This week on The Conscious Consultant Hour, Sam welcomes Dee Dee Goldpaugh, LCSW, a psychotherapist, educator, and leading voice in the intersection of psychedelics, sexuality, and healing.
With over seventeen years of clinical experience, Dee Dee serves as Clinical Director of Chrysalis Integrative Psychotherapy, Women & Gender Diversity Advisor for the Chacruna Institute, and part of the Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy team at Woodstock Therapy Center.
Their groundbreaking forthcoming book, Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality, redefines what it means to heal sexual trauma and reclaim embodied joy.
In this deeply compassionate conversation, Dee Dee shares their own journey of recovery and awakening and how personal experience with trauma inspired a re-examination of the medical model of psychedelic healing. They reveal how true healing goes beyond symptom relief, inviting us to reconnect with pleasure as a spiritual and therapeutic force.
Through case studies and insights from their extensive clinical work, Dee Dee illuminates how psychedelics such as MDMA, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and 5-MeO-DMT can help people release shame, rediscover the body as sacred, and open to deeper love and connection.
Together, Sam and Dee Dee explore how redefining sexual trauma and embracing embodied pleasure can transform not just individuals but also our collective relationship to intimacy, spirituality, and power. This episode offers a brave and hopeful vision, that pleasure itself is medicine and that through awareness, integration, and compassion, we can come home to the wholeness that was never truly lost.
Tune in and share your own experiences with psychedelics, sexual trauma, and healing on our YouTube livestream or on our Facebook page.
On this week's episode of The Conscious Consultant Hour, Sam opens the show by sharing a post from his blog entitled "To take care of others, We must fill up our own cup." reminding us that to best help those around us, we must first look after ourselves both physically and mentally. After reading us the blog post Sam introduces his guest for this week Dee Dee Goldpaugh, LCSW, a psychotherapist, educator, and leading voice in the intersection of psychedelics, sexuality, and healing. Dee Dee brings the first segment to a close by discussing her journey from studying psychotherapy to becoming a sex therapist and trauma healer, highlighting her personal experience with PTSD and how psychedelic medicines, particularly San Pedro, significantly contributed to her healing.
The second segment kicks off with Dee Dee and Sam discussing the importance of addressing sexual misconduct in psychedelic spaces, emphasizing that it is a human problem rather than a psychedelic-specific issue. Dee Dee highlights the need for robust community support and accountability to prevent such incidents, noting that many perpetrators are individuals with unhealed trauma themselves. They also explore the potential of psychedelics in healing sexual trauma, with Dee Dee sharing her personal experience of accessing deeper healing through somatic experiences facilitated by psychedelics. The conversation concluded with plans to discuss the role of pleasure in healing and the use of San Pedro in future segments.
Dee Dee starts the third segment by sharing her experiences with San Pedro, contrasting it with ayahuasca and explaining why it may not be as popular despite its healing properties. She emphasizes that San Pedro is a subtle healer that may not fit into Western medical models. Dee Dee also explores the concept of pleasure as a form of medicine, discussing how psychedelics can help individuals become more present and connected during sexual experiences. She highlighted the importance of working with a trained therapist when exploring psychedelics and encouraged readers to approach pleasure and sexuality with mindfulness and acceptance.
In the final segment Sam and Dee Dee circle back and touch on everything that they had discussed througtout the episode, ephisizing to be safe when exploring the world of psychedelics, and how pleasure is a strong form of healing, esspecially when done in a relaxed and mindful enviorment in which you can feel intune with your body and your spirit.
00:00:45.440 --> 00:01:10.429 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Good afternoon, my conscious co-creators! Good morning, good evening, wherever you're tuning in from. Welcome to another edition of the Conscious Consultant Hour, Awakening Humanity. I am very, very pleased that you are all here with me today. We've got another wonderful show in store for you. I've got a fascinating guest who I can't wait to bring on.
00:01:10.430 --> 00:01:22.469 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But first, of course, we have our blog post from a couple of years ago, to give you something to think about. So, today's blog post is entitled…
00:01:22.870 --> 00:01:27.749 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: To take care of others, We must fill up our own cup.
00:01:28.690 --> 00:01:31.400 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Many of us want to help others.
00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:34.270 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Our nature is to care for people.
00:01:34.570 --> 00:01:38.699 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Whether it is our family, friends, or neighbors.
00:01:39.060 --> 00:01:42.889 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yet often, there is one person we often forget about.
00:01:43.450 --> 00:01:45.899 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: The most important person of all.
00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:53.840 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: For those who are so focused on being a caretaker, we often forget about ourselves.
00:01:54.280 --> 00:01:56.439 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: About our own needs.
00:01:56.570 --> 00:02:00.189 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And what it takes to recharge our own batteries.
00:02:00.770 --> 00:02:07.580 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Sometimes we end up in the role of caretaker not because we want to, but because we have to.
00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:17.469 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Perhaps we have a child with challenges, or aging parents who require us to devote more time to their well-being.
00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:26.550 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It does not have to be that it is our profession, yet we can find ourselves in that role regardless.
00:02:27.610 --> 00:02:31.650 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Once those responsibilities fall on our shoulders.
00:02:31.910 --> 00:02:33.940 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It can be hard for us.
00:02:34.580 --> 00:02:36.190 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It can drain us.
00:02:36.990 --> 00:02:43.999 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Without a good support system in place for ourselves, we can feel trapped, or stuck.
00:02:44.900 --> 00:02:49.549 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And this is precisely the time we need to take care of ourselves.
00:02:50.180 --> 00:02:54.370 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: The act of self-care is not a selfish act.
00:02:55.380 --> 00:03:03.859 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It is the recognition that we need to fill up our own cup in order to be able to help others.
00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:07.930 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: The others could be anyone.
00:03:08.110 --> 00:03:11.620 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Even our clients or business associates.
00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.410 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: There are demands on us every single day.
00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:24.430 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yet most of the time, we just shoulder the responsibility and keep going without a thought.
00:03:24.740 --> 00:03:27.709 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: For what we need to keep going.
00:03:28.930 --> 00:03:33.720 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: When this happens, we will eventually have a breakdown.
00:03:34.310 --> 00:03:36.700 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: We will work until we drop.
00:03:36.900 --> 00:03:41.480 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And then we are forced to take time for ourselves.
00:03:42.230 --> 00:03:45.479 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Either by choice or by circumstance.
00:03:45.870 --> 00:03:50.400 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: For when we do not take the time to take care of ourselves.
00:03:50.610 --> 00:03:56.410 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: We could experience a breakdown physically, mentally, or emotionally.
00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:00.260 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I should have added, or spiritually, too.
00:04:00.690 --> 00:04:09.060 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Rather than waiting for some time beyond our control to happen that takes us out of the situation.
00:04:09.170 --> 00:04:17.910 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It is far better to find a way to practice self-care when we are in the midst of all that is happening.
00:04:18.579 --> 00:04:22.540 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: To find our own calm in the eyes of chaos.
