Today, we are exploring what it means to truly live in alignment—with our purpose, our spirit, and our deepest truth.

I sat down with Dr. Tom Garcia, a psychedelic guide and integration coach who works with entrepreneurs, executives, and healing professionals to help them reconnect with their authentic voice and creative power. Through fire ceremonies and the sacred use of psilocybin mushrooms, Tom facilitates transformational journeys that dissolve ego, ignite inner guidance, and awaken a sense of divine purpose.

In this conversation, you'll hear the story of how Tom transitioned from careers in chiropractic and accounting to a path of deep spiritual service. We explore what it means to listen to your inner voice, how ceremony and daily spiritual practices can ground you, and the role of plant medicine in self-discovery and authentic living.

Topics We Explore:

• Trusting intuition and the heart’s guidance over logic
• The transformational power of fire ceremonies and psilocybin
• Cultivating a daily spiritual practice rooted in prayer and journaling
• Rediscovering your true self through inner work
• Living in alignment with your purpose—even when it’s uncomfortable

Connect with Dr. Tom Garcia: https://drtomgarcia.com/ 

Learn More about The Viking Academy: https://www.vikingacademy.com

 Episode Transcript: 

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Viking Academy podcast. On this episode we have my good friend Dr. Tom Garcia.

Now Dr. Tom is a former chiropractor. He had over 30 years of being a chiropractor and similar to a lot of the guests that I've had on the Viking Academy. They've shifted away from the traditional uh professions to more holistic spiritual healing traditions.

um similar to what I've done with the Viking Academy. It's all about a discovery um self-discovery platform.

But what Tom has done is he's got a website called Reclaim the Sacred. And what he does is fire ceremony coupled with plant medicine. Yes, magic mushrooms. That's right. And I've done two fire circles with Tom and not with the magic mushrooms, albeit because this was before he actually quote unquote came out of the closet, which is what he shared with me on this podcast, is that, you know, he was afraid to actually talk about the plant medicine that he'd been using himself personally. And now he's brought it mainstream. And it is an amazing experience. people are getting um incredible results awakening the the voice within. We we talk about a lot of what happens to people when they go through this experience. He talks about his past. We talk about um the fact that so many spiritual teachers and teachers outside of the spiritual realm always talk about this internal voice. And coming back to that, how do you reconnect to who you are? Like reclaiming the sacred inside yourself.

We um we talk about oh and he shares uh a wonderful quote at the beginning a course in miracles and he talks about aligning himself with the vertical to stabilize the horizontal. That one I'm going to leave with you. You really got to get into this podcast to understand where it goes. It's a great conversation if you're interested in learning more about uh plant medicine, fire ceremonies, reconnecting to the voice within yourself so you can figure out who you are and why you're here, this is the right podcast for you.

So there you go. Dr. Tom Garcia. Let's go explore. I've only done it on one podcast so far where I've actually forgot to hit record and I guess we're doing it. I guess we're doing it a second time. Now, luckily it was with with my energy healer and she was like, "Well, the spirits just didn't want us to the spirits want us to talk again." And I'm like, "You know what?

That's true. They did." And so, we did a second call and it was actually the second call was even better. So, just shows us that we don't really know what's best for us, do we? Yeah. Right.

That's that there's some truth to that, isn't there? Like I think that I think more and more I'm coming to the realization that uh I really don't know what's good for me. Yeah. My head my head definitely doesn't. But my heart knows. Your heart knows. Yeah. The heart always knows. Yeah. The heart always.

There's there's a great quote from a course in miracles. I it's been circling around my brain. Just kind of dropped in that now that we're talking about it.

Yeah. Um, some of your deepest retreats you have judged as success and some of your greatest advances you have evaluated as failure. Some of your deepest retreats you have evaluated as success and some of your greatest advances you have judged as failure. Yeah. We don't we don't really know what's good for us, do we? No. No. Well, that's that's why so so that's what I wanted to dive in here with you is talk more about um the work that you're doing now from from where you were uh in the past and it's it's similar to to my story um you know being being a chartered accountant and now I'm going into the Viking Academy and then you were chiropractor right right and now you're now and then so so talk tell the listeners um tell the listeners what you uh what you used to do and what what you're doing now.

So, I was a chiropractor for 30 years and um had a great practice here in Southwest Colorado.

But even during those years of practice, I always felt like there was something else, something more, something I was being pulled in in a direction. Uh pul p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p pulled in a direction, and I couldn't really see where that where it was taking me. Uh you know, part of my story, and it's it's just like this is this was a turning point, a crucable moment in my life was uh taking care of a dear friend of mine that uh spent the last 18 months of his life in our home. and my wife and I took care of him. Our kids were present to it. And he had um something called Pix disease, which is in the dementia family of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. And um we just took care of him. You know, his his family wanted to put him in assisted living. And my wife and I said, "No, we want to bring him into our home." Now, we had no idea what we were getting into. We really didn't. And uh three or four months in, we realized, you know, two things. we were in over our heads and we were going to see it through to the end. It was just this knowing that that's what needed to happen. And um so as he was withdrawing from life and declining and getting getting near the end of his life, something was really big was shifting in me. And I started going out to the woods, spending lots of time alone in the morning before sunrise or in the evening at sunset, often staying out all night. and and it's also about that time I started to work with plant medicine. So what happened was a voice came to me and a ceremony came through me. That's how I say what occurred and this elaborate ceremony just evolved over time. I had this beautiful fire circle in the woods that I've been working on for 16 years. It's how long it's been since my friend passed away. And and worked alone for the first 11 years with plant medicine, with with fire, with ceremony in the woods at night. That's when I did my best work. And it was a deep process for myself. You know, I was doing my own deep work. I shed a lot of tears and um came up again and again up against my ego and my my bullheadedness, my stubbornness, you know, like that. And it really I allowed myself to be broken down in a really in a really great way. And um this went on for 11 years working alone just like that. And I say that you did 11 11 years of doing the fire circle work and the plant medicine by yourself. By myself, right? I didn't realize how uncommon that was till I would talk to other people and they're like, "Oh, no. I've never done it alone or uh yeah, at night by myself." No. So, it was just my it was my way. It was a path that unfolded before me. And I'd be looking around going, "What what's going on here? What's happening?" And after a while, I stopped asking that cuz I I could feel what was going on. I could feel something was happening. I was being moved in a particular way. And uh then I started bringing others to the fire, you know. So, so just before we keep kind of going down that route, and I never did tell you, I said, "Yeah, by the way, we're starting to record a podcast already." Because I just I like having conversations with people and I don't like to make it all kind of formal and and and [ __ ] I noticed that. That's That was totally cool. You know what I because it's just I I find that when when when if you're if you're trying to prepare for a podcast or have a bunch of questions and so I don't like that. I just like a conversation and I just you started into talking about some amazing [ __ ] there and I'm like no we're just we've started the podcast. So here's the thing. When you So when you had this experience with your friend who lived with you with well a form of dementia this epiphany hit you and then your friend obviously passed away while he was with you, right? And and did that happen when he passed away or did it happen before? It was epiphany. It was before that I started feeling like this like I got to get I got to get out. What did the voice say? What did the voice say?

