Expanding Consciousness

Coming from opposite directions — Nikolas from a hard-science skepticism of anything "woo," Michael from a spiritual high horse that looked down on psychology — the two meet in the middle to ask a deceptively simple question: are spirituality and psychology compatible, complementary, or fundamentally at odds?
The conversation moves from spiritual bypassing and hitting plateaus on the meditation cushion, to how psychology's "third wave" (mindfulness, DBT, ACT) quietly absorbed Eastern practice, to the existential terrain — death, meaning, and the fear of the void — where they argue psychology alone may run out of road. From there they get into the harder questions: the risks of untrained spiritual and psychedelic facilitation, safety and trauma-informed containers, the clinicalization of plant medicine, and a genuinely contested back-and-forth on cultural appropriation, decolonization, and what (if anything) gets lost when an indigenous practice becomes a Western framework.
A wide-ranging, exploratory dialogue for anyone interested in the meeting point of inner work, psychedelics, mental health, and the existential questions that neither science nor spirituality answers cleanly on its own.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:41 Are spirituality and psychology compatible?
01:40 Two opposite starting points & plant medicine opening the lid
02:57 From engineering to spirituality and back to psychology
04:10 Carl Rogers, unconditional positive regard & Ram Dass
05:08 The third wave: CBT, mindfulness, DBT & Eastern roots
07:05 12-step programs, surrender & shedding the ego
08:25 Where psychology hits its limits: existential questions
09:49 Death through a Western lens vs. a spiritual lens
13:21 Is death just the end? Consciousness, matter & the void
14:45 "Die before you die" & the West's troubled relationship with death
16:57 Plant medicine, joy, and the patterns it revealed
18:50 What psychology brings: precision, containment & safety
21:42 Safety in spiritual ceremony & the trauma-informed gap
24:47 Liberty vs. risk: psychosis, cannabis & applying caution
27:11 Clinicalization of plant medicine — losing the sacred?
28:41 Appropriation, decolonization & "letting it change you"
31:19 Strains, spirits, the entourage effect & synthesized compounds
33:47 Does context make it the same experience? Set, setting & safety
36:22 Clinical rooms vs. cozy containers & the MAPS tension
40:46 Mindfulness, John Kabat-Zinn & where appropriation begins
42:54 You can't monopolize spirituality
44:29 Suffering as the doorway to both paths
45:48 Michael Singer's "Wisdom Untethered" & closing thoughts

In this episode, Nikolas and Michael unpack Focusing, the therapeutic method developed by philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin out of his research with Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy. What began as an attempt to isolate why some therapy sessions succeed and others fail became a powerful practice that has sold half a million copies and helped bridge the gap between the talk-therapy era and today's somatic approaches.
At the heart of the conversation is the "felt sense" — that nebulous, hard-to-pin-down space between sensation and emotion where we actually make meaning. The two explore how to get in touch with it, why we resist uncomfortable experiences and store them in the body, and how meaning follows experience rather than leading it. Along the way they walk through the six steps of Focusing, compare it to EMDR and Somatic Experiencing, and dig into a bigger question: what does it actually mean to be wounded, and what does it mean to heal?
A thoughtful, exploratory conversation for anyone interested in somatic psychology, trauma processing, and the body's natural capacity to unwind itself — no re-traumatization required.

Peter Levine clip mentioned in the episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdUnCj05RMs

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
00:41 What is Focusing & its origins with Carl Rogers
03:05 The felt sense explained — between sensation and emotion
06:35 Walking through an example of the felt sense
08:23 The felt shift & why you don't compartmentalize the experience
10:58 Meaning follows experience (not the other way around)
13:12 Body awareness, somatic unfolding & the body's wisdom
15:53 How experiences get stored: overwhelm, dissociation & programming
17:49 Why we reject experiences & store them in the body
20:20 Overload, childhood & falling back to primitive responses
21:48 Re-experiencing the "residue" without reliving the story
23:38 Why resistance exists: aversion to discomfort & habit
25:29 The six steps of Focusing (creating space, felt sense, handle, resonate, ask)
30:48 Comparing Focusing to EMDR & Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing
34:43 Is trauma processing the same across modalities?
36:16 What does it mean to be wounded and to heal?
40:37 Updating a 1970s framework for modern somatic psychology
42:44 Habits as identity & the disorientation of change
45:02 Attitude, intrinsic motivation & creating your own suffering
47:31 Closing thoughts

The 5 C's:
https://instituteofspiritualhealing.com/5c/

Sufism Foundations Course:
https://instituteofspiritualhealing.com/foundations-sh/

