#120 Mike Zeller - MDMA as a Therapeutic, Rewiring your Nervous System, Unblocking Love

Every day she would say, I don't want to be alive. I don't want to be a mom. I don't want to be on Earth. So many women are in their masculine and they just are effing tired.

Somehow ending up in my room and with like a guy on top of me and I couldn't move.

Yes, it quote physically did not happen. Yeah, but the fear was stuck. That was frozen. Psilocybin and MDMA are the greatest breakthroughs that we have in mental health.

It was a veteran that was having mental health issues and he went in trying to get mushrooms like psilocybin. And they wouldn't give him that, but they offered him MAID.

22 veterans a day commit suicide. We denied veterans, like Vietnam veterans, that they had a major issue.

Why aren't you helping this person with something that could save their life versus like offering like a death pod? That makes no sense to me at all. Well, good to see you this morning.

Good to see you, Candace.

Oh my gosh. I— we were just saying how I don't even know where to begin or where I wanted to take this episode. And when I was talking to Eric downstairs, he's like, well, um, like, how are you approaching it? I was like, honestly, I just want to— like, what would I want to listen to? Like, what would I find important? And like, the science and stuff is really interesting, but I think that there's like so many other podcasts that get like really technical. And what for me is intriguing is like the personal and like the deep and the intimate. And, um, So I think that's kind of where I want to go with it. But I truly think, and this is what we said last night, or what I said last night, was I had this knowing that everything happens for a reason. And I told, see, I'm already getting emotional.

I don't know.

I was like, I'm definitely going to be crying so much in this episode.

I'm Mike Zeller and you are watching Chatting with Candace.

The way that we had met is I was supposed to do a medicine journey and the theme of it was love, and it was supposed to be MDMA, and it just would— it turned into a shit show, honestly. And it ended up with me leaving and me and my husband kind of like getting really, really getting into it and not seeing things the same way. Like, he has a really great experience at this particular location and with this facilitator. I see something very different, and I chose to listen to myself. And normally I would self-doubt, and I would I would say like, well, maybe I'm broken and just listen to Eric, but like begrudgingly, not because like I trust him or I want him to lead me. It was just like more of a disbelief in myself. And I think if I had done my pattern, which was that, I never would have met you. And what I said last night was like, truly, I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone would have like had me have that breakthrough that you did. So just thank you so very much.

Yeah, I've found, you know, the first thing that you need for that type of deep sacred work, because we work through like core wounds and core traumas for you both, and we got there really fast, right? You know, first time physically meeting you both in person, the first aspect is a really deep sense of safety. And if you don't have that sense of safety, the feminine can't relax and the masculine can't relax in. And I've found, for whatever reason, I often can create that sense of masculine safety that creates this container for both energies to surrender in. And— but you got to have that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's an excellent point. Um, every facilitator has like their own vibration and like way of doing things. How would you describe the divine masculine? Because I think, I think so many people are getting it wrong.

Yeah.

So like, what is your definition of divine masculine?

I don't know if I've ever fully defined it in this way, but yeah, one, one aspect, the divine masculine offers its strength and service, and so it creates this container that says, I can hold you. You're your fierceness, your passion does not scare me. And I can hold this container, your vulnerability, and it does not scare me either. But I can offer that tender strength. So it's a juxtaposition between strength and tenderness. And so it's like this hard, not hard shell, but this strength on the outside, but also allows the heart to open up and the heart to share and the heart to express and hard to activate its higher potential. So like, I see the divine masculine, it's not toxic masculine, it's not controlling, it's not dictating. Sometimes it will lead with strength and lead with emphasis. Like, I had to lead my wife even while I've been down here visiting you guys with a few elements of strength, but it was tender strength.

Um, but it's really present too, so Yeah, that's kind of what I felt too. It's, it's this safety, like a, like a really warm, safe place and where I can relax. Yeah, like I don't have to be— and I used to think, I used to think that was like hard man, right? Like a, a guy, and I'm not saying that you're not, but like, like the guy with, um, like tattoos and guns and Harley, right? And like, that's what's gonna make me feel safe. And then I've realized that's not what makes me feel safe either, right? Like it's it's like a facade. It's not the full real thing that I need. Yeah.

And the feminine needs— one of the biggest things that I had to learn where I really screwed it up was the feminine wants to feel that emotional safety. You might— like, you felt physically safe with Eric, but you didn't feel emotionally safe until we got to that breakthrough last night. And I didn't— my wife complained for years of like, you're emotionally disconnected from your heart. You're like She called me names and stuff when we get in fights and say, you're so— she'd say, you're kind, but you're an asshole to me sometimes. And it was because I was emotionally disconnected from my heart, which didn't create the safe space for her to be connected to me. She didn't feel her heart connection with me.

Yeah, that makes me think, um, I think I shared this on a call before we, before we met in person, and it was that Tucker Carlson episode, um, with Sean Ryan, and he was talking about, like, it was a really good 10-minute clip, but it was, he was saying, don't marry, don't marry a girl with daddy issues, basically, because it's, it's gonna be a lot of work. And he knows all of these girls that are either in like sex work or they had, they have some kind of daddy issues and they're just really jumpy. And I was listening so, so in tune because I'm like, oh, he's talking to me right now. And I had never felt it articulated so well the jumpiness where every fight is, it's the end of the world. We're not meant to be together. We're gonna end up in a divorce or we're gonna have to like somehow figure out how to like make it work. And that was one of the biggest things I wanted to get over was my attachment wounds, right? And like, I guess you would say avoidant and fearful avoidant. And I apologize for the quick interruption, but if I could remind you to just hit like and subscribe and hang around at the end for some important information. And back to the episode. So when it comes to these attachment wounds, like, I guess, with— how does the medicine help in rewiring or like reprogramming to get to secure attachment?

Yeah, so, you know, core wounds are going to cause us to— as long as those core wounds are still active and present, they're going to cause us to be like, I was dismissive avoidant, my wife is fearful avoidant, similar pattern of Eric's more anxious attachment. And everyone can get to a secure attachment, but it's not easy. And now the medicine creates this radical opening. I think it's arguably the most powerful opening we ever have in our known lifetime for creating beautiful, transformative change. Because in the research, and there's a research report, Nardo 2023, August 2023, talks about the acute subjective experience critical period reopening. So two major windows. The window we were in yesterday, that's the acute subjective window where your nervous system is basically more wide open than it's ever been before. And that's why we can do so much deep work and we can go right in. We actually hit on several of your— and helped heal several of your core wounds and Eric's. But when you heal those core wounds, then it's like your operating system— the metaphor I use is almost like your operating system is in your nervous system. Let's say it's got 100% capacity. Well, if you got 30% of capacity eaten up by like this daddy wound and this major abandonment or whatever, then you got another 10% by a boyfriend, then another 10% by losing a pet or whatever, like all these traumas where, you know, trauma is basically emotion that got frozen in your nervous system from some, like we had the thing come up, I think when you were 15 or 17, you know, I don't remember the exact year. And so those things get frozen and the medicine creates this safe space because MDMA, for example, floods your body with this feeling of safety. Now, initially you resisted it.

Yes, and I wanted to ask about that too, because for a second, I'm sitting, because you ended up going over me and starting with Eric, 'cause I just couldn't. And I'm like, I can't even see anything right now. And I'm like, I'm highly sensitive to caffeine, to cannabis, like whatever it is, like I need very little to do the job. So I did this thing, not knowing, like really, like, what is gonna happen, not knowing anything. And then I'm like, that's not working. Why is it not working?

Yeah, and so your protector part, so in your psyche, like, we have these different parts and dimensions of ourselves. Well, your protector part initially let you see a memory that we were working on, and then it said, nope, I'm aboard, aboard, aboard, not safe. And what I often see with a lot of the female or couple clients I work with, where they're all like leaders and high performers, but high functioning. But until we work through the husband, the wife doesn't feel safe to open up. And so even if like I have clients that it's really the wife that hired me, and so I'm like, I gotta help you with your PTSD, let's get to you. And then she's like, we'll try and get to her and nope, won't go. And then I'll go right to the husband right afterwards and boom, we'll work through him. And then now, because he's open and vulnerable and she feels his heart. And then now she's— it's like her nervous system says, okay, it's okay, I can come out and play. And that's what happened with you. And then, you know, then I made— helped you guys get into that physical connection where he's holding you and grounding you, because I could, I could just read that you were not, not feeling safe, even though you consciously, you thought you were.

