070 - Jemie Sae Koo: Healing Depression with Plant Medicine
Welcome, dear listeners. Today I’m welcoming a pioneering force in the world of psychedelic-assisted therapy, Jemie Sae Koo.
Jemie is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Psychable, the most comprehensive online community dedicated to educating and connecting those interested in legally exploring psychedelic-assisted therapy with practitioners who can support them.
In this conversation, we move through the thresholds that Jemie traversed as she went from a successful yet unfulfilling career in startups to creating a business that is her soul’s purpose. We also explore the cyclical nature of healing, what different healing paths look like, and where plant medicine may or may not be supportive along someone’s journey away from depression and into a fully integrated life.
Tune in to learn more about:
Jemie’s quantum leap with with depression and plant medicine
How being stuck in a comparison trap cuts us off from true alignment with ourselves
The intersection between integration and embodiment in our day-to-day lives
Why Jemie created Psychable and how it supports those who desire to engage with plant medicine
Connect with Sarah:
Connect with Jemie:
Join the Psychable Community
Check out Jemie’s courses HERE (affiliate link)
Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:05]
Hello welcome, I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, the podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us. Hello and welcome to Threshold Moments.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:41]
Today we have Jemie Sae Koo who is the founder of Psychable, which is like Yelp for psychedelics. Today, Jamie shares her story of starting with a childhood in which their first place that they could call home was a legal garage. That her first bed that she remembers was a carpet. That there were many, many challenging, trying things in life and that it set her up in many ways to be a very self reliant, focused, high achieving woman who reached accolades that people would dream of, who had life experiences that people would dream of and hit a point where illness and a collapse of sorts LED her to. And actually, she doesn't say it this in this interview, but I've heard it in others that she had never used substances of any sort before and LED her to her first psychedelic experience which transformed her life and changed to never having depression again.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:02]
The story is beautiful, Jamie's presence is strong, is clear. The new path that she's laying out for people who are interested in diving deeper into their journey with depression or wanting to live a full life is now unfolding within her work. I have a link in the bio. It is an affiliate link and I would love to say that before I did the interview and all the way through till the end, the interview was done not knowing that there would be an affiliate link. So everything you hear me saying, the enthusiasm you hear from me is all very authentic in this.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:46]
I don't share many of my own experiences. We keep it very much more centered on Jamie, but I do think that this work is extremely powerful for shaking up our current reality and helping us wake up to a life of greater possibilities and those possibilities being ones that are in higher alignment with ourselves. Without further ado, here is Jemie Sae Koo. Welcome to Threshold Moments. My name is Sarah TC and today we have with us Jemie Sae Koo.
Sarah Tacy [00:03:34]
Jamie was formerly a corporate executive with more than 15 years of experience. She has spent her career as a serial entrepreneur scaling multiple well known startups. She has also LED initiatives and developed campaigns for Fortune Global 500 companies. Jamie is now the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Sycopol, the most comprehensive online community dedicated to educating and connecting those interested in legally exploring psychedelic assisted therapy with practitioners who can support them. Jamie has her Master's degree in the field of psychology, specializing in Gestalt and psychedelic assisted therapy. She blends her deep knowledge of healing symptoms of root causes with therapy, nutrition, detox energy, and body work. Welcome.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:04:32] Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:33]
I want to say to the listeners that Jamie so kindly sent me her BIOS and there was a short one and a long 1 and when I read the long one I was like Oh my God, like you have done a lot in your life and like really big things.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:04:50]
It seems like I lived multiple lives already.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:53]
Yes, and as the interview goes on, we will get more and more into current time. And I might also name for the listeners where we first met since I don't know if this is a practice that is helpful for the listeners, but I tend to do it, which was at Kate Northrop's 40th birthday. We sat next to each other and you are a brand new Mama and I think it was your first night out away from the baby and you just looked into my eyes and I may, I don't know if I started crying immediately. I'm just like thinking of the moment now. And I was like, I often think that I am the space holder or a space holder.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:42]
But the depth from where you listen and the broadness of your heart hold from me like my most vulnerable moments. And they were held with such care and I just feel like we didn't leave each other for the whole night. Afterwards there was dancing and I love to dance and I'm like, I'm good, I'm ready to go home. I had a.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:06:08]
Complete night. You know, what was so interesting too, is that, you know, I was sort of making my way to the tables and everyone at that point had already grabbed a seat. And so I, I didn't see any seats left. And the only seat that was open was next to you, Sarah.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:26]
No choice.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:06:28]
That was like universe was like, Nope, you're going to sit right there.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:31]
