070 – Jemie Sae Koo: Healing Depression with Plant Medicine

Sarah Tacy [00:00:06]:
Hello. Welcome. I’m Sara Tacy, and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown, and the pull feels real. Together, we share our grief, laughter, love, and life saving tools. Join us. Hello, and welcome to Threshold Moments. Today, we have Jemie Sae Koo, who is the founder of psychable, which is like Yelp for psychedelics.

Sarah Tacy [00:00:49]:
Today, Jemie shares her story of starting with a childhood in which their first place that they could call home was a legal garage, that her first bed that she remembers was a carpet that there were many, many challenging, trying things in life and that it set her up in many ways to be a very self reliant, focused, high achieving woman who reached accolades that people would dream of, who had life experiences that people would dream of and hit a point where illness and a collapse of sorts led her to and actually she doesn’t say it this in this interview, but I’ve heard it in others that she had never used substances of any sort before and led her to her first psychedelic experience, which transformed her life and changed to never having depression again. The story is beautiful. Jemie’s presence is strong, is clear. The new path that she’s laying out for people who are interested in diving deeper into their journey with depression or wanting to live a full life is now unfolding within her work. I have a link in the bio. It is an affiliate link. And I would love to say that before I did the interview and all the way through till the end, the interview was done not knowing that there would be an affiliate link. So everything you hear me saying, the enthusiasm you hear from me is all very authentic.

Sarah Tacy [00:02:48]:
In this, I don’t share many of my own experiences. We keep it very much more centered on Jemie, but I do think that this work is extremely powerful for shaking up our current reality and helping us wake up to a life of greater possibilities and those possibilities being ones that are in higher alignment with ourselves. Without further ado, here is Jaimie Siku. Welcome to Threshold Moments. My name is Sarah Tacy. And today, we have with us Jemie Sae Koo. Jemie was formerly a corporate executive with more than 15 years of experience. She has spent her career as a serial entrepreneur scaling multiple well known start ups.

Sarah Tacy [00:03:49]:
She has also led initiatives and developed campaigns for Fortune Global 500 Companies. Jemie is now the chief executive officer and founder of Cycle, the most comprehensive online community dedicated to educating and connecting those interested in legally exploring psychedelic assisted therapy with practitioners who can support them. Jemie has her master’s degree in the field of psychology, specializing in gestalt and psychedelic assisted therapy. She blends her deep knowledge of healing symptoms of root causes with therapy, nutrition, detox, energy, and body work. Welcome. Thank you, Sarah. I wanna say to the listeners that Jemie so kindly sent me her bios, and there was a short one and a long one. And when I read the long one, I was like, oh my god.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:47]:
Like, you have done a lot in your life and, like, really big things.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:04:53]:
It seems like I lived multiple lives already.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:56]:
Yes. And as the interview goes on, we will get more and more into current time. And I might also name for the listeners where we first met. Since I don’t know if this is a practice that is helpful for the listeners, but I tend to do it, which was at Kate Northrop’s 40th birthday. We sat next to each other. And you were a brand new mama. And I think it was your 1st night out away from the baby.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:05:28]:
Yes. Yes.

Sarah Tacy [00:05:30]:
You just looked into my eyes. And I may, I don’t know if I started crying immediately. I’m just like thinking of the moment now. And I was like, Oh, I often think that I am the space holder or a space holder, but the depth from where you listen and the broadness of your heart hold from me, like my most vulnerable moments, and they were held with such care. And I just feel like we didn’t leave each other for the whole night. After we’re still dancing, and I love to dance. And I’m like, I’m good. I’m ready to go home.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:10]:
I’ve had a complete night.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:06:13]:
You know, it was so interesting too is that, you know, I was sort of making my way to the tables, and everyone at that point had already grabbed a seat. And so I I didn’t see any seats left, and the only seat that was open was next to you, Sarah.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:29]:
No choice.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:06:30]:
That was, like, universe is like, nope. You’re gonna sit right there.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:34]:
This woman who you do not know but will soon know. Yes.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:06:38]:
Yeah. I think the moment I locked the eyes of you, I’m like, oh, this is gonna be a good

Sarah Tacy [00:06:44]:
night. And it was. And I learned a bit about you that night. And I was excited to have you on today because we haven’t seen each other since then. So that’s been a year and a half. I think I maybe sent a few texts last time I was in Miami, and it didn’t work out to meet up. And I love the work you do as I understand it, as was described in the bio with psychable. And I’m wondering if you can take us through the threshold that brought you from working these multiple startups and starting something that was small and making it big, something that sounds like it must have taken many hours and a lot of effort and focus.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:32]:
What brought you from that place into this world in which you’ve created something that is so what seems like from your heart and your soul’s purpose?

