason Gandzjuk  1:14:30  
Yeah, I would say the simplest and the easiest way to find me would be on Instagram. And my account is Jason underscore ganzook, G, A, n, d, z, J, U, K. I have a link there with a free ebook, which is actually a phenomenal ebook getting all into preparation for psychedelic work. And in all honesty, even if you're not interested in psychedelics, the ebook, I think, is phenomenal, just as a whole, in general, for anyone interested in health. And then in that link, I also have a separate link for an application form. And so. Application form is for people that are really serious about wanting to inquire working with me, and so I have them fill out that application form, making sure they meet the minimal requirements to actually have a call with me, schedule a call, and then we go from there. So that's pretty much what I'm doing right now, is just deep, intensive one on one work, and then in the near future, I do plan to open up group containers, you know, as what I call pre healing, and kind of getting people primed and ready to step more into deeper healing, and just going over orientation, their motive, their dream and really, so they can become aware and clear on, why are they wanting to actually do this work, not because it's like, the right thing to do. But, like, really, why? So, yeah, the simplest way is just application form and, you know, just be ready to, you know, step into some deep one on one work with me, which I do offer a money back guarantee with everything I do. I tell that to every single client I work with, all the energy, time, resources, everything invested into it. You know, if you don't feel like you get value and everything you're looking for back in return, I will fully refund every single penny of the payment back to you, because I think the three of us know how much money it costs to work with people to, you know, buy labs, to buy supplements. I mean, I spent over $11,000 working with clinghardt, and again, I'm not, you know, getting down on him, but none of that stuff worked for me. None of it did sweat. Left with negative $11,000 I worked with Dr Dan, Dr Dan Engle, who is a neurologist, and Colorado, I left with negative $32,000 because I was actually overdosed, close to being overdosed on ketamine, right? So I'm just saying I've worked with so many people that had a very high ticket. It was an expensive date, and I left being very unsatisfied, and I left with having less money, and I still felt awful. So I've always told myself that when I really step into my work, I'm going to make sure I do a money back guarantee so no one, no one ever feels what I've had to feel having hope, and then having that hope being taken away from you is because they sound fancy, but they don't really deliver results. Wow.

Ashley Ihemelu  1:17:11  
Well, your wisdom is beyond borders. I mean, your Instagram is just such such depth and so insightful, and this episode has been incredible to get to sit down and talk to you and really be a conversation about coming back to self and to home and to what our dreams and our aspirations and our Why is, which I think cannot be emphasized Enough. So thank you so much for taking the time sitting with us and sharing your heart.

Jason Gandzjuk  1:17:45  
Thank you so much. Thank you very much. It was fun.

Matt Cundill  1:17:50  
Thanks for listening to wellness. Reality Check for more. Go to wellness reality check.com. A production of the sound off media company. You