EP #145: Microdosing as a Synergistic Modality: Expanding Consciousness, Creativity, and Facing the Ego with Paul Austin, Founder of Third Wave

Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness and daily living. I'm your host Stella Stuffinopolis, and this week I got to dive into a really fascinating topic. Some might say a bit controversial, but something that's peaked my interest recently, and this week we are talking all about debunking myths around microdosing. And I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul Austin, who is a prominent figure in psychedelics. He has guided millions to safe and meaningful experiences through his work as the founder of Thurdwave. He's been featured in many news outlets and publications, and through his work with Thirdwave he's curious about the convergence of psychedelics, personal transformation, and professional success, and how they weave together to help form a meaningful existence. In this episode we talk a little bit about Paul's introduction into the psychedelic space, how he got interested in psychedelics as a healing modality and what really sparked his interest in microdosing. We then talk a lot about some of those biggest taboos or misconceptions that are related to microdosing, and he kind of doubles down on this concept of how microdosing can be used as a synergistic modality for healing rather than being seen as something that's a quote-unquote "quick fix" for mental health issues. We also approach psychedelics from a more spiritual perspective around how it helps us face our ego, what that even means, and how kind of surrendering to these types of experiences can help us heal ourselves. And I think what's really interesting about this is his commentary on the power that our minds have to self heal, and the ways that psychedelics can aid in that therapeutic healing process. He also talks a little bit about the founding story of Third Wave and the work that he does professionally as a psychedelic coach, and then of course we kind of round out the interview having Paul share his perspective on happiness, enjoy, and what he does every day to find a bit of endorphins in his life. So excited to share this interview before we dive into the episode, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform that you prefer. Without further ado, let's get right into it. Hi Paul, thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. It's so great to have you here. Hey Stella, thanks for inviting me out. I was great to meet you about a month ago or so at the Utimonia Summit in West Palm Beach. I know, that was first of all such a great three days. I can't wait to go back next year. I'm so happy that they have this summit going on for the next few years. And it was just like such a cool opportunity to get to meet a lot of like-minded people in the wellness and like longevity community. And what I really appreciated about it was there were a lot of different people kind of representing, let's say, different areas of wellness or different pillars of wellness. And what I loved most about your talk is kind of how controversial like the subject matter was, which is around like psychedelics and microdancing and demystifying all of that. And so I think it gave like a really unique perspective, especially as I was going to the different discussions and like panels because I was kind of thinking about like maybe more traditional areas of, you know, what we consider to be like healthy practices versus more emerging areas of research that I feel like we're going to talk about later today. But I really appreciate it. The exposure and like the time dedicated towards demystifying a lot of the work in the microdosing space that you're very well-versed in. Yeah, microdocene has been something that I've been both practicing and studying for about 10 years now since 2015. It's a pretty new topic, you know, it really only became a thing in 2010, 2011. Psychedelics have been talked about and have been used for thousands of years even. But microdocene in and of itself is a fairly new practice. And so what I even emphasized in that talk is the research is still quite nascent. There's a lot of promising anecdotal reports around people who are microdocene and how it's helping them. And we have a lot of clinical research about psychedelics more broadly, typically therapeutic doses or macrodosis of psychedelics when used within a within a therapeutic context. However, because microdocene is so nascent, because psychedelics are still very illegal, it means that research has been slow going. So there's some things we know there's quite a lot of that we don't know and my job is to help us to generate clarity. I'm kind of based on what we know and based on what we don't know. How can we best practice this? So, you know, we're safe while we do it. But it's also effective and it's useful and it helps to move the needle for us on our own path of of healing and growth. And I know you talked about there being different entry points into dabbling into this space, but I want to backtrack a little and have you share what your entry point was. What got you interested in microdosing and psychedelics at large? How have you seen a benefit your life? And what was kind of that catalyst for you deciding to really experiment in this space? I first got into psychedelics when I was 19. So I'm 34. About 15 years ago, I went to a small liberal arts college in West Michigan called Hope College. And before we went live, we found out that you and I had the same professor, which is crazy small world. And at that school, my sophomore year of college, I experimented with psilocybin mushrooms. And then about five months after that, I experimented with LSD. LSD, I loved that experience. It was really like before and after LSD. Like it just really fundamentally changed me as a human. And I grew up in a community that was pretty conservative, you know, Midwest, small town, religious, drugs, especially illegal