Jemie Sae Koo [00:07:41]:
Thank you. Thank you for naming all of that. Yeah. I think where I wanna start is just really giving gratitude to plant medicine. And the way I found plant medicine was through my own healing journey. And I think what’s really important to also bring into context is the why. Why I crossed paths with plant medicine, why I was on a healing journey. So I had a pretty tumultuous childhood growing up.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:08:24]:
My father was an alcoholic, and he was incredibly abusive on all levels. And at the age of 9, he was taken away by the police because I disobeyed him, and I ended up going to church with my mom. And so that was a very pivotal moment where I all of a sudden found myself as the second parent to my 2 younger brothers. My mom at that time was working 4 to 5 jobs just to make ends meet. We grew up really, really poor. Our first home was a legally converted garage. My first bed I could even recall was a used torn up carpet. And and we really didn’t know where our next meal was gonna come from.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:09:12]:
So I really had to grow up very quickly, and I don’t feel like I really had a a childhood per se. And while that was really challenging and that felt very much like my norm, it fared me well in terms of going into my twenties. Right? I it gave me a lot developed a lot of character within me of the the the attributes of responsibility, accountability, living in integrity, doing the things that I will say that I would do, being very conscientious of money and of achieving so that my family would never be in the same situation again. And so that fear me well going into my twenties. I found myself experiencing different levels of success in corporate environments, nonprofit environments, and startup environments. I oftentimes found myself as the only woman in executive boardrooms and really felt like I could whatever I did and put my mind towards, I can I can achieve? It doesn’t matter if I I was a woman or not. And I started really playing into a place where I was like, I’m just as good. I’m just as capable as a man.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:10:41]:
And so I started playing more into that role. And as I started playing more into that role, I at that time, I had experienced you know, climbed up that corporate ladder, made the money, lived in that luxury complex, you know, everything of what society’s metrics of success look like. And at that point, I was I found myself as an executive in a consulting firm. I was in that role for about 2 years at that point. I didn’t ever take a break. I didn’t have lunch. I felt invincible. I I didn’t go to any doctor’s appointments.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:11:23]:
And 2 years in, I decided I wanted to just take a vacation, and that was to Cuba. At that time, when I got to Cuba, all of a sudden, my body completely shut down. It was like I hadn’t had a a had time or space to rest. I was just running. I was hustling. I was, you know, just taking on the world. Right? And and so I found my body completely shutting down. I had all types of mysterious symptoms come up for me.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:11:50]:
I had this cough that wouldn’t resolve. It turned into bronchitis, and then my hair started falling out. I was waking mid to middle 9, piles of sweat. I had eventually got gotten home, and this all of this was coming out. And I developed brain fog where I couldn’t even formulate a sentence anymore. And, you know, I I’ve had this thing where I was pretty much depressed all my life. Right? Even as I was, like, as as I was a child, I I really felt that depression. But I was sort of resolved where I was this high functioning depressive person, and I was resolved that depression was gonna be my norm.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:12:35]:
And so when these symptoms came up for me, I ended up plummeting into the depths of depression to where I couldn’t will myself. I couldn’t push myself through it anymore. And because I come from an Asian culture, we are taught to really suffer in silence, not really speak about anything that could possibly bring shame onto ourselves, onto our families, into our community. And so my own mother didn’t even know what I was going through. I was in the pits of hell of depression at that time. And it was to a point where I lost all sense of purpose to life. And I, quite frankly, didn’t see the reason to continue living. I was I I remember telling myself, like, I’ve already I’ve already experienced success and, you know, what societal things Stice should, you know, accomplish.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:13:26]:
I travel pretty much anywhere I in the world I’ve ever wanted to travel to. I’ve ate at all the best restaurants, all the Michelin restaurants I’ve ever wanted to. Like, what else is there to live for? And that was a very pivotal moment because out of the blue, in a span of a week, I had 2 people in different parts of my life call me up randomly out of the blue. And in that conversation with those 2 individuals separately, they both brought up how plant medicine, specifically Ayahuasca for them, was so transformative for them. And I remember getting off the second call really thinking to myself, like, why is this thing called Ayahuasca coming into my field twice in a week? And it was that inquiry that led me jumping down the rabbit hole of researching everything I could about psychedelics, plant medicine, Ayahuasca. And during that time, this is, like, almost 8 years ago, still so early around plant medicine psychedelics. I mean, it’s still, like, wild, wild west. You know, even today, but it’s more on the zeitgeist.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:14:39]:
But back in the day, I remember fighting a blog article on like GeoCities. And it was talking about how somebody, you know, die, potentially die doing Iowasca. And and it was it was because they they, like, walked off of a cliff. It wasn’t that they die drinking the medicine. It was that they weren’t kept in a safe container. Either way, I I didn’t know much of it. I was just like, wow. This is really dangerous, and this feels really on the fringe.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:15:06]:
And I’ve never even really heard about this thing other than watching it on National Geographic featuring these war veterans that went into the jungles of the Amazon. And I remember that time just being so incredibly judgmental and all types of stigmas and beliefs came forward around that for me. And so I was like, this is this sounds really crazy. This sounds really out there. And but I had this conversation with myself around, you know, I I’ve exhausted all my option. I I’ve been on all types of SSRIs at that point since I was preteen. None which worked for me. I’ve been on all types of diets, all types of, you know, whatever you wanna call it.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:15:46]:
I I’ve tried it. I’ve even been on 14 different types of supplements in at one point, and nothing had worked for me. So and so I there was there was a really pivotal moment where I was having this conversation with myself and really asking myself, what’s coming up for me around plant medicine? And it was fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of death. And as I was having this conversation with myself, another part of me came in and said, well, Jemie, what’s on the other side of fear? What’s on the other side of death? And the word freedom came through. And when the word freedom came through, it just rang through my entire body. And I was just like, oh my gosh. This is a whole f yes moment.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:16:33]:
2 days later, I jumped on a flight to Costa Rica where I sat with Ayahuasca for 4 nights, and it literally saved my life. It lifted me out of my depression for the first time in my life of dealing with depression for at least a good over 3 decades. And I came out of that experience feeling this duality of joy and anger, anger of why it took me this long to access this medicine and why I had all of these fears and beliefs and narratives in place that prevented me from from from finding this. And and then joy of like, wow. This is what it feels like to not feel depressed. And and it gave me this renewed sense of purpose back in my life that in everything that I do is to be in service of humanity and an ultimate service to the highest source. And so that is where I derive all of my motivation, my energy, my effort, and that’s everything that I pour into psychable as well as my private practice, which I support coaching our clients and and our students. So Incredible.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:17:52]:
And I

