Mike Zeller on Psychedelic Drug Therapy for Trauma

The body keeps the score. The body remembers. We gotta get it out of the body. All our behaviors, thoughts, feelings are a reflection, overflow, or downstream effect of our identity. We're not meant to be on all the time, but when we release what's been trapped, it's like your body is free and you're lighter and more powerful and more connected and more congruent. To be fully alive is to be fully human, and to be fully alive is to be fully powerful. We'll get to places you never could have gone in 10 years of deep work or even with Tony Robbins.

All right, welcome everybody to the updated format of the Practice Profit System. I am Matt Calogli, where we deconstruct amazing insights in medicine. And today it's a little bit of a different one. I figured I'd start with something really a little offbeat. We have Mike Zeller, otherwise known as the Z-Man, with me today. We'll talk about what that means. And so Mike, tell everybody what you do.

So, I'm a peak performance coach who specializes in rewiring the nervous system from trauma, PTSD to your best self. And, I use psychedelics, NLP, IFS, somatic experiencing, basically whatever tool is needed best to get to the deepest elements of your subconscious fast. So, I tell people, we'll get to places you never could have gone in 10 years of deep work or even with Tony Robbins. I did 2 years with Tony Robbins, gave him $250 grand. He's great. I love Tony. Changed my life in a lot of beautiful ways. But I can usually get to that same sort of result in about 5 hours.

So you just— that was like a lot that you just threw out there.

Yeah.

So we got to unpack a lot.

Okay.

All right. So let's talk about— let's talk about trauma. I think when people think of trauma, is it reserved just for people in the military or first responders or people that were beaten as a kid growing up? Like, What do you really mean by trauma and PTSD?

So from a layman's definition, my simplest definition is it's just like stuck emotion, emotion that is frozen. And, and I even essentially got that from Peter Levine, one of the top trauma experts. And, and so if you look, we've all got some frozen emotion that is unprocessed. And the more you have stuck, like some people have a lot, right? And then it's like, you know, it's like in our body, if we have a lot of constipation, we're going to turn septic. Okay, we got— we're supposed to process it out.

What are you, Dulcolax then for emotions? No.

Yeah, yeah. Well, but it often too, and even like Gabor Maté and others, when they go through, they talk about the studies of like people with cancer. I think it's breast cancer where 76% of breast cancer patients are people pleasers. They have really processed— yep. And so there's emotion manifest in our body and there's a frequency. Like we know chemically it releases cortisol if you're in a stressed, anxious state. But energetically, it also on the epigenetic side, it's turning on and off genes. Gabor Maté cites in his book, Myth of Normal, I think there's a study that they took 500 cancer patients and they had these cancer patients, and if I remember exactly correct, basically 90 days of meditation, breathwork, intentionally calming their nervous system. And on average, out of the 500, they found 136 Genes per person were turned off.

136 genes were turned off.

Meaning, so if you think of how your body and your health system is responding to the environment, epigenetics is really the study. We are not genetically predetermined. Our environment tells our nervous system which genes to turn on.

Got it.

And so, you can switch these things on and off. And, I see it a lot of time in my autoimmune— probably 70% of my clients have an autoimmune disease.

Really?

Especially women. And, women are about 3 times more likely to get an autoimmune disease.

Why? Why is that?

I don't know exactly why. I don't think anyone really knows. But it—

What's your guess?

My guess is they're emotionally more sensitive on average and emotionally more connected. And so if then— and you look at our Western world where we're in an extra stressed state, our iPhones are always connected, we're always on, we don't get the natural downtime we were supposed to get. So we'll literally be looking at our iPhone right before bed. Right. And, you're looking at your text message, getting Instagram, et cetera. We're not meant to be on all the time. First thing when we wake up, we're checking our iPhone.

Right, right.

We have too many activated stress patterns. And, I think the female physiology is a little more— and, you look at pro athletes, a female athlete injured, there's more ACL, MCL.

Oh, yeah, yeah. My orthopedic surgeons could— I'll have one of them on and they'll talk about it. The numbers are staggering.

Yeah.

And the impact of like when they're, you know, the estrogen releases around their cycle period and everything.

That's when they all jump back to. Yep.

Which, by the way, is a complete opposite in any. That's why I think this Williams sisters are the great two greatest athletes of all time because they've won so much.

Yeah.

And they have to deal with way more than guys do.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So all right. So the PTSD, like again, this isn't just people that were in firefights in Afghanistan.

Yeah.

Can you give, like, without— I know you don't want to, can't divulge, I don't want you to divulge a clear patient, but can you give, like, an example of some things that are, that are pretty common, I guess, that are holding people back?

Yeah, I mean, my wife— so I got into this work, as you, as I've shared before, my wife is a 3-time suicide survivor and in—

And an accomplished author.

Yes, yes, she's a great author as well. Brilliant, most gifted writer I've ever met, an amazing mom, wife, etc. But During her childhood, she grew up with narcissistic abusive mom and stepfather. And so, she grew up in a very dysregulated household and she was the oldest of 11. So, she'd be holding a baby.

Cooking dinner.

Yeah. And, she'd be 8 years old cooking dinner, holding a baby in her arms. Mom and dad are running around the house with knives pulled yelling at each other. She called the cops on her dad twice by the age of 18, put him in jail at least once. I can't remember if it was twice.

Wow.

And, Even like, it was just totally dysregulated. And she never got secure attachment, just even from a birth age, basically. And so, her nervous system was stuck in complex PTSD. Now, she didn't have— she had escaped the triggering environment, you know, when we were together the first 5 or 6 years of our relationship. Then we get pregnant. Literally, pregnancy starts creating flashbacks. She didn't even have postpartum. She had like prepartum. And, She starts having flashbacks in her nervous system, in her memory. She starts remembering screaming kids, overwhelming adults, abuse by— like, her mom would be like, one week, get the kids in the car, get the kids in the car, we're leaving Dad, he's abusive. And, you know, Dad would be chasing them out of the car with a baseball bat, and she's got the door locks in the car, and she's driving as a 14-year-old.

Now, I'm just curious, did your wife want to have kids?

Yeah, well, yeah, she did. Okay. And when we met, she thought she wanted to have 5 kids.

Okay.

I was just curious. She doesn't want to have kids anymore. But anyway, and she thought she was all good. We thought she was all good because she didn't have any real significant flare-ups. She was not depressed. She was not any of that until we got pregnant. And then as we got pregnant, then all these flashbacks came. And then once she had the baby, it was really rough. And like our daughter would cry and would trigger in her nervous system her childhood trauma. And I would literally grab my daughter from infant to toddler. Run out in the street, run it like initially we lived in an apartment and when we moved out, run into the street screaming, or I'd yell at my wife, get out of the house, get out of the house, get out of the house. So I would see her body just start collapsing and start being like triggered, like, you know, a war veteran hearing loud pops thinking that he's in a war zone. That's what was happening in her body. And I didn't understand trauma at the time. I had no idea about PTSD. I had no idea about panic attacks.

How old were you then?

How long ago was this? I mean, this is like 2020. Well, okay, '21 and 2022, most of it 2021. And so I started reading Peter Levine's Healing Trauma, learning about somatic experiencing, learning, you know, listen to Huberman, all the other shows around podcast or PTSD, depression. And then I started looking for a natural cure because we knew if we got— if she gets on Lexapro, she's just gonna be numbed.

Yeah, that does— or Wellbutrin, I mean. Yeah, exactly. And it's just You know, everything just gets shut down.

Yeah. And it's, you might survive and, you know, some people get on and off effectively, but usually you're stuck on it. And then, and I knew in my mind, I'm like, I'm not giving up. There's no conventional cure for complex PTSD typically. Like if you look at the designation, symptoms can be managed with therapy and medication. That's what they answered.