00:04:23.050 --> 00:04:27.499 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Even if it's just a few minutes to relax and breathe.
00:04:29.290 --> 00:04:32.840 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: To catch a quick nap when we feel tired.
00:04:33.350 --> 00:04:40.249 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Perhaps even take a short walk outside to get a break from the pressure of the situation.
00:04:41.730 --> 00:04:47.359 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Every situation is different, and every situation has a solution.
00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:55.600 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: We just need to learn Lean into finding it for ourselves.
00:04:56.270 --> 00:04:58.969 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It might be a hard truth to face.
00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:03.800 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But no one can practice self-care for us.
00:05:05.150 --> 00:05:10.460 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: The act of taking care of our own needs is truly up to us
00:05:12.020 --> 00:05:15.660 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And life will support us in finding a way to do that.
00:05:16.460 --> 00:05:19.479 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Our job is to lean in that direction.
00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:25.160 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: To at least consider What can we do to fill up our own cup?
00:05:26.280 --> 00:05:31.159 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: When we put our energy in that direction, the solution will come to us.
00:05:31.740 --> 00:05:35.859 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Once it does, It is up to us to act on it.
00:05:36.750 --> 00:05:42.310 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: for, ultimately, Only we can take care of ourselves.
00:05:44.930 --> 00:05:49.430 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So… I wrote this blog post a couple of years ago.
00:05:50.170 --> 00:06:00.170 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: After having several… not just one, but several people in a group session with me who, were all caretakers.
00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:06.710 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Like, they either had… Children with developmental disabilities.
00:06:06.930 --> 00:06:16.880 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Aging parents, actually, was even more common, or some relative that they had to be the caretaker for.
00:06:19.390 --> 00:06:23.209 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And… They took time off.
00:06:24.130 --> 00:06:31.839 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: To… to come to a group with… with me and my wife, As an act of self-care.
00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:39.150 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And… And so many people were like, oh, I needed this so much.
00:06:40.850 --> 00:06:44.010 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And… And so while I've…
00:06:44.930 --> 00:06:52.600 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: You know, while I've heard people talking about self-care for the last 10-15 years, while I talk about it myself a lot.
00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:59.520 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I guess I just felt that it's such an important topic, And it's so…
00:06:59.660 --> 00:07:04.259 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It can be so challenging to find our way into it that…
00:07:04.950 --> 00:07:11.910 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Just having the conversation, just bringing it up to our consciousness so that we can consider
00:07:12.150 --> 00:07:15.329 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: What can I do to practice better self-care?
00:07:18.780 --> 00:07:20.850 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I just felt was so important.
00:07:22.810 --> 00:07:29.480 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And I'm quite fortunate, and my wife and I, we both say to each other, we're quite fortunate.
00:07:31.190 --> 00:07:46.859 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: we… neither of us really had to take care of our parents, because my mom moved to Israel when she was 91, and moved into an assisted living facility there. My sister, who lives in Israel, which is why she moved, ended up actually spending a lot of time and taking care of my mom.
00:07:47.260 --> 00:07:56.750 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: My wife is from China, her whole family's in China, her mom was in China, so towards the end of her life, her sister ended up taking care of her mom.
00:07:57.700 --> 00:07:59.089 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So we both…
00:07:59.390 --> 00:08:07.029 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: We're fortunate in that we never had to experience being a caretaker in that way so intensely.
00:08:09.020 --> 00:08:16.360 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I've experienced being a caretaker earlier, early in life, taking care of a friend of mine who was schizophrenic.
00:08:16.510 --> 00:08:20.059 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: That was quite challenging.
00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:29.050 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And my sister not only took care of my mom, but one of her kids is special needs, and, and, you know, he's now…
00:08:29.370 --> 00:08:33.119 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Over 30 years old, and living in a group home, but
00:08:33.370 --> 00:08:35.769 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But so much of her life.
00:08:36.140 --> 00:08:40.260 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I saw, and I really looked up to how
00:08:40.440 --> 00:08:45.190 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: She was able to take care of him and still find… her own…
00:08:47.090 --> 00:08:50.429 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Peace, still find time for herself.
00:08:51.870 --> 00:08:54.580 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And so I saw, it can be done.
00:08:54.920 --> 00:08:56.700 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It's not always easy.
00:08:57.060 --> 00:08:59.519 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It doesn't always look like what we…
00:08:59.810 --> 00:09:07.920 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Would want it to look like… But, it, it definitely…
00:09:08.400 --> 00:09:14.420 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: is possible. And I guess that's my message for this week.
00:09:15.700 --> 00:09:22.789 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: is… No matter who you're taking care of, no matter what the situation is.
00:09:24.190 --> 00:09:32.780 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And I get it. If you have elderly parents with dementia, if you have special needs kids, if you're… you're taking care of someone who's
00:09:32.990 --> 00:09:39.230 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I don't know, some terminal illness. It can be really, really challenging, I get it.
00:09:44.230 --> 00:09:48.810 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Self-care in those situations is even more important.
00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:52.050 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Than just in regular life.
00:09:52.750 --> 00:09:58.870 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: If we need to be there for other people, We need to…
00:09:59.710 --> 00:10:03.720 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Find a way to show up the best that we can.
00:10:04.210 --> 00:10:12.080 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And that means… Finding whatever it is we need to take care of ourselves.
00:10:13.160 --> 00:10:16.529 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Even if it's just in little ways to begin with.
00:10:18.450 --> 00:10:20.569 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But find a way to take a break.
00:10:23.140 --> 00:10:32.140 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So, that's my blog post for this week. It's entitled, again, to take care of ourselves, we must fill up our own cup.
00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:46.960 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And if you like my blog post, you can find lots of them at my personally branded website, theconsciousconsultant.com, or at the radio station's website, talkradio.nyc slash blog.
00:10:47.590 --> 00:10:57.579 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And don't forget, I do have a book full of my writings, called Everyday Awakening, so you can find even more of my writings there.
00:10:58.260 --> 00:11:00.140 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Alright, now…
00:11:00.790 --> 00:11:13.610 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It is my extreme pleasure to welcome to the show Dee Dee Goldpaw, a psychotherapist, educator, and leading voice in the intersection of psychedelics, sexuality, and healing.
00:11:13.610 --> 00:11:21.790 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: With over 17 years of clinical experience, Dee Dee serves as Clinical Director of Chrysalis Integrative Psychotherapy.
00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:32.239 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Women and Gender Diversity Advisor for the Chicrona Institute, and part of the Ketamine-assisted Psychotherapy team at Woodstock Therapy Center.
00:11:33.180 --> 00:11:48.060 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: In their groundbreaking fourth book, Embrace Pleasure, How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality, they redefine what it means to heal sexual trauma and reclaim embodied joy.
00:11:48.150 --> 00:11:54.740 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And this is what that book looks like right here. So, Dee Dee, welcome to the Conscious Consultant Hour.
