#453 My MDMA and Psilocybin Journey Unpacked - With Mike Zeller

So this has been a long-awaited episode, not just for me, but I've shared with you about my journey of doing an Internal Family Systems parts work MDMA and psilocybin-assisted session. It was profound. I did it with Mike Zeller. It was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had in my life, and I've had a lot of profound experiences, so I don't say it lightly. And I recorded this episode the day after I did the session. So I never thought I'd be doing an MDMA psilocybin-assisted session, but I've been curious about the power of psilocybin in terms of therapy and in terms of healing. And I know it's profound in that sense. There's great research on it, what it does for the brain, and of course there's research on microdosing, etc. I never thought about the MDMA combination, but then I had a friend who worked with Mike Seller and shared they had a profound experience. I've since referred tons of people to him who have all all had amazing experiences, very healing experiences. So with all that said, this episode recorded the day after, so it's like super fresh, and this was in December. Before we dive in, make sure you hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this. Let's go. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Mark Groves Podcast. Today is a very special episode because yesterday I just did an MDMA and psilocybin session exploring internal family systems and doing parts work, and I wanted to interview the interventionalist, Mike Zeller, uh, the guide, the— I don't know what else you'd be called.

I call myself a neuro rewiring expert. I help rewire the nervous system. And so we did a rewired session yesterday.

It was wild. Like I felt so seen. I felt like all of the ways I've felt frozen in the last 3, 4 years all of a sudden made sense. And I had so much compassion for all the parts that were in conflict. And man, like, yeah, it's, it's amazing.

So what happens is, is the medicines, as you know, they create an opening. But the challenge with life is we basically accumulate toxic emotions. Something happens in our lives, we get frustrated, we get stuck, we get angry, and we don't fully process that emotion. So that emotion basically becomes frozen in your body. And what happens is if you get enough frozen emotion in your body, it becomes rigid. Mhm. And then you start also creating, especially for women, autoimmune diseases and other physical or nervous system breakdowns. And if you stay in that state too long, relationship sabotage, business sabotages, um, just unhealthy patterns, um, because you're often in a fight, flight, or freeze state because your amygdala has been locked on. And so probably the majority of my clients, their amygdala has been frozen to some extent or actively guiding and directing their life far too much. And amygdala is supposed to be like, hey, I'm being hunted by a saber-toothed tiger, but if you're running all the freaking time because something's happening on social media or something's happening over here or whatever, or you feel like I got so much work to then you're literally shrinking your brain's capacity and your nervous system's capacity to experience love, joy, power, presence, create, all those things.

I'm curious, just for the people watching or listening, how did that start for you? Because I don't imagine when you were young and people were like, what do you want to be? And people are like, firefighter. You're like, neuro rewiring expert. Expert.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I, um, About 15 years ago, I got really into Tony Robbins. So I did NLP, got a master NLP practitioner license. I was a peak performance coach. That's— and I still consider myself a core part of what I do is helping leaders get to their best. And that's partly what we did for you yesterday. But it's like getting trauma out of the way so you can shine. But I got into it ultimately, like, basically 5 years ago, I went through a season where I lost $1 million, went through a Chapter 13 bankruptcy that paid off a couple million dollars in debt in 18 months. And then right after that, my wife got depressed when she got pregnant. And my wife's a 3-time suicide survivor and massive loads of childhood trauma, oldest of 11 kids, very abusive upbringing, narcissistic abusive upbringing, covert narcissist mom, overt dad.

Wow.

And all that trauma got triggered when we had our daughter. Actually, before our daughter was born, my wife would start panicking about having a baby. Wow. And the trauma, because she started reliving the experiences. And I'm like, what the hell is happening here? And especially once our daughter started, was born, our daughter would cry, 30 seconds later, my wife is crying for 2 hours. And I literally carry my daughter outside in the street or say to my wife, get out of the house, get out of the house, get out of the house. If my daughter started having a prolonged cry, I knew her nervous system was about to be activated. Wow. And I didn't understand what the hell was going on. Until I started learning about trauma. But it took me about a year of like us just surviving and holding on. And I started reading trauma books at night while my wife and daughter were sleeping. I was like— Peter Levine was the first one that I started. And, uh, I was like, something's happening. This— but I subconsciously— and because I knew the subconscious, I was like, this is a nervous system issue. This is a subconscious issue. Triggers are being activated. But how do I get those triggers where those light switches turned off.

What a thing to hold. Yeah, like to— I mean, it's, it's always fascinating to me how the things that we're in that we don't know a way out of, we then have to find a way out. Because, you know, who's— it's not a common conversation in sort of the therapeutic world that we're, we're going to rewire the nervous system. Is a recent part of that conversation. In the last 5 years it's become more popularized. But, you know, like the book from Basil, uh, Vanderkoop.

Yeah, Body Keeps the Score.

Yeah, like that book has been one of the number one sellers in that space, but yet I don't think he's ever won an award from the American Psychology Association, which makes a lot— which makes it's like so fascinating that we should know that emotion, yeah, is connected to the nervous system. And I know when I started to dive into research on emotion when I was a pharmaceutical rep, I was just like, oh man, the, the thing we're treating with this down-the-line drug is caused at the core of like the inability to stay regulated, then I would have said high-conflict relationships, not knowing that it's really this— I mean, it's a hypervigilance.

Yeah.

And that like the research shows that it leads to more baseline levels of inflammation, that we have, uh, we heal slower. There's so many correlations. And I think it was, uh, I forget the author's name, but the book The Molecules of Emotion, that was like one of the first books that I was like, oh, psychoneuroimmunology, like this is This is everything.

Yeah, 100%. And, and so the other thing that happens too is if your nervous system is locked on, it's literally— or you're in a fight, flight, or freeze, you're releasing cortisol perpetually. Yeah, that causes your body to break down over time, especially for women. For some reason, women are essentially 226% more likely to get an autoimmune disease, and it's because— well, I don't know why exactly, but it's because they're I'm guessing because their nervous system is just more sensitive, and men will just press through. But what happens is if it stays on, you will start breaking down, and then your nervous system starts feeling like that is the normal. And so for 2.5 years, my wife felt like she couldn't be happy. And frankly, I was the— and if you look at traditional psychology and psychiatry, as I was researching, I was like, they would say she has complex PTSD or had deep depression, suicidal ideation for like, basically every week, she would say almost daily, I don't want to be a wife, I don't want to be a mom, I don't want to be alive. Wow. And I'm holding the space and I have an infant daughter. And obviously, and I was like, alright, I don't want my wife to not be around. I don't want my daughter to not have her mom. But if you look at traditional diagnostic. It says, all right, uh, deep depression is manageable and treatable with, uh, with, uh, medication and therapy.

Let's numb it. Let's, let's not see what is the brilliance in your pain.

Yeah. And I was like, managing symptoms is not acceptable. That was not acceptable.

Like, you're just on antichills.

Yeah. I don't want her to be struggling depression the rest of her life, right? And I don't accept that. I didn't accept that. She didn't accept that. So to date, she's been cured of 3, quote, incurable diseases.

