Adam Torres and Rebecca Nicholson discuss psychedelics.
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Show Notes:
Psychedelics are a tool and not a magic ‘heal all’ pill. There are many different important modalities needed to support the experience. In this episode, Adam Torres and Rebecca Nicholson, Founder, Director & Advisor at RebeccaNicholson.ca, explore the psychedelics industry and her current projects.
About Rebecca Nicholson
Rebecca Nicholson has spent many years in the health and wellness industry as a practitioner, facilitator, CEO, investor and founder. She has extensive experience working with top international companies, CEOs and founders including Ātman- Costa Rica, Dimensions Retreats, Holos, Kuya, Othership and Beckley Retreats. She is dedicated to supporting company growth, business development, vision execution and a healthy corporate culture. She specializes in fostering strong partnerships, relationships and strategic operating plans.
Rebecca is a sought-after public speaker, panelist and moderator. As a bridge-builder, she connects diverse perspectives to drive positive change in transformative industries. As a founding member of ‘Celebrating Women in Psychedelics’, she exemplifies commitment to both advancing her field and promoting impact, ethics, diversity and opportunities for women.
To learn more, visit: RebeccaNicholson.ca
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Rebecca Nicholson. She’s founder, director, and advisor over@rebeccanicholson.ca.
Rebecca, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Adam, for having me. I’m really happy to be here. All right. So big topic today. So the healing power of psychedelics. I mean, we’ve been hearing quite a bit about this and I’ve done a couple of shows on this, but it’d be interesting to kind of to to delve into your mind and why you do what you do and really what we can all learn from this together.
That being said, I guess just to get us kicked off here. like how did you get interested in this field? Like where, where’d that start for you? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think it started the moment I was born. Hold on, you started in psychedelics when you were born? What do you mean? I don’t, that I don’t buy.
Let’s clarify that a little bit. the experience. Expansion of consciousness, Adam. I was born in the smallest province of Canada with a community of hippies and people that really outside thought outside the box. They called themselves Back to the Landers. They all ended up there in the 70s.
And, you know, although they wouldn’t, some of them would probably say they never did psychedelics, but I’m sure there was, I’m sure there was you know, just, you know, part of the process of their own exploration of consciousness. And, you know, the first thing they did when they, when they got to the island was they all went into the woods.
They’re all university graduates, you know, very thoughtful people. And they went into the woods and they built a log cabin together as a community. So these are people that really thought outside the box, pushed the boundaries believed in, you know, the power of nature and connection and gardens and you know, living intentionally.
So. For me coming and kind of somehow ending up in the psychedelic space for the last four years, more on the business and investment side of things for me it was really like coming home. But I had such a deep respect and reverence. For this medicine. And as I’ve continued to learn more about the indigenous knowledge, indigenous wisdom history respect, accessibility, ethical uses of these deep, deep healing opportunities, it’s just been such a, a joy.
And I’m just so grateful to be in this space because I walk with such reverence for it and respect. I mean, it, I mean, you have to. You have to lean into respect when you’re working in this industry, because if you don’t, you’ll somehow be weeded out. That’s kind of the, the mystical element of working with these, these natural plant biomasses.
It’s pretty powerful. So, Yeah, it’s good to hear. I want to let’s take let’s take a couple steps back here. So what was it like growing up in that environment? That’s that’s fascinating to me. Like, what was it like growing up in that whole nother like train? Yeah, not just right. Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s it’s all I knew, right?
I grew up on 75 acres of land. My father built house I grew up in. The first thing he built with his best friend, they grew up in Montreal. The first thing they built as they built each other’s houses was an outhouse. Because, you know, that was a really important piece. And then, you know, he, he’d trail, like, he’d blaze trails all through the woods for walking trails and ski trails for the community.
We had a hobby farm. We had goats. We had chickens. So we, I grew up eating, you know, like, eggs from our chickens my whole life. And it was really, for me, yeah, for me, it was really just, you know, This deep respect for nature. I mean, I mean, I was probably meditating before I even knew what meditating was. I remember just being like sitting on the grass and watching all the leaves around me moving in the wind and breathing and just finding this immense sense of calm.
And then, you know, fast forward, I always wanted the city, like all these big cities, the excitement of the city and opportunities. And I moved to Toronto, Canada when I was 18. And, you know, I’ve been here, I’ve moved around a lot. And then you ruined the piece of it all, didn’t you, Rebecca? You ruined the piece of it all.
