Ep 94: Part 7/12, Ariana Macartney's Shroom & Pussy-Driven Path to Coming Home: Building a Relationship with Yourself Series

This is not your average self-help chat. In this episode, Andrea and Janelle sit down with Ariana Macartney—artist, naturopathic doctor, psychedelic somatic guide, certified AF spiritual badass—for a raw and rich conversation. We're talking sacred sexuality, microdosing as medicine, and healing through creative expression and intuitive sobriety. Ariana is where textbook wisdom meets deep, personal descent and wild re-emergence. She makes awakening to all your inner parts--like they’re sacred guests at your soul’s dinner party—more playful, smutty, empowering and real. You’ll hear:

-Ariana’s story of addiction and how Intuitive sobriety saved her

-How letting her pussy DOM her worked out really well

-Your “inner chaos” isn’t a problem—it’s a map to who you are

-Why the part you’re hiding could be your most powerful ally

-Psychedelics explained--no drum circle required

-When to DIY and when to call a guide

-How to harness creativity as medicine for your soul

-How you can't outrun fear or grief, but you can alchemize them

To learn more about Ariana, find her at www.sacredfreak.com or @‌dr.arianamacartney on IG

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 0:00

Janelle, struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more alive and free question everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom com formula for this. But don't panic. Being alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave, what if your breakup could be your breakthrough? Our podcast is for brave hearts. Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth. If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel less alone along the way, we got you,

Janelle Orion 1:08

okay, have we had a bad expert interview? Like, everyone's so fucking amazing. Like, yeah, Ariana, who is our expert this time. What I loved about her, in some ways, she was like a mirror to me, but she was like, the doctor mirror.

Janelle Orion 1:22

She has all of the science behind her, all the

Janelle Orion 1:25

training. And I was like, oh, yeah, this is I relate to everything you're saying. But this was I learned it through a lived experience, and she did too, but she comes coming from a totally different angle, and it was just so affirming to hear her wisdom.

Andrea Enright 1:39

Yeah, it was amazing. She's so real, so creative, so herself, and so unafraid to unabashedly show up like in all her ways, with the sacred smut, with the sacred sexuality, with the kink, with the with the dog and the sub,

Janelle Orion 1:58

yes, but also just with like ifs parts, and with addiction and with like honoring the all that all parts of us are good parts, and we just have to navigate some and some are protecting us in a ways that aren't so useful. And so she was, yeah, so accepting and inviting. Oh

Andrea Enright 2:19

yes, open minded, accepting, inviting and very articulate. If you are Bravehearts, you can build a relationship with yourself that is going to be a relief, not just uncomfortable and hard, but Oh, like such, I just felt so much warmth and compassion from her about the process of building a relationship with yourself, and that was really refreshing to me. It put me at ease about digging deeper within the answers are within. This is awesome, yes,

Janelle Orion 2:51

and she, and she has a very welcoming way of describing of using, like the micro of micro dosing as a way in which I had never heard before. And she called it like intuitive sobriety, and that was so also super fascinating. So yes,

Andrea Enright 3:05

oh my god, yeah, you're gonna love this. Here comes.

Andrea Enright 3:12

Hi, Bravehearts, welcome to permission to be human. I'm Andrea and I'm Janelle, and we're so glad

Andrea Enright 3:21

to be interviewing an expert today about how to build a relationship with yourself.

Janelle Orion 3:26

We love interviewing experts on our topic of the season, which is how to build a relationship with ourselves. And today's expert is going to go into a very, very niche and specific category of psychedelics and microdosing. So we're thrilled to introduce and have Ariana with us today. Welcome Arianna. Thank you so happy to be here. Since 2021 Arianna McCartney has been a naturopathic doctor, psychedelic, somatic guide, and priestess of pleasure and play with a decade of experience in micro dosing and plenty of compassion, she helps guide Women and Gender expansive beings back into embodying their truth and Radiance by clearing the trauma and addictions obsessed with sacred sexuality, honoring ancient wisdom, and known for intuitive sobriety method. Can't wait to hear about that. Ariana is also a constant creator, building fairy houses, channeling songs and writing sacred smut. So good, right? Like so many questions I have just from the bio. Actually, I have all these definition questions, but why don't we just start with sacred smut? Like, what's what's sacred smut?

