Somatic Therapy and Psychedelics

On this episode of the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast, host Elizabeth Cush welcomes Annaliese Oatman, a multi-disciplinary artist and psychedelic somatic therapist, for a conversation about psychedelic-assisted therapy.

“I like the idea that self-regulation is not one little practice that we engage in the moment that we're dysregulated, but it's a lifestyle.” 
 — Annalise Oatman

You’re doing the work. You’re moving forward, but you feel like something is standing in the way of your progress. You’re reaching for something but feel like it’s out of your grasp. Your energy feels stuck. Maybe you could benefit by shaking up your nervous system. Throughout the ages, in cultures around the world, spiritual seekers have used psychedelics to enhance their exploration and attain new insights. In this episode of Awaken Your Wise Woman, host Elizabeth “Biz” Cush, LCPC, a licensed professional therapist, founder of Progression Counseling in Maryland and Delaware, and a soul support for highly sensitive women, welcomes Annalise Oatman, LCSW, a multi-disciplinary artist and a psychedelic-somatic therapist, for a discussion of amplifying the therapeutic process through the use of psychedelics. They talk about psychedelic-assisted therapy and how it is best used, and how highly sensitive women might find it to be a useful tool. 

You can find the full show notes and resources for all the episodes here.

Transcript

Annalise Oatman 0:00

The primary healing factor, I believe, in therapy is the relationship and what's happening in the relational field. And psychedelics amplify that.

Elizabeth Cush 0:12

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 0:13

And so the transferential field, which some of your listeners may know what that means. And for the listeners who don't, it's simply put, it's the relational field. It's kind of the way that the room feels in between two people who are interacting and what's coming up for each person based on their stuff and the stuff that's maybe getting activated by the other person. And then this kind of almost unconscious bi-directional dance that's happening between these people and their energy. So that's the relational field. And that gets amplified with psychedelics. So now you have a lot more to work with.

Elizabeth Cush 0:57

Welcome to the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast, where we hold your sensitive nature front and center. Because your sensitivity is a gift that needs polishing up every day. In our world of high stimulation, there's rarely a chance to sit back, listen, and go deep. Join me as I hang out with highly sensitive women and the healers who support them as we dive deep into all things sensitive. Healing from childhood wounds, cool alternative methods for growth, and all the ways your sensitivities make you a powerful force to be reckoned with. So let's take a drive or a walk. Or let's get comfy on the couch with a soft blanket and beverage. You're in for some whole-hearted, soulful conversations with truly amazing women like you. Let's grow a strong community of awakened, sensitive women together. Hi, and welcome back to the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast. I'm your host, Elizabeth Cush or Biz Cush, and I am so grateful that you're here, grateful that you are a listener, and I just appreciate you. If the podcast resonates with you and you know someone that you think might appreciate it as well, I would love for you to share it. The more sensitive women who gather together in this space or others, I think the better it is for the world. So share it and I'll be forever grateful. If you're interested in joining the Circle of Sacred Sensitivity, either the membership or just popping into one of our monthly circles, you can find out all about them on my website, elisabethcush.com, and uh you can find out about the membership as well as when the monthly circles are going to meet. I would love to have you there. It's a beautiful space with highly sensitive women. Each month we gather for a little over an hour and share and talk and support and laugh. And it's a great, I think I shared in other spaces. It's the highlight of my month. So I'd love to have you join us. This week on the podcast, we have got Annalise Oatman, who is a therapist, but also a creative soul, a sensitive soul. I felt like the moment we were on screen together, I could feel her sensitive energy flowing toward me and my sensitive energy meeting her there. And it was really lovely, just a beautiful, very soft conversation, but also incredibly informative. And she shares some beautiful insights at the end of the conversation. But we also talk about psychedelics. So super cool, super interesting. So without further ado, let's jump into the conversation. Hi, Annalise, and welcome to the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast.

Annalise Oatman 4:33

Hi, thanks for having me. Feels good to be here.

Elizabeth Cush 4:38

Yeah, it feels already. I feel like the energy feels really, I don't know, connecting already and we really don't know each other, which is so nice.

Annalise Oatman 4:48

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good vibe.

Elizabeth Cush 4:51

Yeah. Yeah. So for listeners who probably don't know who you are, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do? Sure.

