Healing the Mind and Making Psychedelic Therapy Accessible
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Show Notes
Can’t afford therapy? The 501c3 nonprofit, Thank You Life, is changing the game and has a mission to eliminate the financial barriers to psychedelic-assisted therapy, so that they can:
- Solve inequity in mental health treatment
- Enable healing of underserved communities
- Advocate for systemic change
Kevin, Executive Director of Thank You Life, discusses his journey into psychedelics and co-founding Thank You Life. Keep listening for guidance on how to explore and access psychedelic therapies.
01:46 Kevin's Journey into Psychedelic Therapy
10:49 Ayahuasca and Vipassana Meditation Retreats
24:17 Transition to Professional Psychedelic Therapy
32:24 Founding Thank You Life
40:52 Making Psychedelic Therapy Accessible
46:04 How to Get Involved
Kevin Cannella is Executive Director of Thank You Life. Kevin is a MAPS-trained psychedelic psychotherapist who has been using non-ordinary states to help himself and others heal for 15 years. His life’s work has been to help humanity heal.
Connect with Kevin Cannella
Together, we are creating a tidal wave of healing through 1000s of small monthly donations of $10-25. We'd love to have you be a part of our efforts.
Instagram:
@thankyoulife_fund
@kevonpurpose
Connect with Paige Bond
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Website: https://paigebond.com
Paige Bond specializes in helping individuals, couples, and intentionally non-monogamous partnerships feel grounded, confident, and connected in their love life. She is also the founder of Sweet Love Counseling providing therapy in CO, FL, SC, and VT. Paige loves educating people about relationships through being the host of the Stubborn Love podcast, hosting workshops, and speaking at conferences.
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Disclaimer: This podcast and communication through our email are not meant to serve as professional advice or therapy. If you are in need of mental health support, you are encouraged to connect with a licensed mental health professional to receive the support needed.
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Transcript
(generated by AI - please excuse errors)
[00:00:00] Paige Bond, LMFT and Relationship Educator: Welcome to the Stubborn Love Podcast. I'm your host, Paige Bond. I'm a Gottman and attachment trained, solution focused marriage and family therapist. I specialize in helping folks design and build their dream relationships through structured therapy and resources. And also use modalities that go beyond traditional talk therapy, like accelerated resolution therapy and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.
School didn't teach us how to be good at love, so I created the Stubborn Love podcast to help you navigate it. Every episode has actionable tips that will help you create a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling life with the people you love. Join me on this journey of love and learning for the stuff they didn't teach you in relationship school.
[00:00:51] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Welcome back to another episode of Stubborn Love. I think this is my first episode in psychedelics, so this is perfect to have you here, Kevin. you're going to love this episode if you're interested in transformational healing and learning about psychedelics. we have the executive director of an organization called Thank You Life.
We're going to talk a little bit about that, talk about psychedelic therapy and what got you Kevin into psychedelic therapy. so I, Want to be like a completely surprised so I don't know too much about you. So I'm going to learn a lot about your journey today. So why don't you start by just introducing yourself to our audience, kind of tell them your journey, just like a becoming a psychotherapist or getting interested in psychedelics.
Maybe one happened before the other. So start us off.
[00:01:46] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah. And I guess just like a kind of brief background of what I'm up to at the moment. So, yeah, I'm a, I'm a psychotherapist. I was in private practice and then I really transitioned out of that when I started Thank You Life with Dr. Dan Engle and, you know, we're in the psychedelic space.
We're a 501c3 nonprofit and our whole mission is to really make this work accessible to all of those who can't afford it. And, yeah, we really believe that.healing is for everyone. And my hope is that it becomes the right of the 21st century that we really bring in is this right to heal and that we can set up good systems to deliver that to everyone.
And yeah, what we do at the moment is give financial assistance to people who can't afford psychedelic therapy, specifically ketamine assisted psychotherapy, because that's, what's here federally legal. And, yeah, I also just want to give a shout out. So we're, on January 3rd, 2025, we're launching our podcast called the thank you life podcast.
And yeah, we, we had you on last week, so, I'm not sure when yours comes out, but yeah, please go, check that out if you're interested. And those are conversations with. People like you who are clinicians and in the thank you life network. And then also clients that, have gotten ketamine assisted psychotherapy through our program and some other.
voices in the psychedelic space, and we really try to focus on the stories of healing and what we call the thank you life moment, which is, actually where our name came from, and that came from my co founder, Dr. Dan Angle, and it's this idea that, you know, especially with medicine work, you know, a lot of psychedelic work can be quite traumatic, intense or grueling, can really take us into our pain ultimately to, to help us heal.
but yeah, the idea of a thank you life moment is, once we kind of come out of that, hopefully we get to this place where we're beginning to really feel the universal love and, and hit this place of gratitude where we can be thankful for our lives, be thankful for our struggle, our pain, the opportunity to heal and yeah, come to this.
moment of wow, thank you life. Thank you for my life. So yeah, the, the podcast really focuses on those sorts of stories and really healing, hearing from the clients that we were able to support what, what their journey has been like and what their trauma has been like and what. You know, how psychedelics helped them heal and what that looked like, what their integration looked like.