Sarah Tacy [00:17:56]:
I wanna go into the Ayahuasca piece more. But before we do that, there was this part that stuck out to me about I don’t know if you would put it under like chronic low grade or just like a chronic high functioning depression. One thing I might point out is I remember the first thing I learned in psychology 101 was that chart they show you. Maybe I should look up the name of it. I just remember seeing it and being like, Woah. And it shows how if you just keep going, your body tends to keep going with you. But the moment you finally rest, it’s like, well, hey. I’m not an alarm anymore.

Sarah Tacy [00:18:33]:
And it’s so wild that we could be an alarm for 20 years. And how normal it is, actually, that when somebody who is in what’s called, like, global high intensity activation takes that first break instead of being like, finally vacation. That’s when the system drops and everything that hasn’t been able to be processed and digested. It’s like, here I am. And he doesn’t say fuck.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:19:02]:
And it’s

Sarah Tacy [00:19:03]:
full of emotion. Just want Exactly. Just want it to rest, which is so interesting because so many people, when they work with me, the hardest thing sometimes is the idea of slowing down, it feels like. And often, it is that as we slow down, the things that were buried begin to show themselves, and the things we didn’t have capacity to be with start to come forward. And the other thing that I was hearing is when we have something chronic, we become very used to it, as you said. And it’s like, okay. I can I can live this way? I can do this. In body work, Thomas Hannah, who I believe wrote his work either in the fifties or Sarah seventies, had this thing about sensory motor amnesia.

Sarah Tacy [00:19:54]:
And this idea that when something becomes chronic, we get a low grade pain because it’s constantly on, but we also become numb to it. So we can’t just feel like, oh, you’re on. I’m gonna exhale and relax. So what happens what his work would say is, can we voluntarily override the involuntary? So if the involuntary is the chronic place, when the volume gets turned up on what you’ve learned how to tolerate, that is when we kinda hit a point of, like, oh, now now I’m gonna come face to face with this thing. And for him, it’s like once, like, once you engage that part that was, involuntarily engaged, then it can release. And so I feel like that point where suddenly it went from, I can handle this to, I can’t handle this. This is not worth living. And then the Ayahuasca.

Sarah Tacy [00:20:56]:
For me, that just I don’t know why it feels important to point out that, like, the water is getting hotter. It’s getting hotter. I can tell, like, it’s boiling and I need to get out of this. It feels big because I think that people can probably notice times in their own life where suddenly you wake up and you look in the mirror and you’re like, this is not manageable anymore. And the other point that felt really important in your story was the, like, I’ve done everything society says life is worth living for. And I’m not happy. Yes. That’s a big moment.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:21:33]:
Yes. In psychology, we call that interjections. It’s like the metaphor that let’s say, you know, you got your new apartment. It’s your space. But all of a sudden, your mom comes in and says, you need that couch in that corner. And your dad comes in and says, you need that dining table in the middle of that room. And all of a sudden, it doesn’t become your space. You just fall you you’re you’re allowing all of these other people and all these other noise and narratives to come in, which may or may not be true for you, but you don’t know

Sarah Tacy [00:22:06]:
that

Jemie Sae Koo [00:22:07]:
for yourself.

Sarah Tacy [00:22:07]:
And when it happens in small, tolerable pieces, I feel like that’s when one could suddenly wake up one day and be like, wait. Whose house am I in? But I think I did say yes to all these things. What? I definitely have had these moments, and it’s not a one and done for me. Like, it happens multiple times where I’m like, okay, recalibration needed. What

Jemie Sae Koo [00:22:33]:
really feels true for me and what does not?