Salima Adelstein is a Sufi spiritual guide and emotional healer with 35 years of experience accessing the deeper layers of the heart. After 25 years on a different spiritual path that included meditation and time in India, an unexpected encounter with a Sufi master in New Mexico shifted everything for her. In this conversation she walks us through the core of Sufism: the heart-mind connection, the three inner voices (the ego/nafs, the negative outside voice, and the voice of the divine), the practice of remembrance (dhikr), forgiveness and mercy, ego annihilation, and surrender. We talk about how Sufism strips away the hidden "pictures in the heart" we carry from childhood and ancestry, why peace has to start in your own heart before it can radiate outward, and what a daily practice actually looks like. A grounded conversation for anyone curious about how a heart-centered tradition meets ordinary life.

0:00 Intro
0:41 Introduction to Sufism and Salima's Journey
8:12 The Heart-Mind Connection in Sufism
13:43 Navigating Inner Voices and Discernment
18:55 The Role of Forgiveness and Mercy
26:24 Annihilation of the Ego and Surrender
34:22 Living from an Open Heart
37:29 Practical Steps in Sufism

What if your biggest struggles weren’t random—but rooted deep in your subconscious… or even beyond this lifetime?

In this episode, we sit down with hypnotherapist Peter McLaughlin, who shares his powerful journey from firefighter and EMT to helping people resolve anxiety, emotional blocks, and deeply ingrained patterns through hypnosis.

We explore what hypnosis really is (hint: you already experience it daily), how trauma gets stored in the subconscious, and how accessing these states can lead to rapid transformation—sometimes in just minutes. Peter explains how emotional patterns, beliefs, and even guilt or shame can shape our lives without us realizing it—and how they can be rewritten.

We also dive into more unconventional territory, including past life regression, spiritual perspectives on healing, and why confronting inner pain (rather than avoiding it) can be the key to lasting change.

This episode is a deep and thought-provoking exploration of the mind, healing, and what it really means to transform from the inside out.

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction & Peter’s background
01:10 From firefighter to life-threatening diagnosis
02:26 Discovering hypnosis & subconscious healing
04:58 What is hypnosis really?
08:56 How hypnotherapy rewires patterns
09:49 How to enter a hypnotic state
14:44 Processing trauma in hypnosis
15:19 Creating safety in therapy
18:35 Confronting pain vs avoiding it
19:14 Making the unconscious conscious
23:05 Past life vs current life trauma
28:22 Why guilt & shame are so powerful
31:46 Why we carry trauma across lifetimes
36:18 How long does transformation take?
37:55 Are we ever “done” with the work?
41:55 Skepticism: is it just imagination?
45:44 Spiritual implications of healing
50:11 Do clients know what they’re getting into?
53:44 Who is drawn to this work?
54:24 Stanislav Grof
55:44 Birth trauma vs past life regression
58:01 Psyched**ics vs hypnosis
01:00:43 Spiritual attachments explained
01:02:51 How entity attachment healing works

In this episode, we talk with evidential medium Barbara Banner, who shares her personal journey into mediumship and how she began delivering detailed, verifiable messages from people in spirit.

We explore what mediumship actually feels like from the inside, how messages come through, and whether this ability is something only a few people have — or something anyone can learn to access. Barbara explains how grief affects the connection to the other side, why signs from loved ones often appear in everyday life, and what spirits supposedly experience after death.

The conversation also dives into deeper questions about reincarnation, life reviews, spirit guides, and whether those on the other side can influence what happens here on Earth. Toward the end, Barbara even attempts a live reading during the podcast, showing how unexpected and symbolic these messages can be.

Topics include:

How Barbara discovered her abilities

What happens during a medium reading

Signs from loved ones after death

Life after death & reincarnation

Spirit guides and intuition

Can anyone learn mediumship?

A live reading during the episode

Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:22 Barbara’s story – how mediumship started
2:46 Crisis work, grief support, and early experiences
5:02 Paranormal events that changed everything
6:41 First readings and learning mediumship
8:35 Mediumship and grief – why timing matters
11:08 What messages from spirits are usually about
14:02 Validations, signs, and surprising details
18:33 How spirits communicate with a medium
20:52 Can anyone learn intuition and connection?
24:30 Teaching clients to connect themselves
26:35 When messages don’t make sense at first
27:59 Who shows up in a reading?
30:52 Burnout and self-care as a medium
32:44 Negative spirits, protection, and safety
35:00 Life after death and the life review
38:57 Reincarnation and why souls come back
42:06 Can spirits influence life on Earth?
45:06 Live reading during the podcast
52:55 When messages make sense later
54:46 Where to find Barbara Banner online
55:38 Outro