Why solstice?
My mother was in labour with me during the winter solstice. The concept of darkness (longest night of the year), prior to the light coming in is an important concept in healing and psychedelics. This time also represents the end or “ death” of season and the rebirth and transition to evolve.
About me
Welcome to my page, here’s a bit of my origin story. Not only does it give you the chance to get to know me, it also will show you why I’m so passionate about psychedelics.
I was born in a small farming town in Southern Alberta, and after my parent’s divorce moved around to other small towns in Alberta. I experienced a lot of trauma and adversity growing up that unbeknownst to me at the time, set me up to choose my future profession as a trauma response.
At a young age I knew I wanted to be a paramedic, and set my sights on that. I thought it was a noble profession, exciting, and would pay well. Boy was I wrong about a lot of that. But hindsight is 20/20. After years of experiencing trauma both at work and in my personal life, I finally broke down and was diagnosed with treatment resistant PTSD, attachment disorder, and developmental trauma. I would begin a 10 year journey to heal and find myself. Initially I was just looking to not be so angry. And then I sank into a deep depression that did not want to lift despite being off of work, and seeing a therapist. I did everything in my power to try and get better, but not much was known about PTSD at that time, and my treatment options were limited to what I could afford on my measly disability.
I attempted to go back to work and relapsed. The relapse was worse than the original injury. This also included suicidal ideation, issues with alcohol, a divorce and total financial ruin. I made a promise to myself that if things got any worse that I would end it. Being in that headspace propelled me to look outside the box of conventional treatment.
This lead me to psychedelics. While this is a bit of a story, I’ll keep it to the Cole’s notes version. Psychedelics saved my life. And they continue to do so. I have had the gift of being able to work with many since my initial experience where I worked with Ayahuasca, Samahdi, and 5MEODMT. I came back to Canada a completely different version of myself and have continued to do the work. I realized that I needed to make these medicines available to others, and have been on an advocacy and education mission since then. I have also built and ran one of the first Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy programs in Calgary and we were very successful in treating people.
This leads us to where we are now. We are sitting on the precipice of one of the biggest shifts in how we treat mental health illnesses and injuries. The biggest gift we’ll ever be given on this planet. The psychedelic movement, if done correctly, has to potential to change everything including elevating our consciousness as a collective.
Thank you for joining me on this journey and taking the time to hear a bit about my story. I look forward to working with you.
