Mahara Wayman [00:00:05]:
Welcome to the art of badassery where I explore what it takes to live life on your own terms. Break free from the status quo and unleash your inner badass. Whether you're a rebel at heart or simply seeking inspiration to step outside your comfort zone, this podcast is for you. I'm your host Mahara Wayman and each week I dive into the stories, insights, and strategies of those who've mastered the art of badassery and are living life to the fullest. They smile when no one is lucky. Welcome to the Art of Bad Asprey podcast. My name is Mahara. So excited because I get to introduce you to April Pride, a dynamic entrepreneur and advocate for women making bold choices.
Mahara Wayman [00:00:53]:
Of course, she's on the show. Born to teenage parents, April honed her entrepreneurial spirit, selling books door to door to fund her architectural degree. She later founded Vanderpach, a leading female focused cannabis brand, which was acquired by Canopy Growth. A mental health advocate, April's journey through divorce, ADHD, and psychedelics reshaped her life and inspired her passion for women's well-being. She now invests in women led startups and hosts the set set show, sharing harm reduction practices for psychedelics. Prepare to be inspired, you guys. Grab your favorite drink, pick up your tote, and let's listen. Welcome to the show, April.
April Pride [00:01:34]:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Mahara Wayman [00:01:36]:
Oh my god. Introduction. You're welcome. I I said I wasn't gonna use the word talk, but I couldn't help myself. We were missing folks about what the language that was associated with cannabis or pot or grass. I'm Jamaican, and I grew up at a time and in a house where we looked at marijuana as just that's just what you you made tea out of it because that's what you did when you weren't feeling well. So I did not grow up in a household that was full of judgment around cannabis. Instead, it was just a part of our culture.
Mahara Wayman [00:02:05]:
So maybe a slightly different upbringing than your average Canadian. But, April, let's let's go back to the beginning. I often ask guests at the start of the show, why did you wanna come on my show? What's your badass story? Let's start there.
April Pride [00:02:22]:
Well, I mean, I think that the word badass just implies a person that's willing to take chances and doesn't make a lot of excuses for their choices and lives with the consequences, good or bad, of their choices unapologetically. And that really describes a lot of that describes my life and how I move through life. So people have called me a badass. And as a mother to two sons, I really appreciate that because I feel like, you know, I want them to see that women can be bold, to use your word in the introduction. And that that is how we live a very full life. Right? And it's something we get to walk beside our men. And, yeah, I think that un that's unfortunate, right, that being a badass means that you're equal.
Mahara Wayman [00:03:19]:
That's representative of the time, but when was the first time that you realized you were walking side by side people as opposed to maybe behind them or not even invited on the walk?
April Pride [00:03:33]:
Okay. Here is the truth of it. I never knew that I wasn't walking beside everybody. I never got that memo because I was raised by a bunch of strong women. Right? They were making it happen from the time I can remember. And we had men in our lives, but and they were great. But it was really the women that always they always my grandmother, she got her first job since started she started having children when her youngest of five children went to kindergarten. And she worked at Sears and sold appliances, and she sold fitness equipment until she was 84 years old.
Mahara Wayman [00:04:11]:
Oh my god. Go grandma. I love that.
April Pride [00:04:15]:
Such a great story. I mean, not story. It's, you know, that's her legacy in my mind because I only knew her as my grandmother worked at Sears. And then, and my mom, you know, like you said in the introduction, she had me. She meets her senior year of high school because she was pregnant with me. And she really was the breadwinner in our family. My dad, great dad, not really great at keeping jobs, but an amazing father. And so, yeah, she was the one that held it together and made sure that things, you know, felt stable around the house financially.
April Pride [00:04:46]:
And she she's now in a second marriage for the last twenty five years, and she's the breadwinner in that in that relationship too. And she just rises the ranks in whatever organization that she that she joins, and she stays for decades. Yeah. So I just haven't I don't know. All the women that I know are badasses. So when I got into the working world to answer your question and I was confronted with a lot of, inappropriate sexual behavior toward me, I I really think that that is the reason why I've been a solo entrepreneur since I got out of grad school because I just really couldn't work in a way that felt like I was focused on my work. I was constantly having to remind people to be professional. And if I reminded the wrong person, I was the one that was reprimanded.
April Pride [00:05:33]:
So that's where in my early twenties, I started to realize, like, oh, this is this is not what I thought it would be. I thought I would show up and do a good job and be rewarded. But, you know, there's there's an undercurrent of, misogyny that I experienced. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:05:49]:
Okay. Thank you for sharing that. And I would is your grandmother still with us? Is she still
April Pride [00:05:54]:
She passed away six years ago. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:05:57]:
I had quite a few guests whose grandmothers were instrumental in supporting their badassery at
April Pride [00:06:04]:
the I lived with her. Right? My mom was so young. We we lived together. So yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:06:08]:
Take us back to you've entered the work world, and you're you're recognizing that, wow. I was raised differently. This doesn't seem right. Tell us a little bit more about how it was first received when you when you felt the need to, hey. Wait a second. What are you doing? And received.
April Pride [00:06:28]:
So every time I yeah. It would be my first real job out of out of college. Every time I would walk into my boss's office, yeah, his eyes would just, like, end up in places that were inappropriate. And I finally said something to a woman that I worked with that I had become close with, and she was like, oh, yeah. We all know that he does that. I was like, okay. Well, I'm just gonna give him the heads up. Because he might not know that he does that because he's such a nice guy.