This woman who you do not know, but we'll soon know, Yes. Yeah.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:06:36]
I think the moment I locked eyes of you, I'm like, this is going to be a good night.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:42]
And it was, and I learned a bit about you that night and I was excited to have you on today because we haven't seen each other since then. So that's been a year and a half. I think I maybe sent a few texts last time I was in Miami and it didn't work out to meet up. And I love the work you do, as I understand it, as was described in the bio with psychable. And I'm wondering if you can take us through the threshold that brought you from working these multiple startups and starting something that was small and making it big, something that sounds like it must have taken many hours and a lot of effort and focus. What brought you from that place into this world in which you've created something that is So what seems like from your heart and your soul's purpose?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:07:39]
Thank you. Thank you for naming all of that. Yeah, I think where I want to start is just really giving gratitude to plant medicine. And the way I found plant medicine was through my own healing journey. And I think what's really important to also bring into context is the why.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:08:07]
Why I crossed paths with plant medicine, why I was on a healing journey. So I had a pretty tumultuous childhood growing up. My father was an alcoholic and he was incredibly abusive on all levels. And at the age of nine, he was taken away by the police because I disobeyed him. And I ended up going to church with my mom.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:08:39]
And so that was a very pivotal moment where I all of a sudden found myself as the second parent to my 2 younger brothers. My mom at that time was working four to five jobs just to make ends meet. We grew up really, really bored. Our first phone was a legally converted garage. My first bed I could even recall was a used torn up carpet and we really didn't know where our next meal was going to come from.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:09:10]
So I really had to grow up very quickly and I don't feel like I really had a childhood per SE. And while that was really challenging and that felt very much like my norm, it fared me well in terms of going into my 20s, right? I, it gave me a lot developed a lot of character within me of the, the, the attributes of responsibility, accountability, living in integrity, doing the things that I will say that I would do, being very conscientious of money and of achieving so that my family would never be in the same situation again. And so that fared me well. Going into my 20s, I found myself experiencing different levels of success in corporate environments and nonprofit environments and startup environments.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:10:07]
I often times found myself as the only woman in executive boardrooms and really felt like I could. Whatever I did and put my mind towards, I can, I can achieve. It doesn't matter if I was a woman or not. And I started really playing into a place where I was like, I'm just as good. I'm just as capable as a man. And so I started playing more into that role. And as I started playing more into that role, I, at that time I had experienced, you know, climbed up that corporate ladder, made the money, lived in that luxury complex, you know, everything of what societal metrics of success looked like. And at that point, I was, I found myself as an executive in a consulting firm. I was in that role for about two years at that point. I didn't ever take a break.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:11:14]
I didn't have lunch. I felt invincible. I didn't go to any doctor's appointments. And two years in, I decided I wanted to just take a vacation. And that was to Cuba. At that time. When I got to Cuba, all of a sudden my body completely shut down, like I hadn't had a had time or space to rest. I was just running, I was hustling. I was, you know, just taking on the world, right? And so I found my body completely shutting down.
[00:11:45] I had all types of mysterious symptoms come up for me. I had this cough that wouldn't resolve. It turned into bronchitis. And then my hair started falling out. I was waking mid and middle 9 pulse sweat. I had eventually gotten home and this all of this was coming out and I developed brain fog where I couldn't even formulate a sentence anymore. And you know, I, I've had this thing where I was pretty much depressed all my life, right? Even as I was, as I was a child, I, I really felt that depression, but I was sort of resolved where I was this high functioning depressive person and I was resolved that depression was going to be my norm. And so when these symptoms came up for me, I ended up plummeting into the depths of depression to where I couldn't will myself. I couldn't push myself through it anymore.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:12:42]
And because I come from an Asian culture, we are taught to really suffer in silence, not really speak about anything that could possibly bring shame unto ourselves, unto our families and to our community. And so my own mother didn't even know what I was going through. I was in the pits of hell depression at that time. And it was to a point where I lost all sense of purpose to life. And I quite frankly didn't see the reason to continue living.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:13:13]
I was, I, I remember telling myself like, I've already, I've already experienced success and you know what societal things that I should, you know, accomplish. I travel pretty much anywhere I've in the world I've ever wanted to travel to. I've ate at all the best restaurants, all the Michelin restaurants I've ever wanted to like, what else is there to live for? And that was a very pivotal moment because out of the blue, in a span of a week, I had two people in different parts of my life call me up randomly out of the blue. And in that conversation with those two individuals separately, they both brought up how plant medicine, specifically ayahuasca for them, was so transformative for them.