Annalise Oatman 5:03

I feel often I'm kind of wordsmithing the work I do because I'm kind of dual vocational in a way. I really think of myself as a multidisciplinary artist. You know, I am constantly making visual art and I'm designing an album cover downstairs on this huge canvas right now and written books and um have another book coming out soon, a lyric memoir. And I work with people one-on-one and in groups as a psychedelic somatic therapist. Mostly work with women who are highly sensitive or who are wanting to get to the root of their anxiety and overfunctioning or their depression and kind of flatness in life. So yeah.

Elizabeth Cush 5:55

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 5:55

Yeah. And it all feels connected in my mind, actually. But I can say more about that at some point. That's the brief intro.

Elizabeth Cush 6:04

Yeah. Well, it does feel connected. I mean, in terms of what you're sharing about sort of the creative side of yourself as well as that that's helping you access the parts of you that need to really work closely with clients and maybe help them access those parts too.

Annalise Oatman 6:20

Yeah. I'm starting to think of all of it more and more as care of the soul. The creative work and the work with people. And it's starting to feel more and more like I'm serving a lineage that is older than the container of psychotherapy or you know, these kind of modern delineations between the clinical world and art and shamanism. And I feel that I stand and work for care of the soul primarily. And I'm starting down my Jungian training path now. And that actually feels like a perfect container and a perfect lineage for that dharma.

Elizabeth Cush 7:09

Very cool. Yeah. Jungian psychology has always interested me, although I've never trained in it, know a little bit about it. But what you were sharing about sort of the traditional psychotherapy model and how it just doesn't really fit. Well, maybe for some people it does. Maybe it helps them stay in a very sort of linear path. But for those of us who maybe are more creative and soul aligned, it doesn't always fit perfectly in terms of how to do it or how we're supposed to do it.

Annalise Oatman 7:46

Yeah.

Speaker 7:46

Yeah. Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 7:48

Yeah. Absolutely. One of the first therapy modalities that I got trained in when I started my private practice was EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which is a very evidence-based therapy modality for treating trauma. I'm sure you know. And it's wonderful. And I've seen people experience dramatic shifts and change with EMDR. And I'm not dissing that modality at all. I just feel sometimes constrained within like if I'm just working as an EMDR therapist, it's so it can feel kind of dry and clinical to me. So I mean, I can give an example of kind of a a little more what I mean. I mean, I I recently started working with a Jungian um psychoanalyst for the first time as part of the track that I'm on to become a Jungian analyst eventually myself. And I had this huge, elaborate dream two nights before I was supposed to meet with her. And I knew I knew that it was a it was a Jungian analysis initiation dream. And so I brought it to her and she very wisely made room for it. She said, you know, we don't have to do kind of a classic clinical intake. If you have a lot of material that feels present and alive right now, let's go there. And I trust whatever needs to come through is going to come through in the process as we move along. And so I shared this huge, multi-layered, rich, textured dream with her. And she said, okay, I kind of like, let's let this dream breathe. And I feel like you're giving me the map. Like this, this is the map of our work together. And I'm just thinking to myself, that's so much more interesting to me than let's just go down the intake form and speak in clinical language about you know your symptoms and your yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Cush 10:06

What are your goals and what are yeah, right?

Annalise Oatman 10:09

There's this whole other side to what's happening. And yeah, even the etymological root of the word psychotherapy is care of the soul. Um so anyway, that's what's been on my mind a lot lately.

Elizabeth Cush 10:27

I yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, interestingly, um, I was reading your book, uh Heal Your Witch Wound. You know, I've been kind of not reading it front to back, but just kind of flipping through, finding the places that resonate. And so much of psychotherapy work, which you you reference here in the book, you know, is based on very old white dudes in in scientific clinical spaces trying to figure out how to treat our brain and our soul. Yeah. And I know just for a lot of psychotherapists, that can just be so draining and really not aligned with who they are.

Annalise Oatman 11:17

Yes. It is draining.

Elizabeth Cush 11:21

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 11:22

To feel as though you have to keep putting this, it feels like a performance when when you keep putting yourself into the purely clinical box over and over. It's like, okay, you want me to do EMDR to you. I'm gonna do EMDR to you.

Elizabeth Cush 11:40

Right, right, right. I do, I do, yeah.

