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This episode is a companion audio diary to my interview with Ted Riskin, recorded while participating in one of his five-day Internal Family Systems (IFS) ketamine-assisted group retreats in Asheville, North Carolina. Over the course of the retreat, I recorded stream-of-consciousness reflections into my iPhone each day as I moved through group process, ketamine journeys, hikes in the mountains, and conversations about healing, anger, meaning, and inner balance.

This episode is more personal and less structured than my usual interviews. Part field journal, part psychological exploration, it captures what it feels like to enter one of these increasingly popular healing environments.

Timestamps

0:00 - Audio Diary Retreat Setup
1:55 - Meeting The Group And The Method
4:19 - Setting Intentions For Inner Balance
5:16 - First Ketamine Journey And Comeback
10:32 - Integration Plus Hikes And Workday
13:14 - Anger Work And Nature Reset
15:14 - Lower Dose Insights And Next Steps

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Developing Meaning is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and is NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY INSTITUTIONS.

Theme music by The Thrashing Skumz. Developing Meaning is produced by Consilient Mind LLC.

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In this episode, I sit down with Ted Riskin — social worker, IFS expert, and pioneer of group ketamine retreats — after spending a week at his beautiful home in Asheville, North Carolina participating in one of his experiences. From his unusual path as a computer programmer living in an Ashram to becoming one of the leading voices in ketamine-assisted IFS group therapy, we explore how to work with protectors, why anger deserves more respect than our culture gives it, and how group healing unlocks something individual therapy often can't reach. Plus: why meaning isn't something you find — it's something you create.

In this episode

• What exiles and protectors are and how they shape our inner world
• Why healing means becoming whole — and how IFS gets you there
• From computer programming to debugging the psyche
• How breathwork and non-ordinary states bypass the thinking brain
• Anger as a healthy boundary-setting force — and why suppressing it breeds judgment
• The three ways to work with a protector: push, invite, or pick up the cat
• Why ketamine works like holotropic breathwork — and why Ted combined it with groups
• How group healing reaches wounds that one-on-one therapy often misses
• Outcomes data: what actually changes after a group ketamine IFS retreat
• Meaning as something you generate — not something you find

Timestamps

3:42 - Meeting Ted And His Setting
5:35 - Self Energy And Finding Balance
8:20 - Exiles Protectors And Healing Wholeness
14:00 - From Programmer To Therapist
19:35 - Breathwork And Non Ordinary States
27:43 - Core Energetics And Working With Anger
36:18 - Discovering IFS Through Hypnosis
42:26 - Ketamine As A Path Past Protectors
47:15 - Building The Group Ketamine Model
52:31 - Outcomes Data And What Changes Last
53:49 - Meaning Connection And Modern Life
57:00 - Creating Meaning From A Blank Slate
59:52 - Rapid Fire Questions And Art
1:03:58 - A Depolarizing Message And Where To Find Ted
1:07:06 - What Comes Next On The Podcast

Subscribe to the Developing Meaning Substack newsletter: https://developingmeaning.substack.com/subscribe

Developing Meaning is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and is NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY INSTITUTIONS.

Theme music by The Thrashing Skumz. Developing Meaning is produced by Consilient Mind LLC.

Send us Fan Mail

Note: This conversation with Dr. Patricia Gerbarg was recorded in August 2025.

In this episode, we explore how breathing patterns reshape the emotional brain, restore a sense of safety, and allow meaning to return to daily life with Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, co-creator of the Breath-Body-Mind program.

From her personal development as a healer to co-creating a global healing community active in trauma hotspots like Ukraine and Rwanda, we explore the science, stories, and practical tools that help people regulate their nervous systems and reconnect with meaning.

In this episode

• Meaning as state-dependent and grounded in safety
• What Breath Body Mind is and why safety comes first
• How vagus nerve signaling links breathing to emotion
• Why talk therapy alone often cannot reach stored trauma
• The sequence: focus → movement → muscle softening → coherent breathing
• Evidence from 9/11 survivors, veterans, schools, and IBD patients
• Programs in Ukraine supporting clinicians, children, and communities
• Rwanda’s community model blending breath, ritual, and narrative
• Restoring connection, agency, and love through breath practices
• How to start with short, safe practices and build consistency

Timestamps

0:14 – Opening Teaser: Breath and Meaning
1:42 – Host’s Mission and Series Kickoff
2:39 – Introducing Dr. Patricia Gerbarg
3:48 – Why Breath Body Mind Exists
7:31 – Global Growth and Going Online
12:18 – Scope, Impact, and Ukraine Programs
16:24 – From Psychoanalysis to Mass Healing
20:31 – A Child’s Panic to Schoolwide Resilience
24:20 – Gerbarg’s Public Speaking Breakthrough
28:18 – Early Life and Path to Psychiatry
36:58 – Discovering Breath After Illness
41:04 – How Breathing Shapes Emotion
47:14 – Publishing the Vagal Theory
52:59 – Using Breath Clinically for Trauma
59:22 – Building a Safe, Effective Sequence
1:03:24 – Focus, Agency, and the Ha Breath
1:06:07 – Coherent Breathing as the Foundation
1:11:47 – Evidence From 9/11 to Schools
1:16:47 – Inflammatory Bowel Disease Trial
1:22:00 – Why Breakthroughs Lack Headlines
1:27:04 – Real-World Results in Irish Schools
1:30:48 – Rwanda’s Community Healing Model
1:37:18 – Perpetrators, Forgiveness, Reintegration
1:42:49 – Meaning as Connectedness
1:47:44 – Rapid-Fire: Love, Art, and Advice

Subscribe to the Developing Meaning Substack newsletter:

https://developingmeaning.substack.com/subscribe

Developing Meaning is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and is NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY INSTITUTIONS.

Theme music by The Thrashing Skumz.
Developing Meaning is produced by Consilient Mind LLC.