Men on the Path to Love
Relationship coach Bill Simpson offers stories and wisdom, to inspire men be the best version of themselves in relationship and live the life they love.
Men on the Path to Love
Michael’s Story: A Journey into Psychedelics, Meaning, and Conscious Masculinity
What happens when a self-described materialist and atheist encounters a profound psychedelic experience that turns his worldview upside down? Michael Tierno never expected that a coach's simple suggestion to "do something on your own" would lead him to the Amazon, ayahuasca ceremonies, and eventually founding retreats helping men transform their lives.
And in relationship, his approach helps men create safety for their partners while finding authentic connection with themselves and other men. In this bonus episode, you'll hear all about Michael's journey that led to his calling. Check out...Michael’s Story: A Journey into Psychedelics, Meaning, and Conscious Masculinity.
Links:
Expanded States Guide: https://www.michaeltiernoguide.com/
Men of Integrity: https://moi.community/
Heart Sanctuary Retreats, Spiritual Awakening with Ayahuasca: https://www.heartsanctuaryretreats.com/
Email: Bill@menonthepathtolove.com
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Hi and welcome to the Men on the Path to Love podcast Bonus episode Michael's story a journey into psychedelics, meaning and conscious masculinity. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. I coach men who are done suffering in relationship, men who want deeper love, real connection and to finally feel like themselves again. I hope them become the best version of themselves, for themselves and for their current relationship or the one they're ready to find so they can live the life they love. In this bonus episode you'll hear my conversation with Michael Tierno who, in his words, never expected to spend his life guiding others through powerful psychedelic experiences or teaching men about conscious masculinity. He co-founded Men of Integrity Retreats focused on men's emotional clarity, relational health and authentic leadership, and helped establish Heart Sanctuary in Peru's Sacred Valley. If you're curious about psychedelics and want to know more, then stick around. You just might learn something. It's the Men on the Path to Love podcast. Welcome, Michael, to Men on the Path to Love.
Michael Tierno:Thank you, Bill, appreciate being here. Thank you for having me.
Bill Simpson:Yeah well, I appreciate you reaching out, and when I was looking at your profile of your experiences, I just was really intrigued by your journey, and I'm all about telling stories, so I'd like to just jump in and have you share your story with us and how you got to be with Men of Integrity and all that.
Michael Tierno:Absolutely story with this and how you got to be with men of integrity and and all that. Absolutely well, it's kind of a longish story but I'll keep it to the, to the highlights. When I was about 41, 42, you know, I was married, had two kids, had a business, was very kind of satisfied in the, in the sort of like societal sort of conditions as to what like success means and all that kind of stuff, and my wife and I at the time were seeing a coach. My wife had been doing some you know self-work on herself and some programs for her own development. And the coach told me or that she recommended that I do something on my own because my wife and I work together, live together, we have the same friends, you know childcare, all that, so we're so like intertwined. She said you got to do something on your own. So I was like, oh, my goodness, that's kind of a freeing and kind of like, wow, getting permission to do this thing that I hadn't given myself permission for, and also a little bit like, well, what am I going to do? So my first inclination was to do some research and, looking around, I was going to go to the Philippines and learn how to kite surf, which has always been a dream of mine. And when I presented it to my wife she was like, oh no, don't do that, because I wanted to do that too. So another thing we got to do together. And so I do that too. So we another thing we got to do together, oh, okay, and uh, so I was like I don't know. Back to the drawing board.
Michael Tierno:Um, I ended up going to a uh, to a music festival with a friend. We're having some beers and we're kind of loaded up and I'm telling him, the coach said I had to do something on my own, but she didn't say I couldn't do it with a friend. Do you want to go on a trip with me? And we could go. You know, figure something out, what's on your book, what suggestions you have? And uh, this guy is fairly overweight, but he tells me that there's a sinkhole in the amazon and that we can get an outfitter and go rappelling into the amazon and to see these like blind fish and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, okay, all right, sounds good. So I I look it up and it turns out this place exists and that there's outsiders that will take you there and I call him up and I say, hey, man, I found the place and he's all. I was drunk. There's no way I can do that. I'll die if we do that. So I was like, oh, back to the drawing board.