Annalise Oatman 11:44

And yeah, it just it reminds me of the idea that there's two human beings in the room in the therapeutic relationship and in any healing relationship. And and that's really the foundation of the healing that can happen in that space. And so, yeah, I mean, if if anyone out there listening is a therapist or is a healer of any variety, and I trust a lot of sensitive people often have that vocation, not often have to, but sometimes they can be gifted healers, just remembering not to abandon ourselves when we're in the room with a client. And that doesn't mean we have to make it about us and our stuff because that wouldn't be appropriate. That's not what it's about, but yeah, just yeah, our full humanity is in the room and yeah, including everything we're sensitive to about what's happening in the process and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Cush 12:58

Well, and I think part of what we're experiencing when we're with the client, not necessarily like my stories, but what I'm feeling, what I'm noticing is important as a part of the process. I know sometimes energetically I'll like like share, like I'm sensing this, you know. Does this resonate with you? Like, this is what's coming up for me. And you know, sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn't, but I think that it helps my clients know that they're I'm there right with them, but also that they're seen and felt and heard. Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 13:39

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think people are are accustomed to being listened to that deeply. Someone else is listening with their whole body.

Elizabeth Cush 13:53

Yeah, yeah. Well, and so much of the work you do, it sounds like is somatic, which is bringing our body into the work. But I'm also curious about the psychedelic piece. And I'm sure I read that on your website, but somehow I kind of forgot about that piece of things.

Annalise Oatman 14:10

Oh yeah.

Elizabeth Cush 14:11

Uh, would it be okay to talk a little bit about that part of your work? Feels like that would kind of align with the Jungian work as well, potentially.

Annalise Oatman 14:21

Yeah, yeah. Sure. Let's let's go there.

Elizabeth Cush 14:25

Okay. So for listeners who might not really know what that means, psychedelic therapy or psychedelic assisted therapy, can you share a little bit about what that is?

Annalise Oatman 14:37

Sure. Yeah. Maybe the first thing I'll say is just that phrase, psychedelic assisted therapy, is so important. It's not therapy-assisted psychedelics. And I make point, yeah. Again, it's uh therapy is the primary healing factor, I believe, in therapy is the relationship and what's happening in the relational field. And psychedelics amplify that.

Elizabeth Cush 15:11

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 15:12

And so the transferential field, which some of your listeners may know what that means. And for the listeners who don't, it's simply put, it's the relational field. It's kind of the way that the room feels in between two people who are interacting and what's coming up for each person based on their stuff and the stuff that's maybe getting activated by the other person. And then this kind of almost unconscious bi-directional dance that's happening between these people and their energy. So that's the relational field, and that gets amplified with psychedelics. So now you have a lot more to work with. So that's the first thing I'll say.

Elizabeth Cush 15:58

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 16:00

So what is psychedelic assisted therapy? It's therapy that brings in psychedelics as a co-therapist to create a new kind of experience, um, ideally with the therapist there in the room, wherein lots of material is catalyzed and and comes up, and the person's innate healing intelligence is activated. So it's for lack of a better way to say it, their their nervous system can get to work on kind of doing what it needs to do to loosen up old energies and integrate them. This is how I think of it. But the most important thing that happens in psychedelic assisted therapy is the integration. Because to use somatic experiencing language to talk about it, we in somatic experiencing, we always think of the nervous system as kind of going through natural expansions and contractions all the time. And when you find yourself in a calm, resourced, settled, grounded state, it's like a subtle expansion that's easy for your nervous system to hold and that's familiar. And then if you go through a moment of stress or tension, it goes into a little. And then if your nervous system is functioning the way we want it to be functioning, it's going to come back organically into expansion over the course of the day. So there's like a gentle expansion and contraction that happens with the nervous system. With psychedelics, your nervous system goes whoop into a huge expansion. And then sometimes there's a big contraction that happens after that. And it's really important to keep returning with the therapist to, in a manner of speaking, the medicine that was received in that huge expansion. And how can we actually weave that into your everyday life? Because otherwise, it's going to be this big expansion that happened one time, and then you kind of contracted and went back to your normal nervous system state and kept going as usual. And now that's just something that happened at some point that you kind of remember. The really important work is the weaving with the therapist of the medicine that was received into the way you're living now.

Elizabeth Cush 18:45

Yeah, yeah. I can see how almost like a dream, right? Like you could just keep moving on and then eventually sort of forget about it. And yeah, you might read about it in your journal and be like, oh yeah, I had that weird dream. Versus like, can I really integrate this into who I am and how I feel about myself, but also just yeah, into my life in a more intentional way.

Annalise Oatman 19:14

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Elizabeth Cush 19:16

Yeah. Yeah. I've witnessed or whatever, not witnessed, but watched whatever. I've seen a demonstration of a client doing psychedelic assisted therapy with an internal family systems or IFS therapist and just the parts that they were able to access and the yeah, just how quickly the defense the defenses can be lowered enough to really access some pretty intense, but also beautiful sort of relational material within.

