Episode 284: Healing with Plant Medicine & Psychedelics with Dr. Maya Shetreat
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Over the past decade, interest in the use of psychedelics has expanded from the recreational to the scientific. Despite this cultural shift, these natural methods are still often misunderstood. Erin invited neurologist and herbalist, Dr. Maya Shetreat, on to the podcast to discuss the healing potential of psychedelics and plant medicine. Their conversation shares how many people can (& already do) benefit from the effects of plants, along with different ways we can interact with them.
If you feel drawn to the topics discussed throughout this episode, be sure to stick around until the end for steps you can take today to learn more and begin your own plant-powered journey.
Maya Shetreat, MD is a neurologist, herbalist, urban farmer, and author of The Dirt Cure and The Master Plant Experience: The Science, Safety and Sacred Ceremony of Psychedelics. She has been featured in the New York Times, The Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, The Dr. Oz Show and more. Dr. Maya is the founder of the Terrain Institute, where she teaches earth-based programs for transformational healing, including professional training programs for psychedelic-assisted approaches. She works and studies with indigenous communities and healers from around the world, and is a lifelong student of ethnobotany, plant healing, and the sacred.
In this episode:
How food affects our cellular memory & neurological conditions [4:47]
Understanding Master Plants to approach them with respect [16:54]
Rituals to slow down, feel present & embrace the sacred [26:59]
The impact of psychedelic experiences on the mind [34:31]
Quantum dosing & uncovering the medicine within yourself [44:28]
How to begin a relationship with Master Plants [54:06]
Resources mentioned:
Dr. Maya’s books:
The Master Plant Experience: The Science, Safety, and Sacred Ceremony of Psychedelics
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222: Creating Sacred Space for Healing & Transformation
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt, and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model, they're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same.
Erin Holt [00:00:45]:
This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. You'll get things here that you won't get other places. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show rate review and share, because you never know whose life you might change and, of course, keep coming back for more. Now give me the mic so I can take it away. Hello, my friends. I am really excited for you all to get to hear today's conversation. I got to sit down and chat with Dr.
Erin Holt [00:01:24]:
Maya Shetreat. She is an MD, she's a neurologist, she's an herbalist, an urban farmer. She's the author of The Dirt Cure. So I share with her and you'll hear me say that I found that book a few years back, and I absolutely believe it is recommended reading for everybody, whether you're a practitioner, if you're in the health field, or just somebody who is interested in health in human bodies. Really great book. So I've been a super fan since I read that book six years ago, and it's just a real honor to be able to sit down and chat with her. She does have a new book, The Master Plant Experience the Science, Safety, and Sacred Ceremony of Psychedelics, and this conversation definitely leans more in that direction. We talk about plant medicine.
Erin Holt [00:02:15]:
Dr. Maya has been featured in The New York Times, the Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, The Dr. Oz Show and more. She's the founder of the Terrain Institute, where she teaches Earth based programs for transformational healing, including professional training programs for psychedelic assisted approaches. She works in studies with indigenous communities and healers from around the world, and she's a lifelong student of ethnobotany plant healing in the sacred. So, yeah, she's good stuff. And this was a great conversation. Some of you will pick up on the fact that I share with her something that I haven't yet shared here or really anywhere publicly, which is that I've been experimenting with some micro dosing, and I expect that some of you will be interested to hear more about that.
Erin Holt [00:02:59]:
And you all know how I get down. I'm a pretty open book when it comes to my own health and healing journey, and I do plan to share more about that with you all when the time is right. But for now, you get to sink your teeth into this conversation with Dr. Maya. I'm super excited to have you here. Thank you for being here.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:03:20]:
It is my pleasure. I'm super happy to be here.
Erin Holt [00:03:23]:
I have a little bit like fangirl status with you. I just have been a super fan for I was saying, six years ago, I read The Dirt Cure, which is your first book, and that book is like I recommend it to everybody. I have a practitioner training. I recommend it to all practitioners. It's like an absolute must read, in my opinion. But the funny thing about this, I love me some good synchronicities. I read this book six years ago in September to the date, and I remember this because my husband and I were visiting the Azores for our fifth wedding anniversary. So I know it was six years ago, and then I started my podcast the next week.
