The Impact Of Healing Journeys With Pardis Mahdavi, PhD

 

Going out to travel is not only about leisure and excitement, but also about expanding oneself by visiting places outside your comfort zone. Author and entrepreneur Pardis Mahdavi, PhD understands the transformative power of healing journeys, and so she built her business around that. In this conversation, she talks about her wellness company Entheon, which focuses on transformational retreats and coaching programs for personal growth. She explains how immersing in new cultures and traditions can help you discover new things about yourself. Pardis also delves into the benefits of plant medicine, which she describes as the intersection between science and spirituality.

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The Impact Of Healing Journeys With Pardis Mahdavi, PhD

I’m so happy to be here with Dr. Pardis Mahdavi. I went to a Back to Basics Twelve-Step Program. You were there for the eleventh step. Marty McLean brought you. You talked about meditation, and it was awesome. I was so happy that I got to meet you. Shortly after that, I saw you with Joe Polish of Genius Recovery. You guys were out at the MAHA Film Festival or whatever it was. You went on and saw Dr. Phil and all that kind of stuff. I saw you at the Genius Network event. We’re like, “Here we are. We got to do a show together.” I’m glad you’re here.

I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Tim.

Pardis is an anthropologist, author, and former university president who left her career in academia after discovering she could make an even bigger positive impact through transformative travel. She founded a wellness company called Entheon, which focuses on transformational retreats and coaching for personal growth. Pardis brings a unique blend of science and spirituality to her work. She loves exploring the intersection of science, psychedelics, and soul as tools for healing and personal transformation. Welcome.

Thanks so much. Thanks for the intro.

To start off, you’ve had a fascinating journey. We’re not going to get into all of it, but we’re going to talk about some of it. We only have an hour or so.

Distill all your years of life into an hour.

Pardis Mahdavi And Transformative Retreats

You went from being a university dean and even a president to founding Entheon and leading these transformational retreats. Can you share a bit about that personal journey? What made you step away from academia and take this travel towards wellness, travel, and personal transformation?

I describe myself now as a recovering academic, so it’s a different kind of recovery. I had gotten to a place where I was a workaholic. It was getting me out of alignment. Most importantly, I felt that higher education was not serving the population it was designed to serve. I had a front row seat to students experiencing very serious mental health crises, one after another. The students who weren’t in crisis were still talking about feeling disoriented. They would come to college. Half of them wouldn’t even complete college.

As we sit here, 43 million Americans started college but dropped out. That’s a staggering number. That points to something being wrong. More than two-thirds of Americans believe college is not a good use of time, let alone money. Something is off. Being in the system for more than two decades, I started feeling that way myself. I started feeling like, “I’m not sure if we’re doing right by our students. I’m not sure if we’re doing right by the workforce.” I started to feel those same pain points. I was constantly running and constantly working, that whole workaholic thing.

I felt like I wasn’t making much progress. I felt like we weren’t meeting the needs of students. The evidence of that was coming to me as a leader. I was constantly in the trenches with students and families who were experiencing a lot of pain and suffering. That then made me look at myself and realize I was also experiencing a lot of pain and suffering as an individual within that system.

You were numbing through the workaholism.

That was my escapism. I was seeking validation through success and constantly going and looking for that next rung on the ladder at all costs. That’s how you know it’s workaholism. My family life was starting to fall apart. My mental health was suffering severely. I was in a very severe depression. I got divorced. Two of my kids remained in Arizona. I was provost at the University of Montana and then the president in California, commuting to see my young children.

It was like everything had fallen apart. I was so unhappy I could barely breathe. I would barely stop to breathe and take stock. I was running on a hamster wheel. I knew that I was running on this hamster wheel. I knew that I was getting burnt out, but I couldn’t stop. That’s the addiction component. You’re addicted to success and validation. Even though you’re in it, you know that there’s something wrong. You’re not feeling good. You keep numbing out. It is like, “I have to. I can’t let my team down. I have to do something about education.” I told myself a lot of stories. I had to start realizing, “The greatest thing I can do is heal myself so that I can be a better support for the people around me.”

The greatest thing you can do to better support those around you is to heal yourself. Share on X

The best way to teach is to be an example. As I’m listening to you talk, one of the most basic definitions that I like is that addiction is something that you continue despite negative consequences.

It is over and over again. When I’m addicted to this substance, I have all these consequences. I’m losing my loved ones, I’m losing my money, but I’m continuing to do it. That’s how it was for me.

You’re expecting a different result.

It’s also something that you continue to do to fill a void so that you don’t have to turn and look inwards. It’s this constant focus on managing the external world, hoping that if you get to that place in your external world, then your internal world will calm and get to a place of peace. That’s what everybody gets wrong. Everyone focuses on controlling their external circumstances and their external world, or escaping it, and thinking that that’ll somehow make their inner world feel better. It never works that way. You have to focus on calming your inner state or getting to what my teachers call a beautiful state, that non-suffering, beautiful state inside. Once you’re there, then the external world starts to change.

Starting To Do Things Differently

How did you finally identify your issue or what you needed to do differently, because you were stuck? You were probably stuck for years.

It was at least a decade. I wasn’t honest about it. Within the three-month period when I was getting divorced and emotionally estranged from my young children, I pretty much hit rock bottom. I had been on SSRIs for seven years. I had been on Prozac. I had been trying to medicate through it like so many leaders do. Medicate, achieve all the things, and then you hit a wall. Everybody hits that wall at some point. Whether or not you keep running into it, that becomes your choice.

It could also be how many times you need to run into it.

I hit a wall when it became clear that I was going to have to be living in a different state from my children, doing a job that made me miserable. I would have a pit in my stomach every day going to work. I started to reflect on that. I was so severely depressed, and nothing was working. I thought, “Wait a second. I have a PhD in medical anthropology. I spent the first half of my career studying the ways in which different cultures, traditions, and bodies of knowledge help people all around the world and throughout history view and make decisions about their mind, body, and soul connection.”