Annalise Oatman 19:51

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Things that might take years to get to.

Elizabeth Cush 19:58

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 19:59

In another context can just be right there.

Elizabeth Cush 20:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Ah, very cool. So for you, I mean, I'm imagining that you have been a creative soul most of your life. I don't know that for real, but it feels like that's probably true.

Annalise Oatman 20:21

Oh yeah, I would say so.

Elizabeth Cush 20:26

And so what drew you to being a therapist and how has your sort of sensitive nature formed the work that you do?

Annalise Oatman 20:36

Thank you for that question. Oh my gosh, how much time do we have? What drew me to be a therapist? Okay, let me see what is going to be the right semi-condensed, but enough detail version of the story. So I studied philosophy in in Ireland at Trinity College in Ireland. Yeah. Um, and then I came back home to California and went through this weird kind of depressed phase where I had no idea what I was supposed to do with that. And then I had a strange kind of hypnagogic mystical experience just as I was waking up one morning.

Elizabeth Cush 21:21

Wow.

Annalise Oatman 21:22

And I can say more about that if you're interested or you think your listeners might be interested. Um okay, so that's good there. I'm like, I've decided recently I'm gonna be more open about this.

Elizabeth Cush 21:36

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 21:38

So I saw some kind of being of light in my bedroom.

Elizabeth Cush 21:48

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 21:49

And it was an extremely high vibrational light. And I hesitate to put any label on what I experienced or what kind of Being or entity that was, because I like to let these kinds of transpersonal experiences retain their mystery and breathe, as it were. But anyway, I felt connected with this being. I felt the being move towards me and place hands on my head and tell me not to be afraid. And I woke up and I went to the metaphysicals section of the local bookstore to understand what I had experienced. And I found the work of Doreen Virtue. I don't know if you're familiar with her, but at the time she was a psychologist in private practice who wrote books about angels. Okay. And I think she's sort of switched tracks and kind of changed her trajectory in more recent years, but that's who she was at the time. I picked up some of her books. She'd written a book about Mary, and I felt like somehow maybe it was Mary I had interacted with, but I don't know. And read her bio on the back of the book, and it said she's a psychologist in private practice who writes books about angels. And I just thought, okay, I can get behind that life. I'm going to figure out the fastest way to have that life.

Elizabeth Cush 23:20

So I yeah, thanks.

Annalise Oatman 23:22

I was like, all right, I want to be in private practice. I want to be writing books. And my aunt, the woman my uncle had married, was a licensed clinical social worker. So she said, that's a really good track. You should do that. So that's what I did. And I think I would be remiss if I didn't add into the story the additional layer of reading a bunch of my dad's old books when I moved back home from college, not knowing what I should do with my life. My dad's a baby boomer, kind of was a was a hippie, dropped out um in I think 1967 or 68, and took to the streets and did all of all of that, protesting the war and protesting the students who were shot in Ohio.

Elizabeth Cush 24:12

And yeah, yeah, all the civil rights stuff, all that. Yeah, yeah.

Annalise Oatman 24:17

Yeah. And he got really into Buddhism and Alan Watts and all of that in those days. They had all these great old books, including Be Here Now by Ram Das and Suzuki Roshi, and there there was just a lot of good stuff in there. So I was reading his old spiritual books, and I noticed that the common thread between all of these lineages and the messages of all of these teachers seemed to be service and compassion as the most important expression of spirituality.

Elizabeth Cush 24:52

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 24:54

And I just thought, okay, I want to either be an artist or live a life of service. Ideally, maybe find a way to do both. And I just thought, okay, like following that Dorian virtue path, that's a life of service. But there's also artistry in there because I'm creating, constantly creating offerings for people and books, and yeah. So that's how I got here. I could say more about how my sensitive nervous system lended itself and lends itself to this path. But if you'd like, I'll follow you on that.

Elizabeth Cush 25:38

Well, and knowing, you know, I'm pretty sure some of the listeners are therapists or helpers, healers, um, in some in some capacity. And for a sensitive being, that can be taxing on our nervous system, right? Like it can, if we're not resourced, right, we can end up just giving of ourselves again and again, which I think as highly sensitive people, we tend to do anyway, just to be there for others. And yeah, I'm curious how that dynamic, you know, how you have been able to continue the work, but also still stay grounded and soulful and yourself.

Annalise Oatman 26:31

It's a really good question. I like the idea that self-regulation is not one little practice that we engage in the moment that we're dysregulated, but it's it's a lifestyle, it's the whole infrastructure that we have supporting us, like just very basically making sure that I'm getting enough sleep.