Do you remember hearing? Yeah. It says a lot of things. I mean, you know, I'll tell you I'll I'll tell you this. Yeah.

The very first time now I've had I think and I'm saying this to and for your folks that are listening, I believe we all have a voice. We all have an internal voice and inner guidance that can be auditory. It can be just a sense of intuition or feeling. It's like, you know, and and how it communicates with me primarily is through my journal.

That's kind of the formal way, but it's with me all the time, you know, it's that internal prompt to move in a c certain direction, do a certain thing, withdraw from something, get away from somebody, move towards somebody, you know, um I pay really pay attention to that where that inner voice is like get away from that person like don't be around them and I would just withdraw, you know. So that's that's one piece.

But um so I I'm saying that it's always been with me and I think the first time it really came out when I was about 15 is when I started journaling. Okay? You know, I started keeping a journal and it was in a fit of despair, you know, emotion, feeling bereft. Those weren't the words I would have used then, but that's how it in retrospect and it in the voice came through my journal. It's kind of what saved me, you know, it kept me sane. And um so fast forward, you know, to 16, 17 years ago, I was I was turning 50 and I decided I was going to go to the woods and do plant medicine alone. And and I didn't have a ceremony. I didn't make a fire. I didn't have any of that.

And it was at that time that very clearly a voice came to me and they said, "We are your guides and this is your rebirth date." You know, like that. And and then just began to speak to me about um being guided and being called out and following their guidance and their their direction. sound sounds kind of like alien or foreign, but it wasn't. It was like it was my voice, but it wasn't my voice, you know, like that. And I was so like I was taken aback and I was thrilled at the same time and I just wanted to go again and again to reconnect with this this internal voice and I did and it just got louder and stronger. And there was a time for a while when I felt I I was I had this moment of like fear that it would go away. That one day I would wake up and it' be like I don't want to go to the fire anymore. I don't want to go out in the woods. I don't want to. It's all it would all leave.

Right? But it didn't. It got stronger. And this is what I came to understand. This is what I share with people. When you deepen and cultivate, when you deepen and strengthen your relationship with that which guides you, it becomes stronger. You're cultivating a relationship. You're cultivating a a connection like you would like you and I would or we would with our partners, you know, our spouses. That's that's how it works.

And right now, I'm remembering some things. I'm I'm so much information was coming in. So much was coming through my journal and I was like, why are you telling me all these things? Like why me? You know, I'm just one guy. And what I heard was, you ask and we answer and that's how it works. And when we find even one who will listen, we have a lot to say.

Dude, I've got so much to unpack with with what you've told me so far. Um just so so this moment you were you you did it for 11 years on your own. So you were doing fire work and fire circle work and and plant medicine work on your own for 11 years. So that means when because when you and I did our first fire circle together and so I did it we're have Jeff Walker's retreat in Durango Cal in Durango Colorado. Colorado. Yeah. And that's when you and I did the first because we've done two fire circles together. Yeah. And the first one must have been fairly soon after you started just doing them with other people.

Well, um there's one caveat there. I started I started inviting people to my fire circle, right? Probably several years in. Okay. So just to the fire working with people with plant medicine that was 11 years and then I'm like okay felt this movement in that direction. And I'm like but what do you know and what I so what I do is exactly what I did for with myself. That's how the medicine I say the medicine trained me. The fire trained me. The ceremony what came through the fire and what came through the medicine. Yeah. Um that was my that was my training on the ground. Okay. So because we since we just for the listener there so um I was in an online uh marketing program called Launch Club and Jeff Walker is a neighbor of yours.

You guys are in you guys live near each other. You were also in the program for a while. That's where we met each other but you came over you live in the same area. So you came over to do the fire circle. We never did the plant medicine when we were at the fire circle because I remember at that point you still you never came out about the plant medicine.

Like it was kind of like it was like you were still in the clock. This is interesting. You were chiropractor and you kept talking about wanting to break free from chiropractic and go to fire circle work which is me doing like I didn't want to be an accountant anymore.

I wanted to there was something else that was calling me and I I it took me until just like this last year realizing that what was really calling me was the Viking Academy. But I didn't understand that what was calling you wasn't just the fire circle. it was opening up to the plant medicine and being kind of coming out of the closet to the plant medicine closet so to speak. That's exactly how I describe it. And it happened. I really came out of the closet at the beginning of last year, 2024.

Yeah. So, just a little history. Um, psilocybin was decriminalized in Colorado in November of 2022. And so going into 2023, that whole year, like halfway through that year, I'm like, I'm talking about all this work that I'm doing with people, but I'm not talking about that I'm using psilocybin as a as a sacred agent, a tool, an ally.

And somewhere around the middle of 2023, I'm like, I got to come out of the closet about this. I need to start telling people what I'm really doing. And it seemed like it was like a big deal to me. So when I was in practice, I didn't talk about it. It was off the radar.