April Pride [00:06:54]:
Right?
Mahara Wayman [00:06:55]:
Okay.
April Pride [00:06:55]:
Well, then I got demoted and then I got moved to somebody to work with somebody else, you know, and it just it did not lead to anything good for me. So I stayed there for about eighteen months and I went to a start up And I outperform I was in sales, in software sales in San Francisco, and I outperformed all the guys. And I, you know, I had all the big accounts. And, the guy there was a guy that was the head of us because he had was the first employed salesperson there. And he went to our sales manager, because we had someone above him and essentially told him that I was acting in appropriately with someone that we were working with. I had a boyfriend, so that wasn't true. And I got all my accounts taken away from me. And so, yeah, basically, I just leave there too.
April Pride [00:07:47]:
And then after that, I decided to go into architecture, which was, you know, what I had studied. And that was fine. I had a really, really good experience there, and I went to grad school. And ever since then, when I got out of grad school, I've been working for myself. And I didn't have this narrative of I work for myself because these things happen to me until probably the last five years. I was like, I I would tell people, oh, I work for myself because I can't work for other people, but I didn't elaborate because I didn't have a real reason. I would just say that. And then I realized because I can't work.
April Pride [00:08:22]:
And I think it's different now. Right? I'm an older woman and and dip I'm just different. And times I would hope are a little bit different too. But, yeah, that's those are the the two experiences that I had early on that just made me feel like, I don't know. I don't know what's happening here, but maybe I don't have a place here. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:08:39]:
Alright. Very I mean, I gotta call out how badass it is to just decide this ain't working. I'm doing my own thing. When did you find your way into the cannabis industry? So it seems like you've been you've been there for a while.
April Pride [00:08:54]:
Ten years ago. Yeah. It'll be ten years ago next year. Twenty five. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:08:59]:
And what prompted that?
April Pride [00:09:01]:
I had, I had a fashion company here in Seattle, and one of my clients who's a total teetotaler, came to me and she had got a new job. She was working for a holding company, a large holding company that owns Tilray up there in Canada, but happens to be based here in Seattle. And she was the executive assistant to the CEO. She said, I see all of his emails. I see all of the decks and all the deals. No one's doing anything that looks cool. That's, you know, with the design a design eye. What? Are you crazy? How come all that the creatives from LA to New York are not all over this? This is the most exciting thing that's gonna happen in our lifetime in terms of, like, product opportunities and brand opportunities.
April Pride [00:09:46]:
So I asked her if I could take her out to dinner. She said yes. We knew that the man and the wife that owned the restaurant, he was working that night and he asked what we were talking about. And she said, I'm trying to convince her to launch a line of luxury cannabis accessories. He said, if you do that, I'll give you your seed money. And that's how that happened. And he did.
Mahara Wayman [00:10:05]:
He and his wife did. What kind of story is that? That's a I don't know.
April Pride [00:10:10]:
Is meant to be.
Mahara Wayman [00:10:11]:
Yeah. To be. Yeah. No question. No conversation around legality or morality or any nothing like that?
April Pride [00:10:22]:
No. He didn't have any problems in in that respect. Right. And I mean, it was 2015. So there was, you know, something was happening with cannabis. It had become legal in Washington state. And yeah. No.
April Pride [00:10:37]:
I did meet with him again and present to him my ideas before he signed on the dotted line. But, no. He was very, very quick to be like, yeah. That's a you should do that.
Mahara Wayman [00:10:49]:
Yeah. Alright. Take us through this because it's not very often, I think, that anybody, man or woman, has an idea, and it ends up sort of coming coming together so quickly. What did you learn about yourself in that process?
April Pride [00:11:05]:
So much. So much. I learned that I take on a lot because I don't because of my ADHD, I'm not great at planning and delegating. So and I have a lot of energy. So I'm, you know, I have to be very, very k or I used to. I don't know if that's the case 10 later, but at the time, you know, I had two small children. I started this business and I, yeah, I really, like, crushed my body. It took me a long time to recover from not sleeping and being at a computer all the time and all of that.
April Pride [00:11:47]:
So everyone talks about self care, but it's so hard to do when you have goals and when you've made promises and you have people that are counting on you. So I learned that I have to be better at delegating. I have to figure out if I if I want to take care of myself, really, it means that I have to enlist the help of others. Is that right? Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:12:14]:
It was hard? Super hard. Why? Super hard. You're and you're not the first person. I I coach for a living, so I I come up with the gift.
April Pride [00:12:21]:
Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:12:21]:
I Yeah. And I'm just curious, though, for you, was it just the way your brain works, or was it something else that you've discovered that made it difficult for you to ask for help?
April Pride [00:12:35]:
With respect to the workflow, in in my my business, definitely, it's me. But I did have someone actually just in the last couple of months tell me, you know, you really have a hard time asking people for help. I don't know. Maybe it's because I think I can just do it. Maybe it's because I don't know if I have something to offer them in exchange, but I'm getting better at it. I really appreciated that feedback because it's not that I'm afraid to ask for it at all. I just it never occurs to me.
Mahara Wayman [00:13:09]:
Well, that's that's a great observation that you have about yourself. Right? And, really, this journey that we're on, it's all about figuring ourselves out. Yes. It's not a right or wrong. You should or you shouldn't. It's just getting curious about why. And I say to clients all the time, you know, the best thing you can do for yourself is to get curious. Like, why does that piss me off so much? Like, to your point, why don't I ever ask for help? I have no doing it.
