READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Then all of a sudden, I didn’t have a sense of time. So you lay there with an eye mask on, you’re in the dark and the session, the woman who led the session was amazing. She’d rub my feet, she’d turn the AC up if I needed it. She was just sitting right there, basically with me, and all of a sudden I felt it takeover.

You are listening to the  Not For Lazy Marketers  podcast episode number 402. 

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having a great week and I am  excited for this episode, but also feeling a little, you know, one of those ones where I’m like, do I actually   want to record this? Is it going to be too much? Do people hate this? Are they going to not  want to listen to  this? Because it’s something I  want to talk about really badly and I have a platform to talk about it. I  sometimes feel not an obligation, but a responsibility to utilize my platform in a responsible way to  share something that is so incredibly life changing and could help so many people that I have to share it,  even if it makes me uncomfortable. So this episode is not going to be about marketing but if you are  a CEO, if you are a business owner, I think that you’ll get a lot of value/perspective, potentially, shifting in this episode. If you’re like Emily, I hate your non-marketing podcast episodes, you might  want to skip this one because it’s not going to be about marketing.

So last weekend I  tried MDMA and I did an MDMA kind of session with a guided healer. MDMA, if you don’t  know, I would Google it. I’m not going to just describe what it is, I’m going to describe my  experience, but it’s basically ecstasy, which I’ve never done drugs, but in a very therapeutic format and you’re doing it to process trauma, to process things in your past and heal. It’s a healing  session. So a little bit of backstory, I’m going to talk about it and I’m going to talk about how incredibly life changing it was, how it’s impacting me to an extreme that I can’t even fully put into words. I’ve  been processing this, I’ve been off social media, completely quiet since I did it because I’ve  been processing and I’m just feeling so called to share this because I wish somebody told me about this a long time  ago. So I am somebody, probably like a lot of you guys, who I control everything in my life. Like, I need to  be in control, in control of my business, finances, the way my kids are parented, what happens in  my marriage? I perfect everything. I control everything. I hold on with such a tight grip on everything. I think that a lot of entrepreneurs are like this and I think that it is one of the reasons  for my success because I can separate, so insanely emotion and pain from action. I just turn it off and I can just keep barreling through. I can handle pressure. I can handle things that the  average person could even come close to handling. I swear, it’s how I got through three natural childbirths like it was nothing, I can handle a lot of pain  and just turn off the emotions, which is not always a good thing, but it has contributed to my success. So  for me doing things like drugs, I never wanted to do. I never did it growing up, like hardly, I mean, I did  grow up in California, so I did smoke a little weed when I was in high school. Otherwise I have never done any hard drugs. The reason being ultimately is like one, I was never interested, but two, I don’t  want to surrender with the control. I don’t like the feeling of being outta control in my  body. So I first heard about MDMA, like maybe a year and a half, two years ago, I was still nursing so it wasn’t even an option for me. I also was like, ‘ooh, I don’t think I could do that, I don’t think I could be out of control of my body, being out of my body for that long and without panicking. I thought about it more and I thought about it more and I put it on my goals for this year because I just kept  seeing people in my world, in my circle, who did it and they completely changed. I saw the change  firsthand and I saw the transformation firsthand. So at the beginning of this year, I put it on my goals  and I ignored it for a few months. Then I ended up finding somebody who administers it here in  Austin, like a healer and somebody who does guided sessions and, and ceremonies. I don’t really think  it’s a ceremony, it’s like a session, a session with you. So I felt really comfortable doing it that way. I felt comfortable doing it in that therapeutic setting where somebody’s guiding me, they’re telling me what to  expect, they’re helping me through it like that’s how I needed to do it because otherwise I was going to panic. So I didn’t really research anymore about it. I scheduled my session and got a hotel room because I wanted to obviously be away from my kids out of the house, like no  distractions and went into this session. I really didn’t know what to expect, I knew it was going to  be amazing, everybody said it was going to be amazing, but I didn’t know how I was going to feel,  if it  was going to change my life. To be honest with you I don’t have a crazy amount of trauma or a really bad past, but I do have, everybody has trauma. Everybody has something, and for me, there is a lot of like generational trauma passed down. I also grew up where it was like, everything’s great, you’re so lucky you have all these things and you should just be grateful for those things. So I grew up thinking ‘everything’s great’,  and I have done therapy,I think therapy’s very healthy. I’ve tried EMDR therapy and every time I do it,  I’m like, ‘it’s good, it’s fine’. It doesn’t really do anything for me. EMDR, if you know what that is, where  you hold these paddles and they put these noises in your ears and it is supposed to do something in  your brain. I don’t know. Well. you can look that one up too. Everybody said such amazing things about that and I was like, okay, I’ll try that. It didn’t work for me. I mean, I would sit there with the paddles. They’d go off for like three or four minutes and the therapist  would be like, ‘so what did you experience?’ I’m like, ‘literally nothing’. It’s just not getting  through to my nervous system. So I also knew, to really take something to the next level, I’m  going to need to go all in, I’m going to need to go really deep. So that’s part of the reason I signed up for  MDMA.

