
Podcast by Amy Bartlett

Podcast by Amy Bartlett

21 January 2026
Trigger Warning: discussions of suicidality
Robert Décarie is a local certified Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, a former counselor and wildlife management specialist, and a delightful human being. As we explore in our conversation together, after having a gregarious but dissociated childhood in Montreal and experiencing a dark night of the soul in his early twenties, he pivoted to study environmental sciences (M.Sc.) and had a 25-year career in wildlife management. In the mid-2000s, he readjusted the course of his life to deepen its meaning and chose to study to become a counselor, and in 2008, he started practicing Holotropic Breathwork, eventually completing his training to become a certified facilitator which he has been offering to the Ottawa community since 2015. In our conversation together, we walk through several decades of psychedelic roots, from visiting Mexico in the 1970s, to experimenting with ayahuasca in a couple of different settings, to finally experiencing what he considers to be his first true psychedelic experience in a well-supported set and setting that allowed him to connect deeply with himself and to love. It was a pleasure to wend our way through Robert’s psychedelic roots, or what he calls his holotropic life!
A reminder that this episode contains mentions of suicidality. This warning is meant to empower you with the knowledge you need to make healthy decisions about how and if you should consume this podcast content. We invite you to practice self-care and do what feels right for you. And if you need support, please connect with someone who can help: family and friends, professionals, or a crisis line. There are both Canadian and international recommendations in the show notes below. You are not alone-- not in your pain, nor in your healing.
Shownotes
Below are some Canadian and international mental health resources to access if you are in distress or need support:
Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay
#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport
00:00
45:45

01 January 2026
Trigger Warning: discussions of suicidal thoughts
Dr. Paul Grof is a Canadian research psychiatrist and clinician who has been involved in psychedelic and transpersonal work for over six decades. He was a professor at several Canadian and European universities until recently retiring from the University of Toronto in 2022, and served as an Expert at the World Health Organization from 1985 to 2000, where he chaired the Committee on Psychotropic Substances. It was a pleasure to get to sit down with Paul to explore his roots: from growing up in the Czech Republic, to being part of the initial wave of people in Western society experimenting with LSD in research labs. In our conversation together, he takes us back to the 1950s and 60s and generously shares some of his experiences during those early days of Western psychedelic research--- and perhaps most importantly, about how he was so personally and professionally impacted by this unfolding.
Shownotes
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A reminder that this episode contains mentions of suicidal thoughts. This warning is meant to empower you with the knowledge you need to make healthy decisions about how and if you should consume this podcast content. We invite you to practice self-care and do what feels right for you. And if you need support, please connect with someone who can help: family and friends, professionals, or a crisis line. There are both Canadian and international recommendations in the show notes below. You are not alone-- not in your pain, nor in your healing.
Below are some Canadian and international mental health resources to access if you are in distress or need support:
Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay
#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport
00:00
52:07

15 December 2025
Ruth Webster is a retired library scientist, a fellow New Brunswicker, and someone with a lifelong curiosity about connection with self and the world around them. After a complex childhood growing up in the 1950s and 60s and first encountering psychedelics as a teenager and saying ‘no’, her curiosity about psychedelics was not piqued again until 2015 when she started a Holotropic Breathwork training course. Through a number of curious coincidences, she found her way to her first psychedelic experience with Iboga at a retreat centre in Mexico a year later. Ruth shares about her first experience, and how it has shaped her relationship with the substances, and with herself.
For the listener, Ruth is someone who also navigates some physical limitations, so please feel welcome to enjoy finding your audio groove as you listen in to our conversation.
Shownotes
Holotropic Breathwork training Ruth mentioned taking: https://www.holotropic.com/
As well as the Grof Legacy Training: https://grofpsychedelictrainingacademy.ca/breathwork/
Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay
#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport
00:00
35:27

01 December 2025
Matt Jaworski was born into a mixed family in the Ottawa suburbs, and was exposed to many things that seemed surreal to him from an early age. Because of this, he has spent much of his life seeking out answers to why things are the way they are, and at the same time learning to let go and be led when the path to follow is clear. In our conversation, we talk about his childhood and his very trusting nature as a kid, what he learned about the world and himself growing up with a differently-abled younger brother, how his passion for organic food cultivated his curiosity in plant medicines, all of which which led him to eventually grow his own mushrooms and experience his welcoming and warm first psychedelic trip. While he is no longer an active member, Matt also helped start the Ottawa psychedelic society which is still in operation today--- one of the many seeds he has planted along his psychedelic path.
Shownotes
Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay
#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport
00:00
39:55

15 November 2025
Lucia Rios Maia da Silva is a queer Brazilian psychotherapist whose life and research are guided by a deep connection to nature and plant medicines. In our conversation together, we explore their childhood raised by two pastors, and the disconnection that they experienced as they were forced to try to ‘correct’ their queerness, and the new communities and spiritualities they built as they learned to live in their truth. After coming out in Brazil, Lucia moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 2019 seeking a safer social and political context, which moves us into hearing about their first psychedelic experience with psilocybin mushrooms. They also co-facilitate a biweekly hapeh circle open to the Ottawa community members, and during their free time, they can be found practicing yoga, cycling along the river, or drumming on their djembe.
Shownotes
Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay
#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport
00:00
39:11

01 November 2025
Trigger Warning: discussions of suicidality
Pedram Dara is an Iranian-born refugee to Canada and a former MDMA-assisted therapy clinical trial participant who has turned his experiences into founding and directing the Psychedelic Lived Experiences initiative, a patient-led movement advancing lived experience expertise in psychedelic research, treatment, and policy. In our conversation together, we talk about how his current advocacy work is built off of his early experiences as a child growing up in Iran. We explore some of the confusing messaging that surrounded him about drugs as he was growing up, before eventually talking through what led him to having his first therapeutic psychedelic experience to help heal his PTSD in a clinical trial setting.
A reminder that this episode contains mentions of suicidal thoughts. This warning is meant to empower you with the knowledge you need to make healthy decisions about how and if you should consume this podcast content. We invite you to practice self-care and do what feels right for you. And if you need support, please connect with someone who can help: family and friends, professionals, or a crisis line. There are both Canadian and international recommendations in the show notes below. You are not alone-- not in your pain, nor in your healing.
Shownotes
Below are some Canadian and international mental health resources to access if you are in distress or need support:
Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay
#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport
00:00
51:50