091 | Creating Lasting Lifestyle Change During Psychedelic Integration: 10 Tips from a Life Coach
“Failure can be an opportunity. This is a mindset shift that needs to be made if you want to create lasting lifestyle change. Adapt the mindset that you simply cannot fail. Remove the idea of failure from your mind. There’s no such thing as failure. No matter what happens, you can choose to learn and grow.”
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"Behavior change is identity change." When it comes to psychedelics, our identity changes, but our behaviors have yet to catch up. The process of aligning your behaviors with your true self can be a part of psychedelic integration.
It is very common to desire lifestyle changes after a meaningful consciousness-altering experience. So, why do so many of us struggle with actually making the change? Integrating lifestyle change is some of the slowest, most challenging, and grueling work. In this episode, I am sharing ten tips you can try out to make your desired lifestyle changes stick.
In this episode, I talk about:
The connection between identity change and lifestyle change
Why psychedelics propel us to make lifestyle changes
Finding out the why behind the changes you’d like to make
High impact “domino effect” habits
The importance of pacing with lifestyle changes
The benefits of making the change & the costs of not making the change
Enlisting support and being witnessed during your transformation
Time management and organization during change
How to have less resistance and more joy
Cultivating curiosity over judgement
Finding a balance vs. going to an extreme
LISTEN
Things Mentioned In This Episode:
Where to Find Lana:
I was introduced to psychedelics in my early 20s within rave culture, and few years later I began to use plant medicine ceremonially.
Many circumstances aligned leaving me shattered, and I began the journey of putting myself back together. Plant medicine & psychedelics saved me from depression, anxiety, and a life of feeling unworthy. This is now my life’s work and I have devoted myself to sharing psychedelics and plant medicines with others because I have personally experienced how effectively they can catalyze growth, healing and connection.
This idea for Modern Psychedelics came to me during a journaling session in early 2020. I was learning so much about psychedelics at the time (while experiencing the benefits firsthand), and I had a deep desire to talk about these topics with people in the field. Upon launching the Instagram community, the page grew tremendously over a short period of time and continues to have high levels of engagement.
I am a 3x certified professional life coach, and I work with people who want to better their lives by deeply integrating insights from their psychedelic experiences. I believe that we don’t have to spend our entire lives healing, and that the purpose of life is to live in the present moment.
Looking for a professional coach to support you on your psychedelic path?
Look no further! Along with being the host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast, Lana is a 3x certified professional coach who works with people on the psychedelic path.
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Lana Pribic: [00:00:00] Hello, hello, it is me, your host Lana coming at you with another solo episode that is just going to be full of supportive, empowering tips for your journey. Today we are talking all about lifestyle change, those habits and behaviors that make up our lifestyle and the way that we experience life. I want to talk about this because lifestyle change, habit change, it's something that is very common during psychedelic integration. And it's also very, very challenging.
So I want to give you guys some tips to navigate creating lifestyle and habit changes during your integration period. So James Clear, you know, the one who wrote Atomic Habits, the modern guru of habit change, he said, um, Quote, true behavior change is identity change. When your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be. [00:01:00] This makes sense, right? There's this powerful alignment that happens when our habits, our lifestyle is aligned with who we truly are. What often happens with psychedelics is that our identity changes after this powerful experience.
But when we go back to life, we realize that our behaviors, our habits that make up our lifestyle. , haven't caught up yet. In rare circumstances, behavior change can be automatic after a profound journey. But most of the time we have to actually go and do the work to align our behaviors and habits with that identity change so that they are aligned with who we believe ourselves to be.
Our true self, if you will. This process of aligning your lifestyle with your identity, your true self, is known as integration. Often the habits and behaviors that make up our lifestyle no longer align with who we have discovered ourselves to be. So during psychedelic integration, we want to make lifestyle changes that do align with our [00:02:00] true self.
And this integration work can be really hard. It can be full of resistance, and it can be gruelingly overwhelming. slow. I know this firsthand as I'm currently working on making several lifestyle changes after my 5meo DMT journey five months ago. If you guys missed that episode, I suggest listening to episode 79 for a very beautiful trip report from a very beautiful experience with 5meo.
After this experience though, I got to feel What it was like to live regulated calm and ultimately open to receiving the gifts of life I came to learn through my experience with this medicine that all of the stimulation I was taking in Were causing dysregulation and that is something that I want to change while a few lifestyle changes were effortless and immediate For example, I quit both caffeine and nicotine immediately after the retreat and haven't looked back.