Arianna Macartney 4:49

I love that we're going here first, right? So last year, like two years ago, I really started on. My pleasure journey. And it was after my psychedelic somatic therapy training that I really started to it was within that training. And then after that, I really started to heal all of the sexual trauma that was in my body. And I was so used to searching for like the trauma and the negative emotions and the charge in my system. And then I stumbled upon sensual embodiment, and I went to a sensual awakening event, and it was the first time that I started to actually feel like the pleasure in my body. And I'm a highly sensitive person, and so we feel the pain 10x and we also feel the pleasure 10x and it was through that exploration that led me to conscious play parties, and led me to a particular conscious play party at the start of last year that was all about erotic like embodying your erotic avatar, and the erotic avatar that I chose to embody for last year was sub with my pussy as my DOM, and so I started this newsletter called The saver letters, which I've now have on sub stack, but for all of last year, it was just within my email List, and it was a creative space for me to explore and detail, like what it was for me to be a sub to my pussy and the journeys that I went on. And a lot of it was sensual, erotic experiences with myself and others, but writing about it in a really poetic, beautiful way. And it definitely like that form of writing has come through me before, like looking back to even when I was still using substances, I found my old hard drive, and it was just like this beautiful, smutty story. And so it's been moving through me. But I would say last year I really began to step into that more, and I find so much fun with it, because I find often in like porn or even like fantasizing, it's not super clear. And when you get to just write and write this, like delicious experience, and you get to, like, turn yourself on through it. And then now I've been sharing it, and my hope is for other people to feel their own erotic energy with it. But, yeah, that's been really fun. And the sacred part, right? Is that it's our bodies are so sacred. Our sexuality is so sacred. It's a connection to the divine and following pussy like pussy as DOM was God as DOM was the goddess as Dom, right? And and really reconnecting to my, my self and her as a way to rebuild trust. And I'm kind of going off topic here, but yeah, just really tapping into that creativity and and trust there. What

Janelle Orion 8:06

a beautiful way to kick off building a relationship with yourself. Yes, yeah, I love it. Thank you for describing that whole journey. It's beautiful. And so let's just go through some of the other terms. Can you please define naturopathic

Arianna Macartney 8:21

Yes, so naturopathic medicine is a holistic medicine. It's like the original functional medicine. So functional medicine is looking at medicine from a more preventative standpoint, and the roots lie in naturopathic medicine. And naturopathic medicine was birthed from ancient wisdom, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, the old like eclectic practitioners in the 1800s the homeopaths that really saw the whole person. It's essentially treating the whole person using preventative measures versus just treating based off of a diagnosis. And it's really using nature to heal. So naturopathic, naturopathic, using the healing power of nature and really honing in on understanding that we all have the capacity within us to heal. We all have an inner healing force, and it's about clearing the blocks and clearing the blocks of that healing force, and like bringing more vitality to that healing force so that our system can can heal itself, because it knows how to do that.

Andrea Enright 9:32

Beautiful. Thank you. What about psychedelic? A

Arianna Macartney 9:36

psychedelic medicine is a substance also called entheogenic that awakens the spirit and can have can alter our consciousness, our perception, so it can alter time, the sense of reality. And psychedelics have been used for 1000s of years to. To awaken us to our spirit and really heal the spirit.

Andrea Enright 10:02

Amazing. And examples of psychedelics that you would use are what,

Arianna Macartney 10:07

okay, so examples of psychedelics are mushrooms, but the magical kind of mushrooms, so psilocybin, another one is LSD, so if you've heard of acid. LSD Ayahuasca is another medicine. DMT is another medicine. If you've heard of Bufo, even cannabis and MDMA can be described as psychedelics, but they're not classical psychedelics. So the psychedelic term is really the term of like opening us up to to have an altered state of consciousness where we're having visions of things that are beyond our reality,

Andrea Enright 10:50

awesome, beautifully articulated.

Janelle Orion 10:54

So what about priestess? Priestess of pleasure and play, to me, means that the medicine of pleasure and the medicine of play move through me, and I've really anchored that into a big part of my spiritual practice. And I believe that all of us have an inner priestess. We don't have like a hierarchy, right? But it's, for me, a almost like a title of this is what I embody, is pleasure and play.

Andrea Enright 11:19

Love it okay. And finally, sacred sexuality.

Arianna Macartney 11:25

So sacred sexuality, to me, means really honoring our Eros and our bodies as a place for the divine to move through, through our desires, through the act of intimacy, the act of pleasure, the act of the act of sex. It gets to be a sacred it gets to be a sacred space that we get to harness that energy to connect with the divine and then really like to fill and to fill our lives. Bravehearts.