When it was still uh you know, when it was still criminal, when it was not decriminalized, I I kept off the radar about it. I was working with plant medicine all that time. And then when it finally, you know, became legal, then I realized, you know what, I don't have to keep this under wraps. I can start talking about it. And when I did, you know, it was like no big deal for other people. It's like, "Oh, that's what you do. I want to talk with you. I need to get with you." You know? Um, so it's kind of like that when you come out of the closet with something. This is this is the essence of my work and it's working through me.

It's about being authentic, being in integrity with myself, speaking the truth as it lives inside of me to the best of my ability, you know, right? And that's, you know, that's where the and you and I have talked about this when we were down uh we we were down uh for our good friend Walt. Walt's been on the podcast and we went down for his for his uh ordination.

His ordination. Yeah. The interfaith minister. And that was just it was awesome. Um you know, this is what I was sharing with you about the Viking Academy. you go. This is like I want people to wake up to who they are so they can live with passion and purpose because that's what I want for me. Like I want to live with passion and purpose.

So I find that exploring myself and my mind, my body, and my spirit gets me more in tune with who I am and why I'm why I'm here. Right? And so there's this align there's a total alignment with what we're talking about. It's just a different expression, right? And like when you started talking about, you know, I I knew about the fire circles. I experienced the fire circles with you and it's magical, but there's another level there with the with the with the plant medicine that I could see almost like a weight come off your shoulders.

Like there was almost there was still there was still a weight on your shoulders when you were doing the fire circles because I and I couldn't put my finger on it, right? I couldn't but I knew there was something there. And then when you explain that that now you're doing plant medicine, all of a sudden it's like, wow, now I see Tom. Now I can see you, right? Because now there's you're not holding back, right? I'm not keeping anything under under wraps. The interesting thing is you and I use very similar language. You know, when you're talking about people uh knowing who they are, I I say remember, we remember who we are. And and in remembering who we are, we remember why we came and we remember who or what sent us here. The origin of our life, the intelligence that gave rise to life within us. Yes.

So there's more to the story too about my friend Jim who passed away. And I'm I'm circling back around to this because this was such a powerful turning point for me. But after he passed then I was now I started doing going to the woods before he passes like I had to get out of the house something was happening and then he passes away and my wife and I had you know we we washed his body draped him in linen turned a room that he was in into a shrine essentially people would come and just sit with him and visit for three days we kept his body on dry ice and then we finally you know he was whisked away by the mortuary. But, you know, it's like why how what moved us to honor this man like this? And it's like it was just beyond me. And yet there was something that transpired between us as he as I saw him off at the precipice, this this radical transformation occurred within me. And so, right after he passed, I went to the woods and um it was in October. It was freezing cold, full moon, and um I was just in such grief. I was grieving for the loss of my friend, but there was something more, something much deeper than that. And it was I was grieving the loss of a sense of connection to the spirit that enliven me. It's like I I didn't want to substitute God. I didn't want somebody else's version of God. And I remember standing under the moonlight. I just felt like tearing off my clothes and standing there barefoot and naked on the frozen ground and and stepping into the fire shouting out, "I want to live. I want to live. I want to know who I am, why I'm here, and who sent me. Why did you send me to this place?" I was like, I was in tears. And it's like, I'm not going home until I get some answers, you know? It was like that. And I got really really quiet and that's when the voice came in so so quietly and so clearly to say yes you want to know who you are and your children want to know who you are and you want to live from that place of purpose knowing truly why you're here on the planet. And that has been the process of discovering that and developing, cultivating this connection with the source that lives inside of me. Call it what you will.

God, creator, great spirit, infinity, consciousness, all it is, divine self, all those things. Or call it nothing at all. You know, it's that's it's irrelevant. It's what it how it lives for you. how it lives for me inside and how it manifests. It's it's the full expression of who we are in the world in everything that we do to be integrated and coherent and connected, you know, like that and to live life that way. And so like what you're saying about how you want to live and and what how you work with people and what you teach, you have to walk your talk. You have to to live it so that you can authentically and truly share it with others.

Yes. Yes. And yes, the the the one thing I just I want to come back to this one point is the is the voice. You said this voice came to me strongly and and the more you work with it and talk with it and cultivate the relationship with that internal knowing and that however it communicates with you is that like it it's across every it's almost across every religion, every spirituality like it's all I I do heavy reading into all sorts of different books. There's, you know, the the bag of Vad Gita, the Quran, the Coburn Bible, the actual Bible, the New Testament. All it all keeps talking back to this this voice, this message, this knowing inside of us, it's heart-c centered.

Like it's it comes from the heart instead of the head sort of speak. Even one of the greatest philosophers on the planet known most people know him like Socrates.

Socrates spoke of this internal voice that he called his dammonian. And his demonian told him what to do and when to do and he had such an a relationship with it that even when and people don't know this that Socrates was actually killed by his peers. He was put on trial for heresy because he was talking about this demonian which was a different god than the gods at the time. And he was apparently tainting the junior like the children of the the time. So they they sentenced him to death. But his demonian in eternal voice told him not to fight it and to just go and voluntarily surrender himself and to be executed. But he had this like one of the greatest thinkers in the in of all time followed that internal voice. And every teachers like Jesus talks about going within hearing the teacher within the AA program which we talk about is seeking a higher power. God could and wouldn't what if he were sought. Yeah. I I jokingly call it in meetings all the time. I go aloud Brahma baby Jesus. It doesn't matter what you call it. Doesn't care. Like he doesn't care. Sometimes it's Odin. Sometimes I'm talking to Thor. I'll talk to the pantheon of dog gods. I'll go to the runes. And but you you've just kind of sparked something inside of me, Tom. And I just wanted to share this is that like I'm realizing more and more now that improving my conscious contact with that voice like I like how you said it was that voice brings me peace and tranquility but if I follow what it's telling me that's my that's brings me back to that connection of that source. Yeah. That's where the passion and purpose then comes back into my life and I'm like now I'm feeling free and not the fear goes away.

I shouldn't say the fear completely goes away because sometimes the voice tells me to do things that I don't want to do.