Erin Holt [00:04:06]:
So it's just funny that you're coming on the podcast. The other little synchronicity is that I started micro dosing with psilocybin six weeks ago, and before that, I had been very resistant to the idea. Not for other people, just for me. And gosh, it's been an amazing, incredible experience. So this is the best time to talk to you. I'm so excited. Thank you again for being here. I would kind of love to know.
Erin Holt [00:04:39]:
I know you have a new book, The Master Plant Experience, which I would love to hear more about, and I think that's probably a lot of what we'll be talking about today. But what made you write The Dirt Cure and what was the impetus for writing that book?
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:04:54]:
Well, I had already gone through a lot of food related awakenings, food health related awakenings. And this was at a time when really nobody was talking about that in the mainstream. Like Michael Pollan's book had come out not that long before. It was very galvanizing. Obviously, a lot of people had a lot of awakenings around it. And I had just done this deep dive into food because my son, my youngest son, had gotten sick with what looked like asthma and also some neurological symptoms. He was a year old. And we realized after ten months of people just saying, oh, he's an allergic kid.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:05:44]:
Oh, this is just the way it is, et cetera, et cetera. Except he was sick all the time that he was allergic to soy. And that took me into GMOs, and that took me into why is soy so allergic for so many people? And where does our food come from? What are we putting on it looking at kind of the whole picture of how inflammatory our food system has become and how out of connection and out of touch we were with kind of everything around us, including our own gut garden right. The rainforest of our bodies, which was like the microbiome. And a lot of people at that time also that was like, in the scientific literature but it was definitely not you know on the front of the New York Times yet. So all of that was really instigated by me trying to heal my son going into the scientific literature and then seeing how much it was helping my patients every day. I was like, why am I seeing actual miracles happening with people who are severely ill in certain cases even where nothing's helping them and changing their diet, whether it was for migraines, whether it was for seizures, whether it was for massive behavioral issues like seeing true transformation. I was like, I've got to write about this.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:07:16]:
I have to share this with the world because this message is bigger than me.
Erin Holt [00:07:22]:
Absolutely. And you were seeing primarily at the time and you're a medical doctor, you're a neurologist, so you were seeing people coming to you for that.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:07:31]:
Yeah, and I'm an adult and pediatric neurologist, but at the time I was seeing mainly kids. So this was seeing the effect of food and supplements in certain cases in kids who were coming with oftentimes severe neurologic, but not always severe, neurologic conditions. And actually food and supplements in many cases outdid pharmaceuticals in terms of just regulating all systems. Right. I mean, in other words, like, we have this sledgehammer approach which is very heavy duty and this kind of also can go into the micro dosing conversation eventually because we think in our very material oriented system that everything has to be heavy duty to work. And it turns out whether it's food, medication, psychedelics, a lot of us are very sensitive creatures. And that's actually, I think, the norm, not the exception. And so changing diet is like changing the terrain.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:08:38]:
Right? It's like we are actually and this is more and more something I think we're understanding with quantum physics, quantum biology. Every cell in our body is intelligent. Every cell in our body has a memory and has an intention, in a sense. So I think what we're learning now with quantum physics and quantum biology which is kind of the extension of quantum physics in our own physiology is that every cell in our body is intelligent and every cell actually has a memory. And cellular memory is what causes a lot of the dysfunction that we experience in our health, in our mental health, in our lives. Because our cells, they remember these instigating experiences like little T or capital T trauma. It doesn't matter. It can be the big stuff or it can be being bullied by a local kid or our caretaker being late to pick us up from school every day, whatever it is, our cells in some way know that and remember that.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:09:43]:
And part of our job in terms of healing our bodies is to get ourselves out of this cell danger response and into this place of what we call salugenesis. And this is actually a term coined by Dr. Robert Naviaux who was the one who talked about cell danger that our cells actually function differently when they feel unsafe. And cells don't care if the instigator is physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, ecological, it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to just be one thing. The cells will translate it into cell danger and then they function in this defensive way, right? Rather than in this growth and kind of optimal health and function. So food is one way, nourishment, literal nourishment. And how the food comes into our bodies, like the way we eat together, how we feel about food.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:10:42]:
All of those things are really important when it comes to getting our cells, our universe of cells that live in our body, the community that we know that make up Maya or Erin to feel OOH, like, I'm okay. I can do this right. And that's when cells go from danger to this salugenesis, this health promoting optimal function quote unquote optimal. I kind of don't like that word because I feel like we don't need to aspire to anything. We can just be and food allergies and migraines and gut issues and all of that have a lot to do with being in cell danger, even autoimmunity, even cancer. It's like cells are in this defensive mode and certainly things like depression and eating disorders and OCD and all that stuff come from this fundamental issue of our cells not being things, but cells as beings, cells as intelligent beings.