So all of those things, yeah. And so
I'll take us back some, I first got interested in psychedelics very early in my undergrad experience, and I heard about them and, you know, I actually had this, I had this friend in high school, my senior year of high school, tell me this experience on magic mushrooms at the time, the,thought of the day was that it made your brain bleed, and that's why you hallucinate.
Oh
[00:05:01] Kevin and Paige: my gosh.
[00:05:03] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: I'm just like, wow, how far we've come from our understanding of these things. And,I don't even like the word hallucinate to me. That's really not fundamentally what's going on.but anyway, he described this experience and he lived in my neighborhood. And so like, it was just, I guess, very visual for me.
It's like, I, I knew the street he was talking about, but he, he talked about this moment of crossing the street. having the wind blow and his mood completely changing from these two kind of very simple things. And I was just like, whoa, what the fuck is this? What is going on here? So for as simple as the story seemed, it just really kind of sparked my curiosity andyou know, I would read on the internet about some different things and I found this one thing that described these kind of four levels of experience with psychedelics where, you know, level one, just a little bit of things were happening, level two, more level three, and then it just described level four as like pure white light.
Like unity experience. And, you know, at the time I considered myself like agnostic, most likely atheist, and it was just like, what is this? And. Like, again, just so much curiosity. And anyway, I, my,the spring semester, my first year, I was able to have an experience with, psilocybin and just four of us and, you know, walking around campus a lot and, yeah, it was just very profound.
And toward the end, I was. I had just read Perks of Being a Wallflower and they, there's this like idea of the infinite in there or like I feel infinite maybe is what the character says and just thinking a lot about.
[00:06:59] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah.
[00:07:00] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah. Yeah. So I was thinking a lot about that and kind of feeling that in my own way and thinking a lot about my family and my sister and my parents and how much I wanted to experience this with them, which, you know, it's definitely been a theme throughout my life now.
But for me at, you know, at 18 to have that experience where I was just coming out of college where I had a pretty, more like rough relationship with my parents and didn't feel super close to my sister. And so yeah, it was out outside of normal to say the least that I was thinking of them so strongly and wanting to share something like this.
And then, yeah, for me it was also this word alive. I just felt so alive and didn't know why or what was different. So again, just very, right, kind of right from the start positive experience and continued to just kind of. Peek my curiosity and
[00:07:53] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: did you tell your family about that experience and how you?
[00:07:57] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Not at the time.
[00:07:58] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah
[00:07:59] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Not at the time. I don't know if I've ever told them about that particular piece of the experience I've definitely shared that I want them to do psychedelics But once I ended up getting into ayahuasca and such they were like, oh, no way am I? Gonna do something like this
[00:08:16] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: No
[00:08:17] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Anyway, like, you know, the rest of college was like a lot of partying and just like every once in a while a crew of us would do some LSD or some mushrooms or MDMA or some kind of combination and they continued to give me these really kind of potent experiences to where, you know, By the time I got to my last year or so, I was really opening up spiritually and I was watching all kinds of interesting things on YouTube.
As the
[00:08:48] Kevin and Paige: world had at that time.
[00:08:51] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yes, for sure. And yeah, and also, you know, I bought like 30 something books off of Amazon my last year of school all about spirituality and psychedelics. you know, I, I read, Terrence McKenna, a couple of books from him through to the gods and, the invisible landscape, which is, you know, talking about shamanism and how it relates to schizophrenia and like all this stuff.
And I was, Just so fascinated by all of it. And then, you know, also getting into, like, The Secret and, this other book, Zen and the Art of Happiness, and those were actually the first two books that I bought in this kind of spiritual self help kind of realm, and what was so interesting to me is that they were basically saying the same thing, that thoughts create things.
The secret was more like, let's do this externally and get ourselves all of the kind of consumer products that we want. Zen and the art of happiness was like, that's. let's create the right kind of inner landscape that we want. anyway, all of that was like a big piece and very much born out of my psychedelic experiences.
And so, you know, fast forward to my last semester and basically the only thing I really got from my dad was, you know, he didn't really care what I did, but he just wanted me to know that. I was going to be, you know, I needed to be self sufficient financially. It was like, all right, cool. And in my mind, I just wanted to continue my studies, whatever that meant into, you know, into spirituality and these things.
