Most people think the nature vs. nurture debate is a question of which side wins.

Professor Greg Downey says that's exactly the wrong question — and that framing it as a competition is what's been holding back our understanding of human potential for decades.

In this conversation, Paige sits down with Prof. Greg Downey — neuroanthropologist, professor at Macquarie University, and co-founder of the field of neuroanthropology — to explore how your nervous system is in a constant state of retooling based on the environment you're in, the skills you practice, and the culture you inhabit.

What you'll discover in this episode:

🩷 Why separating nature and nurture is a category error — and what to ask instead

🩷 How culture literally trains your senses to perceive things others can't

🩷 Why your "self" and consciousness are skills — not fixed traits

🩷 The neuroscience behind extraordinary human abilities (echolocation, free diving, and more)

🩷 The single most effective way to learn any new physical or cognitive skill

CHAPTERS

00:00 — What is neuroanthropology?

01:43 — Why the nature vs. nurture debate is wrong

03:42 — How culture trains your senses

06:10 — What "culture" actually means

10:06 — How language shapes what you can perceive

13:08 — Neuroplasticity: how the brain rewires for skill

18:09 — Is consciousness a skill?

22:35 — Daniel Kish: the man who sees with sound

25:01 — Free divers and the outer limits of human physiology

30:02 — How to study real human potential

37:44 — Cage fighters, capoeira & exploring consciousness

41:44 — The "consciousness platter" metaphor

51:34 — Psychedelics, context & cultural transplanting

56:46 — The fastest way to learn any new skill

59:49 — What fieldwork in Brazil taught Greg about himself

ABOUT PROF. GREG DOWNEY

Greg Downey is a professor of anthropology at Macquarie University (Sydney) and co-founder of the neuroanthropology field. His work bridges neuroscience and cultural anthropology to understand how human development is shaped by the environments, practices, and communities we inhabit.

Research profile: https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/greg-downey/

Wesbite: https://neuroanthropology.net/

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

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What does it mean to have a relationship with a psychedelic substance and why does that framing matter more than any protocol, ceremony, or clinical trial?

In this conversation, Paige sits down with author, educator, and psilocybin advocate James W. Jesso to explore the philosophical, ethical, and psychological dimensions of working with psychedelics responsibly. This isn't about biohacking with microdoses or chasing ego-death status. It's about taking the intelligence of these substances seriously - and understanding what's at stake when you don't.

What we cover:

🩷 Why viewing psilocybin as a relationship changes everything about safety

🩷 The difference between internal and external safe containers and why most people skip the harder one

🩷 How psychedelics can surface deep trauma and how to avoid re-traumatization

🩷 Why your guide's personal experience matters more than their credentials

🩷 The heroic dosing trend and the real harm James sees it causing

🩷 How mainstream media is distorting psychedelic culture and expectations

⏱️ CHAPTERS

00:00 — Introduction

02:40 — Psychedelics as a Relationship

07:40 — Internal vs External Safety

10:30 — Trauma & Psychedelic-Assisted Healing

11:30 — Why Your Sitter's Experience Is Non-Negotiable

28:35 — The Heroic Dose Myth

🔗 James W. Jesso: https://www.youtube.com/@AdventuresThroughTheMind

James' Books: https://www.jameswjesso.com/category/books/

More Links: https://linktr.ee/jameswjesso

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

Is the Western medical model about to regulate away the very thing that makes psychedelics transformative? In this episode, I share my three burning questions about where psychedelic therapy is headed — and what we might be losing as we scale it.

Here's what I cover:

🩷 Therapist vs. Guide — The real difference between sitting with a clinical therapist and a traditional ceremonial guide, and why it matters more than most people realize.

🩷 The quality of trust — I think the facilitator's ability to hold uncertainty without flinching is what actually does the deep healing in a psychedelic session. Is that something you can learn from a textbook?

🩷 Apprenticeship vs. credentials — Shamanic traditions apprentice their guides for decades. We're fast-tracking facilitators through clinical trials and certifications. Are those the same thing?

I also get into Robert Carhart-Harris's concept of the entropic brain — how psychedelics push the brain's default mode network (the seat of your sense of self) into a high-entropy state that makes transformation possible. And why the conditions that allow that transformation may be incompatible with a tightly regulated medical environment.

This isn't an anti-therapy take. It's a question about what gets lost when we try to make the unpredictable... predictable.

Drop your thoughts in the comments — I genuinely want to know what you think.

——————————————————————

🕐 TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Why psychedelics are having their moment

1:32 Who's most excited to talk about consciousness (and why)

2:00 Therapist vs. Guide — the key distinction

4:45 The Entropic Brain: Robert Carhart-Harris explained

6:48 Default Mode Network, ego dissolution & self-narrative

9:00 Trust as the active ingredient in transformation

12:05 What the Western medical model demands

12:57 Apprenticeship vs. PhDs and peer-reviewed papers

15:15 The big question: Can we scale without losing the magic?