[00:14:01]
And I remember getting off the second call, really thinking to myself, like, why is this thing called ayahuasca coming into my field twice in a week? And it was that inquiry that led me jumping down the rabbit hole of researching everything I could about a psychedelics, plant medicine, ayahuasca. And during that time, this was like almost eight years ago, it was still so early around plant medicine and psychedelics. I mean, it's still like wild, Wild West, you know, even today, but it's more on the zeitgeist. But back in the day, I remember fighting a blog article on like Geocities and it was talking about how somebody, you know, died, potentially died during Ayahuasca.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:14:48]
And, and it was, it was because they, they like walked off of a Cliff. It wasn't that they died drinking the medicine. It was that they weren't kept in a safe container. Either way. I, I didn't know much of it. I was just like, wow, this is really dangerous. And this feels really on the fringe. And I've never even really heard about this thing other than watching it on National Geographic featuring these war veterans that went into the jungles of the Amazon. And I remember that time just being so incredibly judgmental and all types of stigmas and beliefs came forward around that for me. And so I was like, this is this sounds really crazy.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:15:24]
This sounds really out there. And, but I had this conversation with myself around, you know, I, I've exhausted all my option. I, I've been on all types of SSRIs at that point since I was preteen, none which worked for me. I've been on all types of diets, all types of, you know, whatever you want to call it. I, I've tried it.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:15:44]
I've even been on 40 different types of supplements in at one point and nothing had worked for me. So, and so I there was, there was a really pivotal moment where I was having this conversation with myself and really asking myself what's coming up for me around plant medicine. And it was fear, fear of the unknown, fear of death. And as I was having this conversation with myself, another part of me came in and said, well, Jamie, what's on the other side of fear? What's on the other side of death?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:16:20]
And the word freedom came through. And when the word freedom came through, it just rained through my entire body and I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is a whole F yes moment. Two days later, I jumped on a flight to Costa Rica where I sat with ayahuasca for four nights. And it literally saved my life. It lifted me out of my depression for the first time in my life of dealing with depression for at least a good over 3 decades.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:16:47]
And I came out of that experience feeling this duality of joy and anger. Anger of why it took me this long to access this medicine and why I had all of these fears and beliefs and narratives in place that prevented me from, from, from finding this. And, and then joy of like, wow, this is what it feels like to not feel depressed. And, and it gave me this renewed sense of purpose back in my life that in everything that I do is to be in service of humanity and an ultimate service to the highest source. And so that is where I derive all of my motivation, my energy, my effort and that's everything that I pour into psychable as well as my private practice, which I support coaching our clients and our students so.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:48]
Incredible. And I, I want to go into the ayahuasca piece more, but before we do that, there was this part that stuck out to me about, I don't know if you would put it under like chronic low grade or just like a chronic high functioning depression. One thing I might point out is I remember the first thing I learned in psychology 101 was that chart they show you. Maybe I should look up the name of it. I just remember seeing it and like, whoa.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:19]
And it shows how if you just keep going, your body tends to keep going with you. But the moment you finally rest, it's like, hey, I'm not an alarm anymore. And it's so wild that we could be an alarm for 20 years and how normal it is actually that when somebody who is in what's called like global high intensity activation takes that first break instead of being like finally vacation, that's when the system drops. And everything that hasn't been able to be processed and digested, it's like, here I am.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:19:00]
Just want that just.
Sarah Tacy [00:19:03]
Want it to rest, which is so interesting because so many people when they work with me, the hardest thing sometimes is the idea of slowing down. It feels like, and often it is that as we slow down, the things that were buried begin to show themselves and the things we didn't have capacity to be with start to come forward. And the other thing that I was hearing is when we have something chronic, we become very used to it, as you said. And it's like, OK, I can, I can live this way. I can do this in bodywork.
Sarah Tacy [00:19:42]
Thomas Hannah, who I believe wrote his work either in the 50s or the 70s, had this thing about sensory motor amnesia and this idea that when something becomes chronic, we get a low grade pain because it's constantly on, but we also become numb to it. So we can't just go like, oh, you're on, I'm going to exhale and relax. So what happens? What his work would say is can we voluntarily override the involuntary? So if the involuntary at the chronic place when the volume gets turned up on what you've learned how to tolerate, that is when we kind of hit a point of like, oh, now.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:28]
Now I'm going to come face to face with this thing. And for him, it's like once, like once you engage that part that was involuntarily engaged, then it can release. And so I feel like that point where suddenly it went from, I can handle this to I can't handle this. This is not worth living. And then the ayahuasca for me that just, I don't know why it feels important to we doubt that like the water is getting hotter.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:58]
It's getting hotter. I can to like it's boiling and I need to get out of this. It feels big because I think that people can probably notice times in their own life where suddenly you wake up and you look in the mirror and you're like, this is not manageable anymore. And the other point that felt really important in your story was the like, I've done everything society says life is worth living for, and I'm not happy. Yes, that's a big.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:21:30]
Moment. Yes, in psychology, we call that introjections. It's like the metaphor that let's say, you know, you got your new apartment, it's your space. But all of a sudden your mom comes in and says you need that couch in that corner. And your dad comes in and says you need that dining table in the middle of that room.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:21:49]
And all of a sudden it doesn't become your space. You just you're, you're allowing all of these other people and all these other noise and narratives to come in, which may or may not be true for you, but you don't know that for.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:04]
Yourself. And when it happens in small, tolerable pieces, I feel like that's when one could suddenly wake up one day and be like, wait, whose house am I in? But I think I did say yes to all these things. What? I definitely have had these moments and it's not a one and done for me like it happens multiple times or I'm like OK recalibration needed. What really feels true for me and what does not?