I studied this. I had studied shamans, but I forgot. One of the things that happens when you go into leadership and become a dean, you’re then a bureaucrat. You’re an administrator, so you’re not as focused on your subject matter that you trained in and got your PhD in. I was writing a book about these amazing women in Afghanistan, who had formed this all-female army that was fighting the Taliban. I was thinking about their resilience and how they marshaled that.

It was this stark contrast for me between the women I was writing about and how strong, free, and powerful they felt when they were on horses and all that, and how weak, vulnerable, and terrible I felt. I thought, “Let me go back to all of the shamanic work. Let me go back to all of the writings on the interstate. How do you get back into your body? How do you get back into your soul?” I did that after I hit rock bottom. I had a suicide attempt. Thank God it was unsuccessful. I wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for that.

How long had you been thinking about suicide before you made the attempt?

I’d been thinking about it since 2014. I had pseudo attempts in 2017 and 2018, but my big one was in 2021.

What was the plan?

I was in the shower. I had my razor. I was ready to go. I was getting ready to do it. I was so lucky because my parents happened to be visiting. The guest bathroom was taken. I don’t know what it was. My father walked into the bathroom. I was so shocked that he was in there. I was naked. I dropped the razor, and it snapped me out of that trance.

There are no coincidences.

I’ll never forget the expression on my father’s face. His face fell completely.

Did he know what you were trying to do?

He could tell. He was like, “Just get out of the shower and wrap a towel around you.” I was stunned. My dad started crying, and it was his tears that released mine. That was a really hard moment. My dad went from grief to anger. He was angry at my soon-to-be ex-husband. He knew that this was happening. I had young kids. He got angry with me. “How could you do this?”

I was like, “He’s right. How could I do this? This is not sustainable. I can’t keep living like this. I can’t keep fantasizing about death like this. I’m going to turn it around. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to suffer. I’m going to turn it around.” I was very lucky because I got back in touch with a couple of different shamans. I got off the SSRIs. I started doing my inner work. We started with meditation and breathwork, six months of that. I was crying my eyes out.

Prior to the incident in the shower, had you been crying leading up to that? There have been periods of time when I’ve had so much that I’ve held inside, and then finally, I break down and cry. In 2024, I cried at a retreat that I was at. I cried for all of 2024, but prior to that, I didn’t cry at all. That’s where I’m going with that.

Prior to that, I didn’t cry much.

The walls are up. You’re protecting.

You’re pounding forward. It was that moment and then thereafter that I cried for two years. This was Christmas Eve 2021. I cried all of 2022 and 2023. It was two years of tears.

Doing Meditation And Breathwork

From there, what was next? You focus on prayer, meditation, and breathwork.

It got to the point where my shamans were like, “You need to go deeper.” We talk about those walls that we’ve erected, the walls of division, and being in judgment rather than being in curiosity. My shamans were like, “You’re fighting this. You’re resisting letting in this healing.” I was like, “I know.” I was wrapped around the axle about that. Finally, one of my shamans was like, “It might be time for some plant allies here. It might be time to call in the plant allies.”

As a medical anthropologist, I had a somewhat complicated relationship to that. I read Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan. Even the very first time I heard the word ayahuasca, I was like, “I don’t know what that is, but it definitely spoke to me.” I was reading more about it. There are different approaches or different schools of thought on plant medicine. Some people say, “You shouldn’t need that. You just meditate. You’re going to hike up a mountain.” Plant medicine is like a chairlift or a rocket ship, depending on which plant. Some teachers will say, “There’s value to that hike.” Other teachers will say, “Sometimes, a chairlift can be helpful in leveling you up.” People have different perspectives on it.

I decided that playing by all the rules hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I had played by all of the rules my whole life, Tim. The minute I finished college, I was already accepted to Columbia University for my first Master’s, then it was another Master’s, the PhD, and another certificate. Before I even graduated with my PhD, I had a tenure-track job at Pomona College. I would play by the rules. I had done everything right. I was the good girl doing what I was supposed to be doing, except I was so miserable. The higher up I went, the more things I checked off the list, and the more I gripped life, the more miserable I was.

From the outside, it was like, “She’s so successful. She’s publishing all these Stanford University Press books.” I was tenured by the age of 30. I was a full professor. I was the department chair, the youngest woman, all these things. On the outside, I looked incredibly successful and put together, but on the inside, I was in so much pain. There were days when it was hard to get out of bed for a good ten years. I would say probably longer if I’m being honest. That’s the hard thing.

Were you making progress through breathwork and meditation? I don’t know if you went on any other retreats.

Not at that point. At that point, it was all breathwork, meditation, and a lot of energy work.

Was it working?

It was working.

Were you making some progress at least?

There was a lot of progress. I’m one of these people who never do anything halfway. I’m like, “I’m going to go all the way.” At that point in time in 2022, I wasn’t as gentle with myself as I am now. I felt like I had hit a plateau. It was working. I was feeling better. I was off the SSRIs, but then certain things would happen in my life. It would knock me down. I was in a relationship, dating somebody. I’ve also had to recognize that I have a lot of love addiction.

When that love started to be pulled back, I would get anxious. It was tough. It would knock me off my kilter again. I was like, “No. Whatever I have to do to go deeper and to excavate all these things, I’m going to do it.” A lot of my friends at the time had gone to retreats. They had done a lot of this work. I thought, “Let me give it a try. I want to try.” First of all, as an anthropologist, I love ceremony. I love ritual. Ceremonies are birthright. I’m Persian. I’ve come from Iran. I’ve come from the land of Rumi and Hafez. Ceremonies are so beautiful in my culture and everywhere that I’ve lived. I’ve lived in South Africa, Japan, Singapore, and India.

What I’ve always loved about where I’ve lived and where I’ve gone are rituals and ceremonies. It’s what made me want to be an anthropologist. When I learned about these retreats, the ceremonies, and the shamans who were performing these ceremonies, I was like, “I’m curious. If you can go and dedicate a few days to a healing ceremony, I’m in for that.” It was in 2022 that I started to be open to these retreats and these ceremonies.

