The Permission Slip - S1-E1 McKenna
Matt Kosterman: Hi, my name is Matt Kosterman. I'm a 56-year-old white guy living in Chicago, Illinois. For the first 50 plus years of my life, I didn't think I was allowed to be here, not just here in Chicago, but here on earth in a body. I suffered from depression for most of my life. I smoked my first joint at age 11 and had my first drink of southern comfort straight from the bottle at age 13.
While the cannabis never really took hold as an addiction, I drank alcohol for the next 20 years, many times to excess. In 1998, I began psychotherapy, and in the year 2000 I started on antidepressants. I spent 12 years on them in 15 years in traditional talk therapy. Meanwhile, I built a successful business, became a father to two amazing girls, and rehabbed an old house in a nice suburb.
I did all the things. In 2010, I went through divorce, foreclosure, and bankruptcy fun times. After much flailing about, I got my head on straight in 2015, only to begin experiencing severe chronic pelvic pain along with fibromyalgia. I spent nearly three years in the western medical system trying desperately to heal in 2018.
Out of money and out of patience. My healing journey really kicked into gear after my first magic mushroom trip. The years since have been an amazing and challenging ride. I've traversed the physical and not so physical worlds and been fortunate to work with many, many talented healers. As a result of all my efforts, I now find myself in a place of receiving contentment and prosperity, the likes of which had alluded me for most of my life.
There's a man named Darrell Anka, who channels a being called Bahar. Bahar describes the process of engaging with a healer that, of giving yourself what is essentially a permission slip to move towards wholeness healing and right relationship. This podcast is an effort to share some of what I've learned and introduce you to some of the people in ways that literally gave me what feels like my permission slip for existence.
It's also an effort to continue to spread the word that the traditional western medical system, while effective for a great many things, is not necessarily the be all, end all solution to every health problem. Especially when the problem may be more spiritual than it is physical, as it was in my case.
Thanks for joining me. I hope you enjoy it. Please like, subscribe and do all the social media things that help spread the word, share these links with people directly in your community. It is my sincere hope that you and others will benefit from my experiences.
I'm here today with Renee LaValley McKenna, who, uh, is a trained psychotherapist Yes. But doesn't practice as one per se. Um, we've worked together for, I just looked the last two and a half years. Mm-hmm. It goes quickly and, uh, I am, I'm inviting guests on the show, uh, who have helped me in my journey, uh, to, uh, uh, hire consciousness to.
Right relationship, whatever you want to call it, uh, over the last several years. So I'm gonna turn it over to you, Renee, just to tell me, tell us a little bit about yourself and, uh, your background. 
Renee McKenna: So my passion and now my life work is to help other people to have the same healing and transformation that I've experienced in my own life.
And there's a bunch of modalities gathered together that I call spiritual psychology, which is my work, which is how we connected through my mentorship program and, and as a client and, excuse me. Hmm. I came to this work. I like to say I, I did enough therapy that I eventually just became a therapist. Um, my history is anxiety, depression, fear, and a huge range of addictions and dysfunctions early in my life.
So I was pretty much a train wreck, certainly on the inside. I mean, the outside at different times looked okay, depends what timeframe you're looking at. But, uh, as back as early as I can remember, I was filled with anxiety and this kind of just existential dread and insecurity about the world. And that fueled lots of different addictions, trying to medicate those feelings of existential angst, drugs and alcohol, boys and food, um, sex, drugs, rock and roll, you know, that whole kind of.
Street corner kid lifestyle, petty criminal. I really went into the dark side, um, kind of deeply, which actually I found can be a portal. There's a backdoor that leads you back into the light. So when I was, uh, I mean I've had lots of different, what I would call it, bottoms in my life that led to different transformations.
But the big one when was when I was 23 years old and got sober from drugs and alcohol. And that really started a spiritual quest for me when I realized I really thought there was a right algorithm of like, lose the right amount of weight, get the right job, find the right guy, find the right combination of cocaine and vodka that like I wouldn't black out and throw up.
And you know, I thought there really was an algorithm and there wasn't. And, um. And that it was really at its essence, a spiritual issue. Um, an internal issue with my own unresolved emotional issues and my own really emotional and psychological underdevelopment. And so that's been the path of seeking and experiencing and finding these, a lot of them rooted in ancient traditions of wisdom, of how to live as a healthy, productive, fulfilled, joyful human being.
And so that's, um, what I've spent the last 37 years doing, um, since I was, but 23. Right? Yeah. 
Matt Kosterman: So you talked about getting sober at, at, uh, age 23. What, what was the catalyst? What was the impetus for that? What finally tipped it? 
Renee McKenna: So it was actually what I would call a grace of God experience. I if you didn't use drugs and alcohol, I didn't want anything to do with you.
We had nothing in common. I was a barroom drinker. I was a wild party girl. And, um, I was, uh, my life was actually saved by this woman who was working in this job that I was in who had been watching me, like wear the same clothes the next day on Friday that I had on Thursday and, and see me coming in on Monday when I couldn't find my car.
And she just watched me be a wreck and try to hold it together and observed it from her own life. And she said to me, I think you might be a drug addict and an alcoholic. And I was like, what? Like no one ever, we didn't talk about stuff like that in the bar room I was drinking. And so, uh, she ped my curiosity and told me her own story and.
That was my entrance into 12 step recovery, um, which has been a lifelong progression. And simultaneously I needed to be in really doing a lot of inner work and therapy and um, and deep burst spiritual practices, which has been the expansion of all that. But it started with when the bleeding stopped with me realizing basically that drugs and alcohol was a lie.
Like I really believed that there was a right algorithm. And I was introduced to this idea that like, no, that's actually all NA lie. It's not gonna bring you where you wanna go. And it's actually stopping those things that you think are holding you together, which seems completely counterintuitive and even terrifying without a lot of support, that there's actually much more deeper, grounded, trustworthy, um, ways to live.
