1d ago

Why aren't we talking about this: Psychedelics

For most of us, psychedelics come with a lot of baggage. Drugs. Hippies. Bad trips. Losing control. Yet, there’s another conversation happening around them. One about perspective, identity, creativity, connection and what can happen when the patterns we’ve spent years living inside suddenly become a little less fixed. In this episode I’m joined by Nasreen El-Mariesh, transformational coach, certified Psychedelic Integration Coach and co-founder of Women are the Medicine. Naz works with women around empowerment, relationships and the conditioning and patterns that can keep us stuck, bringing together psychedelic integration, somatic work, coaching and spirituality. She came to this work through her own experiences with both microdosing and larger psychedelic journeys, before training with the Psychedelic Coaching Institute. We talk about what psychedelics actually are, the difference between microdosing and a psychedelic journey, why integration matters, and why so many women seem to be becoming curious about them in midlife. Underneath all of that, this is really a conversation about control. The stories we tell ourselves, the patterns we keep repeating, the fear of what we might find if we look underneath them and the slightly terrifying possibility that sometimes the thing getting in our way might be us. Whether you’re already curious, deeply sceptical, or currently thinking absolutely f*****g not, this one is for you. Find Naz Website: https://www.nasreenel-mariesh.com/ Women are the Medicine / Deep Dive Retreat, 12–16 October: https://www.womenarethemedicine.co/our-next-retreat Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nasreen_elmariesh Resources mentioned Naz’s free microdosing guide: https://www.womenarethemedicine.co/md-guide A Really Good Day — Ayelet Waldman How to Change Your Mind — Michael Pollan A note on this episode This is a conversation about psychedelics, personal experience and curiosity, not medical advice or a recommendation to take them. Psychedelics can carry risks, may interact with medication or existing health conditions, and their legal status varies depending on the substance and where you are. If you’re considering exploring them, please do your own research and seek appropriate professional advice. —— Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, sex and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

Sep 10

Why aren't we talking about this: Wanting more

There’s something slightly uncomfortable about saying, out loud, that you want more. More money. More success. More adventure. A bigger business. A bigger life. Because surely we should be grateful for what we already have? I realised during this conversation how often I’ve downplayed things I desperately wanted because I didn’t want to seem greedy, ungrateful or a bit too big for my boots. But maybe wanting more doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with what you already have, maybe you just want more. In today’s episode of Why Aren’t We Talking About This? I’m joined by Nadia Patel to talk about ambition, why women still feel so uncomfortable owning what they want and what Nadia calls “identity lag”, when who you’ve become has outgrown the person you still think you are. We talk about relationships, money, success, fear of judgement and why a big life doesn’t necessarily mean a bigger career. Maybe it’s more fun, freedom, peace, connection or adventure. Maybe the real question isn’t whether we’re allowed to want more, but whether we’ve ever actually stopped to ask ourselves what more means to us. —— Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, sex and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

Sep 3

Why aren't we talking about this: Sex and pleasure

We spend a lot of our lives learning how to be good at things. We learn how to do our jobs, manage our money, raise children, cook, exercise, communicate better, sleep better. There is a book, podcast, course or expert ready to teach us pretty much anything we could possibly want to know. Sex, though? Apparently we’re just supposed to know. We get taught the mechanics at school. We absorb the rest from films, porn, previous partners and whatever we manage to piece together along the way. Then we get into long-term relationships and somehow expect two people, carrying completely different ideas about what sex is supposed to look like, to magically understand what the other wants. I’ve been with my husband for more than 20 years and even I realised during this conversation that there were things I had never told him. Things I thought about my body. Things that took me out of the moment. Things he couldn’t possibly have known because, despite apparently expecting him to understand them, I had never actually said them out loud. Which made me wonder how much pleasure we’re all missing out on simply because we don’t talk about it. In today’s episode of Why Aren’t We Talking About This? I’m joined by sex educator and coach Ruth Ramsay to talk about pleasure, desire and the completely unrealistic scripts we’ve inherited about sex. We get into why desire doesn’t always just appear, why putting intimacy in the diary might actually make your sex life more spontaneous, the things men and women are too embarrassed to admit they want, body shame, sexual compatibility and why after years of sleeping next to someone, you can still have absolutely no idea what is going on inside their head. Better sex starts with actually talking about it. Check out Ruth www.ruthramsay.com Ruth’s Ted Talk: How to revamp your sex life in 6 minutes (watched by 3.4million people) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-3CANRKuAM —— Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, sex and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

Jun 4

Why aren't we talking about this: Making Money

I'll be honest, my first reaction was suspicion. When Lorna Lyons told me she had a thriving business, earned well, and wasn't grinding every single day, something in me bristled. Is she a con artist? Is this a pyramid scheme? I sat with that reaction. And when I dug into it, I realised it wasn't scepticism. It was envy. Because I've spent years believing that to make money, you have to earn it through sheer, exhausting, performative effort. Sat at your desk by nine. Always on. Hustle until it hurts. Lorna blew that story apart. She made a distinction. There is a a big difference between working hard and putting in effort. She puts enormous effort into her business. But she's not grinding inside it every hour of the day. She built a model that works differently. Time-freedom focused. One to many. Digital. Intentional. And here's what really got me: she didn't stumble into it. She made a deliberate choice about the life she wanted first and then built the business around it. I've been doing it the other way round my whole career. This episode cracked something open for me. If you've ever felt that twinge of "but surely it can't be that different..." when someone talks about building a business on their own terms- this one's for you. --- Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