Managed.

Yeah, managed.

That's a broad term, isn't it?

I'm like, F that. I want my wife back. I want my daughter to have her mom. My wife almost on a daily basis would say, I don't want to be alive. I don't want to be a mom. I don't want to be a wife. Like, she'd say those things over and over almost every day.

And like, you think 20 years ago they would have committed her?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, they would have given—

she wanted to be committed 3 times.

Like she's like, probably would have tried. I don't know if they still do electric shock therapy.

Oh, they would. It would have been. I have a client that I've worked with that I've helped her heal from the time she was committed, and it was just significant complex PTSD. Yeah, it was really activated and triggered. Anyway, so I started researching all this, and I was like, okay. I started learning about traumatic somatic psychotherapy. Did I tell you the polar bear story before?

No, I don't think so.

Okay. Peter Levine's book Healing Trauma, and it was a National Geographic 1984 special. Tells a story of researchers chasing polar bears in Alaska. They shoot— they chase them with a helicopter gun, you know, checking the vitals, population count, all that. Shoot them with a tranquilizer, carry them back to base in the net in the helicopter. And they were, you know, then the polar bear is in the cage.

PETA wasn't around then, huh?

No, no, no. Yeah, they were doing some things.

Anyway, uh, sounded like a good idea at the time, huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, right. They're not doing that anymore, probably. But they were confused for years. Researchers—

The polar bears?

Well, yeah, the polar bears, but the people, the researchers. Because what would happen is the polar bears, as the tranquilizer would wear off, the polar bears would start making this frantic movement. And they didn't understand what was happening. But then one day a researcher plays the video of the polar bear in the cage in slow motion. And what's he see? He sees that its legs are running. And what they notice is the last time the polar bear was conscious— let's think about it— it's top of the food chain, never experienced terror or trauma in its life, and it's running for its life from a giant loud metal bird and thinks it's in life, you know, life-threatening danger.

And then gets shot.

And then gets shot and falls to the ground. So it's still afraid, wakes up, the trauma or this emotion is there, but what's it naturally do? It releases it out with the leg movement and the breath. And then it looks 10 minutes later, it's like, I'm okay. What do we do? Even actually 54% of orthopedic surgeons— this is another stat I read, I think it's 54%— report some form of PTSD because what happens in orthopedic surgery, you know, when people get strapped down in the middle of surgery or whatever—

So the patients, you say 54% of orthopedic patients have some form of PTSD?

Yeah. From often from the surgery because their body doesn't naturally get to release the traumatic overwhelming moment.

Because the stress of taking, you know, if you've never been knocked, taken anesthesia before and just the cortisol releases, it's all built up inside of you.

Yeah. And so it's unprocessed. And I see in my work, even what we did a little bit last night, what we've done with our other session with my wife, others. I mean, I've—

Yeah, and I'm happy to— yeah, yeah, the gloves are off on my stuff. I'm happy to dive into it.

So I see over and over and over, and a lot of my clients— I've had 3 clients that have tried 30 to 90 different treatment modalities to get cured of her PTSD, of their PTSD, and which is also like a lot of sexual, you know, trauma and stuff. Every time. Doesn't mean we get it the first time. Usually if it's really deep and complex, we need like 2 to 4 sessions to get all the way there. But their body— I will know they're complete when their body is just fully relaxed.

And how do you like— all right, so let's talk a little bit about like, we did a session last night and I want to talk about the sessions and everything. And you— I'll let you kind of guide that of what— how much you want to, you know, talk about it. So I've done 3 sessions with you now. Right.

Because I did one group, one group with my leadership team.

And then you and I have done 2. Yeah, about 6 weeks, about 6 weeks apart. Yep. 6 to 8 weeks apart in between doing some use of psychedelics.

How—

I'm curious, like when you walk in, what do you normally see? And I want— let's back up a second because let's tell everybody kind of more what you do. Like you go to people or they come see you and you take them through these journeys. What are these journeys? What goes on and what will they experience? Yeah.

Yeah. So, we do a combo or I do a combo typically of MDMA and psilocybin. And, the reason MDMA is an empathogen, it helps your body feel. So, you think of the human, the 4 main channels of the human experience of receiving data. And, if you're in the center, you got heart, body, mind, and spirit. Even Jesus said, love God and your fellow man, heart, body, mind, and spirit.

Right.

Western world, Greek paradigm, we're living primarily in our mind.

Okay.

We're not very heart-connected, not very body-connected, and even not as spirit-connected either. And, we live in a consumeristic capitalistic society. So, there's oftentimes an automatic minimal connection between the other components. MDMA activates your feelings and really helps, especially as men. The average 7-year-old daughter, according to Dr. Patricia Love who wrote How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, research has shown the average 7-year-old daughter has a more emotionally rich vocabulary than her father in the Western world. So true, right? I mean, my daughter— as a father of a daughter, yeah, yeah, she will confirm that. And my daughter is 3 and a half, so I'm like, I got like 3 and a half—

You got 3 and a half more years to prove her wrong.

But I'm an exceptional man.

You're ahead of the curve, buddy. You are way ahead of the curve.

But I used to be uber disconnected from my heart. That was my wife's number one complaint. And so what happens— so I want to get people out of their head And into their body. And, MDMA brings you right down into your head and your heart. Okay. Now, of course, it is only if the setting feels safe.

And, this is a microdose. So, we're not like—

No, it's not a microdose.

It's a pretty big dose or what?

So, we do the typical dosing protocol based on the research reports on the clinical trials and all the studies, about 120 milligrams of MDMA in dose 1, 75 or 80 in dose 2, which we call a bump. And then, I use psilocybin because I recommend my clients take psilocybin. Again, I don't dose or supply the medicine, but what happens is they're in that—

It's what, about 2 grams or so?

Yeah, it's 1.25, what I suggest.

Okay.

The reason—

And, that's kind of like an edge of a museum dose is kind of how—

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very small macrodose is what I would say. Yeah.

So, people aren't tripping their balls off.

Yeah. And, I want to—

Not like in college.

Yeah, exactly. And sometimes some clients I've had other clients where I was dealing with sexual trauma. I'm like, all right, we've already— we already know what's there. They're already familiar with medicine. They are comfortable. We need to blow it open a little bit.

Yeah.

And so we'll do a bigger dose on the psilocybin, not a bigger dose on MDMA, because after 200 milligrams, you kind of— it can be neurotoxic.

Hey, I'm Matthew Gologli, and I'm a maverick. Well, what is a maverick? A maverick goes against the grain. We find our own way. And if you're sick and tired of being pushed around by the insurance companies, come join us. We'll show you the way out and you'll love medicine again. So, just for me, an example, like if I go to like a concert or you hear like you go to a rave party and people are taking—

Yeah, it's usually like 120, 125 milligrams.

Really?

Yeah.

Really?

But then, they might give you 2 or 3 of those.

And then, you're stacking it.

Yeah. And you're getting way too much.

And you're going for like 8, 9 hours.

Yeah, yeah. And you're getting too much and you can have a bigger serotonin cliff the next day and have more of a headache and all that.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. So, and I want to talk— we'll talk about the research in a little bit, because I think it's important for people to understand. And I know a lot of my listeners, like, they're big Huberman people. A lot of them have watched How to Change Your Mind on Netflix, by the way, if you haven't watched it, everybody should watch it. I mean, because it's a great— I mean, just really kind of the— if you look at the studies, Huberman's done a great breakdown on this. But if you look at the studies, the use of psychedelics to help people with PTSD, specifically first responders, and Military people, like, it's like a 4x improvement over taking Wellbutrin and Lexapro. And they thought— didn't they think it was going to be like equal? And they were stunned and blown away.