Because that was a whole lifestyle, drugs and alcohol and boys and, you know, it was all, um, and I needed to change, you know, and I didn't know how to change up to that point. Change for me was, you know, stopping the Atkins diet and doing some other diet. It was stopping drinking vodka and trying wine coolers.
It was breaking up with my married boyfriend and dating some other guy who only had a girlfriend. You know, that was changed for me. It was lateral. Like sometimes they call that switching seats on the Titanic. It's all going down, right? So this was, uh, how to actually change that I could be different.
That I could not only behave different, but feel different, think different, relate with people in a different way. That I could actually grow and heal and change and that. Was a revelation to me. I really didn't know what I know now of the depth and breadth of healing and change that's possible. In fact, I, I probably don't know what's possible, but I know more than I did then.
Matt Kosterman: Yeah, it's beautiful. So was it, uh, were you, were you done, was that, were you done when you started 12 Step? Was it over the drinking? Did you It 
Renee McKenna: was, it was a radical. I went from like, facing this direction. I heard the truth and the truth was that the outside, I was trying to fix the outside to fix the inside and it wasn't working.
That was obvious. And when I got told, oh, you can fix the inside and the outside will change. Which is a ancient truth spoken in many, many different ways. Right, for sure. Um, I mean, in the, in the gnostic gospels, in the gospel of Thomas, it's quoted as saying What is within you? If you bring it out, it will save you.
Mm-hmm. What is within you, if you do not bring it out, it will destroy you. Which is a different, you know, and so mm-hmm. But I didn't know how to look inside. I mean, now I understand that life can be a hero's journey and that we are the metaphor of that hero's quest. That the dragon is actually our own unresolved emotional issues.
That the jewels, that the dragon and hodes in the cave are actually our own higher self and, and the best things that we're here to bring for the benefit of the village, and that we're also the hero that needs to go into the dragons lair. And face, either calm or depends. If you're a eastern or a western person in the west, we kill the dragon in the east.
They make friends with the face, friends with the dragon and have the dragon actually in service of you. Um, and so, and as heroes or heroines, we get a lot heroes and heroines in the ancient traditions get a lot of spiritual help. Athena might bring you some stuff, or the earth beings, or you know, however Ancestral helps spiritual, helps help beyond, um, our ordinary, limited, rational, conscious mind.
And the experience for me, experience of that woman coming to me after a four day Coke run with, you know, like, you know, just a lot of craziness happening in my life, um, was like the perfect person at the perfect moment to tell me the perfect thing. And I, I realized. I don't know if I realized it at that moment, but certainly it wasn't too long looking back that I realized that I had always believed that there was some universal force or a God or whatever, but I didn't think he cared about me.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that there was actually a personal thing, paying attention to me, that I felt like sent, sent this woman. Like it was just this weird thing and it was actually beneficial to her to help me. And, and it, again, it was a whole like, um, kind of like, I think what happens for some people when they get cancer and they get miraculously healed from it or some, it was a real spiritual experience.
Um, it didn't feel that dramatic at the time, but I look back and, and my life had been going in this direction, really looking for that algorithm, and then it was like, and then was completely turned and I've never. I haven't been clean and sober since that day, but I have, uh, never really turned back because, you know, I'm a pretty, no.
Can I swear on this? Of course you 
Matt Kosterman: can. That's my podcast. Okay. 
Renee McKenna: I'm kind of a no bullshit person, and so I really like, I, you know, I, I like shortcuts. I'm like, show me the money. I wanna know what's real. Right? And it wasn't, it was like my very first interactions with spiritual principles, with people that were actually being deeply honest and doing this hero's journey of trying to really heal themselves of incredible courage to face their unresolved stuff, to take self responsibility, to, to move forward, to be of benefit to other people.
Like all that stuff felt really good. It was just a body felt feeling, whereas like, do do another line of Coke, honey, let's get a hotel room. Like that didn't feel so good. I mean, it felt good in the moment, but like the next day it didn't. And this had, I mean, it's, it is, but you know, I'll, I'll quote, not that I'm a biblical person, but there's a lot of good stuff in there, you know?
Mm-hmm. By their fruits, you shall know them. Like, how does it feel in your body? Right. And that's, that's what I tell people in the spiritual psychology work. Like, I'm not here to sell anything to you. I'm here to offer these things. If they feel like they're helpful to you, then there's a ton of tools and, you know, work that we can do and you can do on your own or we can do together.
To help yourself grow and heal. And not just, my work, of course, is infinite work. Right. But it depends on, it isn't about buying something someone's selling you. It's how does it feel? That's the ultimate template 
Matt Kosterman: and how yeah, how does it feel in your body and, and and how does it land? And, and, uh, that's been my journey as well.
But it was interesting 'cause I didn't, I was so disconnected from my body that I had no idea how anything felt in my body. So it's, uh, you know, and I, I found you after quite a lot of, uh, uh, psychedelic medicine work and body work and, and whatnot. I don't, I don't, you know, I don't know that I could have gotten where I've gotten, you know, everything happens in the order that it happens.
Of course. And so, uh, it, it's, it, you know, what, what you're saying is also my lived experience, uh, of my work with you is that especially, I mean, just the origin story of this podcast, you know, we were on the phone, we had a session, uh. Week or two ago. And, and you suggested that I start this podcast, and as you suggested that I started to get tingles throughout my body and, and you encouraged me to feel into it, and I did.
And it became almost overwhelming, uh, an affirmation that this was something that I needed to do. I don't know where it's gonna go. I have, I have no idea. Uh, all I know is that I'm taking a step and, and, and doing it, uh, because I felt it in my body. Uh, it's been an idea in my head for a long time, some, some way to, to bring forward all of these things that I've been so, uh, blessed, these different modalities that I've been so blessed to experience.