Why do kids have to do that? You had it, and now I realized, Adam, how important that was. for me as a foundation of who I am today and how I need to really, you know, confidently bring that back into people’s lives. And, you know, and this is when, you know, I speak about these healing modalities, what a big part of this, not only psychedelics, but, you know, different healing modalities of nature, immersion of breath work, of sound healing, of meditation, of yoga, all of these different modalities that are really supporting people throughout their journeys and what beautiful practices they are.
when you originally went to the city, like, was that kind of a, it had to be a little bit of culture shocker. Like, how did, how did that transition take place? I mean, I mean, it’s funny. Like, I, my aunt lived in Toronto, so I was lucky enough to be able to visit her in the summers. Oh, so you still had pretty much contact.
Occasionally. I had contact to the outside world. Yes. Don’t worry. I wasn’t just the chippy. This is like, no, I’m not saying that. I think it sounds wonderful. Actually. I wish I was. I wish I had that type of environment. That’s amazing. Go ahead. Yeah, I think more and more people are being called to this type of life.
I mean, every day I hear about these people that want to create these conscious communities, whether it be in Costa Rica or Northern Ontario. I have people almost every day saying, ah, like I have this group of people. We want to create these conscious communities and, you know, and support each other and grow community.
Because again, this is what we’re missing in big cities is this opportunity to truly connect. And I know it’s such a buzzword within businesses these days is, you know, community and community building and you have to really think, Okay, this isn’t just about building and, you know, creating more revenue within the company.
This is actually bringing the heart behind it. Let’s make proper eye contact. Let’s create more opportunities to be vulnerable together and to share our hearts and to really feel like we’re supporting each other. I mean, it’s a huge piece within our own mental health. Is unity and you know, I hate to bring up the covid story, but that that was taken away from us.
I mean, Ontario had the most stay at home orders. I think it’s one of the places in the world. And that was something that was really it disappeared for us for a while. And we have to understand how to not only bring it back, but how to create it in the 1st place, specifically in these inner city situations.
What do you think is driving people? I agree with you this, this concept of community and otherwise is become a buzzword and a lot of people are headed in that direction or at least, you know, trying to, what do you think is driving that? Well, I think it’s a lot of different things.
I think people really recognize the necessity of community and feeling supported through community. And you know, when we get locked into, you know, Being by ourselves, like, I mean, things don’t go well, right? we don’t have that foundation of safety. We don’t have that foundation of feeling connected, not only to others, but also to Mother Earth and also to ourselves.
Things start to crumble a little bit, and then it starts to turn into a lot of negative energy. And, you know, and we thought, you know, we saw what happened. So I think you know, within businesses as they’re trying to build these opportunities for connection. It’s not just about. You know the return of investment or the roi it is really about Growing these opportunities for people to come in and feel like they have a second home Not just you know behind the closed door of their apartment in this big box of other little boxes It’s like stepping outside literally figuratively of those boxes and And holding space for other people.
And that’s one thing that I’ve always been really felt driven and passionate about specifically in the city, because there’s, there’s a lot, everyone’s too busy there, you know, all their kids are here. They have all these appointments and all of these programs and. What we really need to do is slow down, stand on our front porch and say, hi neighbor.
Yeah. How are you doing today? let’s talk. how can I help you? What do you need? I remember, you know, a good friend of mine, she lives in Miami and every time we finish a conversation on the phone, she’s such an amazing human to me. She says, what can I do for you? How can I support you?
And what’s just such a beautiful offering. Most of the time I’m saying, you know, just this conversation was all I needed. But I know that she’s So genuine that if I were to call her any day, she would be there in a heartbeat. And so we need more of that. Like let’s end this conversation today, Adam, by saying, what do you need?
How can I help you? Cause you know, what a beautiful way to end this conversation too, which also means to be continued, right? We’ll pick it up again next time. For sure. So I want to circle back to how psychedelics play into this. Like, at what point did you get involved with the Oh yeah, what we’re supposed to talk about.
No, no, no, no. This is great. At what, at what at what point did psychedelics kind of make their way into your world? Like, like, how’d you get interested in that field? Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I was moving through a big transition personally through my life and I had to start opening up new doors for out of necessity.
I became a single mother and I realized I needed to, you know figure out some financial stability for myself and my children. So I literally just started opening up every single door that came my way. One thing led to another and I was introduced to. To a founding partner and we created a business together, and it was more from the family office perspective.