Andrea Enright 11:57

Doesn't this sound like a friend of Janelle?

Andrea Enright 12:01

Like we hang out all the time, yeah? Like,

Janelle Orion 12:05

yes, I think, I think it

Janelle Orion 12:06

does, and yet we don't. This is our first time, first time meeting.

Andrea Enright 12:13

So let's dive into the relationship with ourselves. So how would you define a relationship with yourself.

Arianna Macartney 12:21

So I define a relationship to the self as a relationship that goes beyond just your singular self, right? It's it's a relationship to all of the parts of us, our inner child, our inner teenager. Maybe we have multiple different parts of us that are little parts, multiple different parts that are teenagers, our 20 year old selves, like a relationship to all of all of that, and a relationship to our body, our mind and our spirit. I

Andrea Enright 12:51

haven't really thought about it that way, even though it completely makes sense that you're tapping into all the parts of you. So when you say all the you're talking about these different ages, would you say there are also many different parts that exist within you now at your age, that you

Arianna Macartney 13:06

are totally and I still have little parts, right? And I still have my inner teenager, and I also have my, you know, my perfectionist part. I have my financial worrier part. Her name's Franny. Franny the financial worrier I have, and I like to name these different parts, right? Because yeah, they get Yeah. And I have my my inner priestess part, right? And even through the menstrual cycle, we go through these different archetypes of the maiden, the mother, the Crone, and then the shamanic priestess. And so we are multifaceted beings, especially as women or those with wombs. So it's and it's a beautiful process of getting to getting to know the inner family and getting to heal that inner relationship,

Janelle Orion 14:04

and what you're describing there, Ariana, I know that as ifs, is that what you're speaking to?

Arianna Macartney 14:10

Yeah, yeah. So ifs is a process that I use a lot in my practice. Ifs is internal family systems, and it is based on this premise that we are not of just this singular mind, that we have these different parts of us and that there are actually, there's actually no bad part. They're all here for, for helping us hold our homeostasis. Dr Dick Schwartz, who created this methodology, categorizes our parts into our exiles, our managers or our protectors and our firefighters, and then in the middle of that, we have our capital S self or our integrated adult self, which coincides really beautifully with that, like inner healing force. It's that. That, that soul level, part of us that is the the kind of, the be all, end all.

Andrea Enright 15:07

Can you describe how your therapy helps people build a relationship with themselves? What's build the bridge for me there? What's the connection?

Arianna Macartney 15:17

Yeah, so with everything that I do, whether it be psychedelics, micro dosing, craniosacral therapy, naturopathic medicine, homeopathy, ifs right, all of these systems are about the client connecting more deeply with themselves and learning how to feel their emotions, learning how to regulate their emotions, learning how to communicate in a more advantageous way with the people that are around them and and it's also all about awakening that inner healing force, micro dosing, In particular, micro dosing and psychedelics open up the pathways for that inner healing force to come more deeply online. So it kind of, if you can think of like the capital S self, maybe when a person first comes to me, that capital S self, that integrated adult self, is like really small within their body, within their heart, space, within their womb, and they've got all of these parts that are taking up so much room. Maybe it's their like reactive part, maybe it's their anxious part, maybe it's their like people pleaser part that's like, I need to do everything for everybody, and so those parts are super big, right? What micro dosing does, what psychedelics do in conjunction with things like homeopathy, things like internal family systems, ifs, it allows space for that s capital S self to get bigger, right? So it as it gets bigger, and connects with these parts, these parts that that originally we're taking up so much space in the system. No longer feel alone, because a lot of the time when we get hijacked by a part of us that's triggered by a part of us that's over functioning, you know, like overworking in that mode, it's doing that because it's it's feeling like I've got to do this because I'm the only one here, and I've got to keep I've got to keep Andrea safe, so I'm going to be really big and out in the open and and be the driver for Andrea's life. And then with working together, that capital S self gets gets bigger, and so then that that maybe over achiever part gets to feel like, oh, there's an adult here, like, there's this, there's this part that I just get to lean into and trust, and that gets to lead. And so it's really beautiful, because I think in a lot of traditional therapies, or even in traditional allopathic medicine, there's this idea that like, oh, I need to ask the doctor for what to do with my body. I need to ask my therapist what to do. My therapist knows best. She's got all the training. My doctor knows best. They've got all the training, right? And in these modalities, it's really about like, no, actually, this capital S self, you have all of the best wisdom within and so I'm just kind of there, leaned back, facilitating that connection with yourself so that you can lead your life.