Um, but this was in my body. There was absolutely no denying it. 
Renee McKenna: Well, it's an interesting thing because that, that's the jewels, right? Yeah. There's these, there's these things that. We don't even necessarily know, although they're usually not a shark that like we might be good at, that might be beneficial to others.
Because for me, I mean that is the, that's the real wisdom of a completely understanding the whole hero's journey is that, you know, the hero. There's some kind of a problem, usually some kind of a monster. And then we have to solve the problem or else everybody's gonna get killed in the village. 
Matt Kosterman: Sometimes more than one monster, 
Renee McKenna: there's often more than one monster, right?
And so. We need to face that somebody, the hero has to be willing to face the monster in order to, you know, bring peace back to the village. But there's usually some kind of a treasure that the monster is hoarding. And I mean, we can look at Lord of the Rings. We can look at, you know, there's a lot of 
Matt Kosterman: our word just, 
Renee McKenna: yeah, those, the really the epic.
The epic. And then there's of course the ancient ones, right? And so, you know, understanding that the jewels aren't just for us and that we don't take these quests by ourself. And, um, and so it's so beautiful. Like these are, it's through our own healing work. And we have a very similar story, and I think this is true for most people through our own healing work.
And we can see how our experience can benefit others. And that brings it into a full circle beyond just myself feeling better. And there's this whole other level that happens when I can shut start to share. What I've experienced with other people. Now, you don't have to be a practitioner and you don't have to have a podcast to do that.
You can do it with your friends. We do it together, and it's through an interaction that this came just like that's always happened for me. Um, self-help work can only bring us so far, and then we need to work with other people. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah, I mean, I, what's, what's really become clear to me in the last year and a half is, is how much we heal in community because of, so much of my journey has been on my own, doing my own deep work.
And that's all, that's all great. But, uh, and, and I shouldn't say all. I went through the whole landmark curriculum and um, uh, some other, uh, the meadows, but, uh. But then, like you said, you have to bring it into the world. And even through, I I, I started writing a couple of years ago, sort of a journaling of my past.
I got to a certain point, I got stuck. Still gonna work past that. But even through that, I know that there was some, a friend of mine who came to realize that he had a drinking problem. And, uh, and by, you know, just reading that and somebody else, I think it's, it, it's so interesting. And I, I suffered from this as well.
I thought, first of all, I thought everything in my life was the way everybody else's was. That it was totally like, normal and fine. Mm-hmm. You know, sort of like the algorithm, but like, it if I just make a little bit more money or get a little bit nicer house or whatever. Um, but then when you start to bring these things out in the world, people are like, oh, oh, you mean it's not perfect?
I mean.
Renee McKenna: I have to insert this so there's a little, I forget what they're called. It's not an anagram for fine, which is the word the letters stand for something. 
Matt Kosterman: Acronym. Yeah, yeah, 
Renee McKenna: yeah. An acronym. Thank you. Fine. Stands for fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. 
Renee McKenna: Um, yeah. And most people are fine.
Absolutely. And that might be normal, but it's not what's possible. 
Matt Kosterman: Totally. Yeah. And, and, and the perfection is actually, it, it really, it all is perfect. It's just not the perfect that people think the movies would make it. You know, that you've got, you know, I had this perfect life in the suburbs with two children and two cars and my own business, and I made a ton of money and I was miserable.
Renee McKenna: Right. Many absolutely 
Matt Kosterman: miserable. 
Renee McKenna: I call that being a prisoner of a privileged life. Yeah. Yeah. And I've had that experience, uh, later in my journey as well. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. 
Renee McKenna: Um, again. Digging down deeper into, I like my favorite poet, David White says that there's a conversational nature of reality. I wish I could do accents.
'cause his accents. I know. 
Matt Kosterman: It's, it's, it's amazing. 
Renee McKenna: You know, and there's what we want from life and then there's what life wants from us. Yeah. Right. And to open to that. And, and I like to say that, you know, my soul doesn't give a shit what my ego thinks. Right. It really doesn't care. Doesn't care level.
Right. That, that's really where the goods, 
Matt Kosterman: yeah. 
Renee McKenna: The meat, the, that's 
Matt Kosterman: from, uh, that's from what to remember on waking, I believe, isn't it that the D? The C No, I've 
Renee McKenna: heard it many. I've heard it many places. So wherever it came, nothing's 
Matt Kosterman: original, you know? Yeah. No, I just mean the David. Yeah. The David White, the conversational, 
Renee McKenna: I think it was Krista Tippi being that I heard him say, but I'm.
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. So tell, tell me, tell me more about, so you, you all, you got to this, you got to this similar place, you'd gotten clean and sober and, and things were going along, but then you just mentioned that you got to this place where, uh, maybe got a little too enamored with materialism or what was the, what was the next sort of stage?
Renee McKenna: Well, so that wasn't the next stage. Um, that was a later stage if you want it in stages. So I continued to be really dysfunctional. I mean, I wasn't drinking and drugging anymore. I wasn't abusing myself with food, but my relationship life was a wreck. I'm codependent. I had sex and love addiction, I, whatever you wanna call it, like co addiction.
Um, and so I married this really handsome, um, very charming pathological liar. So, um, that was interesting and. Ended in divorce in bankruptcy court and me really needing to go deeper. A whole bunch of things kind of fell apart when I was in my late twenties. Um, my father married a kind of a crazy person and our relationship fell apart and, and a lot of everybody started to fall apart around me.