Elizabeth Cush 26:55

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 26:55

I can be very precious about my sleep, making sure I'm eating enough and eating eating well if I can, and that I have a morning ritual that involves feeling connected to something bigger and fully aligned and aligned with appreciation and the flow of well-being, and that I protect that as a very sacred time. I need I need to have those morning practices so that I enter the day feeling really bubbled by self-love, self-compassion, just self-care.

Elizabeth Cush 27:32

Yes.

Annalise Oatman 27:34

Um yoga and so it make sure I have all those good practices in the morning. Um just try to be aware of what my limits are and honor those. And and I don't always do it perfectly because you know life is constantly changing, my bandwidth is constantly changing based on other things that are happening in my life. And I'm I'm definitely having one of those moments now where I think I need to re-evaluate. Yeah. Just because there's a without getting into it, there's a lot going on in my personal life right now. Too. So I need to keep reassessing and keep trusting the information that I'm getting from my body about how things are feeling to me.

Elizabeth Cush 28:27

I think that's so important. Just the the idea that it's not this quick fix. This is uh an ongoing exercise practice, whatever, like to just be checking in with ourselves, what's working today? Maybe it worked yesterday, and maybe I need to do something different today or tomorrow, or and trusting that your body will tell you if it's not working and if it's working, right?

Annalise Oatman 28:56

Yes, yes. That's been one of the gifts of doing this work too, is that I trust my body like nothing else. It's almost like once you start doing this work, it's boot camp for learning how accurate your body is.

Elizabeth Cush 29:18

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 29:18

When you're assessing your when you're reading the energy of a situation, you're assessing your capacity for something.

Elizabeth Cush 29:27

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 29:28

So that's a gift.

Elizabeth Cush 29:32

But I think sometimes for highly sensitive women who maybe were told, you know, too emotional, too feeling, too sensitive, that those bodily sensations had to be either repressed or ignored or pushed aside. And you know, sort of the returning to trusting your body, trusting your intuition, trusting that your body is going to tell you whether it's a yes or a no, or I'm I am agreeing or I'm not agreeing. And if you were working with clients in a situation like that where maybe they had become disconnected from their bodies, how do you help them then move into a more trusting, intuitive place?

Annalise Oatman 30:28

Um I think it's always different, you know. Some people are so so disconnected from their body because there's so much unsafety in their body that it can be really slow work to slowly ease them in. I notice if someone like that is having a good day and they're feeling grateful or they're noticing the things that are going well, then I'll kind of see that as a golden opportunity to do some kind of somatic resourcing because it's it can be a lot easier to go into the body if the moment is feeling resourced and good. And so just kind of all right, how do you know you're feeling grateful? Is that in your belly? Is it in your chest? Does it feel like a warmth or a lightness? And so that like helps people like that learn more safety in their body.

Elizabeth Cush 31:36

Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 31:36

And if they're actively dissociated or there's some activation present, I kind of work the periphery by kind of just noticing what their hands are doing or just reflecting, you know, I notice your hands are doing this, or I notice your foot is tapping, just kind of letting the reflecting it, but without challenging them to go right into the heart of some kind of central activation. Yeah. And last thing I'll say briefly is if someone's really checking out of their body, sometimes I feel like I'm checking out too, just because again, in the relational field.

Elizabeth Cush 32:16

Yes, that sort of mirroring of experience. Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 32:19

Yeah. I start to feel it too. I start to feel their dissociation. And I'm, I might even kind of go, huh, and then, oh, whoa, you know. And that's a that clues me that this person is probably a little dissociated. They're probably checking out. And I might even reflect. I try to be very human with my clients, and sometimes I'll say to them, I, you know what, I totally just lost my train of thought. I'm I'm kind of checking out right now. And sometimes when I say that, they'll be like, I'm checking out too. And then just notice that they're dissociated, and then we can do something with that.

Elizabeth Cush 32:58

Yeah, yeah. I could keep talking about it. Yeah, but that very humaning, like this is happening for me. Maybe I'm curious what's happening for you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I would say that that really resonates for me in terms of just noticing, like sometimes I will just have a thought. I don't know, it can be even just a word when the client is describing or talking or whatever. And I'm like, well, you know, the word that's coming up for me, whatever it might be, like disconnected or abandoned or something. And sometimes it can hit deeply. Like that's the experience for them. But it's taken me a long time to really trust that like whatever it is I'm noticing is okay to bring into the work too. You know, I mean, as a therapist, I think it does take time to really trust your own stuff that's showing up, that's coming in.