Andrea Enright 18:36

Yeah, yeah. So you're touching on a couple things. One is a main theme of that we've been hearing in this this series so far, is that we do tend to look outside for the solution or for the opinion, and really the answers are all within us. And it's, I think it's hard to believe at first, definitely I was, I was originally very resistant to that. I'm just like, No, no. I don't know for sure. I'm not certain. I'm going to make sure that I go ask a bunch of other people. So I'm hearing that you really can build the psychedelics, actually build relationships within your body. Is that what you're saying?

Arianna Macartney 19:18

Yes, yes. And if you think about the mycelial network, right? It's all about connection, and even LSD, it builds new neural networks. It builds new connections within the brain, and then when you look on that as like a macro, or more energetic realm side of things, it's helping us build a deeper connection with ourselves. Because with psychedelics on board, with micro dosing on board, I find that it's so much easier to access that level of compassion for our parts, because we're not like stuck in a part. We're a little bit distant from the part. We're able to observe the part from, like this almost third party. Perspective of, oh, I'm noticing that my overachiever is here, versus like I am the overachiever, and this is all of me. So

Andrea Enright 20:09

it creates a dis there's an observation possible. Janelle, do you have a question?

Janelle Orion 20:17

Yes, you have been referring to this healing force, energy. And is there another

Janelle Orion 20:25

term for that? Yeah, so in homeopathy, it's called the vest, V, i, s, and it is the healing force in the body. It's the organizing force in the body. If you think about our body as a like if you just think on the physical level, there's all of these building blocks, right? There's the structure of the house and the vis the organizing force of the body, the healing force of the body, is, is akin to our spirit, is akin to our soul. And if you think about it. It's it's the roadmap. It is like the director of how the energy is flowing within the system. So a lot of the time in chronic disease, right? When something isn't healing itself on its own, I often look to that level of the person, because we get a cut, our body should know how to heal itself, right? And simply giving the body more building blocks, right? That's that's more more so in like functional medicine, you get labs done, you see what's missing, and so you take the hormones, or you take the supplements to replace those nutrients. But what if your body doesn't know how to process those nutrients? What if your body doesn't know where to put those building blocks? There can be a miss attunement at the level of the vital force, at the level of the vis, at the level of that, that spirit level. And so using things like psychedelics, things like homeopathy, right? Things like craniosacral therapy, it acts on on that level of the body, so that it awakens that force so we can heal ourselves.

Andrea Enright 22:14

Okay, I'm learning a lot today. Yeah, yeah, this is fascinating,

Andrea Enright 22:20

just to bring it down to this relatable level, for our brave hearts, you know, a lot of us have heard of micro dosing. I have some micro doses, you know, right in the drawer there that I can use. They're really great, except I don't sleep when I use them, and so they're, yeah, they're not really of use to me right now. So if someone wanted to dabble in this and say, Oh, I guess microdosing helps me build a relationship with myself and do all the things you just mentioned, is this something they can do on their own, or is this something that they need a therapist or a guide or a facilitator to help them with? The

Arianna Macartney 22:57

answer is twofold, because I had my own micro dosing journey back in 2015 when I found it on Reddit. Okay, this was back way before micro dosing was well known. And I'm like, I'm going to therapy, I'm going to hot yoga, I'm meditating. I'm still depressed. Nothing is working. And I'm like, Well, I'm partying with psychedelics, and somebody mentioned something about micro dosing. So I'm on Reddit. Research it, and I find a protocol, and I followed the protocol that I found on Reddit, which was start on the Fatimah, which is one day on two days off. And the I looked at like the recommended dosage that they recommended. And I just started on the journey, kind of solo, right? It was really helpful. And I think that everything happened for a reason. And at the same time, my first six months into micro dosing, I fell deeper into addiction. And I at the same time, I was recognizing that I was using all these substances to heal all of my mental health issues, and I was seeking all of the answers outside of myself. And I was going into these deep journal sessions while on the microdose and I realized that any question that I asked my inner self had the answer, and so I was like, I have all of the answers within me, and yet I'm seeking the solution from these external sources.