Some of these other changes I want to make are much more deeply ingrained and are proving to need a lot more work. Some lifestyle [00:03:00] changes I am currently working on making are number one, reducing my sugar intake and addressing my sugar addiction for once and for all. This is that thing that's always been looming, that's always been there, that I've always known I would have to look at one day and That day is here, my friends.
Number two, I'm also reducing my consumption of cannabis, particularly inhaled cannabis. Number three, I'm looking to reduce just overall the number of substances I'm taking in, uh, partying late nights, or at least being a little bit more picky about when I choose to go out.
I'm trying to implement meditation in the mornings and also this one's kind of a fun one. Just getting dressed every day rather than spending my day in sweats and leggings. So all of these habits make up my lifestyle. In other words, all of these habits and behaviors make up the way that I live. I experienced this precious life.
So because this is hard work, I know, because I'm doing it with you. I put together 10 tips on [00:04:00] how to implement lasting lifestyle change during your psychedelic integration process. If you don't know me, if you're not familiar with me, if you're new, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here, but. I am all about playing the long game and I am all about lasting change rather than quick results.
I'm also very journey oriented rather than outcome oriented. So you will see that reflected in some of these tips and you will see how being oriented in that direction actually serves us a lot more and gets us to where we want. So the guidelines that I'm, presenting, I am following myself and they come from my expertise as a psychedelics informed life coach.
So I'm pulling a lot of stuff that I would use in coaching sessions with my clients for you guys here so that you can be exposed to this information and start working through it. On your own. So when appropriate, I will draw from my own personal experience to give you a relatable example. So let's dive into it.
The first thing you need to know about creating lasting lifestyle change during your psychedelic integration period is to identify the changes you'd [00:05:00] like to make and why this is a very obvious place to start, but why is making this change important to you?
How does this lifestyle change connect to your dreams, your goals, to the person you want to be? How does this change connect to the person you now know yourself to be in your heart of hearts? The version of you that you possibly got a glimpse of during your psychedelic experience. You know that it's possible.
So what are those changes that you'd like to make to align with that version of yourself? And why is that important to you? Why is it important to you to not keep living the way that you are currently living? I love to ask myself and my clients, how is it that you want to experience your life?
When you get to the core emotion of how you want to experience your life, you've really hit the why. For me, it's love. Like, everything is love. And I want to experience my life in love as much as possible. So it's this constant [00:06:00] refinement and attunement to my habits and the way that I live my life so that I can experience my life in love.
From the energy of love from the place of love and be in that as much as possible. It's a very simple question that can be so illuminating. How do you want to experience your life?
The second thing you need to know about creating lasting lifestyle change is to identify the changes that would create a domino effect and start there. So there's often so many changes that we know we need to make and rather than addressing them all at once. or getting lost and not knowing which one to address first, we're going to determine the ones that will create a domino effect, as in what are those changes that if you make them, they will make it a lot easier to create the other changes you desire.
So this is because Certain behaviors and habits carry more weight and therefore weigh us down more than others. And when we release those heaviest burdens, [00:07:00] we are creating energetic, mental, spiritual, emotional space within us to tackle some of those others. In my opinion, the most important lifestyle changes to address are limiting exposure to toxins. So food and air quality, water quality, even those negative thoughts. Okay. , hydrating sufficiently, getting good quality and quantity sleep, eating a nourishing diet, engaging in fulfilling socialization and knowing how to manage both your time and your energy.
I really want to say here, like sleep is really the first thing to address out of everything. Like if you are not waking up feeling refreshed, it means that your sleep quality needs some refinement. So I would encourage you to start there. Sleep is truly everything. And when you are well rested, when your energy is vibrant, because your body got sleep, you will be much more able to take on the world.
Some of these other lifestyle changes you want to make. So an example of the domino effect. Would [00:08:00] prioritizing sleep make it so that you have the energy to implement a workout routine? Would quitting alcohol help you clear your head so that you can really think clearly about what career path you would like to pursue?
Would eating a balanced and nourishing breakfast help you stay focused at work and reach your goals . So we want to identify these high impact habits, these habits that have a domino effect on others. We're going to start there and slowly start addressing those first, which leads me to the third tip here.