Erin Holt [00:11:50]:
So cells have memory and so they have a memory of everything that happens in our lifetime. What about pre lifetime? What about womb? What about pre womb? Like genealogical, ancestral? How does that fit into the picture as well?
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:12:08]:
So preconception prenatal, absolutely right? We exist in that time so that's I don't even think controversial. But now it's not even controversial to look back at ancestry and lineage because we understand that epigenetics and I'll explain what that is, although probably people know, right? But we think of the code that determines who we are as our genetics, our DNA. And DNA doesn't change very much in general. At least we hope not. But the way it's read, right? And I age myself by saying, like, imagine little yellow sticky notes all over, right? I still think of it that way, but putting little markers all over saying, okay, this happens here, this stops here. It's like, why do certain people get their period at a certain time or a certain age? Like someone's eight, someone's 15? Or why do people go bald? Or all of those timing things, for example, those are expressed through ancestry where something that happened to our great great grandmother. She lived through a famine or a war or something wonderful, right? Like she had this wonderful, very nourished life that translates to who we are today, both good or bad, quote unquote. And then on the other side of it and what's really cool about this is that unlike DNA, which doesn't change very much, it's just like that's what we get, actually, epigenetics are reversible.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:13:46]:
So what you do today, right now with those cellular memories, with those epigenetics, whether it's with food, whether it's with physical activity, whether it's with love, whether it's with spiritual work, right? All of these different aspects that can shift your epigenetics. And I think of that as a way that we are able to heal our ancestors, in a sense, and we can kind of heal the generations forward, right? Like when we do that work and be in conversation with our own cells, our body, our epigenetics, we actually are kind of healing generations in both directions.
Erin Holt [00:16:30]:
I would love to hear about you talk about the power of plants. I feel like right now we are in this time where plants are being so demonized in some circles, and it's like veggies eating veggies are going to kill you. It's so bad for your gut. We have all these compounds and chemicals in plants, and I'm aware of that, I recognize that. I was making a kale salad a couple of months ago and somebody's like, I can't believe you eat kale oxalates. I'm like, I'm good.