And we, you know, he was a huge heart led warrior and he wanted to support healing and healing networks and psychedelic retreats, immersive wellness, and, and I was there to. And, you know, with my background, my background really was in the health and wellness industry within yoga, within mindfulness, self compassion work with meditation work.
But also getting, you know, managing businesses and moving things forward. So it was a really exciting opportunity. And we had a general interest in the psychedelic retreat space. We originally had spoken about creating our own in Costa Rica because we had property in Costa Rica and then lo and behold, we were introduced to other founders.
This is right around the time probably in the middle of 2020 when things started to ramp up around psychedelics. I don’t know, you know, especially specifically in the investment world. People got really excited about psychedelics and around 2021 people were, you know, Throwing money into the psychedelic space.
It felt very exciting. Felt like there was a lot of traction. It felt like, you know, this is happening and it’s happening fast. And then we decided to open up a private equity fund and start to raise outside capital specifically to support immersive wellness and psychedelic retreat centers internationally because obviously we, you know, have to wait for legal jurisdictions to open up in more places.
And then, so we started a fund called the Progression of Consciousness Fund, and I really just started working with psychedelic companies early on, founders, CEOs, and, and really creating that vision of You know how to help people today, so it was really considered impact investing We didn’t invest in any biotech because we really wanted to help people today and also the concept of heal yourself heal the world, right?
so I started working with handful of different retreat companies around the world and also another company in Austin for mind, body, spirit, feeling and another company in Toronto. And really just found my place. And then all of a sudden everything started to snowball for me. It was podcasts and panels.
And, and I think specifically people are really excited to have a female voice in this space, because I think that. At that point in 2021, people were really comparing psychedelics to cannabis. And I kept saying, no, no, no, these are very, very different models. These are very different worlds. Cannabis, I joke, cannabis is like the one night stand.
And psychedelics is the long term relationship, right? This is like marriage material. We’re going to uncouple. We’re going to get back together again. We’re going to really fight to make this happen. This is family. Because it’s not, it’s not being the easiest road. It’s You know, being really up and down, nobody knows where it’s going to go, the industry has not figured itself out yet as a whole, which makes complete sense to me because we think about our indigenous wisdom and plant medicines, and they’ve been using these medicines for thousands and thousands of years, and then, you know, the Western world, although everybody here needs this type of healing, we have to work with reverence and respect or else those people are going to fall out, right?
So, there is a bit of a cleansing within the psychedelic industry and the psychedelic space of people who were not in it for the right reasons. And again, it’s a long, it’s a long term play. This is, this is for the the true respect of deep healing opportunities and what these medicines can really do for people.
So for me, I’m passionate about group ceremonial healing in nature. With natural plant biomass, and then again, all of the other modalities around you that are going to help you and support your journey and proper preparation is really important. Some people just shouldn’t be doing psychedelics.
And then the proper integration afterwards, and you know, many would consider the integration process after maybe more important than the actual ceremony itself. Because this is where you’re going to create new patterns. Within your life so that you can move forward and, you know, it’s within your true self and what you got back and what you let go.
So for me, this is being such an incredible journey and I’m advising a few different companies right now within preparation, integration training, and then stepping into a new retreat and resort. Business right now called Atman and we’re partnering with Holos in Costa Rica and really just at the very beginning right now, really just moving slowly to be able to create these opportunities for people because we know it’s coming.
It’s all happening. We just don’t know what it looks like at this point. So really, we’re just holding space moving very consciously. Very conscious support and, and psychedelic healing. It’s, it’s not only about, you know, I need a reset or, you know, I’m curious about exploring my consciousness, which I truly believe that should be a basic, you know, human right is your opportunity to explore your own consciousness.
If you would like to, at the same time, we’re talking about really deep healing opportunities for treatment, resistant anxiety, depression. We’re talking about PTSD. We’re talking about alcohol dependency, we’re, we’re talking about big, big things that the modalities that people have been working with so far, such as SSRIs or talk therapy, it’s just not working as I think we can all agree with.
It might be a band aid, it might help people and get through certain moments of their life, but it’s not getting to the root cause of, you know, what’s causing a lot of pain and suffering within, within humanity. Right now. So it’s a really important piece moving forward. Talk to me a little bit more. You mentioned a current project.
I mean, talk to me a little bit more about any current projects you’re working on. I’m just curious on like where you’re at in the space with I know what you’ve done in the past and I just kind of want to know what’s going on right now. Yeah, it’s interesting. My trajectory, you know, I started in the health and wellness industry and, you know, with yoga, mindfulness work and meditation work.