Andrea Enright 24:28

What an aha moment, yeah, Whoa,

Janelle Orion 24:31

yeah. And

Arianna Macartney 24:32

still, nothing. It was. Wasn't fully clicking until I had the dream, and that summer, I was living with my friend who is pretty heavy crystal meth user. I myself was using speed, which is 90% math and GHB, 24/7, and one night I had a dream, and in the dream I saw this dying. Swan, and she was like squawking, and like barely could walk, and it just hit me to my core, and I woke up, and I just knew that was my spirit, and that's what I was continuing to do to myself by using the drugs. And that's when I started to follow that spirit calling, that intuitive calling, and really awoke me to that. And over the next couple of years, I got sober, intuitively, I let go of the most harmful, most addictive substances first, and as I healed more, it's like the substances just fell away because I was gripping so tightly onto them, because they were my lifeline. They were the thing keeping me stable strong, like connecting me to people, connecting me to my creativity, all of that. And as I found that I had everything within me, they they naturally fell away. And so that's the intuitive sobriety process, and I will say that intuitive sobriety process took me, you know, three years, probably, from like, start of micro dosing to completion, and I walk that with clients in the mat in three months now. So

Janelle Orion 26:19

wait a second, wait a second, it's like, I was like, fucking

Janelle Orion 26:22

amazing. This, brave hearts, are you getting this? Like, this dream that you

Janelle Orion 26:25

have is like, this is me. This is what I'm doing. Like, that is vivid and powerful. And then I just heard you say, I guess I've heard you say that you have experienced so much of what unintentional psychedelics can do and what intentional psychedelics can do, and you are now taking what took you three years with intuitive sobriety down to three months with clients.

Janelle Orion 26:56

What I'm actually also hearing too is that, you know, we're probably gonna get into, like, what are the obstacles of that prevent people from building a relationship with themselves? Is that your journey was that you you were an addict, at least to drugs, I don't know if anything else, and that was you were thinking that that was helping you, but this dream showed you that it was actually the thing that was hurting you.

Andrea Enright 27:18

Yeah, that's a great segue to the next question of like, what? What else stops people from building a relationship with themselves?

Arianna Macartney 27:26

Yeah, so, so many different things, right? Can be substance use, and it's like, substance use isn't even really about the substances, right? It's like what was behind the substances. So for me, that was the unprocessed grief and pain from my childhood. And I think that that is the case for a lot of people. And if you're listening, you might resonate with this. I had a tea ceremony the other day, and it was a silent tea ceremony for like an hour and a half. And I was like, Whoa, I don't want to sit here in silence for an hour and a half and around the third cup of tea as I'm sitting in silence like all of this grief opened up, and I noticed that we so often don't want to be in silence, and silence connects us to ourselves and that we we say we want to find ourselves. We say we want to be connected to ourselves, but what the reality can look like is actually connecting to all of the grief and the pain that has been building up over weeks of just taking, of just filling our time with so many different things. So it can be overworking. It can be Yeah, substances. It can be this addiction to perfectionism. It can be this addiction to like the image that we think that people want from us, or we think that our parents will approve of, or we think if we're a mom, if we the image that we feel like we need to uphold for our kids and that whole, I mean, almost everything goes back to childhood or goes back to some sort of societal, cultural programming, right? And I think that we get so scared about connecting with ourselves, because another big one is the fear that if we really tapped in that we would have to blow our entire life up, because what we would find is that I actually don't like this partner, I actually don't like this job. I actually want to live in the mountains in Colombia for a year, right? Like, yeah, it can be really, really scary. Agree,

Andrea Enright 30:01

I love the spectrum that you gave there. It's like, oh yeah, drugs can be, I mean, drugs can be stopping you big things in life, but it's just really the fear of what you're gonna find that that stops you the most, potentially the most, a lot of unprocessed grief, sure, but it's uncomfortable to look and I definitely have experienced this myself, just like, I'm not looking I'm not looking at that like, like, I'll just keep doing this thing. That's kind of uncomfortable, but that's much harder, which is really part of the reason we decided to do this series in the first place, because we have Janelle and I have both, you know, struggled and succeeded and struggled and succeeded to build solid relationships with ourselves. And it's, it's not that comfortable, yeah,