And I, I was suffering again. And I didn't want, you know, drugs and alcohol wasn't a solution. It was when I discovered meditation and I discovered because I was desperate, like, I'll try anything. And, and I again still like trying to fix the outside to fix the inside and the in and the direction was to go in and to find peace with him and first, and so I discovered te Han I discovered meditation and or was, was dragged to meditation, we could say.
Um, because I did kind of take. I would almost call it a vow that I don't ever wanna do drugs and alcohol again. So I've never taken psych meds. I've never taken, um, anything that's mood of mind altering since I was 24 years old. Um. And because I just, for myself, there's nothing wrong with it. I have tons of friends on psych meds and I, I work with people that use, but just for myself, I believe that there's a natural way that just feels like that's my, and that whatever the dis-ease is that I have, I'm very interested now.
I just had a knee replacement, you know, I mean, I, I believe in modern medicine, you know, I, I'm not, you know, I eat meat. I'm not, you know, I'm not, everything's not organic or, you know, but anyway, that's me. Um, so, and when you say 
Matt Kosterman: psychic, you, you're talking psychotropics and psychedelics? Both. 
Renee McKenna: Any of it. I've just, and I've, I've, I've made that question to myself over and over again, and my question to my own deeper self about also myself as particularly now as a teacher.
Mm-hmm. Um, what's my role? There's plenty of people. I mean, we, I had a big conversation with myself and my business partner about whether or not we should include psychedelics in this secondary organization we have called Open Door Growth and, and, um, and decided there's enough people doing that. And really, you know, for myself, and it is the truth of my own path, that any way you can get with the drugs, you can get without the drugs.
And so I feel like that's, that's my work is to offer that to people. You know, we all put in a couple pennies into the fountain and, um, and those are my pennies. So. So the work, you know, my personal growth work has continued to expand into different areas of my life, uh, where they're suffering and wherever people are suffering, that's where they need to do their work first.
You know, when I, when I first got sober, uh, I went, I went to a food addicts meeting. I went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I went to a, a, a meeting for drinking. And then I said to the lady who had happened to be, uh, a street prostitute for a long time, and I had been thinking about sex work because I wasn't too good at holding the nine to five anymore with my drinking.
And I said to her, I was there like, some sex thing that you could do is she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that in good time. Pick the one that will kill you first. 
Matt Kosterman: Mm-hmm. 
Renee McKenna: Like you said, there's an order of operations for each of us of healing. Just like when we cut ourself, you know, a, a deep cut. Like there's all these stages of what happens, you know, for the healing.
To come to completion, and they happen in an order. Your skin doesn't start to form itself, reform itself until the inner, um, muscles and tissues and, and the capillaries are reconnected anyway, we don't need to go into that. There, there's, 
Matt Kosterman: there's an intel, there's an intelligence at work. There's 
Renee McKenna: deep intelligence.
Deep intelligence, and we can trust that. And it's kind of, some of them are, I mean, there may be some general suggestions, but, but ultimately it is kind of individual for each person. So, um, you know, I came here with a lot of bags and I'm still unpacking and I, um, and so it was like, what's the things that are the most, what's, what's, what's the sta what's the smoking gun?
Or the, actually no, it was like, what's the burning fuse on the bomb 
Matt Kosterman: to the, that needs 
Renee McKenna: to be be, you know, decompressed first, and then we'll start to deal with the more collateral things. So. First for me it was really drugs, alcohol, food, the things I was abusing myself with on a daily basis that were numbing me so much that I couldn't actually do any inner work or be effective in the world.
Matt Kosterman: Right, because you were disconnected from your body. 
Renee McKenna: I was so disconnected. I was literally like unconscious or um, and or depressed in bed because of over my overeating and bulimia and all that pattern. So all that had to stop first and then to start to work with some of the more, maybe not so subtle things that were like my relationship issues, my attachment to emotionally available people, unavailable people emotionally unavailable at that point.
Now I have emotionally available, but. That, that was something that was causing incredible suffering in my life. And actually, you know, it's all a big system and the relationship issues often, you know, led me back to drinking and drugging and, and 'cause then you had pain. I wanted to medicate. So the next big stage for me was relational recovery and, uh, relational healing and really shifting, again, another level of facing myself and ultimately taking responsibility, um, for all the circumstances of my life.
That was the next level. Like, whoa, like I was not a victim of my first husband, although, you know, I could give you a long list of things and you might feel really sad for me about them, but I picked him. There had been other guys who wanted to marry me, right? But I picked that one. 
Matt Kosterman: There was a choice. Was there was choice?
Was a choice, was it for. 
Renee McKenna: And, and, and that was a revelation to me in a way to move out of being a victim of these circumstances and to really take self responsibility and not in a self facing way, but to really ask myself like, what's that about? Like why, what is, why am I picking emotionally unavailable people?
And really, the answer, the simple answer was because I was emotionally unavailable myself. Yeah. And when I became willing to become what I wanted to receive, that became kind of the next level of revelation for me. That water does seek its own level. It's when I started to experience or seek out these more.
I guess esoteric traditions and metaphysics and different things in consciousness of really understanding in a broader way what's happening here as a human and how to be more successful at it. 'cause I wasn't doing a great job, um, of being successful, 
Matt Kosterman: being human. A 
Renee McKenna: lot of failure. Lot of failure and failure is underrated.
You know, failure. Failure is really good information lets us know that we're not knocking on the right door. So it's all, it's all learning. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a lot of learning about what I don't want, what I don't want, what I don't want, what I don't want, what doesn't work, what doesn't work, what doesn't work.
And which ultimately led, um, and through a lot of it, through the Buddhist practice with Tik Han, I had a really wonderful opportunity. In the late nineties to go on a three week retreat with Han and all of the monks and nuns from Plum Village at the University of Vermont. Yeah. They wrote a book out of that retreat called Path With a Heart and um, and to be with the monks and nuns of Plum Village for three weeks.
