Love, Death, and Psychedelics: A Journey Through Healing and Grief with Michael Sanders
EP 43

Love, Death, and Psychedelics: A Journey Through Healing and Grief with Michael Sanders

Show Notes: 

What happens when a high-achieving corporate executive, obsessed with movement and success, reaches complete burnout? For Michael Sanders, the answer came in the form of a life-changing experience deep in the Amazon rainforest. In this episode, Michael shares his incredible transformation—from a driven advertising VP and startup founder to an explorer of consciousness, author, and advocate for decentralized technologies.

Michael takes us through his intense personal journey of pushing himself to the limit, only to find healing through meditation, play, and ultimately, an ayahuasca ceremony that completely rewired his perception of love, reality, and existence. He describes his vivid encounters with otherworldly beings, his realization that love is the fundamental force of the universe, and how that understanding has shaped his life ever since.

We also explore how his psychedelic experiences influenced his path into blockchain and Web3, leading him to work alongside Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin. Finally, Michael opens up about his father’s unexpected passing and how a deeply personal mushroom ceremony allowed him to grieve, heal generational wounds, and release years of stored shame from his body.

This is a powerful conversation on transformation, surrender, and the profound wisdom that can be accessed when we quiet the mind and open the heart.

 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

 

Topics Covered:

  • Michael’s journey from high-pressure corporate life to deep self-exploration
  • How overworking and ignoring rest led to burnout and health issues
  • The shift from goal-oriented training to movement as play
  • How Burning Man awakened a new sense of synchronicity and possibility
  • Michael’s first ayahuasca ceremony and his encounter with “Mother Ayahuasca”
  • The realization that love is the fundamental force of the universe
  • Meeting Vitalik Buterin and stepping into the world of blockchain and Web3
  • The shocking loss of his father and how a mushroom ceremony helped him grieve
  • Releasing stored emotions and shame through a powerful psychedelic experience
  • What it means to truly see and be seen by loved ones

 

Resources Mentioned:

 

Follow Me:

 

Instructions to Win a Bundle of Rainbo Products - Leave us Ratings and Reviews: (Or watch the video instructions here)

  1. Go to Spotify and search "The Rainbo Podcast"
  2. Follow the Show Rate the Show on Spotify, and take a screenshot
  3. Go to Apple Podcasts
  4. Search "The Rainbo Podcast"
  5. Scroll down past a few episodes until you get to the "Write a Review" section
  6. Write your review and screenshot before you hit Submit, as Apple's system can take a while to publish
  7. Send the Spotify screenshot and Apple review screenshot to info@rainbo.com
  8. Be sure to go back to Apple Podcasts and hit submit on your review
  9. We'll pull a winner at the end of the month once we verify that your ratings/review went through to win a bundle of tinctures!
  10. We'll contact you if you win so you can select your bundle of choice
  11. Check out all our bundles at https://rainbo.com/pages/bundles. Thanks and good luck!

Watch this Video for visual instructions

 

Learn about the Ethereal Reset Retreat in Greece

Join Ethereal Reset or Book a Call to find out more


Show Transcript:

 

Tonya: [00:00:00] Hi, Michael.

Mike: Hey, Tanya.

Tonya: Thank you so much for A, having me over and setting up this amazing studio in your office.

Mike: Kudos to Pandora for that.

Tonya: Big kudos to Pandora. I'm so excited to be sitting here with you today and having this conversation, which I already anticipate is going to be like very big in our hearts.

So I typically start every episode actually asking what you're grateful for today.

Mike: I'm grateful for our friendship and for being able to share it with Simon and Pandora and, like, for all of us to get to hang out and get to create this podcast together. It's really special.

Tonya: I'm also grateful for our sleepover last night and a friendship that feels truly so effortless and has evolved over seven years together.

And you were like, A really crucial element of when I was first meeting [00:01:00] Simon and like knowing that he was friends with you Gave me this sense of like, okay, this guy has got some really good people in his life slash like And just the journeys, the depth of friendship, the relationship mirror of you and Pandora and Simon and I And the way we've gotten to form this like Very, very sacred bond over these past seven years has been an honor.

Mike: Yeah, likewise. And it's brought Simon and me closer together too. Cause like, he and I have been friends for 15 or 16 years. And, you know, we hung out a fair amount, but I think we get to hang out more now because we're all so close, which is really special. Being friends with you guys is the absolute best.

Tonya: Yeah, there was a real convergence of, uh, community. Like It was already there, but it was like a lot of Beautiful forces coming into it at that time Yeah So [00:02:00] today I guess to give our listeners a little bit of a background I would love to just hear about you and for you to tell everybody a bit more about what you do and I Think the journey also of how you the book you wrote your ayahuasca journey what you're doing now You have always been in my eyes somebody that has been Extremely embodied and such a light like a you have a very connected sense of presence in your life and what you bring to this world is a gift to witness and be a part of and I know that has been a really really cool journey of working in ads and corporate life and then how you've really like embodied your jungle experience and wrote a book.

And so I would love for you to tell us a little bit about that journey.

Mike: Yeah. Well, first off, thank you. And, um, maybe I'll start when I was 25 years old, I was working as a vice president of an advertising agency. [00:03:00] And I was also a co founder of a separate startup. It was like a betting application. I was training athletically about 14 times a week, 10 to 14 times per week.

Wow. Vice president of this ad agency, co founder of a separate startup, never resting, never relaxing, no meditation.

Tonya: Were you dancing?

Mike: A tiny bit, like on weekends here and there, but I was just so goal oriented and driven. I wanted to achieve a one arm handstand, a one arm chin up, a 400 pound squat, expand my movement vocabulary and capacity, and serve my clients in advertising, and launch this separate startup to achieve financial freedom.

And I was trying to do all of these things at once, and when I would feel exhausted on Like any day of the week, let's say it was on the weekend, I would think the reason I was tired is because I wasn't working hard enough and I had not achieved the capacity that was required for me to deliver on all the goals that I had set for myself.

I didn't think it was because I needed to rest. I thought [00:04:00] I needed to work harder to develop that ability. Which is a perverted way of thinking, but that's how I was thinking at the time. It got to a point where I was doing all of these things I mentioned for about 20 consecutive months. I was also eating keto at the time, so low carbohydrate, which was not good for me.

It was okay for a while, but it was just too much stress on my body all the time. And so I got to the point where I was 26 years old, and I would sleep like, I would hear my alarm clock go off in the morning, and it might have been 10 or 12 hours, and I thought some sick joke was being played on me, because it felt as though I just closed my eyes the night before.

And then I would like, eh, eh, eh, to wake up. And my legs would feel heavy, and I would arrive at my ad agency at like 11am, and I would have to leave at like 2. 30 or 3pm because I was so drained. And then the only thing that would make me feel alive again is I'd go

Tonya: weightlift. And

Mike: I was, it basically turned into an addiction, like what I was doing at the gym.

And my libido got shot. I was 26 and I stopped getting erections. [00:05:00] And I was

Tonya: like,

Mike: this is not good. And so at that moment, when I realized that that was happening, I told myself, I'm like, if you can't figure out how to feel like yourself again within the span of two years, this life isn't worth living.

Because I was just really down and depleted. And

Tonya: you were at that stage, you weren't like, okay, maybe I should eat different way or move less or any of those thoughts were coming in or not so much.

Mike: I felt as though I had all those things dialed in, you know, because I was like subscribe or yeah I was subscribing to sort of like a dogmatic way of thinking that like, oh it has to be Keto or at the time it was like low carb paleo the keto phenomenon wasn't really here But I thought that to achieve all these movement goals, like I had to do what I was doing.

So I I mean, I knew I needed to change something, but those were two things that I was very reluctant

Tonya: to change.

Mike: But anyway, I did decide that, like, yeah, if I can't figure out how to feel like myself again, then this life isn't worth living, therefore I do need to change something. So I started [00:06:00] consulting with a naturopath, or he's like a natural health practitioner, his name is Lovedeep.

And I've searched for, like, interviewed a few different ones, because I wanted one that understood my obsession with movement. I didn't want someone to just tell me, like, hey, stop working out, or, like, stop Stop doing this entirely and I found him and he described his own journey and he had gone through something similar where he was like Training multiple times per day and then ended up in a deep dark hole of like adrenal fatigue burnout was sleeping 20 hours a day But he had overcome all this and now he was teaching other people so I started meeting with him and he really got me to focus on a meditation practice and play He was like, I know you love movement, but let's try to detach a little bit from the numbers and like the amount of weight and like the specific goal of like a one arm handstand.

He's like, why did you start moving in the first place? Like what inspired you to? And I was like, It feels really good. Like it makes me feel super healthy and capable and it improves my mood and you know, like [00:07:00] just so many tremendous mood and health benefits and he's like, okay, let's focus on that, like the feeling of what it means to you and how it makes you feel good.

