On The Sober Shaman Podcast this week, we take a fresh look at the work the we perform within Lesson #4: Definitions: Medicine - Part 2.

We start with an online back-and-forth between myself and an MD about the basics: what medicine is and what medicine is not.

For me, medicine absolutely is something that encompasses approaches beyond what he proposed as outside agents, such as pills, and procedures, such as surgery. Specifically, this Lesson shows how awareness, experience, connection and practice are four examples of this - and how each directly applies to a particular aspect of the whole person.

Next, I provide two client cases of how the medicine of experience is applied in addiction treatment. I have a saying…

It takes a new experience to change an old belief

In these examples, we show how a conscious, connecting, new experience that is put into practice, is the exact medicine to transform the old, outdated limiting core beliefs that lie at the core of an addiction.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. randallyons.com

Welcome to the Sober Shaman Podcast, where we explore ways to make the spiritual practical and apply these medicines to the recovery from addiction and trauma.

Hello and thanks for joining me on another episode of the Sober Shaman Podcast.

Today we'll be diving into the lesson of the week, lesson number four in the program Definitions Medicine Part two.

And I'd like to begin with what happened when I entered the definitions of Medicine Part one online, and some of the discussions that came out of it and what one in particular.

And it was illuminating.

You know, it ended up where we agree to disagree.

And the conversation I had was how I was.

I am firmly in the belief that medicine has a broad definition.

And as we'll talk about later in this episode, specifically the four medicines that I apply to the four aspects of our whole person, mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical.

And each one has a particular medicine that is suited perfectly for that material of the mental, that material of the spiritual, that material of the emotional and the physical.

And so what happened was I, I forgot which post exactly, but it was basically pointing out that these are medicines and that medicine has a broad definition.

And when I bring in the term science or scientific, this is where things get fun in that people with different trainings have very different beliefs, especially if they're trained in the western medical model of the domain of the physical.

Medicine acts on the physical plane, whether it is an agent of some kind, as a pill, for example, to be put into the body to cause physical changes and, or there are physical procedures where a, an expert surgery, let's say, goes in and manipulates, fixes things.

And those are the definitions of medicine, strictly speaking, especially from a scientific point of view.

I disagree.

And one of the reasons why I disagree is that we can apply all of the tenants of science to the intangible medicines that I'm talking about.

And the person who introduced this idea to me and blew open my mind was Meladoma Somme, who I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to study with for a little bit of time.

And a brilliant man.

But one of the things he would always say was these are spiritual technologies that his culture from Burkino Faza, they've been using these technologies for a long time, and if they didn't work, then they throw them out.

And you, you apply something that does work.

And so you keep refining and getting better.

And by using trial and error and experimenting and coming up with different solutions, different answers, better and better and, and not only better and better, but adapting to new conditions as time changes, as cultures change.

And this is a scientific approach to these intangible and as I propose medicines and so it, it's just interesting that.

And interesting and curious for me how we all have sticking points of ideas adhering to our identity.

I'm no better.

And so it, it's always interesting curious for me when I have discussions like this with professionals that have an open mind and a curious heart and I am able to present ideas, topics such as this which actually offer a possibility of changing the way that they think.

And for me that's fantastic and receiving on my end just as well.

But in this last week I stood pretty firm in my presentation best I can.

I'm not the, the best writer and articulator, especially in you know, short going back and forths in little comments and replies.

But the idea that when I hit a brick wall and I'm like ah, this is a person's belief, well, there's no reason to keep going.

It's like okay, that is your belief.

Thank you for that.

And it doesn't really change any of the ways that I'm thinking and it, it doesn't even really challenge any of the ways I'm thinking.

It challenges me in.

I'm forced to be more articulate in presenting this idea of medicine is bigger than that.

This is medicine, these are medicines.

And so let's use that as a segue into what medicines?

What are you talking about?

So the four aspects of the whole person, mental, spiritual, emotional and physical.

I propose each have particular types of medicine that apply and treat that aspect effectively.

And for example with the mental aspect of I use the term awareness.

Now I these medicines, I I have broad definitions of and I this is an area where of course I'm going to have some stickiness with my identity and I'm going to have problems getting over how it doesn't fit.

Maybe sometimes when speaking to people, but good.

It has a broad definition.

Whether you want to call this meditation, however, you get new awareness, new illumination, new information is brought to your mind to where you can cognitively weigh the pros and cons.