And they owned two robes, two pairs of shoes and a bowl. And they didn't even have hair. They shaved their hair off. And I'm, I'm into hair. You know, you ain't taking my myself. 
Matt Kosterman: I mean, careful, careful. 
Renee McKenna: I know, I know, I know. We all have our own things, man. So, and they were happy. I mean, not all the time, you know, I, you know, they had their issues, so whatever.
But they were happy. And I was like, wait a minute, they're celibate. What the hell is that about? You know, they have none of the stuff that our culture tells us. We need to have to be happy. Right. They didn't have a relationship. They didn't have a house, they didn't have a career, they didn't have beauty, they didn't have 
Matt Kosterman: stuff.
They didn't, they didn't have beauty, they didn't have beauty products 
Renee McKenna: as far as like, just, you know, they weren't, yeah, they didn't have fashion. They didn't have fancy hair and makeup and, um, and so yeah, that was a real eyeopener for me. And I, I started to really question all these ideas and I had already had a failed marriage and bankruptcy and blah, blah, blah, you know, all that.
Yeah. So, yeah, so I actually came home from that retreat and it wasn't right away. I had to have another failed relationship, you know? But anyway, I'm a slow learner. And, uh, and I came home and it was the first time, 'cause I've done it twice now, that I, um, I gave away or sold all my stuff and I moved into a room in somebody's house and I started meditate every day and just really ask the universe, uh, what do you want from me?
I had been telling the universe what I wanted from it, but what do you want from me? Yeah. Um, and surrendered in a way I had never surrendered. Um, in the 12 steps. The third step is that we turn our life and our will over to the care of God as we understand God. Mm-hmm. Um, and so that was a, that was a real, real turning point for me to be willing to let go of my ideas about relationship, about money, about prosperity, about success, and, and to, because I hadn't been, I wasn't happy.
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Yeah. And, and in your case you, you, you did it somewhat willingly. Uh, and, and I had the experience of doing all that against my will with divorce, foreclosure, and bankruptcy, and down to, you know, my clothes and my stereo 
Renee McKenna: and what happened for you. 
Matt Kosterman: And it all turned around. 
Renee McKenna: Mm-hmm. 
Matt Kosterman: But not right away.
Renee McKenna: No loss is, loss and pain are underrated as, as, as catalysts for change. Yeah. 
Matt Kosterman: And it doesn't, it, it doesn't have, you know, it doesn't have to be that way. As, again, this sort of juxtaposition, I've had a, a, a, a medicine path. You, you, you've not, you had a, I've done some meditation and, but you, you willingly sold off all your things.
I've I've definitely considered it. I was forced into it. So, you know, e everybody's gonna get there in, in, in a different way. There's, there's a, there's a right people as there are, there's many paths as there are people I. 
Renee McKenna: But the deeper, and people don't like this, but the deeper cycle of change is that in order to have something new, we need to let go of the old.
Yeah. Now, nothing that's of value won't return to us. Anything we really need will return to us. But my experience over and over is that I often clinging to the things that I most need to release. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Mm-hmm. 
Renee McKenna: And, um, and it is in total release that we, I, I almost look at it like a puzzle that's put together wrong and, and it, all the pieces need to be pulled apart in order for it to be put together back in the right way.
Um, and, and it can be an excruciating process. I mean, I think it's actually the teaching. It is the deepest teaching of the Christian myth, which is the death and rebirth, um, experience. Although we could, there's a whole other, I just, actually, I'm gonna share this because I just actually heard, uh, you know, I'm a student of consciousness and particularly very interested in finding the words that go with this experiential kind of non-rational Yeah.
Realm, which is where most of the actual work happens. And I saw this system recently that was talking about enlightenment or the higher stages of consciousness on this plane. And they said that the Christian, um, teaching of consciousness, like the Christ consciousness teaches enlightenment through martyrdom.
And the Bic system is actually more elevated than that because it teaches that enlightenment, um, without mardo. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, yeah, that's with 
Renee McKenna: service to others. Service to others, yeah. 
Matt Kosterman: And yeah. And, and the course that I'm enrolled in now, uh, we had one of the teachers was Jorge Ferre, uh, around comparative mysticism.
And we, we touched into, we touched into that, you know, like, is there an ultimate truth? Is there an ultimate reality? The perennial list would have you think that there is, that there's, there's one place that we're all going, whereas people like Ferre, the Contextualist say that it's all, it's, it's, it, it's totally, um, diverse.
Depends on, on what you bring to the table and your, your life experiences, et cetera. That there's, you know, you get into fem feminism and, you know, it's, it's a very, it's the perennial lists are very, very, uh, uh, patriarchal. And it's, it's a, it's a man's world and it's, uh, you know, the ultimate father, et cetera.
I'm, whereas the contextualist bring in women's voices and indigenous voices and, you know, every, it's a different experience and a different path for everybody. 
Renee McKenna: Uh, we definitely all have a unique and different path. The truth that does feel like the great or the higher teaching here is that we're all connected.
Mm-hmm. That everything is interconnected and I think that it is our sense of separation that caught that is the root of most suffering. Again, I'm very biblical today, but like Adam and Eve is, is is the original creation myth of the Western world, or at least of the Abrahamic traditions. And you know, the story of Adam and Eve really is a story of separation from.
Source, um, from that unification, separation from source. Exactly. So, and that is the root of the suffering, how they make sense of it, I think is a little distorted. But, um, so how we experience that, what that means, where we go with that, that is what's unique for each of us. But I think that that is the path to fulfillment, enjoy and connection.
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. And, and I, and I love that you introduced in, in the, the mentorship, which I was a part of for about a half a year. The, um, and I'm gonna at some point throw it up on the screen here, but, uh, David Hawkins' work and, and 'cause you talked about the algorithm earlier with drugs and alcohol, and that's not really the algorithm that gets you anywhere except down and, uh Right, 
Renee McKenna: right.