And so yeah, I started a daily meditation practice and then I started treating movement as play. And I reduced the amount, like I went down to like five days per week. He's like, just do it on weekdays, like take weekends off. And he's like, and go dance more and try rock climbing instead of just always do it like in the same pattern.

So I did that and I gave space in my life to be less goal oriented. And then the meditation practice was like more yin, you know? And then I started even doing some yin yoga and just like having rest periods and so I did start feeling like myself again within the span of about five or six months and then I ended up at Burning Man for the first time in 2013 which, I mean, that changed my life forever.

You've been many times. Yes, of course. And it's like the ultimate playground, you know, like everyone there is playing and There's a lot of energy invested into that play.

Tonya: Yeah

Mike: at the time. I was [00:08:00] like, this is the manifestation of human potential because there's so much joy and instant manifestation and synchronicity and everyone on the same wavelength magic and that was so Uplifting and inspiring for me that it really changed me I realized that because I had always noticed synchronicity growing up but being there where it's instantly happening in every moment I then realized like, oh, this is actually accessible in all moments.

And the whole world is as magical as this place. It's just like concentrated and everyone's aware of it. So then I'm like, okay, I can take this newfound knowledge and apply it to the rest of my life. And then a few months later, I ended up in the Peruvian Amazon. And one of our mutual friends, Sid, had asked me like, what are you doing for New Year's this year when we're flying back from Burning Man?

And I said, I don't know yet. And he's like, do you want to go down to the Amazon? and drink this plant medicine called ayahuasca. And I'd heard of ayahuasca on a Joe Rogan podcast and when I had first heard it, I knew it was calling me. I could feel it, like, oh, I'm [00:09:00] supposed to embark on that journey, whatever it is.

Had

Tonya: you done psychedelics before this point and before the burn?

Mike: Yeah.

Tonya: Yeah.

Mike: My first psychedelic experience, I would say technically, was when I was 14 with marijuana. But then, like, what people tend to call psychedelics, mushrooms, when I was 16. And that was a very defining moment in my life. But it wasn't until 2013, we're going to embark on this journey with ayahuasca that I'd ever treated it ceremoniously.

It had always in the past been like, kind of experimental and recreational. But, you know, I went to Peru and the shamans there, they were guiding us, leading up to the, even arriving in the Amazon. They prescribed a particular diet, a way of thinking. Getting into more stillness, and setting intentions as to what we wanted to get out of the ceremony and what we wanted to bring to it.

And so it was very intentional, which was a new way of thinking about plant medicines and psychedelics that I didn't have at the time. [00:10:00] So I arrived down to the jungle, and we trekked through the Amazon for about a week, and then we arrived to the ceremonial grounds of Nue Reo. And they had us do these flower baths, where we were bathing ourselves and letting these flowers dry on us.

And it was all about opening yourself up to the plant medicine. And they were referring to her as Mother Ayahuasca, which I perceived as metaphor. Like, they were calling it an intelligent entity, and I was respectful of their traditions, but I Didn't fully believe them. Not that I was trying not to believe them, it's just that I wasn't aware of what they were aware of.

Yeah, and like,

Tonya: the understanding wasn't there.

Mike: Yeah, because I was like, yeah, okay, it's a medicine, but like, I wasn't ready to call it mother. Like, I went along with it. I didn't fully grok it at the time.

Tonya: And

Mike: then, in my first ceremony, we were in this maloka, which is this beautiful wooden structure with thatched roofing and screens for windows and it had a 40 foot tall ceiling and it was very beautifully designed, woodworking.

And I was the [00:11:00] first to drink the ayahuasca, and I decided to reflect chronologically upon my year, because it's New Year's Eve of 2013, and I didn't want to impatiently wait for the medicine to onset so I just started reflecting chronologically upon my year, just expressing gratitude for the different moments of 2013.

Because it had been a very teaching year of my life going from like burnout and depression to then feeling like myself again and like feeling uplifted. And when I got to about the month of October and my reflection, I felt this fire shoot up my legs and into my torso. And just instinctively and intuitively, I thought aloud, like I felt like I was telepathically broadcasting the notion of Mother Ayahuasca, can you please give me five more minutes, I just want to finish my reflection on the year, I think it's important that I do so.

And immediately this voice responds in my awareness, and it says, Yes, my child, take your time and let me know when you're ready. And then the fire recedes out of my body, and I [00:12:00] just like, I'm looking around and I'm like, Holy shit, I'm talking with a plant right now. So I finish my reflection, and then again, instinctively, intuitively, I'm like, Mother Ayahuasca, I'm ready to welcome you into my mind, into my body, into my soul, these are my intentions.

I hope to learn a lot from you, and maybe you'll even learn something from me. Welcome. And then the fire just comes back up my legs, fills my entire body, my heart, my mind. And then these purple and green beams of light just emerge from the darkness. And they were aurora borealis. And I'm looking at them and I'm thinking like, Am I hallucinating?

Or are the northern lights somehow on the South American jungle floor? And like, I'm looking to the left and the right, trying to test their objectivity. So I closed my eyes over here, because they were moving. And then, by the time I looked back, they had progressed in their movement towards me. And then they wrapped themselves around me.

And I'm just like, holy shit, like I'm bathing in the Northern Lights. [00:13:00] And then they had rolled me over onto my side, into the fetal position. And I felt like every trauma I had ever gone through in the first 26 years of my life was being healed. And I felt this maternal presence that transcended any maternal presence that I had been aware of.

And, like, all the credit to my own mother, wonderful mother, and, like, cared for me dearly growing up. This was just on a scale that felt cosmic and universal. And, yeah, I just felt, like, healed from everything. And I wasn't even, like, seeking healing. I just felt healed. I thought to myself right then, I'm like, if this is all the experience is, it had only been 45 minutes since I had drunk the medicine, and it's like, if this is all the experience is, I'm totally cool with that, and it can either end right now or continue on indefinitely, and I would be thrilled either case.

And then, like, I mean, I spent 18 hours over the course of three ceremonies under ayahuasca's care and, like, [00:14:00] traveling through different dimensions, interacting with other dimensional beings, learning, like, remembering that love is the fabric of the omniverse and responsible for everything. But it fundamentally changed the way that I live my life and helped me realize that Every moment unfolds in the exact manner it does to provide us with the most enriching experience of life imaginable.

So it instilled this deep trust in me that no matter what's happening, it's for ultimately the best.

Tonya: Yeah. I want to pause there for a second because when I think of, when I think of love, I think of you. And that feels like the through line of like what was the biggest teaching for you through Ayahuasca and like this.

I think because I know you personally and like I know how true that is to be in your presence and the way that you've embodied that love. So when you say like, I learned that love was the fabric of the universe, can you tell us more about like, what [00:15:00] was that realization in that moment? Was it accompanied by some like fractal realization, visualization, like what was that experience like?

And how did you Yeah, like that must have been so profound that it has now since influenced your entire life has been a devotion to love

Mike: so the way it originated was Shortly after the northern lights wrapped me up the shamans started singing these songs called Icarus and it sort of sounded like so was so wah wah and The shamans say that they channel these songs that they're not of their own creation that they're channeling them from some other higher realm dimension but As they were singing, these colourful shapes were emanating from their mouths into my visual field.

And so the one shaman, his name is Ermojanez, he started singing these orange and blue shapes. And they just started expanding to fill my perceptual awareness. And then Ricardo, the main shaman, he started singing these red and green shapes. And then Urselia, the final shaman, [00:16:00] the only female one, she starts singing a full rainbow of colours.

Actually, more colors than there are in the rainbow, more colors than I've ever seen before. And all of the shaman shapes were harmonizing in the visual space, and all of their songs were harmonizing in the auditory space. And all their colorful shapes were combining and creating this massive cloud like entity that occupied like 95 percent of my perceptual field.

Like, I was looking around and it was just this colorful cloud, essentially. And then I was staring at this and I'm like, what is this? And then the northern lights like elevated me, that I was wrapped in, and they pushed me into this, what I was learning was a new dimension. And the ayahuasca told me like, go my child, explore.

And she's like, I'm here with you and you're safe. It's like, okay. And then I felt the Northern lights kind of like sever behind me, like an umbilical cord. And then I went into this, this new dimension. And it also told me like, this is a dimension that is always [00:17:00] here. It's where you come from. It's where you're going.

And it's always present. You just haven't been consciously tuned into it for the last 20 or so years. Then. So when I get in there, there were these three little humanoid beings. I say humanoid because they kind of looked like people, but kind of like cartoonish people and they were like this tall just floating up here and They had these like little cute hoods on and they were all three of them were female and one was outlined in vibrant yellow another in vibrant pink and another in vibrant orange like such bright like neon light color super beautiful and They were looking at me and like communicating with me and it was very Trippy and strange because I had never experienced anything like this and just imagine if you're sitting at home in your room and like there's just three beings just appear here and Like as real as you are, you know, and I'm like and then I to test their objectivity.