That’s what cracked me open. I had been making progress, but then I got cracked open. It was a whole other layer. The plants have a place. They crack you open. You’re taking a bigger spin in the washing machine. With the breathwork, you’re getting there, but this is like you’re in the washing machine. You’re probably going to spend some time in the washing machine. I was glad for that.

How To Start Trying Plant Medicine

What would you say to someone curious about plant medicine? I can tell you were hesitant. What was the process? Leading up to it, how did you know it was the right thing for you?

It was finding the right community, the right shamans, and the right guides, because plant medicine can have the opposite of the intended effect if you don’t have people who are going to help you integrate. I’ve seen that at retreats. I’ve seen people go on one-offs, and their bucket list is an ayahuasca bucket list. They show up in Costa Rica or Peru. They find a shaman. They take some ayahuasca. It makes them feel worse because they see a lot of things, and they don’t know how to process them. They haven’t prepared mentally for it.

 

For me, it was finding the right shamans and working with my shamans, who prepared me for months. Once I made the decision, I spent three months preparing for it and getting the tools. There are tools that you can use when you’re in the medicine to move your hand and breath to make the experience. This is the distinction. A lot of people think of plant medicine as a drug.

There are quite a few people who think it’s a drug. There are more and more people who agree that there are too many people who are healing from plant medicine done correctly in the right setting.

It is done correctly with the right guides, shamans, and intentions. The other thing is that I find that the people who think of it as a drug are the people who’ve never done it. If you’ve done an ayahuasca, which, if you’ve done three nights of your head in a bucket, people say, “It’s seven years’ worth of therapy in seven hours.” I’m like, “Yes. You better be ready to do seven years in seven hours because it’s exhausting.”

It’s hard.

Who’s going to be addicted to that? People are like, “This is another drug you’re going to get. Aren’t you worried? People are going to get addicted to ayahuasca.” I’m like, “You’ve clearly never done it.”

You’re not doing ayahuasca to have a good time.

You’re doing it so that you have a good life afterwards. There are parts during the journey that are amazing, uplifting, and wonderful, but there are parts of it that are hard. It’s not like I’m hallucinating, seeing beautiful colors, and all of that. It’s different. That’s why it’s an entheogen. It’s about connecting you with yourself. It’s much less like a hallucinogen, ayahuasca, or ibogaine, and much more about going inwards and connecting with yourself in a container that allows you to see those moments of your life in a different way.

It allows you to go back to the things that you’ve been pushing away for so long, pull out your demons, touch them, and figure out their shapes and their sizes in a much safer way. Back to your question of, “What would be your advice?” Get yourself soulfully, mentally, and physically prepared. Have a good integration coach for before, during, and after. That makes all the difference.

 

You said you’ve seen it go the opposite direction. Tell me about that.

I’ve met a lot of people who did it as their bucket list, or their friends had done it. They were like, “I saw a Jaguar coming out of the tree at my face.” I’m like, “Yes.” They go down there. They haven’t done any of their inner work. They take the medicine. They get very angry or freaked out by what they’re seeing. Memories are coming up for them. They’re expecting to go and have this interesting ride. Maybe they’ll puke. Maybe they won’t, but they’ll have this cool ride. They’re not prepared for pulling those demons out there. They’re not necessarily going in with that intention because they haven’t done that work to get ready. They see things about their past lives that horrify them or make them angry.

I’ve seen people act out in the middle of ceremonies and retreats. I’ve seen people get up and leave. You’ve got shamans who have to go find them. They’re out in the jungle. I’ve seen people who did it, and then afterwards, they’ll call me and be like, “I’m stuck. I saw some stuff. I can’t process it.” We say in medical anthropology terms, “They’re stuck in bardo.” They’re stuck in this in-between space of, “I saw it. I’m haunted by it. I don’t know what to do with it.”

They end up being lower. They end up coming out feeling lower than when they went in. With this work, sometimes, you feel worse and get better. They feel a drop. They don’t know how to get back here. We’re trying to get up to a high point. The whole point of it is you’re self-excavating and unburdening so that you can elevate. Some of the people I’ve known over the years fall off. They’re like, “I wish I’d never done it because then I could have kept those memories tucked away.”

I went to a buddy’s birthday party in the Bay Area. I was talking with a couple of people about the ceremony. One of the guys said, “I’ve got a bunch of stuff in my past that I don’t want to dig up. I’m not going to do it. I’m going to keep on living my life.” What can you say to that?

At least, your buddy is clear that that’s what they want. That’s what they are. Some of my teachers over the years would say, “That’s going to haunt you. You think it’s going to stay there, but it’s going to haunt you.” Everybody has to make their own choices. It may be that your buddy in 2025 is saying that, but two or three years from now, something could happen. He might say, “I’m ready.” I wasn’t ready for a full decade to face a whole bunch of the things that I kept. I was like, “I’m fine. I’m great. I’m killing it. Look at my life. I’m killing it. I’m a university president. I’m nailing it.” I wasn’t ready. People get ready at different points in their lives because different things transpire for them.

I can say for myself. I got sober in 2011. For my first ten years, I was focused on the Twelve Steps. I was focused on that, and I was not open to any psychedelics or healing in any other way. After about ten years, I got a little more curious because I was seeing so many people have positive results after doing these ceremonies and other things, whether it’s psilocybin, ayahuasca, ibogaine, or ketamine. There are so many other things. We offer transcranial magnetic stimulation and ketamine assisted therapy. I’ve seen so many people have positive results.

How can you pretend like that doesn’t exist? When it comes to the positive results, there’s a real force multiplier that comes in the form of community. You were following the Twelve Steps. One of the things AA gets well is the community. We call it a magic carpet to catch you when you’re falling. We talked about Joe Polish and Genius Recovery. One of the things Joe does well is curate a community. The magic of Genius Network, 100k Group, and all the groups is a curated community.

You can go and do an ayahuasca retreat, and it’s like a one-off, but to make it sustainable, you need these unbreakable bonds. You need these bonds and community. The other people I see who feel worse afterwards will have this peak experience. People who go to things like Tony Robbins have talked about some of that, too. They have this peak experience. They are epic. They feel amazing. They feel incredible about themselves. They come back home to their real life.