00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:57.809 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Thank you so much for having me, Sam, I'm thrilled to be here.
00:11:57.810 --> 00:11:59.869 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: My pleasure, my pleasure.
00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:16.660 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So, I always like to just kind of start off with, like, how did you get here from there? And I guess the there is, like, when you were in school studying, I guess, to be a psychologist or a therapist or whatever, like, I…
00:12:16.760 --> 00:12:20.769 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I don't know, but I imagine that, you know.
00:12:21.330 --> 00:12:29.719 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Ending up writing a book about the intersection of psychedelics and pleasure might not have been on top of your goals.
00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:39.740 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Correct. Yes. Yes, my career has unfolded in a way that has been surprising to all around me, and in some ways, completely unsurprising.
00:12:40.030 --> 00:12:49.819 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I can tell you a little bit about my personal journey, knowing all of the different threads of experience that led to this book are complex, right, as they are for anyone.
00:12:49.890 --> 00:13:05.150 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, one version of my story is that, I went to school to study psychotherapy. I took a very, sort of, in some ways, traditional track of, becoming a psychodynamic therapist, which is basically what we think of as a talk therapist.
00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:15.920 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I then started to study sex therapy, I became, you know, skilled in working with sex therapy clients, and then realized that I really needed a robust
00:13:16.150 --> 00:13:35.079 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: education around trauma healing, and mostly somatic practices with the body to really effectively work with people around sexuality. So that's a very, in some ways, mundane version of, like, what my trajectory clinically has been. The much more important story that I can share with you about myself
00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:44.789 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: is, like many people who gravitate to different fields, I, myself, am a sexual trauma survivor, and I experienced PTSD for many years.
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:53.759 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I tried many different kinds of treatments, and they were helpful for me. Psychotherapy did help me. Meditation helped me profoundly.
00:13:53.970 --> 00:14:00.160 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Those things helped me to get to a point in my life where I was surviving, where I was able to be a productive person.
00:14:00.330 --> 00:14:04.939 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I still had some sense that there was something very much missing for me.
00:14:05.140 --> 00:14:14.940 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And at a certain point in time, I was introduced to psychedelic medicines in ceremonial contexts. So we're talking about the use of psychedelics.
00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:27.780 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: In contexts that are led by ceremonial facilitators. So that looks different than what we would think of as psychedelic-assisted therapy, and it looks very different than what we would think of as the recreational use of psychedelics.
00:14:28.030 --> 00:14:40.369 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And that opened a whole world for me. I began to heal trauma on a level that I did not know was possible. And some of it was very painful and difficult. I had to confront terrible things that had happened.
00:14:40.510 --> 00:14:55.700 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: and especially my early ceremonial work, it required a lot of support, because I, had to go into memories and allow my body to transmute pain that it had been holding for a very long time.
00:14:55.890 --> 00:14:59.480 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But really, where this book comes into play.
00:14:59.540 --> 00:15:14.140 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: is that I reached a certain point in my healing trajectory, and I was in Peru, I have traveled to Peru many times for healing work, and I was introduced to the medicine San Pedro, which is one that in the West.
00:15:14.140 --> 00:15:24.550 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: it's never really become very popular or well-known. And I have my own, sort of, spiritual assumptions about why that might be.
00:15:24.550 --> 00:15:33.260 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But it's a beautiful medicine, and it's known as a medicine that heals the heart. And, just for listeners' point of reference, it's
00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:44.890 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: chemically closer to MDMA than it would be to a medicine like, psychedelic mushrooms. So San Pedro is very much an inner experience of love, an inner experience of connecting to the earth.
00:15:45.170 --> 00:15:49.340 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And when I took that medicine in Peru for the first time,
00:15:49.630 --> 00:15:54.619 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I… I did not even understand what was still waiting for me, because it
00:15:55.040 --> 00:16:02.750 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: first day that I could remember in my life of feeling awake, alive, connected to my body, connected to the earth.
00:16:02.860 --> 00:16:05.070 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Without any thoughts of trauma.
00:16:05.290 --> 00:16:15.700 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I was, simply present in my humanity. And that's when I realized that that moment of pleasure
00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:33.709 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: was the healing, that all of this hard work was leading up to this point. So my book, you know, I feel very proud of it, and it is about sexuality, and it is about pleasure in the conventional sense that we think about sexuality and pleasure, but really, I'm pointing to something much deeper.
00:16:33.790 --> 00:16:53.409 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Which is what happens when we heal enough in ourselves to be alive in the authentic experience of being a human being, the pleasure of connecting to the earth, the pleasure of connecting to other people, and connecting to our own bodies. The sexuality piece of it for me, I mean, I am a sex therapist.
00:16:53.500 --> 00:16:54.740 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Right.
00:16:55.050 --> 00:17:05.329 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: to me, my interest in writing about sexuality really had a lot to do with the fact that I feel like, although we are in a culture that in many ways is steeped in sex.
00:17:05.369 --> 00:17:19.989 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Very few of us have really positive sexual role models. Many of us carry a lot of negative internalized narratives about sex, and so to me, it seemed like an arena where we carry so much harm.
00:17:20.010 --> 00:17:25.629 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And shame, but also one that could blossom into something that is so
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:41.239 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Healthy, beautiful, pleasurable, tapping into our very life force. So I look at the erotic as something having to do with our life force as human beings, and that's the aspects of sexuality that I find much more interesting.
00:17:41.390 --> 00:18:06.359 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I have so many follow-up questions, and there were so many points that you touched upon that I want to ask you about, but we need to take our first break, so I'm going to hold them, I'm going to ask you when we come back, especially, I want to find out what your spiritual assumptions about San Pedro not being more popular, and other things around, sort of, sexual trauma and how common it is.
00:18:06.870 --> 00:18:25.940 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But first, we're going to take this quick break, so everyone, please stay tuned. You're listening to The Conscious Consultant Hour, Awakening Humanity. We do this every Thursday, 12 noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time, right here on talkradio.nyc and all over social media, and we'll be right back with our guest, Dee Dee Goldpaw.
00:18:25.940 --> 00:18:29.519 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Author of the book, Embrace Pleasure, in just a moment.
00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:30.600 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And welcome back to the Conscious Consultant Hour, Awakening Humanity. We're speaking this hour with Dee Dee Goldpaw, author of the book, Embrace Pleasure. So, Dee Dee, in our first segment, you mentioned a number of things. One thing I just want to start with
00:20:30.740 --> 00:20:41.849 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It's something that I've noticed, and as most of my loyal listeners know, my wife is a psychotherapist as well, who does trauma therapy, and we do some healing work together.
00:20:42.060 --> 00:20:57.880 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But sexual trauma is so, so common in both men and women. I've heard the statistics that it could be as high as 1 in 3 women have experienced some kind of sexual trauma in their life.
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:06.130 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So I imagine you must be really busy in your practice, or are you not, because people are afraid to confront that.
00:21:06.320 --> 00:21:13.160 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Hmm… My practice, both fortunately and unfortunately, is always full.