And I wanted to go abroad. So I was looking into all pairing, teaching English. I found out about wolfing and organic farming and excuse me, it was like looking for opportunities like this. And. Eventually was reading this book that talked about ayahuasca and I was like, Oh my gosh, what is this? And, I think that was the first time I really had a sense of psychedelics being used for something in the realm of, you know, psycho spiritual healing, psycho emotional healing.
And so I was having these very mystical experiences, but again, just very, just a lot of intrigue. Like, Oh, what is this? This seems a little different than what I've been doing.
[00:11:18] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: And not nerves, not being scared or was there any part of that there as well?
[00:11:25] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: well, once I actually got down to the opportunity to do ayahuasca, there was a lot of nerves, but just reading about it was kind of pure fascination, just pure fascination.
And, so yeah, the, the book was 2012, the return of Quetzalcoatl, a Daniel Pinchbeck book. And so he's like an investigative journalist that goes into all sorts of things. Yeah. All of which I was like already into from, CIA experiments on like, Psy phenomena, to his own experiences and that's like the kind of more investigative journalism part is like going to Gabon to do a boga.
As well as a few different trips to South America to do ayahuasca in a few different settings to the different, churches out of Brazil, the center diamond, the gosh, I can't pronounce the other one, like the, the UD or UDV or something, as well as doing a more like traditional, more indigenous sort of.
And so again, just so much fascination with all that. Okay, so that was me learning about ayahuasca. Now, I had this one friend, and what's so funny is, so I went to Georgia Tech, I was in Atlanta at the time. I had really just one friend and one connection outside of my little Georgia Tech bubble. And turns out we both became psychedelic therapists, which is very fascinating.
[00:12:49] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Love that.
[00:12:50] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Shout out to Maya Lemberg. she does ketamine work in Atlanta. So I was like, Hey, you know, what about ayahuasca? You know, like, how do you do this? What's the deal with this? And she's like, yeah, there's places that you can go to down in South America to like, do a retreat. And so, yeah, I Googled ayahuasca retreat centers one day and emailed three of them about a volunteer position.
[00:13:19] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: What does a volunteer position give you?
[00:13:23] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Well, I mean, I think it depends, but I was just, trying to get in there in some sort of way. the Temple of the Way of Light ended up getting back to me. so for me, I mean, it was, I was able to go there for free. I mean, I had to pay to get, to get myself there.
I went with a couple thousand dollars,to like, basically survive. But, you know, all expenses were paid for while I was there. at the retreat center, which was awesome.
[00:13:47] Kevin and Paige: What a gift,
[00:13:48] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: such a gift. And then, yeah, I mean, I was there for like four and a half months and did 23 sessions with them.
[00:13:57] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Wow.
[00:13:58] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, it was crazy.
Is that
[00:14:00] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: a lot or how I'm, I don't, I'm not familiar with ayahuasca. So I'm curious is that A normal regimen or I'm so curious now.
[00:14:12] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, so we were Facilitating 12 day retreats where people would do seven ceremonies in 12 days
[00:14:20] Kevin and Paige: Wow
[00:14:21] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: And then and that was the first half of the month each month and then the second half of the month The shaman would serve another seven times for the the volunteers.
[00:14:32] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: How cool.
[00:14:33] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: And so I got there in January and did two sessions kind of immediately and then was on this kind of regimen of, you know, supporting the retreat and then getting seven to myself. And so that was the first, You know, the first three months and then in April. So I, you know, I graduated in December, went there in January.
So January, February, March 7, 7, 7. And then in April, I had been hearing about these Vipassana meditation retreats and, these like 10 day silent meditation retreats. And it turned out there was one in Lima the second half of the month, kind of like perfectly placed so I could still volunteer at the retreat, but then kind of go do this.
And that was. Yeah, that was super helpful. So grounding. And, and I finally had a practice. I, you know, I, the ayahuasca I think was really kind of breaking me down physically, emotionally, kind of just everything. And, you know, I was this, you know, 22 year old kid who was just coming out of like fraternity party life with a lot of like interest and curiosity, but you know, not a lot of, I had not done much of my own work, so to speak.
And so the AYA was really just breaking me down and it was. quite miserable is quite alone. I felt very alone.and so the Vipassana was yet just very grounding and it felt like, okay, well, I still feel all these horrible things, but now I at least have a practice to sit with them.
So,
[00:16:03] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: yeah.