drugs, were not necessarily looked upon lightly. And my parents, in fact, when I was in high school, had discovered that I had smoked cannabis and like wrecked the perspective of me for probably a month or so. They just could not believe that I would ever smoke an illegal drug like marijuana. So I was coming into it from a context of this really isn't an acceptable thing to do. This really isn't an appropriate thing to do. But I, you know, I'm a rebel at heart. And so my best friend at the time in high school in the college introduced me to both cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms. And what I noticed when I would have these experiences is the experiences themselves were really positive, really beautiful. But more importantly, after the experience, I noticed that I was, you know, a little more patient. I was more connected. It was easier for me to really open up and connect because I've always had a little bit of social anxiety. It was easier to be mindful about the food that I was eating and how often I was exercising. So I just noticed that I was willing to take better care of myself. And so soon after graduating from undergrad, I was living in Thailand building my first online business. And I noticed that there were these podcasts that were coming out about microdosing. There was one in particular, the Tim Ferriss podcast where a guy named Jim Fatiman came on and talked about microdosing. And I thought back to those experiences that I had had with LSD when I was in your 19 or 20 and thought, oh, cool. Like maybe microdosing is a way to elongate what I would call the after-close. So after a high-dose experience for two or three weeks after that high-dose experience, life just feels a little easier. And I figured, okay, maybe if I start to microdose actively, that could extend, you know, and it might feel easier for a longer period of time. So when I was 25, I started to microdose. And I microdose for about seven months, twice a week with LSD. And I had two main intentions with that microdosing protocol. One was to reduce if not eliminate the alcohol that I was drinking. And then the second one was more specific to entrepreneurship. I wanted to spend more time in a flow state and have better focus and overall productivity. And so I started to experiment with microdosing and it was so impactful. And I found it to be so interesting that I decided to start an educational platform around both microdosing and broadly psychedelics called Third Wave. And so now for the last almost 10 years, I've been professionally involved in the psychedelic space. And through our educational platform, we've helped to inform millions of people about kind of the pros and cons of psychedelics. And I've guided thousands of people through experiences, macro experiences. And now I'm really focused on training coaches, practitioners, doctors, clinicians, and how to work with psychedelics. It's such an emerging area of research as well. So I feel like that's what a perfect time to get into this space and to really dedicate your professional life towards. And you mentioned earlier at the time when you were like just kind of getting started into a specific protocol, the reasons you were doing it were twofold. First, reduce your alcohol intake. Secondly, interested in experiencing more sort of that like flow state as an entrepreneur in that path. So it seems like intentionality around actually going through a protocol is really important. How would you coach people if they're interested in getting into psychedelics and more so microdosing? How would you advise people to even think about intentionality or like what that serves when you're deciding I want to experiment with microdosing. So what can make the case that regardless of whether or not you're taking psychedelics or taking microtosis of psychedelics, that intentionality is important. It's important to live intentionally to know how it is that you want to design your lifestyle to be aware of the choices that you are making to be clear on why you were choosing what you were choosing to do, whether that's a relationship, whether that's a career, or where you're going for lunch, or dinner intentionality is really important. When we start to work with psychedelics, even at these lower doses, like a microtosis, what it does is it makes it so that we have an easier time manifesting the intention that we have. In other words, the gap between what we want and what we're able to create tends to reduce. And that's because when we work with microtosis of psychedelics, it's helping to facilitate neuroplasticity. Right, neuroplasticity is the capacity for the brain to adapt and change for old neuronal connections that have sort of died away to be reactivated. And when the brain is more plastic and the brain is more malleable, we can better change our behaviors to fit the intention of the context that we've set for ourselves. So having that clear intention then allows us to direct the energy that is moving through us because of the psychedelics into more of a productive outcome. If we don't have that intention, then the energy that's moving through is a bit more, it's like we're shooting from the hit. You could easily spin off to the left or easily spin off to the right. And so we want to keep it as centered and as focused as possible. And so that intention is something we consistently come back to. And it's the anchor of that microtocene protocol and that microtocene experience. There's a few different ways that you can think about intentions. You can think about intentions the day of. You can think about intentions for a protocol, which we can talk more about what that protocol would entail. Or you could also think about intentions more broadly in terms of in 2025 or the next three years of your life, the next five years of your life. So and typically for like a microtocene protocol, that sweet spot is usually four to six weeks. So usually when I work with folks or I'm advising