Episode 91

full
Published on:

14th Dec 2025

From Pills to Plant Power: Honey’s 60-Year Exit from Survival Mode

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Honey shares how she spent most of her life in chronic survival mode—anxious, exhausted, over-medicated, and completely disconnected from her own needs. From growing up in the 50s and 60s under a picture-perfect version of patriarchy, to battling menopause, chronic pain, brain fog, and a cabinet full of prescriptions, Honey’s story is a brutal mirror for what so many women silently live through. Everything shifts when, in her 60s, one introduction to cannabis becomes the catalyst for reclaiming her body, her clarity, and her life. We talk about trauma, nervous system overload, plant medicine, medical gaslighting, and the power of women healing together. This is not a “go smoke weed, it’ll fix you” conversation. This is about options, sovereignty, and refusing to let a broken system dictate the rest of your story.

🧠 What We Talk About

  • What survival mode looked like for Honey: decades of anxiety she didn’t even know she had
  • Growing up as a woman in the 50s–80s: pearls, patriarchy, and zero real education about women’s bodies
  • The “doctor dance”: prescriptions on top of prescriptions, side effects, and feeling like a stranger in your own skin
  • Menopause, chronic fatigue, neuropathy, brain fog and the perfect womanly storm
  • The moment her body told her, “If you don’t change something, you’re going to die”
  • How one experience with cannabis opened a door to relief, curiosity, and research
  • The history, propaganda, and politics around cannabis and why women were never meant to win in that system
  • Cannabis as a potential tool for nervous system support, pain relief, and mental quiet—not a cure, not a replacement for medical care
  • The importance of women choosing mentors, communities, and inputs that regulate them instead of retraumatizing them
  • Why Honey stopped consuming news and fear-based media and how that impacted her nervous system and mental health


🗝️ Key Takeaways

“I didn’t even know I was anxious. I just thought that was my personality.”
“I spent decades living in fight-or-flight and calling it ‘being strong.’”
“Don’t believe everything you think—your thoughts are not always telling you the truth.”
“You’re not broken. You’ve just been surviving in systems that were never built for you.”


🔗 Connect with Honey

  • 🌐 Website & Free PDF: Cannabis Recovery Kit – HealingBeyondHigh.com
  • 📖 Book: Healing Beyond High: Cannabis Truth – available on Amazon
  • 🎙️ Podcast: Cannabis Truth – conversations with doctors, scientists, and advocates in the cannabis space


Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

Support Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis

A huge thank you to our supporters, it means a lot that you support our podcast.

If you like the podcast and want to support it, too, you can leave us a tip using the button below. We really appreciate it and it only takes a moment!
Support Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis
A
We haven’t had any Tips yet :( Maybe you could be the first!

Listen for free

Show artwork for Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis

About the Podcast

Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis
Disruptive Unapologetic Conversations about Survival Mode
Survival Mode Disrupted is not just a podcast. It's a rebellion.

A raw, unfiltered space where we finally stop pretending we're fine and start telling the truth—the truth about the trauma we've carried, the identities they had to wear to survive, and the radical decisions we made to break free.

Because here's the deal: survival mode isn’t just a season. It’s a damn identity. One that so many were forced to adopt just to get through life, to stay safe, to stay needed, to stay sane. But eventually, it starts costing you more than it protects. Your peace. Your purpose. Your power.

This podcast is for the disruptors—the people who were told to stay small, stay silent, stay grateful for crumbs… and said “hell no.”

Hosted by Leticia, The Survival Mode Disruptor herself—a trauma recovery mentor, speaker, and woman who has lived through the fires of abuse, betrayal, and breakdown and still chose to rise—this show dives deep into the unapologetic exits from survival mode that no one talks about.

You’ll hear from women (and a few brave men) who walked away from toxic relationships, soul-sucking careers, generational dysfunction, religious trauma, cultural expectations, and the lies they were taught to believe about themselves. Not because it was easy—but because staying would’ve killed something sacred inside of them.

These are the stories of bold pivots, quiet courage, and messy but miraculous rebirths.

Each episode is a conversation—a disruption—meant to wake something up in you. Whether it’s a guest sharing the moment they chose themselves for the first time, or Leticia dropping a truth bomb that makes you question everything you’ve normalized, this podcast is here to shake the foundation of your survival mode identity and replace it with something truer. Something freer.

We’re not here for surface-level self-care tips or fake empowerment slogans.

We’re here to talk about what it really takes to:

Reclaim your voice after being silenced.

Reinvent yourself after being broken down.

Rewrite your story when everyone else wants you to stay the same.

Release the guilt of choosing YOU.

This is for those who are done performing. Done pleasing. Done pretending.

It’s for the ones ready to exit survival mode—not slowly, not quietly, but disruptively and unapologetically.

You won’t leave this podcast the same.
You’ll cry. You’ll rage. You’ll laugh.
You’ll see yourself in every story.
And more importantly, you’ll remember who the hell you are.

Welcome to Survival Mode Disrupted.
It’s not just a podcast.
It’s a movement.
And your exit begins here.

Support This Show

About your host

Profile picture for Leticia Francis

Leticia Francis

I am not here to inspire you—I am here to activate you.

As a Survivor, Keynote Speaker, and Trauma Recovery Mentor, I know what it’s like to fight battles no one sees. I also know that breaking free is possible. My work is about disrupting survival mode, exposing trauma-driven success cycles, and giving women the blueprint to reclaim their lives.

🔹 200+ podcast features & speaking engagements
🔹 Global Women of Choice Award Winner 2022
🔹 Creator of the Survival Mode Exit Plan
🔹 Host of Survival Mode Disrupted Podcast