Mahara Wayman [00:13:32]:
It just never occurs to me. Well, why doesn't it occur to you? And it could be that you were raised in with women that didn't ask for help because they were so well adjusted. They could do it themselves. Right? I mean, there's lots of reasons why. And it's not it's never a problem until it isn't. So if it's not a problem, then it's not a problem. But it is worth it is worth being curious for sure. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:13:54]:
Okay. So you've learned that you really you have to pay some attention to your own level of care if you're gonna continue to deliver on your promises and create the life that you want. Yeah. What were some of the easy things that you learned? Because because that one's kinda hard. But what were some of the easy things that you've learned?
April Pride [00:14:14]:
Some of the easy things that I learned is that, mostly 99% of people are on your side. So you can ask them for help if they wanna figure out how to help you. Right? Like, I didn't connect those two things, but I was very, supported. I also live in Seattle, which is an extremely progressive city, So it didn't feel like I was doing anything that was illicit or unorthodox. I don't know. Everywhere I turned, people were high fiving me and, you know, coming and whispering to me about their own cannabis consumption because, you know, they didn't feel like they could totally talk about it out loud quite yet. I think that's something that contributes to my badassery. Right? Like, I'll talk about it.
April Pride [00:15:03]:
People then will assume that I'm just smoking weed constantly, which there was a point when I was, but I am not anymore, for reasons that are personal. But I just don't think it's probably a good idea for me to lose my privilege to enjoy it when I want to. Right? So I think some more small things that I learned is my job really is to be positive, the people who work with me. It is to support them. You think of yourself as a leader having all the answers and people are following you and supporting you. But really what I learned by not doing it right is my job is to support everyone around me. So that is a huge lesson that has just transformed the organizations that I work in, that I lead, you know, all of it. I just it was a lesson I wish I had learned a lot sooner, but I think that goes back to, like, I've got it.
April Pride [00:16:01]:
I've got it. I can do it all. It's on me. You know? Rather than everyone else is looking at you like, well, I need some help over here too.
Mahara Wayman [00:16:10]:
Yeah. Two things that comes to mind when you say that. Number one, life is a team sport, and I talk about this a lot. And it was hard for me to navigate that because I always it's not that I felt that it wasn't a team. It just never occurred to me that it was. Let's put it that way to use your phrase. It just never occurred to me. But, really, what I'm learning and what my clients are learning is that life is a team sport, and the better you can be at persuading people to join your team or help you Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:16:39]:
The easier your life will be, the less conflict there will be in your life. Right? Yeah. And I think that's really powerful. But to your point, this understanding that a new way of of leadership to look at itself is to your point, I'm here for you. I remember one of my mentors, I used to work for him when I was in Vancouver. He's now passed, and I just adored him. He always said, sweetheart, surround yourself with people that are better than you. That's what leaders do.
Mahara Wayman [00:17:12]:
Right? A a really great leader, he may be able to recognize or do some of a little bit of everything, but a really smart leader surrounds himself with people that really know their stuff, and they are encouraged to share that as a team. So powerful lesson for you to learn. You said that was it was profound. It made a profound difference in your world. Name one of those differences for us.
April Pride [00:17:36]:
Well, you can get so much more done if you have a lot of people on your side. Yeah. Right? And, you know, we only live once, and we live this life day to day. And if you have a more positive experience with the people around you every day, Your life is more positive. So, yeah, I just felt like it's not just about the job and getting it done and getting it done well. It's also about enjoying ourselves along the way. And as the oldest child, daughter, oldest girl, child, divorced parents, much older than my siblings, yeah, I missed that memo. I never had I never really valued fun or being positive while we have our head down and we're getting the job done.
April Pride [00:18:26]:
That just, like, it really missed me. I kept separation of church and state. I work over here. I have fun over here. And I do both really hard. I go really hard in both directions. And so as I've gotten, you know, as I've aged, I've got through my thirties and my forties. My mid thirties is when the word balance, I started to get it.
April Pride [00:18:50]:
It's like, oh, got it. That is gonna allow me to just do more if I can just be in the middle most of the time. Right? So yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:19:02]:
Work balance and all that it all of that, that it represents still eludes so many of us.
April Pride [00:19:09]:
Yeah. Including me. You know? Including me.
Mahara Wayman [00:19:12]:
Because when I'm creative and excited, I wanna go balls to the walls. I wanna go vagina to the walls. Where did that phrase even come from? But But I wanna, you know, I wanna go all out because I've got that level of energy. Mhmm. And yet, of course, I burn out and I'm exhausted. I don't sleep well, and then my productivity falls and my creativity is out the window and, you know, that cycle starts again. So how did you find the balance and did was cannabis part
April Pride [00:19:38]:
of that? Cannabis was absolutely part of that.
Mahara Wayman [00:19:42]:
Okay. I have
April Pride [00:19:42]:
a question.
Mahara Wayman [00:19:43]:
How about that?
April Pride [00:19:44]:
I think it started actually I started asking me that that I started asking my my younger son. I have two boys, ages 14, almost 18, freshman and senior in high school. When my younger son was all he was about 18, so I was thirty five, thirty six. I asked myself, how did I get here? Like, what was the role that I had in this life that I am now living? What did I architect? And what am I just going along with? Because it's a good idea. And, yeah, I'll just I'm gonna be on this path with you, whether that's my partner, it's about business, whatever the case may be. But I really wanted to understand if I was taking an active role and how my life was shaping up because I had two kids. I didn't really have time to think about these things, you know. But there was a moment where it just felt like I wasn't participating in it.