That's a destructive algorithm that's suppressing the authentic self. Yeah. Yeah. And, 
Matt Kosterman: and the map of consciousness, um, uh, of, uh, of, of Hawkins is, is, is, uh, marvelous and. I, I, I just love the way that you had brought it into the work, um, to, because again, I, you know, I love a map as well. It's the map's not the territory, but, uh, it's a beautiful metaphor for the journey.
Renee McKenna: It is. I think it's a really helpful, do you wanna throw it up now so we can talk about it a little bit? 
Matt Kosterman: Lemme see if I can, uh,
Renee McKenna: do you have the pretty colored ones I made or did you, do you have the David one with all the, I have the one 
Matt Kosterman: that you made. I'm not sure. 
Renee McKenna: Either one's fine. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah, no, I have it here. I'm not sure if I have the right settings for, um, for Chrome here. Let's, we can always edit.
Renee McKenna: We're at 37 
Matt Kosterman: minutes. Yeah. Yeah. It wants me to, um. It wants, I gotta quit Chrome and come back in. So that's not gonna work. Okay. 
Renee McKenna: Nevermind. Alright, so you'll have to edit out a little Yeah. 
Matt Kosterman: And I'll out. So, um, let's, let's circle back around. Beautiful, beautiful journey. Amazing. I can relate to, to much of it.
Um, how you work. We'll, we'll, we'll skip all the part where you, you went through a lot of schooling, I assume be between the, the hard knocks of life and then formal schooling to get a degree as a, as a counselor, as a therapist. 
Renee McKenna: I did, yeah. Yeah. I, I, um, so on the other side of that, 
Matt Kosterman: I'm gonna just talk about how, how you work, how you work with people and what, what it looks like for people to, to engage with you and, and, and work together, either directly or through your work that you've put out.
You have so much, so, so many resources for people. It's amazing. 
Renee McKenna: Great. Okay. So we can, I, you know, it's a great little story though. So on the other side of that, like mm-hmm. Churning everything over to God, um, a bunch of serendipity happened and I was, and I realized I had been asking the universe, like, show me my work.
I had read the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey, which was an really also a life-changing book. And, um, and so out of all that, I ended up coming to California. I got accepted to a graduate school that I really loved that doesn't exist anymore. It's kind of sad. Um, it's a sister school to the California Institute of INS in Integral Studies, um, in San Francisco.
The school I went to was called JFK University. Anyway, just closed over COVID. Very sad. But um, and I discovered, I went in there actually as a somatic practitioner and I ended up changing into the transpersonal psychology training program because I just loved it and. To work my way through graduate school.
I, so I had been cleaning houses for a long time at the end of like four failed businesses and. I just had to make money to pay my rent. And I started cleaning houses and I found out I loved it. And people, I came from hoarding people. So cleaning houses had this also opportunity for me to learn how to care for things and be in beautiful spaces.
And, um, it was really therapeutic for me internally. And people paid me really good money and was super appreciative. I'd never felt so appreciated in a job. So I cleaned houses for over 10 years and I did it when I came to California and I was cleaning house for this lady to work my way through graduate school.
And she said, I'm a therapist. I'm actually a hypnotherapist. I said, oh, that's interesting. And, you know, so we started to trade work. I would clean her house and she would gimme sessions and she, about a year into that, started, um, a school. Which exists today. And she was my teacher, her named Dr. Issa Chardi, and she has an organization called The Foundation of the Sacred Stream in Berkeley.
And we originally met in her basement, but, and so I started to train and like myself where I am today. She had experienced this work. She became a practitioner and she eventually passed it on to other people. And so I started this really potent dynamic work that's a blend of Buddhist philosophy and hypnotherapy and, and shamonic traditions.
Um, concurrently with going to graduate school. And so, you know, the unfortunate thing about a lot of psych programs is that they don't, there are some, if they're super directed, how, tell you how to practice with people. Mm-hmm. A lot of them don't, they, you practical, a range of things. Right. And, and I had these incredibly potent, practical tools and so I, I was practicing with people while I was still in graduate school and because it was just this kind of rogue program, I made my own practicum basically.
So I saw our clients for about a year and a half. I saw people, anybody who would sit with me, I would do work with them out in the lawn and it Starbucks and in my car, and was just doing this incredible work of soul retrieval and connecting with spirit in really direct ways and negative energy extraction and things that are just these, again, ancient practices that have been developed for a more modern psyche.
That are incredibly transformative and concurrent with that, I was also a client. And so there was, which is how I teach people today, which is that we embody this work. The best is not intellectual knowledge, it's actually experiential. And then you have this body sense of what you can pass on to other people that is inarguable.
So through that I started to see clients and to do this work, which I'm just completely in love with this work. And you know, when you find the things that you love, and I think we all have things we love, whether it's walking dogs or planting flowers or building houses or writing code, or this singing.
You know, everybody has things that they love and doing them is our joy. Whether you make money from them or not. That's, I, I think in some ways that's secondary. It's optimal if you can. But we're often good at more than one thing. Um, but doing what we love and loving what we do, that is I think, the best life.
And certainly it's the life I live and I've been living it for a while. Yeah. And so, yeah. Um, so I started to practice and the practice, I mean, very, very practically how spiritual psychology sessions look is. We address the intellect, our understanding. We talk about what the issues are, what people's sufferings are.
'cause that's how, how we conceptualize it, how we communicate it with ourself and other people. And, and through those we come to an agreement on what it is we're gonna work on. Because talking about things. Doesn't necessarily change them. There is a place for talk therapy. I did it a lot. Even being able to talk about, like I, you can talk about that.