clients that I'm working with, you know, it really is, okay, if you could accomplish one thing in the next six weeks, what would that be? Or if you could shift one behavior in the next six weeks, what would that be? And then looking at how microtocene can support that overall process. It seems also like microtocene is perhaps maybe just another tool in someone's toolkit for working through something that they want to improve in their life. So maybe it's not the idea that we rely on these substances to make that change and to like engage in that protocol, quote unquote, forever, but more so it's tapping into that structure for a specific period of time as like a methodology to kind of help you get through whatever change you want to make in your life. Using it as like something that you can leverage and kind of pull from your toolbox when you need it, rather than feeling like you need to rely on it. And I think this might be addressing maybe one of those misconceptions around psychedelics being addictive versus like non-addictive substances. I think that's probably a big fear that a lot of people have when they're contemplating like, should I try it or should I not? You know, like that's maybe some sort of roadblock around like the addictive or lack of addictive quality to a lot of these substances. Right. Because when people think of psychedelics, they naturally think, okay, this is a drug. This drug is illegal. All the other illegal drugs that I know of are highly addictive and clearly lead to, you know, potential issues or problems. You know, the most common ones, of course, being heroin or fentanyl or cocaine or crystal meth or even ecstasy sometimes can be this way, right? So a lot of people think, okay, it's a drug and it's illegal, then it must be highly addictive. And what's true is psychedelics are actually anti-addictive. We have clinical research, auto places like NYU and Johns Hopkins that proves the how psychedelics help to heal addiction. And so when we're talking about microdose scene in particular, microdose scene is the act of taking a very low dose of a psychedelic LSD or civil servant mushrooms with the two most common psychedelics and doing it two or three times a week for a period of four to six weeks. And so a big question of that around that then is, well, I start doing this consistently, and doesn't that mean that I'm going to become addicted to it because it's a drug? And what's important to emphasize is that's not the case at all. This isn't like an SSRI or this isn't like an ADHD, a medication for ADHD. There are no withdrawal symptoms when you stop doing it. I mean, that's because these are largely active on serotonin rather than dopamine. And so because they're largely active on serotonin, you don't have these physiological withdrawal. So you can microdose two or three times a week for four weeks straight or six weeks straight, or what I did, I did it seven months straight, which I wouldn't recommend, but I was a guinea pig at that point in time. And there weren't a lot of best practices out there. I also just really love LSD, so I just kept going with it. And I stopped one day and I stopped for like five months. You know, and there was no problem, no withdrawals, no issues whatsoever. So from a physiological perspective, there's really no tendency for addiction. Now the other consideration is psychologically because it is a drug. And psychologically, some people will notice, okay, I really do feel better now that I'm microdosing. My mood is better. I have more energy. I'm getting better sleep. or sort of emotionally connected or kind of in my feeling body. And they'll, you know, go, okay, the reason I'm feeling this way is because I've started with microdose. And their worry is, okay, if I stop microdosing will, these good feelings go away. And so typically what I advise or coach individuals through is a microdosing is not a magic pill. It's a catalyst. When we have a microdosing protocol, the intention should be to commit to some new practice or habit. So to start meditating consistently, to shift our diet, to break up with a toxic partner, to quit a toxic job, there should be some sort of intentional action that we are taking as part of that microdosing protocol that we know will benefit us in the long term as well. And that way, when we decide that we do want to stop microdosing whether that's for a week or a month or maybe even a year, we do have a practice that has been integrated that will continue to serve us in the long term. And that I think gets to your point about, it's not just about taking this drug or this pill necessarily. It really is looking at the process of microdosing as a catalyst and we still have to show up, we still have to do the work, we still have to commit to the change that we want to see in our lives. Absolutely. Like any other type of solution or like tool that we can use to improve our wellbeing. There was something you said in particular at the Udomonia Summit that really kind of caught my eye. And you had mentioned that microdosing is not really a quick fix for any sort of mental health issue. Rather, it's important to think about how this practice can be used as a synergistic modality. And I thought that was a really interesting way to describe it. Can you share a little bit more on what you mean by using psychedelics as synergistic modality, how that helps to not be this quick fix, but rather something that you can use for a healing journey in a way? We think of drugs like psychedelics. We think, okay, this is the tool and it's the only tool and whether or not this is helpful is going to be dependent strictly on the substance that I'm taking, right? Now the risk with that is we're still looking then for help outside of ourselves. Sometimes that help is necessary. We need a kick in the pants. We need something that gets us up and out of our rut. We need some pharmacological support. And psychedelics are ancient medicines. We've been using them thousands