Yeah.

And but physiologically, I was like, no, she doesn't feel safe. And then he— when he put his shoulders on you, the masculine has such a gift of being able to ground the feminine if they know how to do it. And so, you know, when you put the shoulders on— a man puts where the woman feels physically safe, right? Then you just felt like your swirl, your emotions just kind of calmed down, right?

Yeah. The way that you had described it, because again, like, I went in not like— not blind, because you provided a ton of information before, but blind in, um, like a somatic sense, because I had no idea what was going to happen to my body. And What I have been told through media and social media is that this is like a party drug and it's super dangerous and that's why it's illegal and only like reckless people take it. Um, and that it's like very— like it's an upper, like it gives you a ton of energy and like you see people raving and it's this thing and they're like super sexual on it and it's a sex drug, right? And I take it And once it finally kicks in, like after Eric did some work, I was like, whoa, I feel like I got hit with a blow dart. And I told Eric today, I was like, you know, in that movie Old School where Frank the Tank gets hit with a blow dart and falls into the pool and then like the music starts playing. Like that's kind of what happened. And I'm like, I turned into a jellyfish and I couldn't move. I'm like, how do people dance on this? It's like, that's not what's happening. And then I kind of felt very out of body, which I also wasn't anticipating. So when you're like, know that this is what happens to the feminine, especially if she is, um, on burn— like on the edge of burnout or burning out, and the masculine can ground. And I'm like, there's no way. And seriously, soon as, um, I think you did it first and then Eric did it next, like put your hands on my shoulder, immediately I was back in my body and I wasn't floaty. I could feel the ground, I could feel my legs. And then the moment anyone would release, it's like right back up. And then that's when I laid down, cuz I was like, this is a lot.

Yeah.

But yeah, the— like, so to, to deny like the polarity even within within like the male-female is so crazy to me because it's not, it's not about anything else, not about identity. It's like this thing exists beyond us on such a different level, and you have to experience that to like know that that is true.

Yeah. And the other thing that's really cool with MDMA is because it's an associative. So like LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, it's dissociative, which takes you out of your body. And when you've been through significant trauma, you know, you've had narcissistic dad and other, a bunch of trauma in your past. Well, what happens in trauma, especially sexual trauma too, we wanna escape and we disassociate. And my wife would do the same thing. Her imagination was so vivid as a kid where she'd go out of body when her parents were fighting. And so how do we heal trauma is like we gotta bring you back into the association in a safe way where nervous system doesn't get retriggered. That's why cognitive behavioral therapy does not work very well for significant higher levels of trauma and PTSD because it just re-triggers you. You're talking about it and also you're locked in your head. Well, the memory is stored in your body. You know, the body keeps the score. Well, the reality is that your skeletal muscle cells versus red blood cells, your red blood cells live an average of 115 days. Skeletal muscle cells live an average of 15 years or 5,475 days. So everything that has happened to you for the last 15 years, your body remembers, literally remembers in its cells. And then beyond that, whatever happened before, your body also— the muscle cells communicated to the new muscle cells, "Hey, this happened. Watch out for this. This is danger." And so that's a massive thing. You had to get back into your body, and then we had to move through those traumas while you were associated, but the medicine basically says, "Hey, you're in a feeling of belonging and love and safety, so you can handle this." Because you couldn't handle it under a normal— like, things like rape and things like abuse and things like abandonment and, you know, all the things that humans go through. Well, you can't handle them without the medicine to face— or you can, but it's so much slower and so much more painful.

Yeah, and the thing that I found really interesting with me and my experience was there were things that I never would have said were stored or were a big deal or like I had like this mental resilience. So the one story I actually texted my girlfriend this morning was getting drugged at a party.

Yeah.

Yeah. And Somehow ending up in my room and with like a guy on top of me and I couldn't move. And she walked in and I like, she was like, she didn't really give me a lot. I think she's at work, but I was like, I don't know if you knew what was about to happen or what you were doing, but like you like, ah, you saved me. And just like, thank you. And I thought like, Yeah, it was like nothing happened, so I'm fine. It wasn't. Yeah, like I wasn't. And it came up and it was like my whole body was doing this huge release. And the funny thing was, we were talking about Goop, and who is the somatic practitioner you talked about?

Uh, Peter Levine.

Peter Levine. I'm like, is that real? Because I'm watching these things and I see these bodies that are just like convulsing, just doing these jerky movements and like tremoring, and I'm like, that's so fake. And then it starts happening to me. And I literally looked at you and Eric. I'm like, if I were watching myself right now, I would say she's faking it. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. And just like, just be. And I was like, I'm not judging it. It was funny to me because I have avoided or like dismissed this work and space for so long because I think so many people, the way that it's presented online, it's almost like a caricature. Yeah. Like this disco and like glitters everywhere and raves and this big hats. And I'm like, I don't get it. Like, I just— it's not believable to me. And I think I was probably the biggest skeptic. And I think my body, like, my initial response was even saying that, right? Which is why I couldn't dip into it. And then once it happened and I was letting go, I was like, no, this is so real. And it was the most powerful, like, healing experience of my life. And like, uh, when we're going through any kind of trauma or Even like letting Eric like talk about wounds or things that I've done to him or things that have bothered him. It's this place of like, you can say anything to me and I love you and I'm not going anywhere and you can cry and you can rage and you can like just like bear it all and I'm here for it and I love you so much. And it's like really meaning that on a cellular level, like I'm not going anywhere. And I'm like, I'm sorry it took me so long.

Yeah. It's okay.

Yeah.

It's okay. Everything's happening in its perfect time. And, you know, you had a massive reset last night. This factory reset. And Eric did too. And then you also had a factory reset together of connection. And it was— and then also in your body, you know, like the memory of almost being raped at that party where you were drugged and all that. Yes, it quote physically did not happen, but the fear was stuck. It was frozen. And it will stay frozen until it gets unfrozen. And so this process that, you know, it's really the combo. Yes, psychedelics are used in the party sense, but they have incredible benefit. And that's why the FDA's fast-tracked them through the approval process. And they still have some hoops to jump through to get it fully approved. it's the biggest breakthrough in mental health that we've seen in our lifetime when it's coupled, especially with the therapeutic trauma-informed high-level therapy outcome that we want to have to move through those massive things, because you have that opening, and how you use that opening, you have to be such a good steward of it. And so, like, there's also practitioners, like, where practitioners are emotionally disconnected, like in the experience that you had previously, not understanding how much you have to create safety and also respect the participants and respect their autonomy and read. And that guy probably is not as trauma-informed. I, like, lived through— my wife's a 3-time suicide survivor. So when I got into this work because of her trauma and trying to figure it out and trying to heal it, and ultimately we did get her fully cured of depression. But, like, in your case, You guys have really recalibrated, and it's gonna be beautiful to see how things unfold for you too.

So with your story, and oh man, I can't even imagine for either of you. I guess when it comes to like a depression that deep and like a wound that deep that you try to take your own life like several times, and then you see this medicine or this drug that works, right? When we were seeing it in trials, it works. And I've now experienced it and it works. And it's one dose. It was one dose. Like my biggest thing is I have like a mild headache and my jaw hurts. That's it. Right? And I sweat a little bit. That's it. Then you have pharmacy, like pharmaceutical companies pushing these SSRIs that have black box labels of violence and suicide. And you have someone who's already suicidal, but that's okay, but we made this other thing. If you take this other thing, you go to jail. It doesn't make sense. And then with that bill that's getting passed, wasn't it rejected or it was like tossed back?