I looked away and Then they floated over to the left side and they were like, hey like [00:18:00] telepathically They're like, are you interested in engaging with us? like yeah, like very and then they started communicating different aspects of love and the one was like Sisterly, the other was grandmotherly, and the other one was motherly.

And there was even a moment where, at the time, it was my girlfriend. She was back in Toronto, and I was like, Oh, I feel like I'm committing some act of infidelity. Because it was like this loving relations with these women. Like, I didn't have the same perspective on love then, right? It was a little more guarded, and like, reserved for romantic situations.

But they expressed to me, they're like, No, no, we're more like sisterly and motherly. And they're like, don't worry, your girlfriend will be cool with And then, so I interacted with them for a while, and then I met this being that was like, it had like a horse's head and a teddy bear's body. And it was communicating like this brotherly and grandfatherly love.

And then I met these, what I ended up calling mitos, and they were like the mitochondria in my body. They looked like the mitochondria drawings in [00:19:00] biology class. And they would like glow these vibrant colors. And they had this relationship with my gut flora and I looked down and I started communicating with my gut flora and they floated up and they're like communicating with me and they're like, Michael, you're a vessel and you're a vessel for trillions of different kinds of beings.

And they're like, and you want to make your vessel as welcoming as possible to light entities, playful entities, loving entities, because we influence your thoughts, your behaviors, your moods, everything. And, um, They gave me some guidance on like nutritional changes to make and I was like, okay, I'll listen to you guys.

And they were so dialed in, like they told me to stop eating dark chocolate and to stop eating pork. Wow. And then they showed me why, like they showed me experiences from my entire life where every time I ate pork, I would feel like a low grade lethargy for three to four days afterwards. And they weren't saying like pork or dark chocolate was bad for everyone.

They're like, it's not right for you at this particular stage in your life. But then anyway, I ended up like navigating this realm. [00:20:00] And there were all of these beings, and there were, like, there was an infinite number of beings. It was like a starry night sky, when you look and you can see the constellations, and there are stars, and there are stars beyond those stars, and stars beyond those stars.

And that's what this colourful realm with all these different beings were. And it was like every direction, infinite beings, in degree and kind and number, and every single one of them was articulating some aspect of love. Like the romantic version, the sisterly, the brotherly friend, like all different kinds, like the relationship between soil and tree, food and human, like all the different kinds of love, but collectively.

They were expressing love as a whole and showing me that yes, like the fabric of the omniverse is love It's responsible for the Big Bang and every one of its predecessors every work of art every song every painting every written word It's why children are born and the grass grows through the pavement stars explode and galaxies die like all of it is love and we're just in God is love [00:21:00] unfolding and I didn't ever even use the word God at that time in my life but it was just showing me and I was like Cool, like, I'll use that word now, like, and then that's just been with me ever since.

Tonya: Wow, and so what happened after the jungle and going back to your life?

Mike: Yeah, so I was wondering about my jobs at the time, like the ad agency and then this betting startup I was working on. It told me in the very first ceremony, it was like, yeah, that startup is not you. It's a good idea, but like, you're not super passionate about it.

So like, just go away from it. Cause you're not going to fulfill it in a way that's going to be good for you in the world. And I kind of knew I was going to step out of my ad agency at some point anyway. And that. became clear. And Ayahuasca told me, she's like, Michael, the major dream persisting from your youth is to write a book.

You've always wanted to write a book, which is true. Like I've wanted to write a book since I was a kid. And I always thought it was going to be a work of fiction. But she told me in this sort of cosmic wink, she's like, I'm giving you a lot [00:22:00] to write about. I was like, yeah, you are. So after the very first ceremony, I journaled for eight consecutive hours, pen to page.

And like, I never write with a pen, I always write on my laptop, but it just flowed through me. And what I thought it was going to be the most difficult thing to articulate, because I'm in other dimensions with beings that I previously knew nothing about, like, shattered my previous paradigm of reality. So I thought it'd be very hard to describe, but I sat in this room and it felt as though some celestial waterfall was flowing into my mind through my arm and just water falling words onto the page.

So for eight consecutive hours, I wrote. the first ceremony's experience. And then I had a second ceremony and the third. And by the time I even got back to Toronto, I'd already journaled the entire ceremony. So like 25 hours of writing. And then I came home and I spent two weeks contextualizing the narrative amongst a longer story that just had like, kind of, you know, how I got to that point.

And then I sent the book out to editors, seven different editors, and then it [00:23:00] took about a year and a half through the whole editing, publication process, and then I released it in 2015, and like, it became a bestseller, and it was a really beautiful experience, and it connected me with so many people around the world.

Tonya: I bet.

Mike: Which was very beautiful, and it ultimately

Tonya: The book's name is

Mike: Ayahuasca and Executives Enlightenment.

Tonya: And where can we find it now?

Mike: You can find it on Amazon, or I have a website michaelsanders. co You can find it there too.

Tonya: Okay, we'll link it.

Mike: Yeah, thanks. And then it also, another part of my journey is like, I've been into crypto and blockchains since 2010.

When I first discovered Bitcoin and your husband Simon really helped me at the beginning because he's an expert in that domain as well. And after I released my book, I met, so when I was in the Amazon rainforest, I was talking with Ayahuasca about Bitcoin and she told me like, yes, it's a really beautiful technology and you're [00:24:00] about to encounter something you're going to fall in love with even more.

And I asked her like, what is it? And she said, you'll know it when you see it. Two weeks after returning from the Amazon rainforest, I met Vitalik Buterin, who is Ethereum's inventor. And he was speaking to a room full of 20 of us in this place called Bitcoin Decentral in downtown Toronto. It was a meetup place for crypto people.

This was, crypto was pretty underground back then, very esoteric. So it was like, Vitalik commanded a crowd of 20 people at the time. He was 18 years old. I didn't even know he was going to be there, like it was just coincidental. And he was talking about Ethereum, and Decentralized governance and smart contracts and programmable money in this next generation of the Internet.

And that's what I fell in love with, what we now call Web3. But I fell in love with this notion of a new Internet where users and creators share in the value of the ecosystems they participate in. And you could have economies and experiences that are More symbiotic rather there being always needing to be like a unidirectional [00:25:00] flow of value transfer to like usually from individual to some corporate entity.

Like if you look at social media these days, right? It's I'd say YouTube is a bit more symbiotic. But if you look at something like Instagram. It's Instagram that is capturing 99. 9 percent of the value. Meanwhile, it's the users who create all of the content. So who they're essentially creating most of the value.

Instagram certainly deserves compensation, but if you had a more symbiotic ecosystem, there would be value distribution that was just. More equitable and based on your contributions, and I think that this was the notion that I really fell in love with in the notion of decentralized currencies that couldn't be kind of manipulated by single entities to their own.

So I fell in love with this concept and it was before Ethereum had even been invented, like it had not been created. It was still a concept and they were planning to launch it. I think they ended up launching it in like August of 2014. So 7 or 8 months [00:26:00] after I had met them. And so from that point onward, I spent a lot of time thinking about how can we actually usher in these technologies so that people can benefit from them and use them?

Because As I mentioned like crypto especially back then was very esoteric and it still is for most people most people still don't understand it But there's such tremendous potential with these technologies. So I was like, okay, how do we get people to use it and benefit from it? And I did not I have many good ideas, like I was creating like six page Google Docs and sharing them with friends explaining the potential of these things.

But my Google Docs would have links to like, here's five books you should read, and then like another article, so it's like not that much fun. It's like, it's basically like a university curriculum, which like very few folks are gonna embark on, right? So, it wasn't actually until I met one of my co founders and our CEO, his name's Peter Kieltyka, and to my knowledge, he was the first person to conceptualize blockchain games.

So, video [00:27:00] games in which the game items are actually verified and secured by the blockchain. And how he explained it to me at the time is that, At that time, in 2017, there were hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on video game items, in traditional video games. And people buy all sorts of things, like cosmetics, like they want to wear a costume, or they want to buy like a racing car in the game, or trading cards, or they want to buy Weapons and like if people play like war games or fighting games or they want to buy a hat for their character to wear in The game or fashion digital fashion and they were spending hundreds of billions of dollars on these items And they didn't own any of them.

Like they just existed in some centralized server And they were prohibited from trading those items. So they just spent the money on these things They're essentially renting them and then if the game ever disappeared like so too did their money They couldn't sell it. They weren't actually owning the things they were paying for but if you If you make those game items, essentially digital [00:28:00] assets or crypto assets, then you can own them in a decentralized manner.

And so let's say you get bored with the game and you've spent thousands of dollars buying game items. You can just trade them, you can sell them, you can take your money and then go do something different with it or spend it in a new game or go buy groceries or pay for your rent or whatever. And this notion of digital ownership, which I thought was a really powerful concept.