of years. They're shown to be very safe, very effective, very useful. All these things are true at the same time. It's really important that we have these endogenous practices as well. So oftentimes as part of a microdosing protocol, people will, on their microdosing day, they'll meditate and commit to a meditation practice. One of my favorite things to do while microdosing is breath work and hot cold thermogenesis, which is a really fancy way of saying go in the sauna and jump in the cold plunge, right? Other people will microdose and go hiking or what I call "hicrodosing". It'll take a microdose or low dose and they'll go for a long hike and they notice that it gets the idea is going to help with energy. They can go hiking for longer, all these sorts of things. So I think that that's the beautiful part about working with these lower doses of psychedelics is they can easily be combined with other practices to have this synergistic effect. Because if you're just microdosing or you're just meditating, those are great practices in and of themselves. But if you put them together, the microdose will deepen the meditation and the meditation will allow you to be more sensitive and aware to what is coming up as your microdosing. There's an atoomit process that is facilitated. And it goes back to what I was saying before. This also allows us then to know that the practice itself is just as beneficial as the drug. Because we are so conditioned, especially in modernity, to rely on pills, we really want to make sure that if we're starting a microdosing protocol or stepping into microdosing, it doesn't replicate a lot of the same sort of mindset or perspectives that just taking prozac or lexapro-ritalin or adorol or just popping a pill to see if it fixes us helps. What I often emphasize is we are not machines to be fixed. We are human beings that are complex creatures. And so psychedelics help us to understand that complexity and navigate that complexity without cutting off certain aspects and elements of who we are. So when looking at microdose, we definitely commit to having some other practice that you combine with it. So there's not this tendency to fall on the trap of, okay, the only reason I'm feeling better is because I'm taking this drug. No, the drug is helping. It's a catalyst, but it's not the only thing. You also have these practices that you can lean on. Exactly. And breath work, meditation, hot, cold exposure, those are all things that I think are really foundational towards keeping yourself in some sort of equilibrium. I know for myself, when I do breath work, it feels kind of like a psychedelic experience. Even if I'm not on any sort of drug, you feel kind of like you're in this altered state, the bodily sensations that you feel. Your arms, your legs tingling, sometimes I get this head high. These are all very naturally natural highs, even through hot and cold exposure, especially going right into the cold punch. I get an immediate head rush. And what I found to be really helpful specifically with those practices and meditation included is that you're kind of training your brain and this goes back to neuroplasticity, what you mentioned earlier. You're training your brain to signal safety in your body even when you're in an unsafe environment. Life is challenging and we're complex human beings and we experience a wide range of very complex human emotions. And I think a lot of the times we kind of get stuck in these really negative emotions, like downward spirals, because we're kind of like retrygaring ourselves, thinking that we're not safe. But learning to come back to the sense of inner safety and creating that sensation within the body, I think is such an important skill to have really around like regulating oneself. So it seems like these microdosing practices and protocols when you're combining it with the breath work, the cold punch, whatever. It's kind of used to really enhance the benefits that you're already getting out of those practices. Yeah, the sense of enhancement, right? I love that word to enhance or to amplify that it really is. In addition to, it's not exclusively just the substance itself. I think the enhancement properties of these low doses of psychedelics are fantastic. And in many ways, under researched and under explored, and yet what I've heard from countless humans and individuals is that the way it enhances their mood or the way it enhances their energy levels or enhances their sleep, right? All these things are people folks are finding as they're starting to microdose. We made a comment also during the Utamonia talk, and I need to pull up my notes to find exactly where it fell during your conversation. But I think it kind of like got a little bit of a joke out of the crowd when there was so much truth to it. And you kind of made this comment about how psychedelic experiences kind of help us face our ego. And like men really need to check their ego. And I definitely found that entertaining because there's a lot of truth to it. I wanted to kind of talk a little bit more about more some kind of like the spiritual psychological effects from doing these types of protocols and doing the work to go a bit more inwards, specifically the comment that you made around how these substances kind of help us face our egos. So when you think about like a microdosing experience or even just taking the normal dose of it and kind of going through that journey, can you kind of walk us through like what that revelation could kind of look like on the inside? Like what does it mean to say that these experiences can kind of help us face our ego? Like what does that look like? How does the ego kind of play into a lot of the roadblocks that we face in our lives? This is abstracting a little bit more towards like a spiritual perspective. But I do think it's really intertwined with a lot of what you're talking about. We could think of the ego as the separate self, right? And part of the beauty of Western