April Pride [00:20:42]:
And so I had started meditating about six months before I asked myself that question. And then within the next three years, two thousand fourteen no. He was born 02/2010. Yeah. So within five years of his birth is when I started Vanderpaup, which means I was consuming cannabis more regularly starting 02/2016, '2 thousand '17. And what what consuming weed allowed me to do is to relax, to sit in one place for an extended period of time. Right? Not just when I'm meditating, but when I'm sitting with you know, he's now my ex partner, ex husband. And so much of the reason he is no longer my husband has a lot to do with I had one speed and that was go.
April Pride [00:21:36]:
Just go. And cannabis allowed me to slow down and be more present, not only with my children, but also with my partner. And I think that I got that memo too late too. Right? Like, there's just a lot of damage that can be done when you're vagina to the wall all the time. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:21:56]:
Fair enough. Fair enough. And thank you for sharing. That's pretty that's pretty honest understanding.
April Pride [00:22:01]:
And It's hard to be married to an entrepreneur. Oh. It's really hard to be married to an entrepreneur, and sometimes those entrepreneurs are women.
Mahara Wayman [00:22:09]:
Yeah. Well, full disclosure, yesterday was a holiday here in Canada. It's Thanksgiving. And leading up to that leading up to Monday, my husband kept saying to me, no. You're not working on Monday. Right? You're not working. What I heard was, you don't have any coaching clients. Right? And I said, truthfully, no.
Mahara Wayman [00:22:27]:
I don't. So he heard, yay. She's not gonna look at her laptop. She's not gonna be on her phone. She's not working. And what I heard was, yay. I'm not coaching. What that means I can focus on my new brand release, my new podcast, you know, all of these other things.
Mahara Wayman [00:22:42]:
And there was a miscommunication there because he's like, I thought you said you're not working. I'm like, well, this isn't work. This is, like, necessity. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It definitely yeah. It's definitely it it's definitely a different thing.
Mahara Wayman [00:22:56]:
Okay. So you mentioned that you're not doing as much you're not ingesting cannabis as much as you were. Mhmm. What brought that change? Was that just for chits and giggles? You decided to slow it down, or did something happen that you thought, I need I need
April Pride [00:23:10]:
That's a good question. Well, during the pandemic, I just consumed a lot all the time. I had decided before the pandemic that I was gonna get divorced, and I told my husband it ended up I got a therapy appointment. It ended up being the first week of lockdown here in The US. So that was not by design, but that's how it it transpired. So for eighteen months, we lived together as husband and wife. We had a very, very awesome coexistence. Super bittersweet because we have a beautiful family, and we have a great relationship.
April Pride [00:23:44]:
And then I moved out, and that was not beautiful. That was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Not only did I move out of my family home, but I had renovated that home twice. I had decorated it. There's not an inch in that house because I used to be an interior designer. There's not an inch in that house that has not been touched by me, has not been thought about 20,000,000 times. And so the solace that I took was that my children get to still be in that house half the time, and that's very lucky. Oftentimes, families cannot stay in a family home.
April Pride [00:24:15]:
So all good. But then here I am, and I'm in the new space. And that was okay, but it was certainly new. For twenty years, I've been in the same house. And I just smoked weed constantly for a year, and I gave myself a I knew and setting in, I was like, you picked up this habit habit. During the pandemic, it is going to likely persist for a while. And I gave myself a year, and then I was about six months away from that year being up, and it was not looking like I was I I had tried throughout the year, and I had some success days here, weeks here, but consistently was not something I was able to do. And so I tried so hard.
April Pride [00:25:03]:
I was trying to figure out, like, where do you need to just give yourself a break? And where do you need to be concerned for your health and your, just your priorities? Right? I mean, I needed space from cannabis so I could know if when I'm choosing to consume, I'm showing up in the way that I would without it. Right? What's what's the compromise here? If there is one. And for me, I can honestly say that there was a compromise in my, my output, my productivity when it came to work. But also I got a lot of insight that I wouldn't get to. Right? There's just no question that I had to change my relationship with it. I had also done that with, alcohol fifteen years prior. So and that was super successful. And I would never regretted that.
April Pride [00:25:53]:
So I knew if I could just get to the other side of it, I would not lose my privilege of consuming it. And, yeah, I would get closer to balance. Anything I have to do on a daily basis, whether it's exercise, whether it's take us very specific supplement, but, you know, whatever it is, you know, just like gotta sort of let go of the need to do it all the time. Unless it's like a heart medication or something, which I don't have that. So I started microdosing psilocybin, and I looked up three days after I'd taken my first microdose, and I hadn't consumed cannabis. And I had forgotten that I was wanting to do that. So yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:26:34]:
Yeah. Because first of all, I'm not familiar with that term. I I know microdosing, but I didn't recognize this the the what you were actually microdosing. And I want you to
April Pride [00:26:44]:
Psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms.