Wow.

Uh, complex PTSD, deep depression, um, or treatment-resistant depression, and then the third one, H. pylori, which— oh yeah, yeah, medical. And, and so I see it over and over with my clients. If they will basically do a nervous system reset and use unconventional tools that are actually much more effective, like basically what we did yesterday— MDMA basically creates a softening in your nervous system so I can get to the subconscious, so we can unfreeze or process those overwhelming, scary emotions that caused you to lock up. And if you get on the other side of that, your body recalibrates and knows what to do. Like yesterday, I'm guiding you and I watch you at the beginning. We did the breathwork and I guided you through it. But halfway through, not even halfway through, a third of the way through, your body starts breathing as we're processing the heavy, scary stuff for you without me telling you what to do. It knew what to do once it got unlocked.

Yeah, it's so true. I was sensing when we were working with each part that I would take these deep breaths. It would just be like, um, like the need for the energy to move through me and to be released and there to be a calming. And it's interesting how each part— and I know, uh, Sarah Baldwin talks about this, uh, when I interviewed her on parts in the nervous system, and she said each part has its own nervous system.

Yeah.

And as soon as you go into a part, like, that's what happens. And it was so fascinating to see with really deep compassion, which I'm guessing that's like— I felt not overtly emotional about each part, even though some of the parts were actually deeply emotional.

100%.

Um, I didn't, I didn't— I think I got teary on a few of them, but like, I didn't cry. I felt really empathic, but I also felt like very— yeah, um, like I was leading myself through it and being led through it through you, that there was a like No, we got this. I see you. So that was really fascinating.

Yeah. And so it's a delicate balance. What I'm intuitively figuring out is like, it's a delicate balance of you being associated enough, but not enmeshed in the experience. Because I want a little bit of separation so you can observe and move through it. And then, you know, through the parts work where I was having you hold the version of you that went through that.

Yeah.

And asking him what he felt, what he was going through, what his experience was, what his fears were, what are— what is good intent? Is, then you're creating space and creating what I consider parts integration, because there's no bad parts. We want the part to be integrated and feel like it has a voice. That was a seat at the table, was a big thing, right?

Yeah.

And if it has a voice, then it doesn't have to scream for intention, and then you don't have the internal parts tug-of-war that a lot of people get stuck in.

That's freeze. Yeah, essentially. Hey, yeah, or like one part is overriding and is in the fight or the flight. Or the fawning.

Yeah, exactly.

Hmm.

Something else that I, I should mention on the trauma side. So metaphor or a story that helped me understand this, what I basically do now, and helped me understand my wife's battle. And if any of you are struggling or battling trauma or PTSD and you're not even aware of it, uh, polar bears in the early 1980s. This in Peter Levine's book Healing Trauma. Um, they would chase polar bears down with a helicopter. Do you know this story? No. They'd chase them down with a helicopter, shoot them with a tranquilizer gun, because they're checking their vitals and population count, carrying back to base. But they were so confused for years, like even decades. Why are these polar bears making all this frantic movement as the tranquilizer wears off? Didn't make sense. One day a researcher plays the video of the polar bear in the cage in slow motion where they see— see, his legs were still running and saw his chest was heaving, and then it would all slow down as it worked out the energy. Hmm. What do we do as human beings? We don't naturally process and release the energy. Many times as men, we're told, don't cry, real men are tough, real men don't cry, boom, or our parents are unempathetic as a child, then we're not safely able to process because their triggers are being hit with something that happens in our life. And so their unprocessed trauma and unprocessed emotion makes it so that we can't process.

Yeah.

But if we process it, then our nervous system recalibrates and goes back to normal. The polar bear, the reason it doesn't walk away with PTSD is because it processes the emotion in its body naturally.

Yeah, that's like after like a deer almost gets killed and they shake and then they're like back.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like I watch nature shows. My dad would— wouldn't let us watch MTV, and we'd see these nature shows. Wildebeest would be hunted by a lion, brought back to base, and then somehow they'd wiggle free and run away. And the lion would be too tired to chase it. And then you see the wildebeest eating grass.

Yeah, almost died, like, better eat some grass. Yeah, it's, it's interesting that we don't— maybe because we don't have the practices, and maybe those practices existed in tribal, you know, that you danced at night and you sang and you had community. And yeah, with your wife, I'm curious with, uh, because when we had Jasper, one thing that The idea that was introduced to me was this idea that everything you're challenged with your child, yeah, is representing or like bringing up for you a place where you weren't met with capacity, like that you weren't, you know. So it brings forward unresolved things that you can heal through.

Yeah, right.

And for your wife, was there a perception for her or for both of you that if she didn't resolve this, her daughter would— your daughter would also then grow up with a similar sort of experience. Yeah, obviously not narcissist, but like, I just mean that disassociated parent who's not attuned to the child.

Yeah, I mean, my wife, we had to— I would say definitely so. And even her relationship with her father, um, because she had an abusive stepfather, and then her mom kidnapped her from her real father for like, you know, she didn't see her, see her real dad from 18 months to 29 years old. And so she had no father figure. So like even feeling safe, and even our journey where I'm such a present, loving dad, has been very healing for my wife. But then also working through that, it does bring up the stuff that she has to face.

Yeah, right.

The obstacle is the way.

She's like looking at herself not getting a need met, not—

yeah.

Not having a safe space even in utero? Was that part of it?

Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, her, her mom had her up for adoption at one point, so she didn't feel wanted.

Wow.

And then her dad Sergio, uh, tried to block, uh, tried to adopt her in the first step.

Yeah.

And, um, because long story short, her mom, uh, claimed her dad, or said the father was unknown because they had, had her out of wedlock. Yeah. And anyway, a lot of religious culture stuff. Um, uh, but we had to work through that, but we couldn't— a normal processing— the other thing that was so hard in that, you know, Bessel van der Kolk talks about it, Levine, Gabor Mate, is like, um, cognitive behavioral therapy or regular talk therapy is going to re-traumatize just by talking about it. Oftentimes severe trauma. Yeah, it's not effective for severe trauma and complex PTSD usually. So it wasn't working, man, and we were just making incremental progress. And, and I, I started looking in psychedelics because I was like, okay, something— there's got to be a cure. And we also did, I think, another thing that is important that a lot of people don't realize is metabolic function, which I know you're a fan of, and, and gut health and all the things, because your gut makes 90% of your serotonin. And if your metabolic function is off, you're going to have issues too, because 3— your brain is 3% of your body weight but uses 25 to 30% of your body's energy. So if you're in low physical energy, which a lot of postpartum women are— it's very rarely talked about— then you're going to be struggling, and your brain is going to be misfiring, and your emotions are going to be a struggle bus.

Yeah.

And so one of the biggest things that I see in my client work is we have to— I call it neuro-optimization— we have to get their neurotransmitters up. So their brain is functioning much better, which then we can process the trauma more easily.

That's interesting. Postpartum, how do you do that postpartum?