individualism is recognizing the fact that we have individual choice, you know, that we have individual agency that we can choose to live in a certain way. And we identify a lot then with that personality that we've constructed over the span of our existence and in our life. And so in many ways the ego is, it's neither bad nor good. It just everyone has one and we have to figure out how to work with it. For many people have what might be called ego myopia where they can't see beyond their ego where they have to protect their ego. And so I think the beautiful part about psychedelics and their ego-desolving properties is they allow us to experience something subjectively where we feel deeply connected to everything around us. We are no longer just stuck in this separate sense of self, the eye, but especially when taking high doses of psychedelics, they dissolve the ego and they allow us to feel deeply connected to everything around us. And that deep sense of connection to the we, this feeling of interconnectedness that psychedelics often facilitate, the anchoring in that can often lead to much healthier decision-making because there's a recognition that every action or decision that I make has an impact on those around me. And that's pretty essential for change, you know, in behavioral change, especially shifting or changing behaviors that may be dysfunctional or that may be not healthy, right? And you could think of that as alcoholism, you could think of that as smoking cigarettes, you could think of that as being impatient or speaking rudely. There's a lot of different ways that you could organize sort of dysfunctional behaviors. And the ego has a way of wanting to continue itself and to protect itself. So when we take a psychedelic, we're able to see, oh, like these are all the ways in which I'm hurting myself. This is sometimes why I have been doing this. And now I have a choice that I can shift and change it. And so the beautiful part about microdosing is that microdosing allows you to continue to keep the ego a little less rigid, right? When the high dose comes in, it totally interrupts the rigidity. It's working on something called the default mode networks. The default mode network is sort of our default practices and patterns and behaviors. Those often become very rigid. And so when people are depressed or anxious or have issues with addiction or things, you know, they feel stuck in a rut. It's usually because that default mode has become too constricted. And so you put a psychedelic in there and it opens up, introduces chaos, right? It opens up the capacity for that thing to change. And then when you microdose after those high dose experiences, it keeps it open, which could be really positive and beneficial because you want to keep yourself out of falling into a default mode. It's been my understanding, right? The more time that we can spend in a space of liminality, a space of not knowing, a space of uncertainty, the richer that space is for real true growth and transformation. Whenever we start to fall into the same patterns, the same ruts, the same behaviors, again and again and again, almost some default without a lot of choice in agency. That's when our ego often becomes too constrictive and too tight. So psychedelics help to introduce that. And the reason I even made that comment about men versus women is men tend to have a stronger ego-excensive self for better and for worse. What was true is in a lot of indigenous communities, they would have specific things called rights of passage where men would be brought through, I'm sorry, boys would be brought through really intense experiences that would essentially kill their ego. Sometimes those were psychedelic induced, but sometimes they were go live in the wild for a month or one in Africa, there are these things called bullet ants and boys would put their hands and gloves full of bullet ants and they'd have to keep it in there and so the pain was insane. And so the idea with these rights of passage is you bring the boy into a subjective experience where he can see outside of his own individual needs. And I think that's what we're missing nowadays is a lot of men are just out for themselves. A lot of people in business are just out for themselves. They have a hard time really seeing beyond their own needs with an eye. And I think having an experience of psychedelics allows you to see the value of really being in stewardship and in service to something greater than ourselves. When we feel a sense of connection to something outside of ourselves, when we feel like there's a greater sense of purpose in meaning in our lives, like that is a fundamental pillar to our health and to our wellbeing. Like psychedelics aside, that is just a fact. Like when we feel a sense of connection to other people, that is kind of like the common denominator that a lot of these other wellness pillars rest on. You know, if we don't feel a sense of connection, if we isolate ourselves, we're less likely to make healthier choices. We're more likely to, you know, to spiral into some sort of depressive state. If we're in a depressive state, we're probably not eating well, we're not getting enough rest or restful sleep. It's very cyclical and everything kind of builds on one another, especially living kind of right now in this mental health epidemic and also experiencing this loneliness crisis that a lot of people, you know, are kind of collectively facing. I think now more than ever, it's incredibly important to recognize that connection and community is really critical and like pivotal towards our wellbeing, right? And with this podcast, Everyday Norfens, the whole premise of the show is about anchoring onto the things that bring us joy, finding things in life that make us happy. And a lot of that is rooted in like having a strong sense of self and feeling really connected to other people. And what's interesting too, kind of back to your point around the ego, when we do think about