And we ended up starting the companies called horizon and we ended up, building a platform called Sequence, which allows game creators and application creators to easily integrate Web3, blockchain, digital assets, cryptocurrencies into their application and game experiences. And so we've been doing that for the last seven years.

And it's ultimately about ushering in this next generation of the internet and the next generation of gaming and computer experiences and virtual worlds. And yeah, it's been a magical journey and we've like assembled the most incredible team and it's something that is like totally aligned to my life's purpose and a [00:29:00] big part of it and that I'm just really grateful to be a part of.

Tonya: Yeah, it makes me think of like how on time humanity is in the sense that, so have you heard of the Aquarian Age? Have we spoken about this before?

Mike: I know the term, but not in depth.

Tonya: Okay, so it's essentially And like Simon and I and all of, all of us, we all are just like, Oh my God, like the fact that we're all here together on these missions is, it feels very much on time.

Like there's a whole fleet of souls that have arrived to earth to usher in this time with more grace. Um, but essentially the Aquarian Age, there's some debate about what year it actually happened in, but it's like. Like I've heard like 11 11 11, so 2011 2012, there's roots there with the Mayan calendar as well, and then some people also say There's another calendar that somebody recently was telling me about how it kind of like also start like [00:30:00] 2019 so it's this whole decade where essentially there was so much change and the Aquarian Age is all about the dissemination and the decentralization of information and knowledge and power structures and how so much has been crumbling and to think and also the fact that Satoshi and Like, it just really makes you wonder, like, is that a human entity?

Yeah. Is that, so there's this unknown creator, and you could tell the story better than I can, but like, an unknown creator, essentially, of Bitcoin. Yep. And of the whole, what do you call it, like

Mike: The blockchain? Yeah.

Tonya: Yeah.

Mike: Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, Satoshi Nakamoto is seemingly a pseudonymous Actor.

Tonya: Right?

Mike: Meaning we don't know their true identity.

They go by Satoshi Nakamoto,

Tonya: and there's been no more actions by that entity. Yeah, since, right? Yeah. I think Simon said there was one other that happened after.

Mike: So he or she or they, or it could be a group of [00:31:00] people. We don't know. Most people think it's one person, but anyway, we don't know. They control 1 million Bitcoin, which I think is worth about a hundred.

Billion right now or more anyways, a lot of money and the Bitcoin in their wallet Essentially, it's called the Genesis block has never moved So it's just sitting there. There is some speculation in theory that it's this particular guy named Hal Finney who is cryogenically frozen right now because he had a disease and his wife went and froze herself with him too.

Wow. That's one of the theories of who it is. There are other claims as well, but yeah, that Bitcoin has never moved. So they, like, created this They were mining it and so were the early creators of Bitcoin like it's a community It's like decentralized nodes in a network. And so they were all contributing to its invention and there's a Concept called mining which like we don't have to get into in detail, but it's basically like [00:32:00] computer puzzles That are being solved and for solving the puzzles, which secures the Bitcoin network, you are rewarded a certain amount of Bitcoin as compensation.

So that's how the process of kind of creating Bitcoin, there will only ever be 21 million in existence, but their mind over time into existence, into tradeability and

Tonya: liquidity. Yeah. Wow. I mean, we'll have to, Simon's going to come on and give us a deep dive in all of this too.

Mike: And then Vitalik, who was. In 2013 or in 2014, I think he was 18 years old and he basically his dad, Dimitri.

Um, told him about Bitcoin when he was maybe 17 or something, maybe he was even younger. And then Vitalik looked at the Bitcoin technology and was like, Oh, I think I can do something to like build on this concept because Bitcoin is really good at being like a store of value, like a currency. And then Vitalik was like, Oh, we can turn this into like programmable money.

We can make it like a new internet and so you can build all kinds of applications on top of it. So he's taking it this [00:33:00] step further. And why I think I got on this train of thought is because, so, I met Vitalik in 2014, and then in 2016, after my book was out, this guy named Dimitri reached out to me on Facebook and sent me a message and said, Hey Michael, I read your book, had a profound impact on me, I would love to meet up with you sometime.

And it took us about six months to coordinate and actually meet up, and I go into his office, he was running this company in downtown Toronto, And we sit down and I look on his desk and it says Dimitri Buterin. And I'm like, oh, your last name is Buterin. And I'm like, do you know who Vitalik Buterin is?

And he's like, yeah, he's my son. And I was like, holy shit. I'm like, dude, I think your son is an alien from the future that's here to teach us about economics, technology, and love. And he kind of laughed. He's like, he might be. Full circle that, you know, mother ayahuasca told me that I was going to encounter something and then meet Vitalik and then his dad ends up reading my book two years later and then reaches out to me.

I don't even know it's his [00:34:00] dad just feels. Yeah,

Tonya: absolutely. I want to pivot us a little bit into recent life events and how I think this. for me, like, threads so beautifully. I think we could go on and on. I've had the true pleasure and joy of hearing some of the most wild encounters of, like, your psychedelic journeys, our communities journeys together, and I think you just went through something so big, and you also processed that in a way that I feel people can Could resonate with hearing that process of how to navigate grief and the loss of your father and These massive life events and how does somebody move through that in the way that you have?

So as much as you want to share and maybe we can start there

Mike: so you and I are recording this in December [00:35:00] and On September 8th. I got a call from my mom and it was a Sunday And she told me that there had been an accident and that my dad, at the age of 70, had committed suicide. And it was a total shock to everyone.

Very shocking to me in the moment because my dad was never depressed. Like, I've gone through depression. In fact, every other one of my family members had, but he had not. And then it made me wonder, oh, was he silently going through it? But it seemed incongruous because he was, just had such a positive disposition and wasn't unaware of mental health issues.

It just didn't seem like he was really struggling with them. But then I also realized, you know, maybe the pressure of being a father and like he didn't want to reveal that to his family. I wasn't sure, you know, so it was. [00:36:00] Very surprising and devastating. You know, like I heard the news and I fell to my knees in my kitchen.

My wife and my mother in law and my brother in law, they drove me back to my parents, like a two hour drive. Yeah. I got home and I spent time with family and had, uh, hundreds of people come to my mom's house, what was both my parents house, just sharing with me how much my dad impacted their lives. And he was a specialist in internal medicine, so a medical doctor, and it's kind of like being a detective of disease, his particular role, it's oftentimes people arrive at him when they've seen many other doctors and the other doctors can't really figure out what's going on, and it's all kinds of disease that he ends up helping people through.

And I, of course, knew my dad was a doctor, right? But through my eyes, he's my dad. But I met all of these patients that he had had that many of whom told me, literally like a hundred people over three [00:37:00] days were like, Oh, I'd be dead if it wasn't for your dad. And now I have a great life. Or I would have committed suicide myself if I didn't meet your dad.

Because they were in so much pain, whether it was like Lyme disease or fibromyalgia, regional complex pain disorder, and any other kind of disease you can think of, he had patients who dealt with it. And he was just a very empathetic person. And really wanted to help. His life's motto was to save lives and cure disease.

It was really cool too because growing up, you know, he practiced in Western medicine, which as a kid, I challenged a lot because I never liked taking medication and I would always do it at a last resort. And interestingly, my dad was. Kind of of the same mindset. One of his biggest philosophies is that the world is over medicated.

A lot of times he was taking people off medications. Just so that they could get back to some kind of baseline and he could properly assess. Because many times they would see seven different doctors who would prescribe them seven different medications and no one's checking to see, no one understands even how those things interact with one another.[00:38:00]

And he was quite In many respects, disenchanted with the medical system, the way it operated. He just thought there could be a much better way. And he always said he worked in sick care, not health care. And he thinks there's a place for both. Like, tremendous power in Western medicine for injury and, like, emergency scenarios and many things.

But he also saw the value in health care and, like, preventative. It's just not what he was an expert in. But all the people I met, I was like, holy shit, man. Like, over the last three months, I've met probably close to a thousand people or receive messages from at least that many people, all of whom saying that my dad was the greatest doctor they had ever met.

Like people tell me that he was the greatest person they had ever met. And it was so touching. And I was close with him growing up. And as I got older, like we had a really special bond with each other. We didn't see each other all the time, but we had a really special and close bond. And he was always incredibly supportive of me and my dreams.

Like, my wild adventures, [00:39:00] he listened to them, and sometimes he disagreed with them, but always supported me, you know? So he didn't leave a note, and that was hard, and weird, and I was like, why did he do it, you know? And my mom was wondering the same thing, you know, she was crushed, and at first she blamed different scenarios, she kind of blamed herself for a bit, and I was like, mom, it's not your fault, he made that decision, not you, so.

Yeah, his friends were wondering what happened. People were wondering, did they miss signs? Like, was he depressed? Or was something really bothering him? And we didn't know. And then, so, what was interesting is, about, this was on September 8th that he died, and I think it was on September 10th, my friend Angie's name just popped into my head.