Sarah Tacy [00:22:34]
I find that when the outside world looks really beautiful and everyone could say you're so lucky, and on the inside it doesn't feel like that. I recently walked by a tree that had fallen down and the whole inside of it was rotted. So from the outside, people probably wouldn't think this is a tree we need to cut down, it might fall over. And I saw that and I was like, I think I've felt that way before, right? Like on the outside it looked really good and on the inside was like needing some serious nutrition.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:23:07]
What's coming up for me and this, this idea of one, keeping up with the Joneses and two, the constant comparison of ourselves to others, right? And that we live in in this digital age with social media and all that stuff. It's so easy for us to get caught up in this constant comparison. Oh, so and so is doing this or Oh my gosh, look at their life and how come I can't have that or I want that or where you really don't know behind the lens what their life actually is. It can also be very hollow.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:23:39]
It could also be feel really empty. And they, they're, they have a lot of their own crosses that they're burying, right. So oftentimes we, we see the sort of the grass greener on the other side, but yet it's, it's really like, you know, so important to remember, like we are here to live a life of our own that feels in alignment with our soul and our spirit. And we are all here to do whatever it is that our soul has been called here to do. And it is our path and our path alone, right.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:24:13]
And so when I, when I work with clients, oftentimes the way I approach them is I see them as a whole person and it's really meeting them where they're AT and really allowing them to get back in touch with their own bodies. Intelligence, that innate wisdom and allowing that to come through. Because oftentimes we're, we're just so constantly disconnecting ourselves from our body. We're so disconnected with so many of the other invisible forces at play. You know, I was that I was that high achiever who like was just like touting, Oh, I have a high threshold for pain and I can push through anything.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:24:53]
And that person's able to do that. I'm going to do, I'm going to meet him there too. And I can go further, you know, beyond, beyond where he can go, right. And so constantly pushing my body to the point, to the brink of no return. And, and then after a while, this avatar of pretending of who I think I want to be and who I'm like striving, comparing myself to be, gets tired and it's saying and, and then all of a sudden the body catches up and saying and, and screaming, No, this is not the lives for me.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:25:30]
This is not like I'm too tired to play this avatar anymore. I have to allow myself and my true authentic part to come forward, right? And so that that whole process, I often times compare it to the saying of breakdown to breakthrough. So it was just an entire breakdown process in order for me to get to a place of breakthrough so that I can finally be in alignment with my soul and my spirit.
Sarah Tacy [00:26:08]
Is there anything that you want to say about the journeys themselves, or do you want to speak more about the integration?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:26:17]
Well, I think those two things come hand in hand, right? And so when I first had my encounter with plat medicine, specifically with ayahuasca, I didn't know what I didn't know. And there was so much of kind of feeling my way through it, even though it was like a full F yes, like I got to do this. Now that I look back, I, if you look at it from a metaphorical perspective, it's like going to a swimming pool, not knowing how to swim and going all the way to the deep end of the pool and diving right head in. And so while I don't regret how things unfolded around that, now that I've been like, you know, eight years into this work, I know a lot more now than I knew back then.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:27:11]
And that is the importance around the two bookends of the experience, which is the preparation, really being able to prepare yourself to be intentional, to be on the proper dietta knowing what you are trying to call into your life, knowing how to protect yourself, being discerning of who you work with, of who you share the ceremony or the space or the container with all the way to the integration, which is, you know, it's not just the talk therapy component which that can serve. It's part it, but it is a part. But I really assert that you can do all the talk therapy you want, but if your body's in constant inflammation, are you really fully able to heal? Integration becomes the embodiment, the embodiment of our day-to-day lives. It's coming out of that survival mode to, yes, trying to be normal again.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:28:18]
But then from that being normal again to now having that ability to thrive in your life. Right. And what does that thriving look like? But that comes with really attending to the mind, the body, the soul, and the spirit and really approaching integration in a very holistic, integral way, right? You're looking at restful sleep, nutrition, body energy, work, talk therapy, clean air, clean water, detoxing metals, detoxing parasites, environmental toxins out of your body, reducing that inflammation in your body, doing a whole audit in your house.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:29:02]
If anything, that's toxic, that could be potentially leaching into your body, reducing EMF, electromagnetic frequency around you, right? Because that can cause all types of havoc. Now we're into the 4G, the 5G stress management. We know that stress kills. Like that's so cliche, but truly, how are we managing the stress in our lives?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:29:23]
How are we managing our mindset and the and the narratives that keep running in our background, right? How are we being discerning of who we allow ourselves to be surrounded with, right? What energies, healthy digestion, right? Ensuring that you're opening up that drainage pathways and really being able to move your bowels at least one to three times a day, right? Optimizing your breath, really learning how to correctly breathe, and then also deploying certain breath work techniques that can really help you not only achieve the transformation you're looking for.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:30:01]
And it can actually be as potent and as transformative and powerful as working with plant medicine. And then really how do you then increase your energy and be more into that flow and more alignment in your life? So these are the 12 principles and the foundations of what I teach to my students and my clients around what integration means. And also how do we really start healing and resourcing ourselves in today's modern world that is integration
Sarah Tacy [00:30:33]
As I hear that, I could imagine like, Oh my gosh, that's a lot to do, That's a lot to fix. And also, if I fixed all those things, would I have needed the journey in the 1st place? That sounds like a full healing regiment. And I wonder if the journey itself is what motivates people to stick with going down the path of really looking at all twelve of those things and assessing their life from all of those perspectives. Does that make sense?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:31:08]
The way I would say that is, you know, psychedelics, first of all is not for everyone, but psychedelics slash plant medicine done in a Safeway with a lot of integrity can be a really big reset, right? It's a reset. And what I'd like to metaphorically compare it to, it's like, it's like cleaning out the cobwebs in your mind and your body and having A and when you have that reset, then it's clearing out and creating space for new habits, for new behaviors, for new lifestyle shifts to come in. Because if we're constantly running in this, right, when you do, you talk a lot about nervous system, right? And often times our nervous system, it's just without even having an awareness, it's in that sympathetic state of fight or flight. And it's just this like constant humming machine going on and you're not even aware of it. Right. Really. We're really good at talking about what we don't want in our lives. Yeah, I know I don't want this pain. I know I don't want. I don't want the stress I don't want. I don't want. I don't, I don't, I don't, you know, but it's what am I calling into my life? What am I stepping?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:32:30]
What is the life that I want to step into? And then how do you resource the nervous system into that parasympathetic state to allow the body to start to heal?