It’s re-entry.

They’re like, “This does not feel good.” I’ve had that experience myself. You have an incredible time at Burning Man or what have you. You come back, and you’re like, “My son needs to get his homework done,” or, “I’ve got to go get milk.” I remember I’d gone to Burning Man. It was this incredible peak and an amazing experience. I came back. I had moved house. I was like, “I’m back. I got my kids back.” They were like, “Mom, school starts in two days. I don’t even know where my backpack is.”

Here I was trying to move boxes at 10:00 at night before school starts. This box fell on me. I broke the box. I almost hurt myself. I was like, “How is it that I’m 45 years old, and I don’t have anybody that I can call?” I did, but I didn’t have anybody that I could call to help me after being at seven days of Burning Man, community, and “We’re all love. We’re all together.” “Who am I going to call to help me find my nine-year-old son’s backpack?” That’s where the community aspect is important. Plant medicines have a place because they crack you open and all of that. The challenge is that they operate at the individual level. That’s why the guide, the bond, and the group are so important for making the results of plant medicine have a full force multiplier effect.

What I’m thinking about as you’re talking is that I’m the aggregate of the five people I spend the most time with. Whether I go off and do a Tony Robbins retreat, any other motivational retreat, Genius Network for that matter, an ayahuasca, or any of the journeys, you come back to, “Who are your people? Who’s your circle?” Sometimes, when we go off and do one of those retreats, you might realize that your circle might need to change a little bit. Your circle probably does need to change, especially as you start doing the healing work, because you attract who you are. It’s all part of the process and the journey in my experience.

It’s also about finding your people. You’re going through these processes, and you’re attracting them. We’re meeting people. You and I meet. We meet people, like Joan, who are all committed to living life in an elevated state. They are living a better life. That’s what we’re all looking for.

Finding The Right Community

It’s recovery. It’s healing. It’s wellness. It’s health. I think about the Twelve Steps. That’s my foundation. That’s where I started. I then started doing yoga. I started doing an Ironman. I’m a member of Genius Network. There are all of these communities, and there’s crossover. I’m part of all these different communities. I’m a cyclist, and I’m training for the cycling trip in Costa Rica. Some people are also in recovery. There’s crossover in all of these different communities. That’s how I find my people.

One of the things that can be helpful is also to have a place where you go to be with your people. So many social clubs are organized around alcohol. You’ve got a global ambassador or whatever. Most of the social clubs or societies are organized around either a substance, not a plant, but alcohol, or whatever. A country club is organized around golf or whatever. If those kinds of things don’t resonate for you as an adult, it’s harder to have places to go to be with your people.

When I used to drink, everything I did revolved around drinking. For someone who’s trying to get sober, it was like, “My life is going to be terrible because everything they do revolves around drinking and doing drugs.” When I hear that, I’m like, “You’re crazy. My life is amazing. All of the things that I do revolved around health and wellness, and all of the things that I love doing. Drinking and doing drugs are not part of it. It’s not part of my life. That’s not who I attract. That’s not what I want to do. I don’t have to worry about it.”

You’re right. A lot of people are worried about that. They’re like, “What am I going to do? How am I going to make friends without a social lubricant, like alcohol?” We are lucky in that we’re both living in Arizona, where it has a lot more people like us. Certainly, it’s a place where there’s a lot more biohacking wellness. We’re living in a place and an era where more people are starting to be open to forming lasting bonds around some things other than drinking or what have you.

One thing I was thinking about is that you talked about the ceremony and the process. If someone does a psilocybin journey, for example, it’s a one-shot, one-and-done. With an ayahuasca retreat, one of the things that I love about it is the community aspect. It’s full on the meeting before the meeting. It’s the ceremony. The ceremony is a six or seven-hour process. There are things that happen. There’s something to be said about doing hard things with people.

The ceremony is a hard thing. On Saturdays, I do a long bike ride with some friends. It’s doing something hard together. We bond over that. We go out to eat at The Global Ambassador, or something like that, for brunch. It is a way to further bond. The same thing with an aya ceremony is that there are a few days of bonding. That’s one of the most beautiful things about it.

The bonding is key. People ask me, “You’ve written so many books. What’s the through thread of all the books you write?” I’m like, “It is bonding. That’s the through thread of all the books that I write. It is people who bond to create a social movement, and in Iran, to change governments, or people who leverage bonds for nefarious purposes. I wrote a bunch of books on trafficking. It is people who bond around identity.

I wrote a book called Hyphen. It is people who bond with horses and all of that. I wrote the Book of Queens and Riding. We are who we are through relationships. One of my favorite magicians is like, “I can’t be a magician in front of a mirror. I need an audience. A magician is not a magician without an audience.” You talked about the ayahuasca ceremony. Yes, there are the six or seven hours that are beautiful and powerful, but the greatest harvest for me is this. The next morning, when you do this integration circle and the whole group talks about what they saw and experienced, you’re processing it together.

The academic term is intersubjective relationships, relationships between two people. You can have a relationship with a place, a thing, or an animal, too. My horses bring out different parts of me. I have intersubjective relationships with places like Kauai or the ocean. It brings out different parts of me. We are who we are through relationships, certainly with people.

Origin Story Of Entheon

The opposite of addiction is human connection. It’s the same thing. What does Entheon mean, and why did you choose that name?

Entheon means the journey to find the creator within. One of the things people talk about addiction is that it’s like a broken heart. People become addicts because they’re brokenhearted or they don’t necessarily have a spiritual connection. They become disconnected. Spirituality is different from religion. There’s a place for both. It is connecting with spirituality, consciousness, transcendence, and this limitless field of consciousness. It is connecting, plugging back in, and realizing that so much of it is inside you.

The word Entheon spoke to me because entheos means knowledge within, and entheon denotes a journey to find that inner knowledge. All of us are on these journeys. We’re these seekers and whatnot. We go on journeys to Costa Rica, Peru, or wherever, but we are also on this longer collective journey to evolve and grow. For me, knowledge has always been something that I’ve thought a lot about. How do we know what we know? How do we know what we think we know?