Well, yeah, it's a misnomer. The committee, um, basically gave a recommendation. Now the committee experts, um, that were on that committee, even the FDA director in the, in the middle of sessions— so you're referencing a committee recommendation on MDMA-approved therapy that they were expecting to still vote on. They're still voting in August. So it wasn't the actual vote, but it was a committee recommendation. And now the appointees of the committee are not psychedelic-informed, so they don't even understand the drug side. They also don't understand FDA trials very well. So I just listened to a podcast with another neuroscientist and MD that's in the space, Apollo Neuroscience founder, and they talked about how the FDA director was even getting frustrated in the middle of the committee because they were just, it was like they were in a pissing contest to figure out who could throw the most holes in the study, even though Lycos had worked hand in hand or MAPS had worked hand in hand with the FDA to design the study, and they were throwing out objections around like the therapy side. Well, FDA is not supposed to regulate therapy, so it's just really a bogus kind of most likely set up by big pharma to delay. It's only going to delay. It's not going to stop it, the approval.

You think the approval is going through?

I don't know if it's going to happen in August. It's probably 50/50 versus it looked like a near certainty, and so it's a headline grabber. So now everyone's like, "Ah, all these scary things. It's not safe." But these big pharma drugs, like I had a girlfriend after college who walked home on her roommate who was on an SSRI and shot herself in the brain.

Whoa.

Done, right? So that stuff happens all the time. Your odds of committing suicide are just as high on SSRIs typically, on most of them. I'm not a scientist, but I've seen data around that. And they can help in certain cases, but you don't want to be on them long-term. And most of the time, like I have clients that have been on like Lexapro for 15 years. And why? Like that's not a solution, that's a bandaid.

So do you think when people see that headline, do you feel the general consciousness is like, that's bullshit? Or do you think that there's still a lot of hesitation?

Yeah, I think people that don't really understand it, No, it's total— or the people that don't understand it will be like, oh, I guess it's not gonna pass. I guess it's, you know, but people that are really in the know, the neuroscientists, the therapists, the organizations I'm aware of, the leaders, you know, all the biohackers also too, the people that have experienced it, they know it's BS and it's ultimately gonna get passed. Even the FDA director, They, yes, they are funded by Big Pharma because all the trials goes to FDA, right? They have to pay the FDA millions of dollars for all these trials, but the evidence is overwhelming. It's the greatest breakthrough. Psilocybin and MDMA are the greatest breakthroughs that we have in mental health, and Veterans Administration is desperate. 22 veterans a day commit suicide. Well, this, I think it's 70% of veterans that were in the study, if I remember correctly, about 70%, they were, they had been labeled treatment-resistant depression and treatment-resistant PTSD, meaning the other stuff wasn't working. And so MAPS, if I remember correctly, chose the most difficult participants to participate. And 70% of them got full remission. So like went from no hope, you're stuck, you just have to manage and cope with your symptoms the rest of your life, "this is all we got," to "you're fully cured," based on, you know, a year later, still no symptoms of depression or PTSD. So, and I see that with my wife, I see that with most of my clients, essentially all my clients, we will get them to the desired outcome if they stick with the process. Sometimes it's one session, sometimes it's two or three.

[Speaker] Did you see that headline? It was in Canada where it was a veteran that was having mental health issues and he went in trying to get mushrooms, like psilocybin, and it's legal up there.

Yeah.

And they wouldn't give him that, but they offered him MAID.

Yeah, yeah. I heard your interview with the person that was—

Kelsey.

Yeah, Kelsey. Insane.

So when I see that, I feel like there is— that's not by accident in some nefarious way. It's like, that's very anti-life, and you have both that are at your disposal, then why aren't you helping this person with something that could save their life versus like offering like a death pod. That makes no sense to me at all unless you don't want that population to get better because the way that we treat our vets is disgusting. And we have the capabilities. Like we're one of the most powerful nations and so is Canada in the world.

And the cost, the cost of the drugs themselves for a single treatment is like $30 or $50.

Right, so why aren't we just, it seems like there's something else, like there's something missing. And to me where my mind goes, 'cause I'm often like, what is the worst thing anyone could want? And it's like, these are really powerful people. They're powerful. They're patriotic. They're protective. So they are a threat to big government and they're a threat to big power. And I think it's intentional. Like, we want to use you, and when we're done with you, we don't want you to turn on us if ever there's a situation. So now you're disposable. Yeah, you know what I mean? Why else would we let them be homeless? And I think the number— I think the number is higher than 22. I want to say it's in the 40s a day, which is crazy. There was that graph of Afghanistan. It showed like all of the wars and then the suicide, and they were just leagues apart from each other. That's not by mistake.

No. Yeah. And it's crazy to think too, like, um, we denied veterans, like Vietnam veterans, that they had a major issue basically for years. And then finally they, with enough lobbying and organizing, they created, uh, the designation of PTSD. That didn't, that didn't happen until 1983.

Wow.

Right. And so, and it was really because so many Vietnam veterans were showing so many just erratic difficult symptoms. They weren't coming back into normal life, and we didn't understand it. Now we understand trauma and PTSD. So, I mean, we've had like 100 years' worth of breakthroughs in the last 10 years, but we, we still got a lot to unpack and a lot to understand.

So do you think, like, what's the next phase? I guess it has to be like legalized for it to scale technically.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Um, but it's So that will hopefully, if it doesn't happen in August, will hopefully happen next year. But in the meantime, there's underground movements and experiences and it's just growing, it's mushrooming because people are desperate for change. When as more and more people like yourselves, like you just had a beautiful breakthrough, your nervous system is recalibrating than what like a lot of my clients, I don't just for safety's sake, I do not dose or supply the medicine. So that protects me legally. But my clients, when they experience a breakthrough, because I can sit with them, there's no law that says you can't sit with them. Well, then they end up referring me 4 or 5 other friends. And because everyone knows someone that's suffering with depression or PTSD, or their marriage is in crisis, or they're just stuck, emotionally stuck. And one session, I can get them unlocked usually.

Yeah. Yeah, it was wild. And again, as a self-proclaimed skeptic, and I had a ton of reservations, um, it's like once I felt safe— and I think that was like, again, when we talked about the Divine Masculine, how important it was that it was you there— is, um, like, I didn't feel under attack at all or judged, and I just like felt held. And I think it's so important that if you're doing this, that you find someone that you really like it's a full body yes with that person. And with you, and I even just met you over the phone, like FaceTime, it was like, like a yes immediately. Like I just felt safe. So I think that's so important. And if like you want to do testing, if that makes you feel safe, like never let someone make you feel bad about that. You know what I mean? And that's also what kind of happened with my other situation. And I'm like, you're gaslighting me and you're like, I have two kids. There's nothing I'm going to do that is gonna put my life in jeopardy. Like, even if I have to go through the rest of it like more dull and maybe not as happy, like, yeah, I will do that before I risk my life because those boys need me. And if that's a $20 test to make sure that it's clean, give me a break. You should be like, that's fine. So it's like whatever you need to do, whatever protocol or testing or person, do that because your safety and like feeling safe is is the number one thing to have a good experience, I think. And again, once it hit, it was like, man, I— the closest love that I had experienced like that was with my children. I've never experienced that with Eric in my life. Yeah, I just haven't. And it was just, again, it's like, this is like a new feeling. Yeah, it's a new state.

Well, and what's cool for you guys is it was there the whole time, but you didn't your body didn't feel physiologically safe to let it in. And he also felt unsafe to extend that love fully and be that heart open because he's like, "Is she gonna run? Is she gonna abandon me?" And because he had his abandonment wounds, right? And so, because I could see, like, at the beginning, you guys sat on almost opposite ends of the couch. And I was like, "Oh, there's something interesting here. What am I gonna do here? Okay." And then like when he got up to use the restroom, then he sat even further away. I was like, okay. And I was like, I'm not going to ask them to sit closer together, but I'm going to see if there's something happening. Yeah. And then after that, you guys were just all over each other. And then the affection, like, because he felt— you literally see him feel so much safer with also loving you and extending his love because he's like, I'm not going to be abandoned. And the— for his attachment style, if he feels unsafe, then he's gonna withdraw. And then if you don't feel safe, you're not gonna invite him in. And you got to control things. You gotta be in your masculine, which is not a great feeling, and you get tired.

Yeah.

So many women are in their masculine and they just are effing tired. A lot of— probably 60% of my women clients are really exhausted. And they are— they're also— their life patterns looks a little bit more like masculine. They're burning out, they're grinding instead of receiving and flow. And if you're on the edge of burnout, like, uh, a lot of my feminine clients or female clients, when the medicine kicks in, it's almost like they want to take a nap.