Sarah Tacy [00:32:39]
Yeah. I don't know if this is my Gemini nature. I don't know if this comes up for me all the time or like, oh, and the picture of like sympathetic or parasympathetic is there's a part of me that wants to highlight that there there's a cycle Poly vagal way in which like we want sympathetic and we want parasympathetic. And because for so long in our culture we've been running so high on the sympathetic on the fight or flight, or we can be really in the dorsal vagal, which is part of the parasympathetic where we're in freeze. It's like, I think I'm fine.
Sarah Tacy [00:33:18]
I think I'm neutral. I think nothing bothers me. But actually it's like suppress, suppress, suppress so that I'm not a burden to anybody. And as we wake up to more of who we are, and as you were saying, like not just through toxicology or nervous system work, that this could be through the environment we're in, the people we choose to be around, the food we're taking in, the toxins around us. That we begin to have this range where we can have fast health, where we can run a business.
Sarah Tacy [00:33:50]
Or if something's going sideways in the business that we can have some of that sympathetic kick in where we are able to stand up for ourselves and have a boundary, but we're still in our bodies. So when I think of nervous system, I think sometimes it's makes people really comfortable to look at things from a scientific perspective, nervous system on or off, I can get on board with that. But if we were to think of nervous system as the embodiment of our spirit and our whole body responding through the fluids, through the chemistry, through the electricity to the states around us and within us, then we're really talking about a state of being. And for me, I just want to highlight that there can be really slow health. There can be medium health, there can be fast health.
Sarah Tacy [00:34:41]
And that is not necessarily that we all need to like rest and not go back to having speed. But if we're having speed that don't like it's, it starts to look more like a wave or like a tide that both are there and present and capable. And I may have just gone off on a tangent, but I wanted to add that in to honor because sometimes I think shame can be added to the conversation if it's like we want to move in this direction, like just to the parasympathetic and to suggest that there's, there's health, there's so much health that can be had. And I know you know this, I'm just saying it out loud that there's so much health that can be had. If I were to think of like a surfer or somebody in the courtroom or like, can I can, can I be so in my body and have the parasympathetic and the sympathetic and I'd be in a deep conversation where there's like a lot of mental, you know, things going on and still be in my body.
Sarah Tacy [00:35:42]
So the question then keeps coming, as you can hear is like, can I still? Can I be in my body and have various speeds in my life and various intensities? From slow and relaxed on the couch with somebody I love and feeling safe to be slow and held, to feeling capable enough to be in a boardroom as a female doing what I know I can do.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:08]
Yeah. I think so much of what you say is just you really as facilitators, guides and practitioners is really meeting, meeting people where they're at and going it at their case. Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:36:22]
Yeah.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:23]
Yeah, some people need to take some baby steps. Some people want to take quantum leaps and want to do it all, like give it to me all I want to do the detox, I want to do the nutrition, I want to get recipes. Other people are like, I just want to be able to like take a shower at this point. It's a French. It's a French, you know, so everyone's on their own paths, everyone's on their own respective paths.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:51]
And so, you know, I think the biggest thing about this work, you know, how I even got into it was also to, you know, this is very much a lived experience. You know, this is about my own healing journey. And one thing I didn't name was all of these symptoms that came up for me was an, an autoimmune condition. Specifically, it was Hashimoto's and I was pretty much given what I felt was a, was a death sentence from the doctors in the white coat saying you know, you're, you're always going to live with this and there is no cure and you're going to be dependent on medication for the rest of your life. And I remember the weight of that diagnosis.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:37:39]
And it was like all of a sudden I was in, in prison. I was in a cell and I went through so many evolutions of grieving of this death and dying process of who Jamie used to be and what normal used to be for me. And to this like sick, ailing person that was just like in a washing machine that can get out of it. And then and then with the support of plant medicine and psychedelics, having that huge reset. And then two years then of feeling my way through the dark around integration work and then realizing, oh, OK, all of the 12 principles that I name is are the things that have really been a decade of my work of finding this has been so effective in healing my body.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:38:39]
That all the toxins and the chemicals that I was just like completely unaware of through my shampoo, through my makeup, through the, the food that I'm eating, whatever that was all of a sudden came into my awareness, all of a sudden changed my consciousness of, oh, this is years of accumulating this gunk and the stuff in my body that I thought I was completely immune to that I was just like this, whatever my body can handle it, you know, like I just didn't even have consciousness around that. And, and now then being able to support clients and seeing the transformer transformative results, seeing them coming out of their depression, seeing them come out of their physical or mental ailments because they're able to finally come into this awareness. It's incredibly powerful. And you know, with or without psychedelics, you can still achieve your healing, you can still achieve a life of normalcy, you can still achieve a life of, of thriving and, and having that hope. So this is, this work is really shifting that paradigm.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:39:53]
It's shifting that paradigm from going from the weight of the doctor's diagnosis to being the CEO of your body, the CEO of your health, having that consciousness, having that hope, having that belief. Coming out of that limiting beliefs to then being self empowered, right? Having the tools and the skills, knowing that there is everything out there that nature has provided already, to be able to really heal and support your body so that you can be in more enlightenment in your life so that you can allow your soul to fully inhabit your body.