[00:16:03] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: That's funny. People talk about how either scared they might Vipassana or that it was very hard. And they, they asked me, Was it difficult? And for the context, I did not find it, you know, quote unquote difficult. I was so grateful to be there. So grateful to have this idea of a teacher. Like, I feel like I'd been looking for a meditation teacher in all these books.
And now I like, I had one on audio and video. really just, you know, handing me a really amazing meditation technique to purify my mind and could not have been happier with that. Can you
[00:16:41] Kevin and Paige: talk about that technique?
[00:16:43] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Sure. Sure.
[00:16:45] Kevin and Paige: Yeah. What is that?
[00:16:47] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: So I would say like, you know, the essence of it is kind of twofold.
the, so the, the techniques is like at first you learn to follow the breath and it's following the breath with the physical sensations at the nostrils. So you know, really feeling the inhale and the exhale, eventually beginning to just feel the subtle sensations right here as the breath kind of comes in and goes out.
So the whole first three days is My awareness is just here. Every time my mind goes, bring it back to right here. And the sensitivity kind of develops. And then you learn Vipassana and it's essentially a body scan. Start at the top of the head and just bit by bit feel different spots. Try to feel sensations on the body through the whole body.
the real key to it is this realization of Anicca impermanence and realizing that, Oh, every sensation is impermanent. So the idea with that is You know, all of this kind of gets built out and they do a really great job teaching part of the technique and then talking about the kind of framework behind it.
And so
what we start to see or what I start to see, you know, as they were also describing it as like, I would have a lot of reactions to the sensations. For the most part, they were pretty unpleasant sensations because we're sitting 10 hours a day. So it's actually quite physically grueling, which is very surprising or was very surprising to me.
And I think to a lot of people, so all kinds of pains in the knee and in the back and just all kinds of things come up. And the idea is to notice that, Oh, like, you know, it's kind of obvious to say, but like, Oh, this sensation is not eternal. And actually when I like really kind of hone in on it, it's not stable in any sort of way it comes and goes and is like, it's like here and then here and it's kind of moving.
And so just real, like realizing, Oh, it's a Nietzsche, it's impermanent, it's not permanent. And because it's not permanent, it actually doesn't make sense. to react to it and to try to change it because it's changing on its own. And so I can actually just kind of sit back as the witness and watch it change on its own.
So then I would, what I would say is like the purification is all of these kind of programmed reactions come up, the aversion toward the pain or a kind of clinging, craving toward the pain. Cause you know, also pleasant sensations come and different moments come where there's just kind of this like subtle electricity that kind of goes through the body and it feels very nice.
And so of course I experienced that and then the pain comes back. And so I am hating the pain and wanting it to go away and I'm desiring the pleasant sensations and wanting them to come back. And all of that is just this, you know, mental bullshit, this mental reactions. And. The practice is really to just keep sitting with it, realize the reactions themselves are a Nietzsche, they're impermanent and the sensations that I'm reacting to are impermanent.
And so over time we build out what they call equanimity, that like balance of mind. And, yeah, I mean, besides psychedelics, it is. What has been for me like the kind of single most powerful force to purify my mind and Just empty my mind of a lot of junk.
[00:20:41] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah, it sounds like just relative to therapy terms such a powerful mindfulness technique, but really intense and really meaningful to get to that place Thank you for sharing that.
I was so curious.
[00:20:59] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, totally. Thanks for asking. Yeah. And one other thing I'll say is, you know, about the mindfulness, like, I just think there's levels to it. And,
I don't want to say this. Like, I think mindfulness is great to
Yeah, I think mindfulness is greatness. In some ways, it's really just about how, how much time we spend doing these different things. And, you know, if I meditate 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, I think it can help quiet the mind quite the system. The nervous system can come back to regulation some.
And if we go take 10 days where we meditate 10 hours a day, it's like, it's like a surgery. Often sit like, Kind of similar to how people might describe a very intense psychedelic experience. but it, yeah, so it's like, it's kind of the same thing but, you know, on one hand you just kind of like are scrubbing the surface of the body.
The other is like you go in and you take out a tumor that was like lodged deep in your brain. deep inside your body. It's, you know, just two different levels of scrubbing, so to speak.
[00:22:06] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: For sure. Like an intense cleanse. Like you're, you're starting off with a new clean slate. It's essentially, it sounds like.
[00:22:15] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, very much feels like that.
[00:22:17] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: hmm.and you spent, quite a few months there. Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about that experience in South America and anything else you gained or?
[00:22:28] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: I'll just give you like a, we could spend hours going into some different things.