So I went there, and didn’t really know what to expect. When I get there, I’m super nervous, like I am  super nervous. I don’t  want to take the pill. My heart’s beating faster because mostly I don’t want to  lose control, I’m afraid of losing control. It took the dose that a big man would’ve taken, and I’m tiny, to actually work. I took some, waited an hour, didn’t work, took more, waited another two  hours, and then it finally worked. The reason being, it should be technically about your size, your body weight but for me it’s because my nervous system is just so tight and I control so much. So  anyways, I was laying there, I took it and like, I started to feel some things, but I was like, if this is it,  this is lame. I was laying there going, okay, relax Emily, relax, just surrender, but yet I  was still controlling all of it.  I was like, okay, you’re going to start having these images of your  childhood and like trying to control the whole experience, then all of a sudden, I didn’t have a sense  of time. So you lay there with an eye mask on, you’re in the dark and the  woman who led the session was amazing. She’d rub my feet. She’d turn the AC up if I needed and she was just sitting right there, basically  with me and all of a sudden I felt it takeover. I felt the moment, I will never forget this  moment, I felt the moment where I knew I’m losing control. I’m like slipping into this new place. I started to panic for a couple seconds. My brain was like, oh my gosh, what if you don’t  like this? What if you want to stop and you can’t control it? You know, this is going to be bad. You should  freak out. But I had no choice, really. So I was like, I’m going to relax. So I relaxed and I basically felt like I slipped into this place, the best  way I can describe it for me is that for the first time in my life, and I’m 27, for the first time in 27 years,  did I actually surrender control over my thoughts over my mind, over anything, did I actually surrender control and listen to myself because I want I’ve wanted to do this and actually have a  conversation with myself, I try, I meditate. I tell myself to relax. I do all the things, I work out. I check all the boxes, but  yet I can’t let go. I can’t relax. This was the first time that I actually felt like I surrendered and I  wasn’t in that full control and I could actually hear what my soul, it sounds so silly,  but what my soul’s been trying to say. So from there, I slipped into that place and I would get really hot and roll all around and it was like the, the therapist after was like, ‘it was kind of like you were  throwing a fit for like 30 minutes that you didn’t  want to give up control because I was like taking these  deep breaths and rolling around and like fighting it and then I rolled over and I said something to her that feels like a little too personal to share, but basically something about my childhood and I’m trying to think of this and I can’t think of a single memory around it. It’s  like, I have no idea why I said that, I don’t know why my mind went there, but it was like me having  that conversation with myself. Then from there, I basically talked for two and a half hours and I’m also an introvert you guys. The lady had told me, ‘you  might talk, you might not talk like some people talk the whole time’. I’m thinking in my head I’m never going to talk to this person, I don’t talk to people, I don’t share things with people, I don’t  let people in that’s not me. I talked for two and a half hours to her. It was the craziest thing, because you’re not like you’re not tripping, you feel fully coherent. 