Oh yeah. And that's why FDA—

that's why Big Pharma does not want it to come out because they can't control it.

Yeah.

Longer than Bobby Kennedy.

And if people are getting, you know, well really fast, and permanently well, where you don't need this— oh, you were on— you were a lifetime customer. Yeah. Oh yeah.

It's the ultimate monthly recurring revenue model.

Yeah.

They don't— they don't want us to get healthy. Okay. So let's go back to— we'll talk— I want to dive— we'll dive back into that in a second. So you see, what does it look like when people are kind of amped up? Like, what is kind of a typical— and I've sent a bunch of people to you, and I've done this, and everybody's like, what happens?

Yeah, yeah.

So like, what, what are they like when they walk in?

Well, some— most people— well, some people, if it's their first time, they're a little nervous. And so I have to—

The nerve of the unknown?

Yeah, because we saw Dare to Say No. To drugs, and they're all afraid of like what might happen, losing their mind and blah, blah, blah. And I don't blame them. I was the same way. I researched it for 6 months, listened, binged 150 podcasts, read book after book. Now I have even 2 psychedelic neuroscientists as friends to learn about the different stuff. So they're often a little nervous. And then we'll go through, like in the interview discovery call that we'll do before the session, we'll go through their traumas, drug history, or what medications they're on.

Mm-hmm.

experiences with altered states, because really, at the end of the day, if they don't feel safe, they're not going to get the experience.

Yeah.

And so, so far, I'm batting 100% of getting people to feel safe and then creating a safe container that they can have transformation. But that's partly my presence. They can feel my heart, that I'm here to serve them, to love on them, to hold space and help them get to wherever they want to go. And but that's a prerequisite. They got to feel safe. Yeah. And because otherwise their body and their mind will resist sinking into and surrendering into the experience. Because once the medicine kicks in, if they are feeling safe, then now that I'll be able to work with their, you know, in IFS models we call it like protector parts, where they're— they got these parts of their psyche that are protecting another vulnerable part that was wounded. Well, like in your case, so you had like when your dad died, Mm-hmm. Right? You saw your dad die. And then this Matty boy is protecting— well, actually, really, I mean, we— I use a little bit different model than IFS. But there was— your psyche was protecting the part of you that was wounded and scared, and was not letting him go. And it was unprocessed, overwhelming trauma of like watching your dad die. I mean, that's huge. Yeah.

For those of you who don't know the story, my dad died when I was 13 years old. We were watching a baseball game at home.

Yeah.

And he had AFib and he—

Had a heart attack?

Yeah, it wasn't a heart attack. It was AFib, which is separate. Heart attack is a blockage.

Yeah.

And he basically— we lived out in the country. We lived 5 miles out in the country. And so my dad was dead. He turned purple and then he was dead. And they came, took about 12 minutes for the paramedics to get there. It was just my mom and I in the house. My sister was upstairs and I was sitting right next to him. We were watching the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers. And he, you know, it was a typical Saturday for us. He was recovering. He had open heart surgery and mitral valve replacement in October. This was, April 4th, 1981. Yeah. And they were able to revive him, but I was in the room. I watched them shock him. I watched them cut his sweatshirt open. I watched them shoot him full of adrenaline. You know, they took him away. He was in life support for 2 weeks, and then we cut off the life support.

Yeah.

So yeah, a little bit of trauma there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everybody's like, wow. And you know what's funny about it is I always just like, oh yeah, it was no big deal.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that kind of how people cope with it? Is they try to make it not a big deal?

Or what? Men, we discount it a lot, but Both men and women discount what they went through, and you've learned to compartmentalize, and that's part of a survival mechanism. Dissociation is a survival mechanism.

Mm-hmm.

So lots of times in my rape cases or molestation scenarios with clients, they will deny that it actually happened. They're like, this couldn't happen, this could— I don't believe it. And there, until we really get into it, and it might take the 3rd session before we blow it open, and then they can see the scene. And they can see what really, really happened because they had dissociated. So you even dissociating from part of that is a protective mechanism so that you can function.

Yeah.

Because you can't just be a soppy mess at the time, and you might have had to toughen up and be the man of the family or whatever.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Um, and so you— that now becomes a frozen emotion that is in your nervous system that is running in the background in your subconscious mind. And it's controlling a lot of your decisions, behaviors, reactions. And often I can tell, especially in relationship, like I got one of the marriages in crisis I'm working with right now. The wife is having has outside reactions to the husband, like having a drink. And why? Because she has unprocessed stuff. Her mom was an alcoholic, abandoned her and her siblings at age fourteen. But she was always in this overwhelming trauma of her mom not protecting her, mom not really being there, and she associates any of that with alcohol. So. Basically, he, even if he's not getting drunk and all that, he just has a few drinks. Now he's unconsciously activating something in her nervous system of fear and abandonment.

So how does that manifest in people? How does that prevent them from living to their true self?

Yeah, so it's, you know, I think of it a little bit like a computer software or computer program. If you got your MacBook open, And you got 8 programs open and one of them's a video processor or something like that, making video files. And then you get the spinning wheel of death. Well, what happens is if you have a— if these things, these emotional blockages start accumulating, at some point, 1 or 2 more big heavy things, now you're at 85% operating capacity. Boom, something sends you to 105, you're melting down.

Yeah.

And then even if you're at 85, maybe you're not in a meltdown, But, you're at 85% instead of being— I'll have clients that— one of my clients, she almost died giving childbirth 15 years ago. She also and her husband got separated for 8 months and her brother died who was her closest family member. I meet her and I put my hand on her shoulders. I'm like, ooh, Lisa, why are your shoulders so hard? You're like a linebacker or a powerlifter or something. She's a little 5-foot Asian lady. And, she's like, yeah, I had a lot of crazy shit happen in my life. I was like, oh, okay, tell me about that. And so she told the story of all the stuff, and I was like, okay, well, would you like to reset your body and get free of that? Reprogram and release. Her and her husband were there, and so we talked through it. They flew to Nashville. I lived in Nashville at the time. We did the first session. By the end of the session, she starts jumping around the Airbnb they were in and says, I feel like a boiled carrot. I'm so flexible.

A boiled carrot? Yeah, yeah.

And because she had never felt her body finally let go of the tension that got frozen, right? She had all these overwhelming moments. And so her body, it was too much for her to process. No one helped her emotionally process. She didn't learn it as a kid, et cetera, which most of us don't. 2 weeks later, she was getting her biweekly massage from her massage therapist at their house. He comes every 2 weeks. And he's like, Lisa, why is your body so relaxed? And he'd been working on her for like 2 or 3 years. I saw Magic Mike and he fixed me right up. That's what she said. And her body has been dramatically more relaxed ever since, and which means her anxiety has come down, right? And her husband's grateful for that. She's much more relaxed. Her kids are grateful because she's not— we think sometimes it's our current situation, but it might be the current situation stacked upon the unprocessed stuff from the past.

Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to me. So, you know, in my case, so I'm 57 years old. I have done therapy off and on since probably age 27, 28.

Yeah.

And like, you have been to God knows how many events, conferences. To say that I'm a junkie in personal development is probably an understatement. Yeah, I've never been— I've never done a Tony Robbins event. I probably— because I was always afraid of what the hell was happening. I think I've realized that after our sessions. And I will tell you this, in just that first session that we did, it was like a Damascus Road experience for me. I mean, the scales just came off.

Yeah.