In the era of AI, we’ve come to grapple with the fact that we thought knowledge was power. Knowledge is a commodity. What are the ways of knowing? What is that journey to discover the ways that you know? Sometimes, you go to a different place and discover a different part of you. You talk to somebody, and that activates something else inside you. How do you get to move and be in the world while you’re constantly discovering yourself?

What was your vision in creating Entheon?

My vision was probably twofold. One was around healing because so many of us have hit the wall enough times that we’re ready to stop. If you’re ready to stop and want to explore what there is out there in a different way, bond with groups and with communities around the world, and find yourself through losing yourself and getting lost because you want to lose yourself so that you can be reborn in some ways, part of it was healing.

It has to happen, especially if you want something different. Typically, it’s so drastic. You have to start over.

People talk about ego death. You have to shed some part of your ego. You have to put some of that aside and start to be like, “I want to stop living in the story of me or the manufactured image of me. I want to live through me.” I didn’t even know who I was when I was doing this. I didn’t even know how I liked my eggs. When I hit rock bottom, people were like, “What do you like to do?” I was like, “Write. Travel. I don’t know. I never take five seconds to think about it.” It was like, “How do you like your eggs?” I was like, “I don’t know.” I sat down one day and made eggs seven different ways to figure out how I liked my eggs. That’s the most ridiculous thing. This is part of the journey.

My vision for starting Entheon was twofold. One, it was to help people on this healing journey. The other was to get people out into the world. I’m an anthropologist. For me, those moments where I experienced powerful shifts and transformations are moments when I am out in the world, connecting with, and seeing a whole different way of being and thinking. That makes me start to shift my own. I’ve been in places like Madagascar or Rapa Nui, which is Easter Island off the coast of Chile. Those are the moments when I start to think differently. Somehow, being taken out of my environment helps me. It also pays homage to the fact that around the world, people have been asking these questions and thinking about these journeys. There’s so much we can learn from different communities.

It was twofold. I wanted to help people go journey within, journey inside, start to meet their demons, and explore them. I also wanted to help people get out into the world and connect with different cultures because there’s so much richness in the world. When I think about stagnation, what do we want for human connection? If the opposite of addiction is connection, what do we want connection for? We want a connection to alleviate stagnation and loneliness. Those are the two things. We want to alleviate stagnation and loneliness.

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Stagnation happens when we are constantly in the same environment. We’re doing the same thing and expecting a different result. When you shift your environment and meet people from different parts of the world who think differently, it starts to get you thinking differently. One of the best ways to describe the discipline of anthropology is to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Go out into the world, a place that you think, “That’s different. It’s totally out of my comfort zone,” and realize, “That’s so much more familiar. They’re struggling with the same things I am. They are thinking through this, too.”

My twelve-year-old son has five best friends. Four out of the five have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. They’re twelve years old and they are on heavy medication. We’ve somehow normalized. They come over for sleepovers. They’re like, “Here’s the medication bag.” I’m like, “We’ve normalized that.” Maybe we can question that a little bit. Make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. How did we get here?

How Transformative Retreats Lead To Healing And Growth

Let’s talk about your retreats. What are the retreats like? How do they help people in their healing, recovery, and personal growth journeys? We’ve already talked about a lot of that, but tell me what the retreats look like.

We typically go into places that are known for some kind of healing, sacred sites, etc. They are places like Egypt, India, and Peru. Not all the retreats involve plant medicine. Some do. For instance, in Egypt and India, you’re going to places where the healing is done through things like meditation and rituals. You go into the pyramids and get to experience a ritual that was done thousands of years ago. That helps you connect with yourself. In India, we do a lot of meditation work and a lot of Ayurvedic work. We learn what foods to eat and how to balance them.

You’re going to another culture. Each day, you’re learning the different healing modalities that have been passed down for thousands of years in these different cultures. You’re also getting a chance to connect with local communities, which ordinarily, you wouldn’t do. I talk about Entheon. It’s about journeying versus traveling. Most people travel to and show up in Cairo. They’d go to the Four Seasons. They might go to the bazaar. They hire a tour. They go ride a camel or whatever. You ask them, “How many Egyptians did you talk to?” They’re like, “There was our guide.”

You’re like, “Did you get in? Did you get to meet and talk to some practitioners? Did you get to talk with some mystics?” They’re like, “I didn’t.” I’m like, “You went all that way. You spent all that money. You didn’t get to see the real magic.” You get to meet local practitioners. You need to meet families. You get to go into and experience these countries, so you can absorb that healing knowledge that’s been passed down for thousands of years.

How long did it take you before you decided you’re leaving academia, and then you started Entheon or these retreats?

There was some crossover there. As soon as I started delving into my healing journey, I would tell friends, “I’m going to go to India. I’m going to do this retreat.” People who knew me knew that I’ve lived in seven different countries. I visited 88 countries. I’ve visited some of the most far-flung corners of the world. People who traveled with me are always asking me for travel tips. I have a friend who called me. She was like, “Do you think I need to bring different currency?” That’s the reputation I had.

People were calling me and saying, “I heard you’re going to go do this thing. Can I come?” I had somebody call me who’s a CEO. They said, “I want to take my team on a trip to South Africa. Can you put together an interesting itinerary for me where we can meet some folks?” I was like, “Sure.” I was doing it because I was on my journey, and it’s always more fun to do things together. I was like, “If you want to come, let’s go,” or “You want me to put something together for you? You want me to recommend certain stops for you? Absolutely.” I speak a bunch of languages.

There was some crossover. You take stock of your day. What are the things that fill your cup, and what are the things that drain you? We talk a lot about that in Genius Network, too. I was finding that the things that brought me joy and made me feel good were things like talking about personal growth and transformation, talking to people about where they were in their journeys, and starting to get honest with people. The thing that didn’t bring me joy was my day job.