I'll give you the kind of high level of what happened. So I ended up going to Cusco for about three months, did some more medicine, got into yoga for the first time, which was really great. and then, anyway, went home and, ended up. Going to Maui for the next four and a half years so a lot of like the early to mid twenties was spent there found more ayahuasca there there was a Vipassana center on the big island that I would go to every year and Was you know basically just had a couple years where I really deepened into those practices and a couple other practices and Such a special time in my life.
You know, I was a I made about 10, 000 total in like a three year span, but was, work trading on farms and really getting to go after, you know, I kept talking about this curiosity and it's like, that was, those were my years to just fully quench that curiosity. And, I feel incredibly blessed to have had that experience.
And, You know, that kind of ended around 27 or so. And by that time I was like, you know, my Saturn return was starting and I was like, all right, let's like get my shit together some here. And. In these spiritual circles, we would talk so much about Dharma and purpose and service and also things like abundance and, didn't have much of any of those things.
And so I wanted to really begin actualizing myself in a different way, like actualizing my life and, yeah. And so that, that led me to move to Boulder and go to Naropa and that's where I got my master's in, in counseling and kind of took off on this. second phase of my journey to become a psychotherapist and that's what eventually led me into psychedelic therapy and, and the work here with Thank You Life.
[00:24:28] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Were people in your circle that you had kept close at that time Curious about your journey and diving into this now Professionally like as that transition of okay, you're doing this for life experience and like this is a part of your life for many years But now doing this for like a living I'm curious if there were any thoughts like was there support a lack of support
[00:24:56] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: from From like which people like,
[00:24:58] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: it could have been family or even friends at the time or anyone.
[00:25:03] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah. So
the, a lot of us that were on Maui at that time have ended up becoming therapists, which is very interesting, and psychedelic therapists. you know, they were not at all surprised and, you know, Gosh, you know, like they, they knew me in such this interesting period where I was 24, 25 and,
yeah, it's just really cool to have them get to see me now, I'm 37 now and, have actualized in these kinds of ways that we've been speaking to, which, you know, feels really good. And. Really feels like something I can stand on. and it's really cool to get to share that with them when, you know, they knew me as this kind of 23 year old work trader who, I was just doing a bunch of medicine.
with my family, it's a little interesting. I think they were kind of terrified when I went to Peru. I really had no intention of ever coming back to the U S which only lasted seven months, but that's, that's. That's what my intention was.and you know, the psychedelics was so far from their like understanding that I think they were scared.
So what was so interesting and I, I love the way the universe had me do this. By the time I went to Maui, my family was just so excited that I was, I'm going to stay in the United States.
[00:26:27] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: So not about the medicine, but glad you were somewhat near.
[00:26:31] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah. And then by the time I went to Colorado, and I also was able to live with my dad's brother, my uncle in Colorado.
So by the time that happened, I was, going back to grad school, doing something you know, quote unquote legitimate with all of this, All this kind of study that I had been doing and moving back in with family and, you know, from Maui, my family's on the east coast. So from Maui, you know, moving so much closer now.
So what I say is like, if I had just moved to Colorado, I think that would have seemed far for them. But by the time I actually got to Colorado, it was in the United States and way closer than Hawaii. And, and again, you know, doing the grad school thing and living with family that they were like.
just ecstatic. Yeah,
[00:27:22] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: yeah. They were glad to have you somewhat near.
[00:27:26] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Exactly.
[00:27:27] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah, no worries there.
[00:27:29] Paige Bond, LMFT and Relationship Educator: I hope you're enjoying this episode. I wanna take a moment to invite you to sign up for my free Attachment Dynamics workshop. I have partners use this as a foundation before we get started in relationship therapy.
By watching this, you'll learn how to recognize negative communication patterns, understand how power dynamics show up in conflict, and most importantly, discover ways to turn conflict into opportunities for deeper emotional connection. And the best part, this is free for you. Make sure to head to paigebond.com or hit the link in the show notes to access it for free.
Now let's get back to the episode.
[00:28:09] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: In, your studies of learning to become, a psychedelic assisted therapist, is there anything to note, about that experience? Because And that kind of training is so different than traditional counseling models of just how we're, we're taught in grad school.
So I'm curious if there's anything to share about the big differences that you gained in that journey.
[00:28:38] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah. So I feel so grateful that I went to Naropa because of this. And so I think just even the kind of basic form of therapy that I learned there was, Much more oriented toward something like psychedelic therapy, then,a traditional, like, working at a mental health agency sort of therapy,
[00:29:04] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: there was an openness to the medicine and that mindset.
[00:29:09] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yes. And. I think the main piece here is like gestalt and also just like a humanistic approach. And so really year one at Naropa, we were learning a humanistic approach, really learning about attunement, contact, how to deepen with clients. And that was all amazing and very beautiful. Year two was all gestalt.