Erin Holt [00:17:27]:
I know about the oxalates. I'm surviving and thriving despite all the oxalates. Like, I'm okay, everybody, calm down, settle down. But then it's like whenever I talk to an herbalist in the way that you are able to talk about plants, I just feel this calm, like this peace come over my entire body versus when I hear people talk about, like, plants will kill you, it's like that creates this frequency in my body that doesn't feel good. And then I hear somebody who has worked with plants and understands plants, and I'm like, I just want to go outside. And so I would love for you to speak into the power of plants, whether that's herbs or herbal medicine or food that we might consume mushrooms, like the whole gamut of plants.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:18:16]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to bring kind of I am someone who's sensitive to oxalates. And so it so happens, right? So I've had to really navigate. I think we've all been conditioned to think like, plants are so good for us and vegetables and fruit and whatever. And then every other day, like, you're saying somebody comes along to demonize it. There's some science that says, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. And when I was writing my most recent book, The Master Plant Experience, about master plants, which I can explain what they are, I got a really new, interesting understanding of plants, which is not that they're just our friends, right? So master plants are plants that alter us, alter our consciousness, but it doesn't mean they are always psychedelic. Although that book is primarily about psychedelic master plants.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:19:15]:
So all psychedelic plants, including mushrooms, you know, are master plants. But master plants can also include things like coffee or cacao, right? Like, we will go quite a bit out of our way in life to get our coffee or to get our chocolate, just as examples, right? These are consciousness altering human activity, altering civilization altering plants. They are master plants. Tobacco, right, is a master plant, a very sacred master plant, in fact. And whenever I post anything about tobacco, a lot of people be like, I thought tobacco was bad. I'm like, no. And this is sort of the perfect kind of bridge, I think, to say whether it's master plants, whether it's food plants are not good or bad. And in indigenous society, master plants is an indigenous term.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:20:10]:
And I'm not, of course, speaking for indigenous people as a whole, because there are very obviously, like, many, many cultures and civilizations that make up indigenous people. But in general, the idea that plants are not things, but beings that are transmitting more than just compounds, they're not just tools, they're not just nutrition, they're not just macros and micros. They are beings that bring a whole energy, right, that we would be told plants, and master plants in particular, they're not good and they're not bad. They're powerful. So I love that you said talk about the power of plants, because what we're seeing in our black and white kind of way of thinking that we like to do, especially in science and especially in media, especially in social media, is is this good or is this bad?
Erin Holt [00:21:00]:
Right?
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:21:00]:
Like, are walnuts good or are they bad or almonds or are they bad? Is kale good? It's like, is meat good?
Erin Holt [00:21:06]:
Right?
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:21:06]:
Like, all of these things, and everyone wants to say it's either good or bad. And what it comes down to is it's neither good nor bad. It's powerful. How do we as humans engage with the power of plants, with the power of mushrooms? We're not very good, actually at coming in a nuanced way, in a reverent way to power. And one of the quotes I say in my newest book in The Master Plant Experience about mushrooms, because I forage is there are old mushroomers and there are bold mushroomers, but there are no old bold mushroomers. And it's kind of a catchy little phrase that foragers like to say. But the truth is it really encapsulates that idea of coming with reverence, coming with respect, coming with care, coming with nuance to any part of nature, especially the ones that we're going to consume, because there's always good and bad in everything. And it's really all about the conversation that's literally happening between the food, the mushroom, the psychedelic, the master plant, anything.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:22:23]:
It's about how are we showing up for that conversation.
Erin Holt [00:22:29]:
Yeah, so it's like kale is a superfood, and it provides all of these benefits, and then we have this kind of cultural idea that if some is good, more is better. And so then everyone's, like, packing their blenders full of kale for a daily kale smoothie. And it's like, well, maybe we're out of conversation with that plant at that point. Maybe that's not the appropriate way to engage with the power of plant, just to stick with the silly kale example. Talk to me more about mushrooms. So you say you forage when right out of the gate. I'm like, well, that sounds scary.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:23:04]:
Yeah, well, this site kind of goes to that idea of, like, we don't trust ourselves in the natural world. And I know people who won't eat any mushrooms at all, like, even from the grocery store, because they're so freaked out by the idea of being poisoned by mushrooms. It reminds me of some meme I saw that people are like, gosh. I thought I'd be, like, dodging, quicksand, and piranhas so much more in my adult life than I actually did. It's like I was taught to be afraid of eating any berries, don't eat any mushrooms, don't touch any plants. Like, you could get poison ivy. You could get poisoned. So I started out with foraging.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:23:44]:
Just I learned the mushrooms that have no poisonous lookalikes. So if I find those mushrooms, I know they are edible mushrooms. Actually, I should jump up and get like I have this giant puff ball in my fridge right now that's, like, bigger than my head. And that mushroom, if it looks like a big white ball that looks like a soccer ball sized thing, it cannot be anything but a giant puff ball, right? And so that's definitely an edible mushroom. If it's smaller white mushroom that looks like a ball, it could be something else, right? So there are these ways that you start to learn and become familiar and approach again with reverence and respect and don't overdo it. Right. Same thing. It's like, all about this relationship and coming in a good way.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:24:34]:
What you were talking about with the kale thing and stuffing the blunder with kale and having kale and everything, which I think we all went through that phase in some way. I like, you know, when I was in South America learning one of the things that people from the Global North were called, often by communities, there were you know, they didn't mean drugs, although, I mean, I'm sure they also meant drugs, but what they meant was kind of just taking and using and getting addicted, in a sense, to a particular thing and not really considering the relationship, not considering the reciprocity, not considering what we're doing to the communities or to our bodies, et cetera. And I thought that was really interesting. It was an awakening moment for me to hear that and really ask myself, like, are there ways in which I operate like that? And how can I come with that more moderate, more reverent approach? So that goes for foraging. That goes for what I eat. It goes for what I grow. I know when I grow in my garden, I'm sharing with rabbits and birds and other things, and I know a lot of it's just going to disappear, and I'm going to be like but also, I'm like, yes, this is a shared experience.