——————————————————————

📚 REFERENCES

→ Robert Carhart-Harris — Entropic Brain theory

→ Sara Imari Walker — physicist, "humans are small objects but deep in time."

Your brain is not wired to tell you the truth. It's wired to reduce uncertainty.

In this episode, I break down how the brain functions as a prediction machine, constantly scanning for threat and trying to control outcomes - and how that process shapes your behaviour, your habits, and even the more subtle elements of your life.

We also get into what happens when your brain jumps to worst-case scenarios, and why you’re likely underestimating your ability to handle whatever comes next.

Get in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

What if giving birth could resolve years of painful intimacy you'd never noticed was there?Angel Drake is a spiritual teacher and energy practitioner who works with women at the intersection of mystical traditions, meditation, and psychological healing. She studies within Vedic and Sufi lineages and has been working with women as a coach and guide for over a decade. What I love about Angel is that she's willing to put language to things most people leave in the category of inexplicable - without making any of it precious or performative. She holds serious spiritual practice and a real sense of humor together, and this conversation moved to places I neither of us expectedWe talk about what the practice and skill of concentration made possible across her 16 hours of labour, how birth can resolve years of painful sex, post-birth intimacy and how the body changes, what Sufism is and how it's practiced, the invisible load of new motherhood, and the story of a dark energy encounter Angel had at 22 - and how it shaped the path she's on now. 00:00:00 - What's coming up00:01:54 - Word of the year: channel 00:07:24 - Meditation as a new mum 00:13:28 - Focus and the world 00:20:14 - What Sufism actually is00:25:22 - Angel's 16-hour birth00:28:29 - Working with fear in labour00:49:04 - Relationship after a baby01:03:37 - Post-birth intimacy01:16:43 - What is God?01:20:46 - Dark energy encounter Get in touch with Angel Drake:Instagram: @angelikaalanaWebsite: https://www.angeldrake.com/Somatic Healing Institute: https://www.angelikaalana.com/Get in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

If you are made of multiple parts, who is the "I" watching them all?

Ella Shannon is an accredited counsellor and sex therapist based in Cairns, specialising in relationships, EMDR, and psychedelic integration. Since she discovered IFS, it's become more than a modality - it's become a lens for how she sees herself, her relationships, and the world. This model for personal growth and self-understanding doesn't just describe how we heal. It asks something stranger: what are you, exactly, when the parts step aside?

In this conversation, we go from how parts develop across a lifetime, to whether animals have them, to IFS sessions that feel like psychedelics - and to manager parts that can physically grip so hard they prevent altered states of consciousness from working at all.

We get into what self-energy actually is and how you'd recognise it, what happens in conflict when two people are defending different versions of reality, why reaching enlightened states isn't the end of healing, and what Ella believes about Source/God/the possibility of a cosmic host after years of this work.

00:00:00 - What's coming up

00:02:48 - IFS as Lifestyle and Lens

00:04:15 - One Self or Many?

00:09:01 - Exiles, Managers, Protectors

00:14:27 - Parts on a Spectrum

00:16:18 - What Is the Self?

00:23:43 - Your Parts vs Your Partner's

00:46:08 - IFS Goes Psychedelic

00:49:03 - When Parts Block Psychedelics

00:51:17 - Does the Healing Actually Stick?

00:55:28 - Bliss States, Unhealed Parts

00:57:04 - Ella on Source and Love

Get in touch with Ella:

https://www.ellashannon.com

Instagram: @evolution_of_intimacy

Podcast: The Parts Party

Get in touch with me:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

What's the actual difference between instinct and intuition - and can you tell them apart when something is actually at stake?Brianna Bowley is a performance coach who works with athletes, and she's been training Brazilian jiu jitsu long enough to start seeing it as a map for everything - fear, relaxation under pressure, how the body processes threat before the brain has caught up.What I love about the way Brianna thinks is that fear isn't the enemy - it's information. She opens the episode with a story from Perth: being followed at night, then arriving at an Airbnb to find a smashed window and blood in the sink. What stayed with me was what she shared about the aftermath. I also get personal about my own relationship to violence and what a psychedelic experience showed me about how much of it my nervous system had absorbed.In this conversation, we discuss the constant threat assessment women carry, why the most relaxed person in the room is the most powerful, the human need for conflict and what happens when it has no outlet, and how to start tracking the sensations of your own body so you can work with fear rather than against it - when it counts.00:00:00 - What's coming up00:01:24 - Being followed in Perth00:09:21 - Instinct vs intuition00:19:56 - Fear and martial arts00:25:47 - Being a woman in BJJ00:34:03 - Strategy vs muscle memory00:39:44 - Hypnotherapy and time00:43:26 - What fighter would you be01:02:19 - Humans and violence01:07:02 - Growing up around gangs01:10:15 - Being chased by a chainsaw01:16:09 - Consuming violence online01:29:08 - Tracking your patternsGet in touch with Brianna:https://www.brianabowley.comInstagram: @brianabowleyGet in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

What if your brain doesn’t produce consciousness at all - it just filters it? What might this mean for intuition, identity change and life after death?