And what I would say is, like, Gestalt is this kind of overarching umbrella that all of the, trauma techniques that we know about, including psychedelics from EMDR, somatic experiencing, sensory motor, psychotherapy, those last two are both very, like, somatic body based kinds of work, IFS, internal family systems, any, any sort of parts work modalities and I would say like the essence of Gestalt is this idea of doing experiments and so we do an experiment in real time and then we check how that was for you, how that felt and,
I loved all of that. That's also really like what all the trauma work is, which to me is really like the leading edge of this field. And then, to bring psychedelics in, these are a lot of the modalities that emerge very naturally with psychedelics. And, I think especially, like, the IFS parts work, and, you know, you can throw Hikomi in there too, and some sort of somatic based, And so, I got such a good foundation of all of that at Naropa.
And then afterwards, I still did sensory motor psychotherapy training, and then ketamine training, and MAPS's MDMA training. But, I felt like, by the time I got to a psychedelic training, I already had, a great foundation of how to do that kind of work without the medicine. you know, and I, I, I think there's so much room for CBT and CBT kind of stuff is so much of what I do with a lot of clients in terms of, you know, communication and kind of really Taking a look at the psyche on that level and I think without these deeper techniques We're not gonna really help people heal in the way that they need to.
[00:31:29] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah. Yeah, that's one thing that I relate to and I Since I see a lot of relationship Clients. I've been trained in Gottman, which uses a lot of more of the cognitive base or techniques But I feel like there comes a point where you hit a wall and you need to go to that Deeper level of the emotion which is where I like to lean in to EFT or pact.
[00:31:56] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yes. Yes
[00:31:58] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: So thinking about your Experience you you got trained And you were Not a novice to the medicine and in fact, probably like quite experienced and maybe way ahead of other people who were in the same cohort as you, can you talk a little bit about your journey of your, your practicing as a psychedelic assisted psychotherapist?
And then there comes to this point of, Okay, there needs to be something here to make this accessible and I want to hear about the like how was thank you life born
[00:32:34] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: totally. So yeah, you know, I eventually brought the ketamine work into my private practice and I never really got past Just a handful of my clients at any one moment that would be doing the ketamine work and the rest were, just doing, you know, one hour sessions weekly or biweekly.
And so most of that was because of cost. and It was just a conversation that a lot of us were having at the time was like, how do we make this more accessible? It's so clear to us that not a ton of people can afford this, yet we're all having these experiences personally and professionally where we're like, this is so clearly so much more potent, than everything else.
And even I, I was just interviewing someone earlier this week who was a client, that went through, thank you life. And she was talking about how after her, so she did a weekend retreat of two ketamine sessions and. She's been doing EMDR and IFS with her therapist to, you know, unpack a lot of trauma and this kind of thing and how much the psychedelic work and the ketamine work opened up the regular sessions, the EMDR so much deeper now.
And so it's not like it's just about getting people in altered States. Those, just even having a couple of those altered state experiences, then the regular therapy just deepens and deepens. And so, anyway, yeah, very clear to all of us how important this work was, but also that it was inaccessible.
So,many of us, and I'm curious if this is something you do, I think most therapists in general will do some sliding scale,
[00:34:27] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: but there's
[00:34:28] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: such a, there's such a limit to how much sliding scale that we can take while still making a good living. And, you know, I also really want to be a stand for therapists making a hell of a living.
I think we bring a lot more value than a lot of other people who make a lot of money.so,we would almost just joke about a fund like, Hey, wouldn't it be great if there was something that we could just plug into? And with every sliding scale client, I could just say, Yes, I can take you for what you can pay.
And then the fund kind of has our backs. So I don't need to, have this like limit on, on how many sliding scale people I can take. So that kind of, you know, that idea was there. And then at a certain point, actually in one of my own. journeys, it just came very strongly, like, go start this now.
And I was like, all right, let's do it.
[00:35:25] Kevin and Paige: Totally.
[00:35:27] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: And for like a little bit of context there, you know, my, my undergrad was in business and entrepreneurship. And so I always. Had this desire to kind of start an organization and a business and kind of do something. And so it all just made sense, you know, it got to be very heart first and focused on healing.
And, it was in psychedelics, but it also didn't feel like it was, because it was nonprofit and not for profit. It, although there's plenty of difficulties with that, it, I appreciated that. Like my aim was never going to be around like, Making sure that we had a profit and a margin and play the whole kind of capitalistic game.
[00:36:04] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Thank you.
[00:36:06] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: And there's plenty of issues with the nonprofit world, too, and how all of that works. And it's, it's still its own kind of rat race, so to speak, or just, we'll to be on, but that's kind of how it all started. And, you know, so I, I started doing, when I got that directive, I started researching, et cetera, and ended up reaching out to Dr.