Sarah Tacy [00:22:36]:
I find that when the outside world looks really beautiful and everyone could say, you’re so lucky. And on the inside, it doesn’t feel like that. I recently walked by a tree that had fallen down, and the whole inside of it was rotten. So from the outside, people probably wouldn’t think this is tree we need to cut down. It might fall over. And I saw that, and I was like, I think I’ve felt that way before. Right? Like, on the outside, it looked really good. And on the inside, it was like, oof, needing some serious nutrition.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:23:09]:
What’s coming up for me in this this idea of, 1, keeping up with the Joneses, and, 2, the constant comparison of ourselves to others. Right? And that we live in in this digital age with social media and all that stuff, it’s so easy for us to get caught up in this constant comparison. Oh, so and so is doing this, or, oh my gosh, look at their life, and how come I can’t have that, or I want that, or the the the the the the where you really don’t know behind the lens what their life actually is. It can also be very hollow. It can also be feel really empty, And they they’re they have a lot of their own crosses that they’re bearing. Right? So oftentimes, we we see the Sarah of the grass greener on the other side, but yet it’s it’s really like, you know, so important to remember, like we are here to live a life of our own that feels in alignment with our soul and our spirit. And we are all here to do whatever it is that our soul has been called here to do. And it is our path and our path alone.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:24:15]:
Right. And so when I when I work with clients, oftentimes the way I approach them is I see them as a whole person. And it’s really meeting them where they’re at and really allowing them to get back in touch with their own body’s is oftentimes worse. We’re just so constantly disconnecting ourselves from our body. We’re so disconnected with so many of the other invisible forces at play. You know, I was that I was that high achiever who, like, was just, like, touting, oh, I have a high threshold for pain, and I can push through anything, and that person’s able to do that. I’m gonna do I’m gonna meet him there too, and I can go further, you know, beyond beyond where he can go. Right? And so constantly pushing my body to the point to the brink of no return.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:25:10]:
And and then after a while, this avatar of pretending of who I think I wanna be and who I’m, like, striving, comparing myself to be gets tired, and it’s saying and and then all of a sudden, the body catches up and saying and and screaming, no. This is not the life for me. This is not like I’m I’m too tired to play this avatar anymore. I have to allow myself and my true authentic part to come forward. Right. And so that that whole process, I oftentimes compare it to the saying of breakdown to breakthrough. So it was just an entire breakdown process in order for me to get to a place of breakthrough so that I can finally be in alignment with my soul and my spirit.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:12]:
Is there anything that you wanna say about the journeys themselves, or do you wanna speak more about the integration?

Jemie Sae Koo [00:26:22]:
Well, I think those two things come hand in hand. Right? And so when I first had my encounter with plant medicine, specifically with Ayahuasca, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And there was so much of kind of feeling my way through it even though it was like a full f yes. Like, I gotta do this. Now that I look back, I if you look at it from a metaphorical perspective, it’s like going to a swimming pool, not knowing how to swim, and going all the way to the deep end of the pool and diving right head in. And so while I don’t regret how things unfolded around that, now that I’ve been, like, you know, 8 years into this work, I know a lot more now than I knew back then. And that is the importance around the 2 bookends of the experience, which is the preparation, really being able to prepare yourself to be intentional, to be on the proper dieta, knowing what you are trying to call into your life, knowing how to protect yourself, being discerning of who you work with, of who you share the ceremony or the space or the container with, all the way to the integration, which is, you know, it’s not just the talk therapy component, which that can serve its its part. It but it is a part, but I really assert that you can do all the talk therapy want, but if your body’s in constant inflammation, are you really fully able to heal? Integration becomes the embodiment, the embodiment of our day to day lives.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:28:19]:
It’s coming out of that survival mode to, yes, trying to be normal again, but then from that being normal again to now having that ability to thrive in your life Right? And what does that thriving look like? But that comes with really attending to the mind, the body, the soul, and the spirit and really approaching integration in a very holistic, inner goal way. Right? You’re looking at restful sleep, nutrition, body energy work, talk therapy, clean air, clean water, detoxing metals, detoxing parasites, environmental toxins out of your body, reducing that inflammation in your body, doing her whole audit in your house of anything that’s toxic that could be potentially leeching into your body, reducing EMF, electromagnetic frequency around you. Right? Because that can cause all types of havoc. Now we’re into the 4g, the 5g. Stress management, we know that stress kills. Like, that’s so cliche. But, truly, how are we managing the stress in our lives? How are we managing our mindset and the and the narratives that keep running in our background? Right? How are we being discerning of who we allow ourselves to be surrounded with? Right? What energies, healthy digestion. Right? Ensuring that you’re opening up that drainage pathways and really being able to move your bowels at least 1 to 3 times a day.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:29:53]:
Right? Optimizing your breath, really learning how to correctly breathe, and then also deploying certain breath work techniques that can really help you not only achieve the transformation you’re looking for, and it can actually be as potent and as transformative and powerful as working with pot medicine. And then really, how do you then increase your energy and be more into that flow and more alignment in your life? So these are the 12 principles and the foundations of what I teach to my students and my clients around what integration means and also how do we really start healing and resourcing ourselves in today’s modern world.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:37]:
That is integration. As I hear that, I could imagine like, oh my gosh. That’s a lot to do. That’s a lot to fix. And, also, if I fixed all those things, would I have needed the journey in the first place? That sounds like a full healing regimen. And I wonder if the journey itself is what motivates people to stick with going down the path of really looking at all 12 of those things and assessing their life from all of those perspectives. Does that make sense?

Jemie Sae Koo [00:31:13]:
The way I would say that is, you know, psychedelics, first of all, is not for everyone, but psychedelics slash plant medicine done in a safe way with a lot of integrity can be a really big reset. Right? It’s a reset. And what I like to metaphorically compare it to is, like, it’s like cleaning out the cobwebs in your mind, in your body, and having a reset. And when you have that reset, then it’s clearing out and creating space for new habits, for new behaviors, for new lifestyle shifts to come in. Because if we’re constantly running in this. Right, you do you talk a lot about nervous system. Right? And oftentimes, our nervous system is it’s just without even having an awareness, it’s in that sympathetic state of fight or flight. And it’s just this, like, constant humming machine going on, and you’re not even aware of it.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:32:18]:
Right. I really we’re really good at talking about what we don’t want in our lives. Yeah. I know I don’t want this pain. I know I don’t want I I don’t want the stress. I don’t want I don’t want I don’t I don’t I don’t you know? But it’s what am I calling into my life? What am I stepping? What is the life that I wanna step into? And then how do you resource the nervous system into that parasympathetic state to allow the body to start to heal?