Not wrong things. It's not like it's telling me to go home and clean my guns. I mean I don't say stuff like that but it's telling me to like to go beyond where my comfort zone is. And every time I follow that internal voice I look back in 2020 and go that was the right thing to do. or if I didn't follow it and didn't listen to it saying stay away from that person, Eric. I didn't. My house is one example. It told me to stay away from the developer who was doing it because I could feel that it was wrong and I didn't listen to it and we did it anyways and now we're going through a big problem here. Yeah. You know, it's just like that. Uh there was something I I was sharing with someone at the fire just the other day. I had someone come out and we just did an overnight. I took them to the fire. We did ceremony. We did plant medicine. and we had a fabulous profound time together and he was working through a a health issue and um here's here's one of the things I want to share is you know when we're called to something that takes us way out of our comfort zone and you know that's so far outside of convention you know and this occurred for me many years ago at the fire under the influence fluence working with plant medicine where I was clearly I knew I was being called out and called forward into doing this work in a much bigger way than I had been up to that point in time. And I was like I was in tears. I'm like I have a choice, don't I? And and the voice was like you have a choice. I can refuse, can I? It says you can refuse. What if I say no? you can say no, but you already said yes. And I was like, ah, [ __ ] Okay, but you're going to have to show me what to do because I don't know.

And I think that's a key determinant right there is to not know. Your ego is like offline. Your ego is like temporarily disabled because it doesn't know what to do. But there's that part of you that does. And that's what you're speaking to of following that guidance, following that internal voice. When you don't, you know, there's consequences when you do, there's another kind of consequences which which is what you want.

You know, the for any of the listeners, anybody's listening to us here and they're like trying to go, "Yeah, I've heard that voice before, but I just think I'm talking to myself." You know, because I've that happened to me quite often, too, where I started kind of going, am I just listening to myself? Like, am I just listening to my own kind of [ __ ] or I'm trying to rationalize a bad behavior or something like that? What is the what is the way that you have found that helps you bifurcate or filter out whether or not you're you're you're listening to, shall we say, your own [ __ ] versus actually the voice. Yeah, this a great question. I've I've been asked this before and what I've discovered it's it's super practical. It's a practice. It's a daily practice. Every morning I carve out time roughly two hours. That's because of how my schedule is. I can I can devote two hours. I get my coffee, get to my chair. That's my mission when I when my feet hit the floor. And once I'm in my chair, you know, now I'm like, okay, one of one of the spiritual tombs that I study from is a Course in Miracles and a Course of Love and other books, many of them channelneled material. I just have a good ear, a good eye for for great quality channelneled material. And um I read for a bit and then I journal for a bit. And um I often journal in the third person.

I'm not saying I did this this happened then that happened and my day was like this yesterday. My I'm actually my journal is like talking to me talking to me saying you you know listen now. Here's what we want you to here's what we want to say to you. And then it'll it'll tell me in a page or two. It kind of or I get oriented. It sets me sets me a right. And I and that's when I say my my prayers. You know, I have a a prayer that I speak every day.

Thanking, you know, I say the Holy Spirit, thank you for this day. Thank you for setting the priority, which is my prayer. Thank you for orchestrating the details of this day in divine order. For aligning my will will with yours.

for shining your light into my mind. So I'm having a conversation even if it's by wrote it's fresh every day I'm having a conversation with the divine self within by whatever name you give it that's what I'm engaging and I know that when I start my day like that that well I do it every day now there were days when I would skip and the days that I would skip I had a different day than those days that I did it you know it's like the days you say your prayer they're better days no matter Especially when I when I acknowledge and confirm that the details of this day are orchestrated in divine order. So that I'm I'm saying no matter what happens, I'm trusting the way. I'm trusting the the order of the day, how things happen, no matter what happens. And there's a there's a great degree of both trust and surrender in that. So that's the first thing every day making that connection vertically aligning aligning in the vertical plane to stabilize the horizontal plane which is the middle world in which we operate dayto-day where the ego's you know a healthy ego needs to function in a stable environment. When we skip this the vertical plane the horizontal plane is inherently unstable. All kinds of crazy stuff happens. I like what you said there. I just wanted to highlight that one again. So you you're you're connecting you're you're what do you say again? You're aligning the vertical plane. I'm I'm connecting myself vertically. Connecting vertically so you can operate horizontally. Yeah.

And I say it stabilizes the horizontal plane. Okay. Um and that's really important. I mean I just it rolls off my tongue like Oh yeah, of course. But I cannot overemphasize how important that is.

It's absolutely critical that we first establish that internal sense of connection. I'm going like this, you know. It's like I'm I feel this sense of being deeply grounded to the earth and connected heavenward, you know, and it's all it's all here. So, I'm establishing this essentially a coherence in here.

I'm I'm oriented properly. You know how we have compasses? I I give all my clients a compass as a as a metaphor so that you you know you know where true north is. When you know where true north is and you know where you are, you have located yourself in space and time, you're oriented, right? So when I do ceremony and I welcome the directions, the four cardinal directions, and then the above, the below, the within, and I acknowledge the spirit on the land and the beings who reside on the land and the traditional owners of the land. I used to think I was doing that so spirit would know where to find me. That was a little thing in my head. I'm doing this so spirit knows where to find me. And one day my internal voice said, "We always know where to find you. We always know where you are, but sometimes you don't know where you are." So to locate yourself here, like when you're at the fire with me, we are here. We are present in this sacred space with the fire together for a reason and a purpose. Let us find out what that what that is. And then the sharing people share from the most vulnerable, the deepest place within themselves. And it can be shocking the authenticity with which people are willing to express themselves around a fire in a ceremonial space when the sun is going down and the light's changing.

We're in that transitional zone when the veil is thinnest. It's all it's connected. It's connected to nature. It's connected to the earth. It's connected to the fire.

It's connected to us. Oh, and just for the listener out there, like when the two the two fire circles that we've done together, literally there's like this energy bubble that happens around the fire. Everyone was sharing just kind of organically. The next person would share and then when you knew it was your turn, you just started sharing and I would just I didn't even think about it ahead of time and I just shared what I needed to share closed off and I remember turning and looking at Jeff Walker and Jeff Jeff looks at me and I turned and looked at him and he goes, "Magical, right?" And I went, "Holy crap." And that sorry the reason why I said that to him because you closed the circle and I felt the energy just go like I could felt the energy kind of now that we were like it it it disappeared and I was like wow like that was that was something to feel and experience and being in that in that space.