Michael Tierno:But during the path of going into exploring about what's in the Amazon, I learned about ayahuasca. For those who don't know what ayahuasca is, could you describe that? Antioxidant inhibitors that allow the dimethyltryptamine, which is dmt, that is in the chacruna leaves, to be orally active so you can take the psychedelic brew that. Otherwise, if you just take the chacruna, for example, your body will digest it, it will have no psychoactive effect. But in the combination of these two alkaloids together you have a visionary, shamanic experience, for lack of a better word. Um, extremely powerful. It's, um. It's powerful in a different way than like psilocybin containing mushrooms, uh, and that there's a deep physical element to it, like it works with the body somatically in addition to mentally and emotionally and spiritually. Um, um, if you have any questions about it, I'm keep going it's good, so so you you.
Michael Tierno:So I go down to peru and I go to this retreat now at this time. I was a very materialistic, materialist, physicalist. I was always been into metaphysics and philosophy and stuff like that and I was really attached to the idea of physicalism, that this isism, that we're just like robots or machines, biological machines running through the world with this experience of consciousness. We don't know how it works, but very much a materialist framework, a physicalist framework, so thinking that when you die, that's it, boom, lights out, all that kind of stuff. I was very much an atheist, didn't have a spiritual bone in my body, so to speak. Um, I had been taken out of me and I was argumentative also about it, like very much anti the woo I'm curious when you say it was taken out of you.
Bill Simpson:Tell me more about that any kind of spirituality.
Michael Tierno:yeah, yeah, it was kind of like, uh, through, um, the study of psychology in college and in graduate school, and it was very much a science-based what we can observe is what we can know, kind of thing. Having the misguided belief that if we didn't weren't able to prove it scientifically, then it really was wasn't of any value. And I had taken that kind of belief and since it's very hard to, at that point in time I didn't have any tools or ability to access in any kind of way that I knew of to access broader kind of consciousness experiences. I was very much in alignment with that. I thought anything that had to do with something of spirit or something of soul or any kind of that stuff or broader consciousness was just kind of, you know, there's no evidence for that and what, why are we going down that path? However, in in high school, I was interested in some like occult stuff and like, uh, spiritual stuff and I read about like wicca and a variety of spiritual technologies and stuff like that, but I abandoned all that, thinking like, oh, this is just a bunch of bs, um, so, so that's what I mean by it was taken out of me, gotcha, not, not like someone forced it out of me or anything like that, but I was really I was a really hard line of materialist though okay,
Michael Tierno:Bill Simpson: So move on...
Michael Tierno:Michael Tierno: So
Michael Tierno:I'm going to uh on the plane to Peru and I'm just like, I'm fairly satisfied with life. But I remember writing my journal because I had read about all these experiences, visionary experiences, with uh, with ayahuasca, and I was like this is either going to be a whole lot, a big giant nothing sandwich, or it's going to be something profound and I have no way of knowing what's going to be. So I go to Peru totally outside of my element, comfortable I speak Spanish, comfortable, I speak Spanish. And so the first night we're sitting in the ceremony and words that the shaman slash facilitator whatever you want to call the medicine man was saying was like no matter what happens, in four hours we'll be sitting around here eating some fruit. And I'm like, okay, all right, well, what's going to happen? Who the heck knows? Right? And uh. So I drink the cup and goes to my mat and immediately my internal world is like thrown upside down. I'm just like lost in the sauce. It's very disorienting and I'm telling myself like, oh, my goodness, what have you done? You're gonna go crazy. All this kind of you know self-talk.
Michael Tierno:This is my first time was it pretty scary at that point for me it was like one of the most scary moments of my life, right, sure, it was pretty terrifying, but what was interesting was I hearkened back to the words that he told me that in four hours was going to be over. So I was just like all right, and he said just relax and surrender into it. And so I did that. And what's really interesting and this is something I tell uh folks who are interested in these things is there's not really anything objectively scary, like if you just look at it from like the witness self. Now many, many, many more journeys under my belt. Look at it a witness self. No matter what you're seeing, it's like being at an imax movie, right, just seeing these visions.
Bill Simpson:Yeah, it's all a movie right.