00:21:13.600 --> 00:21:18.739 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, it's interesting, as I was delving into trauma in this book.
00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:30.559 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: When you talk about a statistic like 1 in 3 women, there are various statistics because, of course, the reporting of sexual trauma becomes a difficult thing to,
00:21:30.740 --> 00:21:40.260 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: to get accurate numbers on. And there are certain populations that certainly have much higher, risk of being sexually traumatized than others.
00:21:41.180 --> 00:21:45.419 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I decided to take an entirely different approach to trauma in my book.
00:21:45.670 --> 00:21:46.670 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So…
00:21:46.920 --> 00:22:01.180 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Sexual trauma and violence exists on a spectrum, and the beginning of that spectrum is the sexual trauma that we all recognize in our culture, right? When someone has been sexually abused in childhood, someone has been sexually assaulted as an adult.
00:22:01.180 --> 00:22:07.740 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Many of my clients, unfortunately, have had these experiences, and they come to my practice for healing work.
00:22:07.750 --> 00:22:14.450 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But when I come… when I came to realize over, you know, now almost 18 years of being a therapist.
00:22:15.350 --> 00:22:33.219 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Clients would come in and not mention anything about sexual trauma at all. They would identify themselves as someone who had not been traumatized, but when we started to delve into their history, their sexual history, their relational history, it turns out they were full of experiences.
00:22:33.220 --> 00:22:44.809 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: That prevented them from being able to connect with pleasure, from being able to be fully safe in their bodies, from being able to kind of lean into their full erotic potential.
00:22:44.820 --> 00:23:02.680 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And so what I really started to think about is maybe we need, not a new clinical framework for trauma, because we have diagnosis for a reason. There's a reason that PTSD as a diagnosis has very specific criteria. But we as clinicians could actually start to
00:23:03.590 --> 00:23:19.890 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: To approach our clients more holistically and understand that anything that they had experienced that impacted their ability to be present with pleasure in an enduring way, and that's a really key part of this, in an enduring way, could be considered trauma.
00:23:20.170 --> 00:23:37.770 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, the reason I say that is because, paradoxically, I think the word trauma gets thrown around a lot in our culture, and just because we have difficult experiences, that… they aren't necessarily traumatic. But when our body holds onto something long-term, when our body is unable to metabolize.
00:23:37.790 --> 00:23:47.130 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: something that has happened to us. I think it's arguable to say that includes far many more people, and could meet a criteria for sexual trauma.
00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:49.859 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:56.849 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah, I just feel like… So many people get touched by this.
00:23:57.360 --> 00:24:05.450 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And… and sometimes it's never spoken about. It… you know, it's like… it's… it's never brought up.
00:24:05.930 --> 00:24:08.890 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Because there's so much shame, and there's so much…
00:24:09.910 --> 00:24:15.270 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Self-criticism around it, of kind of blaming ourselves for it.
00:24:16.410 --> 00:24:20.709 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: But now, when we take, sort of.
00:24:21.020 --> 00:24:31.670 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Sexual trauma, and we bring in psychedelics, where somebody is very, very open in… in an experience.
00:24:32.560 --> 00:24:38.609 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: that can be a very tricky container to navigate, can't it? Because…
00:24:38.750 --> 00:24:42.520 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I mean, I've personally heard of… of…
00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:54.400 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: You know, inappropriate behavior in containers, of facilitators taking advantage of their role, of people getting re-traumatized.
00:24:55.560 --> 00:25:06.100 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Because they're working through their trauma, and then somebody, you know, takes advantage because they're not completely aware, they're not completely present to what's going on.
00:25:06.100 --> 00:25:06.790 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yes.
00:25:07.010 --> 00:25:24.039 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, the issue of sexual misconduct in psychedelic spaces is, incredibly important to address, and there's actually a whole chapter in the book where I write about power, and desire and sexual abuse, and the prevention of sexual abuse in psychedelic spaces.
00:25:24.040 --> 00:25:33.150 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I feel really honored that I have been involved in several different, sort of, approaches to restorative justice within the psychedelic community, addressing harms that have happened.
00:25:33.180 --> 00:25:44.230 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But I think it's really important to say that sexual harm, and people who perpetrate it are not a psychedelic problem, per se, they are a human problem.
00:25:44.230 --> 00:25:53.680 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Because unfortunately, in psychotherapy, the most common reason that psychotherapists are sued by clients is because of sexual misconduct.
00:25:53.780 --> 00:26:08.499 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I began in the researching of the book to try to understand what circumstances lead to this type of behavior, and how it could be prevented. So I'll just briefly touch on that, and then we can go more robustly into the client side, how sexual trauma is healed.
00:26:08.600 --> 00:26:11.389 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So, what's really interesting is…
00:26:11.390 --> 00:26:24.270 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: When we hear about cases of sexual abuse occurring in psychedelic spaces, they're often the most egregious ones, right, that come to light, and it is very often the case that
00:26:24.580 --> 00:26:30.959 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: perpetrators, who are… Let me see if I can express this correctly.
00:26:31.210 --> 00:26:39.359 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: People who perpetrate harm In any kind of clinical space, whether it's psychedelic, clergy members, psychotherapists.
00:26:40.230 --> 00:26:47.750 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Are unlikely to be to fit the profile we have in our mind as a narcissist or a sociopath.
00:26:47.870 --> 00:26:56.720 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: That's about 25% of people who cause harm, but the caveat is, those 25% of perpetrators harm a lot of people.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:57.180 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah.
00:26:57.180 --> 00:27:04.690 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: The most common group of people are people who are working in isolation, who have unhealed trauma themselves.
00:27:04.900 --> 00:27:07.720 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And lack community support and accountability.
00:27:08.250 --> 00:27:27.960 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Those people tend to transgress with one person because they become obsessed with the idea that they have something special that will heal this person, or a sexual relationship could be appropriate in this one case, and it leads them to violate their own ethics. Those people are actually very amenable to rehabilitation.
00:27:28.140 --> 00:27:34.379 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So, it's an interesting thing that it's important for us to get… in order to protect people.
00:27:34.380 --> 00:27:41.070 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: What we actually need is a lot more robust community support, because there will always be
00:27:41.180 --> 00:27:44.780 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Perpetrators that are really, perpetrators of harm.
00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:55.039 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But many more cases of harm happen with people that could be prevented if we had better, sort of, community accountability and support. So I hope I explained that in a clear way.
00:27:55.040 --> 00:28:13.359 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: To move on to, the people on the other side. So, let's say I am a person who has experienced sexual trauma. I am a person who's experienced sexual trauma, and going into a psychedelic space to do that healing work, I think it's incredibly important that we find spaces
00:28:13.360 --> 00:28:17.660 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: That are safe to us with trusted facilitators.
00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:34.540 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And this is the reason why psychedelic prohibition is still so problematic, because people are left doing that in the shadows, and finding, accountability, finding, you know, we don't exactly have Google reviews for psychedelic facilitators.