Like, I didn't know you could do that. Right. Like that was like a revelation to me that you could even say that stuff. And 
Matt Kosterman: the quiet part, you could say it out loud. 
Renee McKenna: Yeah. Like, whoa. So that was a shark that I could bring what was inside, outside and that, and that could save me. Right. But there's only so much that that does, it doesn't actually change.
Understanding things don't change it. I like to say it's like expecting my brain to digest my food or expecting my lungs to pump my blood. Like, like there's different systems we have that have different functions. They all work together. And so we have our rational self, which is really, really important.
But we have our non-rational self, not the irrational, the non-rational self, which is our emotions, our body felt experience, our kinesthetic or energetic experience, um, our relationality, which is actually where most of our life experience lies. And it's also where most of our dysfunction and our wounding lies.
Mm-hmm. So, not that there's not mental dysfunction, but that's, that's actually not what we're talking about. My experience is when you can work and heal, when you water the root of the tree, the whole tree is healthy when you can get to the root of the problem, which is almost always in the non-rational experience.
Yeah. Then the other, the narratives and the other dysfunctions will unravel themself over time. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah, for sure. That's been my experience in working with you. 
Renee McKenna: So they're talking about it and then there's actually doing the work, which looks like a guided meditation. I call them inner journeys. It's just we have so much available to us if we just relax.
All the wisdom traditions tell us, they all say the same thing. They all say Stop it. They say, be quiet. 
Matt Kosterman: Just like Bob Newhart. Right. 
Renee McKenna: Let go. They all say the same thing and we're all No, no. There's gotta be things to do. 
I 
Matt Kosterman: know. I know. Yeah. 
Renee McKenna: When we can just, you know, be quiet and it doesn't even have to take, it's not complicated.
I don't do a lot of woo woo stuff like, come into your body. Everything you need to know is right there. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have these really amazing, potent tools, uh, which are found in many, many traditions. That we can actually, we don't need a shaman or a doctor or someone else to do those for us.
We're in a place of our evolution, many of us anyway, where we need to learn to do these things for ourself. We need to take self responsibility and be able to do them for other people. And so, so I basically am a navigator of people's own wisdom. Um, I come with the hero. I'm not the hero. I'm more like Jimmy Cricket that tells them where to go.
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. And I'm just gonna pause 'cause that's, that's sort of the, also the, the tie into the name of the podcast is the permission slip. There's a, a man who channels a, a non-physical entity called Bashar. And he says all of these healing modalities that you all are out there seeking, they're all just permission slips, permission slips to heal, to change something within yourself.
So, how, what, whatever, whether it's your work or other, you know, another practitioners, whatever resonates in whatever you, wherever you can hear. Oh, I'm allowed. I'm good enough. I can do this. 
Renee McKenna: Yeah. And sometimes we might need other people to tell us that. Yeah. Sometimes we might need other people to even force us into that.
Um, you know, self-esteem and worthiness, um, are often, much later developments for people. It's often just out of pain and desperation that, that were brought to try anything Yeah. To feel better. And then ultimately, I mean, it comes different for different people. Right. But 
Matt Kosterman: yeah. Well, what, what did they say?
Like, you, you either the the, the pain of staying where you are becomes greater than the pain of trying something new. Yes. The fear. 
Renee McKenna: Yes, yes, yes. The fear of staying 
Matt Kosterman: doesn't have to be that way, but very often it works that way. 
Renee McKenna: It doesn't have to, but the unknown. To shift perspective from the unknown being a terrifying dark place where we only see the worst case scenario into a place of creativity and possibility, co creativity.
Um, that is, that's a shift of what some might call faith. I'm not really a big faith person. Again, I'm a show me the money person, but, um. And we get, we can get back to the, to the unseen scale of consciousness from do I view the world from a place of shame and guilt, or from a place of fear and anxiety and depression, right?
Or a place of anger and judgment. Or do I view the world from a place of self responsibility and acceptance or love and joy or peace and unity? I mean, those are all worldviews of glasses that we can see. Any circumstance. And I'll just refer back because we, we mentioned it earlier and there's a lot of, Abraham Hicks has a scale.
Um, Frederick Dodson has a scale, David Hawk. They all kind of point to this idea, different models, but the idea that we can incrementally elevate our perspective, our consciousness, and it changes our, not just our experience, but our reality. 
Matt Kosterman: Our reality. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and back to this again, I, I was bringing it back to the body.
You can often do that mentally. You think you're doing it mentally and, and you are, but it, it takes the body. I had, uh, a wonderful practitioner out, Wes share this with me years ago when I was stuck. The body is the densest piece. It's the, it's the densest thing. And it takes time to acclimate. It takes time to come along.
Uh, as people have realizations, as they clear things out of their consciousness, uh, as they discover that you can actually say these things out loud, the body may still hold fear. And so whatever you can do to support your body and your nervous system through whatever work you choose, do it. 
Renee McKenna: Yes.
Absolutely. They, the common thing now is they say, our issues are in our tissues. Yeah, 
Matt Kosterman: yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. 
Renee McKenna: And there's often more in there than even what the intellect wants to acknowledge. And that's, well again, there's a feedback loop, right? And it's unique to each person. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Yeah. So you caring the 
Renee McKenna: whole physical, mental, spiritual, emotional unit is, is that's the care, right?
Caring, being willing to care for ourself is the huge turning point. I think that word is a beautiful word for me. Care. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. And, and you know, it's, uh, this concept you hear a lot about, you know, self love and, and it really comes down to that. Loving yourself. And it, it, it, you know, we, we, we didn't get a manual.
We generally, in society, we're not taught, we're not taught that we're taught to look out El elsewhere, but it, it, it comes down to, you know, it's telling yourself you love it, caring for it, taking, you know, taking baths, going for walks, whatever it looks like that you're, that. 