Yeah.

And, and I think you had a little bit of that too.

Yeah, just a blow dart. And I'm like, again, how is this an upper? This is— that's not my experience. And it's like, is there just so much happening that I need to work on that's not available to me, or I don't know.

Well, so if I look at the communication channels, so it's like heart, body, mind, and spirit. Well, we open up your body to connect and your heart to connect a lot more because you've been so in your mind and Eric's so in his mind too, which is predominantly Western culture. We're like, get in your head. We're in our head all the time, but get in your head and you're dead. And so then your body finally had a chance to speak and basically say, I'm tired and I want— I need to surrender in and let go. And you were out and you even kind of wrestled with it throughout the evening of like your conscious mind was trying to control again. And we had to invite you back into your body and back into your body. But that just means your life patterns are leading to burnout. And you can re— and you were probably on a masculine train track and how you were working or Or you just went through, maybe it's sometimes, I don't know, do you feel like you've just never had a period to regroup and restore your energy after children, work, family life, whatever?

Yeah, I feel like I've always guilted myself. Even when I took some time off work, I'd never, even though I wasn't working, I was berating myself for not working. So it wasn't the same as recuperating or being still or present.

Yeah, so it's not real time off.

Right.

Yeah. So I read a book, Powerful Engagement, and it's from sports psychologists, and they talked a lot about the four energy quadrants: emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. Foundation of it is physical, and they talked about Olympic athletes, and they coach a lot of pro tennis players and Olympic athletes, pro athletes, corporate execs. And they talk about how we gotta do— we exert really well, but it's two rhythms: exert and then renew, exert and renew. But American culture, it's like exert, and then how do I exert more? How do I get more done in less time? How do I work harder, longer, faster? Instead of, oh, I need to restore. But if you look at Tom Brady, why didn't he play until he was 44 and win a Super Bowl in his 40s? He had such a deep renewal pattern. LeBron James, how many hours of sleep does he take a day? 10 hours, 8 to 10 hours usually. He has such a deep restoration plan. Um, but us in Western culture, it's just all exertion. And so like for you, and like what I do with a lot of my clients, then I would— we're gonna work on recalibrating the, the energy. And then usually 2 to 4 weeks— I have one client, she just got a massive breakthrough in her career. We, we did our first session end of April She almost fell asleep in the first 30 minutes. I'm like, you didn't pay me all this money and fly me to Washington, D.C. to fall asleep. I was like, oh, what am I gonna do? And that's the first time I had a client basically falling asleep on me right as the medicine was kicking in. I was like, crap. And she's 42, very successful. And I was like, all right, let's go outside in the sun. And then I was like, her name's Yaz. I was like, Yaz, you're really exhausted, aren't you? And you've been around and she's like, yeah, I've been just running. And she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Wow.

And then now— and then I had her recalibrate afterwards. I was like, now you got to start listening to your body because your body is telling you. She also has autoimmune disease and other things. I was like, you— we've got to recalibrate you. And, and 2 weeks later, she sends me a text. She's like, Mike, am I reverse aging? I feel freaking amazing. And it was, we had, I got a rep, we started focusing on the rest and supplementation, NAD, a bunch of other things and got her right back. And now she, she just had two huge breakthroughs. I won't share other details to protect her identity, but it was massive. Wow. Yeah. And then one other thing I should mention for you is feminine.

Yes.

You are about 3 times more likely to get an autoimmune disease.

I already have one. So that's, I was going to ask, did hers, is she, does she still have it or is it, improving.

It's improving for sure.

Yeah.

And it can improve. What's— if I may ask.

Yeah, yeah. I'm open book. Yeah. Yeah. So I got diagnosed with Graves' disease in my early 20s and I almost died from it because no one knew what it was. I get diagnosed, I get put on medicine, and this is like Western meds for you. I get put on this medicine, I gain so much weight.

Yeah.

And I'm yelling at my doctor. My doctor fires me because I'm like, you're putting me on the wrong medicine. I'm just blowing up. So I get fired. I find a new doctor. He puts me on a different medicine, but I've been on this medicine or was on the medicine for like 10 years and they didn't want to taper me off or like see what was going on. So I felt low and I kept telling them like, I don't feel hyper anymore. Like I feel low. Like I feel like it's not enough. I can't really lose weight. They're like, you're in the normal range. I'm like, that doesn't fucking mean anything.

Yeah, normal's not healthy.

Right. Everyone's so different. So I decide to listen to myself. I'm like, I'm just gonna stop taking the medicine and see what happens. I cold turkey go out and this is not advised because you can go into like thyroid storm if it's bad. But for me, that's what I wanted to do. So I did it. I think it was like months. I'm like, I feel really good. I started to lose a little bit of weight and I go in for a checkup and he's like, oh, so you're still doing the 5 milligrams, blah, blah, blah. I was like, no, I don't take anything. He's like, what? And he's like started panicking. He's like, we need to go do labs. You could do a thyroid storm. And he was like really worried for me. And it was still in normal range. And I'm like, I still feel like it's a little low. So then I hire another specialist and she's like, oh yeah, let's take a look. And now I'm way low. Basically I have no thyroid at all and my antibodies are still high. So in a weird way, I feel like I got rid of the hyper part, but now I'm hypo, but I still have antibodies. So I'm wondering if this will make my markers go down, like my body attacking itself. Or—

So you're 226% more likely to get an autoimmune disease if you have stored trauma and PTSD that has not been dealt with. I can't remember the exact link in the study, but, um, chance are your nervous system will recalibrate, and people do start mysteriously healing because it's hard to prove the exact cause of most autoimmune diseases. Um, but trauma is definitely a link for the majority of them. For a high percentage of them. So I would say your nervous system will start recalibrating. Your body will start to heal itself. It knows how to heal itself, and then we'll get back in equal— like, why is it attacking itself? Yeah, because it's in pain, it's in suffering, and it has— it's remembering something that was really hard that it hates, right? Or it has self-loathing or self-judgment or self-hate. Um, I would add another thing, probably for you to add, is really do some heavy NAD optimization. Because it's— NAD is, you know, it's involved in 500+ metabolic processes. Almost everything our body does, all cellular processes almost use NAD. And if you— as we age, we naturally get depleted. But if you've already been through some autoimmune and you're suffering from any level of fatigue, you probably have an NAD deficiency.

So do you like taking NAD at a specific time of day or with or without meals?

I take it twice a day, in the morning and then mid-afternoon. And you don't want— I do the powder and it's an NMN blend with— it's from GINFINITY, but that blend is really, really effective. It's probably the most effective one on the market. IV drips help on the plasma level, but not on the cellular— the inside of the cellular nuclei. And the nuclei is more important for aging and disease prevention.

Oh, wow. I would have guessed the opposite because of just the price. And I'm one of those suckers. I'm like, if it's more expensive, that's definitely the better thing. IV a couple of— yeah, I guess 2 years ago. And it was like an elephant on my chest. It was really hard to get through.

Yeah, I had an IV clinic and that's part of— I discovered it because it was really powerful for addiction, but also for depression. And so that—

yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

So like, if you think your brain is 3% of your body weight but uses 25 to 30% of your body's energy, well, NAD is the primary fuel source for your cellular all cellular activity. If you're deficient in NAD, naturally your brain is not going to be functioning right. You're going to have brain fog, you're going to feel tired, you're also going to be more likely to get Parkinson's as you age, all those things. Well, if you boost your— my NAD levels now are the equivalent of a healthy 12-year-old. It feels great. I've played more basketball than I did in my 30s. I'm 45 and I feel younger. I'm sharp. I can go all day. Like, I don't get tired. Like, I used to get tired at 5 or 6 o'clock at night. Like, I wasn't tired at midnight last night and I feel good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Geez. One of the things I wanted to circle back with. So with men specifically and doing MDMA therapy, do you find a pattern or like a common thread when it comes to like a resistance to expressing vulnerability to the feminine?

