The past is not gone, but alive in every moment as the substrate of our perceptions, behaviors, and identity.
This statement echoes across vast areas of humanity, from the personal psyche, through the family and society, and beyond the modern world, into the intergenerational history of our ancestors as they moved across the planet. Our past defines us, whether we are free of its unconscious influences or not. But, let’s narrow in on smaller window than the history of our peoples moving across the face of the earth for millennia: childhood.
Our early childhood experiences set the psychic stage for our adult perceptions of Self and Other and the behaviors we engage to orient and navigate those perceptions. We orient our sense of being in the world, the context of that world, and our place within it through the relational context of the family, and, in particular, the connection to our primary caregiver(s). What we learn in those early years lays the foundation for the rest of our life, for good or for ill.
This episode of the podcast narrows in on the manner in which early childhood experiences inform, often unconsciously, our adult perceptions, behavior, and self-identity. Our guest, author and former Christian minister Bruce Sanguin, takes us into and through a (common) legacy of early childhood wounds, the relational context through which they are inflicted and later reiterated, as well as the role psychedelic therapy plays in healing those childhood wounds.
Bruce Sanguin is a psychotherapist living on Denman Island, B.C. where he practices. Before taking early retirement he was a minister in a progressive church for 28 years and now works as a guide with individuals who make pilgrimages to the island (or via Skype) for intensive sessions and integration therapy with plant medicines. He is also an internationally renowned speaker in the field of evolutionary spirituality and the author of 7 acclaimed books related to evolving spirituality. His latest is Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke A Clergyman Apart and Put Him Back Together.
Bruce is not an armchair advocate for this work, but a man that has learned from his own healing with psychedelic medicines. Along with a structural discussion on his model for healing childhood wounds and the potential of psychedelic therapy to help that process along, he shares his personal story of how his childhood wounds led him to the Church, how healing them required leaving that church behind, and how psychedelics help him learn to love again.
*** Big thanks to my patrons on Pateron for helping keep this podcast alive! Especially, Thomas & Melanie H, Clea S, Steven B, James R, Dean H, Joe A, Andy D, Stephen B, Angela & James J, Ian C, David W, Don J, Yvett FC, Marshall, & Cornelius Phlegmbottom
Our early childhood experiences set the psychic stage for our adult perceptions of Self and Other and the behaviors we engage to orient and navigate those perceptions. We orient our sense of being in the world, the context of that world, and our place within it through the relational context of the family, and, in particular, the connection to our primary caregiver(s). What we learn in those early years lays the foundation for the rest of our life, for good or for ill.
Bruce Sanguin is a psychotherapist living on Denman Island, B.C. where he practices. Before taking early retirement he was a minister in a progressive church for 28 years and now works as a guide with individuals who make pilgrimages to the island (or via Skype) for intensive sessions and integration therapy with plant medicines. He is also an internationally renowned speaker in the field of evolutionary spirituality and the author of 7 acclaimed books related to evolving spirituality. His latest is Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke A Clergyman Apart and Put Him Back Together.