So I just want to get back to this this hearing the voice and knowing whether it's you or not. So you stabilize yourself. You stabilize. I love that.

tabilize myself on the vertical or I connect myself to the vertical so I can stabilize myself on the horizontal.

Yeah. Right. That that vertical connection stabilizes the horizontal plane. Right. So okay. So you're saying how so that's the question. How do I discern the voice of of spirit the spirit within me my the voice of wisdom within me with my ego? That is the work.

Yeah. That's that's where the rubber meets the road by listening. It's it's by taking the time to carve out sacred space for yourself to be in to be in the silence and to listen to be okay with quiet to listen. And like I said, the the things I read, the journaling, the the the the physical activity of taking a pen in hand and writing in my journal is that visceral that visceral activity does something because it's coming out of my mind, you know, like internally out of my mind through my hand onto paper and I see the communication.

Prayer is a is a communication between with the a communication between the created with the creator. Put whatever you want in there for creator. It's a communication between me and the intelligence that created me. That's prayer. And that's how I think of it. It's a communication.

And oh there is a just sorry on that on that point I just wanted to highlight because someone said this to me once and I I can't remember where but I've heard it multiple times. Prayer is me talking to the spirit. Meditation is me listening to spirit. Like I I've heard of it communicated that way. It's like in terms of talking and doing the prayers is me having the communication towards the spirit and then being still and meditating is listening for the the voice to come back to me. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. And then there's, you know, there's levels of prayer, too.

The the lowest level of prayer is pleading, begging, beseeching. Yeah. Please get me out of this mess that I just got myself into. Man, I used to I used to do that all the time, especially in my in my bad drinking and drugging days. It was like, "Okay, get me out of this mess." Right. Yeah. And you know, no prayer goes unanswered. A call for help is always answered. So just recognizing that even at the lowest level, sometimes that's all we're capable of. But the highest form of prayer is to let I I pray to remember that I already have everything I need.

Return to my awareness, the memory that I have everything I need. that I was that I God gave me everything that I need. Now, just to sit with that like what does that really mean? You know, we've been given all the resources.

We've been given a powerful mind, a healthy body. Even if we're struggling with illness or or a a disease in the body, we can be functional and we can repair our body by orienting our minds in a healthy manner that we have everything we need.

And when you when we come from that place, all all kinds of things show up. miracles, resources, people, money, whatever you need, you know, shows up.

I've definitely experienced that. Um, where it's interesting because, you know, I've multiple businesses. I work in all sorts of areas, but my experience has been so far that I will push and push and push and push. And it's when I finally go, h, I've had enough of pushing and I just put everything down and I just go, "Okay, that's it. I'm done. I it's been push it's too much. It feels like I'm pushing a rock up a hill, right? And I just let go and let God, so to speak, or just let the and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, here's what you need. Boom. And it drops in my lap and I'm like, what the like, you know, bring coming from that a type personality to push push push. But then when I actually relax and let it go, it just it just happens and it becomes easier to say manifest what I want. But sometimes I question if is it really what I want or my ego wants. That's the big thing for me is that the difference between what the source and and I want to come back to something you said earlier what the source has said I already chose which you said remembering who I am. So it's not finding out who you are. It's just remembering it's remember who you've always been. This is the whole reason why you came here. You've just forgotten. It's like this amnesia that we've had instead of trying to It's not finding yourself, it's just rediscovering yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. And when you're talking about saying and so the highest prayer, sorry, I'm formulating this as I'm thinking it through, Tom. It's the highest level of prayer is please rem please please allow me to remember that I have everything I need that you've already given me everything I need and to see everything in front of me so then I can then use it for how I wanted to come here and and deliver what I'm here whatever I'm here to deliver it's already here just allow me to see it and that's why you call that the highest form of prayer yeah it's helped me to remember that I already have everything. I've already been forgiven. I've already been given everything I need. You know, wipe the scales from my eyes so I can see clearly what what my inheritant is, my inheritance is, what I the treasures I've already been given.

It's like I'm using like biblical terms, you know. I I already have amazing resource here and I make up a story that I of scarcity and lack. A story of I'm not worthy. the story of I'm not enough. That those are the stories that people have. I'm unworthy. I'm unworthy.

I'm not enough. Um I'm not good enough. I don't have what I need. Somehow I I I've been I got ripped off. I've been shorted. I've been uh you know fallen from favor. Whatever the case might be.

And that's it's not simply not true. It's simply not true. And in that that's in the forgetting that's in the illusion, the dream of I'm somebody else and I believe I'm somebody else other than who I truly am. And that journey back to who I truly am. That's that's the journey of a lifetime. You know, that's the what Joseph Campbell called the hero's journey.

Yeah. You know, the return home. reme remembering who you are at your core and that that opens the joy. I here's a question for you. You've obviously, and this is my experience, you've obviously had layers of remembering, but you must obviously, well, I I hate to say obviously, are you still remembering who you are? Like is it a constant neverending un so we call it unpacking or taking the layers of conditioning off of this husk of tom and experiences to getting closer to that source. So and is it because you're continually discovering yourself, right? Yeah. It's a it's an evolution. It's a it's like an upward spiral, a continual evolution of an ever deepening discovery. It's it's it's the greatest adventure, you know, and there there's Okay, so there's the there's the commonality between what you're doing and what I'm doing with the Viking Academy, which is like I talk about the Vikings were explorers, so I'm like explore, constantly exploring and it's a never end and it's an academy because it's like a school. So we're Vikings and we're in school. So we're always learning. Krishna Murdy the great spiritual teacher said a mind that is constantly learning can never be hurt.

Yeah. So if you're always in a state of learning you can never be hurt because you're not attaching to something. So you're constantly re you're constantly in a state of discovery which is the ultimate adventure right? Isn't it like the ultimate adventure is exploring you.

