How professional athletes and veterans heal their brains
Read Time: 5 Minutes
“Unlock your potential and elevate your life in six minutes or less.”
Welcome to Six Minute Saturdays, my weekly newsletter where I pass along practical tips and strategies for creating a life of wealth, happiness, and freedom. Abundance is your birthright, claim it.
What you can expect today:
- The Topic: How professional athletes and veterans heal their brains
- The Tip: What successful people and a Roman Emperor have in common
- The Takeaway: It’s okay to ask for help
- The Thought: What it’s all about
- The Tribute: Thank you!
- The Top Video: I wanted to give up so bad…
Today’s Topic: How professional athletes and veterans heal their brains
Keep an open mind while reading this, I am not calling you out if this bothers you – and what I am about to talk about may blow your mind.
Remember this phrase: if you want to have a healthy tree, you can’t only treat the leaves you need to heal the root.
This is my core philosophy when it comes to healing ourselves and solving our problems.
In today’s world it seems people focus on treating the leaves.
I see this all the time. Doctors tell their patients to stack prescription drugs to mask symptoms of a deeper issue.
- “Oh you have anxiety? Surely it’s not from excessive doom scrolling and your trauma: here is a drug.”
- “Crap, now you feel a little sad? That’s not normal, let’s alter your brain chemistry and hope it goes away with another drug.”
- “Wait now you are suicidal? Oh that’s a side effect. Here, take this it will stop that.”
Do you see how this could get out of hand? Well, it has gotten out of hand.
So what are people doing to heal the root? To solve the deeper rooted problem causing all these symptoms?
Today let’s talk about two examples.
1st let’s talk about Veterans:
How often do you hear about past military veterans taking their lives? It is unfortunately all to common.
Think of the amount of pain you would feel after killing someone – god forbid a little kid in the name of your country.
This is only a glimpse of what some veterans deal with, not including losing their friends in war… or to suicide after.
Tens of thousands of veterans, and specifically members of Navy Seal teams have become advocates of one thing:
Psychedelic therapy.
Marcus Capone was a 13+ year Navy Seal vet who served in Seal Team 6 & 10 as a counter terrorism specialist.
He later founded VETS with a missions to end veteran suicide.
”At VETS, we help veterans access safe, clinically-guided psychedelic therapies. These innovative treatments are capable of addressing deep psychological and physiological scars, and therefore hold unprecedented healing potential for our nation’s heroes. We ask all Americans to join us on our mission to END veteran suicide.”
You can learn more about their mission here if you are curious:
https://vetsolutions.org/research/
Why does psychedelic therapy work? How could something so “taboo” become the face of healing veterans?
Psychedelics have been proven to heal, and reprogram or unlock our brains.
- Neurogenesis is an effect from psychedelic medicine : it allows our brain to regenerate, and heal especially if we have previously had traumatic brain injury or psychological trauma.
- Neuroplasticity is another effect from psychedelic medicine : it allows our brain to become “moldable” and learn, unlearn, or relearn patterns that lead to behavioral or even chemical changes.
Combine this with the profound healing effect emotionally, and the spiritual experience they create… and you can heal the root of problems, not only treat the leaves.
PTSD, suicidal tendencies, depression, anxiety, and many more problems are treatable with these medicines.
2nd let’s talk about Professional Athletes.
What do Mike Tyson (legendary boxer), Aaron Rodgers (NFL Quarterback), and Ian McCall (UFC Fighter) all have in common?
They have treated traumatic brain injuries, and mental illness created from the life of a professional athlete.
I listed above why this works but if you want to go deeper feel free to read this article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/19/sport/psilocybin-athletes-life-changing-injuries-psychedelics-spt-intl/index.html
This is why I am so passionate about this topic, and bringing the education and opportunity to the masses.
If you want to learn more about psychedelic medicines, join my new community!
I’ll be sharing everything I know to help people safely explore, and creating a thriving community of others talking about their experiences.
See you there!
Today’s Tip: What successful people and a Roman Emperor have in common
One thing anyone alive would agree on is that life isn’t easy.
It’s pretty Fucking hard most of the time.
Looking back on my life I, like you or anyone have had many hard experiences:
- losing my brother to drugs
- heart crushing break up
- childhood trauma and abuse
- mental health struggles
At times I’ve wanted to give up, and even take my life.
Maybe you can relate. If not you can at least agree that life can be hard, and it’s not guaranteed we reach our dreams or best life.
In fact the only guarantee is that we are born, and one day die. What we do in between is mostly up to us.
At the core we all want to accomplish our dreams, and live in a way that makes us say “fuck yeah”.
We all deep down hope to make a difference.