I was in the muck and trying to be like, “We need to change this. We need to meet the needs of students.” It was like politics. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall. I felt like I was almost living two lives. I was having to hide the healing journey life from everything else, even though that’s what was keeping me alive. That was what was keeping me stitched together enough to be commuting from Montana or California to see my kids. I had to do that healing work to be put together enough to be able to be at least a present parent. When I came to see my kids, that side of my life was keeping me together. This other side of my life was pulling me apart. Finally, I was like, “At a certain point, you can’t outrun the mirrors that are all around you.”

How long did it take you before you started feeling good? I hear you had depression. Was the biggest thing for you the depression?

I would say more anxiety than depression.

How long did it take before that started to dissipate?

It took a good year and a half or two years. Let’s be honest. These things still flare up. I had something happen to me. I was like, “That’s hard,” but I have the tools. I can say, “I see that I’m suffering. I see that I’ve created my own suffering.” The mirror used to be up so close that I didn’t even know what I was pushed up against. I can pull it back 6 inches and be like, “I see that.” I can catch myself faster. I can call a friend, meditate, take a walk, and go see the horses. I know the things that make me feel good. I can use my tools.

It’s not to say that when you go into this work in this world, suddenly, nothing bad is ever going to happen again, and you’re never going to feel anxious or depressed. That’s the worst thing. I have people whom I talk to all the time about meditation. They’re like, “I can’t meditate because my mind drifts in a hundred directions.” I’m like, “That’s the point. It means you’re succeeding, not failing at it. Every time your mind drifts and you bring it back to the breath, that’s a success, not a failure.”

Every time I get knocked down and I pick myself back up, that’s a success. That is part of me living a better life because I catch myself faster. It was a good year and a half to thaw out in some ways, to excavate some of that stuff. When I think back on it, I’m grateful every day for feeling so much better, but things still happen. You are still confronted with stuff. I feel so much better prepared now.

They say 90% of transformation is awareness. It’s first becoming aware of it. I woke up and had this feeling in my chest. I get a little bit of depression. I went and did a 30-minute Joe Dispenza meditation. That’s what I do. I don’t need to sit with it. I have tools.

Back to the point about community, we talked about Marty. Marty and I were in a group. We’re about 30 people. We meditate every morning at 6:00 AM.

You still do that. I have the email. I have the Zoom link. I work out every morning. I’m on my bike. Anything I’m going to do, I have to do it in the morning.

We do a 6:00 AM, which is perfect for me. Everybody is different. For me, the meditation part is half of it. The other half is seeing everybody’s smiling face on Zoom. I got on, and Marty was like, “Pardis, I know you’re going to see Tim. Good luck.” We come back to, “What are the biggest pain points?” They are loneliness and stagnation. Knowing that there’s a group of people, that every morning, I open up my laptop at 6:00 AM and start my day like that with my soul family, it’s pretty special.

Experiencing Self-Discover Through Transformational Travel

The idea of transformational travel is central to your work. In your experience, what makes travel so powerful for self-discovery and mental health? Why do you think removing ourselves from our everyday environment, immersing in a new place or culture, can lead to such profound personal insights and even aid in recovery or emotional healing?

When we continue to go through our day-to-day life, we have a tendency to get stuck. We have a tendency to stagnate. We keep rehearsing old patterns. When everything changes, it’s like when you throw the chessboard up and all the pieces are up in the air. You come back to that, “90% of transformation is awareness.” You’re suddenly hyper-aware of everything around you. When you can’t read the signs on the highway or at the store, or you go to the grocery store, you’re like, “Does this have pineapple in it?” I’m allergic to pineapple. I was living in Japan. I was pregnant. There are all these things you can’t eat when you’re pregnant. I’d head out, so I’d go to the grocery store and be like, “I don’t know how to get a can of soup that I can eat.”

That was great because it was like, “Look at the way your brain functions.” Travel can be transformational because you’re taken out of everything that you know, which is almost like a blank slate. It allows your brain to form new neural pathways in some ways. Also, you’re exposed to different ways of thinking. You’re exposed to different ways of doing things. You’re exposed to a whole different set of rituals, some of which will make sense to you.

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When my kids were little, we lived in Japan and Singapore. It’s been years since we left Southeast Asia. When my kids get home, they still take off their shoes and wash their hands because that’s how the school was in Singapore and Japan. That was a ritual for them. I have all these friends here. They’re like, “Your kids always take off their shoes and wash their hands. It is the first thing they do.” I’m like, “That was a ritual that they picked up.” Sometimes, you pick up good, but not always.

It is being exposed to the ways in which different cultures do things. It is picking and choosing the right alchemy. What’s your spiritual alchemy that you want to have in your alchemy cookbook? I think a lot about Anthony Bourdain. His alchemy was food. He traveled the world and tried food. What’s your spiritual alchemy? You travel the world. You pick up meditation from India. You pick up energy work from Egypt. You pick up plant medicines from Latin America. You get to build a cool alchemy toolbox for the way that you get to live your life. It’s constantly expanding and evolving. We all meditate here together. Meditating in India, which is the birthplace of it, enters your body in a whole different way.

The idea of going somewhere else is that you want to transform. Going somewhere else is an easy way to clear the slate or help clear the slate. When people who come to us for rehab come from different parts of the country, I recommend they do a little bit of geography. Go to a different city. Go to a different state. Because it’s new, you don’t know the environment. Your friends aren’t there. The places that you go aren’t there. It’s a completely new place.

You can do micro-trips on your own. I’m a writer. I love to go to a bookstore or a library. It evokes different things in me. It is changing your environment. You’re always growing. Whenever you change, you’re growing.

We’re talking about traveling and how travel can spark change. Do you have a favorite example or a story from one of your retreats where you witnessed someone experience real transformation? What was the journey like for them? What did you take away from seeing that change unfold?

I’ve got two. I just came back from Costa Rica. Some of the things that we were doing in Costa Rica were spending time in nature, that connection to Earth and nature. One of the things we do is called turtle senses. You go to the beach at night. These mama turtles, these large leatherback turtles, are huge sea turtles. Leatherbacks or green sea turtles crawl up onto the beach around 11:00 at night. They dig a hole, and then they lay 100 eggs. You have to catch the eggs. You can sit with them. You’re breathing with them. They’re breathing, and you’re breathing.