00:28:34.540 --> 00:28:38.479 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Let me ask a question. I just want to use you as an example.
00:28:38.650 --> 00:28:47.710 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: you had done, before you engaged in psychedelics, you had already done some healing work, right? You'd already seen a therapist, you'd already done some work.
00:28:47.810 --> 00:29:01.499 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: what was it that brought you to be… to make the decision that, oh, I think using psychedelics on this particular area could really help me a lot?
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:09.579 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Because talk therapy never enabled me to really access the healing that I needed in my body in the way that psychedelics could.
00:29:09.910 --> 00:29:15.560 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Right, because psychedelics is a much more somatic experience, so it's a way of, sort of.
00:29:16.140 --> 00:29:21.789 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I don't know, unlocking, what's sort of trapped in the body.
00:29:22.040 --> 00:29:27.690 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So then you could really move through things in a much deeper way.
00:29:28.570 --> 00:29:46.540 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Psychedelics puts right in front of you something that must be gone through, right? We cannot stop a psychedelic experience once it starts, which can mean it could be very difficult. But another aspect of the psychedelic experience that people have very commonly is that they feel very much held in love.
00:29:47.050 --> 00:30:01.879 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: They feel a sense of either God, or a spirit guide, or an ancestor, or the spirit of the plant itself. Or, in the case of synthetic medicines like MDMA, which work extremely well for healing sexual trauma.
00:30:01.880 --> 00:30:08.510 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It down-regulates the nervous system enough that we're able to actually work with the content of traumatic material.
00:30:08.510 --> 00:30:12.869 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And that is what is so unique to psychedelic healing for sexual trauma.
00:30:13.040 --> 00:30:14.650 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Beautiful, beautiful.
00:30:14.990 --> 00:30:22.450 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I want to get into more now the positive side of things, but I want to take a break first. So when we come back, let's talk about
00:30:22.810 --> 00:30:29.990 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: What is so potent about using pleasure as a healing path.
00:30:30.280 --> 00:30:34.669 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And why is it something, also, that's so…
00:30:35.270 --> 00:30:38.339 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I don't want to say shunned, but.
00:30:38.340 --> 00:30:39.210 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Taboo.
00:30:39.210 --> 00:30:47.180 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah, so taboo, or so unusual, like, like, so… so minimized in our culture, okay?
00:30:48.280 --> 00:31:02.810 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And I'm going to ask you about San Pedro when we come back as well. So everyone, please stay tuned. You're listening to The Conscious Consultant Hour, Awakening Humanity. We're speaking with Dee Dee Goldpaw, author of the book, Embrace Pleasure, and we'll be right back in just a moment.
00:32:46.980 --> 00:32:48.380 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And welcome back.
00:32:48.960 --> 00:33:12.060 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So, Didi, I gotta ask you about San Pedro, because I've… I've danced with grandfather. For those that don't know, ayahuasca is usually referred to as grandmother, and San Pedro is usually referred to as grandfather. It's a cactus, grows high in the Andes. It's not like peyote, it's, you know, peyote is much more
00:33:13.150 --> 00:33:30.169 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: an experience more like ayahuasca, and as you said, San Pedro or Huachuma, it's more an experience closer to something like MDMA. I've heard people also say it's closer to something like 5-MeO-DMT.
00:33:30.270 --> 00:33:40.980 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And you said a little snippet of, like, oh, you have a certain assumption why it's not as popular or well-known. I'm curious what that assumption is.
00:33:41.590 --> 00:34:00.699 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Oh, yeah, well, I'll try and answer that question succinctly. So, my personal belief, and many people who work in the field of psychedelic science and therapy would disagree with this, so I'll give that disclaimer. My experience, I believe very strongly that these
00:34:00.840 --> 00:34:15.220 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: plants are spirit allies with their own unique consciousness and their own will. And I think, I don't want to go into this too deeply, but many of what we've seen, try to sort of move forward in the field
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:35.650 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: of psychedelic science and therapy that's sort of fallen apart in the past couple of years. Like, we thought these medicines were all gonna be blockbuster pharmacological treatments for high… with high price tags, and that's really been delayed, and the rolling out of psychedelics into medicine is, it has an uncertain future. I'm not saying it won't happen, it will.
00:34:35.659 --> 00:34:36.099 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Right.
00:34:36.100 --> 00:34:41.440 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But it's not as clear about how it's gonna happen as it was maybe 4 years ago.
00:34:41.449 --> 00:34:57.359 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Right, like, everyone was counting on MAPS getting approval for MDMA as a PTSD, and then, you know, things came out, and actually, one of the things was in their study was one couple therapists, like, not being appropriate with a client.
00:34:57.950 --> 00:34:58.670 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: You know?
00:34:58.670 --> 00:35:11.640 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, and not being handled well on the back end, right? So, going back to San Pedro, it's very interesting to me that within that paradigm, where they have tried to remove psychotherapy from,
00:35:12.130 --> 00:35:21.790 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: from psychedelic work. They are trying to, make these cost-effective and short treatments as possible to target specific symptoms.
00:35:21.820 --> 00:35:41.669 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: San Pedro just cannot be approached in that way. It's a long medicine. The experience is 12 or more hours. It's subtle. It might take hours for you to fully feel it in your body. And I believe my experience with that medicine is that he is a very gentle healer who comes to the people that need him.
00:35:41.700 --> 00:35:54.699 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I don't see a world where this is co-opted into the models that we have in the West for psychedelic-assisted therapy, even though people are using San Pedro in this country, for sure, growing it and using the plant.
00:35:55.280 --> 00:36:15.009 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: If we contrast that to ayahuasca, also a very strong plant spirit, but she has moved all around the world. Yeah. And indigenous healers that I have learned from, so I'm not claiming this as my own thought, but, felt that it could be that we're in such a moment of climate crisis that she has emerged from the jungle to wake people up.
00:36:15.860 --> 00:36:29.600 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: San Pedro, you know, I feel as though he's not amenable to fitting into a medical model, and he is, in my experience, a very subtle healer that comes right to your heart and finds you when you need him.
00:36:29.890 --> 00:36:38.149 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Very cool, very cool. I wanted to ask about it because I, too, believe that engaging with psychedelics
00:36:38.340 --> 00:36:45.619 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: is a spiritual practice. Like, it's not just about healing. There's so much focus on healing and the trauma and this and that, but…
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:53.779 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: it's beyond that. It's like, that's just the beginning levels. Yes. There's something much deeper to it. And…
00:36:53.980 --> 00:37:05.599 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And in your work and in the book, you know, you look at pleasure as medicine itself, or as healing itself, and as a practice in and of itself.
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:15.420 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: why is… You know, as you said, like, in this society, it's sort of very sexualized, but still…
00:37:15.650 --> 00:37:20.789 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: sexual stuff is very taboo. Like, in Europe, they're much more, well.
00:37:21.170 --> 00:37:23.350 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: At least they used to be. I don't know what it's like now.