Uh, NAD is actually a huge component, but, um, you know, just rebuilding with creatine, NAD, uh, omega-3s, vitamin Bs. Um, you can do a lot of blood and hormone tests. Um, also hormones are way out of whack. Women should get their hormones tested like 3 months after having a baby because your progesterone, your estrogen, whatever, your testosterone could be way off-kilter, and it may not get back in line, right, without support.

Yeah, that makes sense. And so for you, when— what drew you to the idea of psychedelics? Like, why were you all of a sudden like, okay, we gotta figure this out? Yeah, psilocybin.

Yeah, yeah, mushrooms. Yeah, I mean, I'm— I was a goody two-shoes. Like, I was not into drugs, uh, you know, I did marijuana less than 10 times, and in my 20s, 30s, etc. Um, been drunk like, you know, less than 20 times probably.

I, I took care of that.

Yeah, yeah, you got—

I got the extra one.

Yeah, yeah, you got the bonuses. Um, but, uh, um, and, you know, I grew up in '80s and '90s drug culture, dare to say no, where it's like, oh, this is your brain on drugs.

I forgot about— yeah, for sure, especially US, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And so Reagan, I think it was.

Yeah, exactly. And I was all against it. But then, um, Tim Ferriss.

Yeah, talked about—

that was the first, like, seed. And he's such a big advocate, and I really liked him. Then I went to Huberman Labs, um, listened to his stories. Then I went to a lot of the Johns Hopkins stories from Dr. Matthew Johnson and some others, Roland Griffiths. And, um, I was like, okay, um, you're not gonna lose your mind, it looks like. And I tried a few microdoses. I was like, oh, this is just relaxing. And supposedly the science says— and Steve Jobs like required his top execs in his first round at Apple, I think, to do LSD. He didn't trust a leader to, you know, in his core team if they hadn't done at least several LSD journeys. I was like, okay, maybe there's something there. And then I was with some buddies and I was just— we were actually here in Washington. We were out by Mount Olympia.

Oh yeah.

And, um, and we took a guys trip and they brought some mushrooms, a 2-gram journey, and I did my first journey and I was flooded with gratitude in a way that I never felt.

Wow.

And it was just after I had basically gotten my wife a brief reprieve from depression through NAD IV therapy where she felt dramatically better. And so I felt safe to take a trip without her, meaning she wasn't gonna like attempt suicide while I was gone. And she was happy. And I was like, I text her a weepy text message. I was like, babe, this is the most amazing thing I've ever done. And she's like, you did what? Because in our relationship, I have to be the guy that goes and does something and asks for forgiveness later. If I ask for permission, she won't do it.

You did what?

Yeah, she would have screamed at me. But then I came home and, and I had researched it enough and listened to enough podcasts. And she was in a dark enough place that she would be willing to explore it. And her PTSD had kicked back in, like, pretty hard because she broke her foot. And so she was stuck at home with our daughter. And that first journey, she did half of a dose, half of a full dose, like what I gave you yesterday or what you had yesterday. And she laughed for the first time in 2 years. Like, a really deep laughter for hours.

On MDMA?

No mushrooms.

Just psilocybin. Yeah.

And was with her brother or her sister and her brother-in-law. And we had the best time. I was like, oh, and then I was like, all right. So if she can be happy and have an absolute blast tonight, then we can get back here.

She has access to it.

She has access to it. Then that proved— and maybe we— I just got to figure out how to make this a norm. How to make this a norm. How to shift, help her shift the nervous system. Um, so this could be a new normal.

That's really interesting. It makes me think of, um, how Ram Dass was talking to his guy, his mentor Maharaji, and he said, um, why do you do so much LSD? Yeah. And Ram Dass said, because when I do, I get to sit with Christ.

Yeah.

And Maharaji said to him, why don't you just become Christ? And I really like that. It was like Ram Dass talks about how we like we fall in love with the method, not knowing that it's just giving access to something that's already within you. And how did you then— I'm curious— be like, oh, we need to add a dash, uh, we need our appetizer to be MDMA, and then the main course— well, I guess maybe the main course is the MDMA.

Yeah. Um, I was just— I mean, I, I binged basically on psychedelics.

You were testing out—

yeah, I, I'm not necessarily ingesting, but studying it. So I listen to probably 3 podcasts a day. When, you know, our daughter was like 6 months old, and that would be just boom, pounding through it, um, for basically the first, uh, for that roughly year period where I was really researching it. I was starting to put together the pieces. I was like, okay, what is the formula for rapidly healing deeply stuck individuals, specifically my wife? And would— that does not fit the conventional medical establishment. So I was like, all right, you got to look at the environment, the physical, emotional, and, and physical environment, um, health, like your exercise, your diet. So the first part is about relational environment. Is she having stressors and triggers that are constantly prompting? Third part, neuro, neuro-optimization, the neurotransmitters, all the brain energy.

Yeah.

And, um, and then the fourth is the nervous system patterns, which is the biggest one for a lot of people. If your nervous system is stuck and frozen in fear, like, you were reasonably stuck. I was stuck. Like, I had PTSD. I caught PTSD from my wife.

I got it.

Yes, I did.

Like, that makes sense though. Like, you're hypervigilant, you're thinking she might die any day. Yeah, she could just decide. She's telling me she might go. She's telling me she doesn't want to be a mom and a wife. And yeah, for a lot of people, they'd be like, this is too much because I don't have an answer. Because, because what is the answer that's traditional? Your doctor puts you on an antidepressant or an anti-anxiety drug or whatever it might be, and then in combination with a bunch of other things that have never been studied together.

Yeah.

And then they're like, you'll just— you'll, you'll trudge through.

Yeah.

Like, this is your— you have neuro— you have a neurohormone imbalance that you inherited from your— it's like, that's BS. Yeah, I just have to— there's a part of me that's like, fucking, that's bullshit. But then now there's— I think what is so powerful is like, there's— you don't have to— the idea that you have to live with this and just learn to tolerate that you're sad.

Yeah.

And depressed because there's something wrong with you that you're sad, as opposed to—

yeah.

That's the exact appropriate response to everything you've been through.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And, and it's, you know, your, your brain and your nervous system is producing an outcome and a feeling based on its inputs, right? So we got to change its inputs. So reset. And I look at my work, I'm doing factory resets.

Yeah, yeah. And on the new iPhone 16 or whatever that is.