100%. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up. So my wife, and like a lot of wives, complained that I was not emotionally available and connected. I'm like, "What the hell? I don't know how to do that." I had no wiring for that. I couldn't get there. And she was like a walking heart and I was like a walking mind. So you can imagine there's a little disconnect. And I was kind, I was loving, but I just did not even know, and I physiologically did not understand how to connect with her emotionally the way she wanted. Um, but MDMA, because it's an empathogen, it floods you with a sense of empathy. It's literally like it creates this new neural pathway of empathy that I never had before. And I can remember after the first time I did it, I was rocking my daughter to sleep. I usually rock— and she was about 18 months old at the time— and I was rocking her. I just started tearing up. I just felt so emotionally connected and so loving to her. And it was like 3 days after the session. And I was like, "Wow, okay." And then my wife and I could connect, at least for— now eventually my afterglow kind of wore off. But now I've done it enough that that pathway is there without the medicine. Like I was tearing up with you guys as you were tearing up last night, you know? And I can get there. And like I'll rock my daughter to sleep, you know, probably once a week. Where I just tear up. I just feel so much love. And my daughter now runs to me in a way she never ran to me when I would come home or whatever, because she feels emotionally safe and connected to me. And I'm empathetic. But for men that struggle with getting that emotional connection, and it's harder for us as men, we're not wired that way as deeply. Like one research study found that average 7-year-old daughter has a more emotionally rich vocabulary than her dad. 7-year-old. And so I got like 4 years if I'm average. I'm above average, but, you know, because my 3-year-old is— she's full of expression. But, you know, if I want to be emotionally connected, my wife wanted it to— I mean, our marriage was on the rocks many different times because of that. I mean, that was one of the factors. And now, like, we're better than ever. She feels more love and more heart connection, and I'm able to empathize and I have that pathway. And I would say before it was a gravel road from my heart to my head, now it's like a 4-lane highway. And I couldn't have got there without the medicine.

So what would you say to men that say women don't actually want to see vulnerability, or let alone a man cry, because the minute that they show anything, that she'll see, see it as weakness and leave?

Yeah, I'd say sometimes that is true, that women will say that And then like my wife, when I started being more emotionally vulnerable, she then would say a couple of weeks later, "No, I don't want to say anything because then you'll be like a pussy and cry." Oh no. And so that was her, but she was also learning to re-pattern her nervous system. And then I'm also learning what type of vulnerability really means. It doesn't mean being a moppy mess necessarily, but it means being emotionally safe and connected to my wife. So I thought that, you know, women might say they want— what they really want is they want to feel emotionally safe. So they don't necessarily want us to unravel before them because we— they might not feel safe if we unravel. And so we still need an outlet to unravel, whether that's another you know, coach, therapist, another buddy, wise mentor, whatever. You need someone sometimes to be able to unravel. And I can unravel with my wife to some extent with certain things, but I can't do everything. You know, she doesn't really want me to unravel like she unravels. She needs me to hold space for anything and everything. And she has her girlfriends for that too and her sister. And I found, at least in my work, that the women, when they say that, they just want the emotional connection. That's really what they want. Because if Eric is a soppy mess for like weeks, you're like, you are— now you have to shift into masculine.

Yeah.

So, and men, we don't really want to be a soppy mess anyhow. That's not as natural for us.

Yeah. I think— yeah. Balance too between like wallowing and not letting the emotion pass through you versus just one honest expression. And I've had men in the comment section say that they took advice and they were vulnerable and they cried for the first time in front of their girlfriend, and now it's their ex-girlfriend. And I think it's, it's gotta probably be a balance for a man. I know it's going to be different than for a woman. Like, you can't bear all of it all of the time, so being selective with it. But I would also have the counterpoint that if she's so scared of seeing you, then that's not your fault.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's like my wife had to heal and re-pattern some ideology around what authentic masculinity looked like for her because she grew up in a very toxic masculine environment. So 100%. And now we have that, but yeah, I would say men, It's scary to emotionally unwind and cry, but, and that's not even necessarily the ultimate barometer of like emotional vulnerability. Do you cry?

Yeah.

But a lot of men I've worked with haven't cried in 20 years too. And then finally they open up and release too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think too, like being intentional with your partner and sometimes realizing it's not the partner for you or working together to where you're both operating at a higher level, so neither of you are scared.

Yeah. And ultimately too, I see a lot of men where we need to be able to learn how to process our emotion instead of burying it and suppressing it. And when we bury and suppress it, then it often comes back out as anger. And that also doesn't make you feel safe. And like one of my clients right now, he's controlling his anger, but I'm actually trying to get him to unlock it.

Like in your management?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, "I want it out." So he's like, be a raging bear for a moment, not with his wife, but be a raging bear to release it because it's so suppressed and so tightly controlled. And that's making his power, that's robbing him of his power. When you're controlling your emotion, you know, the Bible says, "Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life." You know, Jesus and other spiritual leaders talked about, yeah, love with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your soul, all of your body. Like, every aspect of you needs to be involved. But if a major chunk of it is cut off, well, your heart is like the source of creativity, the source of inspiration, the source of, uh, your magnetism. You know, HeartMath Institute has found that the heart is 65 times more electromagnetically powerful than your brain.

Brain.

So it sends out a stronger electromagnetic field that can extend up to 8 feet. But if you're disconnected, it's like a dead zone.

How's that measured?

Uh, ECGs.

Okay.

Um, heartmathinstitute.org, they have a lot of research on it. But it's like, literally, they can— if you're in heart coherence, which is where you're just connected and you're not in bitterness, not in rage, not in any of that, but you're just in this loving, centered state, you, your electromagnetic field actually extends out 8 feet. If you're not, it's like, it's like inches. And so this is even kind of older technology. I don't understand it all right now, but it, like, you can feel it when you walk in. Like, I've been to a bunch of Tony Robbins events. The dude is connected and he's present. Joe Dispenza, Oprah, Michelle Obama, or Michelle, yeah, Michelle Obama. You know, so when people are in heart coherence, like, I feel you guys are in heart coherence now. You didn't start the night off in heart coherence.

No.

So, and you're in a glow. And there's this trust and this energy and rapport that happens when you're in heart coherence.

Yeah, it's— I've been, I've been like so cognizant today of like what I'm listening to. I haven't been on my phone. And even when I went to put music on when I was getting ready, Like, what playlist do I do? I don't want to like take any, like anything that's going to kind of bring me down or like lower the vibration at all. What is the protocol to like, I guess, keep all the benefits for as long as possible and then be able to integrate it to where you're not like using something every other week or— Yeah, right. Like you're not relying externally to get there and like you can trust your body to get back.

Yeah. So I really think it comes down to about 4 or 5 things. First, like after the session, so back on the neuroscience side, you know, you have this acute window, acute subjective experience, which is while you're on the high. And that's 3 to 6 hours for most medicines, for MDMA and psilocybin. Ketamine is 30 minutes to 2 hours. LSD is like 8 to 10 hours. But the 2 weeks after, up to 2.5 weeks, you're in this critical period reopening. And it's basically where your neuroplasticity is equivalent of a healthy like 2-year-old, at least in terms of social learning. And so you're more prone to anything you do the next 2.5 weeks is going to be anchored in. And so you have a chance to reframe. You have neuroplasticity.

Pressure's on.

Well, you can enjoy it. You're still going to do the normal things, right? But do like the playlist that we used where it's just a very pleasant and high-vibe playlist. So listen to high vibe music, do breathwork, meditation. So that'd be the third thing. I love sound baths. Sound baths, because your nerve— your nervous system in particular was in such a high anxious state unconsciously to some extent, or just not feeling safe. You want to keep recalibrating it back to safety. And then I'd say that there's another exercise called a heart coherence exercise I have on my YouTube channel. Where you just kind of connect with your heart. You put like both hands on your heart and you just breathe into your heart. Takes like 2 minutes. And you just bring your attention and your focus to your heart. Notice what you're feeling. Notice what you're experiencing. Just breathe into your heart and feel your heart. We won't do the full thing, but you just feel and connect to your heart. And then you can also ground— like, you might— for you guys, I would have Eric ground you on a daily basis. Just put his arms firmly on your shoulders so you don't float off, but not force you into the ground. Yeah, not like a tree post or something, but hold you, connect, um, connect from the heart and notice what you're feeling. Um, and then also minimizing the toxicity, minimizing like exposure to difficult, high-stress people or situations. For a couple weeks.

And does that go the same with books and podcasts and movies?