Michael Tierno:So I told myself that I'd be fine and immediately after, like, relaxing into the experience, I opened up into a experience of total beyond, like divine bliss of like, uh, feeling a connection with the universe in a way that I had not experienced before, and it opened me up in that moment to having to eat some crow. With regards to like wow, there is more to this experience than I had, this human experience that I had been given credit for.
Bill Simpson:It was your spiritual awakening, I guess.
Michael Tierno:For sure, for sure. I was like, wow, I have been so close-minded with my thoughts and there's so much more to explore in this human life. You know, it was a real, huge turning point. A turning point for me and then the next 10 years of my life it's just been trying to make sense of that and learning to explore the world in this new, more open way.
Bill Simpson:So what happened after this retreat that you were on Like what was your next step? You came back and then what?
Michael Tierno:I came back and I was like really floating for, like, very much open to experience, less mental chatter, less concerns about things that you know I had no control over, um, feeling very free and open and had an ease about myself that was sort of foreign to me, but very peaceful, very present. It was just like the first stage. So it was quite, quite amazing. I stopped uh, I didn't drink alcohol for years after that. Uh first experience was quite profound. There's a lot of details I could go into, but just the transformative impact to see like, for example like wasn't a heavy drinker, but I was a regular drinker and realizing one of the deep realizations that I had, I was like on, on. I think it was the third night of the retreat, the third experience. The other experiences were much more easy to handle, since I had already gone through the.
Michael Tierno:The first one, one of the experiences, just this awareness came up, like you're drinking because you're uncomfortable, because some shame that's in there, and and I got to look at it and say, well, what is there, what are you ashamed of? And I was like I couldn't find any root to that. It was just the experience of some shame that was being covered up by you know these substances and I was like, huh, there's nothing there and immediately just washed away and haven't felt any shame about anything since then. And yeah, it was very freeing. But also interesting to see that there was that feeling, that experience of like having some shame, but that there was nothing really tied to it. I couldn't. I was like, well, this doesn't make sense, probably just through a life of you know needing to be a certain way or these kinds of stuff, I'm you know growing up and whatnot. But there wasn't like a flashbulb moment necessarily that that was tied to the shame.
Bill Simpson:You know, when I'm hearing you say this, you know I'm thinking like you did this on your own, like you weren't with a therapist or a coach or a facilitator, like having this experience caused you to reflect and, whether there was an answer to it or not, it brought all that up for you.
Michael Tierno:Yeah, and more over the years. I mean, I've done ayahuasca some 40 something times since then and every time it's a an eye-opener. Now the awarenesses aren't nearly as profound or as like. Um, it's always new things that I'm working on, cause I you know, the importance about working with these substances is the integration part, so you bring the awareness. I could have identified this and just gotten back to my regular life, right, and just just kind of dismiss the whole thing, and some people do do that. That's why, but myself, I really had a big effort to integrate it and I said, okay, well, let's just not drink and let's go into these social situations, you know, without the benefit of having a beer in me or something like that. And I was like, oh, practicing on that way of being, and before you knew it, it was like since there was no shame anymore, there was nothing to like be worried about, it was just much more easy.
Michael Tierno:But, um, yeah, and it sounds like, over time, that your commitment to this process is just like peeling away the layers you know each time it sounds like exactly right, and I'm also not a uh fan of um folks who are just going to the which is very rare but it does happen where people are coming to the experience to have the experience versus like we're just a trip yeah, yeah, or just a trip.
Michael Tierno:You know, it's like what many of us have done in college, without like an intentional, sort of self-transformational, uh, intention of like trying to figure out, solve some, some key issues of life. So that's why intention is very important. So what, what am I doing this journey for? Is it for this or for that? Or I'm feeling this way, or I'm anxious, or I'm depressed, or all these kind of stuff. And to go to your question, or like implied question about not, you know, doing it with a therapist? I do have a therapist. I've seen, I've been part of a men's group for many years, so I've been doing a lot of self work, but the key, like boom moments of clarity have always come from me in these, in these States, because we're trapped in the maze of ego all the time.
Bill Simpson:Right, oh yeah, all the time and.
Michael Tierno:All this stuff, we're just trapped.
Bill Simpson:Yeah, and I can see having that experience, having that reflection of your own, and then bringing that to a therapist or someone else to process. Absolutely, the combination of that sounds like it would be really effective.
Michael Tierno:Yes, it is.
Bill Simpson:I think it's a great program and part of the work, whether it's a therapist or not a therapist or even a friend, but just taking that time and somebody who knows how to kind of unpack and make sense of the experiences and helps you make sense of the experience is very, very important. So all these experiences you've had with ayahuasca, you've developed this organization called Men of Integrity. Tell us your path to get there.
Michael Tierno:Sure, it was a very organic path. I came to this project with co-founder Yoni Havana, who's a very, very, very dear friend, and so this is also a crazy path of having something to do with psychedelics. So I go into ceremony here in California, a group like 30 people in this room right now. My intention here is to connect more deeply with men. I didn't have a lot of male friends that I was close to at the time, and so I take the medicine.
Michael Tierno:I'm sitting down there and it just tells me to go to my gym noon on Monday and I'm like well, that's very strange. I used to go to this noon class and I had to kind of like a community there, but he just said go on noon on Monday, just go. So I had I had been going to the gym at 8.00 AM, so I show up at noon. A couple of things happened there that were very synchronistic, but one of them was that my friend Yoni showed up there out of six months, out of the blue. Just remember that I've taken ayahuasca. I had an ayahuasca experience the Saturday before. So I talked to Yoni's there and he's like hey, I haven't seen you in so long and like what's going on?
Bill Simpson:And he had no idea that you were going to be there.
Michael Tierno:No idea that I was going to be there. He just showed up to drop in because he had left the gym and he tells me get ready to trip out. He tells me hey, you know I'm I'm starting a podcast club for men. We're going to listen to a podcast and then we're going to meet up, have breakfast and discuss the podcast, kind of like a book club. Cool, would you like to come? It's this following Saturday, exactly one week, and I'm like oh, that sounds great, like super cool group of men, like how could this be? What's the podcast about? He says Ayahuasca. Have you heard about it?
Bill Simpson:Oh my God, Wow man.
Michael Tierno:So I go to this podcast club on Saturday and of course it's about Ayahuasca, which basically had directed me to show up here in this kind of weird way, and of course I'm holding court because I'm the only one that has done it. There's, like I don't know, like 12 guys around the circle and they're all asking me all this stuff and of course everybody wants to go to peru and like let's go to peru. So I end up going to peru with uh, with the oni and another guy, and um, and we go there, we have a great experience. And then, working on this stuff, um, we came up with and we don't serve ayahuasca here in the united states, just to be super clear. But um, right, but um, we started experimenting with some uh, with some protocols and some some things with ourselves, with a small group of friends and and out of that blossomed men of integrity, which is a retreat. You might think of it as like a rite of passage for men, since it's something that's missing from our lives in this Western society, and now it's a group of some 40-something guys.
Michael Tierno:What we do is, when someone goes to the retreat, it's a very profound four-day retreat, a whole bunch of different activities, not a lot of free time. We work on all aspects of self. It's very vulnerability enhancing. I guess you would say it's a very safe, nonjudgmental space of curiosity and growth that involve, uh, expanded states or some sort of other programming. Is that there's not a lot of follow-up afterwards in terms of like you have the experience like, for example, in peru, you had to go to the retreat and you come back and you're kind of left to your own devices, therapist or something like that.
Michael Tierno:Right, but one of the big key things is that we have a very strong community of guys that have all gone through the program and support each other. And you know, twice a month we have zoom calls with, you know, 15 folks on the line talking about what's going on in their lives, if someone needs support, all that kind of stuff and what they're working on. And there's a couple of fasting challenges. There's right now we're in the middle of a connection challenge where everybody who wants to participate has to call or be called by a total of four people. You know, have a vulnerable, open-hearted conversation with person for at least an hour. I asked Ayahuasca for giving me a group of male friends and a few years later look what happened Boom yeah.
Bill Simpson:Wow, man, I mean, I'm sitting there listening to you and I'm like that sounds awesome, I mean, and to have that support is so crucial. You know you could, yeah, you could have your experience, and then who knows what would happen after that.
Michael Tierno:Maybe you get support, maybe you don't, but to have that deliberate support, I think would make all the difference the meaning crisis right now that people are talking about, and the crisis of men right now, with men are feeling isolated and whatnot, and I think this is a really powerful, powerful opportunity for men to feel that there's more to life, especially in the second half of life.
Bill Simpson:Yeah, well, and that's part of my love mission here is to help support men, because we need it desperately, and it sounds like we're certainly on the same path in that regard. So how does your work relate to men? Because, as a relationship coach and doing Men on the Path to Love, how does this relate to men in relationship with your group? Oh, absolutely.
Michael Tierno:I mean, one of the key things that we were working on on the retreats that I work with clients on 101 is how to be in better relationship with our female partners.
Michael Tierno:So that's sort of one of my specialties, right, we're talking about that, and so, of course, each person's what their contribution is to their relationship, whatnot, is unique, right, so it's always kind of customized to what they're going through.
Michael Tierno:I mean, I have a model that I explain which is, um, really embodying the masculine to contain the feminine in our partners, and that means, like, being really there for them so that they can feel safe and can trust the masculine person, the more masculine person, because absolutely, yeah, right, capacities are in both of us right now, you know, like caveat, which is true, and another part of the of the retreat is to be able to, as men, be able to access our vulnerable parts so that our our partners can, like, really understand what's going on with us. And that fosters trust because, without the fear of, like having to be closed off and keeping it together and stressed out you know, having heart issues because you're so wound up and tightened up to really soften and be able to be that safe space for each other is one of the things. That kind of operate on.
Michael Tierno:Yeah, it's so important to have that safety in order for us to be vulnerable, to feel safe, to do that and then also having our partners feel safe within our vulnerability who's going to be there, or you know, they've met us, we've done the intake for them coming and whatnot, and they show up, you know, arms crossed, tightened up, and immediately after we do the first ceremony, which is a gratitude and intention ceremony, and people are vulnerable, there's tears and stuff like that, and they've realized, oh, this is a different space where I don't have to like, show up in a hard way and then, over the course of the four days, they're both modeled modeled to how to be vulnerable and how to feel safe in their own skin that way, and also through the relationship sort of workshop and discussing the relationship, things like where they're striking out in terms of how they can be better in relationship. There's a lot and it's specific to each guy.
Bill Simpson:Well, michael, you're doing some great work. Man, I love hearing what you're saying. If there's a lot and it's specific to each guy, well, michael, you're doing some great work. Man, I love hearing what you're saying. If there's a guy out here that is resonating with what you're saying and wants to be a part of Men of Integrity, how would they go about doing that?
Michael Tierno:Well, you can check us out at moicommunity that's the Men of Integrity website or you could see my website. I have a few other programs, including one-on-one stuff that I work with guys and women for, which is micheltiernoguidecom, and if you're interested in trying ayahuasca in Peru, you could go to heartsanctuaryretreatscom. Both of those things will get you plugged in some transformational work that I'm affiliated with.
Bill Simpson:Awesome. Well, I'll make sure all those, all the contact links, are in the show notes so folks will have a chance to go there Before we wrap up. Michael, any last words you'd like to share with us before we head out?
Michael Tierno:Just that. I hope that the men of the world can really find the space within them to be able to express ourselves in an open-hearted way more as we move forward in this world, because life just becomes a lot more easier when you are able to connect with all aspects of being, rather than just trying to have to show up always as a kind of hard person. So that's what I would say.
Bill Simpson:Well, some good words to live by man, and let's hope so. Let's keep the dream alive, all so. Let's keep the dream alive, all right, let's keep the dream alive. It's happening. It's happening, all right, michael. We'll keep on doing the great work you're doing. Thanks so much for being on Men on the Path to Love. We'll talk again, hopefully. Thank you, take care, and that's it for this bonus of the Men on the Path to Love podcast. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. Thanks for listening and thanks again to my guest, michael Ternow. As I mentioned, you can find Michael's contact information in the show notes if you want to know more or have any questions for him. If you'd like to contact me, you can do so in the show notes or you can visit my website at menonthepathtolovecom. Thanks again for listening to this bonus episode. Until next time, keep your heart open and stay on the path to love.