Yeah. And there's nothing selfish about it because exploring me connects me more to you, to the people in my world, my wife, my children, my neighbors, my friends. The the the the connections just get richer and deeper and more authentic and my my your continual remembrance of who I truly am at my core. It's like a neverending journey. and and but I don't have to wait to get to the end of the journey before I can help others on the way just like what you're doing. So when I bring people to the fire, I have a fairly grounded sense of who I am even as I'm in the discovery and I can be with someone who is clearly struggling with an illusion of themselves and I can help them to see who they truly are and I reflect it back to them to help them to see who they are and I will tell them that. I will express it to them over and over again and until it starts to like seep in and then we we we discuss it the next day when they're here. If they're here for 5 days, we have we're in conversation for five days just like this, you know, this kind of deep connected dialogue.

I love that what you said there is that you you and someone explained this to me. I'm like a sherpa. There's a difference between a sage, a sherpa and a sufferer. There's three types of people, right? So you're you're either suffering or you're a sherpa or you're a sage. And I've always said to my listeners, I said, "Think of me as your sherpa." I said, "I've gone up a hill.

I've gone up a couple of these bridges before. come and then I'll come back down and say, "Oh, come here. This is something really fun to experience." And but there's going to be areas that we're going to go explore a new ridge I've never been before. So, we're like doing it together to kind of find it. I never want to come across as some all- knowing sage because that just to me doesn't feel authentic because I'm constantly exploring and discovering who I am.

Yeah. I've had clients call me their sherpa. And when I looked it up, a sherpa is a guide. It's an experienced guide. And I also refer to my work, what I'm doing as I am a guide. And here's something else I love what you're saying too about, you know, we're going to go up a ridge we've never been up before or I don't, you know, like what I can say in my work. It's like I I know the way.

I know my way to the extent that I've carved it out, but you want to know your way, not my way. So, there's going to be some bushwhacking to do, and you're going to do it. So we get them I get them to that place where they can do their own bushwhacking to carve out their their path, right? And the path isn't out there. It's in here. We are the path. Like Jesus says, "I am the way." Well, he wasn't just talking about himself. He's talking about us, too. We are the way. And when we follow our internal guidance and if you're if you have a relationship with Jesus and he's your guide, you're following his guidance to find your way the way that that he's showing you, right? That is the way you want anyway.

There's um there's a beautiful uh poem or or excerpt from um this beautiful Roomie quote and I've printed it off and put it up on my wall and I look at it. I've been looking at it a lot over the last couple days because I just put it up and it says, "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself." You know, beautiful. And I look at that especially when we were when we first met and we were in the the you know the launch club with Jeff's world and loved that. I love the people. I love Jeff. I love you. Like it just was such a great experience. But I look at what I was trying to do and I was trying to be clever and change the world, change the accounting profession, change this, right? And I'm realizing more and more the true the true wisdom is changing yourself in this exploration. And that's why I love what you're doing is that you're you're doing like parallels.

We're doing parallels on that. you're in a constant state of self-discovery, which is changing myself or shall we call it the the false self, right?

Pulling the layers off the false. And that's the same thing that I'm doing with the Viking Academy is I'm I I want to rediscover who I am and why I why I was put here. And more and more I'm understanding that it's not in my like if I keep using my head to try and think my way through, being clever isn't the way. It's the heart. It's what is making my heart sing. What's making me draw forward? And um you know, like even these podcasts, you know, people are saying, "Oh, well, you got to you got to market it this way. You got to put it that way. You got to say this there and make sure you put this in your podcast and that." And I'm like, you know, I just want to have an exploratory conversation with people I really want to talk to. Yeah. You know, and and discover something new.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the joy for me. Right. So, can you tell me I'm very curious in terms of So, you're you're doing now the plant medicine fire circle ceremony. You're doing them together now. That's that's your that's what the the model is. And so, are people are do they flying and coming to see you and you're doing the C and they're doing it in your your space? You got a sp place out in the woods. I saw your website by the way. It looks awesome. I love it. I love it. So, yeah. So, here's I I can just kind of give you like an overview of how how it works. People find their way to me. And this is one of the things my internal voice said. We will send them to you one by one. And early early on, they said, "These messages that we have to share with you are not just for you alone. You must share them." And I'm like, "Oh jeez, you know, what am I supposed to say?" Yeah. So, I just kept following the guidance. So, now what what happens is people find their they they're referred to me. They they find me on on Google. They they they search me out. They find me. They find their way here.

And um my my home now is everybody's out. My wife is in Arizona working, so she's gone most of the time there. All our kids are gone. So, I have the whole house. So, we have a downstairs apartment and uh two guest rooms upstairs that have been remodeled. So people come in, whether they come in at one at a time or in very small groups, and they stay with me. They're in my space. They're in my field. And I cook for them. We're in continual conversation, dialogue. The first night when they come in, we go to the fire as an orientation. I'm introducing them to the fire and to the spirit of the land. And I'm introducing the spirit of the land and the fire to them. And that's where we start to open up, you know, why they're here. I already, you know, they've already given me a I've asked se many questions and we've dialogued over the phone and via Zoom. So, I have a good sense of what they're coming for, what they're up against, what they're struggling with.

Then the next day is the medicine day. So, it's an easy day of conversation prep. And here's something really key. I don't load up people's time with me with processes and exercises and all kinds of activities. It's for them to clear the deck. There's not another overlay of of theology, philosophy. There's not another psychological construct I want to lay on them. We want to clear the deck because people are already up to here. Yeah. We're full. Yeah. And so then, you know, then that day of preparation, we go out, we get up to my fire circle. I open ceremonially, bless the medicine, bless us, bless ourselves, ingest the the plant medicine, and then when it kicks in, away we go. They might sit, they might lay down. I'm always at the fire. I'm always right in front of the fire holding space. I'll be journaling, um, you know, putting wood on the fire, etc. Invariably what happens to a person is when they come out of their sort of initial of the medicine it's it's it's got an arc you know there's a peak that that's always there. They get somewhere close to that peak. They want to talk. They want to verbalize and that's when we go in because I'm in the I'm in the experience with them. Yeah. I was going to I was going to clarify that because you said you were taking the medicine at the same time. We go in together, we come out together, but I'm in the dreamscape with them. I'm in that that energized shamanic space with them.

And my listening is like way expanded. I'm listening to them, with them, for them, and everything is I refer it back to them. It's not about me. my my um typically when when I start to undergo undergo the medicine I get in really internal all my stuff comes up quite you know things are but then I I flip it and now I'm focused entirely on them and I'm and just from practice it's a skill it's a gift it's experience that I can do that I'm I I'm very functional and I'm listening and so then I have questions or they have questions and the dialogue begins and we just go deeper and deeper and deeper wherever I'm following their lead as well as guiding them the conversation so we don't go down some rabbit hole and get stuck and not come out you know and um it's it's amazing it's beautiful it's transformational it changes people's lives it's it's um you know hack isn't a right word shortcut's not the right word but you know it it cuts across all kinds of things that take a long time and gets right to the core of the matter for people. It dissolves the constructs of the ego. It um removes the scales from their eyes.

I'll use that that phrase again. So that they can see clearly how they've been operating, what they've been doing to themselves such that their life is the way that it is. Not like it even has to be bad, but you know, whatever the situation, whatever the condition, for people to see clearly how they've been, how they've been operating, what they've been doing, so that they can get a a sense of who they truly are in the matter of their own lives and live from that authentic place.

So, are you able to share some aha moments that some people have had? obviously don't sharing names, but what are some of the what are some of the awakenings that people have had with you that the listener might be able to go, "Holy crap, that kind of resonates, right?" Like, because there's I think we're all searching, but we're not really sure what it's for. And I'm sure this isn't like an aha moment for each person, but what are some examples of some aha moments that um Okay, I'm thinking of one woman in particular who was, you know, just really um she was really invol like involved in social change and and um just call it that, you know, like that and and passionate about it. But then as as the truth came to light also deeply um like overwhelmed and even cynical about it like it's I'm not making a difference you know having all these aspirations for changing the world and realizing it ain't working and I'm suffering my health is suffering my relationships are suffering I mean that that's a theme too with people that are way out there working in the world and their their lives are going down you know tank thinking, you know, and um I just let her I just let her like go on as she was like getting it out of her system in in a sense. But there was also a moment where I was like I just wanted to rein her in and go, "Okay, enough."

But she did it herself. And finally, there was like this moment she went, "Do you mean I've been doing this to myself?" I'm like, "Yes, no one's been doing this to you.

you've been doing this to yourself. Now, she was able to reorient herself to her passion and her purpose and take care of herself in the process. See, there was this matter of like self-sacrificing her own well-being to change the world. And that's no good, you know. Yeah. I I call it when when you're on an airplane and the air pressure goes, you're supposed to put the g you're supposed to put the air oxygen mask on your face first, then help others. And so it sounded like she realized that she was trying to help others without putting her own oxygen mask on her own face. Yeah. And you know, I don't mean to be um uh what sexist or whatever like that, but is more prevalent among women because of that nurturing, the mothering. Yes. So strong in women. they will take care of they will do that and to their detriment. So I I do work with a lot of women and in that re in that sense they have to know first of all that they're safe with me. They're safe.

They can they can go deep that I'll hold the space for them and and they can do the deep work that they've come to do.

Um there's someone there's another one I'm thinking of where um someone had had you know he'd had an experience of being abandoned by his parents and the question that I had for him was what did you make up about you when that happened and it was interesting because he couldn't hear that question he just kept telling me the story and going deeper into the story and all the things that happened in that in that arena in that in that experience of his life. But when and I kept asking the question and what did you make up about yourself in that and he finally got it and it was like that I wasn't wanted that I'm not okay that I wasn't accepted you know and he carried that burden throughout his whole life into his into adulthood and there's also something in the realm of I'm going to say generally people being afraid to know who they really are. They're afraid to know who they are. And I I when I encountered that I I was working with someone I said because he I was asking him if he would commit to himself. Will you commit to yourself?

and he was temporizing and hemming and hawing. And I'm like, "Look, I'm not asking you to commit to me or to the medicine or even to this way of life.

I'm asking you to commit to you." And he said, "Well, I don't want to commit to anything that I I can't follow through on." And and I'm like, "What do you what do you mean by that? Because if you can't commit to you, what are we doing here?" You know? So, here's the here's the upshot.

I finally said, "What are you afraid of?" And he said, "I'm afraid to know who I really am." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because that means everything I've built has been built on something else, not who I truly am." And I understood it. I understood that fear. It's like the blue pill or the red pill in the matrix. Just give me the the pill that I want to forget. I don't want to know. I don't want to know the truth.

I just I just want to drink my wine and eat my steak and not wake up. I totally resonate with that guy. Yeah, I totally resonate with that. I think that's been a that's been a a a theme all along.

It's like, have I been doing it wrong all along? And if you got that niggling feeling in the back, that's that feeling that that kind of that sense that something doesn't something's not right.

You know, you could just tell you just know something's not quite right. You think you're you're successful from all external accounts and everybody's giving you praises for your external world, but something in the internal world is just going, "Uh, I'm not really sure." Yeah.

You know, so not everybody wants to to go to that depth, to that level. And that's that's got to be okay. But then there are those who do who are like, "Yeah, I'm willing to do whatever I got to do to get to the truth of my being, to the truth of who I am." And what I say, what I remind folks of is you don't have to blow up your life. You can just like changing bricks out one at a time, you know, take it slow, take it incrementally. Um, take it as fast as you can or as slow as you need to, but it's a process. Well, you and that's what I love is that you're leading by example. You're that sh like I mean you were a chiropractor for such a long time and like you know when you and I first met we were both transitioning from that professional world into the this online world. You had you had progressed farther down the line I would say in terms of where your heart was drawing you than than me. But that was my that was my journey and I'm I'm I'm more and more starting to embrace and enjoy the fact that my journey is my journey and it's totally I think that's the ultimate gift the universe gave us is they gave us or should we say God or Odin or the creator gave us the experience of us not another human before or after will ever experience Tom Garcia ever. That is the gift that you received. I received the gift of Eric the Viking soul back and no one's ever going to experience that before after in its totality. That is the gift we've all received is experiencing ourselves like what an like that in itself having that realization is awe inspiring. It's almost overwhelming to a sense like just like whoa like that's incredible. Yeah. And that inspires other people. I I know this from my own experience with people. they now I'm not trying to do anything. I'm just being who I am. I'm just being myself. I'm being vulnerable. I'm being in in a stretch. I'm not comfortable. I'm out of my comfort zone. And when people see that for themselves, it gives them the impetus.

It gives them permission. It gives them a sense of possibility that they can follow their path because no comparisons are not fair. There's no fair comparing us to each other. We're each on our own path, you know, each on our own trajectory through this lifetime.

I love how you said that, too. It's like I can kind of liken this back to the different businesses that I have because I mean, those are all aspects of my personality. When I'm trying to promote or sell something, it's never felt right to me. Do you know what I mean? Like selling has always been I thought sell is a four-letter word. like it's something that I shouldn't utter, right?

I don't like to sell or coersse or influence or trick. And that was one of the things I found distasteful with online and I still find it distasteful with the online world is this clickbay grab attention blah blah blah. You don't need to do that to coersse people in.

It's like or trying to get them to embrace themselves. It's like if you can't embrace yourself, how do you expect other people to embrace them theirelves? And so just being you and experiencing you and being authentic is actually the way to attract others. Yeah. Right. But it's so counterintuitive. There's there's that part that's counterintuitive and then also another piece that has come up in this conversation in my head a couple times, but I haven't brought it forward yet is that especially in my childhood growing up, it was I was constantly told not to be selfish. Don't be selfish. Don't be selfish, Eric. You're being a bad boy.

Don't be selfish. And this journey inward journey discovery I think for a lot of people and I know for me on it sometimes feels like am I being selfish by by looking in at me and I'm more and more coming to the pack that goes that is actually the work is to discover me rediscover me so that I can do what I was here to do or to what part of the play am I supposed to part be in right like is We're all actors in a play and we don't know our lines. Well, imagine if you knew your lines. Like if you actually could be that part. But I find for me that's sometimes a balance of am I being selfish versus being selfless or am I doing the right thing quote unquote. I know there's a lot of unpacking that I need to do with those childhood traumas for myself, but that I don't want to be selfish, but I really I'm starting to understand this that it's not selfish to rediscover who you are. That is the actual goal. Like that is actually the that's the that's the adventure. That's the point right there. You know, it's easy to get um hamstrung and kind of tripped up by the language. selfish, selfless.

Um, am I being selfish? You know, because you know, how we're conditioned in our culture is to not be selfish, you know, and you've said that. But the highest activity that we can really engage is to be self-reflective, contemplative, self to to to reference to be self-referential. And then the other side of it is to use that to extend ourselves to others to extend our our gift gifts into the world to share who we are authentically truly with love you know right and so where I you know dude we could talk for hours I know we could keep going this be this would be fantastic we have two hours right we we got yeah we should do a full two We'll do a full twohour podcast there. Where where can people find you on the web? Yeah. The easiest thing is just go to my website, drtomgarcia.com.

drtomgarcia.com. And then there's there's a way to to get my newsletter or my my u to be on my email list and down my download my free guide. It's um the essence of it is are psilocybin mushrooms right for me? and um and to be in contact. You know, one of the things I send out is um poetry, which has been one of the gifts of the plant medicine journey. I mean, I've always been oriented a little bit more toward poetic expression, but the way the the medicine communicates through me and the way my voice speaks to me, it's it comes out very poetically. And so, um, often times I'll just share an email and it's just a poem that's come that's something that's come through me, you know, and it's all very consistent and very congruent, you know, man, I love it. I can't I I am really looking forward to coming down and seeing you again in Colorado. And man, I just the energy around the fire was just the experience was out of this world.

Now again on the psilocybin side like you and I have talked about this kind of separately being a recovered alcoholic for myself. I'm very I'm very I'm not sure I want to go there right like and that for me I'm I I'm not sure about that part for myself. That doesn't mean the listener doesn't want to necessarily go down there or you go for it but for me it's just been it's one of those hesitations that I've had. You know you have talked about that a little bit. Um, but I I can it's when you're explaining the experience and I've I've done my fair share of mushrooms over my years. I mean, I grew up in the 80s for crying out loud. I was like long hair and mushrooms and Jack Daniels and Right.

But yeah, I can feel I can sense the the the the spiritual nature of what you're doing and just how how in alignment it is with what that you're using it as plant medicine as opposed to like when I did recreational drugs. This is a plant medicine. It's a medicine you take and how in alignment it is. And I just love seeing I love seeing Tom now. I saw you before, but now I really see you. Yeah.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I super appreciate that. Yeah. I see you better, too. You're in your You're in your groove. I'm I'm I'm getting there, man.

I'm getting there. Yeah. I would love nothing more than to have you come here and experience my home, the land, my fire circle. Yeah. This is such a charged environment. And it's even more charged because of the relationship I've cultivated with the spirit of this place. And um the ceremony is even more potent now than it's ever been. And um so that's that energy you said about once you connect with that inner voice and you you create that relationship with the inner voice, it becomes tronger and more intimate and it's a stronger relationship. You've have that same relationship with your space and your fire circle and the the the spirits and everything. It's just you Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It's um it's charged. Yeah. You know, it's cultivating. It's uh the field is rich.

It's a rich field here. Um, well, I highly recommend uh for the listener there to definitely go to Dr. Tom Garcia's website, check it out.

Looks awesome. I've been in a fire circle with you. It's amazing. Highly recommend it. Um, it's an incredible way to keep exploring yourself. Tom, thank you for being on the podcast, brother. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Eric.

Really appreciate it. And for those of you listening, um, go to the Vikingacademy.com. It's actually free now. Membership is free. So, go and uh go to the website and sub subscribe.

Till next time, keep exploring. Thanks for listening to the Viking Academy podcast. Make sure to leave us your honest feedback by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify and hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.