You can have a normal conversation, but it’s like, you can have a normal conversation with no ego and  no filter and no fear of what somebody’s going to think about you or what someone’s going to judge you about or whatever. Anytime I’ve been in a therapy situation, I skew the conversation because I can’t help myself to be like, well, I  don’t want them to think that about me. I mean, that’s my truth. It’s so bad, but, and it’s like, why are you paying this therapist? So you have no idea, but I still would do that in this scenario. After taking  that medicine, I had no filter and I released anything that was like this boundary between just what I  wanted to say and did say, and I just had this conversation and the way I can  describe it is that it was like 10 years of therapy in four hours. It was like processing all these things where I’d mention a childhood memory and then I’d bring it  back to today and how that’s impacting me today. Then I’d mention another childhood  memory and just be like, this thing happened and I’d be slightly mad, but it was through this lens of empathy, empathy for me as a child and what I went through and empathy for the  people who hurt me. I wasn’t really mad when I was saying it, I would say things and I’d be like,  ‘well, that person was just doing the best that they could’. I just saw it that way and so it was  like processing. I think that’s why I talked through it because I needed to talk it out and talking  for me it’s processing, for anybody when you talk things out, it helps you process. So I talked for like two and a half hours, and it was me processing through everything from my  childhood and how that’s impacting me today.

It was the most life changing experience that I could  have ever hoped for that I could have ever imagined. I am still completely blown away. I came out  of it and like the next day I told my husband, I was like, this could help so many people, why do more people not know about this?, and it’s so fast. I mean,  literally the processing, the releasing that happened in that short period of time would have taken years  upon years of years with a, with regular therapy guidance. That’s partly why I feel  obligated to share this. I feel like for me, as a CEO, an entrepreneur, a mom, I’m constantly  wanting to expand my mind and heal my own trauma and heal the things that I  subconsciously do so that I can be better for my team, for my kids, for my husband and this was like a fast track to that. I am truly a different person after this experience. I actually recorded a video of myself the next morning and I don’t know if  I’ll post or not, it was like very, it’s very raw and I don’t know if I  want to share it or not, but I wanted to  capture myself in that state. One thing I said, and it was like this realization that I felt in my  core, was how I could just see through a different lens, how hard I try to control everything. I try to  control the business. I try to control everybody’s actions around me, the outcomes, what happens, what’s said, all the things, and I’m sure a lot of you guys can relate. I came out of  it and I was like, what an illusion? You know, we try so hard, we hold on so tight and try to control so much. When the reality is we’re not in  control, something could happen tomorrow that is completely out of your control. Yet you’re  trying to control everything and you’re doing it without even meaning to you’re doing it because you  don’t know any other way. So I came out of it and I said, ‘I feel like I have 27 years of  armor that I’m wearing that I’m trying to keep up with, that I’m trying not to let shed, that I’m trying not to let people in, not share emotions, not love myself, not have that experience and vulnerability and it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to try to constantly control everything and constantly  be perfect at everything and have no empathy for myself and understanding for myself. The other thing  that I realized in it, I feel like if I was listening to the things that  people say, the self-help people say it, therapists say it, right. When you hear those things you’re like, I logically know that, okay lady, I know that, I know that I have to love myself, I know, blah, blah, blah but how do you actually do it, right? In this experience, it  was like the things that I logically knew, someone could have said it to me and I’d know that makes total sense. The things I logically knew now I could feel in my core, in my soul and  now it’s like, they make sense. I can’t fully describe it, but things that you could have  told me a hundred times before this event I would’ve been like, yeah, I know you’re right. But I have no idea how to do that and now I can just  do it now, now I just understand, it connected. 

So the other piece that I came to was how much I go, because of past trauma, and seek attention or approval or connection outside of myself from other  people. Sometimes for me, when relationships feel hard, I go the route of saying like, oh well, it’s the person, if I just go to a different friend or a different person, they’ll be able to give me  what I need and the reality is that cycle is going to keep happening until I can give it to myself because the only person can, who can give what I need is me. I realized I have to stop trying to fill that from  other people. So that was another big piece of it. A

Overall, a feeling of processing, surrendering, healing and empathy for myself as a little girl for the people who hurt me and I feel like  coming out of it and coming into a work week, I’m just more calm. I’m happier. I’m not as stressed.  I’m not trying to control everything and I don’t even have to try. It’s like  I just shifted. One thing that amazed me and that I thought about afterwards is just, this is a  part of your brain that’s always available and this medicine, I believe its medicine made that available  for me, but it’s there, It’s always there. It just expanded to a different place that I just never have been before. So I don’t know if you guys are going to be like, Emily has lost it and this is crazy and I’ll never do this. Or maybe just one of you will look it up on Google and look into it and try it and it’ll change your life too.