00:37:23.350 --> 00:37:24.040 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah.
00:37:24.040 --> 00:37:39.280 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: they were much more open and much more casual about it. In the United States, there's some kind of a dance we have around sexuality and pleasure that's, like, fascinated with it and shunning it at the same time.
00:37:39.280 --> 00:37:45.060 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yes, yes. Well, let me just start first with explaining to listeners how I define pleasure itself.
00:37:45.060 --> 00:37:59.300 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Because we are in a culture that is steeped in leisure. I mean, you could sit on your phone and scroll all day long. You can, eat foods you really like. You can do just activities you enjoy.
00:37:59.520 --> 00:38:12.230 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Those things are great. I am not anti-leisure. I think you should enjoy your life, but I'm not trying to put forward a thesis that those things itself are healing. To me, the way I'm defining pleasure
00:38:12.340 --> 00:38:18.530 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Is when we have a moment of… of good feeling, of,
00:38:18.830 --> 00:38:22.890 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Being steeped with positive sensations in our body.
00:38:23.260 --> 00:38:28.290 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And that is matched with a quality of mindfulness or savoring the sensual.
00:38:28.360 --> 00:38:46.249 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So it has to be that awakened quality that I describe in the San Pedro experience, right? You don't need San Pedro for it, but it might mean that you're taking a walk in the woods, and you are completely in tune with the sounds you're hearing, with what you're experiencing around you, when you're with a lover or a partner.
00:38:46.250 --> 00:38:46.950 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Okay.
00:38:46.950 --> 00:38:50.320 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: you are… Focused on them.
00:38:50.640 --> 00:39:00.289 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And in that way, the sensual experience of connection to the world and to other people can very much heal us and wake us up.
00:39:00.500 --> 00:39:07.069 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It sounds to me like what you're talking about really is presence In the moment of pleasure.
00:39:07.070 --> 00:39:09.319 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yes, yeah, that would be a way of saying it.
00:39:09.320 --> 00:39:25.909 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Because it just… in the way you were talking about it, it reminded me of a woman I knew who was an Indian woman who was a healer, an energy healer, and she described to me a moment when she was just sitting in a cafe, having a cup of tea.
00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:35.269 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And she was… she somehow, from her meditation practice and the work she had done, she'd cultivated this level of presence.
00:39:35.620 --> 00:39:45.059 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: That she was so present to the moment, and seeing people walk by, and the smell of the tea, and the taste, and what was going on around her.
00:39:45.470 --> 00:39:51.729 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: It sounds like you're talking about the same thing, but just in context of…
00:39:52.940 --> 00:39:56.379 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: You know, some form of physical pleasure.
00:39:56.620 --> 00:40:03.300 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, well, I start in the book by just talking about pleasure in general, and then thinking, how do we apply this to the sexual arena?
00:40:03.300 --> 00:40:04.090 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Hmm.
00:40:04.090 --> 00:40:25.600 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So really, you know, my sort of elevator pitch in a lot of ways for the book is that all people deserve a positive relationship with their sexuality. When we endeavor to heal our traumas, it opens us up to deeper levels of love and connection, and that spirituality is an intrinsic part of every person's sexuality.
00:40:25.600 --> 00:40:36.460 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: No matter what spirituality means for you, and that psychedelics can help us with all of this. So the way I bring the psychedelic angle in, specifically with erotic pleasure and sexual pleasure.
00:40:36.460 --> 00:40:47.130 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: is that I think psychedelics can really help us profoundly to dismantle the harmful narratives that make it impossible for us to be really present with pleasure.
00:40:47.130 --> 00:40:59.030 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: They help us to have empathy for other people and empathy for ourselves. I absolutely loved your blog post you read at the beginning, because I thought it was so on point with what we're talking about today, right?
00:40:59.030 --> 00:40:59.390 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah.
00:40:59.390 --> 00:41:02.659 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: All of these ways that it could actually be very simple.
00:41:02.780 --> 00:41:24.339 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: if we're connected to our breath, we're connected in a moment to the earth, right? These don't have to actually be these huge, dramatic things to bring us into contact with pleasure. So this deepening of empathy in our relationships, I also think psychedelics… and I'm here, I'm drawing from science, I'm not just saying this is what I think psychedelics do, there's…
00:41:24.510 --> 00:41:34.500 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: a lot of evidence that has, emerged in peer-reviewed research that backs this up. And then the last little bit is that psychedelics also induce a state of openness.
00:41:34.560 --> 00:41:51.850 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Meaning that we have, sort of, fixed personality traits in adulthood. But psychedelic use has been shown and replicated in clinical research to open the personality domain of openness, which means that we have more capacity for fantasy. We're more cognitively flexible.
00:41:51.870 --> 00:42:05.150 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: we can tolerate other people's views and ideas. So to me, so much of what we carry into our sexual relationships that make them unsatisfying is that we don't even tolerate our own desires and fantasies very well, let alone other.
00:42:05.150 --> 00:42:06.860 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: with people's.
00:42:06.860 --> 00:42:12.819 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, these are the ways, I think, that, you know, psychedelics can really help us to grow as sexual beings, and.
00:42:13.240 --> 00:42:19.100 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: It's interesting, because in the dialogue, people often assume that what I'm talking about is sex on psychedelics.
00:42:19.100 --> 00:42:19.610 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah.
00:42:19.610 --> 00:42:24.639 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Which, you know, I mean, that's a valid topic, right? People ask me about it all the time.
00:42:24.920 --> 00:42:38.440 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But what I'm much more interested in is the post-acute effects of psychedelic experiences on our sexuality. How do we become more spiritually open beings in the erotic domain based on our psychedelic work?
00:42:38.850 --> 00:42:42.790 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And there are a lot of different types of psychedelics, right?
00:42:42.790 --> 00:42:43.330 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah.
00:42:43.330 --> 00:42:52.569 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: broad range from 5-MeO DMT BUFO, to MDMA, to ayahuasca San Pedro peyote.
00:42:53.710 --> 00:42:55.019 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I mean, I…
00:42:55.200 --> 00:43:11.769 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I've talked a lot with different experts on MDMA, on other stuff. Is there a particular psychedelic for someone who is curious and interested about exploring this side of it that you would recommend someone just to start with?
00:43:11.770 --> 00:43:32.839 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Well, it's a tough question to answer, because right now, in the clinical paradigm, the only medicine that even is not even really a psychedelic, but gets grouped with psychedelics, that is legally accessible to us in conventional medical settings is ketamine. And you can find very good psychotherapists, including myself, who work with ketamine in clinical contexts.
00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:49.650 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I sort of bristle at the question, there are some schools of thought that, especially in the West, that, there's a progression, right? And it starts with MDMA, which is the most accessible, and then you do mushrooms, and then you do this, and then you do that.
00:43:49.650 --> 00:43:50.110 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I mean…
00:43:50.110 --> 00:43:55.990 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And there are some underground training protocols that very much believe, like, there's a way to do it, and that's the way to do it.