Arianna Macartney 30:48

something I'd love to add in here is that, for me, it it has been really uncomfortable, right? Because I've got through the end of med school, and after graduating, I did The Artist's Way and like, realized that my artistry is a big part of me, and that desire to sing and express and perform music, like what like, to open a practice, to like write sacred smut, right? All of that feels so daunting, and when I've looked within, sometimes my own desires scare me, and so I feel like that's actually not it. I don't actually want to do that right. And something that was so helpful last year, and a process that I'm still still doing, but last year was really like the container of just being sub to my pussy and the Pro that it, it alleviated so much like stress and decision making, because it was just like, if she's a yes for it, I have to do it. If she's a no for it, I don't do it. And so feeling the desires moving through me and just feeling like, all right, like, sometimes it feels really good to be domed, right? Because it is scary to look inside. It is scary to find those desires and actually take those action steps. And so maybe it's not your pussy that's doming you, but maybe you journal and you have your higher self, and you channel writing, and it gets to give you directives or give you a plan. I love, I just personally love connecting to to the body, to the womb, to the pussy, because we've been so distanced from that and and I find that it's such a direct place to rebuild a relationship, to trusting yourself and to following what actually feels good, because she's the most she, he, they, they're the most sensitive part, right? So anything that's happening, we want it to feel good for like the softest, most vulnerable part of us. No making

Arianna Macartney 33:02

so much sense. I'm just like, Are you saying that I can find some inner part of me, whether it's my pussy or something else, and let it DOM me into doing things. I think

Janelle Orion 33:15

I would probably recommend, like your pussy or your heart. I don't know if I would like, choose any body part,

Andrea Enright 33:23

at least. I think I could name it though. I think I could name, name it anything, and I could it. Could draw from different parts of me. It doesn't feel like there's a limit. But what's fascinating to me here is just the because I'm I have been in my life, sometimes outward looking, and just like, No, no, Would someone please tell me what to do? Right? Because I don't want to take the responsibility, right? It just feels too big. Like, what if I make the wrong decision, right? And so if I can see myself as having these different parts, I'm like, Oh, I can be the little girl, and then I can, like, look to my big part and be like, big part. What should I do? And I think that reframing is really helpful,

Arianna Macartney 34:00

yeah, and it gets to be right. Like, for me, Pussy is very connected to heart, because our cervix, the vagus nerve, goes right up in connection and yeah, like, just checking in with the body. Like, how does this decision feel in my body? Is it that there is an initial contraction because of fear and then it feels expansive, because a lot of the time and for myself too, I'm like, is this fear or intuition? Is this fear? Intuition? Is this how do I decode this message in my body? I'm feeling nauseous, but is this a butterfly, kind of nauseous, or is this a like, this is a dangerous thing. Get away kind of nauseous, right? And so tracking, and I'm an emotional authority in human design, so any other emotional authorities out there will resonate with this. But you know, it takes time for a decision to move through our system, and we've got to process the emotions around it to get to that clear place of calm. But. Um, yeah, noticing, like, just having a conversation with that sensation, and then tuning into the heart, tuning into the pussy, tuning into the mind, right, tuning into higher self. Like, what? What is the wisdom coming that is, that is coming through and then just taking your time like, also you. There's no time stamp that you've got to be connected with yourself and and following your desires by June 1. So hop to Right. Like, there you've got, we've got,

Andrea Enright 35:37

you'd be surprised how much I can I put a deadline. I was like, that's not true. There is a deadline. Have you heard of money? You know, so, but yeah, I get it that that is, that's something I'm inventing, like, sort of a fake deadline that I'm that we can sometimes put but I hear you, yeah, take your time. That makes sense, yeah? And

Arianna Macartney 35:59

just to relieve the pressure, right? Because sometimes you have, like, for me, when I have an added pressure, then I and then I just kind of shut down, and I don't do the things right. But if I'm like, okay, I get to, I get to do as much as I can by this date, but it doesn't need to be perfect. I don't have, like, I don't have an exam. I'm not going to get an A or a B, right, coming out of med school, I'm like, but am I gonna pass? You know, it's like, yeah, you outcome. You are passing. You are passing.

Andrea Enright 36:30

Yeah, yeah, this actually, it's funny. It reminds me of a woman that Janelle and I both connected with, I think, on LinkedIn, and maybe potentially separately. Her name's Dana farent, and she I spoke with her once when we were checking in on each other occasionally a few years ago. And the first thing she asked me when I said I was feeling stuck was like, she's like, well, what does your pussy say? And she's the first person to have said that to me. I mean, it didn't make me uncomfortable. I was just like, oh, okay, that's interesting. I'm not sure you know. And it didn't go anywhere. But I think it stood out for me because I thought, Oh, this is a source. There's a source of wisdom. There a voice, a part of me that maybe I want to give a say to at the table. Yeah, I guess when you work with clients and they're building relationship with themselves, what happens next, like, what are the outcomes? What are the consequences? What is the healing and what did that look like?