Sarah Tacy [00:32:44]:
Yeah. I don’t know if this is my Gemini nature. I don’t know. This comes up for me all the time or, like, oh, and the picture of, like, sympathetic or parasympathetic is there’s a part of me that wants to highlight that there there is this, like, whole polyvagal way in which, like, we we want sympathetic and we want parasympathetic. And because for so long in our culture, we’ve been running so high on the sympathetic, on the fight or flight, or we can be really in the dorsal vagal, which is part of the parasympathetic where we’re in freeze. It’s like, I think I’m fine. I think I’m neutral. I think nothing bothers me.

Sarah Tacy [00:33:27]:
But, actually, it’s like, suppress, suppress, suppress so that I’m not a burden to anybody. And as we wake up, the more of who we are. And as you were saying, like, not just through talk psychology or nervous system work, that this could be through the environment we’re in, the people we choose to be around, the food we’re taking in, the toxins around us, that we begin to have this range where we can have fast health, where we can run a business, or if something’s going sideways in the business, that we can have some of that sympathetic kick in where we are able to stand up for ourselves and have a boundary, but we’re still in our bodies. So when I think of nervous system, I think sometimes that makes people really comfortable to look at things from a scientific perspective. Nervous system, on or off. I can get on board with that. But if we were to think of nervous system as the embodiment of our spirit and our whole body responding through the fluids, through the chemistry, through the electricity to the states around us and within us, then we’re really talking fast health. And that is not necessarily that we all need to, like, rest and not go back to having speed.

Sarah Tacy [00:34:54]:
But if we’re having speed that that like, it’s it starts to look more like a wave or like a tide that both are there and present and capable. And I may have just gone off on a tangent, but I wanted to add that in to honor. Because sometimes I think shame can be added to the conversation if it’s like, we wanna move in this direction, like, just to the parasympathetic and to suggest that there’s there’s health there’s so much health that can be had. And I know you know this. I’m just saying it out loud that there’s so much health that can be had. If I were to think of, like, a surfer or somebody in the courtroom or, like, can I can can I be so in my body and have the parasympathetic and the sympathetic? And I’d be in a deep conversation where there’s, like, a lot of mental, you know, things going on and still be in my body? So the question then keeps coming as you can hear is, like, can I still can I be in my body? Yeah. And have various speeds in my life. And various intensity is from slow and relax on the couch with somebody I love and feeling safe to be slow and held, to feeling capable enough to be in a boardroom as a female doing what I know I can do.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:12]:
Yeah. I think so much of what you say is just you really as as facilitators, guides and practitioners is really meeting meeting people where they’re at. And going at their pace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some peep need to take some baby steps. Some people wanna take quantum leaps and want to do it all.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:36]:
Like, give it to me all. I wanna do the detox. I wanna do the nutrition. I wanna get rest. Other people are like, I just wanna be able to, like, take a shower at this point. It’s a range. It’s a Yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:36:49]:
You know what

Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:49]:
you’re saying?

Sarah Tacy [00:36:50]:
You know? And so

Jemie Sae Koo [00:36:52]:
so everyone’s on their own paths. Everyone’s on their own respective paths. And so, you know, I think the biggest thing about this work, you know, how I even got into it was also to you know, this is very much a lived experience. You know, this is about my own healing journey. And one thing I didn’t name was all of these symptoms that came up for me was an an autoimmune condition. Specifically, it was Hashimoto’s. And I was pretty much given what I felt was a was a death sentence from the doctors in the white quote saying, you know, you’re you’re always gonna live with this, and there is no cure, and you’re gonna be dependent on medication for the rest of your life. And I remember the weight of that diagnosis, and it was like all of a sudden I was in in prison.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:37:48]:
I was in a cell. And I went through so many evolutions of grieving. Of this death and dying process of who Jemie used to be and what normal used to be for me and to this, like, sick, ailing person that was just, like, in a washing machine that can get out of it. And then and then with the support of plant medicine and psychedelics having that huge reset, and then 2 years then of feeling my way to the dark around integration work and then realizing, oh, okay. All of the twelve principles that I name is are the things that have really been a decade of my work of finding this has been so effective in healing my body that all of the toxins and the chemicals that I was just, like, completely unaware of through my shampoo, through my makeup, through the the food that I’m eating, whatever that was, all of a sudden came into my awareness, all of a sudden came to my consciousness of, oh, this is years of accumulating this gunk and the stuff in my body that I thought I was completely immune to, that I was just like. This whatever my body can handle it, you know, like, I just didn’t even have consciousness around that. And and now then being able to support clients and seeing the transformer transformative results, seeing them coming out of their depression, seeing them come out of their physical or mental ailments because they’re able to finally come into this awareness. Incredibly powerful.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:39:40]:
And, you know, with or without psychedelics, you can still achieve your healing. You can still achieve a life of normalcy. You can still achieve a life of of thriving and and having that hope. So this is this work is really shifting that paradigm. It’s shifting that paradigm from going from the weight of the doctor’s diagnosis to being the CEO of your body, the CEO of your health, having that consciousness, having that hope, having that belief coming out of that limiting beliefs to then being self empowered. Right. Having the tools and the skills, knowing that there is everything out there that nature has provided already to be able to really heal and support your body so that you can be in more alignment in your life so that you can allow your soul to fully inhabit your body.

