Introduction To The Podcast
Oh, my goodness. She hit record. Hi, welcome to this first episode. It has been a long time coming for me to put this together and put this out into the world. And I'm so excited that you're here. The intro introduced the podcast that introduced me and now I get to just dive in and let you know what this first episode even is for a little bit of context, I am hold up in a phone booth at the coworking space because the podcast room has been and Booked out.
I did not plan my time accordingly and I'm also cornered into a time crunch for the day. So I have exactly 30 minutes to into audio form what it is that I want to cover. And that means this is going to be a one stop First try, let's go, which after how long I've been thinking about doing this feels really silly.
I, all of my perfectionism definitely came up in this process. And to now be here in honestly, just the most casual clothes on a Friday, backing up right against a client session. You know what? Let's just dive in because I am quite literally bursting at the seams with excitement for this first episode. I have completely avoided caffeine intentionally today so that I don't talk so fast. Okay, so here we are. What is the purpose of this podcast? I do have some notes for this first episode, so I'm going to just go ahead and follow along. The purpose of this podcast is to explore ketamine as a therapeutic and transformational tool life transformation tool.
And. It's really for the people that are curious about what the heck is going on with this psychedelic renaissance that we're in and where does ketamine fall into this psychedelic renaissance. I have so much that I want to share with you guys because I work with a lot of clients who have been experiencing symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, anywhere from just a few months, because if you're in that place time slows down, but anywhere from a few months to 20 plus years. And these people are the type of people that look really accomplished and successful on the outside. They have a life that makes sure that they look that way from the outside.
They are successful in their careers. They have amazing families, they have good networks. And. At the same time, they're on this journey. They're looking for something and that journey has brought them to ketamine. They have tried traditional talk therapy, maybe some medication, maybe even more science based alternative therapies like meditation or yoga or cold plunging .
And varying degrees of success with all of these approaches. But at the same time, it feels like there's a gap in the healing journey. And these are people that are open minded and curious and hearing about these alternative and ways of diving into healing that is different than the other things that you may have tried.
And maybe you've heard about psychedelics like Anna. Podcast or a family member. I feel like everyone has a distinct cousin somewhere that has worked with ketamine. And there's an intrigue, right? Like this intrigue about what is it? Why is it helping people? Why is it transforming lives?
Why is like Elon Musk talking about it? And what's the deal? That's a lot of the people that come to me with questions and I've also worked with people that are in a different place really feeling like they've been through the ringer of the Western medical system and are feeling like this is their final stop to feel better.
Whatever feel better means they might have unexplained nightmares or anxiety, or even like physical ailments that nobody seems to be able to get to the bottom of. And they've been to doctor after doctor and professional after professional. And it can feel like the doctors are just standing there with these empty pockets being like ketamine?
The bottom of that well of potential therapies. And. It's feels like for these people that ketamine is the end of the road therapy, which, oh, wow let's just yeah, let's just pause for a moment and just acknowledge that wherever you are in life if you are human, Which I hope you are.
You've been in a dark hole, depending on how long you've been there or anything like that, I think it's really human to have experienced this place of darkness of Wow, I just don't know what to do. Yeah, let's just take a moment and send anyone in a dark place or even past you in a dark place, a nod of hope, a little bit of You got this energy.
And honestly let's send that energy out into the greater world, because the truth is, y'all, if you're looking around, we're in crisis. And this is not even an objective standpoint, and I'm not going to jump into specifics because what I know to be true is that The World Health Organization, in the first year of the pandemic, was able to identify and document that the prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25 percent in the first year.
That was Four years ago. And where are we now with that statistic? The World Health Organization estimates that the number one cause of disability in the world by 2030 is going to be depression. I'm going to repeat that. The World Health Organization estimates that the number one cause of global disability in the world is going to be depression by 2030.
by 2030. Now, I don't know podcasts live out in podcast space forever and ever, so maybe it's like 2050 and you're listening to this, but when I'm recording this, it is 2024. We are more than halfway through the year, which means that we have about five years to turn this ship around. And with that, let me just acknowledge I'm getting ahead of myself.