Mahara Wayman [00:26:46]:
Okay. Which was gonna lead me to a question about, could you describe could you articulate the difference between psychedelics and just cannabis? Because people that know know and people that don't haven't a clue. And I'm kind of in the haven't a clue. So I do want you to do that. But before we do that, can you just touch on because I do think this is a part of being a badass. Can you touch on the relationship that you may or may not have had with yourself when it comes to trust. Because when you described yourself, do do I wanna do this or do I wanna do that? How do I find the balance? All I could think was, was there trust? Was there trust? Was there trust? You can you speak about that for a second before we get into the description of the two?
April Pride [00:27:39]:
Yeah. That's a I have not thought of it in that way ever, so thank you for bringing that to my attention. I think that I I think I was coming out of a relationship where my where the ability to trust me had been questioned, and I think that impacted how I felt about trusting myself. I don't think that there was I just think that we all have different levels of, discomfort that we're willing to tolerate, and how we react to that varies. And so the reaction that I got was coming from a the place of fear because we moved through the world in very different ways. And so it made me question if how I moved through the world actually has a place in the world. Right? And yeah. And I also just I think, ultimately, I always trust myself.
April Pride [00:28:39]:
I mean, the one thing I tell people is that I know I'm gonna be okay. Right? Because I'm telling myself that. Right? You're gonna be okay. Because everything's gonna be okay. Look at your life. It's all always okay. There's always times that aren't okay, but it doesn't mean it's gonna end with that. You know, that's not the note you're gonna end on.
April Pride [00:29:02]:
So that I do trust. The big picture stuff I trust myself on, I think it's that day to day. So every day, not able to not smoke the weed made me trust myself less. Right? And that is a very much a daily issue, but the long term view I have of myself was more positive. I just had to get there. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:29:25]:
Just have to get there. Thank you. Great call out. And, you know, to your point, most of us don't know how to get there, but a lot of us recognize that we wanna take the journey. And for some of us, cannabis is part of that journey. For some of us, it's not, and it may be that psychedelics or nothing, but, really, it is the journey. We're all here on a journey. Right? We're all here to try to figure our shit out.
Mahara Wayman [00:29:50]:
Right? Sometimes we need help. Sometimes we don't. So thank you for for touching on the trust issue. Could you explain the difference between psychedelics and cannabis and how one supported your withdrawal, let's say, of the other?
April Pride [00:30:06]:
Yeah. So the way that I like to describe it is I feel having worked with women, really, over the last ten years on cannabis and psychedelics, the way that I see women, people using cannabis, it's really to address symptoms of
Mahara Wayman [00:30:23]:
a
April Pride [00:30:23]:
larger health challenge, whether that's pain, emotional pain, physical pain. Right? But cannabis really helps us address our symptoms. And then when we move into the world of psychedelics, we're starting to get to the root cause of those symptoms. Because we're dealing with trauma. We're dealing with trauma can cause physical pain. Trauma can cause mood mood disorders. Trauma right? And so cannabis can help us come to terms with our trauma or see that it's there. But really, what has clinical evidence what the clinical evidence shows is that for PTSD, that it's psilocybin, MDMA, that these substances are really what are helping people have profound changes in their life and how they see themselves.
April Pride [00:31:22]:
Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:31:23]:
Okay. My mind is kind of blown. No pun intended. As you're sharing this, now that I'm a coach, I can see the implications for that. So what I I'm very visual. People I hear say this all the time in the podcast. So I always picture. I everything is in picture.
Mahara Wayman [00:31:38]:
So as you were describing that, what I saw was the brain opening up and like a window, like a cur you're opening up curtains so that the person can actually see what up till now has been closed. Yes. Because of fear, because of trauma, because well, because it was just the curtains were closed because the curtains are closed because the brain knew you couldn't handle it. So is that a correct way for me to interpret what you just said was that psychedelics allow the opening opening up the curtains Mhmm. So that you can actually recognize and deal with the original issue versus just you feel you feel pretty happy because you're not dealing with anything. Because cannabis allows you to you know, when you're stoned, you're kinda happy.
April Pride [00:32:26]:
Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:32:26]:
Right. Maybe you eat ice cream. Like, yours truly. That's all I ever did in high school was Totally. Go to Dairy Queen. It was crazy.
April Pride [00:32:33]:
Nice.
Mahara Wayman [00:32:34]:
But now Dairy Queen. Right? I don't have to go into Love Dairy Queen. But okay. So why has there been a bigger what prompted the medical community to invest in psychedelics? Why did it take so long? Because
April Pride [00:32:53]:
You mean so long meaning to today? Why is it happening today?
Mahara Wayman [00:32:58]:
My god. It's 2024. Okay. First of all, we only just made pot legal. Give break. Right? I'm from Jamaica. We grew up smoking pot, drinking all of that stuff because it's just a lifestyle. But it's 2024, and, you know, mushrooms have been on the ground from day one.
Mahara Wayman [00:33:17]:
And my my feeling is that it's like we've skipped, I don't know, three or five hundred years of knowledge where we just pretended we didn't know that, and now we're beginning to know it again. So I'm just curious. Why now? How come it's taken so long?
April Pride [00:33:32]:
Okay. So what happened with psychedelics psychedelics, as we know it, whether it's MDMA, LSD, we're gonna stick with the big ones. Psilocybin still isn't synthesized totally correctly in a lab. It's you all the clinical trials are with a synthetic psilocybin, but they haven't been able to synthesize it exactly. LSD, yes, which comes from ergot, which is a natural fungus. And then, MDMA, sassafras, which is a plant, that's where its genetics, originally come from. So things are things come from nature, but they were originally discovered in a lab with chemists who are reputable starting in the '19 I think it was the nineteen forties. I might have gotten that right.