Right. I called Heather, my chief operating officer, afterwards, and I said, we're going to bring you in to do our executive retreat. And she goes, I really don't understand any of this, but you are a different person. So yeah, let's do this. So what do you like? What happens with people? Like what when this— when they get When they— do you say that they get rid of the trauma, or do they just come to terms with the trauma? How would you— how would you say it?

So when we say come to terms with it, we're really referencing cognitive.

Okay.

Cognitive is not in your body. The body keeps the score. The body remembers. We got to get the— get it out of the body. Okay. And so, like, explain, like, what do you mean get out of the body? All right.

I mean, I know because what we did last night.

But the polar bear, like that polar bear, When the body is relaxed and released, I know it's complete, at least for that part.

Mm-hmm.

Doesn't mean there might be a few, like, you know, shivers that come through in the next few days or a few weeks as your body is continuing to release stuck energy and stuck pain, stuck emotion. But look, like, I did a client with a session last Sunday here in Nashville, and client was— he's like, Mike, whenever I think about all those things I felt so much regret and guilt for, It's all gone. The regret and guilt is gone. I don't even have the emotions. Gone, right? I'm okay with it. I've accepted and moved through and on. And so what I've— what I find in my work, all right, so I think of it as 3 different levels. First level is you do like a, you know, you can order psilocybin mushrooms on the internet, right? You go and order some, you do a journey, and it's a beautiful ride up. And you might get some reflection, some deep transformation sometimes.

Right.

But it's not nearly as deep. Well, it's not as deep as the second level, which would be with a trained facilitator or guide. And then I'll explain the third level. Second level is like you got a trained facilitator or guide, which is even a little bit more like the MAPS protocol. MAPS protocol was basically designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of MDMA with very light guidance because they weren't trying to prove the therapy. They were trying to prove the medicine.

Okay.

So that's how they designed the protocol, which is not necessarily the most effective protocol for doing the deepest layers of trauma and nervous system and PTSD rewiring, because it's so gentle. It's almost like giving you— let's do some surgery on you, Matt. Let me give you the medicine. You're going to be conscious, but you won't be able— you'll feel good about it. You won't be in pain. You'll be in a happy state. And we'll just ask you reflective questions. Where would you like to work on the surgery on your heart. What do you think needs to be done?

Right, right. It's not gonna be really—

It's not gonna be as effective.

And I will say this about the first option, microdosing yourself. I've done that for about 18 months. One of my doctors turned me onto it 'cause he was dealing with a lot of trauma, Dr. Schachter. And I noticed that if I took bigger doses on my own, My anxiety went up.

Yeah.

Yeah. Why? So like, and I know now why, right? Like I might take 2 capsules.

Yeah.

And I'd be, it would just take the edge off. But if I wanted to go harder and deeper, if I don't have a really clear intention or I do it on a day when I have a crap ton of anxiety.

Yeah.

It's bad.

Oh yeah. You don't wanna mess with it.

Yeah. Because, so I understand what you're saying. Like it doesn't really, it does work. I'm not gonna say it doesn't work, but.

And it, and it, and you have to feel safe with the medicine. Also, you have to feel safe with the, with the potential demons on the other side. I mean, yeah, the memories. And, I'm not saying real demons, I just mean the memories. Like, for example, clients of mine that have a lot of sexual trauma and they're leaders, like most of my clients are high achievers, but they're like a normal person.

I know who you're talking about. I mean, these are people that own their own businesses. These are pretty powerful people.

Yeah. And so, on the other side, psilocybin, for example, will bring up the shadows, the stuff in the shadows. And if you don't have someone there to help you process it and you have some significant stuff in the shadows, it can create some harm.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you're fooling with— so, microdosing is generally very safe for people, but macrodosing, until you're really experienced with medicine and you also have worked through stuff in the shadows, meaning release the emotion, release the pain. All right. So, even, you know, so like if you look at the model, Do-it-yourself, light facilitation. Most trained psychedelic guides are like number 2. They do light reflection, and that's what they're taught. If you look in most of the facilitation training programs, even the MAPS protocol, it's light guidance and reflective questioning.

Right.

3rd model is where I'm at. Not many of me. I don't— I know one other, one or 2 other people that are anywhere even in the ballpark. I'm sure there's more. I just don't know many of them. I'm still Fairly new to the community of the space, but I look at myself as like a neurosurgeon of the subconscious.

A neurosurgeon of the subconscious.

Okay. Yeah. So this is your thoughts, your patterns, your beliefs, your, your stories. I'm going in. I'm hyper-precise, hyper-intentional. I will flow with you. Like, for example, you are more of a verbal processor. You need to talk through it, right?

In other words, folks, I don't shut up the entire time. Poor Mike asks me a question and I go off on a tangent for 20 minutes.

Yeah, it's okay. But that's your process.

Yeah.

And I have to go with the flow that is your healing process. Right? And some people are more internal. And like your buddy, other Matt, we— he was pretty internal.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I could tell, I could— I watched his eyes and he would shake his head and go, and shake his head with his eyes closed, like, and he was negotiating. His parts of his psyche were negotiating and getting to resolution on core parts. And I was guiding him into that.

Yeah.

But then he was doing the work without even talking about it. And so very different experiences for a lot of people. But I'm going in, I'm going to get you— like, my clients are like CEOs, business owners, etc. They want to get their stuff worked on, but they don't have 90 days or 6 months or 2 years to unravel. They got to get back to work.

I don't want to be like— I don't want to be like Tony Soprano. You know, I don't want it going on 11 seasons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. They want to get back into the action because they got a lot of responsibility. They got things waiting on them. They got businesses to run, employees, whatever, kids. They don't have time to— they want to move through it fast. And I'm the same way. I'm like, I want to get— why take 2 years when I can get it done in, uh, 1 month or a few months or whatever?

It's the 80/20 principle of, uh, yeah, yeah, of all this.

You know, we get money back, we don't get time back.

Yeah.

So anyway, I'm going in there and I'm I'm just gently but firmly guiding you, in many cases a client, to like, what are the memories that your body would like to release? And then I'll ask you to imagine that up on a YouTube, you know, or on a blank wall, imagine a YouTube thumbnail popping up with a memory from the past that your body's ready to release, or some variation of that. And then I'm just keep digging and digging and digging. And then I'm also reading your body to see, are you in a relaxed state? Is your body surrendering? Is your body resisting? Is your— I'm looking at facial cues. I'm looking at—

Mm-hmm.

basically the whole setup, your breath. I'm watching your breath. And, and I'm seeing if there is— there a part that is blocking the work. Because sometimes there's a protector part that's like, nope, we're not going there. We're not ready for that.

Yeah.

And then, but, but that part also might be like, yeah, I want to get this out of me. But no, I don't think I'm ready.

Oh, well, that's a big fear, right?

Yeah.

Like the stuff we dove into last night. Like, yeah, you came in. And so this is my second just one-on-one session with you. We've done one with our team, which was very different for me because I knew what was coming.

Yeah.

And I literally just sat there and I watched my team transform in front of my eyes. I have all women on my team and I, you know, I've always known— I grew up in a household of women. My mom was a very strong woman.

Yeah.

And so I've always been kind of attuned as to kind of what women go through in society. Didn't really totally understand it probably about 8, 10 years ago, but it was so cool to watch the team like just transform instantaneously, to watch people move into their, their giftedness.

Yeah.

And just step up in a place of confidence.

Yeah. Yeah, it was beautiful.

Yeah, it was beautiful. Like, I watched Heather just transform instantaneously from this woman that I'd been like, you can do this, you can do this, to all of a sudden she changed her title to Chief Operating Officer.