It

Tonya: was only two days?

Mike: Two days later, yeah. Wow. My friend Angie, and she's a medium, and I met her a few years prior. And we became friends there and like, we've honestly only hung out like three times in person, but she just popped into my awareness as being a medium. [00:40:00] And I was like, Oh, I should talk with her.

And then the best man at my wedding, Nima, on that Friday, so like three days after it popped into my head. He messaged me and he's like, hey man, I ran into Angie for the first time in four years at this party I think you should talk with her and I had not told him that she had popped in my head and I was like, yep Okay, there's confirmation that I should speak with Angie.

So we scheduled a call for September 20th or 21st And she'd never met. My family knew nothing about my dad. Like even when we got on the call, she didn't know, but she told me, she was like, your dad has been coming to me for the last four days. Oh, wow. Asking like, when are you talking with Michael? When are you talking with Michael?

And she was like, oh, it's Saturday at 9:00 AM But they don't understand time on the other side. So we had this phone call and. She was like, yeah, your dad really wants to connect with you And he says he has been connecting with you and that you know this and I'm like, yeah I've been feeling him a lot through the Sun and in my meditation like I [00:41:00] feel His presence and she's like, yeah, like he's there and she said to me one of the first things he wants you to know Is that he had to do what he did and that it was not an emotional decision it was a logical decision and He was telling her in his voice, my dad, he's like, I had a neurodegenerative disease, and I was losing control of my mind and body, and my logic, my reasoning, and I did not want to live that way, and I was just gonna keep deteriorating, getting worse.

Like, he's a guy who understands disease, and he had seen so many people with neurodegenerative diseases, whether it was like, MS or Alzheimer's or dementia and I knew like he always said he didn't want to live that way because he saw it and it's not a judgment on anyone's decisions, but he saw it cause a lot of stress on families because there's just someone who has a very low quality of life.

That everyone kind of has to take care of and my dad didn't want to be that. He perceived it as he [00:42:00] would have been a burden. That's how I think he was perceiving it. So he kept showing this easy button if listeners remember the Staples easy button and he was like, this is what I had to do. And it was just a purely logical decision, he said and there was no emotion in it.

And it's really beautiful because I think what I learned is that I always wanted my dad to see me and he did. But he saw me through his lens. And what I learned in the experiences that I'll describe as well is that he also wanted me to see him. And I did, but I always saw him through my lens. Just as an example, like I would sometimes criticize him for not having a good understanding of nutrition.

I'm like, Dad, you're a doctor. You should understand nutrition. He's like, Michael, I know it plays a role. He's like, they don't teach any of it in medical school. That's not what it's about. And, like, I think there was maybe part of my dad that would be thinking, like, Could you, like, maybe just appreciate that I am helping people?

And, like, maybe I don't know certain things you do, right? Like, it's just, we have our biases, you [00:43:00] know? But one of the things he shared with me, he was showing me how his personality was oriented. And he was showing me, like,

Tonya: This was through Angie?

Mike: Through Angie, yeah. He was showing me these white cubes. They were boxes.

And he was like, look, this is my professional life. This is my life as a doctor. And then in the separate box here, this is my life as a father. And then this is my life with my friend group. And then over here is my photography. And over here is my golf. And then over here are my emotions, which he was like, are pretty buried away.

And it was all nice and clean. And he's like, this is how I organize my life. It's all separated. And then he described me and he's like, you're like this mosaic, this like tapestry where you're. Your reasoning, your logic, your intuition, your physicality, your mentality, your spirituality, your emotionality.

It's all a confluence and flowing together and you're just like picking out and noticing these patterns that emerge from it. But it's all one thing and it's like this tie dye [00:44:00] fabric. And he was like, I really admire that. I didn't know how to do those things. And then He showed Angie that he was also trying to communicate with my mom and my brother.

He said he was having a tough time and in part they were very, very sad. I was too, but he was saying it felt like there was a wet blanket over them when he was trying to communicate with them. And then he was showing basically like open heart chakra and then like this green aura around here and then this purple aura around here, so like the third eye.

And he's like, it's just very open and I'm able to just communicate with you. And he started sharing how he thought that life was mostly about accomplishments and achievements, doing things and creating value, but he realized it's mostly about relationships. And he had many incredible relationships, but he's like, that's what's most important.

And when he told me what he's working on from the other side, at least when I connected with him a few months ago, he was doing that. He's trying [00:45:00] to build a bridge between the mind and the heart.

Tonya: For himself? For

Mike: himself. Wow. And he was saying to me, he's like, you know, your bridge is fully constructed. And he's like, just keep nurturing it.

You've done this for a long time. Yeah. And he shared with me many things about my brother and my mom, and he was apologizing to my mom in some ways. They loved each other. They didn't have the best communication with one another. And my dad was like, I'm sorry for her. He's like, I drove her fucking crazy.

I wasn't great at communicating, and I'm so sorry for driving her fucking crazy all the time. And he said, he's like, I've prioritized my career over our marriage. And he's like, I think it caused a lot of problems for your mom. And I talked with my mom and she's like, yep, that is how I felt.

Tonya: Do you think he was aware of, like, was this realizations on the other side, or do you think he was aware of a lot of this stuff during?

Do you think he thought about that?

Mike: He certainly knew their marriage had challenges, like that was undeniable, and he would acknowledge that to me. [00:46:00] While he was on earth, he seemed to me afraid and unwilling to truly go into a lot of his emotions. He didn't come across as a fearful guy, but I think his emotions were something that he didn't Probably just wasn't equipped.

It

Tonya: was like packed away neatly. It was

Mike: packed away. I think part of that, because one time I asked him, I just had this realization one day, I'm like he's saved tens of thousands of people's lives and he's also witnessed thousands of people die. He sees people at their end of life, like in all sorts of situations, he's Been in an emergency room a ton.

So like people die in front of him. He's seen far more death than I have. Mm hmm. Like I've had five people in my life die or my dogs growing up, right? Whereas I don't know what his average is, but he's definitely seen probably multiple people die per week and I one day asked him Hey, dad, what's your relationship with death?

How does that feel? And He just like looked at me. He's like, he just turned and walked away.

Tonya: Oh

Mike: And [00:47:00] then I had the thought to ask him again like a month later I was like, oh like what was that? And then I asked him and he just turned and walked away. And it's funny because my dad does this a lot, all his friends will say this, my mom would say this.

If you get to like a certain emotional depth with him where, I think some of it was probably emotional vulnerability and some is just accessing it. I started reflecting on like, I don't even know if he was consciously walking away or if his body was just like, nope, not going there. Because he would walk away from my mom all the time, he'd walk away from his friends if ever they like probed into a certain area.

And it's also his choice. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe if you unpack all of that death in that moment, it's going to be, uh, like it's going to take a while and he's like, yep, not doing that right now. But there was something that I think while he was on earth was either inaccessible or he consciously made it inaccessible or just chose not to access it.

At some level, he knew all these things were happening, right? The communication issues with my mom and everything, but I guess he [00:48:00] wasn't in the space to Be with them. Deal with them. So, talking with Angie, one of the things he shared with me was Hey, he's like, I know that you're probably feeling a certain level of responsibility in that, like, you want to be there for your mom and your brother and you should be there for them.

But I just want you to know, you don't have to worry. It doesn't have to be stressful for you. You don't have to take care of everything. They're both self sufficient, but just love them. Be with them during holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Be with them and try to do maybe different things with them.

Like don't always just go to their house. Create new kind of rituals or experiences to kind of change up the rhythm and the dynamic. He also said to me that you have a lot to learn from Pandora and her family and you know, they're from Brazil They have a traditional South American sense of family where they're very [00:49:00] close They just love being around each other and they talk about everything and they're always messaging each other and the connected and I love my Family too, but we're not in constant communication My dad was like, you don't have the template for that level of intimacy, but there's something for you to learn there.

And he's like, I know you're a bit resistant to it, even like how close they are. And you have a lot to learn. And he was telling me how much he loves Pandora and which I knew he did even when he was alive. So when he was talking about this family thing and like spending time with them, he said, or I asked him, I'm like, well, I have this mushroom ceremony scheduled for I think it was October 12th, which is the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

And I was like, I'm doing it, and he immediately was like cut in, he's like, I know you are scheduling, you have that booked as a process of grieving and connecting with me, and he was saying, yeah, you should do that too. It's on the Saturday, just on the Sunday and Monday be with your family.

Tonya: And

Mike: he also said to me, he was showing Angie, he was like pulling out this little appointment book from [00:50:00] his pocket, and he's like, I will be there.

Wow. And he also said, I need to be there to witness. The grief that I have caused by my decision and it wasn't like any form of regret on his part It was just he needed to be there Yeah to be with me and he said to me you need a transformational experience And he was showing this like big bubble pop and it was like crying you're gonna unleash And I had been crying a lot, but I could feel like there was like a waterfall already and I was just like the dam wasn't breaking quite yet.