April Pride [00:34:32]:
LSD nineteen, early nineteen forties or maybe nineteen thirties. And then because that was passed passed through the science community to try and to experiment, had a lot of credibility. So then you fast forward to the nineteen sixties and Stanford and Harvard are using LSD and experiments. The government picks it up, starts doing its own experimentation with people, you know, whether or not they knew it or not. And then Ken Kesey, who was part of, he was at Harvard. Somehow he ended up at Stanford or maybe he was at Stanford and there was another guy that was at Harvard. I'm pretty sure Ken Kesey was at Harvard. He got a hold of it and he turned it into something that was recreational, and he passed it out to everybody.
April Pride [00:35:23]:
And then the government came in and shut it down. And that's when prohibition started in the twentieth century, and that meant there was no more experimentation within a lab environment to try to figure out. So there was a ton of research that all got shut down. And for fifty years, no one's been able to do anything with it. So that's what happened. It was there. But then Nixon, the war on drugs, that's where the war on drugs came on because this is I mean, I don't I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I think we can appreciate that when you have a mind altering substance that is given to a youthful community that has a mind of their own and they start to question things like the Vietnam War, that is very threatening to a government. And so, really, the best way to squash that is to just make it illegal, and that's what happened.
April Pride [00:36:18]:
And so now, I don't know. I mean, as we have, the older generation is out of, not entirely, but a lot of them are they're not, they're no longer overseeing labs at these academic institutions. They're not in roles in government. I don't know if that's true, actually. But we have a we have new energy, and we have new people that are bringing old evidence and then can more evidence to the table to say, hey. We really need to rethink this. And so that's what's happening within the scientific community. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:36:53]:
Thank you for that explanation because I didn't know any of that, but it does make sense. So what is the mandate, do you think, of psychedelics in the twenty first century or the twenty second century? Because we're, you know, probably halfway through this one.
April Pride [00:37:09]:
I mean, do you really think it's a surprise with the way that the world is going that all of a sudden these things show up to us? And it it it's not necessarily for us to rebel and to question authority. That's they've done themselves a disservice most recently with the COVID epidemic. Right? Like, that was very there's no matter what side you're on, that was mishandled in The United States. We had a million people die. That should not have happened. And my kids and their friends are all like, why are y'all in charge? Honestly. I think so I think that, sorry. What was the original question? Sorry.
Mahara Wayman [00:37:56]:
Like, what do you think is the purpose? Like, it's everything happens for I happen to believe that everything happens for a reason. You know, in hindsight, we of course, that's when that came out. It made perfect sense. Just like you said, Vietnam War, kids questioning, why are we doing this, authoritarian, misogynistic life, all of that stuff. Yep. Why now? So is it because I'm the uneducated. Are we looking at psychedelics to help us with predominantly mental issues that heretofore we couldn't address? Because enough of us were educate we just didn't have the the the skills. Is it is it the plan? Is the is the idea that psychedelics become back into the household as a as just an this is just an alternative.
Mahara Wayman [00:38:41]:
There's nothing it's not bad. We're here to support you. You get to choose. Like, is it gonna come become mainstream? Because right now, I don't feel like it's mainstream, at least in my world. Maybe with my kids because they're 26 and 21.
April Pride [00:38:54]:
Mhmm.
Mahara Wayman [00:38:55]:
POTS definitely mainstream. Right? I grew up with it. So is that where you see it going?
April Pride [00:39:01]:
I think it's here to help us survive the modern human condition, which is requiring us to adapt more and more quickly to technology and to a faster paced life. And that is very difficult for a lot of people, including me. And I think it's here to help us just, like, either figure it out because you create new neural pathways to be able to think in new ways and to accept things differently. So there's that part of it. But I think it's also allows us to sit with where we are. And at some point, you have to surrender to it. Right? We're doing our best to change the things that we can, but we can't change everything. And so coming to peace with that, psychedelics is really helping people.
April Pride [00:39:56]:
One of the most interesting reasons that people are advocates for psychedelics is they're they're environmentalist, and they believe that if people have an experience with these mind altering substances that they will connect with our earth in a different way, and they will make different choices that will be on the earth's side. That's one of the most fascinating groups within this sector that I encounter because it's true. There's not a person I know that hasn't consumed psilocybin that feels very connected to our natural world.
Mahara Wayman [00:40:33]:
Okay. Why is that though? Because first of all, crazy interesting. I don't like the word crazy. Super, super interesting. Yeah. But, again, physical me, I'm like, wow. It's because when you open up the mind, the mind the the channels to the to the universe are open. Right? And you you act eight you get to feel it, and you you become one.
Mahara Wayman [00:40:54]:
And, guys, this isn't a woo woo podcast because I just don't know enough of that shit to talk about it with any sort of authority. But this is what I'm feeling when I hear you talk about this is that it's it's part of becoming, you know, one with one, which includes, of course, one with nature. Because nature was here first.
April Pride [00:41:10]:
That's right. That's exactly that's exactly the lesson that people take from these from so I'll talk about psilocybin specifically. I think that the same is true for LSD. But when I talk to, advocates, to lawyers, to doctors, and, you know, we're debating federal legalization, the one topic that everyone agrees will have the most impact on rescheduling psilocybin specifically is palliative care. Helping people come to terms with end of life, not only for their own end of life, but watching somebody they love as well. And when people are given psilocybin at the end of their life, they say that it's one of the top three experiences that they've had in their entire life and that they exactly realize we are all one.