Sarah Tacy [00:40:37]:
And I think you said this, and I’m gonna follow-up. And, like, I know I’ve heard you say it before, but after you did your 4 days, you said your depression disappeared. And I think you said that it has stayed away. Like, you haven’t relapsed with it.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:40:54]:
Correct. Yeah. Even incredible. And after I gave birth, even during my postpartum recovery process, No depression

Sarah Tacy [00:41:06]:
at all.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:41:06]:
And the public that I had dealt with pretty much all my life since I was a child.

Sarah Tacy [00:41:13]:
And I could highlight here too that the world has, in the last you know, especially since 2020, hasn’t said like, well, it’s been pretty easy. Like, there have been so many complicated things in our world. And then, yeah, you gave birth to a baby, became a mama, you started psychable. Is there anything you could share or want to share with us about your threshold into motherhood?

Jemie Sae Koo [00:41:42]:
I think what I would it’d be helpful is if you can sort of share with me what does threshold mean to you?

Sarah Tacy [00:41:49]:
In episode 2 of this podcast, I describe the cycle of awareness. It makes me like a little oh, my teacher who who passed away this year, Don Stapleton. This was the premise of I could give you a really short definition, but I’m going I’m going long here. This was the premise that he would lay out before every training. And it was this idea that we have a normal way of living. And it could be your familiar hell or your familiar heaven, but it’s your normal. And then something the next thing is interruption of norm. Mhmm.

Sarah Tacy [00:42:31]:
And the interruption, the way that I see it is, like, that could have been Cuba where all the symptoms start coming in. Right? For some people, it’s like the way a blister forms, which is really slow friction over time. So sometimes it feels like life threw something on you or a car accident or a diagnosis. And other times, it’s that waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror and being like so there’s an interruption, and the next phase is chaos and confusion. And and that is, like, you try to do everything you know how to do, but nothing’s working. And and these are the stages where we’re now in a threshold. Like, there was normal life, and now what was working is no longer working. And try as we might, all the tools, no matter how many years of spiritual development or, you know, psychology or whatever it is, all the tools that we’ve had aren’t working.

Sarah Tacy [00:43:33]:
Or for a lot of people, it’s just that they’ve learned to push through. Right? I’ve I know, like, if I just try harder, I’ll be able to fix this. And so the next stage then is the fertile void. And the fertile void may be the place that Ayahuasca was in, in the 2 years after. It’s the place where you kind of give up on trying to be the old you. And so in motherhood too, like, I think that we can between phases, and it’s not always a perfect cycle. But there is, you know, that point of, like, oh, I am not that old version and kinda giving I don’t wanna say giving up, but letting go, surrendering, sometimes out of force or out of need. And on the other side is inspiration Yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:44:27]:
And then integration Yeah. And then the evolved norm. Yeah. And because it’s a cycle, the kicker is that evolved norm then points back to norm. Does that make sense? So, like, it’s not generally a one time cycle. It’s kinda saying, like, whoever you are, wherever you are, we’re gonna have these thresholds in life that ask us, like, oh, that’s so great. You’ve grown so much. Congratulations.

Sarah Tacy [00:44:58]:
Mhmm. And here’s another interruption of norm.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:45:04]:
Yeah. You are so beautiful and articulate in that whole process. Thank you for that gift, Sarah. Wow. Yeah. So what’s coming up for me in terms of the threshold into motherhood is so much. Right? Like, coming out of that Ayahuasca experience, completely feeling like I’ve been lifted out of my depression. I went into this path of devotion, deeply devoted to this work, to this space, and it led me to getting my master’s degree in the field of psychology focused on psychedelic assisted therapy and really falling in love with gestalt as a modality, which is all around me seeing people where they’re at.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:45:44]:
Right? And honoring what is alive in the moment to then really incubating this whole idea around how can I solve the problems in the space when it comes to working with non ordinary states of consciousness as well as psychedelics and plant medicine? And not finding a solution out there, I created psychable, which really is the Yelp. Right? So Yelp of psychedelics and plant medicine. How do we, 1, first, allow individuals to find practitioners to really be able to support them and meet them where they’re at if they decide, if they choose to engage with plant medicine and psychedelics. How do we ensure the safety? How do we ensure the preparation and and and the integration work? Then it’s how do we support the facilitators and the practitioners, giving them the tools to ensure the safety and the integrity of the work. And then, really, the other bucket is around or the other tenant is around the education the education of this work, education of psychedelics, the education of healing and of integration. Right? All which we we touched on already. But and so in birth cycle. Right? I I looked at cycle as one of, like, this another baby.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:47:06]:
Right? This babe it was really my first baby that was birth.