Because what's interesting when someone, when your dad, when my dad dies, is that I'd be crying and I'd be starting to lose it and then someone would hug me. It'd either be Pandora or like my brother or my mom or whoever was visiting. And when the hug happens, it sometimes usually kind of interrupts the crying a bit.

Because you're being comforted. Right. And As it would happen, I would know I'm like, oh, like that [00:51:00] was not complete. I have a lot more to get out.

Tonya: And it was like the hug felt so good, and you like kind of, you're overriding some of that deep pain that was coming out.

Mike: Yeah, and there were some times where I thought of even telling the person, hey, can you not hug me so I can just keep crying?

But then like they're also going through it. So it becomes this mutual comforting.

Tonya: Yeah,

Mike: so there's times, you know, you pick your spots, but I Just knew there was like a lot of wailing essentially to come and yeah, so he says you're gonna have this transformational Experience. So then on October 12th, I went over to a mutual friend of ours I just call him D.

He guides people through Mushroom ceremonies and he's been doing it for a long time and people have had just the most healing, transformational, beautiful experiences with him. And I've been friends with him for eight or nine years, and I've always thought about it, but we just never scheduled anything and It also seemed very fitting because the only [00:52:00] psychedelic my dad ever tried, he tried mushrooms when he was 20 years old.

And it's funny because when I was first describing my ayahuasca experiences to my dad, he was like, I think it sounds a lot like an acid trip. And then I kept describing it and then he just kind of said it again. I think it sounds a lot like an acid trip and he said it in a dismissive way. And I was like, okay, dad, a couple of things, one, you've never done acid and you've never done ayahuasca.

It's like, how do you know? And two. Acid trips can be really profound and meaningful, and so too can ayahuasca. And I get that you, like, probably understand some of the neurotransmitter activity and the hormonal secretions, but trying to understand consciousness through the study of neuroscience is like trying to understand writing through the study of ink.

And then my dad was like, okay, that's a good metaphor that Nassim Taleb said that quote It's not my original but I dropped it on my dad in that moment But then he said to me, you know, I get it I [00:53:00] tried mushrooms when I was 20 years old and he's like I was with God everything was one like whatever He's like it was a hallucination.

I was like dad if you were with God and everything was one Maybe there's something there

Tonya: and then you came back. Yeah

Mike: But he just filed it away, you know, he just followed it was like, oh that's mushrooms. That's that experience Yeah, but it was interesting right like he had that mushroom experience and my first mushroom experience.

I was 16 years old and I was Going over to three of my, hang out with three of my best friends, and we had decided like, okay, we're gonna have this experience together, and I had never done it before, and I was apprehensive. My mom was driving me over, she didn't know what we were doing, and I wasn't sure I was gonna do it.

And then on the car ride over, it came on the radio, Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf, which if anyone hasn't heard it, it's just like about being wild. And so when I heard that come on the radio, I knew I'm like, okay, cool. I'm gonna eat these mushrooms is gonna be special and that is my dad's favorite song

Tonya: Wow, you remember that too?

Oh, yeah

Mike: It was so impactful because it kind of it actually felt like when I was 16 Yeah, [00:54:00] like my dad was kind of saying to me like yeah Wow, like this is cool for you Yeah, I support it, even though he didn't consciously say that, you know, but it felt like the universe was saying that to me so I go over to Dee's house and It's scheduled like a whole day for it, you know, like I arrive at 11 a.

m And like nothing is scheduled afterwards and we're talking and my intentions were to grieve and connect with an honor and love my dad and Another thing that my dad shared with me when I was having the conversations with Angie the medium It was that Angie and I actually had two calls because the first call it was just like he was just sharing all this stuff With me and I was feeling like so uplifted.

I was On such a high I felt like I was floating in light because there was for anyone that's skeptical of mediums or whatever It's fine. If you're skeptical of everything that was being communicated to me was so Undeniable and like Angie didn't know any of this stuff

Tonya: and there were things that He was speaking through her that she would have [00:55:00] no idea of

Mike: like one thing.

He started singing to her. Ah Savannah mama get the memo from the Lion King And I used to sing that song every day between the ages of like 8 and 18. My mom would still, if I go home for Christmas or like when I go home, she'll probably ask me to sing it. Yeah. She loves when I sing it. And my dad sung it to me through Angie.

She's like, oh, your dad's singing the Lion King song to me right now. I'm like, she doesn't know that about me. But in that first conversation with Angie, at the end she asked like, do you have any questions for your dad? And I was like No, like I feel so complete and that I'm connecting with him. And it just, we were in such direct communion.

And then like an hour later after we hung up, like I got all these questions. So I messaged Angie, I'm like, Hey, like, can we meet again? And she's like, yeah, let's meet again tomorrow morning. And so I asked him, I had this pain in my groin. Okay. So I think people might be interested in that. I asked him, what's it like where you are?

And he said that. [00:56:00] Music is such a small word and a small concept, but that's the closest thing I can use to describe it is like I am surrounded or not surrounded. He's like, it penetrates every fiber of my being and it's so beautiful. Like something like music, but on a grander scale is just like he is that and colorful, more colors than you know.

And I also asked him, I'm like, are you going to return to earth? As something else, like, are you going to reincarnate? And he's like, Michael, you know everything's temporary. Everything's in transition. I will change form at some point. And he's like, but there's no urgency. I don't know when it'll be. But yes, it will happen.

And then I asked him, okay, like, I've had this pain in my groin for four years. And it usually surfaced after like, if I was walking for 45 to 60 minutes, I would start feeling a pain in my groin and then it would affect the way I walked, [00:57:00] or if I was doing sprints or playing like tennis or basketball or squash, like after a certain amount of time, I would feel this pain in my groin.

And then usually if I rested, if I just stopped moving, it would feel okay, but it was just there. As soon as I started feeling it, I'm like, I don't think this is a physical injury. Like I have pulled my groin growing up, but I'm like, this is an emotional thing. And I personally attribute virtually all physical ailments to some emotional root.

And that's been the case for me in my life. And so I was always trying to get rid of it, essentially. I was always like, what is this emotion that's here? That's stuck? Like, how do I get rid of it? And. I'd actually thought it might have something to do with my parents dynamic because sometimes my knee would hurt and this so I thought like okay Maybe my knees my dad and my groins my mom because I we had kind of a lot of trauma and like Sticky situations and stuff.

So yeah, I asked him. I'm like, how do I like get rid of this immediately? He's like Michael that is shame. You are carrying shame. Not just shame. He's like there are [00:58:00] other emotions in there He's like but a lot of it is shame that you carry from your childhood And a lot of it is not yours to carry. A lot of it is things other people did, but you internalized it, you took it on yourself.

And to overcome it, to work through it, you need to practice acceptance, forgiveness, and untangling. And I was like, okay, like it was just so direct and Oh, another question I asked my dad, I'm like, Hey dad, what did you think of mediums? And he just shook his head like laughing. He's like, Oh man, he's like, he's like, I did not believe in this shit is what he said.

And he's like, but I believe in it now. So anyway, fast forward again to like October 12th. I mean, I'm about to have the mushroom ceremony. And so the intention to connect, grieve, love and honor my dad, and then to Release all shame from my mind, body, and soul is what my other one is. And then D and I, before the ceremony, pulled these angel cards, and he does this before every ceremony, and they each just have a word on them.

The card that I [00:59:00] pull says transformation on it. Which is exactly what my dad said I was gonna have. And there's like 70 of these cards. And then D looked at me, he's like, what's that word mean to you? And I told him, he's like, oh yeah. He's like, that makes sense. And also the morning of. As you know, you were there.

Pandora and I got married in June, and my mom and dad gave a speech at the wedding, and I had not seen it, but my mother in law, the morning of my mushroom ceremony, she sent me the video of my mom and dad giving the speech, and what's crazy is the opening frame of it is D, the guy who's hosting this mushroom ceremony, he's just sitting there, and then the camera pans up to my dad.

And I was like, okay, so I go over to Dee's house and then we get into the ceremony and he has it set up So i'm lying on this bed in a beautifully configured room with a sound system that is just out of this world There's a rumble pack on the bed. So it's like synchronized with the bass [01:00:00] and He's one of the most miraculous musicians I've met in my entire life.

And I knew he was good, but this is his zone of genius and brilliance. And he totally like steps out of the way because the ceremony is not about him whatsoever. He was sitting at my feet of the bed with his DJ equipment. And just, he says he's there with the music to simply allow emotions to flow through.

And. To just keep things moving. That's all he's there for. And so he's listening, basically, for what should come through into the space. And I spent just hours in direct communion with my dad. And I was wailing. Like, it ended up being a seven hour experience, but I didn't know if it was an hour and a half or 20 hours.