Yeah. And part of what happened too, because I remember working on Heather one-on-one in the group experience as well. So when we have stuck emotion, but like if you do a light-guided session where you don't really process, like it's like I can see stuff that's happening And I want to pull it out. It's like, get this stuff out of— like, they want to get it out. Your higher self wants to get it out. If you like guidance, you're not going to get it out more than likely, or self-guided. And because it's like, people are like, I've tried psychedelics and it didn't really— I felt good, but it didn't really work. Well, I've worked with a lot of people who said stuff like that, and then we'll do it and they're like, okay, that was radically different.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because what happens is if you just do the medicine—

It's kind of like staying at a Red Roof Inn and then a Ritz-Carlton.

Yeah.

There's a big difference.

Big difference. And, and if you go up, if you do the medicine, you do a beautiful psilocybin journey, MDMA ceremony, or some ceremonial experiences, you go up and they can be deeply transformative too. So I'm not knocking them, but you'll go up and then you're mostly the same person when you come back down. But like Heather, I remember even though it was a group experience, because I've specifically worked on her and your other leaders, you know, during the session, with focused, dedicated time to work through their biggest blocks. And then, that part of them is no longer running the show when we get it on the other side. And then, her confidence can come up and her peace, her acceptance, her release. And now, because that part of you is no longer managing or running the show, it's like your body is free and you're lighter and more powerful and more connected and more congruent.

Hey, I'm Matthew Gologli and I'm a Maverick. Well, what is a Maverick? A maverick goes against the grain. We find our own way, and if you're sick and tired of being pushed around by the insurance companies, come join us. We'll show you the way out, and you'll love medicine again. Well, your body. So like, so I'll give. I'm not gonna. I had a significant amount of trauma at the beginning of the year. I did a session with Mike November 18. We did a Company One. I don't know, second week of December. And I had to make some really big life changes. And so there's been a significant amount of trauma around that. And I remember when we started yesterday, you're like, how's it going?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you're not—

I was like, not good. I'm a little blocked. I can't see the answers.

Yeah.

And I was really afraid.

Yeah.

I was really afraid to find out what was really blocking me.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't have got— like, in as much therapy as I've done, and I've done a lot of therapy, and basically my coaching work is kind of like being a therapist in a lot of cases when I work with somebody one-on-one. I mean, they all come thinking I'm gonna give them like some perfect roadmap, but I swear to God, I spend 80% of the time working on their mental blocks, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And so I know, like, I know the process, right? Like, I know what to do. I mean, this is what I do for a living.

Yeah, yeah.

I was so scared yesterday.

Yeah.

And I don't think I would have gotten to that place of release Without the MDMA.

Yeah. Oh, you wouldn't have. Yeah, because the emotion— MDMA just really helps move the emotion through, and then psilocybin helps you create a spiritual connection, mind connection, and then you're able to see other things more clearly. But yeah, we need the MDMA for stuff like that.

Yeah. And like, I remember I didn't realize— you were asking me— I didn't realize how wired I was.

Yeah. Yeah. You were.

And I didn't realize that I'd done, that I'd spent the better part of the last 50-plus years of my life in that state.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild, right?

I know. It's so wild.

Like, yeah. And it's so crazy. Like now I've started having some clients bring me into their families, like where we're doing like, you know, of age.

Yeah. We're getting there next week.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that would be great.

You're going to earn your keep on that one. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm up for the challenge.

I got my kids and my brothers and sisters.

Yeah.

You're gonna be a double whammy.

Yeah, totally. But you can reset a whole dynamic, and the earlier you do it, the better, right? So, and you know, I didn't do this work until I was really 43, and I'm 45 now, but I'm like so glad I did. But if I had done it like in my 20s, how much more powerful, connected, present, strong would I have been? What type of mistakes? I would have saved myself millions of dollars in stupid mistakes too.

Oh my God.

Because I would have been more—

I wouldn't have gone bankrupt.

Yeah, I don't think I would have either.

Yeah. I mean, and if I did, it wouldn't have been 32 pages. Yeah, right.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I mean, I think of— I probably could have saved my first marriage and I probably wouldn't have made a lot of the relationship mistakes because you realize you're making those decisions out of trauma. So I know you're getting ready to work with some of our doctors.

Yeah.

And I think it's going to be really fascinating because You know, the medical environment is basically— I explain med school like this. You walk in, they basically tell you you suck, you're not going to make it, and you're probably going to kill people.

Yeah.

And then, you know, we deal with a lot of what I call are the alpha male females, the orthopedic surgeons.

Yeah.

And then you've got the pain management people, which are like a step below the orthopedic surgeons, not in skill set, but like There is a hierarchy, by the way, in the medical field, and the orthopedic surgeons all think they're at the top. The cardiologists, the surgeons all think they're at the top. But anyway, it's interesting because I see that they have so much false beliefs about what they can be or what they can do. I know, I don't know, you haven't worked with any of my docs yet, have you?

You're getting ready to work with them? I haven't worked with any of your docs yet. I work with other docs.

Okay, so talk a little bit about that, because like, what is the What have you seen with regards to their training in their industry?

You know, they're very often very academic in their thought process. And so they're— I mean, obviously, to get an MD, you're pretty smart.

Yeah, you're a badass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't care what level you are. You and I couldn't survive med school with the frickin answers to the test.

Yeah, yeah. So, but they're really head smart, not necessarily heart and body smart.

So how does that get in the way?

Well, now you're making decisions of— you're moving towards burnout, you're in misalignment, you're not happy. Because not— I mean, not everyone, but some of them, like, because you're living life incongruence with your highest self, with the best part of you. Like, if you think of, all right, when we are at the fullest of our potential, the fullest of feeling the zest of life or the juice of life, we're alive in our heart, in our body, in our mind, in our spirit. And we're feeling connected, we're feeling aligned, we're feeling tapped in to our purpose, to our destiny. Mm-hmm. Right? But if I'm only like I was guilty, I was a walking head. Right?

A walking head.

Yeah, I was in my head, not in my heart, not in my body, not in my spirit.

Maybe for and so that everybody's context, you were a church planner originally.

Yeah, I did churches. I've done started twenty businesses. You know, done hundreds millions in revenue, and I was very much in your head, in my head. Right. Really smart. Loved reading books. Blah blah blah.

Which is really funny given the fact that you were. You know, you were planting churches in the Christian faith, and you would think that you would be really connected to your heart and your soul, or your spirit, I should say.

Yeah, and they say, love your Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Well, I thought it was.

That's a hard one to grasp onto.

I thought it was, but it was a pattern. So, you know, our home environment where we grew up, so your brain is in a hip— you have 2 major windows of neuroplasticity, 0 to 7, 16 to 24. And especially 0 to 7, you're in a hypnotic state where you're also passively absorbing patterns, energetic patterns, relational patterns, emotional patterns, belief patterns, stories, etc. And that's why that season is so critical. But I grew up in a home, my parents are great, I love my parents a lot, but pretty emotionally disconnected.

Mm-hmm.

And so as we're working through it, like, I didn't know how to emotionally connect. They didn't really know.

Yeah.

They weren't taught. And so now I'm not really connecting my heart, a little bit my body, my mind very much so, spirit a little bit. Anyway, the medicine and the work really helps you feel. I remember doing my first psilocybin journey. I was like, whoa, I got flooded with gratitude in a way I've never felt. I've done the gratitude journal a whole bunch of times. I don't know, thousands of times.

Long live Rick Warren.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, nope, not feeling it.

Not feeling it. I would go through those things. I'm the same way as you. Like, I would go through those things.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, this sucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I would do all that stuff. I'd read all the books.

I couldn't get there.