Arianna Macartney 37:35

Yeah, so I love this because it's it's hard to track sometimes, like all because clients come to me for, you know, a myriad of different things. Mostly they're highly sensitive women or gender expansive beings, and they are struggling with anxiety or some type of avoidant I would say, most people that come to me, we start working together, and they're like, oh, yeah, I actually am like, drinking like a glass of wine every night. I'm like, btw, or like, or I used to drink a lot and party a lot, and now I'm not anymore, but I'm still feeling like this anxiousness, or like this feeling of like, white knuckling my way through life, and I plugged in all of my testimonial forms, all of my feedback forms, into chatgpt the other day, highly recommend this if you work with anybody, and it just gave such a clear reflection of the transformation. So what people walk away with after working with me is feeling more embodied, feeling safe in their body, like actually feeling safe in their body and safe to explore the emotions, the pain and also the pleasure, feeling like they're not scared to to sit with themselves anymore, feeling like they have more agency in their voice, feeling like they're they're able to communicate their needs, their desires, their boundaries, and really feeling like they've regained their power and control over the things in their life that maybe previously, they were getting hijacked by their addictive part, or they were getting hijacked by their reactive part with their partner, or hijacked by their over performance, right? There's like, there's more spaciousness. They're more centered in their body and then able to to meet themselves.

Janelle Orion 39:46

Ariana, what is kind of like? The motivating point that you find people are at to finally reach out for help, like, what is? What are they experiencing that? Be like, Okay, now I'm going to call you

Arianna Macartney 40:03

most often. They're noticing that their emotions or and in within emotions, it's like depression, anxiety, right? But they're feeling that is getting in the way of their business growth, of their relationship, of their job, right? Like they're noticing that, wow, I'm just like, anxious all the time at work, or I'm noticing that I am feeling so many emotions and I'm just like, getting stuck and and and feel like I can be moving moving further in my business or career or with my relationship, but I'm just like getting so consumed by all of this, or they have in in terms of the sobriety work, They've tried sobriety there, maybe they've maybe let go of alcohol, but they're still using cannabis, and they're noticing that it is taking up more time and space in their life that than they'd like. And I had a conversation with a woman who was like, whoa. I didn't even realize that it's not even just the next day the hangover, right, but it's like the days, the weeks, the months, that that adds up to, that it's just taking away from from what they really want to be doing, and then with the more the intimacy and the pleasure work, it's really this feeling of like, Whoa, I don't even Know what I like like, I worked with a woman recently who I thought of a 12 year relationship and had never really explored herself and never really like said what she wanted to in in the realm of intimacy. And so it was like reconnecting her to her pleasure, and like owning that and owning her her body and her desires and her voice and being able to speak that

Janelle Orion 42:08

beautiful Thank you.

Andrea Enright 42:09

Is there anything you feel like we haven't touched on that, like you'd like to talk about in terms of building a relationship with yourself?

Arianna Macartney 42:18

I think that like the creative exploration and how creativity can be a beautiful connector to yourself and like exploring your parts and doing and it can be a process of doing it in a fun way. That's not so like drudgy,

Arianna Macartney 42:37

yeah. Can you give an example? So,

Arianna Macartney 42:39

like, I I write raps and I do little caricatures of the different parts of me, right? I go outside and I go on a walk, and I like freestyle, and it allows me to connect to my truth. It's like, it's almost as if, in the creative process, you're more connected to your subconscious, and so there's not much of a block of like, what am I trying to hear? What am I trying to Yeah,

Andrea Enright 43:09

yeah. I think this is absolutely true. This is part of why I was immediately attracted to your energy and your Instagram posts, and because I could feel the creative energy. And that is definitely very true for me, like when I'm dancing, when I'm creating, when I'm writing, that's when time goes fast, that's when I find the flow, that's when I'm tapping into the real me. And I can't always, I can't always get there, right? You know, the more you do it, the easier it comes, right? But if you don't do it enough, and it takes an hour to, like, find it and then get into it. Yeah. So, Ariana, if brave hearts want to tap in to themselves to build a relationship with themselves, what's a good place for them to start? Can we give them some Braveheart homework? Yeah.