And ah, I get it.

I the light bulb goes off.

However that works for you.

That is what I would call a form of the medicine of awareness.

One example of this would be be smart recovery where I've known people that couldn't handle the cognitive dissonance that some of the more traditional approaches made them say I am powerless.

And we talked about this in those I am statements.

And I'm thinking of a, a few different people who found refuge in smart recovery because it Was it is something that allows them to use the medicine of awareness, the.

The medicine of their minds, to be able to use it to their advantage, to.

To sharpen that diamond of the mind so that it can be the primary force, ingredient, path of their recovery.

And that fits with their belief systems.

And then they connect with other people who they can talk to about it and then they put it into practice.

Those are still, for me, you have to use all four of these.

Awareness, experience, connection and practice.

These four medicines go together.

And then in the spiritual stage, I have the medicine of experience.

And I'm going to talk about that in detail in the next part of this podcast.

Because this is one of my favorite aspects of recovery and specifically the.

The statement that I'm proud of.

I have attached a little bit of my identity to it, I guess you could say, right, is it takes a new experience to change an old belief.

It takes the medicine of experience to change those old, outdated, limiting core beliefs.

We'll talk about that more later on and that'll be part of the case examples.

And then the third one is connection is the medicine for the emotional aspect.

And there is that saying connection is the opposite of addiction.

And I love that because for me, it speaks to the emotional component and how and when we connect, when we have a connection.

Think about that idea from an energetic point of view, a yin yang point of view.

Think a musical point of view.

When there is a connection, we could say in music, there is a resonance you're in harmony with.

And there's nothing being nothing better when playing music, when you're in harmony with, you're in sync to the beat with this feeling, we are as one.

There is a commonality, we're in this together.

That when you share to use the two previous medicines, when you share the mental awarenesses, hey, did you know that?

Yeah, I got that too.

When you can share that, you can share that shorthand, right?

When we, when we have people that we become close to because they speak our same language, we have that kind of shorthand, the connection feels even stronger and we share experiences and then we talk about it in our connections.

And then the last one is practice.

This is.

I love this because one of the sayings I have about this is, is on the physical level and how this part of the physical practice, this medicine from the physical aspect for me is different than the physical aspect that the doctor and I were discussing about either an agent like a pill coming in and.

Or a procedure being done to the body.

And this practice is something that the person, the client, the practitioner does.

All of these medicines are empowering.

They come from the inside out.

Sure, they have connections, they have components where if you put the right setting in place, where the outside matches the inside, it makes life a whole lot easier.

And eventually to have really successful recovery, that must be done.

But the point here is that this cannot, this medicine of practice that can only be gained through practice, cannot be given and cannot be taken away from the person.

In other words, if the physical medicine in this discussion I'm having with a doctor is a pill, you can lose the pills.

What happens when you don't have the pills?

What happens when it runs out something?

You got a call, I can't get an appointment.

You know, panic.

When you apply the medicine of practice, no one can take that away from you and no one can give it to you.

It is only something you can achieve, earn, put in the bank account of your self worth for yourself.

All four of these medicines are empowering.

That's why I love them and that's why this is the basis of the whole alchemist recovery program.

And the way that I do recovery, I'm not going to be able to do it for you.

I can't give it to you.

I thought you're the sober shaman, as you're supposed to do.

So that's a whole right conversation in and of itself.

I love the term because it just starts a conversation.

That's why I'm doing it.

Why?

Because I want to get to a place of open mindedness, open hearted curiosity, to where we change, to where we change and we grow together, empowered.

No one can give us this and no one can take it away.

So continuing with the next part of this podcast, I'm going to go more into detail about the medicine for the spiritual experience.

Is the medicine for spiritual.

What does that mean?

How, how does that relate?

Well, there's a few things I always say that spirituality is not just a moral code or a list of thou shalt nots, it is a relationship.

What are your spirits?

It's spiritual spirituality.

Who are your spirits?

Who are you in relationship with?

How does that work?

How do you help them?

How do they help you?

And so the experience that you provide yourself through a spiritual practice, no one can give you, no one can take you away, no one can tell you what your relationship should be with the divine, with your spirits.

This is part of the beauty and nobody stands in the way of your experience.

That to me is one of the, the core foundational principles of a shamanic approach.

When we do that.

I'm not saying we don't take advice, we don't speak with, we connect with people who believe or don't believe the same way we do to again, bring us to a more powerful experience and a clearer understanding of where we do stand and why and how.