This is absolutely a topic that I want to cover in future episodes. It's definitely something that I'm really passionate about is what ketamine is good for and what people are using it for and the miracles that I've seen. But I am getting, letting my passion get ahead of this first episode.
Let's just chalk that up to be a preview of what is to come in future episodes. And also, if you're curious about what future episodes will hold, definitely stay tuned because I will be talking more about what my intention is for this podcast what you can expect from me. And what I hope to bring to this platform, but for this first episode, let me just like back up and Introduce myself.
Hi I'm Anna Krystal, which if you're listening to this, if you know me for a while, you might call me Anna Krystal So let's just start there with a really silly experiment that I started last year, which was Just playing around with the pronunciation of my name. So So, a lot of times I will introduce myself as Anna Kristal, a lot of times I'll introduce myself as Anna Kristal, sometimes I'll say Anya Kristal.
All of those are real, all of those are my names. Maybe in a future episode I will explain why, but for now, just know that it's a really silly experiment I've been running for the past year. But. Regardless of that, I just want to throw that out there because I definitely have people that were like, wait, is it Anna?
Because my friend said Anna and I thought it was Anna, but they said Anna and now I'm confused. And it's yes, the answer is yes. Anna, Anya. your ketamine coach, whatever it is that you want to call me. Let me just explain why am I even in this seat? Why am I even talking about ketamine?
How did we get here? Let me, there was a funny memory I have in I think it was like 2022. I was at a dinner party and someone the classic question of what do you do? And I was like, Oh, I'm a psychedelic coach. Specializing in ketamine. I help people prepare for and integrate throughout and after ketamine journeys.
And this person just looks at me and goes, Whoa, how did you get there? And I was like, I don't know, pursuing my interests. So that is how I got here. Yeah. How did I get here? It's been, it's definitely been a journey. I started studying the subconscious mind. This journey goes back to like 10 or 11 years ago.
It was like 2013 ish that I got really curious about the subconscious mind. A little bit of context of where I was , in my life at that time. I was in my dream job, living my dream life in my dream city. Everything was literally I had done a manifestation exercise I think the year prior, and my life at the time of this story literally checked every single box except one.
Whew, I could not focus. I would sit down to work at my dream job, everything that I love to do, and my brain would be like, oh, let's emotionally eat chocolate, oh my god, what is happening on this social media app or that social media app, and blah, blah, blah. And by the way, this is 2013, so this is like pre TikTok pre X, it was still Twitter, but it was literally dying, it had not been resurrected yet there were so fewer social media channels, and honestly, they weren't even that.
Interesting. Interesting enough, and I had trouble focusing and I was living in New York city. I was working a job that really allowed me to connect with so many different kinds of people. And one of the things that I was hearing from people in the finance industry was, Oh, your money's supposed to work for you.
Your money's supposed to work for you. Now, a little bit more context. I had just spent a year saving every single penny that I made and living at my parents house and giving all of that money to the government for student loans to become debt free. The thought of having savings was not actually where I was at in life.
And the idea of money working for me, it was just not even somewhere I was at financially. But my first sort of cognitive response to that saying was, not even my brain is working for me. I feel like my brain and I are on different sides, and that's what led me to study the subconscious mind.
It started with reading a lot of business books, time management, prioritization, so many things that I love. I still use occasionally. I recommend to anyone who is still in that place. Things that I was learning then, it. led me to study the subconscious mind. And I loved it. I loved learning about the subconscious mind.
And then it was right around when was it was 2015 or 16. So I was already on this journey of okay, let me get me and my brain on the same side. And it was working. I was employing different processes and different techniques that were working. The number one technique that I employed that was really working was meditation.