Start with just one change that you would like to make and build from there. Say you want to start with addressing your sleep. Let's just go with that example. Work on that, right? Do what you need to do to get your sleep right. Limit your screen time in the evening. Have cozy bedsheets, get curtains that drown out all the light, maybe get an eye mask, maybe get a sleep machine, [00:09:00] maybe get earplugs, maybe start reading a book.
Before bed rather than watching TV, do what you need to do to address that first once being well rested and Prioritizing sleep is just natural to you and it's just a part of who you are. It's a line with your identity Then we can start chipping away at the other Changes that we would like to make as someone who's been trying to build healthy habits my entire life Literally been obsessed with personal development and I guess like human optimization.
I don't really like that word, but just wanting to be my best self. I've been obsessed with this stuff my entire adult life.
This is the most successful method I have found. Where it makes sense, you can certainly stack a few changes. For example, maybe you want to move more and read more. Maybe you go for a walk while listening to an audio book right there. We are kind of stacking these habits and changes, but just be careful not to overwhelm yourself with too much too fast.
Take it one step at a time and know [00:10:00] that slow is steady and steady is smooth and smooth is fast. There's some military wisdom for you. Number four is to empower yourself with information and inspiration. Go all in with this. Okay? This can be done in a number of ways. You could find someone who is kind of living in the way that you would like to live and learn from them, or maybe they have really nailed down their sleep routine or whatever, and you just enter their world, right?
An example I can give of this is in my goal of limiting my sugar intake. I found this woman named Glucose Goddess. She's a French scientist. She's absolutely amazing. I love all of her content and I just continue to learn from her about glucose levels, glucose spikes, how to eat balanced meals that won't cause glucose spikes.
I listen to her podcasts. I follow her on social media and I watch her YouTube. I'm pretty much immersed in her world. because I want to learn from her and she is able to model to me what it looks like to successfully live the way that [00:11:00] I want to live when it comes to my sugar intake and balancing my glucose levels and not being a slave to sugar.
So another way that you can do this is to immerse yourself . In a topic that you'd like to make the change in. So research, expand and fill your heart and your mind with the benefits that await after you make this change in limiting my nights out. For example, I think about all of the benefits I'm going to gain from that.
I'm going to have more energy to pour into my mission and my work and the benefits on my mood that will come from having just a more consistent schedule . On the flip side, also educate yourself on what not making the change is costing you.
People will do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure, right? People will do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure. So educate yourself on what your draining habits are costing you. When I learned about how inhaling cannabis Does almost identical damage to smoking cigarettes.
I felt so motivated to make the change I [00:12:00] suddenly started noticing how my lungs felt after I Smoked and that was very very motivating for me to really buy into creating this change for myself The more information that you have about the benefits of making the change and the costs of not making the change, the more motivation you will just naturally have to do it.
Consume information in a way that makes sense for you though. So, if you're motivated by facts and logic, seek out research and data. If you're someone who is more motivated by emotion, find someone who can speak to the emotional benefits of making this change. So tip number five is to enlist support. Get someone on your side.
We all need support to help sometimes. Not only is this accountability, but sometimes we just need to be witnessed. We just need someone there to see us, to see our efforts and to validate our struggles and effort. I booked a coaching session with Steve when I was really going through it during my 5MEO integration and feeling so overwhelmed with all of [00:13:00] these changes that I want to make.
And just simply having him there to witness me and hold me and tell me that I'm doing a good job and to remind me to take it slow and to reflect back to me all of the progress that I'm already making and to have someone to talk about why this is important to me and how making these changes aligns with who I want to be and how I want to experience life and ultimately my mission in life, right?
It was just so, so, so helpful for me to really ground in why this is important, all of the progress I'm already making, and So just find that next level of motivation to continue going forward. So you can enlist support from friends or family that also want to make the change though. If you can afford it and commit to it, working with a professional life coach, such as myself can really propel you further, faster.
This is obviously an investment that you would be making in yourself. And you would take this. work more seriously. Now, [00:14:00] I know that this is a luxury that isn't an option for everyone. So know that simply consuming these tips and implementing even a couple of the things that I'm talking about here is going to help.
. I just want to validate that change is hard and having support can really make a difference between Lasting change and yo yoing back and forth with yourself, especially when psychedelics are involved due to their potential to create massive change It's a really wise idea to have support whatever that may look like for you Number six is to find a way to measure your progress.