Sarah Tacy [00:40:32]
And I think you said this, and I'm going to follow up and like, I know I've heard you say it before, but after you did your four days, you said your depression disappeared. And I think you said that it has stayed away, like you haven't relapsed with it.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:40:50]
Correct. Yeah, that's incredible. And after I gave birth, even during my postpartum recovery process, no depression at all. And that's something that I had dealt with pretty much all my life since I was a child.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:09]
And I could highlight here, too, that the world has in the last, you know, especially since 2020, hasn't said like, well, it's been pretty easy. Like, there have been so many complicated things in our world. And then, yeah, you gave birth to a baby. You became a Mama. You started psychable. Is there anything you could share or want to share with us about your threshold into motherhood?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:41:37]
I think what I would it'd be helpful is if you can sort of share with me what does threshold mean to you?
Sarah Tacy [00:41:44]
In episode 2 of this podcast, I described the cycle of awareness. It makes me like a little my teacher who passed away this year, Don Stapleton. This was the premise of I could give you a really short definition, but I'm going, I'm going long here. This was the premise that he would lay out before every training. And it was this idea that we have a normal way of living and it could be your familiar hell or your familiar heaven, but it's your normal.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:21]
And then something, the next thing is interruption of norm. And the interruption, the way that I see it is like that could have been Cuba, where all the symptoms start coming in, right? For some people, it's like the way a blister forms, which is really slow friction over time. So sometimes it feels like life threw something on you or a car accident or a diagnosis. And other times it's that waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror and being like, so there's an interruption and the next phase is chaos and confusion.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:58]
And, and that is like you try to do everything you know how to do, but nothing's working. And, and these are the stages where we're now in a threshold, like there was normal life and now what was working is no longer working. And try as we might, all, all the tools, no matter how many years of spiritual development or, you know, psychology or whatever it is, all the tools that we've had aren't working. Or for a lot of people, it's just that they've learned to push through, right? I know, like if I just try harder, I'll be able to fix this.
Sarh Tacy [00:43:35]
And so the next stage then is the fertile void. And the fertile void may be the place that ayahuasca was in in the two years after. It's the place where you kind of give up on trying to be the old you. And so in motherhood too, like, I think that we can pendulate between phases and it's not always a perfect cycle. But there is, you know, that point of like, oh, I am not that old version and kind of giving, I don't want to say giving up, but letting go, surrendering sometimes out of force or out of need.
Sarah Tacy [00:44:16]
And on the other side is inspiration and then integration and then the evolved norm. And because it's a cycle, the kicker is that evolved Norm then points back to Norm. Does that make sense? So like, it's not generally A1 time cycle. It's kind of saying like, whoever you are, wherever you are, we're going to have these thresholds in life that ask us like, oh, that's so great, you've grown so much. Congratulations. And here's another interruption of Norm.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:45:00]
Yeah, you are so beautiful and articulate in that whole process. Thank you for that gift, Sarah. Wow. Yeah. So what's coming up for me in terms of the threshold into motherhood is so much right.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:45:15]
Like coming out of that Iowa's experience completely feeling like I've been lifted out of my depression. I went into this path of devotion deeply devoted to this work, to the space. And it led me to getting my master's degree in the field of psychology focused on psychedelic therapy and really falling in love with Gestalt as a modality, which is all around me. Seeing people where they're at, right? And honoring what is alive in the moment to then really incubating this whole idea around how can I solve the problems in the space when it comes to working with non ordinary states of consciousness as well as psychedelics and plant medicine and not finding a solution out there.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:46:01]
I created Psychable, which really is the Yelp, right? It's the Yelp of psychedelics and plant medicine. How do we one, first allow individuals to find practitioners to really be able to support them and meet them where they're at if they decide, if they choose to engage with plant medicine and psychedelics? How do we ensure the safety, how do we ensure the preparation and, and, and the integration work? Then it's how do we support the facilitators and the practitioners, giving them the tools to ensure the safety and the integrity of the work.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:46:36]
And then really the other bucket is around or the other tenant is around the education, the education of this work, education of psychedelics, the education of healing and of integration, right? All which we, we touched on already. But and so in birth psychable, right? I, I looked at psychable as one of like this, another baby, right? This it was really my first baby that was birth.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:47:05]
And it felt so clear in terms of the vision that came through what psychable or psychable one point O was to be and is today. And along that journey, it brought me to Miami where I met my life partner. And it was all around following and answering the call, right? That if I continue to stay in alignment with my work along the way, the universe rewards in infinite folds. And one of the infinite folds that it rewarded me was literally dropping my life partner into my life.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:47:42]
Never in a million years that I think I would ever go to Miami, let alone live in Miami. But it was interesting because two days prior to leading to the Miami trip where I met my life partner, I got this download and I was, as I was praying was pack up your house and put it in storage. And I was having this conversation with God, like what are you talking about? Like I'm just going on this trip. I'll be back.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:48:11]