our sense of self like you might earlier that's like a stronger sense of self, however you phrased it, but really I do think that when we're able to kind of de-identify from the ego but recognize it is a part of us, we're able to build that stronger like holistic sense of self and therefore also we're more easily able to actually connect with other people. So it does seem like back to what we were talking about even earlier, psychedelics, microdosing, not microdosing, engaging with, you know, the drug however you do choose is a way to get closer to that sense of self by kind of deconstructing the ego a little bit. And were there any pivotal moments in your life that like you saw this kind of loud and clear that was a signal to you that the work that you were doing in these protocols were actually in service of you becoming closer to yourself, becoming having a stronger sense of self, improving other parts of your your life and your well-being at large? Like were there any particular moments that resonated with you and were like, oh, yeah, this is the work that's being done. I think that's been sort of the consistent unfolding since I started working with psychedelics many years ago that I have for the most part always use them as a way to explore and understand and generate more awareness and self-awareness that when I started working with them at the age of 19 and 20, they really started to set me down this path of quote-unquote self-improvement. So really taking a keen eye to meditation and entrepreneurship and living like a nomad in my 20s and what I could do there. So there was always a sense of they helped me to recognize and see the parts of myself that in normal waking consciousness I didn't necessarily want to look at or see and then both love and honor but also shift some of those ways and practices and behaviors and I will say kind of what I've learned along the path in the last 15 years is there are still this end point of perfection is not reachable. There are aspects of who we are that cannot be fundamentally changed and we just have to learn how to work with them in a way that is much healthier. So a really good example of this and this would not be me personally but a really good example of this is like someone who's an alcoholic right and they clean up their alcoholism they're no longer an alcoholic they're sober but there's an intensity that came with that alcoholism or that addiction that they now have to channel into something else right. And so I think psychedelics open up a path of awareness they do allow us to shift and change how we show up to become less reactive and more responsive to be more aware of the choices that we are making to be more clear about what it is that we want to create but there's still a certain truth of who we are that can be difficult to fully overcome and that's why we as humans we are imperfect and also why we as humans always look to be in community or in partnership because we recognize that only by being in relationship with others can we reach a point in life that feels like it's a balance and harmony that if we're just consistently navel gazing and focus on self care and focus on self love and focus on me me me me me then there will always be a really sort of tragic gap in our ability to live and so I think when we think about psychedelics and bringing us out of that navel gazing they help us to recognize that at the end of the day all life is about relating in relationships and how we relate and the value of those relationships and we so oftentimes put other things prioritize other things ahead of that and we almost always pay the price if we do so it kind of just brings me often back to that first principle of have people you love connect people you love spend the time that you want to spend with them you know I'm still introverted so I still spend a lot of time alone or doing my own thing but it really helped me to see the value in relationships and being as relational as possible yeah absolutely and I would argue it's actually hard to want to engage in that when you personally don't feel really good about yourself when you personally are struggling it's really hard to show up for other people when you don't even know how to show up for yourself or you're not treating yourself well so in a way it still does come back to the self but the intention is to spread the love like to fill your cup up so that you can spread it and share it with others and I think this is a really great transition into kind of the last topic that I wanted to discuss which is really around joy and happiness and finding things in life that bring endorphins so my first question to you I'm curious to hear if you have a like the spoke definition around happiness how you define happiness how does that differentiate from joy if it does it all if any psychedelic experiences for you kind of brought you to some sort of a moment where you were like oh I thought this was happiness but it's really not I was fortunate enough that I started my second of like experience at a young age so the the most common trope that we might hear is oh I thought you know having more cars or having more money or you know having more accomplishments would make me happy I never really went through that stage I was I was born into a very frugal middle class small town family and so I kind of got out of the curve when I did all these psychedelics at 19 and 20 so for me that was really what I sort of leaned into is oh at least in my 20s happiness is found in exploration happiness is found in freedom happiness is found in choice happiness is found in what I now term or phrase existential wealth it's the wealth of existence it's not necessarily the wealth in our bank account or the wealth of the cars that we own or the wealth the job that we have or whatever might be so I think existential wealth the wealth of existing and what's in that while meaning as we've talked about in fulfillment is in that relationships is in that