May 15

Why aren't we talking about this: Burn Out

"She's so resilient. She's got it all together." That's the badge. And for a lot of high-functioning women, it's the thing that almost destroys them. When you've spent years accepting that label- being the one who copes, who holds it together, who doesn't quit and admitting you're not coping becomes almost impossible. And shameful. You're supposed to be the one who handles everything. My guest this week knows that feeling intimately. She kept going through a divorce, a seriously ill child, full-time work, and hospital stays. She convinced herself she was fine. And then one day her body made the decision she wouldn't. What makes this even more striking: Sheena has spent 20 years as a medical professional and when it happened to her, there was no real support or understanding of what she'd been through. Sheena is a rehabilitation physiotherapist, a health coach, and a burnout survivor. In this conversation she explains what burnout actually is not the buzzword version, but the physiological reality of what happens when your stress system breaks down completely. Why you can't sleep it off. Why this is not just about work, work may have contributed, but it is about their full life. Why the people most at risk are the ones who look the most capable. And how to start being honest before it reaches the point of no return. The word that keeps coming back to me from this conversation: conditioning. We are conditioned to carry more than we should. We are conditioned not to ask for help. And somewhere along the way, that conditioning became a crisis. --- Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

May 7

Why aren't we talking about this: Jealousy (Live Episode)

"LinkedIn is a jealousy machine pretending to be a motivation machine." Ooofff.. yep. Award season rolls around. Amazing job announcements. That campaign you wish you'd thought of. Everyone "thrilled, delighted, and excited." And you're sitting there feeling hot with rage wondering what's wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you. This is a live recording and we did not hold back. We talked about every aspect of jealousy. Not in a sanitised, packaged way. In a raw, I'm actually naming who and what my biggest triggers are kind of way. We talked about: Reading someone's brilliant work and feeling genuine rage- not because they did anything wrong, but because it held up a mirror to everything I'd been sitting on and not doing. Why jealousy might only be about other women and what that says about how few seats there still are at the table. The sliding doors version of yourself. Getting jealous of the life you didn't choose. Is that jealousy? Or is it grief? What your body is actually telling you when jealousy hits and why it's not about the other person at all. Spoiler hot and ragey... The jealousy map. A tool that might just change how you process it. My biggest takeaway? Jealousy is a signal. When you actually stop and listen to it, it's pointing at something you want, something you care about, something that matters to you. The question is whether you let it fester or let it unlock something. Huge thanks to Women in PR and FINN Partners for making it happen. --- Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

May 1

Why aren't we talking about this: UTIs

“Women, it's older women, and then it's urine- it’s the triple yuck” This is probably the most important conversation that I have had this year. I can not express how crucial it is that we change the whole narrative around this. 50% of women will experience them, 30% will have recurring infections and 30% of sepsis deaths in women started as a UTI. The scale of the issue blows my mind. Millions of women a year are suffering, yet generic antibiotics, lack of education and embarrassment are meaning that no one is talking about this. I want to change that. This week on ‘Why Aren’t We Talking About This’, I am speaking to Kath Church all about UTIs. --- Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

Apr 24

Why aren't we talking about this: Chaos as a catalyst

Sometimes a book finds you at exactly the moment you need it and Chaos was that for me. We all experience it. Those moments where everything feels uncertain, where something is shifting, ending, or asking more of you and your instinct is to resist it. To panic. To or at least in my case, go straight to the very worst possibility. But what if that’s not what’s happening at all? In this conversation, Sarah talks about sitting in a hospital waiting room, convinced she might be dying, while everything else in her life was already falling apart- she was on the edge of bankruptcy and felt emotionally and physically broken. And in that moment, realising something quite uncomfortable. That she hadn’t just ended up there… she’d played a part in getting herself there. That’s the bit that stayed with me. She as responsible. It’s much easier to blame the situation, the timing, other people. But the moment you realise you’ve had a hand in it, you also realise you’re the only one who can change it. That’s where chaos starts to look different. Not as something that’s happening to you, but something that’s asking something of you. Sarah’s book explores the choices we make in those moments. Whether we lean in, take responsibility, and move through it, or slip into handing over our power. Even in the messiest shit shows, there’s a decision point. So if that’s the case… why aren’t we talking about it? In this weeks episode of Why Aren’t we Talking About it’ I’m speaking to the brilliant Sarah McDermott about what it takes to sit in that discomfort - and choose differently when life doesn’t go to plan. Listen and also buy the book- it’s really very good, especially if you need a bit of tough love right about now. Buy here at Waterstones --- Why Aren’t We Talking About This? is a series of honest conversations about the stuff we rarely discuss but probably should - big feelings, weird thoughts, life, death, and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human. Hosted by me, Carly Osman-Holme, on a quest to dodge a full-blown existential crisis. I’ve reached that point in life where I’m asking the big questions: How did I get here? What do I actually want? And why didn’t they teach us any of this in school?

Why aren’t we talking about this

Why aren't we talking about this: Psychedelics

Why aren't we talking about this: Wanting more

Why aren't we talking about this: Sex and pleasure

Why aren't we talking about this: Making Money

Why aren't we talking about this: Burn Out

Why aren't we talking about this: Jealousy (Live Episode)

Why aren't we talking about this: UTIs

Why aren't we talking about this: Chaos as a catalyst

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Why aren’t we talking about this

Episodes

Why aren't we talking about this: Psychedelics

Why aren't we talking about this: Wanting more

Why aren't we talking about this: Sex and pleasure

Why aren't we talking about this: Making Money

Why aren't we talking about this: Burn Out

Why aren't we talking about this: Jealousy (Live Episode)

Why aren't we talking about this: UTIs

Why aren't we talking about this: Chaos as a catalyst

About

Information