All of that would be great for transitions. Yeah, like don't go watch, you know, Game of Thrones or whatever, Black Hawk Down or something, you know, violent movie that would trigger your nervous system. And it can also mean minimizing, like for my wife after a session, because she's a highly sensitive person and she's also on the scale of autism a little bit, So being around my daughter too much triggers her. And she loves my daughter. She's a great mom. But it literally activates her childhood trauma still. Like we've got two pieces of her complex PTSD, which is very hard to cure. We've basically got 90% of her PTSD out of her system. But two major triggers are like significant exposure to my daughter can sometimes, if my daughter is difficult, will trigger her childhood trauma of screaming, overwhelming children. So we got to work on that. And then being late, some— for some reason being late was a big deal for her as a kid, and she was spanked really bad. I don't know.

Oh yeah, I get that. That's interesting with the neurodivergency. Do you notice anything different with medicine work and being neurodivergent?

Yeah, sometimes. Um, uh, I mean, not every medicine is safe for everybody, right? And so I gotta understand their psychological makeup Their, their history, their mental health history. Also, if they're on any medications, we want to go through all that, like I asked you guys. But you want to know, like, like, for example, I would not give someone a dissociative if they have been traumatized or scared by dissociative experiences, meaning like they did marijuana and it took them off on a wild, crazy journey and they have a lot of trauma around that, then, and part of the process that I use, you know, we do MDMA first and then psilocybin afterwards because the MDMA already floods your body with a sense of safety and then it makes a dissociative really powerful and like, even for you with some of the trauma that you've been through, we needed to first get you associated, and then I want to heal, release the emotion, unfreeze it, move it out of your nervous system, and then allow your nervous system to recalibrate, and then bring in a little bit of a cognitive dissociative that also helps you tap into spiritual connection, which you guys had last night, right?

Yeah, so that was only my second time doing, like, a bigger dose of psilocybin, and I was definitely nervous, 'cause we did— that was so cool, the body testing. I couldn't believe it. So you would ask me a question and there was something that I would be convinced, like I know the answer. The answer is I don't want this or I don't want more of this. I don't want to do that. I'm fine with this. And my body was almost the entire time saying the opposite of what my mind was saying. And I chose to listen to my body because that's why you're here. And I was trusting you in the experience. And I'm so glad that I did because I was definitely nervous. But when it kicked in, my first time I did it, I didn't have a wildly visual experience. It was just like more in my body, like just kind of tremors and then no context to it. So I'm like, I don't know why I'm shaking, but I'm just gonna trust that I needed this. And the time that we did it last night, I was like, Eric was actually getting kind of annoyed. And then I caught myself and I'm like, no, like be here with him. Like all of this is not why you're here. Because I was trying to share with him what I'm seeing and he was getting frustrated. I'm like, okay. So I stopped. Shot, but, um, like, I saw geometrics everywhere. I saw like creatures in the beams and they were like playing and, um, they were like sending down these patterns.

Yeah.

And then towards the end of the night, it was like this, uh, bright teal, like light blue language everywhere.

Wow.

And I didn't know what it was. Like, I'm like, I can't read this. And Eric's like, oh, you shouldn't have said that to yourself because you would have been able to read it. And I was like, dang it, I'm I was such a novice. So like maybe next time. But I was like, I think it again goes back down to safety. And I'm like, I've allowed it to actually get in. And then I was able to see, 'cause Eric always has like these really visual experiences. And I'd always be like, how come he goes to Harry Potter land and I'm sitting here shaking? And that's all, you know what I mean? And I think it was like a lot of resistance. You know, it was like me fighting the medicine. And what's really funny is the first time that I did psilocybin, I brought one of my friends She's very type A and she did a huge dose. And she's half my size. Nothing. Stoned. Like she's just sitting there eating, watching me with my eye mask. She's like, I don't— And then I'm telling her my experience. She's like, I don't understand. So it's amazing how much you can fight something.

100%. Yeah, you can override a lot. And I had another client, she's an oral surgeon and grew up Japanese. She's Japanese, but She, you know, her parents never told her, "I love you," never said those type of things. Well, she does the medicine and she resists and resists and resists. And of course she gets a massive migraine and headache the next day. But she also, when she did surrender in, she opened up and she was so affectionate and expressive, more than she'd ever been. And like my wife and I saw her, like it was in a ceremony, and it was like, wow, she is— such a sweetheart. We could see her, but she's so Type A and so controlling that when she resisted, she wouldn't— nothing experienced. She didn't experience anything. But when she let go, she opened up in a beautiful way. So it is so much about surrendering in.

Yeah, yeah. Context is, is massive. And then maybe like, again, not the first time because it's my second time, it's like, yeah, you just need a little bit more and you need the right person there. Yeah, I think Again, like having just you and Eric and like it being two men, like it just, it's like, okay, I'm good. Like I can let go here and relax. Just to reiterate too, like the week, the window is like two weeks.

Yeah, two and a half weeks.

Two and a half weeks. So I should probably put a calendar reminder to just be like very intentional. Because man, that's gonna be, that's gonna be so hard because that means like zero scrolling.

Yeah.

Because you don't know what you're gonna see.

Yeah, true.

Yeah, yeah, depending on your algorithm especially.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah, but I was doing, um, when I was kind of like, I don't know what to do or what to listen to, I'm like, I'll just make a vision board really quick and just like, just like find some stuff. And it's gonna sound probably trivial, but to me it was like this moment, um, when I used to do vision boards and Eric and I used to do it together and like cutouts, it was always like things. So I'd have, and they usually work, which is the scary part, but it was always things. It was like big house, fast car, big bag of money, jet, like all these things. And I think that's probably the average. And then I start doing my vision board and I'm like, huh, what do I want to put on this? And I found myself like putting, oh my gosh, it's so good. Like emotions, like, yeah, like moments. Like if you were to like capture moments of someone's life. I'm getting emotional again. Um, like kids, kids tumbling in the grass and like an old couple walking down the street. And I'm like, that's what I want.

Yeah, 100%.

Like I have everything else, you know what I mean? Like I have every— it's a different version. I have a car. Like what, you want a nicer car? I have a great house. Like you want a bigger house? Like What is that going to do? And when I was looking at the stuff, I'm like, that's not, I just knew like that's not what I want. And then when I listened, it's like all of these everyday moments like cooking when kids are throwing dough in the air, like that kind of stuff. Which brings me back to the question that it just popped back up. So it was how powerful it was for me to see my body answer questions for me and using that as the barometer truth or alignment. And it was so obvious because my— again, it was like this, right? Or like tremors everywhere. It was very like unignorable. How do I listen when I'm not using an amplifier like that?

So again, it's your conscious mind is really strong, right? And you're used to listening to those loud voices in your mind. And so for you, it's going to be a little bit of practice and just testing on simple stuff. Okay. Like we did on the sushi restaurant. Yeah. As you're, "Hey, where do you want to eat? Masa?" Masa.

And then I remember, and later I was like, "Oh, I don't know if I can trust that because—" Yeah, because you're automatic. "We got in a fight at that restaurant. So what if that's like my no?" And you're like, "It's been working so far. Listen." Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm still trying to dismiss it.

Well, and it also brings up a little bit of the complexity of our psyche. So Masa, you love the food and you actually do physiologically want to go back again, but you also had a bad, overwhelming emotional memory of where you got in a big fight and then triggered your fearful abandonment. You're going to be left and because Eric's upset at you and, you know, well, so it's a complex memory, but you listen and trust your body and it did want, like it does want to go back there. And I think you guys can go without fighting, without threatening divorce and all the things, right, that we do. But so just, I'd say for you is like, all right, so what we did is we did muscle testing. And I asked you a question. It's, I think for your yes, it was your body wanted to lean backwards, right? Eric's was leaning forward, if I remember correctly, your no is leaning forward. So like even my wife, we've done it on like tequila. Do I want some tequila? And if you're like, yes, I do, or no, I don't. And so it could be a vacation, or do I want to do this partnership, a business partnership? Do I want to have this guest on? Do I want to go here for a vacation? Like my wife just did a little muscle testing on, they switched from going to LA to Miami on Friday. So she's going there with a girlfriend and visit another girlfriend down there. And so But your body knows. And so like the thing that is hard for us in our rational Western mind is like our intelligence is far beyond what we think. It's actually in our nervous system, what we feel, and even in the quantum realm. I don't fully understand it all, but in the quantum realm, it's like goes— like one of my favorite examples in The Field. Have you read The Field?