Dan angle, my co founder, and, you know, he was just a really, kind of, well known person in the space and just felt like a good idea to kind of float this by him and Turned out we were at the exact same place with the same idea So his was actually called. Thank you life. We ended up going with that name the name that came through on my journey was heal 1 billion
[00:36:48] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: I mean, I like it.
[00:36:50] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Thank you. Yeah, big, big goals yeah, we, you know, we each had a web, basically like a shell of a website up that explained the mission and that's kind of how far we had gotten. And so, you know, we were like, Hey, I think it makes sense to partner. And, his role has really been, establishing a great like network that ended up becoming our board and our early supporters and, you know, has a bit of a platform.
So he can, he really helped get the word out there for us. And, you know, he did not want to be the day to day person. And that's exactly what I was looking for and could bring because I did not have those other things that did not have the network and, and all of that, but was looking to, you know, try to build an organization and give that a stab.
And so, Yeah, it just felt like a really great partnership. And basically 2021 was us just kind of feeling that all out. And 2022, we found Meredith Thomas, who's our director of philanthropy to really spearhead the fundraising. Cause that was something neither of us had a skillset or experience with.
And it really felt like from the, Time that we started speaking with her. It was like, okay, it's a go now. because I could have learned fundraising on my own, but you know, even being three years in I'm it's still such a kind of new piece of, of the puzzle for me, so. It felt like once we had someone who could really carry that part and show us how to do that part, it was like, cool, let's do this.
so 2022 is really kind of setting things up. Last year was our first year operations. We helped 37 people last year. And so we tripled that this year to 111 and that, yeah.
[00:38:38] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Completely funded treatment. So amazing.
[00:38:43] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: So it feels like this year, that year was going from like zero to one, and this year feels like going from one to two.
And now we're trying to figure out how to go from two to four or eight or ten and really kind of blow, blow things out of the water. And, you know, where I feel like we're at is we're ending the year partnered with about 120 clinics. And,many of them we haven't done a client with, we do a lot of group things and so it's still a relatively small number of clinics that we're partnered with that we've actually helped, put a client through and,that's just part of, like, the math of where we're at at the moment, but.
What I love is we have the infrastructure set up, and we'll probably be at, two to three hundred clinics by the end of next year. So the, the real bottleneck here is, is finding the money. Just finding more, large donors, more grant situations, but Yeah, we have the infrastructure here. We have the, really incredible ketamine assisted psychotherapists who are at the end of that infrastructure delivering the services.
We're ending this year with, an average of over 50 percent decrease in symptoms from depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and PTSD symptoms. I imagine you see similar things, in, in your practice and. Yeah, we feel like it's all set up and now it's just about really going to find the big money to Yeah, to put through the infrastructure that we've built.
[00:40:22] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah, I hadn't even Found out about y'all until I got to get connected with dr. Juan Pablo Galindo and I'm wondering, how is it that like, so for instance, people listening to this podcast, you are interested in, in psychedelics, but they do not have the kind of money to go to an IV or IM, clinician or even just lozenges.
Types of way to distribute the ketamine how can people learn about like getting set up in the process or they may not even have a therapist and they're listening to this podcast and they're like, oh, okay I didn't even know like this could be a possibility that I could like get set up and have this kind of experience to like Push me through this life.
So What advice would you give to those listeners?
[00:41:18] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, I thinkone thing is that you can, I would say a couple of things. One is like, just like an education path and just beginning to listen to more podcasts like this, psychedelics today has, a great bank of, of a lot of podcasts and, yeah, I would just go start learning about this work, what's out there, the different options.
Again, ketamine assisted psychotherapy is the main option that is legal in the U S right now. There's, you know, a number of psilocybin retreat centers in Jamaica and the Netherlands and, you know, Mexico, Costa Rica, places like this.you know, similar to ayahuasca and yeah, I think the other thing you can just do a search, like a local search for ketamine clinics.
And you can also go to our website and we have a list of all the clinics that we partner with. And, you know, they've been great. vetted, we make sure that it's not just ketamine infusions, but there's also this psychotherapy component that's brought in, which we think is really important.yeah, so you can also go look for clinics.
We have all of our clinics listed and you can find a local one and then you can also just reach out to them and start to ask them questions. I would say those are some good, like first steps for people.
[00:42:40] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Awesome. And I, you know, it's almost rubbing me wrong. Cause I wish there, there were more opportunities and more organizations like you.
Like, you're the first that I've ever heard of that does this kind of work to be able to provide that accessibility. Why do you think that is? Why are there not more people trying to get more people, available to this kind of work.