This might not be for everyone, but for some of us, the mind loves data, and it loves to just see everything kind of mapped out there. This could also be a way to keep yourself accountable when you see your progress, when you see that data, when you see those numbers.
Remember to acknowledge and celebrate yourself and all of the progress that you've made. Tip number seven for creating lasting lifestyle change is to utilize a planning or schedule a system to keep yourself organized and accountable This might be my five [00:15:00] planets in Capricorn talking, but I just love planning and scheduling things and even The habits that I'm trying to change.
So before habits become just a natural part of our lifestyle, there is going to be some tension. There's going to be some resistance because we're trying something new and we're trying to break those neural pathways in our brain that are just like conditioned to do things a certain way.
So for me, it's like, okay, I'm finished work. I'm finished dinner. So I'm going to, you know, grab my cannabis vape and sit on the couch and watch TV and eat sugar. Like that's the neural pathway that I have to break. So. Scheduling things in your calendar is going to force you to take time to determine where and how this change fits into your life.
It's also a way to make a commitment to yourself, right? You're like intentionally taking the time to schedule something in. You're committing to yourself that you're going to do something.
So the more often that you make these promises and commitments to yourself and you actually keep them, the more you will build trust with yourself and create momentum. This is [00:16:00] some of the nuance that people don't talk about very much when it comes to personal development and growth. But it's really, really important to make promises to yourself that come from your true self and to keep them and to build that trust with yourself because that trust with yourself is going to take you so far on your journey.
So for example, in addressing my sugar addiction, I've learned that eating those balanced and consistent meals is crucial for managing my glucose levels and preventing spikes that cause me to crave sugar. If my meals aren't balanced with a protein, a fat and a carb, I will have those blood sugar spikes that create the craving for sugar.
For me, lunch is the meal that I most often skip or I'll just eat whatever's available. It won't be balanced. It might be junk food. It's just lunch has been a struggle for me because it's in the middle of the workday. So Since I want to make sure that I'm eating lunch every day, right? I literally put a task in my Google Calendar at 1 p.
m. I repeat it Monday to Friday at 1 p. m. There's a task on my calendar to [00:17:00] remind me not to book anything at this time so that I take the time to eat lunch and And so that I just remember that commitment to myself. Remember that this is the change that I'm making. It's working really well for me to the point where it has become habit.
Now, my lunches are looking great these days. So if the change that you want to make, for example, is to cook a homemade dinner for yourself and stop eating out every night, put meal planning and grocery shopping into your calendar, because you're not going to cook those meals if you don't have groceries and you don't know what to make.
. For example, you can use your weekends to plan ahead for your week, do the groceries, get some inspiration, maybe prepare ingredients. So just put all of that in your calendar and eventually it will become second nature. Number eight is to make it fun and enjoyable.
Okay, remember that this is a journey and there's really no destination. There's always going to be ways that you can improve yourself and become more of who you really are. So find ways to make things fun for you. If you want to exercise more, please do not go to the gym. If you hate going to the gym, find something that [00:18:00] you enjoy.
If you want to eat more vegetables, but you hate spinach and you can't stand the texture and the taste, don't eat spinach. Okay, explore other veggies or new ways of making them. Okay. That will help you create this new habit for yourself. If you don't find a way to enjoy a new habit, it won't stick.
It just won't in the long run. And you're going to be coming from the energy of force rather than the energy of fun and flow and enjoyment. So this one, it's really simple, but. It's important and I think it gets overlooked a lot. Make it fun and enjoyable and make it you. The more aligned it is with who you really are, the more easily it will be to tap into the fun and enjoyment of it.
Number nine, know that failure can be an opportunity. This is a mindset shift that needs to be made. If you want to create a lasting lifestyle change, adapt the mindset that you simply cannot fail.
Remove the idea of failure from your mind. There's no such thing as failure. No matter what happens, you can choose to learn [00:19:00] and grow. And if you're learning and growing, I mean, how is that failure? There's no such thing as failure. If you are learning and growing. So to adapt this mindset, we need to release our attachment to outcomes and release the programming that.
A success or a failure depends on a certain outcome. That is not true. Success or failure depends on how you choose to show up for whatever happens. When there are roadblocks and there will be roadblocks, there will be setbacks, right? There will be a quote unquote, Failures, pay attention to any negative self talk and redirect it to be more encouraging.