We have it downstairs.

I've not opened it. Mind blown. Well, they did this study, and this is on like 700, I think it's 700 salamanders. What they would do, they'd cut up the salamanders, cut up and take its brain out, slice and dice it, ground it up, whatever. They did a bunch of different things, and they would put the salamander's brain back into the salamander, and the salamander would function. It was so working and operate even if they sliced it up, even if they ground it like ground beef, like sausage. As long as the brain was still back in there, this salamander could go and do its thing. And it was because— and they can measure like a holographic image, and the energy, back to that energetic magnetic resonance, was still in. Now that's a simpler creature than— I wouldn't recommend that study on humans or apes or whatever, probably wouldn't work. But because the energy and the holographic energy was still in there, I don't understand it all, But in the quantum realm, you know, our vibration— when I see in the work, like my client that I mentioned in D.C. who's on the edge of burnout— was we raised her energetic vibration. She just called me on Monday and we talked for the first time in a week or two, and she's like, "Mike, you won't believe what happened." She just secured an agreement with a national government in Africa, like a massive deal that she has equity and she gets paid a very substantial amount. And then she secured another opportunity. Like, her career has just blown up in 45 days. Wow. But it was because she was in a vibration of suffering, and then we raised her vibration up to joy. And what if, like, you had some suffering in your body? Eric had some suffering and some fear. Fear is a lower vibration. Have you seen the David Hawkins maps of consciousness? My wife, I noticed, like, as we moved up her scale in the depression battle, she went from the lowest vibration, which is shame and guilt, to anger. And I'm like, "Well, at least she's not depressed anymore, but she's angry about everything. The food system and guns, gun violence in America, whatever. Angry at me." I'm like, "At least she's not depressed." And then as she kept going up, then she got to courage, then she got to neutrality and acceptance, and now she can access love and joy so much more freely. Me too. Up in my vibration as I healed and released. I, I like to describe it as like we're dropping off bags of bricks. Like last night, you dropped off some emotional bags of bricks that you've been carrying. Eric dropped off some. Now you're gonna feel so much lighter. Doesn't mean we got to everything we needed to. There's more. But like, I feel light as a feather now.

So how, how do you know if you or a client would need, like, when they're— I guess, is there a complete or— I think there's—

yeah, complete enough. I would say we're, um, I, I, I had a client, Lisa. She gave me a testimonial video as well about it. She almost died in pregnancy, um, and so her nervous system for 15 years— I met her at a mastermind we're in, and I met her and her husband same evening And I put my hand on her shoulders. This is a friendly, like, you know, I'm kind of physically affectionate. I put my hand on her shoulders and she's a 5-foot-1 Asian lady. I was like, Lisa, your shoulders are rock hard. Like, are you like a powerlifter? What are you? And she's like, no, I just had a lot of crazy shit happen in my life. I was like, oh, okay. And so that was a signal. I was like, oh, I'm looking for clues. And I was like, Lisa, so tell me about that shit that happened. She's like, well, I almost died giving childbirth 15 years ago. My brother died the same year. JM and I got separated for a while during that year, and she just felt so alone, so scared, so abandoned. Her nervous system got rigid and got frozen and had been locked on. Back to like your amygdala can get locked in, and you can just be in fight or flight or freeze mode for years or decades. And she was very frozen. Well, I was like, okay, I can help you get unstuck if you want. And so her and her husband flew up to Nashville. We did a session. Literally by the end of the session, she starts jumping around the room. "I feel like a boiled carrot. I'm so loose and flexible." And I was like, "Yes, you are." And then a couple weeks later, she gets a massage from a massage therapist, one she's seen for years. He's like, "Lisa, what happened to you? Your body's so less tense than it was." She's like, "I saw Magic Mike and he helped me. He helped me release a lot of my trauma." And then I flew down, did a session with them at the end of May. At the end of session, I was like, "Lisa—" Because, you know, I go through and I ask your body, "What does it want to release? What's stored in there? What is overwhelming? What is scary?" Once we get your conscious mind to relax and your subconscious to speak. And I went through like 2 more memories and she was good. And then I anchored her to a positive one at the end. Her higher self, and this was like fun, playful Lisa. And I was like, Lisa, I think you're complete. I don't think we need any more. I mean, she might maybe do one a year from now as a recalibration, but I think, I think she's good. So some, some heavier cases, like I have one case that's gonna be 3 sessions. Um, I have another, another scenario where it's another couple that that, man, massive amounts of abuse. And they're prominent leaders in their space. The guy's the top YouTuber in the world on his platform. And it's probably gonna be 2 or 3 at least with them. But a lot of clients, it's 1 or 2 and we're good. Wow.

And even that, that seems like not a lot. No. Not a lot at all.

Yeah, I mean, we recalibrated my wife's whole nervous system in basically 7 months. From suicidal, not wanting to be— every day she would say, I don't want to be alive, I don't want to be a mom, I don't want to be on Earth, almost every day. And have panic attacks 3 to 5 times a week. And 7 months later, basically depression's fully gone, 90% of the PTSD gone, and panic attacks— haven't had one since.

It's so powerful. Yeah. Which makes me so, so pissed pissed that it just still hasn't been pushed through. Like how many lives this could save and not even just the individuals taking it, but if you consider the family and the lineage, right? And all of those roots, like how many lives you're saving. Oh, heck yeah.

The marriages, like I have a lot of leaders that I work with where their marriages have been on the rock. I had one client, Julia, she came to me. Actually, I met her at that same event I met Lisa and she was literally physically in the middle of a conversation with a divorce attorney. Who was in the group too. And she was trying to— she was separated from her husband for 6 months at that point. I was like, "Well, Julia, I have another option for you." She flew up to Nashville early in March. We did a session. 2 hours after the session, she sends me a text. She's like, "Mike, I just had the best conversation I've ever had with my husband. The best conversation I've ever had alive, period. I love that man. I love that man." I asked him to teach me how to love. I have no idea how to love. And she let go of 9 years. She said she let go of 9 years of bitterness and resentment. Wow. And they've since— and then also, she verbally talked through her business challenges because she was not only in a marriage crisis, she was in her business. She's CEO and owner of her business. And they had some massive problems to solve. Well, she talked through all of them. And we kind of worked on a game plan while we were— because this creates a gateway for accessing your higher self. So it's not just to heal the trauma. I want to access your higher self, like we did at the end last night too. So it's not a traditional pure therapy type deal, because in my background, it's like, I don't want to just get you unstuck. I want you at your best. And as of less than 3 months, from that session totally solved her business crisis. Like, where she was like, "I'm gonna lose the business," to now it's fully solved. And it wouldn't have happened if we didn't process through the heaviness and the— because her, again, also her amygdala was locked in. So she's in fight or flight. You can't access the other parts of your brain if your amygdala is locked in. And most of the time, and we just also, you look at what we went through as a culture with COVID and everything, our amygdalas get locked in. We need a release and reset.

So do you think part of it, it's kind of like that Einstein theory where it's like the energy that created the problem can't solve the problem? So you have to get to a different level of consciousness?

100%. And so the medicine, yes, you're not going to be in this permanently hard-open, vulnerable state. You can't— what's going to happen is you've created a new option. It's like you're going down a highway and there's a new exit ramp. And at the beginning, there's only like a McDonald's and a Shell gas station, right? But the exit ramp to stress and anxiety has a lot of stuff. It's got an outlet mall. It's got all the restaurants. It's got a bunch of hotels. You're really familiar with that. You will bypass at times the pleasure, joy, peace exit ramp, heart connection ramp. And you'll go to the stress ramp. But now, hopefully the next few days, next few weeks, you're gonna access this other ramp, this exit, a lot more, and you'll start building more stuff. And that will become more and more familiar. So that after one session, that whole— they don't even go down the suffering ramp. So, but it just depends on which environment you put yourself back into and your life patterns. If your life patterns reinforce stress and anxiety, then we have to also un-re-pattern those while we're re-patterning your nervous system. Otherwise you're just gonna go right back into stress and anxiety. So if that makes sense.

