About
The Journey
I created Awakened Journey in 2025 shortly after I retired from the Glendale Fire Department in Arizona. It was not something that I had been planning for a longtime, but now I can see how my whole life brought me into this healing space to share in my experiences and help others.
I was born and raised in Pheonix Arizona. I lost my dad to a massive heart attack when I was 6 years old. My mom was a teacher and for a while it was just her and I working hard to enjoy what we could. She remarried when I was 11. While being a hard-headed ambitious teenager made it hard for me to see at the time, he was a great addition to our new family dynamic.
After high school I had one mission, find a job on a fire department. Like my father had needed help on the day he died, I wanted to help those in need. Maybe I could save that life... a life like my father's. I worked various other jobs gaining useful skills but all while volunteering and studying for a career as a firefighter. In September of 2004, I was hired with the Glendale Fire Department.
Mark Herrmann
Journey Guide
Integrative & Life Coach
​In 2006 I met a woman that changed my life. My once plan of "forever bachelor" was challenged. I fell in love and soon could not picture a life without her. We got married in 2008, and after many years of trying and a round of IVF treatment, we welcomed twin boys, Owen and Gavin, into the world in early 2014. We were overjoyed! We were also a little overwhelmed. We doubted that we would have more children, but as luck would have it, we got a surprise later that year. One more boy! Luke was born in the summer of 2015.
​​Meanwhile my career with the fire department had been developing and taking up more and more time and attention. I was promoted to Engineer in 200, and shortly after the twins were born, I was promoted to Captain (2014). My career was full of experiences that truly helped shape me into the person that I am today. Some of those experiences are not ones that I would have chosen for myself but those in fact may have helped to shape and forced me to grow the most. None of this and its importance occurred to me until a situation in my personal life forced me to look inward.
In 2020 something changed. My family started going through a traumatic event. Suddenly the weight of the gravity of the situation seemed too heavy. Surely, I had seen countless families go through traumatic events, but I couldn't cope with it how I normally would... detaching feelings and emotion. Unsure of what to do, I opened up to my wife about how I was feeling, and she suggested I find a professional to talk to. After asking a couple trusted friends of the fire department I found a counselor. Having someone relay back to me what they saw in my actions, m feelings, and my daily life helped me to reflect. My eyes started to open to a new perspective. She helped me to discover the mental and emotional health world and its importance it needed to have throughout my life.
I dove into research and documentaries to try to widen my knowledge on the subject of mental health. I found several modalities and integrative practices that I slowly started to incorporate into my daily and weekly lifestyle. Ultimately, I had an experience in Sedona in 2022 that was simply life changing. It changed the way I looked at my life, the world, honestly everything. This newfound outlook was what was missing. It was what I needed to start building the balance and peace in life that I wanted so much. It became clear that the way I had been struggling through the situations in my life did not have to be the pattern that I am doomed to repeat.
I have had the privilege to look at life differently since then. I have been able to invite emotions and deeper self and social connection back into my life. But it also opened my eyes to how much all the trauma that I had been exposed to has affected me, not just mentally but physically too. I wanted to dive into all the past emotions that had been waiting for me, but unfortunately a new family trauma transpired. My newfound sense of "peace" began fading. Meanwhile I had been trying my best to use integrative practices in my daily life to help me cope. As I started to get to know people in this wellbeing space, I met someone that owner a ketamine clinic. After learning about the benefits of that psychedelic medicine, I decided to give it a try.
As the weeks progressed with treatment and integrative work, I noticed my life was changing. I was becoming more aware of my actions and reactions. I began forming more healthy habits in my everyday life as well as healthier reactions and emotions. My relationship with my wife became closer and more understanding with one another. My children and I communicated better, and our bond strengthened. I started to look at my life differently. My "dream" job as a firefighter started to lose the lure of excitement it once gave me and became a viewpoint into people's lives and society. I was allowing myself to be a part of my community and their pain and struggle had become something I was all too familiar with. My 20-year anniversary with the fire department was approaching and I was not just thinking about retirement, I started to plan for it.
While my first experience with Ketamine was not as impactful as my second, I still had a couple journeys that spawned profound thought and one with a specific vision. Not knowing what the image in my vision was, I decided to research it on the internet. The vision was of Mother Aya, the goddess associated with the psychedelic ayahuasca. When I looked up what this could mean I found it may be that she is calling you to experience the medicine ayahuasca. I was intrigued but had no idea how to go about finding a trusted retreat center or guide for ayahuasca. I decided that if it was something that needed to be in my path, the opportunities would present themselves. As fate would have it, or perhaps manifestation, about a month later a friend told me that he heard of an organization that offers scholarships for fire fighters to attend mental health psychedelic retreats. That lead me to Peru in 2024.
My experience in Peru was nothing short of amazing. I had the privilege of working with highly experienced local plant medicine guides. I spent 10 days with nine strangers sharing life's challenges and traumas. Being a part of that helped me to better understand the importance of community healing. Together we would harvest ingredients for the plant medicine ceremony from the land, and then most evenings a plant medicine ceremony took place and the other nights allowed us to rest and recover.
As my retirement date loomed closer, I began to really question what I saw myself doing outside of the fire department. I looked into teaching and training future firefighters. I looked into working for an ambulance company and even back to what I did before the fire department, construction. The thought of doing something on a daily basis that did not create a true passion within me felt mundane and unfulfilling. As I kept these thoughts in my head, I started getting people around me exited and curious about their own mental health. I found it fun and exciting to help others find more balance, understanding, and happiness in their life. I was honored when those I had helped let me know that what I did made a big difference in their lives. It all came together. This was my new passion.
Again, as fate would have it, but let's face it I was definitely manifesting some life synchronicities at this point, a friend introduced me to a doctor that owned a Ketamine assisted clinic in Scottsdale, Sandy Inderule with inLIGHTen Wellness. Sandy and I instantly felt called to work with one another. Since working more with Ketamine, my knowledge and respect for its ability to create powerful and positive changes to the brain has grown immensely. However, I am always learning and growing and trying to expand in my growth to the best of my abilities.
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