Aren’t We All a Little Crazy? Mental Illness to Peak Performance — Keith Kurlander

Moving from Mental Illness to Peak Performance

What if your normal level of stress, anxiety, or depression didn’t have to be normal?

Do you feel like you’re using work, alcohol, or something else to outrun the uncomfortable thoughts in your head?

And how can we use our stress and darkness to help us live a more full, rewarding life?

Before Keith Kurlander became a founder of the Integrative Psychiatry Center, he struggled with serious mental health issues. He ran away from the promise of a highly lucrative life on Wall Street to find relief on a path which took many, many turns.

He worked with everyone from yoga teachers to therapists to meds to shamans to psychedelics to you name it. He tried it. But none of those approaches alone worked for him.

These days he’s dialed in his brain, his body, and his behaviors and his life is back on track.

So what worked? What had him go from struggling to get off the couch to being a husband and father leading two companies today?

Today we explore his story and the reality that all of us deal with some form of mental illness on some level. Here’s to all of us realizing that maybe, just maybe we don’t have to hide, outrun, or settle if we don’t want to.

In this interview:

* What if everyone has a bit of mental illness?

* Trying to outrun our inner critic, dark thoughts, emotions

* Moving from mental illness to peak performance

* The stigma of struggling with anxiety and depression

* Do we have to blow up our lives in order to make a change?

Plus:

* Running away from Wall Street and a lucrative career

* Keith’s experiences with mental illness and bipolar disorder

* Seeking relief through spiritual growth

* How ayahuasca effected Keith’s brain

* Keith’s experience with meds

And:

* What approaches help us heal mental illness

* What is integrative psychiatry and why is it so powerful?

* Why you need to be the authority of your path

* Integrating psychedelics, ketamine, and functional medicine with traditional therapies

And then:

* Betraying ourselves and pushing down that inner voice

* Wound worshipping and getting stuck in “healing”

* Mental disorders are chosen because we get something from them

* What is spiritual bypassing?

* What to ask yourself if you’re tired of feeling stuck

Click here to learn more about Keith Kurlander's work:

Keith Kurlander

Higher Practice Podcast

Integrative Psychiatry Center

Integrative Psychiatry Institute

About Keith Kurlander

Keith has two decades of combined experience as a licensed professional counselor in private practice, business administration and teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level. He is the Co-Founder of the Integrative Psychiatry Center and Integrative Psychiatry Institute along with Will Van Derveer, MD.