And so factory, so we, when we, the biggest one, the nervous system opening and reset, because it really dictates, you know, 98% of our behavior is our automatic nervous system. And the medicines create the opening. Now here's where I got frustrated. We would do the guided, sorry, ceremonies. So we did our first like MDMA guided ceremony in a group experience with like 20 people. My wife experienced bliss and let go of self-hate and self-judgment and all this. And I was so angry and frustrated with her at the time. I'm like, you're sabotaging our potential for a beautiful life, beautiful resentment. Yeah. And so like, I let go of that as well. And then that recalibrated our pattern to love and connection instead of anger. And she had self-hate and I had frustration towards her and we're combustible, right? And then fighting. And so then we started, but it was a progression. So we went from like way up here to down, like, oh, right, we're more calm. And but we still had more work to go. So I looked at, all right, we're stripping out the first layer. But then I realized typical psychedelic guides are not very trauma-informed. I literally was trying to talk our psychedelic guides into doing a guided session with my wife help her process the triggers and re-pattern her triggers and release and basically do the parts integration. And they wouldn't do it. And I was frustrated. I was like, why won't you all do this? And then I just had to finally realize, oh, it's not what they're trained in. It's not what they understand and what they know. And then I talked her therapist into doing a guided session. To date, it's the only guided session she's ever done with psychedelics, even though she's trained in psychedelics, or at least with psilocybin. And the next day, that was February, like, 27th last year. Literally, our daughter had an 18-minute temper tantrum meltdown the day before, and my wife went into a 4-hour depression spiral with a depression hangover the next day, wouldn't get out of the bathtub for 2 hours. The day after, that's a Wednesday, so that was a Tuesday. Day after, we have the session Wednesday evening. It's a 5-hour session, which is basically what I do now. That I orchestrated. Took me 2 months to talk my wife into it, about a month and a half to talk the therapist into it, because it's, you know, off the books. And next day— um, sorry, my, my daughter cried for 30 seconds the day before, sent my wife into a 4-hour depression spell. Thursday after the session, our daughter is just flailing on the ground, having a temper tantrum meltdown. She's about 18, 19 months old at the time. Just despairing. And my wife laughs. Her nervous system is absolutely not triggered. I was like, oh, something changed.

Wow.

And so that was almost 2 years ago. And I was just observing and watching, is this actually going to last? Is it going to stick? And sure enough, that's to date the only fully guided session other than little mini sessions I've guided her through. And another one with her therapist, a mini session that she's ever done. And she got cured. The last leg of curing her depression and her complex PTSD happened that night.

Wow.

Yeah.

Was she, when she laughed, was she like, I can't believe I'm laughing? Like, was she even noticing?

She was a little surprised. Oh yeah. She's like, yeah. And we knew our daughter, you have a toddler, you know, they are just going to have an uncontrollable emotional outburst that you just have to let them move through. Let them process it, right? Not try and stuff it.

Yeah.

And, uh, and then our daughter was fine afterwards, right? And, and yeah, she was totally— she was like, okay, this is cool. But she didn't know if it was going to stick either.

Yeah, that's interesting because it's also now repatterning your daughter's nervous system that mom is now attuned.

Exactly.

Which, that's going to be like, wait, mom's not—

her daughter is not a source of pain, right?

That, that when kid gets upset, mom withdraws, which of course then is like, I'm going to emotionally suppress or get louder.

Yeah.

Or both.

Yeah.

And in hopes that mom will be able to meet my need.

Yeah.

So that repatterning must have been profound for both of them.

Yeah. And then also allowed me to repattern because like I said, spouses will catch PTSD or depression or stress and anxiety because what's the most contagious emotion? Anxiety.

Yeah, because if we—

in our physiological response, if I see that you're anxious and you feel threatened or scared, then I'm going to be on the guard. It's kind of like gazelles. Oh, one gazelle sees a lion, then the rest are running, even if they didn't see it. That's how our biologies are wired. Um, so I had to re-pattern. Plus, the other thing, my wife's number one criticism for me was that I was emotionally disconnected. Now, MDMA helped get my heart online. But at the beginning, it was like a gravel road from my heart to my head. And then it was a two-lane highway. And then now it's like, you know, five or six-lane highway. My wife's way more emotionally connected still, because she's just a natural heart-connected empath, super loving human. I'm very loving, but I was just not emotionally empathetic. And now I am. And I couldn't have done it without the medicine work, which basically helps unblock that for men helps us repattern when we process.

I wonder if, uh, MDMA-assisted therapy would, uh, help resolve narcissism.

I think it would.

Yeah, I do too. Yeah, because it's like those deeply dissociated parts, like, correct, extreme narcissism is really a dissociation, you know, hyper avoidance. And I think overt being more like stuck in the martyr. Yeah, uh, the like, I'm entitled to everything, and martyr, martyr, martyr. And sneaky fuckers too. Oh yeah, no offense if you're a covert narcissists, but they're sneaky fuckers, you know.

I know a few sneaky fuckers.

We're all capable of it, yeah, right? It's like to get our needs met, we all have aspects of that, we all have parts. But when it's like a mainline part, that's really, uh, it's interesting to think that the MDMA opens you up to these deep— it was almost like I was able to go into the breath of my being.

Yeah.

And there was just such a deep level of understanding. It was interesting how you said like I don't want the part to get like enmeshed.

Yeah.

And I noticed when I was processing, which I know you caught because you pulled me out of it, but when I was processing my childhood and my relationship with my mom, that there was a deep empathy for her experience, but almost like I was ready to be taken over by empathizing for her and not staying in the like, wait, I still have the right to my experience. Yeah, I felt that.

Yeah.

Is that— did you— is that something you noticed? Because I noticed you're like, okay, yeah, and— but in a graceful way.

Yeah, yeah. And it's so— the other thing is like, like, your nervous system could relax, and you did so beautifully, and you trusted and leaned in. And when you're— when all the parts feel aligned and connected and heard and safe, then you can walk and, and activate the fullness of your integrity, the fullness of your power, because you know who you are and you have deep inner trust. And the other thing that's different about why I do the stack— and so I read about the stacks in some books and then started experiencing it myself and testing on myself, because I always test things on myself first, and then I gently test it with, with people appropriately, um, and based on the science of it. But MDMA is an empathogen, And it's not a true psychedelic, doesn't take you out of body, takes you into body, which is why, like, with my complex PTSD, my rape cases, sexual trauma, that part that disassociated, I got to help you reassociate, move through, and hold safe space for that part that was really deeply traumatized and really scared so that they can relax and they aren't operating in the background. This is like an energy link. Leak. It's like sucking the life force out of you. And as long as it stays sucking the life force out of you, your potential for love, potential for joy, potential for income and abundance, it's all intertwined. And it's going to be literally, it's like draining the bone marrow out. And until we get that recalibrated, which I can do, I mean, I deal with people that have tried— one of my clients tried 90 different therapies and modalities and has a podcast on trauma. And we got to her rape case and some other childhood abuse in an hour and a half, the first hour and a half. And we just met. And so when we do that, then she— and I also look at your emotional home base. Are you familiar with David Hawkins' Maps of Consciousness? Right. So my wife and a lot of people that I dealt with, myself included, our emotional home base at the beginning, and her emotional home base was more towards shame and guilt.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely I'm rereading his book right now.

Yeah.

So it's like, which one? Power Versus Force. Yeah, I haven't read it in a while, and I read Letting Go a couple of years ago.

I love Letting Go.

Yeah, it was powerful.

Yeah.

But this one, I, I really wanted to get back into that map of consciousness, and, and I could just see that when I looked at the scale, I was like, damn, like despair, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And you had anger and grief and all the stuff. So that's a lower vibration. My wife, I literally saw it after the first journey in the first ceremony. It's about my wife's intense transformational healing experience was really about 7 months total. That was when we did the majority of the deep work, majority of her psychedelics. She doesn't need the psychedelics anymore, which is another great thing. This is non-addictive, you know. Big Pharma wants us to be on a subscription for the rest of our life.