Yeah, I would attend the men's Bible studies, all that. Just couldn't freaking get there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the medicines, I don't see any way for many of my most stuck clients to get their heart connection without them.

So, why do you think that's important as a doctor?

Because you're only getting one data source. Right. And so if your subconscious mind— so Dr. Bruce Lipton, Biology of Belief author, he says your subconscious mind is processing 20 million bits of information per second. Your conscious mind, 40 bits. That's 500,000 to a million times more powerful.

Wow.

Okay, so if I'm only in my thoughts, I'm missing 3 other quadrants of major information data. A lot of my work, I will see there's something else here. And then even like I know, and we all know there's also the quantum realm. Energy, matter, frequency. Like they're doing frequency sound treatments on cancer right now. That was FDA approved. Really? So it's a new thing. Because also our emotions and our energy and the environment is basically frequency, right? Like people can get around me and their frequency will change. Get around you, frequency will change. Their belief in themselves starts shifting. They get around a negative person, Guess what? That's fear-driven, anxiety-driven, really energetically stuck. You can feel it. Heart Coherence Institute, are you familiar with that?

No, tell us what it is.

Joe Dispenza's on the board. But yeah, but they're big researchers on this thing they call heart coherence, and they can measure it with ECGs, which is when your heart is in a state of coherence, which they consider like if you think of love and joy and peace and serenity versus fear, anxiety, grief, apathy, whatever, blame, shame, guilt. Very different emotion over there. Fear or love and joy and peace. When you're in heart coherence, your heart has an electromagnetic field that is measurable by current technology that your heart extends up to 8 feet.

Wow.

And, people can feel your heart.

So, if you're in heart— if you have that coherence—

Fear is like inches, right?

So, oh, that's fascinating.

Yep. And, and it's why you look at charismatic leader, like you go to Tony Robbins, he's got Massive charismatic energetic field because he's in such powerful alignment. When people are in alignment with the fullness of themselves, why did Jesus say, love God and others with all your heart, all your mind, all your body, all your soul? He wants you fully, powerfully aligned, not half-heartedly, not a fraction. To be fully alive is to be fully human, and to be fully alive is to be fully powerful.

Hmm.

So, When we are in that state, we're also seeing things, and we're also shifting people by belief. That's why placebo effects are often just as effective as Wellbutrin, for example.

Yeah.

Because people's belief, which changes the frequency.

That is fascinating.

And they've even had surgeries where people have almost the same exact result of a, like, torn meniscus or whatever. They cut them open, give them the drugs, give them medicine, but don't Don't do anything. Yes. And sew him back up. Wow. Right.

I mean, that's fascinating about Tony. Like, I, I think I've always sort of known that.

Yeah.

You know, to me, I'm always fascinated by these unbelievably charismatic leaders, right? Like, I always think of, like, you know, I, I use Bill Clinton a lot as an example. I think there was a story— really good friend of mine in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Kevin Kimball— his dad Clyde was in the state assembly or whatever. And it was like, I think it was the early 1980s. And they're at a party at the governor's mansion. And Governor Edwin Edwards, 4-term, like very charismatic. If you've ever met— and I've met Governor Edwards when he was alive— unbelievably charismatic. This is a guy that like, you know, told everybody who he was sleeping with. Like, you know, he was indicted, went to jail, still got elected governor, that kind of thing.

Right.

And so he's at a party and Clyde, Mr. Kimball, Clyde Kimball tells the story and he's got his back to the door and he's talking to a couple of his fellow assemblymen. And he goes, what in the world just happened in the room? And he turned around and he saw this young kid walking in and he goes, who the bleep is that?

Yeah.

And somebody said, oh, that's the governor. That's the newly elected governor of Arkansas.

Yeah.

And he goes, what's his name? And he goes, his name is Bill Clinton. And Clyde goes, he's going to be president of the United States.

Yeah.

He said you could tell it. Like, I've heard Clyde tell that story. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think Bill Clinton might be one of the most charismatic.

Yeah, he was.

I mean, you know, he's got his shortcomings, but yeah, of course, everybody does. And I think of that.

Yeah.

I mean, that heart coherence, I think about it from the concept of medicine because you're seeing people and they're scared.

Yeah.

You think that could really just transform kind of that experience?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, 100%. So it changes your body's receptivity, literally changes what goes on chemically.

What do you think is going on chemically?

Well, when you're releasing cortisol versus some of the other positive neurotransmitters and neurochemicals, cortisol is your body's in defense.

Yeah, fight or flight.

Yep. And so, you're just going to have a vastly different reaction. And then, if people stay in those prolonged states, which is why most autoimmune people battling autoimmune have some sort of significant repressed trauma, their nervous system is turning inward because it's in fight or flight state oftentimes, right? Um, I don't know, I'm not a scientist around the chemical side, so I can't necessarily speak to that.

That's all right, they'll fill it in.

Yeah, they will. But I will tell a story. Peter Levine, uh, Dr. Peter Levine, top— he's— him with Bessel van der Kolk, maybe Gabor Maté, Paul Conti, are some of the top trauma experts in the world. Peter gets hit by a car walking across the street and tossed in the air, boom, lands on the ground, wakes up, comes to And he recognizes something's happening initially. Like, one of the guys who's a paramedic wants to, like, you know, they pulled over to the side of the road, saw what happened, wants to, like— he's very intense and very, like, trying to get his head adjusted, whatever. And then a medical doctor also pulled over, and she's very gentle and makes an empathetic connection.

Mm-hmm.

And Peter tells the story of how that empathetic connection— Peter was aware of what was happening because he was also aware Hey, if I hold on to the energy, I'm going to have PTSD from the accident.

Oh, okay. So the EMT is—

Yeah. Yeah. And he— and once he got in the ambulance, he was telling the EMTs, do not strap me down. Do not strap me down. I am a trauma doctor. I know what's happening. Let my body release the trapped energy from the shock of the experience. And I go, okay. And they didn't strap him down, and his arms are shaking, his legs are shaking at different points. It's like, just let it right out. It's my body is releasing this, the fear and the trauma and the shock. And he didn't get PTSD from the accident.

See, I think a lot of the doctors that I work with have PTSD from residency and fellowships.

Oh yeah, heck yeah.

Because they're working 16, 20 hours.

It's brutal. It's not even safe.

No, it's not even safe because for the doctor or the patients. No, I mean, it's like you're operating— why do they do that?

I don't get it.

Well, you know, statistically, if you are, you know, if you get less than, say, 8 hours of sleep—

Oh yeah, you're like drunk. You're—

and if you're sleeping like 4 hours, yeah, it's like you're— it's like you're treating people and you have a blood alcohol level of 0.08, which means that you can't operate a motor vehicle. And yet these people are doing surgery, right?

It's nuts. Why do they do that? Why do they— well, we know this.

So there's a— I'm not going to get the story 100% right, but I know I won't remember the doctor's name. But in the early 20th century, I think it was one of the university hospitals.

Oh, the training. Yeah, yeah.

So, the doctor that said that they should be doing all these hours was doing blow. He was snorting cocaine.

I remember. And he was the main guy.

He was the main guy. And he goes, yeah, you know, you don't need to be only getting— you only need 4 hours of sleep. And I hear the stories. I mean, I— it's so fascinating, you know, working with doctors since 2014. It's just fascinating to hear the stories.

Oh, yeah.

And they block it out. No, they block it out the exact same way that I blocked out the trauma with my mother and my father.

Yeah, yeah.

They're no different. They're blocking out that trauma, which is no different than somebody that was sexually molested when they were 8 years old.

Yeah, dissociation.

Because I ask them about— I'll ask some of them about residency and they're like, I don't remember much.

Yeah.

I'm like, wait, what?