Sarah Tacy [00:47:09]:
Mhmm.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:47:10]:
And it felt so clear in terms of the vision that came through of what psychable or psychable 1.0 was to be and is today. And along that journey, it brought me to Miami where I met my life partner, and it was all around following and answering the call. Right? That if I continue to stay in alignment with my work along the way, the universe rewards in infinite folds. And one of the infinite folds that it rewarded me was literally dropping my life partner into my life. Never in a 1000000 years that I think I would ever go to Miami, let alone live in Miami. But it was interesting because 2 days prior to leaving to the Miami trip where I met my life partner, I got this download. I was as I was praying, was pack up your house and put it in storage. And I was having this conversation with God, like, what are you talking about? Like, I’m just going on this trip.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:48:14]:
I’ll be back. And it was like, pack up your house and put it in storage. And I was like, okay. I’m gonna surrender. I’m going to listen, and I’m going to do it. So packed up my entire house, put it in storage, and off I went to Miami. Through a work colleague, got introduced to to my life partner, and at that time, it was very platonic. But after several meetings, we realized something was there.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:48:42]:
And then in a few months, all of a sudden, I found myself living in Miami with my life partner. And within that year, we bought a house. And as I was in this entire process, I was also finishing up my master’s degree and supporting CycleWell as a company and living in a new place. And then all of a sudden was in this, like, crazy spiritual warfare because I had, unfortunately, at that point, had surrounded myself with some of the wrong people in the space. And so I had to go through that entire cleaning out process, and it was an epic spiritual warfare. And in that process, found out I was pregnant. And I was like, literally, I had to surrender because I was completely at the brink of, like, how am I gonna get through all of this? How am I going to get out of this? I didn’t see an end to sight. And with psychable, it was as as if somebody came in and just, like, took a bat and, like, swung it.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:49:56]:
And all of a sudden, this beautiful glass castle that you built with your heart and soul and spirit got shattered into a 1000000 pieces. And I’m there picking up shard by shard, trying to piece these things back together again while also creating a baby and literally just had the surrender and just asked for guidance from the highest source. And every day, just praying in the morning, may I continue to be used in the highest service to God? How can I show up in my highest for God every single morning and just having that faith and that hope and just honoring and listening to that guidance and continuing to not only just channel into that, but, like, connecting with my body, intuiting into my body? What does this feel like? This decision I have to make, how does this feel in my body? Is it yes or no? If it’s not answering me, it’s a no right now. Right? So all of that, and in the process also doing the detox work, also doing a parasite plan. So as I was doing a parasite plans and and purging out all these parasites, you know, in comes this life of this baby that wants to be birth, a physical Tacy. And she, and she was born, she was born on the new year. And then all of a sudden, all of the spiritual warfare stuff with the wrong people got resolved. And those parasites not only left my body, they also got extracted out of my life too.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:51:45]:
Wow. Paracific people. And so and so now today, I’m psychable is threading again. And in the original version of it and integrating all of the wisdoms and the feedback from my clients and feedback from my clients and students or practitioners, all of that gets embodied to what psychable is today and what it is becoming. And that also helps support, my private practice and the group work and the courses that we are launching.

Sarah Tacy [00:52:21]:
I am, like, a little bit giggly over here. 1, you just described something really hard, but your energy and your face around it is so lit up with joy, which is just a really beautiful sign that if in that cycle of awareness, you’re in, like, the new evolved state of being. And when you describe the praying, let me be in the high of of the highest service, it is like such a fertile void moment or moments. And, yeah, the realization even, I would say, of, like, the parasite cleanse and the way the universe works where it happens in your body but it also happens in your environment is really incredible. And so motherhood for you. So she comes in on is it, like, gregarious New Year? January 1st. January 1st. Yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:53:17]:
New beginnings. That’s incredible symbolism. And then how has it been being a mother for you?

Jemie Sae Koo [00:53:25]:
Thank you for asking. You know, I at some point in my life before I met my life partner, I kinda I kinda gave it all up. I just was like, great if I am meant to be a mom or not. Like, it’s okay. I whatever is in highest service to God. Like, just use me. You know? And and so, gosh, everything that I went through that I just described to you had led me to this really pivotal moment of becoming a mother and birthing this amazing soul who has chosen me as her mother, you know, and it’s brought so much joy. It’s brought so much perspective.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:54:08]:
It brought so much peace into my life. And it’s she this whole process of being a mother continues to feel the work that I do too. So she is such a source of inspiration for me while also just being able to very clearly prioritize my time, my energy, and and be able to show up for her and really tune to her needs and to my own. Right? They’re they’re such beautiful teachers for us too. And and then also just really ensuring that we, as a family myself, continue to be the embodiment of this work because we want to give her the healthiest environment possible to enable her to thrive.

Sarah Tacy [00:55:04]:
Rachel Campfield’s podcast just came out yesterday, and I listen to my own podcast when I go on walks. I just always like there’s such medicine shared and the whatever the vibration or the frequency that comes from whatever the union is between myself and another person. And she was sharing something that felt really similar coming from a hard childhood and and deciding, like, I am going to be the author of my future, and I am going to make these choices. And as she came into motherhood, her thing was like, it’s not what I it’s it’s not the things I check off the box as a mother for my child. It is how I be. Yes. And it is my presence that’s gonna have them feel. And in order to have that presence, then where do I need to it’s like you were saying, prioritize for work or for self care or for downtime or for gardening or and that a child can be such a reminder of the importance of our nervous system.