Erin Holt [00:26:00]:
Well, I think about that concept of junkie and think about it's very common to be like, oh, binge worthy. This show is so binge worthy, or I'm so obsessed with this. I'm so obsessed with this. It's just something that is baked into our vernacular now, but it's very much so. A culture of consumers too. I've talked a lot about reciprocity, and I'll use this podcast as an example. I do two episodes a week. And some people are just consuming and consuming and consuming all the podcasts with no respect or reverence or thought or consideration behind the effort and the energy and the care and the love and the dedication that goes into producing what we consume.
Erin Holt [00:26:44]:
So this can go for something as simple as listening to the podcast or into the food that we're consuming. It's just this blind march of consumerism with the reverence has been lost somewhere along the way. And I'm curious, with food specifically, do you have any rituals or practices? Because I think we're kind of like coming back to at least I can speak for myself and some of the circles that I run in. We're looking for anchoring grounding rituals. Like we want to be connected back into something bigger than ourselves. And I think rituals are a way to do this. Do you have any rituals? You mean you mentioned the garden around food that helps you kind of connect to this reverence and put you more back in a reciprocal relationship with what you're consuming.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:27:32]:
Absolutely, I mean, and I think to your point, you know I think of Wendell Berry who said there are no unsacred places, there are only sacred places and desecrated places. And so I always think when we don't come with reverence, it's just because we have to remember everything is sacred and it's so amazing anything can be made sacred. Like, I just did a little photo shoot the other day and we decorated the stairs to a part of my porch, basically, that I never like, to my back door that I never use. We decorated with flowers and made this gorgeous thing happen there and we were all looking at it afterwards and I was like, we just infused beingness and aliveness into this place. That's like a very forgotten cobwebby part of my house and we made it into something very magical and alive. And I think that is something. There's not like a prescription on how to do that, but there is a way in which cooking, gardening, going to farmers markets, I mean, I'm not trying to be precious here. Right.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:28:46]:
I understand. We all have to live life and there are ways in which we grab something from the store and we're not always thinking about it. We do live in a very fast culture, but finding those ways to slow down, finding those ways to share meals, I really am a big fan of Like Water for Chocolate, that kind of magical realism mentality. I don't know if you're familiar with that movie or book. It's pretty old school. Like the Gen Xers who listen to this will know, but it's really worth going back and watching Like Water for Chocolate. It's based on a beautiful book, but it's a beautiful movie too, where the energy of the person who's cooking is infused into the food. Where literally, if she's angry, everybody's like vomiting and if she's crying, everyone eats the food and starts crying.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:29:38]:
Crying. And when she's feeling passionate, everyone rips their clothes off and starts jumping it to bed together. It's a very kind of fun, fantastical way of thinking about the energy that we put into everything, including eating, including food. And if we treat it in this very perfunctory way and commoditizing way, then we are going to feel that kind of energy. I do think there are lots of kinds of rituals we can do, even just like lighting candles and sitting down to a meal and putting our phones and screens away. And I am certainly as guilty of not coming in a fully present way as anybody at times, but just whatever it is that we need to do to make it feel like we're present in a world that is constantly stealing and competing our attention and making us feel like presence isn't worthy or worthwhile.