But theres one problem.
Everybody is trying to sell you on life hacks, and things you “need to do” in order to be successful, happy, or to get results.
From a young age I knew I was meant to do something outside of the average in my life. I have had big dreams for years.
Since then I’ve studied thousands of successful people to learn how they did it.
I also study philosophy to gain wisdom from the greatest minds of all time.
Currently I am learning from a man named Marcus Aurelius who was a Roman Emperor and philosopher.
I’ve learned a lot, but this stuck out. It is so simple it would go right over your head if you didn’t pay attention.
What is “the thing” that has allowed people to be successful?
Grit. Otherwise known as passion combined with perseverance.
Out of all the people that have walked the earth, very few have “went for it” and “made it happen”.
Of those that did, they had grit.
- They tapped into the indomitable human spirit, and persevered through tough times.
- They tapped into their passion, and channeled the drive and energy deep inside.
They were gritty as Fuck.
So, how can we develop grit?
Here’s what Marcus Aurelius said:
|
|
|
“And ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer.”
Marcus Aurelius
|
At the end of the day – what else are we going to do?
Sometimes life can get hard but theres no reason to take the cowards way out.
If we were meant to live in bliss all of the time we wouldn’t have incarnated into this human experience.
The purpose of life is to experience being a human… which if you remember we mentioned earlier isn’t always easy.
In fact being a human being is hard work.
So my message today is this:
- Remember what you are made out of.
- Remember why you came here.
- Remember that “this to shall pass” as the OG Jesus said.
Side note… not even on a religious level only pure admiration: That dude Jesus was a gangster. Strong as hell, and suffered a lot – but he was full of grit. He had passion and perseverance for himself and his cause.
There is a lot we can learn from that.
Never forget: you are a bad ass eternal being in a highly advanced meat suit that can do impossible things.
Today’s Takeaway: It’s okay to ask for help
It’s hard to solve our own problems when we are “stuck in the box” of our life.
There is only so much we can see, and more than anything our life is molded to our perspective.
A perspective that can be flawed, or negative from our own mind.
Having another person who is objective, compassionate, and has lived experience can help.
Let me be that person for you. I am starting up my 1on1 services again.
Book a call or learn more here.
P.S – Octobers inner child ayahuasca retreat is the 10th – 13th and we have a couple spots left.
If you want to come for a great deal in exchange for a testimonial Reach out.
November 14th – 17th is also filling up already.
Today’s Thought: What it’s all about
|
|
|
“Psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology and medicine or the telescope is for astronomy.”
Stanislav Grof
|
This summarizes my beliefs as well.
It’s time for a new paradigm.
Today’s Tribute: Thank you!
Each week I am going to give a tribute to someone special:
- A member in the community
- Impactful people in my life
- One of my clients kicking ass
Nothing really on my heart or mind this week in terms of a tribute…
Other than thank you!
There are now over 1,000 of you tuning in weekly to read my deep thoughts, and deep dives.
My dreams come true each week because of you – and I know we are just getting started.
Much love my friend – Each and every one of you are my homies for life.
I’d go to bat for you any day.
With gratitude,
Riley
Top Video This Week:
I wanted to give up so bad…
In this video I talk about a sign I got from the universe when I was ready to throw in the towel… a sign you may need yourself.
In Case You Missed It:
In Thursday’s Issue, I covered the only wrong way you can live your life (in my opinion).
You can read it here.
When you are ready… here’s how I can help:
Come to my retreats
Experience the power of entheogenic medicines.
There is nothing more powerful or proven for healing, growth, and transformation.
|
|
Book a 1-on-1 call with me
Get 1 hour with me to discuss anything you want and need.
Some topics could include:
- how to uncover and heal your core limiting beliefs and wounds that are holding you back.
- how to reprogram your mind to manifest abundance, live with purpose, and becoming more magnetic to the best things in life.
- how to live more holistically for peak mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.
- how to use psychedelic medicines safely, or talk about and understand your psychedelic experiences.
Or anything else you want to discuss.
|
|
Join my communities
Join holistic. (free for now)
🚫 we’re fed poison mentally, physically, & spiritually to feel shitty and lost.
✅ join us to unlock your best mind, body, & spirit on your terms ASAP
Join Psychedelic Medicine Family
a safe place to discuss, share, & learn about the magic of psychedelic medicines for the use of healing, transformation, & growth. life’s a trip ☀️
|
|
|
You can reply directly to this email with any questions, wins, or thoughts you had this week.
Thank you for joining me this week.
With love, support, & gratitude,
Riley Conder
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
Forwarded this email? Sign up here
Find me on social media
|