[00:43:10] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, there's there's a couple other organizations and there's a number of them that are specific for veterans.
a couple of them that we partner with, one's called the, Warriors Healing Network. Another one's called Healing Our Heroes. We've partnered with both of them this year, which has been really great. And yeah, Healing Our Heroes does ketamine retreats for veterans. And, it's a great partnership because they actually get all of the therapy and kind of clinical work on a volunteer basis.
And so their costs are super low. really only need to pay for like food and lodging for the retreat. And so we can come in and help financially a little bit and then, you know, they do their part to get all the clinicians there and that's been super successful for both of us. so we're looking to partner with them on about 5 retreats next year, which is very exciting.
It should be upwards of 70, 75 veterans that we're able to help just through that alone.
Oh, I'm kind of spacing on the question. What was the actual question? why aren't there more? So yeah, there's also some others that we have not partnered with yet, like heroic hearts project, but yeah, for some reason there's a whole bunch in the veteran space and,
yeah, great. And so necessary. And they're one of our primary, populations that we're looking to help as well, along with, The queer communities and folks from, communities of color.
but yeah, it's interesting that we just have not seen as many, organizations like this that are focused on other. Types of communities who really need this work.so there are some out there in some ways. I think it's just really hard to stand up a non profit and you know, unless you're in tight with like the bill and melinda gates foundation orsome other sort of billionaire situation it it can just be a a tough go although I have a lot of hope for us because there are financial assistance funds for Medical procedures in general,
[00:45:24] Kevin and Paige: right?
[00:45:24] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: and I know of one that like, it does hundreds of millions a year. And so it's got to be, I mean, it's got to be that. I mean, we just need to figure out how to, how to get us there. so with that, I feel super hopeful. And again, that's why I also feel really glad that we've built out the, the, The infrastructure here.
but yeah, we're, we're still trying to put together the fundraising piece and the money piece for all of that.
[00:45:56] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah, that's the toughest part. Yeah, especially in this economy in the U. S. and all these changes go on. We do have to wind down here, but if people are interested in just what you had to say and want to get connected with you personally or with the Thank You Life Foundation, can you kind of talk about, plug what's coming up for you and plug how to find you?
[00:46:21] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, I would say go to our website, thank you life. org and, you can sign up for our newsletter. You can follow us on Instagram at thank you life underscore fund. I'm on there too at, Kev on purpose. my private practice is called on purpose counseling.yeah. And, you know, if this is coming out in January, go, Go find our podcasts and listen to that.
I think that's the best way to really get connected to the stories that were, the stories of healing that we're, we're facilitating, which feels so amazing. And yeah, and if you're interested in becoming a monthly donor, I would say, you know, there's two, two real levels that we're looking at. If you really have some resources and to feel interested in what we're up to, please reach out to us and we can talk about, We can talk about that and you know for a lot of people out there who are able to give something and feel called to give something we're in the middle of building this base of donors who give five, ten, twenty five dollars a month.
And,that, that sustains this work in a really great way. So, if anybody out there feels called just for that small gift, small monthly gift, we'd be so appreciative. yeah, I think those are the main ways.
[00:47:32] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Beautiful. I will make sure to have all those links in the show notes so people can go hop around and find you and if they're able to donate, maybe also donate to someone's transformational CAP treatment for the future.
Yes.
[00:47:45] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yes.
[00:47:47] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Well, thank you so
[00:47:48] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: much for having me, Paige. Super fun.
[00:47:51] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Yeah. No, I'm so glad that I got to hear your story and get to know you a little bit more and your background. So that was a joy to get to know you. understand, you know, where you're coming from. And it all clicks and makes sense now after talking to you, after being on the podcast for Thank You Life last week.
And now, now, if that makes sense.
[00:48:12] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: Yeah, it's, I'm glad I was able to get to share about myself too. It's fun.
[00:48:17] Paige Bond, LMFT, Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapist: Good. All right, listeners, we will catch you on the next episode. Till then, take care. Bye,
[00:48:22] Kevin Cannella, LPC and Co-Founder of Thank You Life: everybody. Thank you.
[00:48:25] Paige Bond, LMFT and Relationship Educator: that's a wrap for today's episode of Stubborn Love. I hope you gathered some wisdom to bring into your love life and improve your relationships. If you enjoy today's chat, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. That'll help this episode reach even more listeners, if you have any questions or stories you would like me to cover in the future episodes, drop me a message.
I love hearing from you. If you need extra support in your relationships, check out how we might be able to work together by hopping on my website @ paigebond.com. Until next time, don't let being stubborn keep you from secure love. Catch you in the next episode.