This is a dissociation. Dissociation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm. Thanks for the insight.

Yeah, I mean, so like When we go to work with them, you know, our process is there's usually a couple of things. One, they have this belief system that doctors shouldn't discuss money with the patient, which is idiotic.

Yeah.

And they've been told that they shouldn't, and they've been told that they, they shouldn't make any mistakes.

Yeah.

Because if they do, they're going to get sued and they're going to lose their license, which goes completely against when you read the entire Hippocratic Oath.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like they're doing more harm by not doing some certain things.

Yeah.

In my view, and a lot of my doctors do.

Yeah.

But the thing is, they have such trauma that they don't want to make a mistake.

Yeah.

And so when they try to go be an entrepreneur or a business owner, we spend a large portion of our time just working through these traumas.

Yeah, I can imagine.

I mean, we joke— I'm joking. You and I joked yesterday. I'm like, we think before they start working with us, I'm going to send them to see you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, maybe they have to do retreats at the beginning before we do all this work. We'll get bigger breakthroughs. So, what do you think is kind of the future? This is becoming a really big hot topic. Huberman talks about it. Kennedy's talked about it. The FDA did deny psilocybin. Yeah.

They've— And MDMA.

MDMA. Where do you think this is going?

Oh, it's going to eventually get approved because the evidence is overwhelming. If it was a traditional big pharma drug, Traditional study—

When you said the evidence is overwhelming, can you go into more detail?

So, Bessel van der Kolk, who helped lead the $166 million study for the MDMA trials, he— and he's a traditionally trained Harvard psychiatrist, teaches, like, wrote The Body Keeps the Score, one of the most renowned trauma experts in the world. He's like—

That's a great book, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, it is. And he says, you know what, if this was a traditional Big Pharma drug, it would have been the biggest breakthrough in mental health history. all over the news cycles, all over. But, you know, the FOAG committee— my suspicion is the FOAG committee that was created was there appointed to some extent influenced by Big Pharma because most of them had no understanding of even FDA trials.

Mm-hmm.

So, if you look at their credentials and how much they actually know and even their questions, the doubts that they were poking in the study were not congruent with a typical committee in evaluating FDA.

Right.

And plus, they also had no understanding of psychedelics. And so, you had one person on the 10-person committee that really understood anything about the medicine, and they're all effective naysayers even though the evidence was overwhelming. And, they were throwing out the questions around like, oh, well, because some people had racing hearts or whatever, or if you have heart conditions, it's not safe and we want to protect the public from— but it was 10,000 people And because like 2 therapists—

But yet the fast-track of a quote unquote V, I can't even say the word because I don't want to. I don't want to get whacked on YouTube.

Yeah. But then they— and then they're like, yeah, because like 3 therapists had inappropriate relationships with the patients out of like 10,000 or whatever. This stuff happens anyhow.

Yeah. Like, well, the big— here's the big issue, right? One, and I have no problem saying this, I've said it from the stage, I've said it, the FDA is the most corrupt governmental organization on the face of the earth.

Yeah.

And how I can be so confident in saying that is that what most people don't realize is the higher-ups of the CDC and FDA either, A, to get something— when they get something approved, they either wind up working there in a team or they get a percentage of the patent.

Yeah. And so they get like royalties.

Fauci makes like $150,000 a year.

Yeah.

On multiple different patents.

Yeah.

That as the head of the CDC, he's supposed to be overseeing. So there's a complete and total conflict of interest.

Yeah.

If you're dealing with a natural plant, in the case of mushrooms, how are you gonna have a patent on it?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is why this is why they don't like this is why they don't like hydrochloroquine and this is why they don't like ivermectin because they're cheap. The patents have run out. Yeah, they can't make any money.

MDMA patent is gone too. Yeah, so now they're trying to find yeah, right.

There's no way for them to make any money on it.

Correct.

And I'm very hopeful that Bobby Kennedy is gonna be able to do some really great stuff. I mean, it's gonna be big work, but yeah, absolutely. I hope they don't kill him either.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too.

So.

Yeah, because yeah, I mean, we got so many veterans like, and veterans are like, oh, millions of us are suffering and you guys won't even pass the sucker for us to use it, even if you gave it limited approval. Anyway, long story short, it's eventually going to get approved because enough millions of Americans are using it, trying it, seeing amazing results with very minimal side effects. I'm not saying there, there are side effects occasionally, and you do have to proceed with caution and use the right dose and make sure you're not starting medications like, you know, If you're on SSRIs, you have to taper down or check the contraindications depending on which medicine you use. And I have my client— I always check that with my clients, but it's going to get approved because it's the most effective. So it's hands down. It's not even close. It's not even close.

You know, a lot of my people are military. Yeah.

Like, oh, great company.

And so, oh yeah, I have a staff member whose husband's done 8 tours of duty in Special Forces. I have another staff member who's Her husband was on the second to last flight out of Kabul when it was collapsing. And both of them have significant PTSD.

Oh, yeah.

And the VA basically just gives them Wellbutrin, and they don't even bother taking it because they're like, they can't be— this guy's still serving in Special Forces. He goes, I can't. It hurts my ability to work out and all that. And I've said, through what we know through the use of psychedelics, the medicine that you're discussing, We can also put an injection in the nerve.

Yeah. Polyvagal.

Yep. To block that and fixing their hormones. Yeah, we can fix PTSD today.

Yeah.

There is no— there is no need for anybody who is in— let's just talk about the military.

Yeah.

And if you look at the millions and the millions of people who have served this country and then the burden that they become on our country because they can't work, they can't hold a job down, they get fat.

It's horrible.

It's unbelievable.

And wasted life.

Wasted life and they get diabetes, type 2 diabetes. They're 150 pounds overweight and then they get more depressed and they're eating the shitty food that we create.

Oh yeah.

I mean, we can make these people not a burden and they don't want to be a burden. No. I mean, they served our country for God's sakes. Yeah. Yeah.

You know? Yeah.

It's sad to me. It's just sad to me that I'm not surprised that Big Pharma and the insurance companies have completely co-opted the whole thing. But it makes me sad that we allow it.

Yeah.

What are some final thoughts on this? What are your— you've been doing this now for a couple of years.

Yeah.

What are some just— what would you tell the skeptic that's listening to this?

I'd say do your research.

Where should they go?

Starting point I always have is How to Change Your Mind, but then go into podcasts, research documentaries.

Third Wave.

Third Wave. That's Paul F. Austin. It's Third Wave. It's all about psychedelics.

That's a podcast?

Yeah, it's probably the best one. Dr. Dave Ruppin has the something report. I think it's not The Psychedelic Report. It's something else. He created the neuro— I forgot the name of his device, but he's a huge fan. He talks a lot about even the FDA's ruling, got the New York Times reporters that are, you know, bringing in the back scenes of really why they blocked it and the, you know, crap and all that. So, those are some starting points, Dr. Matthew Johnson. But, if you look, he's at Johns Hopkins. If you look at the top guys in the world that are trauma, really 2 truly trauma experts, Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Gabor Maté. Gabor Maté is one of the top guys in the world in addiction too. All huge fans of psychedelics.

Yeah.

Now, psychedelics with the transformative therapy, with somatic experiencing, with IFS, with the combination of tools, that is the real breakthrough. It's not just one or the other. It's not one. It's the magic combination. Perfect recipe, as I like to think of it.

What about ketamine?

Ketamine is good, but the life cycle is so much shorter. So, you have 2 major windows when you do psychedelics: acute subjective effects and then the critical period reopening. Ketamine has a 30-minute to 2-hour acute subjective window. Psilocybin, MDMA have a 3 to 6, LSD 8 to 10, ibogaine 36 to 72 hours. Critical period reopening, which is where your neuroplasticity is like that of a 2-year-old where it's heightened and you can relearn social patterns and stuff like that, Ketamine is only 48 hours.