I had this experience. This other woman was there. She was a single mom. I’m a single mom. She was processing a lot of stuff. She had done some plant medicine, and then this was the next part of the retreat for her. We were sitting there watching the turtle. She spent an hour. The turtles were digging this hole, and then it was time to drop the eggs. She had this profound experience of moving grief out of her body as the turtles drop. She suddenly realized how much grief she had been holding onto postpartum. She’s from Michigan. She was like, “This would have never been something I would have experienced.” Here she was. It was moving out of her. She was experiencing the release of this grief around motherhood. She talked about being completely transformed by that.

What did you witness? What was she like on the other side of it?

She was sobbing that whole night. She cried for probably six hours straight. I saw her the next morning. I swear to you, Tim, she looked fifteen years younger. She looked lighter. She called me and was like, “I went back. I saw my kids. I realized I had never felt true love for them because there had been this thing blocking me. My relationship with my kids is completely different.”

Somebody asked me a question about a success story. It’s like, “How do I pick?” Usually, it’s the most recent one. The most recent one is the easiest one to tell.

I had somebody whom I had helped take it to Egypt years ago. She’s like, “I’m still feeling that integration. Those symbols still come to me in the dreams.”

Insights About Psychedelic Therapy

Back to psychedelics, there’s a lot of buzz around psychedelic therapies for mental health and addiction recovery. You’re passionate about this area. You’re even writing a novel that dives into the trippy world of psychedelics and expanded consciousness. What are your views on psychedelic therapy and sacred plant medicines? We’ve already been talking about this. Based on your research or personal experience, how can psychedelics be used responsibly to help heal trauma, overcome mental blocks, or find personal breakthroughs? We’ve already been talking about this. I don’t know if there’s anything else you want to add.

The data are clear. There have been so many studies, like Stanford University and Johns Hopkins. There are so many studies that have come out that have shown the beneficial effects of psychedelics for PTSD and addiction. The data don’t lie. These numbers are very real. We’re seeing incredible results. Ibogaine is probably the one that has the most staggering results. As you will have noticed in this last legislative session, it’s got a lot of attention in places like Texas, Arizona, and Tennessee. Across the country, Ibogaine has been getting a lot of attention because the numbers are incredible. I would point to that.

There’s also a burgeoning body of work on psychedelics and menopause, which is interesting because we don’t talk enough about menopause. That affects half of the population. If you’re a woman, you’re going to go through menopause. It’s not an if. It’s when. We’re seeing a lot of data on how psychedelics can ease the symptoms and the challenges around menopause, which is so much better than hormone replacement therapy, which has all these other risks. There are huge benefits coming from the data.

What about psychedelic therapy for pre-menopause? Is it the same?

Yes, we’re seeing a lot for perimenopause and all of that. We’re seeing a lot of studies coming out on that. It brings a lot of hope.

There is a way. It’s not through SSRIs.

They have a place. For some people, they do work well. Sometimes, maybe there’s a combination. They have a place. For me, personally, they did not work. They numbed me out. They had me at a place where I couldn’t feel love for my children. It stops you from going low, but you also can’t experience joy, this elevated state. It keeps you in a bit of a fog for me and for many people I’ve talked to.

Have you ever seen someone who experiments with or utilizes psychedelic therapy and then goes back to their addiction deeper or worse?

I haven’t seen that. It’s almost always at least a little bit better because that awareness exists. For instance, I have a couple of people I’m thinking of who drank heavily. They started doing some work with ayahuasca. It’s not that they don’t drink anymore, but they certainly don’t drink as heavily. They used to go from three or four drinks a night to one drink, maybe three nights a week. It’s not that they’ve stopped drinking. They will drink. The next morning, they’ll be like, “I drank too much last night.” They have that awareness. Before, they did it. They didn’t even have the awareness. They didn’t even know that they were having that much to drink.

For people in recovery, the idea of using psychedelics might sound controversial or even scary. We’ve already talked about this. How do you see psychedelic experiences fitting or not fitting into a sober lifestyle?

It’s key to go into the space of psychedelics with a lot of intentionality and clear intentions. It is going into it with, “This is what I want to get out of it,” as opposed to, “I’m going to go in and numb out,” or “This is something I’m going to get to do to have some relief from pain.” It’s the intentions with which you approach it. It can be useful in terms of cracking you open. The idea is that you may have a few psychedelic experiences, but you don’t have to keep doing them. You have them. It cracks you open. It levels you up.

 

You then go back to integrating that and working on your daily meditation. There’s nothing better than daily meditation. If someone were like, “You can never do psychedelics again,” I’d be like, “That’s fine.” If someone were like, “You can never meditate again,” I’d be like, “The number one thing is the meditation.” I do a writing meditation right after. We do that 30-minute meditation as a group. When that finishes, I write in my journal for 20 to 30 minutes. I let all the things flow out of me.

Those are the two things I really can’t live without. If you’re going into psychedelics, have a clear intention of what you want from that process and have good support, a good coach as you’re going in, and a coach as you’re coming out. It’s one of the things I do that’s most rewarding. I love coaching people through that. I love coaching people through that and helping them figure out how to relate to the other people in their lives who haven’t gone through that, because that’s another challenging piece of the puzzle. It is about having the right support, having a clear intention, and setting a good container.

How To Start Breathwork And Meditations

What’s your suggestion to someone who wants to start meditation or breathwork but doesn’t know what to do? How do they start?

Start by humming for 60 seconds if you can hum in the shower. You can do anything for 60 seconds. hum. Guided meditations can be great. I can send you the links. There are three-minute versions. There’s the nine-minute version that I did with you the first time I met you. These guided meditations can be helpful because people have studied the ways in which the combination of breath and things like the sounds that you make have a calming effect on your neural pathways.

That’s why I say humming. It has a real calming effect on your nose. When you start to feel that chest tightening or different places of people’s bodies start to tighten, I always tell people to take a deep breath in and hum if you can. 60 seconds of hum, breathe in, and hum out, breathe in. Anybody can be in the shower. Go for a walk and hum, or whatever. Do a three-minute. Three minutes is a great place to start. Having a group can be helpful because it is having community.