Jade is a naturopathic doctor, coach, and researcher who's spent 35 years studying why people don't actually change. I invited him on because he's one of the few people I've come across who can talk about consciousness and reincarnation without it sounding like something you'd find at a crystal shop.

We started with the film I Origins as a way into the idea that the brain filters consciousness rather than produces it, and what that opens up for reincarnation and near-death experiences. He tells a story from medical school about a prophetic dream involving his sister's pregnancy. We also got into why most people who think they are following their intuition are actually following instinct.

We also explore idealism vs materialism, money as energy, financial patterns from childhood, romantic attraction, psychedelic integration, and the feel-deal-heal process.

00:00:00 – What's coming up

00:01:24 – “I Origins” & reincarnation

00:04:48 – Materialism vs idealism explained

00:11:13 – Relationship polarity as growth

00:13:33 – Spiritual flow & logic can coexist

00:21:41 – Instinct vs intuition in real life

00:26:14 – Money patterns, fear & conditioning

00:43:37 – Attraction, worth & culture’s lies

00:59:28 – Psychedelics: promises & pitfalls

01:07:24 – Rewrite, rewire & retrain

01:17:16 – Trauma searing & the sympathetic state

01:27:59 – Feel, deal, heal

Get in touch with Dr Jade Teta:

https://www.jadeteta.com

Instagram: @jadeteta

YouTube: @doctorjade

Get in touch with me:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

#psychedelicintegration #consciousnessexplained #onthesamepaige #psychedelics #intuition

What does it actually take to keep a podcast alive when 90% of shows don't make it to episode 20?In this solo episode, I pull back the curtain on what it's really like to make a podcast in 2026 - the money, the time, the emotional toll, and the rejection. I share the stats that put podcasting into perspective, what it feels like to spend eight hours producing an episode for 12 listeners, the learning curve of creative entrepreneurship and why I keep doing it anyway (this isn't for sympathy votes - it's honest content creator BTS)!I also get into the stuff I love most about my job - my pre-interview process, what it's like to feel the energy shift mid-conversation, and why deep focus might be the most underrated skill a podcaster can develop.00:00:00 - Introduction00:03:12 - Podcast survival stats00:05:21 - The real cost of podcasting00:07:09 - From acting to podcasting00:09:25 - How I prep for interviews00:15:24 - Presence and attention00:20:16 - Creativity vs entrepreneurship00:25:16 - Rejection and reality00:29:13 - Why I keep going00:33:15 - An invitationGet in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!#podcasttips #podcasting #onthesamepaige #contentcreator #behindthescenes

In this episode, I sit down with sexologist, medical doctor, and researcher Dr Jess Wade to explore the biology, psychology, and mystery of female pleasure. Together, we unpack the tension between what research can measure and what still feels ineffable about sexuality.

We discuss cervical orgasms, the role of the vagus nerve, and why some researchers believe orgasm may function as a selective process in mate choice - but this conversation moves far beyond theory.

I share a deeply personal reflection on noticing a pattern in my own intimate life - using pelvic floor clenching to reach orgasm - and what it means to interrupt a nervous system habit in pursuit of deeper pleasure. Jess also shares her lived experience navigating chronic pelvic pain, and how this ultimately reshaped her relationship to perfectionism, performance, and presence in the bedroom.

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:01:08 – Rom coms & vacation sex

00:06:19 – Politics in the feed & switching off

00:08:49 – Inside the orgasm response

00:11:55 – Myths, pressure & pleasure as sacred

00:15:58 – Cervical orgasm, nerves & sensation

00:26:28 – Rethinking the orgasm gap

00:36:23 – Rewiring orgasm patterns

00:45:06 – Hypertonic pelvic floor & chronic pain

01:16:36 – Why pelvic care is women’s health

🔗 Get in touch with me:

🎬 YouTube: On The Same Paige with Paige Leacey
https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

🎧 Spotify: On The Same Paige with Paige Leacey
https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U?si=af98abe607fb4c1a

🍎 Apple: On The Same Paige with Paige Leacey
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

💌 Be part of a community of smart, self-aware, wisdom seeking women:
https://paigeleacey.substack.com

📸 Instagram: @samepaige__

✨ TikTok: @samepaige__

🔗 Get in touch with Dr Jess Wade:

www.embodiedsexualtherapy.com.au/