Remind yourself of all of the progress that you've already made. Have grace and be gentle with yourself because you are doing a lot and simply trying to make a change and working towards making a change is hard and you deserve the grace and the love from yourself and the acknowledgement from yourself.
So be curious and not judgmental towards yourself. This is key in life, not just in making changes and not just in making lifestyle change, but [00:20:00] in life. Instead of telling yourself, oh, I'm so pathetic. Look at me. I can't even make dinner for myself. Even though I promised myself I would make dinner. I can't even make my dinner for myself.
Okay, if you notice that you're talking to yourself like that, redirect that judgment into curiosity. Curiosity would sound like hmm. Okay, so I didn't make dinner for myself tonight. I wonder why that is. What's standing in my way here? What's really going on here? Am I not enjoying these ingredients?
Do I not have the time? Am I over committing myself? Right? Notice how in the second option that curiosity opens the door for answers and answers open the door for learning growth and adjustments. It's okay to adjust course. Okay. Whereas those judgments are just going to shut us down and cause us to spiral and stay stuck.
So that's important, guys. There is no such thing as failure. A perceived failure is simply an opportunity to adjust course, keep going forward and learn more [00:21:00] about yourself. And the last tip I have for you here, this is a good one. I should have put this earlier on in case people drop off. Focus on finding balance, rather than extremes.
So instead of looking at behavior as all or nothing, what is the middle way? Okay. So an example I can give of this is with sugar and cannabis. If I tried to quit sugar or cannabis cold turkey, I would absolutely have a really hard time. And eventually I would go back to probably consuming the same amount of sugar and cannabis that I was consuming before.
You know, maybe there is a future where I'm not consuming sugar or cannabis But honestly, that's not what I really want. I don't really want a life completely free of sugar or cannabis I want to enjoy my life and these are things that I enjoy what I actually want is to consume both and enjoy both in A way that is moderated and in a way that fulfills me and gives me energy rather than doing it Um, because I'm bored or I'm numbing and in that way it [00:22:00] drains me.
So bear in mind that this doesn't go for all behavior change. For some behaviors, that balance is not going to be within reach and we may want to stick to the extreme. So we may benefit from having a harder line with some habits and behaviors. I'm pretty strict with myself about not consuming alcohol anymore.
This has been true for the past. I don't know. Maybe five years. It's very rare that I have a drink of alcohol. I'll have a glass of wine here or there, but I do not get drunk. maybe a little tipsy, but it's, it's, it is rare, like maybe twice a year. And I have an even harder line with something like cocaine.
This is something that I used to struggle with in my twenties. And now I have a very hard line that is an extreme where I just simply do not consume that substance because it has wrecked havoc on my life. And it's just really bad for me. So I hope that that's helpful. I really love that last one.
Where's that balance rather than an extreme. So a way that I'm finding balance with sugar, and I learned this from glucose [00:23:00] goddesses, even when I'm having sugar, I treat it like a meal almost where there's like the balance of the fat carbon protein. So I love dark chocolate, the sea salt, or like the mint dark chocolate, or the orange dark chocolate.
It's my favorite. So at nighttime, instead of doing what I used to do, which is taking the chocolate bar and eating. the whole thing or half of the thing, I will have two or three squares, and I'll put it in a little bowl with some berries and some nuts. And I am noticing that this allows me to still have the chocolate and enjoy the chocolate, but because it's more balanced, I have the fat in there.
I actually don't have cravings to have more of it than I need. So that's one example of finding a balance rather than going to an extreme and quitting sugar altogether. So there you have it, 10 tips that can help you create lifestyle change during psychedelic integration. Please share these tips with someone in your life who might benefit from them.
And I'm curious, what are one or two tips that I spoke about today that stood out to you? Which one can you start [00:24:00] implementing right now, like today? Let me know feel free to message me on Instagram and tell me about it. You can also email me at hello at modern psychedelics. net. I love to hear from you guys.
I trust that this has been helpful. Good luck. You're doing it. Remember to be gentle and loving with yourself and to enjoy the process to enjoy the journey and know that things simply just take time. But the more that you continue to show up for yourself, you will get it and these changes that you are trying to make will one day just be a natural part.
of who you are. All right. Have a beautiful rest of your day. Thank you so much for tuning in and spending some time with me, sending you a big hug and big love. Bye.