Yeah, subscription. Yeah, hamster. Opt in. Yeah, yeah.

And, um, uh, but her home base was shame and guilt. After the first wave of release— I call it like you're dropping off bags of bricks, of emotional bags of bricks that you've been carrying— she went to anger. And we were going to like Moms Against Gun Violence and protests and rallies, and she was an activist for like a couple months, like 3 or 4 months. Then we did the next wave, and then she got to—

that's crazy. And then it's like the emotions moving and then driving the behaviors.

Yeah. And I was like, well, she's angry all the time, but about gun violence, about all these things. At least she's not depressed.

Yeah, right. There's now a mobilization. Yeah, at least.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, and I see it with my clients, they'll move up, boom, boom, boom, and I'll be like, we can make— one of my mantras is progress over perfection is my obsession. We can, we can— I believe people can deeply heal. I've seen some of the worst cases We get them like they tried— I have 3 clients that have tried 30 different things, all 3 of them. Um, one of them was 90, tried 90 different modalities and all that. And, uh, all of them have gotten to the other side if, as long as they stick to the process. And it's a complete— it's what I see in traditional methodology is we're looking for one, one cure, whether, um, you know, it's this drug or this, you know, serotonin deficit or whatever. It's the combination. It's always a combination.

Well, especially because you can't seek healing emotionally and then not nourish your body.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and I would say that the parts that are choosing to overindulge in sugar or— yeah, you know, it's like I used sugar as a coping mechanism and that was my, you know, my part. Too many fucks needed. He gave too many fucks about everything. It's a very big part.

Uh, he was around the show for a little bit.

He has been.

Yeah, yeah.

And You know, it's knowing that we actually needed the sugar to soothe the, like, anxiety of not speaking up, of, like, numbing other parts that are in opposition.

Yeah.

I'm curious, like, for— you talked about how MDMA is an empathogen. So yesterday before our session, you were talking about how MDMA is an associative and psilocybin is a dissociative. So can you walk us through what that is? Yeah.

So I should mention too, two of my good friends are— and they come to my retreats, and I've guided them through sessions as well, at least in the retreat setting. They're psychedelic neuroscientists, so I've trained under them, and I ask them questions. I'm always learning. I'm always a student. But MDMA, it takes you into your body, and I look at your— basically, your nervous system has 4 different core components of communication: your heart, your body, your mind, and your spirit. Well, MDMA is going to bring you into your body so that you can associate and navigate through, like, oh, I was raped, or I went through Like tomorrow, I'm going to— he was a secret spy captured and tortured. And we're not going to do a session tomorrow because his nervous system needs to feel safer with me. So it's going to be our second time hanging out. But next time I see him, we're going to do a session. Wow. So the MDMA is going to allow him to move through those way intense, crazy, hard emotions.

Like torture.

Torture. He was tortured for like a year.

Imprisoned.

Imprisoned. The MDMA is going to allow us to safely process. And it's amazing, like you felt it. It's like, oh, you're processing some of the hardest things in your life.

Yeah.

And it's actually not scary.

No, that's what I was saying. Like the emotionality of it, it wasn't emotionless. It just, I wasn't being overwhelmed by it.

Yeah. And because MDMA is like a blanket, it gives you a blanket of love and safety. And then now I'm also attacking it from, not attacking them, but creating a container from, like, what did I say at the beginning? You've got a bubble of love and safety.

Yeah.

So I'm giving you— I'm hitting your conscious mind, your subconscious mind. So I'm creating a container of love and safety because that's the prerequisite for healing to happen, for those parts to unfold and for those parts to also trust me. They need to feel safe and they need to feel seen. They need to feel heard. And the MDMA helps create that container. Now, once they are integrated, Now, if you just do MDMA and you try and do a self-guided and you got significant trauma, you're probably going to be about the same person on the other side because you weren't able to significantly process and integrate. That's where the guidance comes in. Very skillful, heart-led, safe guidance. But on the second part, the psilocybin. So then I wanted to create separation after we've already processed, like to make that feel like it's a distant past.

Yeah.

And even the swooshing of seeing the memory of that get smaller and also having that part no longer drive your life of like you're making a decision. To decide means to cut off. Decidere means to cut off. I wanted you to consciously and subconsciously make core decisions so that you could anchor back to that decision. I've already made that and imprinted upon your nervous system while we're in that open space. It's a sacred container where I'm basically, I consider myself in a way a master surgeon of your nervous system. Yeah, I'm going in, I'm cleaning out the cancer, sewing you back up, putting the good stuff in so healing will happen.

And I find myself, uh, throughout last night and then today just taking a lot of deep breaths. Yeah, like just feeling, uh, and I was telling you this morning, uh, when we spoke earlier that even when I was, uh, getting some work done this morning after I woke up I could sense a part coming on.

Yeah, yeah.

And that it was like wanting to act in a way where it was that I wanted to go out and, um, go ground outside and put my feet on the cold ground and look at the sun because it was actually available today. Yeah, it was nice. And there was a part of me is like delays my mornings. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, why do you delay? Yeah, like what do you need?

Yeah.

And it was that part that is like 'If I am disciplined and actually do all these things, I will become powerful, more powerful. And that part of me is afraid of my power. And if I'm disciplined, what's possible?' Which is like, yeah, dude, you know, before I would have been like just maybe lost in the distraction or the sabotage.

Yeah.

But then I was like, 'I hear you.

Yeah.

And we're gonna go do it.' And just realizing that, yeah, those things are in opposition a lot, that this thing that's sabotaging us is really sabotaging us from a positive perspective. Yeah.

Yeah. And the other thing for you is you're going to feel so much more autonomy and dominion over the different parts of you, because now they all feel seen and heard much more. And there might be other parts that we didn't get to as well, or other parts that need to be more fully integrated. But Now you have more jurisdiction. You recognize also you've claimed— I call it claiming your power. You've claimed your power and authority over yourself. Otherwise, it was like chaos. This part's in control. No, this part's in control. Who the eff is in control?

Yeah, right.

And they're all battling and grabbing for attention, territory. Now we're in harmony of we're all working together and your higher self, yourself, is the boss in charge. Sometimes he still might forget and scared Mark might take charge, but now you already have a pathway and we seared it in. And I planted those seeds in your, in your subconscious where I was like, all right, and if scared Mark shows up, what do you do? You ask him what's he feeling, what's he want to share, what's he—

which already that happened.

Yeah, yeah. And then And because you're in that opening where we can do years worth of work, like from the psychedelic neuroscience side, when you're in the acute subjective experience, which is a 3 to 6 hour window when you're on the medicine at the peak of the high or in that primary window, your nervous system is more wide open than any known point in your lifetime. And then now you're in the critical period relearning space, which is for the next 2 and a half weeks from MDMA and psilocybin. Your nervous system is the equivalent of your toddler, where it's very moldable and changeable, and you can anchor in parts of who you are. You can anchor in the new habits and the patterns, and then you're going to go back to more the incremental neuroplasticity after that.