00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:03.870 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I strongly disagree with that as an approach. I think that we are drawn in moments of openness.
00:44:03.870 --> 00:44:05.250 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: to specific…
00:44:05.870 --> 00:44:19.140 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: experiences, specific medicines, maybe specific facilitators, and our responsibility is asking ourselves the critical questions of not, is this medicine going to be too much for me, but why am I being drawn to this in this moment?
00:44:19.140 --> 00:44:19.900 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Hmm…
00:44:19.900 --> 00:44:23.750 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Right? I've had clients, you know, 5-MeO-DMT is known as
00:44:23.820 --> 00:44:37.219 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: one of the most powerful psychedelic experiences you can possibly have. And I have had clients come for integration work in my psychotherapy practice that are psychedelic naive, and start with 5-MeO-DMT, and have,
00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:51.840 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: profound experiences, because something was very right about the set setting and cast of that experience. So, I think there is… psychedelics kind of have personalities, and we need to know our own personality well enough, and what our own needs are well enough.
00:44:51.920 --> 00:45:07.750 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: and to be able to assess for safety and risk well enough, to find ourselves in the right moment. And that said, even the medicines that we consider to be the more easy-going or user-friendly ones, like psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA, they can also
00:45:08.080 --> 00:45:12.570 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Raise, profound dysregulation in people.
00:45:12.770 --> 00:45:19.859 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And sometimes, not even when they're being poorly facilitated. They can… psychedelics can and do stir up things in us.
00:45:19.920 --> 00:45:23.179 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: That can be challenging to work with psychologically.
00:45:23.620 --> 00:45:27.209 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Right, but things we don't even remember or are aware of.
00:45:27.930 --> 00:45:39.710 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: and not conscious of, and then they get stirred up, and it's like, you have to now start to deal with it, and it's like, oh my god, and it can be overwhelming. Which is why working with a trained therapist
00:45:39.840 --> 00:45:41.840 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Guide, facilitator.
00:45:42.300 --> 00:45:50.509 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: who has experience, who has mentorship, maybe part of a lineage. It's all very important in selecting the right person to work with.
00:45:51.420 --> 00:45:52.330 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Correct.
00:45:52.600 --> 00:45:58.230 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Yeah. Alright, we need to take one last break. When we come back.
00:45:58.450 --> 00:46:05.939 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I do have a couple of more questions, and I do want to ask just a little bit more about the book as well. Okay, DeeDee?
00:46:05.940 --> 00:46:07.030 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Wonderful.
00:46:07.030 --> 00:46:20.630 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: All right, everyone, please stay tuned. You're listening to The Conscious Consultant Hour, Awakening Humanity. We've been speaking this hour with Dee Dee Goldpaw, author of the book, Embrace Pleasure, and we'll be right back to wrap it all up in just a moment.
00:47:56.810 --> 00:48:01.010 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I imagine you probably get this question a lot,
00:48:02.250 --> 00:48:12.110 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Does the work you're talking about in terms of embracing pleasure and using pleasure as medicine itself, is it… do you feel it's related to Tantra work at all?
00:48:12.820 --> 00:48:20.109 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Oh, that's an interesting question. You know, I will fully admit that I have a Westerner's
00:48:20.740 --> 00:48:25.450 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: knowledge of Tantra, right? Tantra's an extremely complex practice.
00:48:25.450 --> 00:48:43.320 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And that word means different things in the Hindu context and the Buddhist context, but as it's used mostly, in my experience, in sort of Western sex-positive communities, what we're really talking about is energy exchange between two people, right? A conscious sexual experience.
00:48:43.320 --> 00:48:48.339 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: That involves the energy exchange through, erotic union.
00:48:51.060 --> 00:49:00.300 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, I mean, I think that… I can answer the question in several ways. I mean, first, I think any experience,
00:49:01.780 --> 00:49:09.179 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Where we are approaching sex, With that quality of mindful, awake, present.
00:49:09.330 --> 00:49:19.419 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: intention that we referenced in our earlier segment, right? Has the capacity to be psychedelic sex, because sex is medicine.
00:49:20.690 --> 00:49:22.249 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: When we welcome in.
00:49:22.270 --> 00:49:33.900 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: the experience of another person's energy into our body, I mean, that's a profound act, right? In some ways, like we were talking earlier, that there's… we're in a strange cultural moment where sex…
00:49:33.900 --> 00:49:46.399 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: is vilified and controlled, and at the same time, it's kind of omnipresent culturally. Well, you know, what gets lost in that entire dialogue is what I think you're pointing to, which is that sex actually
00:49:46.610 --> 00:49:48.270 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Can be,
00:49:48.680 --> 00:49:57.010 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: A… the most profound act of connection that you can undertake with another human being, because you're opening your body and your energy to them.
00:49:57.170 --> 00:50:15.239 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And so, to me, I think of psychedelic as not just a description for a set of substances or compounds or plants, but a adjective to describe a state of being, right? So I talk about this idea of psychedelic sexuality in the book.
00:50:15.410 --> 00:50:15.870 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Hmm.
00:50:15.870 --> 00:50:28.759 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And some of my foundational principles around psychedelic sexuality has to do more with, what is a psychedelic way of looking at sex, taking it to be an adjective, which might mean
00:50:28.760 --> 00:50:36.100 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Acceptance for our own body. Acceptance for our own gender expression, for the gender expression of other people.
00:50:36.100 --> 00:50:50.409 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: the inclusion of spirit, or spirituality, whatever that means for us in our sexual practices. I mean, there… I go through this in detail in the book, but I think you'll get the direction that I'm pointing, right? It was the deeper levels of acceptance.
00:50:50.460 --> 00:50:59.419 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Love, Ethics, And spirituality, to me, that's a very psychedelic way of approaching our sexual relationships.
00:51:00.460 --> 00:51:03.900 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: So, we've been talking around the book the whole hour.
00:51:04.330 --> 00:51:07.630 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: What do you hope people really gain from reading the book?
00:51:07.630 --> 00:51:08.530 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mmm.
00:51:09.280 --> 00:51:18.779 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Well, I think every… both in the writing and the book, in every conference I've spoken at, every, podcast I do.
00:51:18.920 --> 00:51:26.089 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Whether I say these words explicitly or not, I hope with my words and my presence, what I am…
00:51:26.500 --> 00:51:31.899 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Offering to people is an embodied example that healing is possible for you.
00:51:32.090 --> 00:51:32.500 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Hmm.
00:51:32.500 --> 00:51:36.010 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Whatever you think, whatever has happened to you.
00:51:36.240 --> 00:51:43.470 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: You have survived, and you can step into a life that is worth living, Pleasure is your birthright?
00:51:43.530 --> 00:52:00.260 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And that psychedelics may or may not be part of that path, but a psychedelic philosophy of how you can approach a theory of relationships, of mind, of ethics, with expansiveness, love.