So it takes a new experience to change an old belief at the core of addiction.

And anybody who's worked with me knows that I feel the need to drill down to that limiting core belief and to get it into an I am statement.

I am.

And when we have that, now we've got something to work with.

Who chances are, when we do work with it, we find out not only where it came from, but who it came from.

Who, who planted that idea into us because we didn't come into this world thinking, I am bad, I'm not enough, I am broken, I am a loser, so on and so forth.

So in these two case examples that I'm going to go over, they are very common and the first one is probably the most common.

Limiting core belief for a man.

I am a loser.

I am, we'll stick with that as the wording, but I am stupid weak.

In other words, generally speaking, with men, the overwhelming core belief that limits us is I am not enough in my capacity to provide to be a man.

I'm not strong enough.

I'm not fill in the blank enough of being able to.

I'm not disciplined enough.

I'm, I, I, I can't do it because I, I didn't get enough schooling, I didn't do, I don't have the training.

I, I can't.

You know, I'm always going to be a loser.

So this first one, I am a loser.

What we need is, is we need an experience that is going to be the medicine to show that the belief is a lie.

Because like I say, addiction is a spell.

The spell is a lie.

The spell that is a lie is this limiting core belief.

It's not a lie.

The only reason why it's true is because we go go out and prove it through active addiction.

That's how we prove that I am a loser is we go around the cycle and when we show up the next day after not sleeping and losing all our money and having bags under our eyes and smelling like who knows what we show up at the office and what we say, holy moly, what a loser.

So it's like, Randy, I don't know, it's like it's plain for everybody to see.

The only reason why it's plain for everybody to see is because we proved it to be so through the cycle, we gave ourselves not just in a belief what we do, we gave ourselves an experience that proves that belief.

I am a loser.

To be true, plain and evident for everybody to see on the morning after.

Well, the flip side of that also holds true.

Giving ourselves an experience of doing the next right thing.

And in this particular case example, person got a job.

The person got a job better than they've ever had previously in their life.

Even as an entry level position even as an entry level position with no experience, putting one foot in front of the other and proving to themselves not hitting that alarm once.

I keep saying, dude, there's no way I would have Got up at 3:55am Boom.

Every single I, I would have slipped and fallen a few times on that sucker.

No problem.

Absolutely.

But you didn't.

Putting one foot in front of the other, doing whatever was asked of them and coming out the other side, coming out the other side of months of success in just 9 to 5 90, but 5 to 2, whatever the heck it is.

Early shift, 4 30.

No, I think it's 5.

That experience, there are a hundred things within a day.

It's not just hitting that alarm, but then the.

Well, because I can't smoke as readily, there's, there's no areas to smoke.

So you know what?

And I'm so active during the day, I don't feel like smoking.

So smoking got knocked down where before it was.

I can't quit smoking.

I can't cut back.

The physicality of walking, having, having the, the steps, read through the, the phone.

An unbelievable amount of wonderful exercise that wasn't getting done.

So through this experience of doing the job, showing up, connecting with people little by little, every single day, it gave this person an experience that was digesting little by little.

I am a loser.

Huh?

Not right.

Not today.

Checked all the boxes.

How cool is that?

Now we talk about how realistically the amount of, of energy I like bank accounts, the amount of deposits.

Every single time this person said I am a loser.

Anytime we say these negative core beliefs, it's like making a little deposit into that negative bank account of you can't do it.

I am broken.

I am fill in the blank.

Not enough limiting core belief.

We just keep building that energy up.

Decades, decades.

He's not alone.

He's not.

It's not uncommon to have this go on for decades before we bring the awareness and shine a light on it that huh, this is a lie that I've been telling myself and the only reason why it's true is because I've been proving it to be so.

And now here we are, decades later.

I've put a lot of energy, I've made a lot of deposits into that lie to make it true.

Of a bank account that says, I am a loser, but every day I take a little bit out.

Every day when I do the next right thing, I drain that energy and I pull it back into myself, into the positive side of the ledger, into the balance sheet.

It's an asset instead of a liability.

If you want to look at it as a metaphor like that.

In Chinese medicine we say this, this energy of the negative, of the limiting core belief gets digested.

It's part of the spleen transformation and transportation.

We would put our awareness and focus and practice and doing what are we doing?

We are going in there and we are digesting that lie and turning it into authentic truth.

