As we kick off 2026, we’re exploring the power of setting intentions, and why they’re essential for any transformative journey. By providing a focal point, a clear intention helps you sort through the noise to find the insights most relevant to your growth. It also serves as an emotional "home" to return to, ensuring that you’re actively navigating your subconscious, and not just drifting.

Key Takeaways

• Focus on the "Why" over the "What": An intention isn’t a rigid destination or a list of goals; it’s the emotional fuel behind your journey. By honing in on your "why,” you create a sturdy foundation for challenging experiences.
• Practice Distillation for Clarity: Boil your intentions down to one or two core themes or a single word, making it easier to recall and use as a grounding tool during an altered state of consciousness.
• Bridge the Gap with Emotional Targets: True healing is felt in the body, not just in the mind. To ensure your intentions are actionable, identify your specific "emotional markers" of success so you can recognize when you’re moving toward your purpose.

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

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Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

Jimmy shares an in-depth conversation with Dr. Michael Sapiro, whose unique approach to psychedelic psychotherapy emphasizes the courage needed to align with one's authentic self. His clinical work extends specialized support to veterans and first responders, healing those who run toward, rather than away from, trauma.

Key Takeaways

• Trauma and Truth: Dr. Sapiro's holistic approach to is founded on a convergence of generational trauma, early psychedelic experiences, and the structural discipline of Buddhism.
• Active vs. Passive Facilitation: He advocates for active psychotherapy during altered states, viewing it as "practice rounds" of positive change when the ego is subdued—but it must be done with extreme care.
• Healing the Caregivers: Veterans and first responders experience unique trauma exposure, and those who protect others also need to care for themselves.

About Our Guest

Michael Ryoshin Sapiro, PsyD, is an ordained Zen Buddhist monk, poet, clinical psychologist, psychedelic psychotherapist, researcher and meditation teacher, he’s also the author of Truth Medicine: Healing and Living Authentically through Psychedelic Psychotherapy.

• Dr. Michael Sapiro’s website
• His book & audiobook: Truth Medicine: Healing and Living Authentically through Psychedelic Psychotherapy
• Shift Network Course: A 7-week course on how to enact lasting change and live your truth
• “Malcom and the Monk” podcast coming out Jan 2026 by VETS

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

People often ask: can psychedelics help me to be happier? This might seem like a straightforward question, but first, we should define what we mean by “happiness.” 

To better investigate the question, we’ll explore two specific types of happy feelings: joy and contentment. We’ll define the differences between them, look into the ways they’re interconnected, and explore the nuances of how we identify, define, and value our positive emotions. 

In today’s communities and societies, it can feel like we’re losing touch with our joy and contentment, and we may even question our ability to foster these feelings. So let’s dig into some of the ways that intentional psychedelic use can help us to rediscover the capacities we each hold within ourselves to find, create, and hold on to more joy and contentment in our lives.

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

The growing death positivity movement encourages open discussion about mortality, challenging the societal tendency to avoid or glorify death, which prevents us from living a richer life. Groundbreaking research on psychedelics like DMT shows that they can therapeutically mimic Near-Death Experiences, offering a pathway to confront the fear of death and gain clarity on priorities, bridging the gap between our personal mortality and diverse cultural practices of honoring the dead.

We stand in solidarity for anyone with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, each and everyone of us have our own battle with mental health and we fully stand with anyone dealing with death in a negative way themselves right now.

Suicide & Crisis Hotline: 9-8-8
https://988lifeline.org/

When we talk about death positivity, we aren’t celebrating death, we aren’t promoting death or suicide. We’re here to discuss the nature of the personal relationship with your own death, something that all of us grapple with, and how psychedelics can be a part of that process.

While many cultures integrate elaborate rituals to honor the dead, we often neglect engaging with our own mortality, despite its profound influence on life choices and legacy building. 

Research demonstrates that high-intensity psychedelic experiences, particularly with DMT, can therapeutically mimic Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), leading to feelings of euphoria and the dissolution of the fear of death. These "virtual death" experiences can function as powerful catalysts for psychological rebirth and transformation. 

By facing death, rather than avoiding it, we can gain clarity on our priorities, as exemplified by the exercise of setting a "last week alive" alarm. Ultimately, the concept of Memento Mori reminds us that accepting our own finality is the key to creating a richer, more meaningful life.

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

Content Warning: This episode addresses sensitive and potentially triggering topics within the psychedelic space, including ethical misconduct, facilitator abuse, and sexual abuse. We encourage you to prioritize your well-being and skip this episode if you are feeling sensitive to these topics at this time.

This episode explores how unbalanced power dynamics create an environment where abuse patterns, like overriding client autonomy and gaslighting, flourish in caretaker positions like psychedelic facilitation. To counter this, the community must embrace open communication and foster facilitator accountability, recognizing that conflict is generative and vital for ethical healing.

Our guest is Mikaela de la Myco, a mother, herbalist, educator, researcher, and facilitator whose work centers on ancestral healing, sacred earth medicine, and trauma-informed care.