Sarah Tacy [00:56:13]:
Because it’s one thing sometimes. I’m not saying this is the way it should be, but I think sometimes people could feel like, ah, I, you know, I’m okay in the spider flight or I’m and then sometimes the child can help us. It I know that is true for my husband and I. Oh, their nervous systems are responding to ours? Oh, now self care is doubly as important as we thought it was so that they’re picking up. He’s just like, if you hear your kids fighting, there’s a chance that a half an hour before, if there were a videotape, like, something in your body gave off a signal. And not to put a ton of pressure on us, but just, like, gave a signal that something was not okay or possibly not safe, and their body is needing some fight outlet. And this is not a perfection thing, but it is a little added motivation for self care, which can feel really great.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:57:11]:
Yeah. And to really learn to love ourselves, to take care of ourselves because that’s that’s where it comes from. Right? We we really set we set and and model what that looks like for our children and for each other.

Sarah Tacy [00:57:28]:
I have two things on my wall right there. There are a few things that just happened to be here, and I’m gonna I’m realizing we’re at the end of the of our hour together. I was in a session as inside person doing my own work. And and so much of it was so similar to when you say, like, may I continue to be used for the highest service of god? And this was, you know, may I be the most effective? And I think what was surprising to me was effective for the safety of children around the planet And what’s my next step? And I always consider myself as someone who’s here to work with adults. And I was surprised when the children part came up. And and I just really feel that the more we all do this work, that it’s gonna hopefully land in spreading healthier and safer spaces around the world. And I’m so glad that you’re here doing the work that you’re doing. I really, really can see the light that emanates from you and the beauty that you’re bringing and the way that you’re able to use your past experience to create a network.

Sarah Tacy [00:58:41]:
So people who are listening, you can go to psychable.com. I’ll have a link in the show notes. And the second part that you’ve heard Jemie speak about a few times is this next edition or this, like, what you might say is, like, the most important part, that integration part to have a lot of support. So it’s not just about the big experience, but where are you landing on the other side? What type of support are we getting on the other side? So thank you so much for doing the work that you’re doing in this world. And what was there was, like, one other thing that was in my periphery. Oh, it’s this it’s this card that came up priorities. And it says the quality of your life is determined by how you spend your time. Make sure use your schedule reflects the life you want.

Sarah Tacy [00:59:33]:
And it sounds like, especially since mother end, this has been up for you. And as you shared that with me at the very beginning, I thought, well, how blessed am I that I got to have be in your schedule and vice versa. I looked over at that and I was like, yeah. The quality of my life is quite good.

Jemie Sae Koo [00:59:54]:
Yeah. What’s coming for it? Thank you for saying all that and just really so much gratitude due to you for doing your work and for this beautiful container that you’re creating and that you have created. You know, I think one of the biggest things that I’ve been sitting with too is you’re only as good as what you are willing to tolerate.

Sarah Tacy [01:00:14]:
Will you say more?

Jemie Sae Koo [01:00:16]:
You know, in all the choices that we make and even the people that we surround ourselves with or even the people that we work with, you know, there’s so oftentimes that we bypass certain behaviors or certain things and makes excuses for other people. And then all of a sudden, you know, you’re just, like, sitting there in the in the in the messiness of it, and you’re just, like, feeling icky and yucky about it. And so what I’m in reminding myself is you are only as good as what you’re willing to tolerate. So if you decide to be this excellence and, like, high standard and all that, all the people around you needs to be able to support that as well, needs to also learn how to embody all of that too. Right? And so we meet we meet them with patients, but they have to have this willingness and readiness and ability to do that. Just like with the clients that I work with. Right? I always say, I just as much as you’re choosing me, I’m choosing to work with you.

Sarah Tacy [01:01:13]:
Right? So true.

Jemie Sae Koo [01:01:14]:
You have to have the big deal. Yes. You have to have the readiness, willingness, and want to be able to do the work because it is work. And that that’s what leads me to the course that we’re launching is around how to overcome depression without medication. Know that nature has provided everything that you already need. And so now it’s returning back to the basics, allowing for more slowness, simplicity to come forward, knowing that we now are living in today’s modern world. It’s a completely different world that our grandparents grew up in that are even our parents grew up in. And so there is hope and there is access, and you do not have to be relying on medication to heal.

Jemie Sae Koo [01:02:15]:
And so the 2 courses that I’ve had that I have come up with around supporting folks who are going through depression specifically, One is specifically around psychedelics and plant medicines. If you choose to go down that route, everything from how to choose the right practitioner, facilitator, retreat, to how to properly prepare yourself, how to prepare for ceremony or treatment, all the way to journal, intention, and integration. And then if you’re not called to do plant medicine and psychedelics, course 2 really talks to the full integration of the work, the twelve principles on really how to resource your mind, your body, your soul, your spirit so that you can start healing the root causes and alleviate the symptoms. Depression is a symptom to a root cause. Right? That’s the work that we go into and that we address. And and part of that, we will also be supporting through group work as well. So Beautiful. For more of that, and happy to share more of that through through your podcast, through the link that we’ll provide, invite you to check out what we have on Cycle.

Sarah Tacy [01:03:34]:
Thank you so much. Thank you for spending time with us here today. As I said before, it’s always such an honor to spend time with you.

Jemie Sae Koo [01:03:43]:
It is a joy. It is an honor. And I’m so full of gratitude for you and to everyone who is receiving this message and for all the listeners out there. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you.

Sarah Tacy [01:04:10]:
Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at Sarah. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like.

Sarah Tacy [01:04:34]:
Apparently, it’s wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or 2. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.