And in the form of practice, in the form of a, of a job that nobody can give me and nobody can take away.

That's example number one.

That is the example of the, the medicine of experience that can't come in the form of a pill, cannot come in the form of anybody doing anything on the outside.

For us, it's like, right, going to the gym, nobody can do that for us.

Same idea.

So this medicine of experience, I'll throw a second one at you.

And unfortunately, this is a, another very common and becoming even more common situation, right.

Is pornography addiction.

So this gentleman, and I'm okay saying gentlemen, as it is overwhelmingly percentage wise men who engage in this particular addiction.

So this particular gentleman, this has been going on again, decades.

So the core belief is I am dirty.

And one of the most powerful ingredients in an addiction are secrets.

And a secret holds so much power, holds so much energy, just like that bank account I was talking about earlier.

And every time we engage in an activity that we don't want to, we don't want to share, right?

This shameful obviousness.

In this case, we're talking about porn.

So it's kept secret.

So what does this person do?

The most important thing that this person has done is share with a partner.

Now this to me, well, I said most important, you know, anytime you put like a most or in every and always a very important.

And it's not just any partner, but it's someone who is safe enough to share the secret with.

So that the secret gets its steam, relieved the valve, the pressure.

And not only that, but the shame aspect of it can be normalized.

We Want, everybody wants to be heard, wants to be understood.

And when we bring the medicine of awareness, we shine the light on this particular secret as.

As with this particular gentleman.

One of the beauties is the digestion of this energy really goes faster and easier and more effectively with the medicine of connection.

Having a partner who understands and is not going to add shame to the situation.

Previous partners, he had to keep it a secret because if and when he did let a little bit out, shame was used against him.

And it just reinforces that I am dirty, I am bad.

So in order to transform that the experience of being seen, of being heard, of opening up the secret so that it can be talked about, shared, normalized in.

I'm not condoning, I'm not saying when we take this aspect of our shadow, we all have these things, right?

When we can take them out of the dark, they lose their scary teeth.

And when we have someone that we can connect with and look at with curiosity and honesty together, then we could start parsing through which aspects of this are unhealthy.

And at this time, maybe there's a way we can go through this together as partners so that it works for both of us.

Wow, that is transformative.

Now, again, obviously a slippery slope because if both of the partners share some similar wounds and then go down, you know, the porn addiction together, that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is, is to take it out of that realm of the computer and that need to be filled through unattainable and unrealistic means into a living and breathing partner that feeling and intimacy can grow out of.

Boom.

Home run.

And dismantling the secret and dismantling that limiting core belief of I am dirty, I am bad, I cannot share this.

All that falls apart and that can only be gotten through an experience.

These are two examples of how these limiting core beliefs the belief is transformed it it's starting to be or continuing to be digested through the continuation of this experience, through the continuation of connection, continuing to bring awareness, continuing to be put into practice.

The four medicines apply to the four aspects of the whole person.

Mental, spiritual, emotional and physical.

Mental the medicine is awareness.

However, we bring that in.

Spiritual, the medicine is experience.

Emotional, the medicine is connection.

And the physical.

The medicine is practice.

For me, those four medicines I know works for me.

They continue to work for me in recovery.

And however I apply them to practices ongoing that I want to change in my life and to keep improving.

And I've had the blessing and the honor to offer these medicines in their forms that work for people and science over these decades.

And I this is why I'm so firm in in my belief that they are indeed medicines and that through the medicines like these that empower, they provide something that a pill and or a an external procedure cannot do and in which nobody can give me, nobody can take it away.

And when you do it, nobody can give you and nobody can take it away.

And that's why I love these medicines for their empowerment and their continued success in early recovery doldrums, the the dog days of recovery and if any relapse or hardships, new trauma, abuses, heartbreaks and losses because losses are coming to us all happen even decades into our recovery.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, your use of the medicines.

Maybe you have some other medicines that are intangible like this.

Maybe they fit into here but are a different way of describing the ones that I've called the four medicines.

I'd love to hear what you got.

Your opinions.

Please hit the little like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

And of course, as always, send me any questions you have.

I'm happy to answer them.

If I don't know the answer, I'll recommend you to somebody who does.

Or at least point you in the right direction.

I hope.

Until next time.

Blessings.

Thanks for listening to the Sober Shaman podcast where we explore ways to make the spiritual practical.

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Until next time, Blessings.