As the founder of MushWomb, she creates education and containers for birthing people, queer folks, and BIPOC. Based in the occupied Kumeya and Luiseno territory in San Diego, California, Mikaela draws from her indigenous Mexican, Afro-Caribbean, and Southern Italian roots to promote well-being. 

Professionally, she spearheads organizations like Ma’at, the Matriarchal Alliance for Accountability and Transparency that represents the collective voices of survivors in the psychedelic space, and Mothers of the Mushroom Research and Resources for Psychedelic Families. Known as a maternal caretaker in her community, Mikaela collaborates with individuals, families, and organizations alike in the struggle to rematriate entheogens.

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

Psychedelic experiences often lead to mystical encounters, offering profound self-exploration regardless of one's religious beliefs, a phenomenon so common it's measured in clinical trials. Navigating the current gray area of legality requires understanding that federal religious exemptions are rare, and ultimately, the most important question to ask is whether your psychedelic use makes you a better person.

Join Jimmy as he explores the intersection of religion, spirituality, and psychedelics.

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

Please be sure to check out part one before you enjoy part two! Jimmy Nguyen sits down with Dr. Glauber Assis, a respected sociologist, author, and leader in Brazil’s sacred plant community. Together, they explore the role of gratitude, groundedness, and connection in uncertain times. Dr. Assis shares his journey from a conservative upbringing to founding a vibrant community rooted in ayahuasca tradition, all while bridging indigenous wisdom and modern science.

The conversation explores the balance between honoring tradition and fostering inclusivity, examining how both artificial and ancestral intelligence influence personal growth. Listeners will discover why true healing originates from within, why culture and community play a crucial role in psychedelic work, and how meaningful questions, rather than quick answers, pave the way to transformation.

Tune in for reflections on freedom, authenticity, and co-creating a more compassionate world.

More from Dr. Glauber Assis:

• Psychedelic Parenthood
• Jornadas de Kura

-

We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

Jimmy Nguyen sits down with Dr. Glauber Assis, a respected sociologist, author, and leader in Brazil’s sacred plant community. Together, they explore the role of gratitude, groundedness, and connection in uncertain times. Dr. Assis shares his journey from a conservative upbringing to founding a vibrant community rooted in ayahuasca tradition, all while bridging indigenous wisdom and modern science.

The conversation explores the balance between honoring tradition and fostering inclusivity, examining how both artificial and ancestral intelligence influence personal growth. Listeners will discover why true healing originates from within, why culture and community play a crucial role in psychedelic work, and how meaningful questions, rather than quick answers, pave the way to transformation.

Tune in for reflections on freedom, authenticity, and co-creating a more compassionate world.

More from Dr. Glauber Assis:

• Psychedelic Parenthood
• Jornadas de Kura

-

We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

Feeling discomfort can serve as a vital compass for identifying your most meaningful intentions in the preparation process for a psychedelic experience. Rather than avoiding it, leaning into this discomfort helps you pinpoint the root of what needs to be healed.

In this counterintuitive episode, we explore how discomfort can actually be a key aspect of one’s healing journey. We’ll discuss the different forms of discomfort, and differentiate when discomfort aids in one’s healing journey and when it may not be beneficial.

We will also learn about how to use discomfort as a way to measure your progress, and how it relates to intention-setting and navigating psychedelic experiences. Join us for a fruitful and stimulating conversation on a topic that we may want to shy away from at first glance, but that may surprise us. 

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.

When defining psychedelic experiences, it's more accurate to view them as a dynamic spectrum rather than a rigid choice between recreational and therapeutic use. Experiences can possess qualities of both, and their nature is shaped by factors like intent, setting, and support.

In today’s episode, we talk about why it's important to define your psychedelic experiences and the labels we use for them. We'll break down the difference between using psychedelics for fun (recreational) versus using them to heal (therapeutic), and what usually goes along with each type of experience. 

We'll also give you key items to think about when you're defining your own journey. Plus, we'll introduce a new framework for describing your experience. To wrap things up, we'll share some good advice for anyone on a psychedelic journey and read a story from someone who participated in one of our programs.

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We’re proud to partner with North Spore as a sponsor and an educational ally. If you’re interested in functional mushrooms, legal home cultivation, or the fundamentals of mycology, North Spore offers videos, articles, and communities to help you learn how fungi work from the ground up.

Subscribe to their Substack and YouTube

-

Psychedelic Passage is your partner in safe, supported, and effective psychedelic journeys. As the first concierge service in the U.S., we connect you with vetted facilitators who value integrity and expertise. We're glad you're here, and we look forward to supporting you on your journey.

No mushroom source? No problem.

Download our Free Psilocybin Sourcing Guide.

Want guidance tailored to your need?

Book a free Pathfinding Call for personal support.

Curious or seeking connection?

Join our online care community to learn, share, and grow with others.

Join our next Q&A or Facilitator Chat for free.