Like I couldn't tell, but I was sobbing for three and a half of those hours wailing so hard and I would feel it was [01:01:00] crazy. So I'm lying there in this room and there is a basically a tie dye tapestry on the ceiling, which is what my dad described to me as my consciousness. And what was playing out there was my entire life.

Like I was witnessing it, and my dad was communicating with me. We merged consciousness. He showed me that He was like, Michael, these are all the people that I was caring for and he would show me patience And then he would be like, but it's not just them and then he would show me their families and their friends and like it was this web of tens of thousands of people that he felt responsible for and not in like a burden some way just in like a duty and an honor kind of way and Then he showed how Like, when he's gone, that there is a void in that web, and there will be a lot of people struggling.

And, it just, it made me [01:02:00] really feel the impact he had. And this was when he and I were really starting to fully see each other, beyond our own lens, just like in communion. Like, there was nothing separating us anymore. And he also showed me my mom. And my brother and I felt a new understanding of what family is and I felt like my mom's like this little cub that like I gotta keep under my arm and protect, you know, and like my brother, I'll be there for him no matter what he needs.

And I love my family. I always have, but it was just like, it's a deeper sense. Like I feel so much closer with them. Like it's an unshakable bond now and everything is forgiven anything that has ever happened. And also that there's no time to waste and I was wailing and then I was also very appreciative of so many of the relationships in my life that are family or feel like family, [01:03:00] like with you, for example, I felt you there and just feeling.

so grateful for our friendship and what we get to share and the journeys we get to go on and all the fun we get to have, you know?

Tonya: You're in every single one of my deepest journeys, which

Mike: is

Tonya: remarkable that we have that. So truly deeply grateful.

Mike: Yeah, me too. You know this but the listeners don't. You're my rainbow superhero when I think of you.

And I felt that way about Simon and I was with him for a while. And of course with Pandora for long amounts of time. Just like feeling the true beauty of every person and who they are. And I was also feeling into all of the titles and contracts and unspoken things that exist. With every person, like with colleagues, with co founders, with things that we're all navigating through, but don't have time to process or even acknowledge a lot of [01:04:00] times.

Like you know as a founder there's like, I recently read this tweet, if you, starting a company is the best way to feel like, A piece of shit one day and the king of the universe the next and it will oscillate, go back and forth between those two things forever and ever. Yeah. I just started laughing my head off.

Because some days are the best and the next day, like, are we gonna survive? It's so polarizing, yeah. You know? Yeah. But like, you don't really get to process that every day. You're just going through it. A hundred percent. Like, you're just like, oh fuck. Like, and sometimes it's not even day to day, it's like hour to hour.

Yeah.

Tonya: Yeah,

Mike: you know, that's part of our learnings is like how do you balance that and navigate it right and it's one of yeah It

Tonya: gets so intense sometimes so you can't control it. But yeah

Mike: So there are all these unspoken agreements between you and your co workers and like what you can talk about and what you don't Well, you want to dive into but what's like?

Yeah, we can't talk about that right now because like we've got to do this thing. 100%. You know, even though you might just want to cry. Yeah. Because it's like a super challenge. Or you want to celebrate, which you should do that too, but you've just got to keep moving a lot of the time, right? And that's everyone.

It's [01:05:00] not just founders. If you're a parent or you have a relationship with anyone or you're working on anything or like you're going through a ton of emotions and you're not processing or being with all of them.

Tonya: Yeah.

Mike: Because it's not really feasible. Unless you were to just lay on your bed all day long.

Yeah. That's cool too. Yeah. And then I got really curious about my groin. I was lying there on the bed and I just started pressing into it, kind of massaging it, and I just got so still and so present and so curious. I was just like, what's happening here? No agenda, just like, what is happening? And I like press on it and then just Thousands of memories and experiences of my childhood My parents fighting and then how that made me feel Me fighting with my mom or me beating up my brother as a kid Or being called fat when I was a kid or being bullied by someone or me being an asshole to [01:06:00] someone as a kid being in a playground fight or like Feeling ashamed when I was a soccer goalie for letting in a goal that, like, I shouldn't have.

Or, like, being rejected by a girl in, like, grade 9, and then, like, again in grade 10, and then, like, breaking up with somebody. And all of these experiences, or just being made fun of as a kid, or making fun of somebody. All of these experiences and a lot of it was shame and a lot of it was just like stickiness like shame is an incomplete word because there are other emotions too but a lot of it was shame and I was just like experiencing them just being with them not judging them just being with them and there were literally like thousands and they were just flashing before me you know people say before they die that your life flashes before their eyes this was like all of the shameful experiences just flashing before my eyes And then it went back in time more.

I went into my grandparents and my great grandparents and my ancestors, like, [01:07:00] thousands of years back. And all of these memories and feelings were just flooding my awareness. And all of it around shame and stickiness. And things that had never been processed throughout my lineage. And it was all being stored in my groin.

And it was like an hour and a half of earth time where I was just going through all of this in the ceremony and the whole time I was just pressing my groin and massaging it. And then like after it, I felt my leg and I was like, whoa. It felt relaxed in a way that it hadn't felt that way in four or five years.

Wow. And then I, like in reflection, I realized that I had previously been trying to get rid of that pain. Just trying to get rid of it. And all I did in this experience was I was just present with why that pain was there. Mm hmm. Not trying to get rid of it. Just, okay, why are you here? And I'm just being with it.

Mm hmm. And it's now been three months and [01:08:00] I have no pain in the groin. Feels fine. And I'm, it's not a declaration that I'll never feel pain again there because maybe I'll accumulate more shame from something. Maybe I won't process it, but I feel as though I've I'm learning how to just process it and just let it slide out rather than hold on to it.

We always have lessons, but maybe I've like learned that lesson something else will happen, right? But I think one of the most profound lessons I learned from it is to just allow ourselves the space to simply be and What's interesting is, you know, psychedelics, plant medicines, I think they are that invitation.

They allow you to be with yourself and access things that you've been suppressing or avoiding or just haven't had time to deal with. And it's one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and what I learned is that it's It's the greatest gift we can give to ourself, to the [01:09:00] generations that have come before us, and the generations that will come after us.

Because I think a lot of the generations before us, I don't know for sure how the world was, but I don't think they had the same resources that we do or awareness about emotions and therapies and stuff. Maybe they knew more than we did. I don't know. I wasn't alive then. From my experience with my ancestors, they had never processed any of this stuff.

But then here I am with this opportunity to actually be with it. Yeah. And acknowledge it. Wow.

Tonya: Thank you, first of all. Like, witnessing and feeling of that whole journey just brought me in so deep with you and I just want to say thank you for

I'm curious about where you think you'd be in the grieving process without this.

I guess it's so hard to know and yet I know that [01:10:00] these two experiences were so profound and provided such a deep sense of peace in your ability to understand this whole event.

Mike: It felt so divinely guided that these things would happen, like Angie popped into my head and then like two days later I was like mushroom ceremony with D.

I just knew and You know another thing that happened during this mushroom ceremony as I was shaking Before I went into the groin experience I described I was just shaking and it was like involuntary And something that animals do when they get physically injured, many animals just shake until the injury is gone.

They will sometimes shake for like 24 hours. And it's because the shaking is actually in part to allow your kind of mind not to remember the injury. Because so many of our injuries, like the physical ailment, there's actually nothing compromised, but it's just the mind protecting the body from going into that position again, so [01:11:00] it prevents you from going there, so it restricts.

blood flow and oxygen to a region, which then creates a pain. Yeah. But it's actually not really like a physical, I mean it's a physical symptom, but it's actually at that point not even a physical root. Right. It's just a protective mechanism. But if you shake, the reason the animals do it is they shake so that they never create that association.

And I've done this for a long time. At the end of every workout, I shake. So this was just happening though during my mushroom ceremony. I was just like shaking and I wasn't trying to initiate it. I was just shaking and I shook for like a long time, probably an hour. And The music started crescendoing and like getting more and more intense and I was shaking in a way that is Much more intense than going for an all out sprint.

Wow. Like dancing is the hardest my body has ever moved Wow, and like I've been as a very intense physical athletics and like this was way harder than that but felt effortless same time because my body was just doing it and the music is like Crescendoing like this crazy dance music and D is like he [01:12:00] knows what's happening.

You know, he's just helping orchestrate it And I just started seeing like green and pink everywhere and I asked myself am I going to explode? But I was like, I just trusted it. I'm like, I think it's okay It would look crazy to someone just glancing in but it was the best thing ever and then what it felt like I was Being plugged into the source of all like it was like I was being electrocuted and like And it was like clearing me out and shaking all of the traumas and emotions and allowing everything to be and move.

And the waterfalls were coming out. You asked though, like, where the grieving process and what might happen, and I don't know. But, you know, I ended up two weeks after that mushroom ceremony. We had a celebration of life for my dad. And there were about, probably like seven or eight hundred people there.