Mahara Wayman [00:42:07]:
That shivers.
April Pride [00:42:09]:
Yeah. I know. And I don't I mean, for me, I'm just trying to help people figure out how to love each other and have a little bit of compassion for one another and to understand that you don't understand anything about another person's life. Right? And to just be okay with that. So I do see how psilocybin can help with that for sure.
Mahara Wayman [00:42:32]:
Okay. Why the term microdosing?
April Pride [00:42:35]:
Because microdosing, unlike these huge doses, these macro doses that they give people right at end of life so that they are connected to spirit and something greater than themselves to help them feel better about what they're moving into. A microdose is subperceptible. You don't there's no altering of what you're looking at. There's no auditory hallucinations. Nothing. But what it does do is it increases neuroplasticity, which as we make decisions throughout our life, we create these grooves in our brain. When this stress happens, I go for ice cream. When this stress happens, I go for weed.
April Pride [00:43:20]:
When I talk to this person, it makes me feel like this. Right? And so you take micro doses, which are, again, at just about a twentieth of a standard dose. When you take that, you increase neuroplasticity. It's like snow falling into those grooves. So when you're confronted with the same decision, you can make a different choice around it. You don't have to be angry when something happens. You can be curious about microdose. Like, something scary starts to happen, just get curious about it, you know? Oh, have be witness to your thoughts, not emotionally attached to them.
April Pride [00:44:04]:
So
Mahara Wayman [00:44:05]:
Thank you for that explanation. What I heard was, just to make sure I understood, macrodosing, microdosing got the right word. Microdosing is like a physical support tool to help you do the inner work. I'm very familiar with the inner work, right, with this is what I do for a living. Mhmm. Microdosing can support that simply because it it alters the neural pathways in your brain.
April Pride [00:44:32]:
Yes. And I think what you brought up together is exactly what people are missing. So my company, Set Set, focuses on the integration. It focuses on how do you take what you've learned, either microdosing or in a large dose experience. How do you make sense of that and move and move into a future that's aligned with what you would like. Right? So you have to have the therapeutic side. Psychedelic medicine is the medicine and the therapeutics that go along with it. And integration is different.
April Pride [00:45:07]:
Right? The reason I started SETS at three and a half years ago when I started my podcast about psychedelics, it was all so expensive. It was super exclusive. It's one on one coaching. It's retreats that are very expensive. Like, there wasn't there was no accessible way for people to use the medicine with more intention. And what I learned was that it's really easy. Integration is quite easy. Right? More time in nature, journaling, self care, getting your sleep, drinking water, making sure that your body is optimized before going into experience or afterwards so that you're not, you know, thrown off and fighting for survival once again because you missed a night of sleep or, you know, you're not taking care of your diet from the inside out.
April Pride [00:45:52]:
But, yeah, integration is a huge part of it, but you have to do the work and then your brain is on your side. Right? Because you're invited these these substances to the party. Yeah. So to speak.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:05]:
It's so fascinating. Honest to god, I'm like, holy shit, Rex. Like, here I am. I'm an apostle. I'm in 50 almost 59. And I am livid with the lack of understanding of women's issues just on a physical level. Like, now that I'm into it, I'm reading all I read about it, follow pages, you know, all of that stuff, and I'm experiencing it. Oh, that's just the way it is.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:33]:
Fuck off. If you, you know, if you if your penis dropped off, you'd figure it out. Right? If you all of a sudden had all of these amazing, unfortunate side effects of just getting older, you would you guys would have addressed that, you know, eighty years ago. So I have a lot of anger and and dis and mistrust around that. And all I can think about this is, okay. Here's something else that I feel that needs we need to talk about this more. So I'm so glad. April, I am so glad that you reached out to me on the show because this is just so far reaching.
Mahara Wayman [00:47:08]:
Is there speaking of menopause, is there any sort of a connection between the hormonal changes that we go through and what could possibly be offered as support in the psychedelic industry?
April Pride [00:47:25]:
Yes. Yes. So psilocybin is a serotonin agonist as is estrogen. So when we lose estrogen and we introduce psilocybin, we can impact our levels of estrogen, or or we can impact the levels of serotonin in our system. Right? So people are using microdose psilocybin as a way to to manage their symptoms related to to menopause. So you'll see a balance. You see a balance in in hormones, which means better sleeping, hot flashes are minimized, mood swings. So that people are having luck using microdose microdosing for those symptoms.
April Pride [00:48:19]:
That what was introduced to me recently by a woman named Jennifer Chesick who is, a health journalist, and she wrote a book called, the, psilocybin psilocybin guide for women. She started doing a lot of research on psilocybin and menopause. And she shared with me, this, which I thought was very, very interesting. Women who have had traumatic events earlier in their life, which women are more likely to have experienced trauma than men, and are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and anxiety. When they get and they they typically women that have had traumatic events in their life and that have been unaddressed. Typically,
Mahara Wayman [00:49:01]:
that
April Pride [00:49:01]:
is how it works for a while. Right? Your periods are more aggressive. Right? You'll see people with endometriosis. Seventy five percent of people with a diagnosis of end endometriosis have also had sexual trauma. So they think that that's a physical manifestation of the emotional trauma that's been put upon them. So as you move into menopause, if that trauma persists, then your menopausal symptoms are also worse. And so women who use psilocybin at macro doses to start to come to terms with their trauma or unresolved issues find that if they people are saying that if you do that before menopause, that it will have an impact on your menopausal symptoms, meaning that they're diminished. There's no clinical evidence of that, but it is a suggestion for women if they want to start to to look at some hard things that perhaps that's one way to do it.