Meditation. That was, wow, I can do a whole nother episode on the life changing power that the role of meditation has played in my life. And yeah, so I'm on this journey. I'm working my dream job. I'm exploring the subconscious mind. I'm living my best New York City corporate life.
And on the side, I taught yoga. Yoga, that teaching collided me with a wellness retreat where I met my first hypnotherapist. I had never met a hypnotherapist. I never even, a lot of people think of hypnosis and they're like, Oh Vegas show or clucking chicken, swinging clocks. I didn't have any of that sort of prejudice.
I was just like, literally sat down next to this woman at lunch and was just like, Hey, who are you? And she was like, Oh, I'm one of the presenters at this. wellness retreat. And I was like, cool, just chatted with her. She was super nice and ended up going to her session. Absolutely. 100 percent fell asleep in that session and nonetheless ended up on her email list.
And I started listening to her recordings, and I noticed when I was listening to those recordings that they were working in a different way than all the other things that I had been trying. Again, I'd been working with yoga, meditation, different things. Prioritization techniques, all these different things.
But the hypnosis was hitting in a different way. And so I just kept listening to the recordings. I was literally just falling asleep listening to hypnosis recordings. But then I noticed that during my waking state, things were shifting and different. And so In 2017, after spending an entire year as a daily meditator in 2016, Oh, so it was the, at the end of 2016, I signed up for this hypnosis certification, this same teacher, it was her first.
Inaugural group and I ended up studying hypnosis and I remember at the time being like, what is happening? This makes no sense. Why am I studying hypnosis? I have no I was studying to be a hypnotherapist. No! Literally, no ambitions of becoming a hypnotherapist, lol, the universe has jokes because that is exactly what I became in 2018 and have been doing that work ever since.
But I was new to connecting with intuition and learning to trust messages that didn't make sense. And this message to pursue this hypnosis certification made no sense. And I just went for it. And it absolutely changed my life. So thanks for going on that journey with me of how I found hypnosis and here's why it's relevant.
In 2018, that's when I was really getting into sort of the meat and potatoes of this hypnosis certification. And that's when I was starting getting more advanced. That's why I started practicing with. clients. And that is also when I collided with plant medicine in an intentional way. I had experimented with psychedelics as a kid in like different party settings and things like that.
But in 2018, looking back I was on a journey. Like I was really seeking something and I collided with plant medicine. I, might do an episode about that in the future. It's going to be a story that's woven in and out of these episodes. If you have a really specific question, I'm going to have a form in the show notes so you can submit questions.
And let me just say for this first episode, as we are warming up and getting to know each other, here's what happened. Hypnosis and psychedelics came into my life in 2018, the fall of 2018. It was like between August, September into yeah, December, January, they came into my life and they revealed things that were, whoa, far beneath the surface.
They made me see myself, my life, my potential, my vision for the world, my vision for myself in the world, my vision for my life in a way that I could not imagine. Go back from you have these moments. I hope you've had a moment where you just like you see something and you cannot see unsee what you've seen and then your life changes because you either follow what you've seen or you live your whole life with blinders trying to pretend like you're not seeing anything.
Seeing what you've already seen. And so that's what happened to me in the fall of 2018. I collided, like my hypnosis work collided with plant medicine work and it let me just say for this first episode, within six months, I, Started my hypnosis business, left my 10 year career like dream life, dream career, left all of that to pursue this work because I was seeing people's lives changed by hypnosis.
I know I'm talking about hypnosis a lot and this is a psychedelic podcast and I will explain why that is important in a moment. And for now, just hey, thanks for hanging in with me. I Left my corporate job and I started this hypnosis business and I was just like I actually heard this recently where someone said entrepreneurship is betting on yourself.
And that's where I got to where I was like, Hey, I've been doing all of this work for so long. I believe anything in the world is possible. Can I believe that me? Being of service in this world and making it work for my lifestyle, aka like supporting me financially. Can I do that? And it's been yeah, it's been a five year experiment in that place and I'm doing great.