And, um, It made me so grateful and fascinated too, because this might sound strange to some people, but there's actually a [01:13:00] gift in. At least in my scenario, there was a gift with my dad dying at the age of 70 versus if he had died at the age of 95. Because there were 800 people there. He died early for his friend group and the people around him.

So I got to hear how much he meant to all of those people. Obviously, I knew he meant something to them because he had all those friends, but to hear them really pour it out. And it's a fascinating thing about humans, right? Sometimes it takes a profound event to like fully share it or for me to create the time to listen to them.

Because it's not like I'm going to try to hang out with all my parents friends all the time. I have my life too and I have my friends. So that was so beautiful. And another fascinating thing is like my dad had just been at mine and Pandora's wedding in June and both my parents told me And Pandora that it was borderline overwhelming for them to be there because all of our friends were coming up to them and sharing like how much Pandora and I mean to them.

How special our friendships are and my parents were just like, [01:14:00] oh my god to think that we raised a son like that It was just so touching for them, right and then basically a couple months later I was having the inverse experience where I'm now hearing all of how much my dad meant to all of these people and I was Like crying and touched Wow, like what incredible father I have Just ultimately felt like biggest gift.

Tonya: They say that grief and love are two sides of the same coin and like my experience with grief so far in life too has been that it is one of the greatest portals It's like the darkest black hole of nothingness and everything at the same time, and you leave not the same. You leave out that end in love, and like, so transformed.

And it's also in your beautiful journey of life and your own hero's journey. It's like, I'm like truly [01:15:00] in awe of your processing. And not surprised, but in awe, and also I think it's a testament to the community. We have around us. And I also think that for somebody that doesn't have those people in their communities, that there's ways to find them.

And there's ways to, I really think a lot happens also when we start to vocalize what we're looking for. And I think in communities that maybe don't have this level of openness or access to mediums, but there's just trusting that there is in the vocalization of that, you start to draw it towards you and.

That it eventually does, like you can find these people, whether through like, well, the internet's an amazing place now, Instagram, all these places, but like there are definitely a lot of ways to find these types of people that can help open these doors to other realms and the doors of perception to just like what's right here in this room with us right now that with our human eyes don't always have access to.

Mike: [01:16:00] Totally. I'll share a quick little story that when I was releasing my book, there's this guy named Harrison who told me He somehow discovered my book. He lived in the States. He came to my book launch party and he ended up staying at my house because that's just how it went. At my book launch party there were like 300 people and he was like, how do you know?

How could you possibly know 300 people that are interested in ayahuasca? I'm like, it's cuz I made the book. I put it out there. So I essentially vocalized or expressed what I'm interested in and he's like, you know, I'm very curious about mushrooms and he's like, but I've never met anyone. Who has even been curious about them.

I'm like, well, have you ever vocalized? He's like, he's like, I guess not. I'm like, well, just try vocalizing it, you know, and then he messages me like three days later and he's like, Oh, it turns out my neighbor grows mushrooms and like wants to do it. And now he has like knows all these people.

Tonya: Wow.

Mike: And one thing I wanted to share with you that I have not yet is that when I left my dad's celebration of life, I walked out of the venue that we were at and the sky [01:17:00] It was super beautiful and I realized that this was my greatest fear as a kid.

When I was a kid, my parents dying was my greatest fear. I would lie in bed when I was like four or five years old and just cry because I'm like, I know at some point they're going to die and I don't want them to. And it was just so, it made me so scared. And then I walked out and I was like, whoa, this is the greatest fear you've ever had.

It feels so beautiful. And then there was a rainbow in the sky.

Tonya: Wow

Mike: Yeah, and then five people photographed it and sent it to me Actually, some of my friends were driving past my parents house. They're like, yo, there's a rainbow over your house right now

Tonya: Yeah, that was a really special When I first had my first loss at like 13 my grandpa there was a rainbow Huge rainbow in the sky that night of like the gathering as well and their magical Moments, that's your father.

That's the universe. That's like wow Yeah. Wow. [01:18:00]

Mike: I think two or three weeks after he died, and it was like mid September, where it was just perfectly sunny every day, like beautiful, it was like mid summer weather, and the sun was just beaming all the time, and every time I sat near the sun or I felt it, I could feel him.

And then I started having all these realizations about like sun, and the sun, and like being his sun. And I've similarly, every time someone in my life has died, there has been the most beautiful skies the day they've died. And every time, I haven't thought of it in advance. I'm like, oh, that's them. I feel like when someone dies, they get to be the sky controller for like a day.

They get to paint it. And that's one of their parting gifts from the physical form.

Tonya: Oh, I resonate with that. I feel that deeply. If there is one Message, prayer, takeaway for our listeners to hear and leave with, what would it be?

Mike: There's a few of them. So, I think it's like, [01:19:00] give yourself space. Especially if you're like a type A personality who's going hard all the time.

Give yourself space to just be with yourself. Deeply still, present, curious. And see what's there, especially if you feel stickiness or you're struggling with anything, just do that to see what comes up when I say space. I mean, probably like a whole day where you have nothing scheduled and you're by yourself.

No stimulus. You're just there. Maybe it's with psychedelics. Maybe it's not like doesn't really matter. But just space in a way of no agenda other than being totally still because I think it's very powerful and there can be healing and joy and sadness too. But I think it's one of the things that. And then I think one of the most helpful things for me in my life is the realization that every moment unfolds in the exact manner it does to provide us with the most enriching experience of life imaginable.

Because I think that orientation, it at least allows me to [01:20:00] navigate anything with the trust that this is beautiful and it's going to work out, even if it's the most difficult thing ever. Even when I drop to my knees and learn that my dad I committed suicide. That awareness came in. This is going to be beautiful.

It's enriching. It's part of it. And yeah, that's very helpful. And then just that like love, love is, it's why we're all here.

Tonya: Fabric of the universe, baby. I'm so in deep awe, gratitude, love, for you being here and sharing this so openly. Always baring your soul in the way that you do, in the way you show up in the world, and the way you seem to balance a level of open mindedness that is hard to come by in this world.

And, I don't even know if I necessarily want to say that, because I think we're moving towards. greater and greater expansion towards that, but the way you are able to hold with such openness both sides of right and [01:21:00] left and all the personality types and just your presence in this world and all that you are teaching me and us through this story of how to move through The processing of life and death and love in a way, in a way, we don't know what way that is, but it's a way that seems to resonate really deeply and make a lot of sense.

And I think allows us to like speak and understand the life cycle in a new way that is so important. I think there's a lot of. conditioning and programming around how much we fear death and to hear this is so expansive and unimaginable and I'm gonna put like a trigger warning at the beginning of the episode because I know that this can be a really triggering topic for people and I'm in deep gratitude of you always and I love you and thank you for this conversation.

Mike: Thank you, Tonya. And one last thing I'll just is that I feel closer with my dad now than ever before, and I used to have to [01:22:00] drive two hours to give him a hug and feel him. And now, he's with me all the time. And he's with me right now. So, yes, there's a loss. There's a physical loss, and it's devastating.

And there's a gift and an even greater abundance of him.

Tonya: I didn't tell you this yet, but when I found out that night on the 8th, it was the first night of the retreat in Greece, and we were all just coming home on the bus back to the hotel. It was like 8 or 9 p. m. I think, and I got the news, and I had to leave right away, and I just went into my room and cried so much, and was thinking of you and your family, and of course, like, really, what happened, you know?

I chanted for him and I just was like praying for your family and thinking of you so much and you were very present with me. And it also There was like such a lesson for me in that whole portal that he was able, that that experience was able to drop me into, [01:23:00] and it's like the ripple effects of any passing and transition I feel is always so deeply eye opening at how precious this one life is, how nothing is guaranteed, how nobody knows how long the gift will continue on for them.

And that there is, like, immediacy in our life and, like, coming to that with, like, how do I want to show up? How can I, like, exist in the fullness of this experience today, right now, not wait till tomorrow to be who I hope to be, but, like, be that, exude that right now. And that was, like, another invitation for me through your father.

Mike: Yeah, that's the truth. I just want to give a thank you for sharing that and thank you for having me and I just also want to give my wife like such gratitude and love for how she cared for me and my family throughout this [01:24:00] process because I wouldn't have been able to do it without her and like how she just took care of so much like all the logistics.

Tonya: Yeah.

Mike: Of like food for example. And just being there for my family and like so selfless in that moment. It was a lesson in family too for me. And she continues to provide all kinds of lessons, but I just want to thank her for that.

Tonya: I could feel that, like, so much. The way Pandora shows up is so fiercely committed in all moments, and then, like, I think in those moments of, yeah, dire situations, like, you really see people, and I remember thinking, like, fuck, I'm so happy Pandora's there, and, like, she's got him.

And her whole family is so expansive in that capacity, so. And she helped us set up this little podcast. Shout out to her angel, that is Pandora Skies. Thank you. I love you.

Mike: I

Tonya: love you.

More Podcast

View all