And it was like, pack up your house and put it in storage. I was like, OK, I'm going to surrender. I'm going to listen and I'm going to do it. So packed up my entire house, put it in storage and off I went to Miami through a work colleague, got introduced to my life partner. And at that time it was very platonic.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:48:33]
But after several meetings, we realized something was there. And then in a few months, all of a sudden, I found myself living in Miami with my life partner. And within that year, we bought a house. And as I was in this entire process, I was also finishing up my master's degree and supporting cycle as a company and living in a new place. And then all of a sudden was in this like crazy spiritual warfare because I had unfortunately at that point had surrounded myself with some of the wrong people in the space and so had to go through that entire cleaning out process.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:49:23]
And it was an epic spiritual warfare. And in that process, found out I was pregnant. And I was like literally I had to surrender because I was completely at the brink of like, how am I going to get through all of this? How am I going to get out of this? I didn't see an end to sight.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:49:45]
And with Psychobo, it was as if somebody came in and just like took a bat and like swung it and all of a sudden this beautiful glass castle that you built with your heart and soul and spirit got shattered into a million pieces. And I'm there picking up Shard by Shard, trying to piece these things back together again while also creating a baby and literally just had to surrender and just ask for guidance from the highest source. And every day just praying in the morning. May I continue to be used in the highest service to God. How can I show up in my highest for God every single morning?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:50:34]
And just having that faith and that hope and just honoring and listening to that guidance and continuing to not only just channel into that, but like connecting with my body, intuiting into my body. What does this feel like? This decision I have to make? How does this feel in my body? Is it yes or no?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:50:59]
If it's not answering me, it's a no right now, right? So all of that and in the process also doing the detox work, also doing a parasite lens. So as I was doing a parasite lens and, and purging out all these parasites, you know, in comes this life of this baby that wants to be birth a physical baby and, and she was born, she was born on the new year. And then all of a sudden all of the spiritual warfare stuff with the wrong people got resolved. And those parasites not only left my body, they also got extracted out of my life too.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:51:40]
Parasitic people and so and so now, today, the cycle balls thriving again. And in the version of it and integrating all of the wisdoms and the teachings that I have been able to gather from my teachers and my own lived experience and feedback from my clients and students and practitioners, all of that gets embodied to what Cycle Bowl is today and what it is becoming. And that also helps support my private practice and the group work and the courses that we are launching.
Sarah Tacy [00:52:16]
I'm like a little bit giggly over here. 1 You just described something really hard, but your energy and your face around it is so lit up with joy, which is just a really beautiful sign that if in that cycle of awareness, you're in like the new evolved state of being. And when you describe the praying, let me be in the high of the highest service, it is like such a fertile void moment or moments. And yeah, the realization even I would say, of like the parasite cleanse and the way the universe works where it happens in your body but it also happens in your environment is really incredible. And so motherhood for you.
Sarah Tacy [00:53:03]
So she comes in on, is it like the Gregarian new year, January 1st, January 1st, Yeah, new beginnings. That's incredible symbolism. And then how has it been being a mother for you?
Jemie Sae Koo [00:53:21]
Thank you for asking. You know, I at some point in my life, before I met my life partner, I kind of, I kind of gave it all up. I just was like, great, if I am meant to be a mom or not, like it's OK. I whatever is in the highest service to God, like just use me, you know. And, and so, gosh, everything that I went through that I just described to you had led me to this really pivotal moment of becoming a mother and birthing this amazing soul who has chosen me as her mother, you know, and it's brought so much joy.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:54:01]
It's brought so much perspective. It brought so much peace into my life. And it's she this whole process of being a mother continues to feel the work that I do too. So she is such a source of inspiration for me while also just being able to very clearly prioritize my time, my energy, and, and be able to show up for her and really doomed to her needs and to my own right. They're, they're such beautiful teachers for us too.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:54:42]
And then also just really ensuring that we as a family myself, continue to be the embodiment of this work because we want to give her the healthiest environment possible to enable her to thrive.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:00]
Rachel Campfield's podcast just came out yesterday, and I listen to my own podcast when I go on walks, I just always like there's such medicine shared and the whatever the vibration or the frequency that comes from whatever the union is between myself and another person. And she was sharing something that felt really similar coming from a hard childhood and, and deciding like, I am going to be the author of my future and I am going to make these choices. And as she came into motherhood, her thing was like, it's not what I it's, it's not the things I check off the box as a mother for my child. It is how I'd be. And it is my presence that's going to have them feel.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:52]
And in order to have that presence, then where do I need to, it's like you were saying, prioritize for work or for self-care or for downtime or for gardening or. And that a child can be such a reminder of the importance of our nervous system. Because it's one thing sometimes. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but I think sometimes people could feel like I can, you know, I'm OK in this spider flight or I'm A. And then sometimes the child can help us.