So if you are looking for a sign to bet on yourself, this is it. JK. It can be, but it's also the first episode of this podcast. So 2019 I left my corporate job and I started going all in and then it was like right around then it was like fall 2019 into pre COVID 2020 and actually like even into the Yeah.
First six months of 2020 people started coming to me and saying, Oh, hey, I know that you've worked with psychedelics. I'm about to go work with a psychedelic. Can I talk to you about it? And I was like, Yeah, totally. Let's like so much of my life had changed and I had been studying it. The theme of the story here is that I get interested in something and I fall into worm rabbit holes.
So I started Meeting with people and being like, okay, here's how I prepared. Here's what I wish I would have done to prepare. Here's what I wish I knew. Here's what I had no way of even. And because I was already working as a hypnotherapist, I just want to really state really importantly, I knew how to have this conversation with people without priming them, meaning without, imposing my experience on them, which is really important, right?
So if I was like, Oh man, yeah, you're going to go in there and you're going to see the whale and he's going to swallow you whole and you're going to go on this journey cause that's what happened to me. There's an art to talking to people and telling them your experience without imposing your experience on them.
So that's what I was doing. I was, Doing I was meeting with a lot of people talking about psychedelic preparation, not so much integration at the time, although a little bit people will come back and be like, Hey, it was great. Here's what helped. Here's what I wish I knew. And I would incorporate that into future conversations.
And I started noticing I was having a lot of these conversations. And Mind you, I had just left my corporate career, minimal income just from teaching yoga, there's not a lot of money to be made there. I was like, okay I'm working on building this business, and at the same time, I'm spending like many hours a week having these conversations with people, so maybe I just need to like, Charge an hourly rate for this and just include this as a service that I offer.
So I, I wanted to, but I also felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome, a little bit of I just felt into this, so I don't know am I qualified for this? Et cetera. And so I decided to pursue further education. I ended up getting a certification in psychedelic integration. And then I did, I popped an hourly rate on that offering.
And that's what I've been doing since 2021. And at the time I was, really guided to work with ketamine specifically because ketamine is the first legal psychedelic in the U S and so there's a lot more accessibility. There's a lot more open conversation about it. There's not as much barriers in terms of legality safety and things that I will talk about in future episodes.
But that was the scenic route to, wow, like I am now, Three years into being a ketamine coach, like how do we get here? I pursued my interests. Thank you to my ADHD brain. And why start this podcast? Because there are so many people that are hearing about ketamine that are curious. And right now in the States, there's between 500 and 700 clinics that are offering ketamine.
That's like the ones that are above board. I will talk about that in a different episode. There's so much happening underground as well. And there's so many people that are wondering about this therapy, wondering about psychedelics, and also not knowing where to get their questions answered. And so I talk to a lot of people and answer a lot of questions.
And so that Is what I want this podcast to be. That is what I want this platform to be. I want it to be a place where I can answer the questions that I'm answering every single week. On a one on one basis in a public way so that everyone can have access to this conversations and these are questions like what is the history of ketamine?
How do we get here? Isn't ketamine a party drug? Why are we using it for things like depression, anxiety, PTSD, all the things. So a little bit of that. How, like, how does ketamine work and like, why does it work and is it going to work for me? Yeah. Is it safe? Is it legal? How do once I get into Academy and how do I know if it's working?
So these are all questions that I answer on a weekly basis in in different capacities, all one on one right now. And I want to bring these questions forward. And I know that as I bring these questions forward, it's going to inspire a lot more questions. So again, I want to let you know that there is going to be a form in the show notes so that you can submit your questions.
And I will do my best to answer as many as I can. I already have 10 episodes that I wanna record queued up, and I will absolutely be answering more questions as we go. And the other place that if you wanna submit questions is if you go to Instagram and you go to i.am Anna Kristal. That is my handle and you can just DM me questions and I will do my best.