Renee McKenna: Well, so there's an interesting thing.
You know, I think I kind of see this perspective that you're talking about of, of, um, where we are challenged and, and where each of us grow. And there is a uniqueness to it, and I kind of see it as a triangle. Um, and, and again, it comes through, it's very biblical today. So it comes through the, the golden rule or, um, I think it's called, it's, it's beyond the golden rule that to.
Love God to love others and to love yourself. So love the Lord thy God with all the heart and soul, and love and love others as you love The self, I think is the, mm-hmm. One of translations of that, right? So that triangle of God self. Others, most people have places where they're highly developed on that and comfortable with it and places where they're not, and it's different for different people.
If you're a narcissistic person, there's a total focus on the solve and a and a. Realization of the other, inability to see the other, ought to see God. Right? And for the Uber fundamentalist religion person, everything's about God. You'll see a lot of self abuse and perhaps even abuse of others in service of this idea of the ultimate God.
Right? And then there's people, and I know this was certainly, and many healers experience this, that, that very other focused at the expense of myself and not really a lot of trust in God. 'cause everything's human, right? Yeah. And so the growth optimally is in those areas that we have deficit. And so, and the last one for me has been to care for myself.
That's fine. Actually, it was through the willingness to care about others and kind of a natural leaning toward, I mean, I experienced spirit through nature. Mm-hmm. Um, so it was a natural leaning and the experience of, of connection and relief and wisdom that I, that I find in the natural world, those grew very naturally for me.
Um, and, and that was where the other piece, like again, wherever the suffering is, that will be the next place to grow. Um, so it was a long, it was a long road for me before I got to self love, just to say that, uh, it used to actually even be a little bit averse to that, but being willing to love anybody in that triangle will get you started.
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Um. So what, what, what, what advice would you give to somebody who's stuck? They're stuck in a job and a relationship and an addiction. They're stuck in life. Where, where, where to begin? 
Renee McKenna: Oh, that's an interesting question. So the two things that I would say is look at what hurts.
Look at what hurts. And if you are numb. Well, so if you are identifying yourself as stuck, there's some dis-ease happening. Mm-hmm. Right. Even if it's in the numbness, if it's in the lack of what's happening. Because often what's not happening in life can be as devastating as what is happening. You don't have to have, I mean, I, I'm kind of a dramatic person, so I was like, you know.
Guns and police and like cra you know, blah. Like, it was a little violent and crazy for me. It wasn't a lot of guns, but there was a few hanging around. So, you know, uh, like that. But I kind of like that. That's my cowboy thing. Right. But I have also experienced, when we mentioned it, like being a prisoner of a privileged life of having two kids, two dogs, two houses, two cars, two of fucking everything.
I just got back from Europe and I wanted to die. Mm. And it was, and it was like, well, what's that about? 
Matt Kosterman: Mm. And it's 
Renee McKenna: because there were things that weren't happening. It was what was not I, what I wasn't engaging in what I wasn't experiencing, what I was under being in my own life. So to be willing to look within yourself, to, um, really it starts with a willingness to become unstuck.
Because if I'm stuck. It's, it's, I'm, I have my feet dug into the ground, even if I don't know it. And I mean, this is a hard question, but what am I unwilling to let go of would be the very first question and probably the very first things that come up for you. I'm not saying they have to go away, uh, but you might be required to let go and loosen your grip on those and look at it.
So if it's your marriage or your job or your kids, or you, the way you look or the way you relate with money or your relationship with drugs and alcohol, um, the thing that you most think you don't wanna give up the bad news is I would encourage you to at least try to become willing to loosen it up. Um, again, that cycle of.
We hold things in place and we feel victimized. Like, why am I stuck? And we actually, you know, if we're in a cage, we always have the keys. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
Renee McKenna: So I think that, you know, and, um, there's so much amazing work available. It is, it is infinite. And, um, ask the universe for help. Ask God for help. Ask your own higher self for help.
Absolutely. Whatever. Ask for wisdom, ask for things to be obvious. Ask for help, um, because, 
Matt Kosterman: and expect it. 
Renee McKenna: And pay attention to what comes because this is an interactive universe and we erroneously think we have to pull ourself up by our own bootstraps. And if you actually think about that, it's impossible to do that.
Yeah, right. So, so being willing and open, um, to something different, that's the requirement. Like, if you do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, you're gonna get the same thing. I have to be willing to go, to have things be different if I want things to be different. It, it's, it's, it's kind of a loop, but it's a, it sounds 
Matt Kosterman: chronological, but it's Right, 
Renee McKenna: right, right, right.
And nothing changes if nothing changes. So I have to be willing 
Matt Kosterman: What's to, what's, what's the sound of one hand clapping? 
Renee McKenna: Exactly. So I have to be willing for things actually to change. That's the essence that starts the fire is a willingness, how that unfolds. You know, again, there's so many people, I mean, my work is wonderful.
You are gonna introduce people into all these other really brilliant practitioners, many of which have had the opportunity to meet through you, you know, of all these different keys for the lock. 
Matt Kosterman: Right. But it starts with, 
Renee McKenna: it starts with really honesty with our self and willingness to just look. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Yeah.
I love that. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Well, thank you Renee, so much. I'm gonna, uh, have, wherever I put the links and all of this kind of thing, they will be there to, to find you and your work. Uh, that's been so helpful in my life. Um, I've really enjoyed our relationship and, uh, and I respect you a great deal.
And thank you for being here today, 
Renee McKenna: Matt. It's a privilege to be part of your process and, um, and many blessings on this work that you, uh, have experienced and are gonna bring out to others. I'm just so excited. 
Matt Kosterman: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. 
Renee McKenna: Thank you. 
Matt Kosterman: Alright, till next time.