Why Your Triggers Are Actually Trying to Heal You

In this episode of The Inner Trip, I take you behind the scenes of a deeply transformational moment from my recent Mexico retreat and share what psychedelic retreats are actually designed to do. This episode is a deeper look into what actually makes psychedelic retreats transformative. It is not just the ceremony, the luxury experience, or the medicine itself. It is the integration, the ability to hold space for difficult emotions without becoming defensive, and the willingness to take radical responsibility for your own inner world.

We explore how triggers are rarely about the thing happening in the present moment and are usually connected to deeper emotional patterns, childhood conditioning, and protective identities we have built over time. 

For this week’s integration, the next time you feel triggered, pause before reacting and ask yourself what this situation is bringing up inside of you. What deeper story, fear, or childhood pattern might actually be underneath the reaction? Triggers are often doors into healing if you are willing to walk through them instead of shutting them down.

Share this episode with a friend who is doing deep emotional work or navigating relationship triggers. Make sure you are following the show so you never miss a dose. Until next time, trust yourself, follow your intuition, and keep asking, how good can it get?

Sign up for the waitlist for the August round of Limitless Woman here: https://www.juliecyvonne.com/limitless-woman-waitlist

2026 Retreats are filling fast! Check out all the dates & locations here: https://www.juliecyvonne.com/retreats-and-ceremonies
Or fill out the application form here!

Website: https://www.juliecyvonne.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliecyvonne
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@juliecyvonne

Curious whether micro-dosing is your next best step?
Take this quick quiz to find out! Discover Whether Micro-Dosing is Right for You

