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Mind Medicine Australia

2.30: Dr Ian Gawler OAM

Season 2, Ep. 30

TW: Suicide


Dr Ian Gawler OAM joins Deb to discuss the profound impact of meditation on life’s challenges. They explore personal connections, silent retreats, and Ian’s health journey, including his battle with cancer and encounters with grief. Ian shares insights on death, dying, and the transformative potential of meditation. The conversation delves into the intersection of psychedelics, meditation, and mental well-being, highlighting the importance of open dialogue and evidence-based practice. Ian also discusses his work with Monash and Melbourne University’s contemplative studies, emphasising the role of meditation and social connection in fostering resilience and healing.


Your Host

Dr Deb Roberts, PhD is the Mind Medicine Australia Podcast host for Season 2 and has been a MMA volunteer, guides the weekly staff meditation, on the MMA Lived Experience Panel and has a life-long relationship with mental (ill) health yet been able to navigate a fulfilling existence through various means.

She is deeply passionate about conversations related to wellbeing. She uses her own lived experience as well as the reality of having two family members who ended their life seeing no treatment pathway forward. One was her older sister who tried countless medicine combinations, therapies and facilities over 30 years.


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Mind Medicine Australia exists to help alleviate the suffering and suicides caused by mental illness in Australia through expanding the treatment options available to medical practitioners and their patients. We will establish safe and effective psychedelic-assisted treatments to treat a range of mental illnesses.

In furtherance of this mission, The Mind Medicine Australia Podcast ‘Season 2’ aims to connect, listen and share the power of lived experience stories of mental health challenges and altered states that cultivate wellbeing and utilise the collective voices to inform research directions, policy and system change. This podcast will explore modalities including but not limited to altered states from the use of psychedelics, breath work, yoga, mindfulness, meditation, nutrition, sleep and exercise.


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Thank you for listening to the Mind Medicine Australia Podcast.


You can support Mind Medicine’s work by making a tax-deductible donation to us and more specifically you can support the Patient Support Fund. Your donation will support research, access and affordability for psychedelic medicine.


The information provided in this podcast is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional health care services including the giving of medical advice.


The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional and medical recommendation, diagnosis or treatment. The use of information in this podcast is at one’s own discretion and is not an endorsement of use given the complexity inherent in this medicine under the current viable widespread illegality of their usage.

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