And also a lot more content will be on Instagram. So please if you're curious about this, if this is resonating with you come hang out with me on Instagram. So
aside from the topics that I just covered, the like broad strokes of what is ketamine? Who's using it? Does it work? How does it work? The thing that I'm really excited to feature on this podcast is client transformation stories. So please, As I mentioned, for three years now, I have witnessed literal miracles of people's lives changing through ketamine therapy.
Everything from okay, great, I feel 10 percent more self love, which if you think about 10 percent more self love rippling through your life, I can tell you the ripple effects are incredible. It leads to More money, less work, better relationships, better quality of life, things like that. So I don't want to minimize what A transformation like 10 percent more increase in self love has so I've seen everything from that to complete life overhauls, moving across the country, quitting jobs, starting new careers, starting new things, starting new families.
I know for a fact that these stories are not getting enough airtime, and I know that they are important for anyone that is considering coming into the clinical space. When I searched for ketamine podcasts in preparation what I'm going to talk about, is it even out there I don't need to duplicate something that's already out there, but when I looked at podcasts there's enough psychedelic podcasts that are covering like broad strokes of psychedelics. Great. There are definitely podcasts that are coming and talking about ketamine from a very clinical perspective of here's the brain, here's the molecules, here's the chemical compounds, things like that.
And what there is really, in my opinion, not enough of. Is the transformational stories, the stories of someone who came into this space with curiosity and trusted the process, went through the therapy and is on the other side. And so for the person that is sitting in the place of curiosity and vulnerability, wondering like what the F is.
Is ketamine and how can it help me? That is, this is this podcast. This platform is absolutely the best way that I know how to serve. And if you are someone that is wait, I actually, what are those? Clinical podcasts like I want to hear those. If that is your jam, I got you. There is a list of suggested podcasts in the show notes.
Just go ahead and click on that and it'll cascade you into another rabbit hole of information about ketamine that I would love for you to explore. And I definitely encourage it. It's just not what we're doing here. We're doing more of the Qualitative, right? There's quantitative and there's qualitative.
The one that's like people, that's the one that we're doing here. Okay, I am in that corner now. I'm back into that corner where I need to start wrapping up. So I will be bringing on all sorts of people who have had their lives transformed. I'll be doing solo episodes where I talk about the questions that I answer.
I will absolutely do my best to give you a variety of stories. And my biggest hope is that if you are ketamine curious, if you're considering ketamine, you have just like a good, or if you just love a good tale of triumph, that this podcast will be interesting for you. And maybe even inspire you to make a change in your life, whether that's with or without ketamine.
And, oh, yeah, I will definitely be talking about the subconscious mind. I will, maybe I'll make that the next episode. It'll definitely be the first top five episodes, because if you're talking about transforming your life with psychedelics, ketamine included, you're talking about transforming your subconscious mind, and this is a conversation that is absolutely Lacking in this space, most people do not know what the subconscious mind is.
And that is my biggest passion is educating people on the subconscious mind. And in my opinion, people going. into ketamine journeys really need it the most. Great. So that is, wow. I did not know. I was like, I could jump on this and I could be talking for two minutes and run out of things to say.
So the fact that I've been talking for 30 minutes is really cool to me. I'm really proud of myself for hitting record, for getting through this, for doing it in the time spot, slot allotted. And I'm so grateful. Thank you. If you made it to the end of this episode, I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for being a part of this inaugural episode.
Show notes is going to have more information on how to connect with me some of the beginner guides that I've developed and put together. Put out into the world and it really would mean the world to me if you just left a review or hit the subscribe button if you want to hear more and come hang out with me on social media.
And I am, yeah, bursting at the seams of excitement. I am so excited. So excited to dive into this journey. Thank you for your curiosity. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for letting me be in your ears for 30 minutes or more. There is so much out there in the world. And I, from the bottom of my heart, I am so grateful that you spent this time with me and I will see you in the next episode.
Bye.