Yeah, the mindfulness is something that I, you know, I'm like, ah, is it easy to go back into old habits after having such a deeply profound experience? And I'm like, I don't know, I don't think so. Like already just the decisions I made and calls I made this morning that were directional. Yeah, you know, my business and—

oh yeah, the—

I liked how— so when we were doing this session, Mike walked me into, uh, like the visualization was I was in a cafe with my conscious and subconscious or unconscious, and I told, you know, lovingly, conscious mind, go have a coffee, relax. Uh, I need to hang with the unconscious.

Yeah, yeah.

And then we walked to a blank wall.

Yeah.

And then asked what memory needed to come forward. And it was interesting because it was like I wanted to choose a memory, or like, I know what— and then it— that started, and then another one took its place. And it was fascinating to witness how the layers that unfolded then, you know, like not actually somewhat chronologically. Yeah, you know, um, and just the correlation of, you know, for all of you, you know that I've— in the last 4 years I've struggled a lot with like self-expression and create the love and who am I, and it's been a real mindfuck. Yeah, because so many parts were in opposition and, uh, survival and all the things that happen that, uh it allowed me to have so much compassion for, you know, the part of me that needed to speak up, which, you know, when that part came online— which naming of the parts was actually quite fun.

Yeah.

Uh, but that's Zero Foxmark, and Zero Foxmark had a lot of intensity. Oh yeah. Like, I could feel that he was essentially saying to me that my whole life, if I had just listened to him, we would have learned things a lot faster. We would have got— which is true, because I— it's the voice that said stop drinking. It's the voice that said you're out of integrity. It's the voice that said you're going the wrong direction in your life. But because there is another part of me called Zero or Too Many Fucks— Mark gives way too many fucks— that part has overridden my life. Yeah, the like people pleaser, you know. And so it was really beautiful to be able to give space to that part of me that's like the zero fucks, because it was like, if I don't have a space, I'll burn everything down. Like, don't stop me. Yeah, stop censoring me. Give me a place. And you know how those parts, instead of being like— because one is afraid of the other 100%, because the one's going, you're trying to control me because you're a people pleaser and you're annoying.

Yeah.

And the other one's going, you're gonna destroy us.

Yeah.

And so like, I can't let you go. I like it from a survival-based perspective. This part had perceptually, yeah, to override.

Yeah.

And so I sense now why they had that anxiety of like, I feel not fully expressed, and I feel suppressed.

Yeah. And, and now you have more freedom to express, but freedom to authentically express more of the wholeness of who you are and to be discerning about it.

Yeah. You know, because you can't just go and say everything you want to say and burn everything down. So it's like the zero fucks needs the grace.

Yeah.

Of the conscientiousness. And too many fucks needs the boldness and the truth-telling and the 100% willingness, the bravery.

Yeah.

And I now can look back on my life and see like I lacked a lot of bravery and courage in a lot of moments in my life.

Yeah.

Uh, to speak up for myself.

Yeah.

And I think COVID offered a space where it wasn't optional. Like, zero fucks was like Yeah, hell no. Yeah, you know, and that really compassionate part that I got to feel yesterday of that— the message was too important to not have on the bigger platform.

Yeah, like I had to express the things, um, and I had to be willing, yeah, to lose everything, which then also allows you, instead of like holding on to resentment or guilt or shame about what, you know, how the last 4 years transpired. Now that emotion is also released and you feel more at peace. Zero fucks mark took over. Yeah, a little too much.

Yeah, sometimes. Yeah.

But now you have— you're where you are, you're perfectly on time. And your future is ready to be created in a whole different power, authenticity, and alignment. And I see with my clients, like, you're only in day 1, but as our mutual friend Alex Cattoni, who introduced us, the next week her creativity started flowing again, her confidence started flowing again, her joy came back in her marriage and her business. I see it over and over, people that were stuck in indecision because it's like they had so much stuck emotion that was like literally causing energetic leaks. They couldn't make decisions and show up.

That was me.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I, I was indecisive, confused, uncertain, lack clarity.

Yeah. And the other thing, so psilocybin also turns on all your mental lobes where they're all connected. I showed you that before we started the image of your brain not on psilocybin, your brain on psilocybin, and boom, your brain is so much more connected.

Yeah, it's consciousness. It's like You're using all the tools.

Exactly. And so you're, you know, like psilocybin, for example, and this experience is like— it's smart drugs, it's not dumb drugs. Like, I would say marijuana is more going to— alcohol, etc. is going to not make you smarter. You don't wake up the next day, I'm like, man, I'm so much more powerful, so happy I did those Jägerbombs.

Yeah, I made so many good life decisions.

Yeah, no, this stuff, you— like, 70% of participants in John Hopkins study According to Roland Griffiths, in his TED Talk, says it was one of the most profound experiences of their life. And I see it every day. Like you said, it was one of the most profound experiences of your life. I'll have people text their best friends, that was one of the best experiences of my life, or that was—

I already did.

Yeah, yeah.

Text my wife right away. She was like, well, that's a big statement. Yeah, I just did ayahuasca a year ago, you know, which was profound, but oh my God, so different.

Yeah.

And if I was like, oh, if, if, if a person was desiring healing And I'm not saying ayahuasca isn't the plant if you're feeling called. Yeah, but if, if I now having experienced those— yeah, and psilocybin on its own, uh, intentionally and therapeutically, I don't think there's a more— because you're, you're entering the experience with that state of bliss and openness.

Yeah.

And ayahuasca, for its intentional purposes does— there's sometimes an experience of bliss. I did 3 journeys. First one was like, okay, we're gonna welcome you to the jungle.

Yeah.

Second one was like, fuck you, like, we're gonna drag you through, mosquitoes are gonna bite, we're— it's gonna be hard. Yeah. And then the third one was blissful. But if I was to compare the 2 for like, uh, speed.

Yeah.

Uh, experience of like positivity.

Yeah.

And, you know, there's just not— they're not comparable.

100%.

Yeah, they're not. And I remember after I finished ayahuasca, that journey, I was really grateful for it. And I remember thinking like, that's not the psychedelic for me. Like, I liked it and it was profound.

Yeah.

But if I was someone looking for healing and I feel— felt like I couldn't find it anywhere and I just wanted to get out of a stuck which is what I wanted, right? That was me. This, this has already shifted me. And yesterday I just felt all the systems were making sense, all the parts were making sense, and I had so much compassion for all the indecision I've had and all the frustration I've had. And of course I've been frozen. Yeah, like all these parts are like, we gotta survive and we gotta speak and we gotta run a business and we gotta— and they're all like in competition.

Oh yeah. And now you're rowing in the same direction.

Yeah. Is there any insights that you have from my experience yesterday that you're like, maybe look at this, or maybe, are any pieces you saw that you, that you thought might be significant?