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi kittens, I'm Julie Savone, psychedelic facilitator, integration expert, and your guide for this wild ride, The Inner Trip. 365 days with plant medicine. I've helped hundreds of people use plant medicine, primarily psilocybin, to heal, expand, and step into their next level. But this year I'm taking it even deeper. For the next 365 days, I'm bringing you with me. I'll be microdosing, journeying, integrating, and exploring what it really means to live a limitless life with plant medicine as a tool, not a crutch. So if you're ready to feel more alive, more clear, more limitless, and you're down to do it with mushrooms and a little bit of sass, you're in the right place. Let's take the inner trip. Kitten! I just got back from my retreat, like literally yesterday, my Mexico retreat, my first single national retreat, my retreat, testing out my new formula, but with other women, and there's so much to share about this retreat. I could seriously record like an audiobook about it. But today, my intention is to share a really specific moment from that retreat because it is going to signal to you. For those of you wondering, am I ready for this? Do I want this? Is this for me? It's going to signal to you whether that is a yes or no, and also show a side of the retreat. I know people understand, like, hey, I'm coming to have a psychedelic experience, but a side of the retreat that it's much more than just, and from what you've seen on Instagram, right? Because I did show a lot on Instagram, it was a beautiful compound where we had private casitas and a staff and like a chef plated meal every single meal. And uh we went to the beach and had an amazing, literally the best view ever, amazing lunch. We could not, I could not have paid to get a better view. It was so cool, it was on a cliff overlooking the beach. And then we went down to the beach and we had a Temescal and like there's so many things, right, that people were showing from the experience, and it was that, and when we think of retreats, we usually think of these beautiful, maybe bougie experiences, right? But then it is also so much more than that, and what the potential to really do with these experiences is. Okay, so I wanted to share this specific story, the specific experience with you. And if you're like, oh, I just want to see more about the the beautiful place that they stayed and and how amazing it was, then awesome, go check out my Instagram, that's there as well. As you know, if you've listened to this podcast before, if you didn't, hi, I'm Julie, your resident psychedelic facilitator, ex-attorney, and my international retreats are more than just mushies because you may know me as a mushroom girl, they're also LSD. And the LSD day is very different because LSD is a very different experience, it's a different compound and it's much more energizing, it's more communicative, and on the journey up for the ladies, I'm facilitating my holding space. I'm not tripping with them, but I am with them obviously as like I like to say sort of a guardian, making sure that the experience is going well, that they're safe, that they have everything they need, um, holding space for them in the process, although holding space in the integration period is way more important, which becomes obvious later in this episode. But during the come up on that day, this woman asked me a question, something around like, who do you do psychedelics with? Not like in a facilitated way, because I have facilitators, I like to um have hold space for me when I have a facilitated journey, but she more means more like if I'm gonna do this recreationally, because I've talked about recreational use before. I don't think recreational use is bad. I think it can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, if you aren't controlling for set or setting set and setting, if you're not knowledgeable about dosage and your body. Like, I think there's a lot of ways for it to go wrong, but I don't think it's bad. I know people who participated in it safely and funly. I participated in it safely and with fun, right? So she's asking that question like who do who would you do it with? And I'll be honest, like I told her I don't really like to do with other people for several reasons. There's one person that I'll do it with, um, who I've had experiences with before. Uh, but other than that, I'm a big alone person. And we're continuing the conversation, and as we continue the conversation, uh I kind of keep talking, elaborating on my answer, and I say something like, you know, I don't want to be, I'm a facilitator, so I don't want to be around someone who's like, you know, has taken too much and loses their shit or doesn't know their own body. Cause like in my mind, her question is also about like, we're going to see a show at the sphere in Las Vegas, right? Or we're somewhere out and about, and I make this comparison. Like, I don't also don't want to go out like to the bar and and you know have a drink with someone who can't hold it a linker, like the girl who ends up crying in the bathroom, inshallah. And so another one of the girls kind of hears me talking at this point, and then she asked the girl, what did what's this conversation about? And the girl responds to her, Oh, I asked Julie like who she does this with in like a recreational sense. And that was kind of the whole moment. It was a question that was asked. I answered it, I gave my honest answer. Um, my true, like the first part, the most important part to me was like, I uh like to be alone. That's just my personal preference. For me, it is a very inward experience, regardless of whether it's LSD or mushrooms or whatever. And I'm very careful about who I want to be around because again, I know the importance of set and setting. I did elaborate a little bit into like, I don't want to feel like when I'm off, I don't want to feel like I'm around people who can't be like, you know, can't control themselves and stay, say with it and stay with the medicine. Like I know things happen, but in general, I'm not gonna be with that person who it's kind of like they always take too much. You guys all know what I'm talking about. We all have that friend, right? Who like she knows, doesn't know her limit. She ends up with one too many drinks. And I don't mean like once or even once in a while. I mean this is her pattern, right? The drama queen in the relationship. And she we all go about our journey, we all go about our day. And the woman who heard the conversation was having a more difficult trip. She she was in pain physically. Um, and this was some stuff that we identified because of a hole, the reason it wasn't because of the LSD, right? She was in some pain. Um, and she was like, it was a diff more difficult experience with her, but like she was being fine. I