Sarah Tacy [00:56:23]
And I know that is true for my husband and I Oh, their nervous systems are responding to ours. Oh, now self-care is doubly as important as you thought it was so that they're picking up. He's just like, if you hear your kids fighting, there's a chance that 1/2 an hour before, if there were a videotape, like something in your body gave off a signal. And not to put a ton of pressure on us, but just like gave a signal that something was not OK or possibly not safe. And their body is needing some fight outlet. And this is not a perfection thing, but it is a little added motivation for self-care, which can feel really great. Yeah.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:57:07]
And to really learn to love ourselves, to take care of ourselves, because that's, that's where it comes from, right? We really set. We set and model what that looks like for our children and for each other. I have.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:24]
Two things on my wall, right? There are a few things that just happened to be here and I'm going to I'm realizing we're at the end of the of our hour together. I was in a session as inside person doing my own work and so much of it was so similar to when you say, like, may I continue to be used for the highest service of God. And this was, you know, may I be the most effective. And I think what was surprising to me was effective for the safety of children around the planet.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:56]
And what's my next step? And I always consider myself as someone who's here to work with adults. And I was surprised when the children part came up. And, and I just really feel that the more we all do this work, that it's going to hopefully land in spreading healthier and safer spaces around the world. And I'm so glad that you're here doing the work that you're doing.
Sarah Tacy [00:58:24]
I really, really can see the light that emanates from you and the beauty that you're bringing and the way that you're able to use your past experience to create a network so that people who are listening, you can go to psychable.com. I'll have a link in the show notes. And the second part that you've heard Jamie speak about a few times, is this next edition or this like what you might say is like the most important part, that integration part to have a lot of support. So it's not just about the big experience, but where are you landing on the other side? What type of support are we getting on the other side?
Sarh Tacy [00:59:04]
So thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing in this world. And what was there was like one other thing that was in my periphery. Oh, it's this, it's this card that came up priorities. And it says the quality of your life is determined by how you spend your time. Make sure you your schedule reflects the life you want.
Sarah Tacy [00:59:29]
And it sounds like especially since motherhood, this has been up for you. And as you share that with me, at the very beginning, I thought, well, how blessed am I that I got to have be in your schedule and vice versa. I looked over at that and I was like, yeah, the quality of my life is quite good.
Jemie Sae Koo [00:59:49]
Yeah. What's coming forward? Thank you for saying all that and just really so much gratitude to you for doing your work and for this beautiful container that you're creating and that you have created. You know, I think one of the biggest things that I've been sitting with too is you're only as good as what you are willing to tolerate.
Sarah Tacy [01:00:09]
Will you say more?
Jemie Sae Koo [01:00:12]
You know, in all the choices that we make and even the people that we surround ourselves with or even the people that we work with, you know, there's so oftentimes that we bypass certain behaviors or certain things and makes excuses for other people. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're just like sitting there in the in the, in the messiness of it and you're just like feeling icky and yucky about it. And So what I mean reminding myself is you are only as good as what you're willing to tolerate. So if you decide to be this excellence and like high standard and all that, all the people around you needs to be able to support that as well, needs to also learn how to embody all of that too, right? And so we meet, we meet them with patients that they have to have this willingness and readiness and ability to do that, just like with the clients that I work with, right?
Jemie Sae Koo [01:01:03]
I always say, I just as much as you're choosing me, I'm choosing to work with you. So true. You have to have the really big deal. Yes, you have to have the readiness, willingness and want to be able to do the work because it is work. And that that's what leads me to the course that we're launching is around how to overcome depression without medication.
Jemie Sae Koo [01:01:28]
Know that nature has provided everything that you already need. And so now it's returning back to the basics, allowing for more slowness, simplicity to come forward, knowing that we now are living in today's modern world. It's a completely different world that our grandparents grew up in, that are even our parents grew up in. And so there is hope and there is access. And you do not have to be relying on medication to kill.
Jemie Sae Koo [01:02:10]
And so the two courses that I've had that I have come up with around supporting folks who are going through depression specifically, one is specifically around psychedelics and plant medicines. If you choose to go down that route, everything from how to choose the right practitioner, facilitator, retreat to how to properly prepare yourself or how to prepare for ceremony or treatment, all the way to journal intention and integration. And then if you're not called to do plant medicine and psychedelics, course two really talks to the full integration of the work, the 12 principles on really how to resource your mind, your body, your soul, your spirits, so that you can start healing the root causes and alleviate the symptoms. Depression is a symptom to a root cause, right? That's the work that we go into and that we address and, and part of that we will also be supporting through group work as well.
Jemie Sae Koo [01:03:14]
So more of that and happy to share more of that through your podcast, through the link that we'll provide, invite you to check out what we have on cycle.
Sarah Tacy [01:03:30]
Thank you so much. Thank you for spending time with us here today. As I said before, it's always such an honor to spend time with you.
Jemie Sae Koo [01:03:38]
It is a joy, it is an honor, and I'm so full of gratitude for you and to everyone who is receiving this message and for all the listeners out there, thank you, Sarah, thank you.
Sarah Tacy [01:04:05]
Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy, it's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe. And like, apparently it's wildly useful, so we could just explore what happens when you Scroll down to the bottom subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.