I mean, I think all the parts were significant. I think paying attention, the biggest thing that I see for you and for most of my clients is like afterwards, practice the active listening. But also practice remembering that you are in control of which part leads now. You abdicated control. You were always in control. You always had authority, but you abdicated it previously because you didn't claim your authority. Sometimes we have to claim, we have to authorize ourselves, and we have to remember that we are powerful, sentient beings in control of our own destiny instead of we're passively journeying. Now we We have to look at our, our life as like we're riding a wave, an ocean wave. We don't control the ocean wave, but we control how we navigate and surf that wave. And so our emotions, our experience in life, we can't control all circumstances, all things that happen, but we can control and guide how we lead. So I would say for you, the different parts as they show up, acknowledge them, practice acknowledging them. Oh, scared Mark. Oh, Little Mark, whatever. Like one of them was Little Bitch.

Yeah, Little Bitch. Oh, part of me laughed at that. And then I was like, that's not compassionate. But I'm like, yeah, that's fucking good. Yeah.

I mean, I had Weak-Ass Willie. One of mine was Weak-Ass Willie. And he was like a dog with his tail between his legs.

That's a shame. Little Bitch. That's just like not standing up for myself.

Yeah. And then, but I needed Magic Mike to show up and create magic in his life. Nice. And the client's in the lives of the people that he serves. Magic Mike shows up, which he did yesterday, which he generally does now. He's one of my core positive parts. Well, they're all not bad or good, it's just he's one of my core parts that I want to lead. And then the other thing I have people do is some alter ego work. Um, so I'm gonna— which are your parts, right? But I go a little bit deeper. Uh, I don't know if I texted you, but I'm going to send it to you, alter ego worksheet, where for the parts of you that you want to lead more, get connected with how do they walk? What's the music they listen to? How do they dress? How do they feel? And recognize and intentionally put on that part for the day. And let him lead. Let it— and then whoop, when you get home. If I have get shit done more Mike walking in the door with my wife and daughter, which I used to, Oh, my wife did not like it because I was so intense.

Yeah.

And so I will literally transition, create a transition or a buffer period where I'm not listening to a podcast on the way home, where I'm just, boom, I practice connecting with my heart. So I'm more heart connected. So I walk in the door and I'm present with my daughter, present with my wife. And before I did this work, my daughter would always run to my wife when she would come home. I was like, but she wouldn't run to me.

Yeah, that's—

yeah. But then because my heart was not connected, I was intellectually connected. After, literally after our first MDMA ceremony, the next week, because my daughter could feel my heart, she started running to me when I would come home and jump in my arms, just like she would with my wife. Now she does it all the time. And we have such a beautiful— like, I love putting her to bed at night. And I'll probably once a week, tear up rocking her bed thinking, oh, she's gonna be 16. But I would also add, most of us, the capacity to experience love and joy. And so you, you went home and you implemented and integrated with your wife, and you connected with her from a heart, which also allows, like in a marriage or partnership, yeah, this partner has to change their energetic vibration, move up the maps of consciousness, this other partner also has to too. If she's stuck in grief, then the relationship has a much smaller ceiling. So in couples work, I have to clear out this person, this person, and clear out the relational stuff. So because there's 3 entities we're dealing with, and resetting the patterns, because they're also unconscious patterns of how you deal with conflict, how you deal with your finances, how you eat, or whatever.

I could see that being huge for couples. Yeah, this ability to one, empathize, doing a single session for yourself first to like excavate. I'm sure you could do it as couples too. But that way you get to experience this sort of spectrum of who you are.

Yeah.

Organize the parts, passion. And then when you get into that couple session, You both have such a level of self-awareness, but then now your empathy is, yeah, so deeply in the other person of like, oh, when I do that, I hurt you, and like, I'm hurting this part, and that's why that comes online. Yeah, you must see profound shifts.

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, I don't, uh, I don't mind the relationships in crisis. I deal with a lot of those. Yeah, uh, I like relationships that are in good place that want to go to a great place as well and have you know, retreat where we do a lot of divine masculine, divine feminine work. But, um, uh, I also like the challenges. Uh, I'll take on the hairiest of challenges. And but my personality, I'm an INTP, the greatest problem solver according to Myers-Briggs. I like— I get juice with complex problems.

Yeah, I could see that. I do too. But sometimes, yeah, that's not for me.

That's true, that's true.

But The access point of the tools that you have is that you're not— I think where a lot of people, let's say with a complex end-of-the-road couple, yeah, it's like, I'm gonna have them for, yeah, yeah, 2 years or whatever. But with you, it's like the work is so quick, yeah, that the, the relationship experiences, yeah, the excavation, which is so important for all relationships, is like, you know, there's research looking at by the time a couple goes to therapy, it's like 6 years, and then by then it's so too late. And whenever there's contempt and resentment, you have to—

we— yeah. And the other thing is, cognitively, people will say, I forget, or I forgive, or I have let that go. But if the emotion is still stuck in you, and you've done like typical therapy or typical this or that, more than likely the emotion's still in you. And I, I have not seen anything more powerful. I, I believe the work that I'm doing in terms of working with the medicine and other modalities— and I'm not the only one in the world that does this, by the way— but my unique processes. I think— I don't think anyone else does it in quite the way I do. It's the greatest breakthrough in mental health. These tools in combination with other somatic, you know, experiencing and parts work and other things. I think it's the greatest breakthrough in mental health and the greatest breakthrough in peak performance in our lifetime. Yeah. And because I can get to years worth of work in people that are the most stuck, that they've tried everything else. We can usually get them unstuck often in the first session, moving in the right direction rapidly. But it's— you have to be open and willing. And you also have to do the integration, like, because half of the work is what we do there. But then the work is now how do you go and implement? And you did it beautifully. Like, you went home and shared with your wife.

Yeah.

And held space for her and apologized, right?

Yeah, I wanted to share with her just all the awarenesses I had. And yeah, thank her for holding, yeah, our family and being such an incredible mother, but like holding me through. Yeah, you know, like holding it enough that I could get into survival mode and like create and do whatever I needed to do.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

And then her nervous system, as of last night, then it's like, yeah, I can start relaxing.

Yeah, the like witnessing of her, the really just being able to express how deeply grateful I am.

Yeah, she's incredible. And for a woman, she wants to feel seen and heard.

Yeah.

And that allows her to shift out of her masculine where she's got to hold shit together to like, oh, Mark's got this. Mark's coming back online. Yeah.

Yeah, it was powerful.

Yeah.

And I'm looking forward to spending more time. I didn't get to see my son this morning because They were still asleep when I left, but I'm really looking forward to seeing him.

You'll probably feel so much heart connection to your son that's deeper than you've had before.

Yeah, I mean, since he's been born, I feel like I've been present and a good dad, but I've been— yeah, getting shit done. You know, that part of me that's like, yeah, and you were anxious. Yeah, yeah. I was saying to you yesterday that it feels like I'm, I'm I've been just like ready to get hit.

Yeah.

You know, like turning and bracing myself.

Exactly.

And that bracing feels now a relaxation that there's like, oh, there's actually a, a part of me that actually knows exactly what to do and where to go and how to get it done.

Yeah.

And, and now is steering.

Yeah.

And like assigning the parts to different— I'm going to need you for this. I need you for this. Yeah, and that feels really good. Yeah, um, yeah, man.