mean, she could have totally not been fine, right? Because that's the experience, like you're you have invested in having a facilitator, so you couldn't totally not be fine. And like I would have held it down for her because that's my job as an as a um as a facilitator, but she wasn't acting out in any way. She was she was totally neutral. Um and I say this because the next day when we go into integration session, we have like a group integration exercise and like breakout room in the in the morning, and then in the afternoon, everyone decided everyone got to have their own session. Um, I thought that was just the best so we could work on one thing in in particular. And so we're in the integration session one-on-one with this girl who hears the conversation later or in the middle, right? Um, she brings it up to me. She says, When you said that, it triggered the fuck out of me. And I started reeling. I knew that you weren't talking about me. And that's what's really important in this conversation because this con this whole interaction would not have been able to have been had or would not have gotten to such a positive place if she was not someone who was willing to take radical responsibility and realize everyone's shit is about them. Nothing I say is about anyone else ultimately, it's about me, right? Like if you really want to dissect this, when I say I don't want to be with people who are like losing their shit while I'm trying to like enjoy my psychedelic journey. What I'm really saying is I feel a sense of responsibility toward other people, whether or not it is real, in the sense of me being a facilitator, it is real. But in like a social interaction, it isn't real, right? I mean, we all have like, I think we have a friendship obligation, but it's like not my job to rescue anyone. What I'm really saying is I have a people-pleasing tendency where if someone was having a bad time, I would take on the responsibility. It would not be real. It would be imagined in my head of trying to guide them to the other side of a difficult experience. And I wouldn't allow myself to keep enjoying my experience because I would feel responsible for navigating theirs. Okay? That's what I'm really saying. Oh, someone's annoying me because they're having too much of a trip and then it's ruining my trip. No, no, no, no, no. Nothing can annoy you without your consent. If I'm gonna take radical responsibility over my response to her question, I have to acknowledge that. Like, it is not, it's not a math equation that if someone has a bad trip next to you or in your group that you're gonna have a bad trip. I have to acknowledge that I would be the one creating that bad trip for myself in response to someone else's experience because I have caretaking tendencies, okay? So we both had a level of radical responsibility in the conversation. It's really important to note that, like, I did not rush to apologize to her either. She brought it up and I she brought up and said, When you said that it really triggered me, and I was like, Okay, tell me more. And she explained her experience. She acknowledged that I was not talking about her. She says, I know that you needed to bring, like, I needed to hear this, it needed to be said. She didn't also didn't have the context of the conversation where I said I wanted it to be like, I'd like to be alone, right? Which we all kind of hashed out. But she said, I heard it about me, and I have this thing where like I always worry that I'm too much for people. And she had to go down that road of realizing she masks and she pretends, and she was really cool, is where we got to, because I told you, like, she wasn't in any way like outwardly doing anything. I knew she was having a difficult trip. We had talked about it. I knew she was in pain, we had talked about that, but she wasn't like performative in any way. Even if she had been crying, I don't think crying is performative, but she wasn't loud or annoying or anything. But she has this thing where she feels like she does perform, and she is the loud one, like at the bar with her friends or whatever, right? And when we got to the end of it, she said the the version of me that is loud and is taking up space and is performative. That version isn't even really me, anyway. That is the version of me who didn't get any attention as a child because her mom had her own problems, her own issues. And the only way to get attention was by being like super big and super, you know, needy and all these other things. And she was like, that's not even me. The me who is really me is like this calm person who um, you know, isn't really loud and doesn't feel the need to compete and blah blah blah blah blah. She had this whole huge breakthrough around how she doesn't feel safe to really be herself and how this like loud performative version of her is a mask. And we really got down the road here. And what's so cool is she wouldn't have been able to get there unless I triggered the fuck out of her. Okay? The trigger was so necessary. The trigger wasn't a problem. The trigger was actually a door. All triggers are doors if you actually take a second to open them, okay? What matters is on the other side of the door. And what's on the other side of the door, I'll also say requires a container that's safe enough to walk through it because that's what a retreat is. That's what integration is. And without the support structure, without the coaching, without my ability to hold her telling me you triggered me, it does not become a breakthrough. All right. And I know we think like retreat and we think these fun, bougie experiences, and you see the people posting things from my retreat on Instagram, and it's like, yeah, it is beautiful, but it's so much more than that. I love a yoga retreat. I've gone to many of them. I do think the practice of yoga is transformative. I do think movement is transformative, but this isn't like a fun trip. What people are investing in when they come on my retreats is someone who has the capacity to hold you when the door opens, when the trigger happens, and who isn't going to black away, who's not going to overapologize, who's not gonna make it about myself because I could have really easily made this about myself and been defensive and like, you didn't hear me right. That's not what I said, that's not what I meant. Like, I could have gotten super defensive in that moment, but instead I heard her and I held the space and I asked her to keep talking and I knew that it wasn't about me, and I was able to walk through her in that experience. And that here's the thing, I didn't say this either. At the end of the retreat, she said to me, You have such a big capacity. And I know that's not something that you were just born with. Like, I know that's something that you you trained to, that you have so much personal experience and that you have cultivated a real skill in because no one has that innate ability to have that large of a capacity. She reflected me this back to me at the end of the road treat, and she was like, It is so beautiful. I know you worked really hard to do it. I know you've invested a lot to create that space. A lot of people are out there facilitating different things, not even plant medicine, just coaching, or I'll be honest, some therapists who don't really have that space. And it's just like one person gets triggered and then the person gets triggered in response to the trigger and it becomes this defensive like tet. That's not what real work is. Real work is someone to be able to stay in their own sense of equanimity and center in the middle of you getting triggered, not being triggered in return, and helping you process the trigger. And that's also why there's this month of support afterwards, right? It's not just the retreat, it's not just integration day through retreat. It's three integration calls post-retreat. It's a text chat so that we can actually pull the thread all the way through so that I can keep reminding this woman hey, like remember real you. Remember the you that is soft, that goes with the flow. Maybe not goes with the flow, because that can sound people pleasing, but she's she's softer, right? She's quieter, she doesn't need to speak over people, she doesn't need to perform or compete with other people. And now that she has this reminder, right? She's going to be able to hold that. She's going to be able to stay with that more. And by the end of it, you know, she we had totally walked through this process and gotten to the point of it was never about feeling like she was too much. It was about that the too much was never really her, and that she started the too much in order to um protect herself and get more attention because attention wasn't given, blah, blah, blah. We got to the point of really honoring her and how much work she has done on herself because I will say it takes a level of real radical responsibility in order to say, hey, you said this thing, it really hurt my feelings, and I know that this is a me problem, not a human problem. That takes a lot. It takes a real level of radical responsibility to be able to acknowledge that. So if you're someone who feels like you can take that level of radical responsibility, if you're someone who does get triggered and wonder like the deeper question of like, what is this bringing up in me? What is this showing in me, instead of like shifting blame to the other person, if you're someone who is open to feedback as well, right? Because this is a confrontational process. If you're someone who wants to meet yourself at the deepest level, this is this is what the retreat space is for in my world. If that's not you, awesome. Go on a super fun retreat. I love that for you. Seriously, like there's a retreat that I think I'm gonna go on in Egypt next year or this year, I guess, at the end of the year. That's just fun. It's just for travel, it's just for experiences and adventures. I don't say just, like, I know those things are very transformative in and of themselves, but my retreats are specifically designed for the deepest level of transformation, for that deep, deep mirror to be held up to you, reflected back to you, so that you can see it all and you can choose what you are willing and able to alchemize and transform. So if you've been curious about what my retreats are like, if you wonder whether or you are ready, this is what ready looks like. Okay. This one, this also is this woman's second retreat. I'll say that. So she's like at a little bit of a different level in it as well. She's microdosed with me before. Um, it's really not about having everything figured out, right? Or it's not about like feeling like, oh, you know, I'm perfectly healed and well because no one is, but it's about being willing to open the door to your trigger and walk through it instead of slamming it shot, getting defensive, and blaming the trigger on everyone else or anyone else, right? Um, so that's my invitation to you. You can check out more about my retreats in the show notes. Um, you could apply for retreats there, see the remaining dates for 2026. I won't be announcing 2027 dates until November. But in the meantime, my integration for you this week. Oh, I had the perfect one. My integration for you this week is to the next time you're triggered to really sit with it and ask, like, what is this bringing up in me? What is this showing me about myself? Because we could say, like, even in my response of like, I don't like to do psychedelics with other people in a recreational setting because I don't want to deal with the people who can't hold themselves. We saw that even though that might not be like a trigger, like I wasn't super mad about it or heated up when I answered, it was a judgment that I was making, and we peeled back the judgment. And what we got to the end was that I have people pleasing tendencies and like overhelping tendencies, and that like I have a hard time maintaining my own boundary, even when it's not my job to be a facilitator, right? So that's my own shit. When we think about like what's another good example of a trigger, right? Oh, I have a great one. My friend called me yesterday with something, and she said it's really triggering what this guy she's dating is doing right now, and she was explaining to me, and I had to be like, hey, babe, I don't think this is about this guy. I think it's about the ways that this guy is a lot like your brother and a lot like your dad. And I think what's actually triggering to you is him showing you something that you experienced as a child, and she's like, Oh my god, you're right. She's also beating herself up, like, why do I care so much about this guy? We've only been dating a few months. Because it's not about the guy. Most of the stuff isn't about the guy or the girl in this case, because I triggered her. It is not my friend, this girl at the retreat. Who's also my friend? Whatever. It's honestly usually something that happens in childhood. So think about it. The next time you get triggered, what is this bringing up in me? I doubt that it's really about the thing that you think it's about. It's always something deeper. So that's my integration moment for you. I love you so much, Kit, and I hope you have an awesome week, and we'll talk soon. That's the end of today's trip. But remember, the real magic has always been inside of you. If this episode landed, send it to a friend who's ready to step into their next level. And make sure you're following the show so you never miss a dose. I'll be back again soon with another day on the path to your most limitless life. And until then, trust yourself, follow your intuition, and keep asking: how good can it get?