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It’s accountability. It’s people.

It’s contact. It’s connection. There are a lot of days when I get up, I set my alarm, and I’m like, “I don’t want to get up and meditate at 6:00 AM.” I think of all of the smiling faces of that group, and I’m like, “I’m going to do it. Let’s do it.” It’s a pretty spectacular thing. Start with 60 seconds of humming. Once you’re comfortable with that, do a three-minute guided meditation, and then you can go to the nine-minute one. It doesn’t take a lot.

How To Recover From Feeling Stuck

Looking back at your journey, you’ve blended science, travel, healing, and spirituality in a unique way. What advice or insights would you share with someone who is early in their recovery or feeling stuck in life?

The first thing I’d say is you’re not alone. You’re not unique. Good for you for at least the fact that you know you’re stuck, you’re already halfway there. That’s a huge piece. I meet so many people throughout my daily life. I’m like, “That person is stuck. They need to breathe.”

I notice it a lot. They are not okay, but they say, “I’m okay. I’m great. Things are good.”

You’re like, “That’s all right, but I know you’re not okay. Good for you.” If someone’s like, “I’m stuck,” I’m like, “Good for you for being able to say that.” Come and talk to anybody. Talk to any of us and figure out the things that are going to go in that toolbox for you. What’s going to be in your alchemy cookbook? What’s going to be in your spiritual toolbox? What does your spiritual toolbox look like? Is it going to be a daily meditation practice? Is it going to be once-a-week sound baths? Let’s start playing with different things.

One of the common mistakes people make is, “I’ve chosen ketamine. I’m going to go down this path.” If you did it and it didn’t work for you, that’s okay. Let’s try something else. There are so many things out there. People have been thinking about, talking about, and practicing for thousands of years. My ancestors have been whirling as dervishes for thousands of years. That’s how they get transcendence.

In my culture, there is a lot of breathing, meditation, and mindfulness. These are things that people around the world have been talking about forever. There’s a lot out there for you to explore. The fact that you’re stuck means you’re right at the beginning of an expansion. That’s what I would say. I’m excited for you because you’re about to expand. Your world is about to expand in powerful ways.

How Pardis’ Morning Routine Looks Like

Tell me about your morning routine.

I typically get up around 5:00. I write for an hour. The journaling comes after the meditation, but I write. I’m always working on a book. I’m working on Bad Trip Good, which is that novel. I’m on revision number 22. Each time, I’m like, “This is it.”

You like to write.

I love to write. My whole life, I’ve been that way.

Do you handwrite?

I hand outline. I have all my scenes on flashcards. You should see that my flashcards are everywhere. The scenes are there, like a line of dialogue. I’ll overhear somebody say something at the supermarket. I’m like, “That’s a good line.” I write it down on a flashcard. I always have flashcards in my purse.

You don’t talk to text on your phone.

If I’m driving, I do. I always have a pen. Somehow, with the act of physically writing, I remember it better. Everybody’s different. This is what works for me. I write from 5:00 to 6:00. I meditate with my group from 6:00 to 6:30. I journal from 6:30 to 7:00. That 5:00 to 7:00 is my time. I have three kids. I’m a single mom, then it’s getting everybody ready. Go to school.

Are they sleeping during this 5:00 to 7:00?

They’re sleeping from 5:00 to 6:00, but they get up at 6:00. They love listening to my meditation. If they can’t hear it, they’re like, “Did you meditate?” We were at dinner. We’re having a conversation. My youngest son was like, “Did you meditate this morning, Mom?” I said, “Yes.” He goes, “I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the humming. I didn’t hear the chanting.” I said, “You slept through that one, buddy.” They listen to it. Occasionally, they’ll do it. They’re asleep from 5:00 to 6:00, and then from 6:00 to 7:00, they’re getting up. They’re getting ready. They know I’m meditating and writing. I’m available starting at 7:00.

That’s a solid two hours. That’s a solid morning routine. I give myself an hour. After my hour, I’m exercising. I give myself a couple of hours, too. Probably the most important thing I do for myself is give myself that time in the morning.

The biggest difference is if you can have that routine.

I remember I used to hit snooze five times and run out the door.

I was the same. I was scrambling. The kids are all over the place. You have your bag.

I couldn’t even imagine doing that these days.

What’s so interesting is that people talk about quantum entanglement, which is one of my favorite terms. Healing myself has impacted my kids. My whole family is different. Not only was I running out of the house like that, but they were running out of the house like that.

You were the example. They were following your lead.

They forgot their homework. They forgot the violin, the flute, or the basketball. I had to go back. I was creating more problems for myself. Now, everybody gets up at 6:00, so that everybody takes a full hour. We’re ready to leave the house at 7:00.

Is there anything I missed?

I don’t think so. You did a great job.

Get In Touch With Pardis

How can people learn more about you, connect with you, learn more about your retreats, and learn more about your breathwork?

My website is www.PardisMahdavi.com. You can learn and see all my books, all my writings, my TED Talks, and all that. With regards to the retreats, it’s EntheonRetreats.com. You can see the upcoming retreats. I do a lot of bespoke retreats. A lot of people say, “Can you pull together a retreat? I got us and five other couples. We want twelve people. We want to go to Africa. We want to go to Egypt, or whatever.” I do a lot of bespoke retreats for people. You can see some of the places we’ve gone and some of the sample itineraries. I’m happy to talk to you. Reach out anytime.

That’s all we got. That’s a wrap. Thanks, Pardis. Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for having me, Tim. This is a real pleasure.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

We’ll see you in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• Dr. Pardis Mahdavi’s Website
• Genius Recovery
• Genius Network
• Entheon
• The Teachings of Don Juan
• Hyphen
• Book of Queens
• Riding
• Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Website

 

About Pardis Mahdavi, PhD

Author. Coach. Keynote Speaker.

Pardis Mahdavi is an author, journalist, entrepreneur, coach, and keynote speaker.

She has published seven non-fiction books and two edited volumes. She earned a BA from Occidental College, two masters and a PhD from Columbia University.