I do feel like, and I will tie this  back to business, to grow the level of companies that I  want to grow to build the  dreams I  want to build to be the person I  want to be you have to work really hard at the healing, at the pushing yourself outside of that comfort zone to expand, this was way outside my comfort zone, I was scared, I did not  want to surrender that control, I could have been like, I actually don’t   want to do this. It was not like, oh yeah, let’s do drugs, this is so cool. It really took courage for  me to show up and do this and I was afraid and I was fighting. It took three hours for it to actually work because I was fighting it. I feel like for somebody like me, and I know a lot of other entrepreneurs are like this, you almost  need that level of extremes to be able to get the results that some people might be able to just get from  therapy or EMDR or whatever. But it never would’ve worked for me to this level because I’m just too wound too tight and I think I’ll still be processing for a while and integrating it into  my life. It’s still really fresh for me, but I won’t be the same person, in a good way. I will never be  the same person as before I went into this session.

The other cool thing, from a business  perspective is the next day, two days after I had like the best idea ever, like the best business  idea just clicked. I was like, oh my gosh, one of those things where you’re like, why haven’t I done this for  the last two years? This is so obvious I should be doing this. So I do think it also just opens your  mind and expands your brain to new pathways and new things. I think that’s really  powerful as an entrepreneur, because we’re trying to do new things constantly and different things and blaze new trails and that’s hard. It’s hard when you live in this world of bombarded and overstimulated, you stop listening to yourself, you stop tuning in to yourself. You don’t even know how  to listen to yourself anymore. You’re so disconnected. That’s how I am. You know, no matter, even if I  try it doesn’t matter if I meditate, that level of actually tuning into myself is just not  available to me. It wasn’t before. I’m feeling super called after this to meditate for a long time every day. I feel more  connected. like I can get quieter easier, and I’m sure that’s going to wear off over time. I will probably do  this every three or four months and you know. Each experience is going to be different, each experience  

is different for everybody, but I feel like it gives you exactly what you need and opens up a channel to  listen to yourself that you just can’t access in today’s noise and constant bombardment to  your own brain and for us entrepreneurs who try to control everything and control all of our thoughts and you know, block things out this just takes that wall down.

So I just wanted to  record this to share my experience. Obviously this is my experience, it’ll be unique to all of you guys. Again, some of you might be like, okay, Emily’s lost it. I promise the next podcast will be back to  marketing and business and all those things. But I just felt called to share this and like I said, if it helps  one person have the level of experience that I didn’t even know I needed nor could be possible, then it’s  worth it for me to release this. So send me a message on Instagram. You can go to @emilyhirsh  on  Instagram.

If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them and I hope you look it up at least and research it. It’s actually something that’s in clinical trials right now for curing PTSD because it’s so  powerful. I truly like, as soon as I did it, I told my husband, I’m like, why are more people not doing  this? Like this would change the world if everybody knew about this, truly, I know it sounds crazy, but it  would, it would make us all more aware and empathetic and just calm, honestly.

So, all right,  you guys, I’ll talk to you on Tuesday. I promise regular marketing’s coming back then and I hope you have  an amazing weekend. 

Thanks for listening to the  Not For Lazy Marketers podcast. Each episode is brought to you from the  trenches of Hirsh Marketing where our team of industry leading copywriters, marketing strategists, ads managers, graphic designers, and tech wizards use their unique genius to help our clients profit  more and scale faster than they ever dreamed possible. Want to see what happens when we unleash our experts on your brand, head over to helpmystrategy.com and apply for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh. No matter where you are in your marketing journey, we have solutions to take you to the  next level and beyond. So apply for your call today and discover what marketing magic we can create for you.

♥ LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

♥ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY