How Psychedelic Healing and Mindfulness Help You Reclaim Your Life | ANEW Ep 98

In Episode 98 of the ANEW Insight Podcast, Dr. Supatra Tovar welcomes back plant-based facilitator Guy Borgford for Part 2 of their transformative conversation on plant medicine, emotional healing, and the path back to inner wisdom.

In this powerful continuation, Guy shares how intentional work with psychedelics like ayahuasca and psilocybin helped him release long-held grief, quit destructive habits like binge drinking and smoking, and realign with his true purpose. What began as a fast-paced, disconnected lifestyle transformed into a conscious journey of healing, awakening, and service.

Listeners will hear the profound story of how Guy’s unresolved grief from the sudden death of his father was finally released—decades later—through a single mushroom journey. That release was followed by the spontaneous healing of his asthma, which had emerged shortly after his loss. This experience is a clear example of how suppressed trauma can become embedded in the body—and how it can be processed and released through somatic and spiritual tools.

Together, Dr. Tovar and Guy dive into the neuroscience and spiritual insight behind these healing modalities. From the neurogenesis sparked by entheogens to the importance of integration, safety, and intention, they unpack how these plant medicines are not magic pills—but powerful tools for those willing to do the inner work. They also explore alternatives for those who don’t feel called to psychedelics, including breathwork, meditation, nature immersion, creativity, and nervous system regulation.

Key topics explored include:

• How entheogens like ayahuasca and psilocybin promote healing through neuroplasticity
• The emotional and physical cost of unresolved trauma and the relief that comes through expression
• Why Guy stopped using substances like cocaine, cannabis, and cigarettes after plant medicine experiences
• The role of integration in making spiritual awakenings sustainable
• Why most of us are disconnected due to overstimulation, social programming, and consumer-driven culture
• Practical ways to reconnect with your intuition, body, and purpose—whether or not you use psychedelics
  
  

Guy also shares how Casa de Flujo, his mountain-based healing retreat, creates safe and supportive environments for people to explore plant medicine, mindfulness, and reconnection with nature. He emphasizes that the goal is never perfection—but a practice of remembering who we truly are and living in alignment with that truth.

If you’ve ever struggled with loss, emotional numbness, or a sense of disconnection from your body and your life, this episode offers a powerful roadmap back to yourself.

Want to know more about Guy Borgford here are the links of his: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guywborgford, https://www.instagram.com/casa_de_flujo/?hl=en.

✨ Ready to reconnect with your body and step off the hams

Thank you for joining us on this journey to wellness. Remember, the insights and advice shared on the ANEW Body Insight Podcast are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making any changes to your health routine. To learn more about the podcast and stay updated on new episodes, visit ANEW Body Insight Podcast at anew-insight.com. To watch this episode on YouTube, visit @my.anew.insight. Follow us on social media at @my.anew.insight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads for more updates and insights. Thank you for tuning in! Stay connected with us for more empowering stories and expert guidance. Until next time, stay well and keep evolving with ANEW Body Insight!

Transcript

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:00

Welcome back to the ANEW Insight podcast. We are back for the second half of this interview with plant based facilitator, Guy Borgford. Guy gave us some invaluable insight into his inspiration to explore and practice plant based. medicinal healing. We cannot wait to learn more. Thanks for coming back, Guy. Yay. So we spoke a lot. It kind of, I think, just scratched the surface in terms of how meditation and how exploration with plant based medicine can help to open, alter your consciousness and help you to tap into the highest part of yourself and the greater consciousness of the universe, essentially.

Guy Borgford: 0:02

Yeah. So, you know, starting back when I was a kid and there was a, there was a few times where I had these really big experiences primarily with mushrooms. and I still remember some of them but let's fast forward to a few years ago prior, or just after I started meditating. And my first ayahuasca experience I had already had, This Kundalini awakening, but I still hadn't kind of, integrated because I didn't know really what was going on. So I was still carrying on with my usual shenanigans and you know, I mentioned in, I think in our last discussion, I lived a pretty fast paced life. Um, I was hanging out with a younger crowd cause I was dating someone quite a bit younger than me and it was really the, you know, the order of the day was just partying and I drank, binge drank, you know, we'd go on vacation and we would just party our faces off, I was using cocaine quite regularly, uh, smoking cigarettes know, just on a fast track to an early death, quite honestly. And after my first ayahuasca experience, Mother Ayahuasca is what, you know, we call her in the circles and she said, no more cocaine and no more cigarettes. You're done. And I never touched it again. And just like, just like that. I'm done. And then that, I started really kind of digging in to with the mushroom and intention and working with mushrooms was quite often what's next. I was like, I'd throw it out to the mushroom and when we set intentions, that's that's kind of what we're kind of looking for to get from the medicine, whether Hang on. So my father was killed when I was 12 years old in a It was intense. It was intense and it came out like a dam breaking open like just and just the wailing and the sobbing and that just, oh man, it was the saddest thing. It's so beautiful, beautiful. So I had this little asthma condition. And it was getting to the point where I'd go hiking and any kind of little hills or anything, I'd have to stop all the time. And, you know, granted I smoked a lot of cannabis back then and everything, but two weeks later or so after this experience, I realized. My asthma was gone. It was just gone. And I'd like walking up hills, no problem, no short of breath, just like no inhalers. And, you know, they say that our breath is connected to our emotional world And, they shake it out. so that was the shakeout and yeah, I've had lots of those since and, and they continue to happen. You know, as I sit with medicines right now, I've been, really focused on working with ayahuasca and you know, the other ones are not so important but through Ayahuasca, you know, I stopped smoking cannabis back in September and I was a regular user and have been my entire life, but cannabis. For me, it was just an excuse. It was just an excuse to not do what I needed to do.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:08

Can you explain to our listeners who might not have had any experience in this, or really don't know, and kind of have had that, like, dark view, of these types of medicines, how they help you, like what is the scientific underpinnings of something like ayahuasca? Why is it helpful in terms of facilitating healing, especially mental health healing?

Guy Borgford: 0:09

I think it varies for everyone. But, you know, some of the kind of core tenants of the container of these medicines include, feeling safe and that's why having a container where you feel safe. to be vulnerable, to let go, to relinquish control and to allow yourself to access these higher realms of understanding. I think that's one from a physical perspective the science is out with entheogens and psychedelics, that they create neurogenesis. So, and new neural pathways to create new neural connections. They, I, I always say these medicines are like a hardware upgrade where, you know, from a computer perspective, my background consulting comes in here. You know, we, we get a shiny new computer. Yeah. You're going to run Windows 95 on that. No, you're going to get the latest operating system. Windows 95 was bad by the way. We get these insights and these epiphanies about, Oh, I need to do this. Oh, this is why I function that way. This is why I have this conflicts in these types of situations. You get all this understanding. The integration is the software upgrade is where you actually got to now start operating from that new understanding and it takes work. why I was, you know, everybody says it in this space. It's not a magic pill. It takes work, this opens the door. The medicine opens the door and shows you how you can change. You still got to do the changing. And so anybody who thinks it's just like, Oh, I'm going to sit with mushrooms and all my care, all my problems will go away. Yeah. I wish it was that easy. But it can, it can lead to profound healing and profound expansion and understanding.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:11

I, and I think that that's our culture. I think that we are, you know, buck up camper, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. You know, boys don't cry. We have all sorts of messaging that tells us that we need to suppress our emotions or put them away somewhere or not face them. But you know, that's what kind of opened my eyes to the physical presentation of illness, why it might start to form in somebody and not in somebody else. Somebody can be a smoker forever and not develop lung cancer while others do. And what could be the, emotional causes for these disease states as well. I just think it's magical. I think it's amazing. And I think that, you know, if more people were open just to facing what they've gone through, they would be able to release that trapped energy in their body. So tell us, you know, for the people that are, you know, completely gun shy about any kinds of like, you know, psychoactive medication like this.

Guy Borgford: 0:14

go-to recommendation, a mindfulness conscious awareness to be present, to be really practice presence in a day to day. You know, tune in. What is my body? Why am I getting all upset? What does my body feel like? Gee, I'm feeling anxious. What does that feel like? My chest is tight. My breathing, out of our head and into our body and listening to our body and understanding what our body is telling us in the present moment. That's a good way. Getting into creative expression, writing, right? Journaling art, any kind of art. If you say I'm not artistic, like getting into and things like gardening and connecting with nature and plants and getting into nurturing other life forms. There's all kinds of science out there where people have serious issues landing their experiences like I had when I had my Kundalini awakening, like, you know, You know, I was super lucky that I was able to work through that, but I could see where some people could, lives could collapse in that situation. Markets, you know, like, like, you know, what, what do we have to spend? You talk to a lot of people who are in the plant medicine space. Most of them don't have televisions. Most of them don't watch the news. Most of them eat all organic, healthy food. They don't eat junk food. You know, there's, there's all these commonalities where it's like, oh, oh gee, wow. All these things, you know, I just turned 60 last year. I have never felt better. I have never felt more energized aside from a little bit of arthritis in my hands, which has cleared up.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:19

And then you just rinse and repeat and just stay trapped in this cycle. And so I, I always couch it as. You know, we are kind of hypnotized by the outside world telling us how we should look, what we should, you know, dress like, who we should follow on social media what size we should be, what, how much money we need to make. You cannot go wrong. Like in mindfulness, when you actually do pay attention. And, and I think a lot of people, they don't really fully understand mindfulness. It's a, it's a term like it's tossed around like salad all over the place. But what is it really? It is an open hearted, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. That is a primary need of your body that you're ignoring. And when you do this, you set up a cascade of negative events that will try to get you back to listening to your body. Your thermogenesis slows down, your ghrelin, your hunger hormone goes up. Your body is like, no, please listen. And I think it is.

Guy Borgford: 0:22

That's such a good question. Such a good question. I would say it is leading them towards that which they already know, but have forgotten. And and it's through, it's, it's through their own path of direct experience that we get to these points where we get back on the path of why we're here, know, and it's all through direct experience, you know, that I'm always like, no one can teach this stuff. We all have the ability to get on a path. That is aligned with purpose and that where we live these lives, honoring these human suits, these amazing carbon machines,

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:24

Yes.

Guy Borgford: 0:25

well, you know, this is what I say. And of course, everybody's open to their own thing, their own saying their own interpretation. But what I say, I believe that everybody's purpose is to remember who they are and live that truth in the present moment. Practice, sorry, practice living that truth in the present moment. And the reason I add that practice is because that brings in humility and that brings in compassion for ourself that we are just a human being and that it is all a practice. We're not going to be perfect. We're going to fall into ego. We're going to have our moments where we're stomping our feet and our, you know, all the things that we do as we're learning.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:26

I think that that, you know, and maybe just to kind of tie this off with a little bow. I think what people are really longing to feel is relief. And I think that that's. What you're helping people achieve. And in my opinion, I think being mindful is happiness. That's what happiness actually feels like. People think it's like when you achieve something or when you, you know, make a ton of money or you have this house, it's really just being tapped into this present moment right now and realizing how beautiful it is and trying to stay in that as much as possible because that's what leads you to really being your true self. I'm grateful for your sister. I'm so sad for your parents' passing. But it also facilitated some great lessons for you that, you know, are helping other people. So, before we end, tell people how they can get a hold of you. Is it through your Instagram? La Casa de Flujo? How, how do they get a hold of you if they want to work with you?

Guy Borgford: 0:29

As long as they aren't super creepy or weird. Which in this space, you do get that but but you know, I just, I love the little bow that you put on that as you, as you framed it, that was super beautiful.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:30

We can look at them with fresh eyes. And you're, you're seeing this more and more in the psychological community, the use of microdosing with mushrooms, with ketamine therapy, things like that as pathways, and I think that's what people need. They need options. We don't have to necessarily follow the pharmaceutical route. Good tears. Of course. All right.