Mahara Wayman [00:50:05]:
Okay. So much so much exciting information. Tell us a little bit more about the Set Set Show.
April Pride [00:50:10]:
So Set Set Show is a podcast that I I started podcasting five years ago with the, podcast called How to Do the Pod. And then three and a half years ago, The High Guide and Set Set Show is a, all my favorite episodes from each of those shows plus new episodes focused on psychedelics. And it is the podcast for our platform called Set Set, which is a an education psychedelic education and integration platform for women so that they can figure out how to use all of these substances correctly and safely. And I partnered with a licensed therapist who created our education and our integration tools. She's been working with psilocybin and ketamine for five years, and she's been, a master coach and psychotherapist for over fifteen. So that was what I found was lacking in cannabis is there was not evidence based information to share with women. There was only other women's stories, which that's all we had. And I did the best job I could to make sure as many women could hear what how other people were using cannabis.
April Pride [00:51:16]:
But we have we have research in psychedelics. And so to help people move through this and not reference it and not create tools based on what we know. Just didn't feel like I was, operating with integrity. So I was really happy to have been introduced to Kendra and to be able to bring, yeah, evidence based information to women as they're trying to figure all this out.
Mahara Wayman [00:51:38]:
Okay. I just wanna call out because, you know, the the name of the podcast is The Art of Badass. Right? I wanna call out that it is badass to follow your truth. Many of us may feel it, but we don't act on it. And I just wanna say, April, it it sounds like you're really following it. You've experienced some stuff that led you to certain stuff that led you to realize, wait a second. I wouldn't be standing in my truth if I didn't take action and and, you know, and do more. So I wanna thank you for that because that is part of being badass.
Mahara Wayman [00:52:11]:
Right? It's learning what you need to learn and taking action that's gonna make the world a better place. Simple as that. Right? It doesn't you don't have to, you know, create it or made all of these amazing achievements. You can, of course, as a badass, but, really, it can be pretty simple. Know that you matter and that you wanna make the world a better place. How can people find out more about what it is that you do, April? Of course, I'll have show notes, but speak it out loud. Not everybody likes to read the show notes.
April Pride [00:52:40]:
Yeah. Got it. And you can visit our website at get set set. That's getsetset.com. And you can use that Get Set Set also on Instagram. And our podcast episodes are on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and on YouTube at Get Set Set. That's our channel.
Mahara Wayman [00:52:59]:
So, so good. Leave us with a few tips on how you make sure that you are feeling badass and doing badassery on a regular basis. Three tips.
April Pride [00:53:08]:
Sleep. Number one. Sleep. Number two, I really, really don't get caught up in how people might perceive my choices. I really try to separate myself from their experience and how they might that might impact how they see my own choices. And I focus on my kids, like, in a positive way. Not but just knowing that really I've lived my life. I'm not finished, but I've made my choices.
April Pride [00:53:40]:
And a lot of the choices that I've made have had huge impacts on them. So I can't stop thinking about them and their future just because they're getting older and taking control of their future. I really have to have for me, I'm a pretty independent person, so I have to remind myself that I have these other little ones that I'm bringing along as I'm deciding to, like, talk about weed all the time and talk about psychedelics all the time. That really defined their childhood. You know?
Mahara Wayman [00:54:09]:
Yeah.
April Pride [00:54:09]:
And so I think moving forward, I've in the last five years, I've done a lot of soul searching. And it's like, okay. Remember that you are part of a family. Yeah. So that's the other thing that keeps me grounded, I would say, in my badassery is that, you know, I'm not in this alone.
Mahara Wayman [00:54:26]:
There you go. Oh my gosh. April, thank you so much. This has been not at all what I expected. Really, there's so much for us to learn, not only about ourselves and our on our journey, but what may be out there to help us on our journey. So guys, stop asking questions. Right? Never stop looking for answers and or sitting down quietly with yourself and going, okay. WTF.
Mahara Wayman [00:54:54]:
Is this where I wanna be? And what could I possibly do to change that if I wanna make a change? This has been the Art of Badassery. Special thanks to my guest, April Pride, because I learned a lot today, and that doesn't always happen. So this is this is a banner day in Maharavel. Everyone, come back next week for another episode of The Art of Badassery. April, all the best. Check out our show notes. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with someone. If you've got any thoughts or feedback on what our our conversation today, just let us know.
Mahara Wayman [00:55:25]:
We'd love to hear from you. Take care, everyone. Thanks again. Thanks for tuning in to another badass episode. Your support means the world to me. So if you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to like, share, and rate the episode on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback keeps the badassery flowing. And, hey, if you're ready to unleash your inner badass and conquer whatever life throws your way, why not book a complimentary badass breakthrough session? Just click the link in the show notes to schedule your session, and let's kick some serious butt together.
Mahara Wayman [00:55:59]:
Until next time, stay fearless, stay fabulous, and of course, stay badass. This is Mahara signing off.
