In this episode, I’m sitting down with Brendan Caldwell, a Licensed Professional Counselor, Natural Medicine Clinical Facilitator, psychedelic guide, and educator who has spent years working with psychedelic care, altered states, and trauma-informed practice.

I first came to know Brendan through the Medicinal Mindfulness Academy, where he taught in a way that helped me understand what is actually happening in the brain when we take psilocybin mushrooms.

We talk about psilocybin, psilocin, serotonin, the 5-HT2A receptor, and what may be changing in the brain during a psychedelic experience. Brendan also has a background in neuroscience research and I love the way he can explain complicated ideas in a way that still feels relatively easy to follow.

You can find Brendan's website here : www.astertherapy.me

Email: brendan@astertherapy.me

His published research papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rHbd-eUAAAAJ

Happy listening!

Thanks for listening! To stay connected, follow us on Instagram @themakarandamethod and @eleanor.evans.medina

Visit our website: www.themakarandamethod.com

About Eleanor Evans Medina:
Eleanor Evans Medina is a nature-based therapist, death doula, and beekeeper who calls herself a daughter of the Earth. She started The Makaranda Method in 2018, and her work brings people back into relationship with the Earth and with themselves through somatics and earth-based ceremony. Whether she is with someone one-on-one, in a group, or on retreat, what she is really after is helping people feel free, settled, and at home in their own lives.

What can it look like to heal anxiety and OCD? In this episode, Eleanor sits down with Amelie Rey, a natural medicine facilitator, to talk about what healing can look like when you go beyond talk therapy and work with natural medicines.

Amelie shares her story openly, including where she started, what wasn't working, and how intentional work with psychedelic-assisted therapy, somatic practices, meditation and our method changed the trajectory of her life and her work. She and Eleanor are building a practice rooted in the Colorado Natural Medicine Health Act that brings together natural medicine facilitation, somatic and nature-based healing.

If you or someone you love has been living with anxiety or OCD and wondering whether there's something more than what conventional therapy has offered you, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

Amelie talks about her personal experience with anxiety and what led her to psychedelic-assisted therapy. She walks through what somatic work is and why the body matters so much in mental health healing. She explains briefly what natural medicine facilitation can looks like in practice under Colorado's Natural Medicine Health Act, and how the four pillars in The Makaranda Method supports lasting change. She and Eleanor also touch on what they're building together and why they believe this approach offers real hope for people who feel stuck.

You can contact Amelie at amelie@themakarandamethod.com

Thanks for listening! To stay connected, follow us on Instagram @themakarandamethod and @eleanor.evans.medina

Visit our website: www.themakarandamethod.com

About Eleanor Evans Medina:
Eleanor Evans Medina is a nature-based therapist, death doula, and beekeeper who calls herself a daughter of the Earth. She started The Makaranda Method in 2018, and her work brings people back into relationship with the Earth and with themselves through somatics and earth-based ceremony. Whether she is with someone one-on-one, in a group, or on retreat, what she is really after is helping people feel free, settled, and at home in their own lives.

In this episode I sit down with my friend and lawyer Josh Kappel, one of the co-authors of the Natural Medicine Health Act, for an honest conversation about psychedelic therapy and the law around psychedelic therapy in Colorado.

We talk about what the Natural Medicine Health Act is, the difference between staying in personal use and becoming a licensed facilitator, where Spirit and Earth can sit inside a clinical frame, and what the latest psychedelic studies and federal developments mean for practitioners on the ground.

About my guest

Josh Kappel is a founding partner of Vicente LLP law firm and one of the co-authors of Colorado's Proposition 122, the Natural Medicine Health Act, the first state law in the country to create a regulated access model for psychedelic therapy alongside decriminalized personal use. He chaired the Natural Medicine Colorado campaign, was named a 2025 Lawyer of the Year by Law Week Colorado, and continues to shape psychedelic and cannabis policy, including recent work on safe ibogaine access in Colorado.

Resources and links

• Josh Kappel and Vicente LLP: https://vicentellp.com
• Reach Josh by email: j.kappel@vicentellp.com
• The Makaranda Method: https://themakarandamethod.com
• Work with me: https://themakarandamethod.clientsecure.me
• Free meditations on Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/eleanorevansmedina
• Chacruna Institute and the Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative: https://chacruna.net

If this conversation spoke to you, I would love to hear from you. You can find me and the rest of my work at www.themakarandamethod.com

If you found this podcast supportive in any way, please share it with one person who needs to hear it.

Thanks for listening! To stay connected, follow us on Instagram @themakarandamethod and @eleanor.evans.medina

Visit our website: www.themakarandamethod.com

About Eleanor Evans Medina:
Eleanor Evans Medina is a nature-based therapist, death doula, and beekeeper who calls herself a daughter of the Earth. She started The Makaranda Method in 2018, and her work brings people back into relationship with the Earth and with themselves through somatics and earth-based ceremony. Whether she is with someone one-on-one, in a group, or on retreat, what she is really after is helping people feel free, settled, and at home in their own lives.