Okay.

Psilocybin, MDMA, it's 2.5 weeks.

Yeah.

LSD is like 3 or 4 weeks. Ibogaine is like over a month.

And these are non-addictive?

Non-addictive, yeah. And ketamine is slightly addictive too.

Okay.

Ketamine is a little bit better for chronic pain than many of the others. They found that it turns off the pain receptors. I learned this from Dr. Manish Gern. He's one of my psychedelic neuroscientist buddies. He's at University of California, San Francisco. He's researched and written a bunch of papers in the space and teaches on it. But ketamine's obviously legally available in most states, the ketamine clinic. So I would, even if you want to do ketamine, I'd suggest doing ketamine with therapy, post, pre, et cetera.

Yeah.

Uh, ayahuasca. Ayahuasca. I've done small dose. I'm going to do a full ceremony and sit with it, you know, this year. I feel called to it. I'm excited about it. Yeah.

I've read a lot about it.

Yeah. It's really powerful. It's the kind of, it's the grandmother of what they call it. And it is— it will blow you open, but you have to be in a psychologically safe state, otherwise it can create some trauma. And then integration can be a process. Like, I have another client, she went off on her own and did ayahuasca. I didn't know she was. And now I have to help her integrate because she didn't get enough integration. Right. I've heard about those. And she's like a little not all the way back. And so— but it— I've sent also clients to it where like, all right, There's some deeper stuff here that I can't quite get to, almost like a spiritual— I wouldn't say attachment, but there's a spiritual bond or attack that is really, really deep, just needs something really powerful to blow it open.

Yeah.

And so, ayahuasca is phenomenal for that.

Well, I can't wait to hear about that one because that's on the shortlist of stuff that I want to do. I have a couple friends that have gone down to Costa Rica and they've done the 5-day retreat.

Yeah, yeah.

Are you going to do something like that?

Yeah, I'm going to go to Peru, not Erythmia. Erythmia is kind of the famous one in Costa Rica.

I think they got like a 6-month waiting list, I think, at Erythmia, and the prices have gone up significantly.

And they, they also don't protect the container very well. They're, uh, they have some great shamans, they have a great process overall, but they have way too many people in there and way too much opening. Yeah. So when you are doing ayahuasca, you are really dimension walking and opening up portals in a different way. Ben Greenfield had Hamilton Southern on his podcast, and Hamilton Southern leads a really amazing retreat called Blue Morpho in Peru. I'm going to do that one. And, more small intimate 15, 20 people versus 60 people.

Oh, God.

Right? That's the Rhythm Man.

15 sounds like a lot to me.

Yeah. Well, I mean, they may not have that many, but the Rhythm Man is like 60. That would be—

no, I wouldn't like that at all.

Yeah. Well, that's where it's been. And so, and then if you have the shaman— Hamilton, who's like Western educated but trained with the shamans and has all these amazing shamans in Peru, that they're pretty true to the lineage and to the, you know, heart of the medicine men.

Mm-hmm.

He says, well, while he's on— he's guiding these people through ayahuasca, he'll literally see spirits try and come in and attack, and he'll shield Wow. And he's like, wow. And so like, you know, if you got Eurythmia and you got an amateur shaman that they, they're growing so fast, they need so many people, blah blah blah, making a lot of money, blah blah blah. Whoop. And now like my, my wife's good friend worked at Eurythmia and dated one of the guides. She did 61 sessions in the year that she was there. She got some stuff attached to her that She might not ever get unattached spiritually.

Right, right.

Ayahuasca is really, really powerful, but you really, really got to be smart about who you do it with.

Got it.

And, same with ibogaine is ibogaine is amazing for addiction, opioid, alcohol addiction, the most effective treatment, like 400% more effective than regular rehab, but it can be life-threatening in the sense of people can have heart reactions and stuff like that. If it's not properly done.

Yeah. And I know we got to be careful of time here, but I do know that like dealing with people with addiction, one of my team members is a recovering alcoholic and she was able to do it and had a fantastic experience. I have family members that I put you in contact with. Hopefully they'll do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's— I will say this. The only thing that I don't like about the journeys is that I met you at the age of 57. Yeah. I wish I would have met—

Right. I wish we could cause— save you from some pain.

I wish I would have known about this at the age of 27 or 37 or 47.

I don't blame you.

Because there's just been a lot of pain. I mean, you know, I'm pretty open about, you know, the challenges I've had in life and all of that stuff and my background and just kind of the environment I grew up in. And, you know, the reason why I am that way is because I want people to like— yeah, I don't want people to feel shame about it. You know, those are things that are out— my father dying, the environment with my mother, my brothers and sisters. That was out of my control. Yeah, I couldn't control any of that.

of that. Yeah, yeah.

But the beauty of it, the beauty of this is how quickly people can get— like, I mean, you know, I never sleep the night after we do one of these because my brain is just like, boom. I mean, there's just massive downloads.

Yeah.

But, you know, I don't feel tired today, and I know that in a couple of nights I'll sleep really, really well.

Yeah, yeah.

The other thing too is my desire for alcohol has almost completely disappeared.

Totally. Me too.

And I don't find myself taking gummies to try and sleep.

Alcohol is a numbing agent. Yeah. So when we think of the drug protocol, the medicines I work with, they activate you and deepen your connection with yourself. Alcohol disconnects you from yourself.

I did notice that. Like, I think I had a drink like 72 hours after we did our first session and I was pissed. I couldn't— I could like— I had tequila, I had a couple of sips, and all of a sudden I noticed that I'm like, oh, Shit, it's cutting this stuff off, and I couldn't finish the drink.

Yeah, yeah.

So, how do people find out about— where do they get in contact with you? I know you do one-on-one sessions, you do group sessions, you have some retreats. What's the best way if somebody wants to find out more? Yeah.

And, I do virtual as well and I have free virtual monthly meditations.

Those are great, by the way.

Yeah, thank you. MikeZeller.com and also NeuroRewiring.com. I have a guide for the 14 most powerful tools for rewiring your nervous system. Psychedelics are just one of them. So I use a bunch of different modalities and recommend neurofeedback, other stuff, meditation, breathwork, etc.

And that's Zeller, Z-E-L-L-E-R.

Yeah. Yeah. And then neurorewiring.com. And then all the social media handles are The Mike Zeller.

The Mike Zeller. And there's some really great stuff there. I love your meditation on identity.

Yeah.

I think anybody should just go through that just because, you know, we just don't realize how our identity—

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a part.

It's such a massive part. And, you know, I think, I think the 2 things that hold people back the most are limiting beliefs and their identity.

Yep. Without a doubt. All your— all our behaviors, thoughts, feelings are a reflection, overflow, or downstream effect of our identity.

Yeah.

Yeah. Great.

Mike, thanks for taking the time to come in.

Thank you for—

thank you for coming in my life, and thank you for coming in the life of my team. They love you dearly.

Yeah.

And I'm looking forward to work, you know, you working with us for a long, long time.

Looking forward to it as well.

And getting a lot of our doctors free. Yes. Yes. We'll have to set up a conference at some point.

Yeah, that sounds great. All right.

So check him out at mikezeller.com and it's The Mike Zeller on social media handles. And I know you have to go give another talk.

Yes.

And then you have to catch a flight tonight. So thanks for taking the time.

Yes.

All right, everybody, this is Matt Logli. Thanks for joining us on the Practice Profit System. And you know where to find us. Check us out. Have a great day.