No, it does. I think that's why this morning I was trying to be so intentional to the point where I was like, maybe I'm just gonna get ready in silence because I know, again, because of my reaction last night, that there's, I'm behaving in a way or setting my life up in such a way that is exhausting me and I need to figure out how to get rid of all of that noise so that I can use these benefits for the long term.

Yeah, and your body, it's remarkable what the body intelligence— it wants to lead you to healing. Like your Graves' disease and thyroid, the emotional elements, it wants to lead you to joy. You know, your higher self wants to lead you to that, and, and you are trusting, and you are doing exactly— you're being curious and open and exploring, and you're gonna get there.

Um, I wanted to get a little bit more clarity with the body muscle testing. Yeah, yeah. So if someone's never done this before, can you walk me through how you find your yes and your no, and then just like the protocol of asking your body?

Yeah, so So a simple process for muscle testing. First, I'm going to guide people to a little bit of breathwork. And in this visualization, after like, say, 4 rounds of the 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 seconds exhale, leave empty for 4 seconds, breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds— Andrew Weil's breath method— then that helps your nervous system kind of get back, helps you get back into your body a little bit. Not everyone can fully, just that alone. But then I lead to a visualization where you're talking to your conscious mind and your subconscious mind at a table. You express gratitude, and that's a big thing because then you want the different parts of you to see and to feel seen, acknowledged, and heard. And so that's why we did that multiple times. And so that those— your conscious mind, we want your conscious mind to relax. So it's not going to relax if it doesn't feel seen and appreciated. And then I also reminded verbally, very intentionally, with phrasing of like, let your conscious mind know that it is okay to relax, that she will still be fully present and she can come back in if needed, which she did a couple of times. But then we let her relax again and let your subconscious mind speak. And then we do the muscle testing. After the breathwork and after the visualization and after you've made a conscious or unconscious agreement in your nervous system. And then we ask a simple yes or no question. It has to be a yes or no question because otherwise your body gets confused. And I like to start with something easy, like what's your favorite food or favorite restaurant? All right, would you like to eat there sometime in the next 2 weeks? And then see which way your body wants to lean forward If it's yes, and if your favorite restaurant is yes, you would like to eat there next 2 weeks and your body leans forward, then your forward is yes. Double-check it, do it once or twice. But if your body leans back on the thing that you know you really want, like, hey, would you like a beautiful massage in the next 2 weeks that someone else pays for, whatever? Yeah, great. Then, and that's lean back, then that's your yes. Okay, some people have backwards as yes and some is front. And then you can start going to specific questions. But the goal is to get you to listen to your body because it's a massive— it's actually more of a communication channel than your mind. In fact, also your heart communicates. I don't remember the exact data. I think it's like 7 times more information to your brain than your brain communicates to your heart. So your body is also sending so much information up your brain. But if we cut off that channel, we're cutting off a massive source of information, of intuitive intelligence that is beyond our rational mind.

So you're— it tends to be locked in.

So if you're front, then yeah, more than likely it's going to be the same. And that's— there's other methodologies, but that's the best, best way to start.

Probably always be back, more than likely. Yeah. Do you find, um, because Eric's was forward and mine was back, is there a difference between the sexes? Do Or typically, or no, it can go 50/50. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. I was like, huh, I wonder if it's because like lead follow. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but yeah, it was really cool. I'm like, I want to do this with a lot of things. Yeah, um, so maybe I'll have Eric help me.

And, and one thing too for you guys as parents, the other thing that I would encourage you guys that I'm practicing and learning myself, and I know you're in the Gabor Mate book on it as well, but you can help your kids, your boys, develop some of that body intelligence and awareness. So, because what happens is in life is if you project out 20 years, if I lead a life that is disconnected from my body, then I'm going to get into relationships, partnerships, agreements, patterns that my body really doesn't want because I've been disconnected. And we've all done that, right? But now as you— as we become more whole and more integrated, then we can pass that on to our children and also help them learn how to emotionally self-regulate and be heart-connected. Like, your children, you know, up to age 7, your children are in a hypnotic state, alpha wave. And so, like, you can be really intentional about basically programming their nervous system. And they're still very pliable as they get older too.

So is there a way— like, do men need to be grounded similar to women, or is it like, what is, what is their version of grounding? Yeah.

And I would, I would label it even more masculine, feminine, because there are some more feminine men. Yeah, that's true. And, and, uh, but not, not really. We, like, if you put your hands on Eric's shoulders, he's gonna be like, okay. He's not gonna feel anything, right? Like, I've literally gone to a man and he's Okay, I think he just literally doesn't feel anything. And woman, I go right over to a feminine woman and she's like, I just felt everything calm down like you did. And, um, but it is important for us to be grounded and out of our head. Like, we men, we get stuck in our head. Women do too, but I was, uh, so I need to move into my heart. And so that's where the heart coherence exercise is really important. That's where also cultivating, whether it's MDMA— MDMA is the easiest, most effective, most powerful, fast-acting. You have to do it safely and make sure it's pure and all that. But for men, that really helps us get heart-connected and grounded in our heart. But also, I do grounding like outside too, you know, like barefoot. I did that this morning, and last night I did that some too while I was working with you guys.

Yeah, I try to do that with my oldest, but he's going through this weird sock obsession to where he even wears them to the pool. He does not wear them in the pool. Yeah. Thank God. They're always on and I'm like, we are grounding right now. It's a family exercise. Everyone's taking their shoes and socks off. Get in the car. And now he's kind of doing it and he's loosening up on the sock thing, but I had to like fight tooth and nail for that one. Yeah, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is not okay. It's gonna turn into something weird. I don't want it to do that. Yeah, I wanna play with that body testing with them later and like have them do that heart exercise and see, that'll be fun.

Yeah, and you can see, you can test on foods, you can test on trips. I mean, there's so many, books, whatever, anything, games they wanna play, whatever.

Yeah. Amazing. I guess before we wrap up, do you want to like plug your book? We have "The Genius Within" right here. Like anything at all, truly.

Yeah, I mean, my deepest passion right now is helping leaders and high performers rewire their nervous system. And I use a combination of the medicines, NLP, sometimes I use neurofeedback, also IFS and some somatic experiences Uh, but it's, it's really powerful. I love that. And, and you can get more info on neurorewiring.com, and I have a download of 14 most powerful tools to rewire your nervous system because there's a bunch of different modalities, um, that can help accelerate, accelerate that. I have a book out. I know we didn't really cover much on it, but that's totally okay. It's The Genius Within. So it's the most complete process ever created for finding your highest level, uh, pathway of who you really are to do what on earth you're meant to do and to also create the most prosperity that's deeply aligned— fulfillment, prosperity, and joy in your work. So take people through finding your unique abilities, your key relationships, your unique life experiences, and your values and passions. And the intersection of that is your zone of genius. So it's really powerful. I've taken hundreds of leaders through that too. But, you know, that's pretty much it. I'm available on all the social media channels, The Mike Zeller. I have a lot of content content around on YouTube around this sort of process, how to avoid burnout, recuperate from burnout, how to wire your nervous system for peak performance. And if you guys have questions, I'd love to hear from you. So, you know, I got into this because it saved our marriage and gave us our family back as my wife was deeply struggling. I've got an article on my website and Biohacker Magazine about this as well. And a few other sites. Um, but would love to hear from you if it resonates.

Amazing. Yeah, and I'll make sure I link everything below for everyone.

And is this on Amazon? Yeah, it's on Amazon. Also, you can grab a free copy at geniuswithin.com. Uh, the— I think it's geniuswithinbook.com, and just pay shipping and handling.

Oh, amazing. Yeah, I'll link everything. And thank you so much. This is amazing. And, um, we— I'm sure we will do this again.

Yes, sounds great. Sorry.

Uh, and before you log off, everyone, make sure you have hit that like and subscribe button. And if you have 2 seconds, leave a 5-star review. It helps with the algorithm. And I'll see you next week. Bye everybody!

I'm Mike Zeller, and you can find me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all the channels at The Mike Zeller. And if you are passionate about rewiring your nervous system, I look forward to hearing from you.