physiological health is in that psychological health is in that having a career or a job or a profession that we really love is part of that so I think happiness is is multivariate there's a lot of aspects that go into happiness if you have great physical health but you don't have great relationships you're probably not going to be happy if you have great relationships you don't have great physical health you're probably not going to be happy so I think we have to look at bringing all of those into sort of a coherent sense of harmony I think joy is much more of a temporary state I mean that's the main distinction between happiness and joy joy bliss awe these are states that are important to experience but if you're in a state of joy all the time every day life is going to be I think challenging to navigate we need to be grounded sometimes we need to kind of look at things with a clear perspective I think people who are constantly in a state of joy or bliss can be easily manipulated so happiness is much more tangible it's much more sustainable and it requires integrating I think a lot of practices that are not just in the short term but also in the long term I mean maybe you've had a guest on the podcast who's talked about this prior but this really interesting study where they get two young children like a marshmallow and they basically said you know you can either eat this now or you can wait I think it was like two minutes or five minutes or something to eat it and the ones that waited the ones that showed delayed gratification ended up being much more successful in the long term and much more happy in the long term and so I think delayed gratification is also a key aspect of happiness that we have to learn to both enjoy the present moment be of the present moment but also integrate the necessary practices and commit to doing the necessary work so we can build a life that we really truly value and enjoy and are happy in. Oh 100 percent that's so well articulated I've definitely talked about the concept of delayed gratification on the show before with other guests but you're really bringing me back to my college days studying neuroscience with the default mode network and that study with the marshmallow and neuroplasticity because it it is all very much rooted in not only scientific findings and principles but also ancient wisdom like truly it is and we tend to over complicate a lot of things in our life but it's really like going back to the basics and tying it back to micranozing like perhaps that's one practice one way in which you can have more ease and like patience of your life so that you can more easily access delayed gratification. The final question I will leave you with is what brings you into orphans Paul what is something that just brings you incremental joy lights you up every day. That's a good question lately it's usually sunshine I live in San Diego we were talking about this before we went live so getting enough sunshine on a day-to-day basis being outside going to the beach getting my feet in the sand making sure I'm going for walks and moving and being outside that's one two exercise exercise always does it for me in the last few months I've settled down a little bit more and I've been going to the gym three four five times a week and for the first time in my life working with a personal trainer and that's been fantastic so just like pushing myself and lifting heavy weights and making sure I'm going to the gym consistent has has really helped with with my endorphins and I think just you know this act of gratitude and practicing gratitude and carving out the necessary time to really reflect and how grateful I am those I think are like the three practices sunlight exercise and gratitude that I commit to on a consistent basis that helps to keep my endorphins high you know the dope mean the north enough for and all the good things going I love it gratitude especially it keeps you actually very grounded in the present moment a quote that I heard recently is be right where your feet are just leave that there because the more I thought about it I was like wow why is my brain three months ago when my feet are currently right here so it's something to think about I'm going to gratitude helps you think a little bit more critically about that but I loved everything you'd to share Paul thank you again so much for coming on where can my listeners connect with you follow along everything that you're doing and also check out third wave yeah third wave the third wave Dave.co, just putting Google third wave microdocene third wave psychedelics. We have our own podcast and newsletter programs and courses that we run, including a microdocene experience and a training program for coaches and practitioners. So that's the third wave.co. And then I post on social quite a bit. So I'm at Paul Austin, three W on Instagram and Twitter for the most part. So if anyone here is on social, reach out, connect, say hi, send me a DM. And then my personal website is Paul Austin.co. You can find everything else, everything else there. So thank you for having me on, Stella. It was really fun to be able to chat and be on everyday endorphins. And yeah, I had a really great time going deep with you today. Awesome. Thanks so much, Paul. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard and you want to continue to follow along, make sure to like, rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. If you want to stay plugged into Everyday Endorphins outside of the podcast, I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, and you can also drop your email to subscribe to my newsletter. It's the Everyday Endorphins sub-stack where I talk about the interviews that I've done that month, any events happening in New York that I've hosted, and just a stream of consciousness of my thoughts. Thanks again for tuning in and reminder to keep spreading endorphins and finding the things in life that bring you joy. Until next time.