00:52:00.260 --> 00:52:08.109 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Connection and spirituality, that is accessible to all of us, whether these medicines are something you want to welcome into your life or not.
00:52:08.150 --> 00:52:11.810 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So what I hope people get is really,
00:52:12.060 --> 00:52:30.910 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: that they're able to see in me that whatever has happened to you in your life, whether it's big T trauma, like things that, very much affect the nervous system, or the smaller things of living in a sex-negative culture that prohibit us from being as, embodied as possible, that…
00:52:30.910 --> 00:52:37.729 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: They can be healed, and that you can place the shame for whatever has happened to you outside of yourself.
00:52:37.960 --> 00:52:38.810 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Hmm.
00:52:39.030 --> 00:52:39.760 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So.
00:52:39.760 --> 00:52:40.560 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Beautiful.
00:52:41.260 --> 00:52:47.799 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: I'm curious, you've been doing this work for so long, and you've been working on yourself, which is beautiful.
00:52:48.630 --> 00:52:52.300 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Was there anything challenging about writing the book for you?
00:52:53.420 --> 00:52:58.959 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I'll be honest with you, it was one of the greatest periods of joy of my whole life.
00:52:59.090 --> 00:52:59.860 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Hmm.
00:52:59.860 --> 00:53:19.340 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I mean, writing a book is hard, right? Like, there's deadlines. I still… I basically worked 7 days a week for 2 years. I mean, I was writing on the weekends and evenings, and still working full-time, so it was a formidable challenge in that way. But I cannot even tell you how many moments when I'd either crack myself up, or I would.
00:53:19.340 --> 00:53:20.140 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Express.
00:53:20.140 --> 00:53:29.090 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: something in the right way that was, like, really coming from my heart, and it felt so deeply satisfying. And I'll tell you, Sam, I have other books in me. There's more on the way.
00:53:29.090 --> 00:53:44.600 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Wonderful. Well, I will be totally happy to have you come back whenever those future books come out. One more question about the book. Was there anything that came out of you to go into the book that surprised you? That, like… like, whoa, where did that come from?
00:53:44.600 --> 00:53:45.460 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mmm.
00:53:45.740 --> 00:53:54.490 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Well, one thing I would say with this book is, you know, the majority of people who buy books, which is already a diminishing minority, you know.
00:53:54.820 --> 00:54:11.560 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: dates of people who buy books. If you're a book buyer, and I hope you are, often people do not read the whole book, but the last chapter is really about love, it's about psychedelics and love, and the last pages, the end of the book, to me.
00:54:11.690 --> 00:54:29.900 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: was Spirit moving through me. It was a, writing that was an expression that came deeply from my heart and soul, and so I would encourage people, if you get halfway through and you're like, I read enough of this, read the last 10 pages, because if I leave you with those thoughts.
00:54:30.010 --> 00:54:39.359 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: About love and the importance of love between people. If you get only that from this book, I hope that stays with you.
00:54:39.360 --> 00:54:41.030 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Wonderful, wonderful.
00:54:41.320 --> 00:54:47.180 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Before I have you, let people know how to contact you.
00:54:47.960 --> 00:54:53.039 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Where do you see the future going from here in terms of psychedelics and pleasure?
00:54:53.040 --> 00:54:53.860 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mmm.
00:54:53.860 --> 00:55:04.259 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Do you… do you think it's still always going to be on the fringe? Do you think it'll become more mainstream? Do you think that there'll be ways of incorporating it into
00:55:04.470 --> 00:55:09.339 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Into practice without losing the specialness of it?
00:55:09.650 --> 00:55:16.030 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mmm. Well, what I can say is that, you know, at the time of writing of this book, there was really only one
00:55:16.160 --> 00:55:20.790 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Substantial research study that addressed sexuality and psychedelics at all.
00:55:20.790 --> 00:55:40.130 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And so, there is, now more emerging research. Even just in the past year, there is, an attempt at really looking at how psychedelics impact sexuality. So, in the scientific arena, this is becoming a more… a more, credible question to… to begin to explore. But the truth of the matter is.
00:55:41.230 --> 00:55:50.640 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: it doesn't really address pleasure, right? I'm talking about something that's really an intersection of spirituality and personal growth and eroticism.
00:55:50.660 --> 00:55:51.570 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: And…
00:55:51.650 --> 00:56:14.969 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: In the West, psychedelic science still is having a hard time grappling with spirituality, let alone pleasure and eroticism. So, you know, I think the truth is, the psychedelic world is not one thing. There's science, and thankfully we have that science. There are the people that are holding these spaces, in this work, in this country. There are the lineage holders of Indigenous cultures holding this work.
00:56:14.970 --> 00:56:27.930 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I hope that we are moving into a moment where these… all these different arenas can begin to inform each other to form a new psychedelic moment that really can embrace spirituality, pleasure, and joy as a form of healing.
00:56:28.090 --> 00:56:35.369 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Beautiful, beautiful. Dee Dee, it's such a pleasure to have you come on the show. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to come on.
00:56:35.370 --> 00:56:36.510 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Thank you so much, Sam.
00:56:36.660 --> 00:56:42.869 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: If people want to learn more about you, get in touch with you, how do they find you? Where would they look online?
00:56:42.870 --> 00:57:04.110 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yes, absolutely. There is an EmbracePleasure.com website, where you can read more about me, you can… there are multiple buy links for the book, so you can find a place that feels like a good place for you to buy it, and I hope you do. And, also learn more about events and podcasts that I'm doing. You can sign up for my mailing list on that website, and you will receive
00:57:04.110 --> 00:57:08.970 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: very, intermittent emails, so I will not clog up your inbox, but, like.
00:57:08.970 --> 00:57:16.030 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: once every few months that update us as to podcasts such as this that I happen to be on, or live teaching events that I'm doing.
00:57:16.030 --> 00:57:33.050 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Didi, thank you so much. I so appreciate you, and I really, I appreciate the work that you do, and the type of work, and what you're doing, and yes, please let me know when you… whenever the next book is going to come out, we'll have you back on the show.
00:57:33.050 --> 00:57:35.219 Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
00:57:35.390 --> 00:57:49.209 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: You're welcome, you're welcome. And of course, thank you, my loyal listeners, for tuning in each week. Without you, there is no show. And don't forget, if you missed any part of today's show, you can always catch the replay on talkradio.nyc.
00:57:49.730 --> 00:57:55.009 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: on YouTube, at youtube.com slash at Talk RadioNYC.
00:57:55.010 --> 00:58:17.680 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: on Facebook, on X, on LinkedIn, we're all over the place, and on all the major podcasting platforms, Apple, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, and please, if you enjoyed this conversation, if you got some value out of it, don't keep us a secret. Share it with your friends, your colleagues, people you think would be open to hearing the messages of the show.
00:58:17.860 --> 00:58:22.770 Sam Liebowitz | The Cosncious Consultant: Thank you all for tuning in. Take care, we will talk to you all next week.
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