Arianna Macartney 43:55

So, some homework, some places to start. I love to be in the practice of creativity and creativity, you don't have to be an artist. You don't even need to feel like you've got a creative bone in your body that can block a lot of people. But Your homework is to just start letting your creative force flow. Maybe it's through drawing, maybe it's through painting, maybe it's through free styling, maybe it's through writing and getting to know these different parts of you from a more creative lens. So if you're noticing your overachiever part like, what would what would she sound like? What would she look like? Can you draw a picture of her? Can you make a character of her? Right? Like my financial warrior Frannie, is just so scared, and she just starts like this and right? Bringing that, bringing that creative force can can help us meet our parts in a more compassionate way and the next? Thing. The next piece of homework is this, notice name need practice, which are my three ends of nervous system regulation. So just noticing, just noticing what part is coming up, naming it right, naming it, noticing where it is in the body. Naming it. Is it nausea? Is it this financial warrior? Franny? Is it the overachiever, Olivia, right? Or is it just scared? Is it just my little fearful part, right? And then the last part is need. So offering that part what it needs, listening, listening deeply. And it can even be as small as a hand over the belly. It could be something that you visualize in your mind, of like handing this beautiful blue, glowing crystal to this part of you as a symbol of safety and security, and just offering that part what it needs in some small way. And if you're struggling with needs, I love the list of needs by non violent communication. So that's a really good place to just look up that chart and scan it, and just because sometimes we're like, I don't even know what I need. I've never been asked what I need. I've just been so used to giving and providing. And so that's a really good place to start.

Andrea Enright 46:18

Beautiful. Thank you for that. Yummy. I just, you know, what a shout out to Eleanor Medina, because she's the one that introduced me to you.

Andrea Enright 46:30

Yay, yay.

Andrea Enright 46:33

So Ariana, if someone wants to work with you, where can they find you? Yes.

Arianna Macartney 46:37

So they can find me on my website. Ariana McCartney, nd.com and my name should be spelled in the show notes, and then I'm also on Instagram, dr, dr, dot Ariana McCartney, and reach out, send me a message. I offer free discovery calls, and I'm more than happy to chat with you. And there are really no pressure space to I actually have gotten such good feedback from the discovery call. Sometimes they're like, I got what I needed. And then if I'm not a good fit, I have a really great referral network. And another superpower that I have is just getting being able to really scan your body and and listen to what you're saying and be like, Okay, I think you need this type of practitioner this and so, yeah, I don't hesitate to reach out. And then I've got some yummy freebies. So I've got my free somatic micro dosing guide that is a great place to start. And then I also have a free webinar that is all about how to stop numbing and escape overwhelm and really 10x your joy. And those are two free, delicious resources that you can get more of a taste of my work and I Yeah, invite you to dive in.

Andrea Enright 48:01

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much. I think, I think you have lots of superpowers. Speaking of superpowers, it's very evident. Did you have any events coming up that you wanted to talk about?

Arianna Macartney 48:14

Okay, so I do have a I'm I'm in the middle of relaunching my intuitive sobriety method. So I'm not sure when this is airing, but we're starting on June 3. So if you are in the place of wanting to let go of the numbing habits, that is the absolute best place to start. And then I also have a sober, sassy Sunday dance party called Cherry Sunday, happening June 29 in Denver, it's a space for the girls gays, and they'd think, think of Daybreaker, but not so damn early. Okay, so I've got, yeah, a lot of different

Janelle Orion 48:52

Yeah, I love those names. Sober. What is it? Sober? Sassy. Sunday.

Janelle Orion 48:57

Yeah. Cherry. Sunday. Beautiful. Thank you so much for being on permission to be human. Yeah,

Janelle Orion 49:05

thank you. I really, I got so much out of this, and it felt i This is what happens whenever we interview experts, is like, I have my own lived experience, and then it gets affirmed by experts. Yeah. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's what happened to me. Like, you just put words to it. Or like science behind it, or something. So I really appreciate you, and also you just sharing your own story of addiction and how that was your pathway to to finding yourself and your divine pussy. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for all your honesty and vulnerability and just just showing up as creative you. Thank you so much. Thank you for listing brave hearts. We love you. We'll see you next time. Hey,

Janelle Orion 49:58

Bravehearts, looking for permission. Permission, work with us. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life at permission to be human workshops in Denver. Subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website, permission to be human. Dot live. Do