Annalise Oatman 34:01

Yeah, and learning how to discern, yeah, how to parse out, oh, this is my stuff, or oh, this is something I'm resonating with in the field.

Elizabeth Cush 34:12

Yeah. Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 34:13

And it's, you know, one thing I've noticed is I don't know if you have anything like this, but if I feel a tingling on my crown at the right at the top of my head, that almost always means that this person is experiencing anger.

Elizabeth Cush 34:32

Oh, interesting. Oh, wow. I have to pay attention to that.

Annalise Oatman 34:37

An immediate tell. I mean, it for me it is. That's what my nervous system does when I'm in the presence of anger. And you know, maybe it's something I learned. Maybe my nervous system became hyper attuned to the presence of anger because it helped me survive in some way. Maybe my childhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Cush 34:58

Sure. Yeah. A lot of what we do is or our healing is around that, right? What we've survived from childhood. But yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Annalise Oatman 35:07

It's just this little prickle, something kind of stands at attention at the top of my head. And I'm like, oh, there's anger here. And it's so far, it's never been wrong.

Elizabeth Cush 35:18

Wow. You know what makes me think of as well, I have a 16-year-old Dachshund who is not very somatically resourced. He's very anxious, not very trusting, except with us. But being around other dogs or people, he when he really doesn't trust them, all his little hairs on his back just go straight up.

Annalise Oatman 35:42

Yes. It feels like some hairs just stood up on the top of my head. Yep, exactly. Energetically or some in some way.

Elizabeth Cush 35:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very primal experience, probably for us, right?

Annalise Oatman 35:58

Yeah, yeah. It's like some part of me knows this person's defenses are up. Something got just got really triggered here.

Elizabeth Cush 36:09

Yeah, yeah.

Annalise Oatman 36:10

Even before it seems apparent.

Speaker 36:12

Yeah, that's not yeah, not conscious necessarily for them either.

Elizabeth Cush 36:18

Yeah. So if you were, if there were a piece of wisdom that you would like to share with the audience, with the listeners, around sensitivity, living life, what would that be?

Annalise Oatman 36:41

Oh, I just I feel really inspired today to tell them that they are worthy of their peace. Because I know really sensitive people, like you said, often are the ones who are intrinsically motivated to tend and serve everyone. And sometimes other people kind of cop onto that and pile on even more.

Elizabeth Cush 37:09

Absolutely.

Annalise Oatman 37:10

And then our stuff comes up around, oh, well, I should be a good person, or what will people think about me if I if I actually tell them no, or if I tell them this isn't a good fit, or whatever it is. And I just want to tell your listeners that they're worthy of the peace that they will experience when they honor what they know is or is not right for them.

Elizabeth Cush 37:37

I love that so much.

Annalise Oatman 37:39

Yeah, and that there's there's love and there's medicine in the boundary too, you know, because we're not helping anyone by holding their hand through everything or you know, letting them think that their behavior is okay if it's not okay.

Elizabeth Cush 37:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Annalise. I really just so appreciate your taking the time to come and share with us your about your work, but just as a sensitive soul and just sharing, yeah, sharing you here in the circle.

Annalise Oatman 38:24

I'm so grateful. Thank you.

Elizabeth Cush 38:27

Thank you. Well, I just continued to feel very connected to Annalise throughout the conversation. Her sort of soft nature really flowed through, and it was just a very easy conversation to get involved with and to continue. And I hope that some of that information was new to you or that you learned something from it, because psychedelics always interests me, and it was interesting. I I found it very interesting to hear her perspective on that and in doing the therapy. I haven't experienced it or done it myself. I've learned a lot about it. So hearing her firsthand experience was really beautiful. But also just honoring our sensitivity as healers, helpers, creatives, and the way she supports her clients, but also supports herself, I thought was really lovely. So I'm glad you hung out there with me through the end of the conversation. Again, if you're interested in joining us in the circle, us, the rest of us sensitive women, all of us sensitive women in the circle, head out to my website, elisabethcush.com, find out more about when the next circle is gathering, and you can find out more about the membership. I hope you'll meet us there. Take care of your sensitive souls. I look forward to connecting with you here on the podcast next time. Thanks for listening to the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast. The information in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. Music by Andy Cush, sound editing by Laura Distler, and show notes by Kathy Cush. If you'd like more information about me, Biz Cush, and the resources shared today, go to awakenyourwisewoman.com.