And it's perfect that you've already been breathing more and noticing your breath this morning because it's still continual somatic release and somatic repatterning. And breath is a huge component of that, that we can control, dictate, guide, and repattern our nervous system, relax. And what I see with people that battle a lot of anxiety— like my wife was having 3 to 5 panic attacks a week Oh man. And over the littlest things, like my parents are coming over, uh, hiding under the bed, or under the covers, right? And now she had one in basically 2 years.

Wow.

And then our conflicts, we used to fight, we'd have 2 or 3 day fights because we just had so much frustration, so much energy built up. Yeah, we were both braced. And when you're both braced, you got the guns out, you got the shields up. Yeah, you're ready to throw, you know, fire cannonballs at each other, whatever. And then our fights went from 2 days to 2 hours. Now they're like 20 minutes.

Right. Figure it out.

And we're— because we're also staying in a deeper state of heart connection. Because often when we think, oh, we need to learn how to communicate, we need to learn how to communicate, we need to learn how to communicate. No, you need to learn how to connect first and then let the communication flow from a state of connection. Heart connection, man.

You know, a couple years ago, it was last year, I was recording this video where I was saying that based on now my experience being trained in therapeutic things, being guided through therapeutic things, I was like, man, after experiencing somatic therapy, I was like, if I was to choose any modality, yeah, I would choose somatics because somatics bypasses the brain. So you like get to the resolution. Yeah. And now, as you said, these things in combination, yeah, are— they're sweet, profound, because you get more access to that. So you're doing somatics, but somatics on steroids, you know, MDMA. But it's— yeah, man, I'm, I'm, I'm only a day fresh and I'm already like, wow, I'm so grateful for the work that you do. And I know that the journey of your relationship and your wife's experience and yours. You had to go through a lot for that.

Yeah. And but I'll say this, 30 minutes before we started our podcast, my wife's dad passed away.

Oh, he did?

He passed away this morning.

Wow.

Yeah. Alcohol, liver failure. What did he navigate? Repressed trauma. He never got his trauma released. Never had the proper support. Now my wife is processing it. She's grieving because she never really knew him because she got that part of her life stolen from her. But because we've— now her nervous system knows how to process and she can move through a tumultuous time of loss. Right. And but it also anchors in Like, I have 4 alcoholics I'm working with right now. What are they? Why do they turn to alcohol? It's trauma. Pain. Pain. It's a numbing. It's an escape valve to numb the suffering they're experiencing. And Gabriel Monte talks about 98% of the addiction addicts that he's dealt with had undealt with, unprocessed trauma. Well, if we deal all the addicts, we're processing the trauma. And guess what? They're not driven towards alcohol or marijuana or porn or whatever anymore. Like, I'm literally seeing it fall like off a cliff, that drive and that desire and that yearning, because their nervous system is able to experience love and stay in a state of love. So if it turns to alcohol, it's like, I don't feel love when I'm in alcohol, right? I'm actually happy right now. Why do I need to escape happiness? I see firsthand, and even my wife and I, as I've helped her navigate this, we've— she's— she went to Alaska like for a couple days as of Sunday or Saturday, flew out as a last-minute flight. And as we've navigated this crazy season in her life, and we know— I know that what I'm doing now, like what happened to you has happened for you. If you will embrace it. And I'm, you know, I'm using my wife's trauma, my trauma, our journey to help leaders like yourself that have massive platforms and have, you know, create more love, right? And create more joy. And now we have— I just have firsthand experience of like, all right, addiction kills, but it's really the trauma that kills that's unprocessed.

Yeah, I noticed that as I made my way to greater levels of integrity.

Yeah.

The coping mechanisms I had had to fall away. Yeah. Because they were just not useful anymore. Like, I, I couldn't drink anymore just because I was like, why would I leave this? And I remember I was at a program, uh, it was a conference called Awesomeness Fest, which is a great name. But in it, there was a guy giving a talk and he was saying, what is the thing that you love most about life? And about— and I was like, connection.

Yeah.

And then I had this awareness that I was drinking and numbing connection.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I was actually numbing intimate experiences. I was numbing. I had to get out of my heart because I wasn't— I couldn't be in my heart and be in those experiences because I was so much pain. Yeah. I was abandoning my own body. I was— I was you know, not honoring that there was a grief that was unresolved, abandonment, rejection, betrayals that were just not resolved.

Yeah.

And so like, I'm sure that a lot of people think of promiscuity as taking control of your sexuality. But I would argue that at least in my experience, and when I— I'd say that's also probably just a survival strategy to, one, control desire or feel desired and not feel the feelings below the arousal. Yeah, is that it really is, I would say, almost always an escape from ourselves.

Yeah.

And, uh, a running away from deep presence into the wisdom in our sexuality and our being.

100%. And, and, and I look at the work I do and the use of psychedelics safely when appropriately used, which, by the way, you can use if you've take certain medications, you just sometimes have to taper off and things like that. But it's stripping away the things that are not us. Like you had a bunch of things like anger, things that are not really your highest self. We just got that cleaned out. We got the toxicity cleaned out, right? As much as your body would let us clean out. My wife, we've cleaned out so much of the toxicity that now something happens and she's not over— she's still simultaneously grieving and actually accessing joy. Yeah, she's looking forward to our daughter being home and we're texting, having sweet moments. And she's having beautiful moments with her aunt right now who lost her brother. Yeah. And so, but it's because— and she doesn't have to escape. She can move through it, but move through it with a connection to herself that is not afraid because she knows how to move through it. And her nervous system has been recalibrated to be able to move through it like the polar bear, shake off the energy. Yeah, yeah, man.

Everybody, if you feel called, call Mike. Thanks so much, man. Thank you. Very great.

Thanks for your trust.

Yeah, I appreciate you so much.

Yeah, likewise.

I look forward to, uh, uncovering more parts in the future. And, um, for everyone listening, where can they find more of you?

I'm on all social media channels, including YouTube, Instagram, etc., @themikezeller, and that's Z-E-L-L-E-R, and then mikezeller.com. And then also I have a neuro rewiring— go to neurorewiring.com, and I have a free download of the 14 most powerful tools on how to rewire your nervous system. Psychedelics is just one of the tools. And then also, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one or coming to one of my retreats, or I have group programs where we guide a 10-week program where we— it's called Rewired, where we rewire nervous system for love, for peace, for joy, peak performance, more abundance. Um, but we use safely and effectively, optionally, psychedelics as a virtual experience. Um, you can apply for that, so we'll have the link in the show notes, I'm sure. Um, but also reach out to me if you're battling something. This is I look at what we went through. It's not just my, my vocation of helping rewire, helping leaders. I work with all, all stripes and colors, but, um, uh, my core audience is leaders and entrepreneurs. And, um, but, uh, reach out to me if you're battling something, if you have some questions, or our story resonated. Reach out. I'd love to hear. I'd love to support. I can point you through resources. Even if you're not in the States or wherever you're at.

So perfect.

Yeah.

Thanks so much, man.

Thank you.