And then I became a CEO and founding partner in managing the private equity fund. And now I’m moving more into supporting different companies in the psychedelic space. You know, so many people were like, get out of the psychedelic space. It’s too niche. It’s too hard. There’s no money. But I’m like, yeah.
Yeah, but this is my secret thoughts, and this is what I’m really passionate about and what I think, you know, really needs to be supported. So that’s where I’m at. I’m also supporting this, which I mentioned, Otman, a new retreat and resort company starting off in Costa Rica. I’m their executive director of wellness, and really just, Supporting their vision again, getting their, their word out their workout and you know what they’re doing differently, which I really, really love is they’re putting more emphasis on actual relational work.
So prep and integration and then processing the work while they’re doing it. So it’s not just about going to a retreat doing 4 sessions of 4 sessions of ayahuasca and then going home. Right. There’s, there’s just, there’s not the actual, like, the heart behind those types of that type of work depending where you go, but there’s, you know, there’s definitely different models out there and some that I’d much more I feel much more better about supporting than others.
And, you know, the clinical director of Ottman, Jesse Hanson, he’s got a master’s in PhD in clinical psychology and neuropsychology and somatic therapy. So he really, you know, is incorporating these elements into the work besides just, you know, here’s a bunch of plant medicine. Good luck, . Mm-Hmm, , right? So it, it, again, it is about the reverence and the, the connection.
I was actually just there last week with the founding team and getting to know everybody. And I, I connected with, they have this indigenous, this beautiful indigenous man from the Baruka tribe there. And he was painting my arm with this ink from, from their, from one of their trees that they use.
And, and we were talking, I had a translator and I was, you know, telling him about how important this land is to me and how much respect And how sacred this land is. And then I was trying to connect with him about maybe if there was an opportunity for me to spend some time with the Baruka so that we can connect indigenous wisdom of the Baruka with the Baruka.
Because it’s so important to have these open conversations with our Indigenous leaders. And little did I know, while he was painting my arm, at the end he said, what he had painted was the symbol of the Baruka on me. And it was just, it was pretty magical, this whole conversation and moving through that circle with him.
And I believe in July I’m actually going to go spend Some, some time with the Baruca and bring a translator with me and just to sit with them and to learn more and to be with them in their space and to listen, really, it’s all about listening and, you know, and, you know, bringing whatever messages I can back.
To, other beautiful people that I’m working with. So it’s a really, it’s a really special time for me and I, and I do take it very personally and, I’m passionate about, you know, really supporting whatever way I can in all directions. It’s amazing. Well, Rebecca, I have to say it has been great having you on the show today.
Really appreciate you sharing your journey your, your upbringing. I mean, everything that’s led you in your life to your current path and obviously wishing you much more continued success and and representation within the psychedelics industry. I think it’s amazing, an amazing story. One I’m, I’m happy to bring to my audience.
That being said, if somebody wants to continue to follow your journey and your project, I mean, how do they do that? Yeah, absolutely. Because our company is still so new, our website’s not up yet, we’re still working on all of that, but it’s so easy to find me at you can find me on my website, RebeccaNicholson.
ca. You can also find me on LinkedIn. You can also find So email me, Rebecca Nicholson’s email at gmail. com or find me on Instagram, which is Rebecca underscore Nicholson underscore, or if you’re just curious about learning more about psychedelics, I’m also stewarding an Instagram account called consciousness underscore.
For curation, and that’s just updating on current psychedelic information, legalities, and also, you know, indigenous wisdom. So there’s lots, there’s lots out there, and I’d love to continue to connect with everyone. So, Adam, thank you again for having me, and let me know how I can best help you.
Absolutely, and thank you, and to the audience, we’ll of course leave the links To Rebecca’s website. So Rebecca Nicholson. ca on in the show notes. So you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with us and you haven’t done it yet, this is a daily show, so each and every day, we’re bringing you new content, new founders new stories.
If that’s interesting to you, then don’t forget, hit that subscribe button, because again, we have many more interesting individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing. And if you’ve been listening for a long time to us and you haven’t left us that review yet, definitely get that review in.
We sure do appreciate it. And Rebecca, really, this has been a pleasure. I’m looking forward to learning and hearing more about, about these projects. So thanks again for coming on. Thank you so much, Adam. We’ll talk soon.