Erin Holt [00:30:45]:
Beautiful. I've been really tinkering around with this really appreciation and value, which is gratitude. We know that gratitude heals our bodies, and people can feel that, and it's such an important practice. But I think we've heard it so much that it's sort of like, lost its power, its pizzazz, its meaning. And so another thing that I've been thinking about is really just taking a moment and like, gosh, I really value this. Like putting this shirt on. I just got this shirt. It's so soft.
Erin Holt [00:31:14]:
I love the shirt, I love the color. I'm like, wow. I really value the fact that I can purchase a new item of clothing for myself. I value the fact that I can wear this and feel really good and comfortable in it and just taking moments to really value the things that are directly in front of me, which I guess is another way of saying appreciation. But that has been so just like life giving for me, too. And we can definitely bring this more into our food, I think is placing value or recognizing where we place value and kind of just really anchoring into those things. So I'm a big fan of rituals.
Erin Holt [00:33:58]:
Part of this is just selfish because I am doing my micro dosing journey right now. But I know that this is so much of what your new book is about in this body of work that has been birthed out of you in more recent years.
Erin Holt [00:34:48]:
Talk to me more about psychedelics because like I said, I really felt really resistant to them. I understood, I'm like, I understand why people are doing this, but I don't want this. This isn't right for me. This isn't the medicine I need. And I was kind of, the thing that changed my mind, I guess. Pun intended. I was talking to a friend and a colleague of mine who's super smart and I would say a little bit anxious you know.
Erin Holt [00:35:17]:
She's not the bold mushroom forager let's just say that.
Erin Holt [00:35:24]:
And over the course of a year, I just saw her change. She had different energy. Like I would read an Instagram post. I'm like, she just had a higher vibration about her. And when I talked to her, it was like not like toxic positivity, rose colored glasses, bypassing, but just like, she had a new outlook on life. And I'm like, I'll have what she's having. I'm like, what are you doing? What's going on? And she's like, well, funny you should ask. And she told me about this micro dosing experience that she had been on with mushrooms and psilocybin.
Erin Holt [00:35:59]:
And I said to her, I'm like, that's amazing and so incredible. I really have a lot of tools at my disposal. And I am thinking that I really want to see what I can do in terms of an identity shift and brain rewiring what I can do with my own devices. Kind of just like raw dog, what can I do without leaning on something else? And when I said that, I realized that so much of what I'm working through is actually accepting support, not being this man on an island, I have to be the hardest worker, I have to do everything myself. It dawned on me that I'm potentially rejecting this support system for myself. And I'm like, isn't that interesting? And she also gave me another perspective where she's like, you believe so much in quantum biology and that so much of what you do. How is this any different? And that was the thing that really got to that shifted my mindset and shifted my mentality about this and made me say, like, maybe I should try it. And it's been a wonderful experience.
Erin Holt [00:37:01]:
So I would love to hear you know so much about this. First of all, you're a neurologist, you're an herbalist, and also you've just been researching a lot about psychedelics. So tell us more.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:37:14]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I want to just say to your last point, because it's so synchronous and in alignment with what I believe, but also what I've learned, the idea of appreciation is such a good segue into the topic of psychedelics, of master plants. And one of the stories so I have a chapter, chapter five is all about different master plants and their lore, their history. This is not like dry toast kind of book. I bring a lot of stories to it. And one of the stories about tobacco, which is universally around the world, one of the most sacred plants considered by every shaman, every indigenous culture considers tobacco to be sacred. One of the origin stories of tobacco is the spirit of tobacco invented humans, created humans to honor tobacco.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:38:14]:
That is why we are here, is literally to honor, appreciate and show gratitude. Right? So isn't that like right, so beautiful and so interesting to think, like, maybe that's our whole reason for being here and we're not doing the greatest job of that at the moment, but what if we could? And I do think that that's part of what this return, let's say, a lot of people think of psychedelics as something that was going on in the 50s and 60s, a lot of people don't even know there was tremendous amount of very promising research for mental health and other things. And now we're seeing I mean, almost every institution around the world is researching psychedelics, publishing weekly, very groundbreaking articles on major depression, on PTSD, on addiction, on pain syndromes, migraines, cluster headaches, all kinds of really difficult to treat conditions. Again, going to cellular memory, which I get into a whole conversation about that and the microbiome and how all of those things can shift with master plants in particular, which is my main focus. But it's interesting, we don't have a lot of, we can change cellular memory and shift cellular memory in a lot of different ways. You're absolutely right when you said I have a lot of tools. You do, we do, we do not need and I am not someone you're not going to find me saying I think everyone should do psychedelics or go to the Amazon.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:39:52]:
In fact, I don't think most people should go to the Amazon at all. I of course was sort of pulled into psychedelics kicking and screaming. I was going on a trip to study with indigenous healers but I thought I would learn about them but I was not interested in consuming them myself at all. And they didn't tell us on this trip that that was going to happen in fact. So surprise to me but it was interesting because it was in Ecuador and the Ecuadorian way is actually like what we would probably consider something in between micro dosing and macro dosing. So it's like altering but not actually like oh my god, you're discombobulated and you're out of commission, for you know, 7 hours or something like that. So it was very interesting to learn the way that culture does things because of course, as I said in the beginning, we're all about big doses, big sledgehammer approaches to everything in the Global North and even all of the research or a lot of it that's being done is about big doses, right? And we're seeing incredible results. I mean, you can have one journey with the right support before, during, after.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:40:59]:
And I always say that because every study that's done involves professional support. Do we actually always need professional support? I mean, probably not, but that's how the studies are done. So for benefit, that's what I would recommend, right? If you want to kind of see these sorts of outcomes. But one dose can break people of lifelong depression that has not responded to anything, can break a tobacco addiction at unprecedented levels like greater than 60% of people were not after an entire year, did not go back. There's no other treatment that exists for another kinds of addiction too. Just really profound shifts that people are experiencing with big doses. And micro dosing is something I have guided people through micro dosing experiences because I see micro dosing which is a lot harder to study simply because microdosing is a subpsychedelic dose. Meaning you're not going to trip, you're not going to be out of commission, right? You know this but people who are listening may or may not.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:42:08]:
Which means you can parent. It means you can go to work. It means you can drive your car and be functional and fine, but you'll feel different. It'll alter you in some way, which is like some people feel a little bit of a sense of euphoria. Some people just feel a shift. Some people feel it more the next day. Not the day they actually ingest. Because usually it's not every single day, but like every few days or a few days in a row then not for several days.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:42:33]:
But what I've seen is it kind of unfolds, first of all over time. So might be like three months or six months of micro dosing. You'll maybe, have a kind of experience or a shift that unfolds day by day instead of this big boom you were rocketed out of the sky and then you have to come back and put the pieces back together in a way. Not to say that that can't be incredible. And some people have wonderful experiences. My first experience was with ayahuasca and it was not wonderful at all. No. And I think for a lot of people it isn't especially early experiences, but there always are those people who are smiling and delighted and happy and you're like vomiting and crying and you're like god, I hate that person, some part of you. But the idea is not that this is always going to be fun and great, it's that you're having these pattern interrupts and you're letting go.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:43:36]:
I mean, I had a very capital T, traumatic childhood. So it is not surprising that some of my experiences, my earliest experiences in particular were extremely challenging for me. Because what do you do when you are a person who's gone through a lot of capital T trauma and then you become a successful person? You lock that stuff up and you're like, I'm going to power through. And psychedelics, they don't solve anything. I want to say this, they're not like pill for the ill at all. They shine spotlights, they open portals. You get to look through the window or the door and decide then afterwards, am I willing to walk through that door? You have to then take the action and that's where the support before, during, after of whatever kind I think is super important. And actually I will say I love micro dosing and even quantum dosing, which is something that we've played with, which is a vibrational dose.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:44:42]:
So I grow master plants and that's one of the ways I quantum dose, right? I don't ingest my plants. I grow them, I tend them. And that's like my reciprocal relationship. This is like true herbalist behavior, right? I have a ten plus year old, ayahuasca vine that I grow totally legal to grow. I don't ingest her. I have San Pedro cacti, I have brugmansia, I have tobacco, I have other plants that I grow and work with. And we created in partnership essentially a vibrational medicine that we call ceremony in a bottle. And it is a quantum dose of these medicines.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:45:18]:
And the reason I did it, and this is going to sound whatever way to people, but tending plants is a way you learn a lot from them and they transmit a lot to me. And I don't have to ingest them. And that's actually been true of a lot of people who are Ayahuasceros, the people who run these ceremonies and things is like once you've been with the plant enough and you have that relationship, they don't ingest anymore. They don't really need to ingest very often because they're there as representatives, they already know what they're there to do. But I got this very strong message which was why do people think they need to ingest us to experience our medicine, show them another way? And this was many years ago and I was like, what the heck does that even mean? And I had to play with it for a long time and kind of turn it over. But I did see when people would reach out to me about micro dosing before they ever ingested and maybe they never would ingest, their lives would already start to change. Their lives would already start to shift. And like I realized they were already in relationship with the mushroom or the plant, right? They already were in that healing, transformative relationship.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:46:37]:
They didn't even always need to take that next step. And so that convinced me that quantum dosing was something really interesting to explore. And I like it because and why I was committed to exploring it and trying to bring something forth was because it was sustainable, right? Because we are consumers and we are like wanting and with mushrooms, it's a little different in the sense that they grow pretty readily. But with things like Ayahuasca or San Pedro or a lot of the other master plants out there, we are hurting them because of this excitement about psychedelics that we're in. Right?
Erin Holt [00:47:17]:
Yeah, that's been a concern of mine. Same thing with crystals. I'm like, do we have an unlimited supply of crystals for everybody all the time? Because we're doing some serious mining for crystals right now. And I say that as somebody who does. I love crystals. Anyway, I want to echo what you said. Obviously you're going to speak into this in a much more well rounded, research backed way versus me just have like N equals one over here. But my experience has been that the medicine isn't the medicine.
Erin Holt [00:47:53]:
It's like I am the medicine. The medicine is just opening me up to my own medicine within. And I think that that might be like a misconception where it's like the medicine is doing the work and it's like, no, you still are. And from my understanding, this is a question that I have for you, is that psilocybin can assist with neuroplasticity. So my question and my concern would be, which is great, that's wonderful, but if we don't have the integration tools like you said before, during, after, could we just essentially be using this as a tool to reinforce old patterns? If we're using this as a pattern interrupt, awesome. But we also kind of have to choose a new pattern to kind of install rather than reinforce the old thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, so on and so forth. That's where the actual transformation comes from, right?
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:48:50]:
Yes, 100%. And you're talking about it in this like the neurological physiologic way and then there's a spiritual way and I talk about both of those things because that's the language. Right? I want to just say, first of all, that n of one in one of the chapters of my book, I start out by talking about how science as it's practiced, modern science, which really is a process, a pursuit, it's not an endpoint, has made us feel like we can't believe our own eyes. Right? And that idea of an n of one, I'm not against big studies, et cetera, but I am very much interested in n of one studies where we compare ourselves against ourselves, right, like a treatment, because everybody's so individual and this idea that we can't believe our own eyes because it hasn't been shown or that's impossible, right? I think that's a really important place for us to kind of start opening our minds and shifting around what we think about science, first of all. And I think psychedelics or master plants are really part of that. But to your point about plasticity, there is this idea of critical periods of plasticity, CPPs, which I talk about actually in chapter four of my book, about this idea of what neuroplasticity means. And what we know is that actually addictive drugs open those window periods, right? Like what we think of as addictive drugs. So like cocaine or even alcohol or others that they actually do exactly what you said, they reinforce their use because we get certain feedback neurofeedback from having whatever the alcohol or the cocaine or the whatever addictive experience and that period of plasticity then reinforces going back for more.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:50:45]:
And so this is a worry actually about a lot of the psychedelic designer drugs that are out there too, is that pharmaceutical companies are like OOH, how can I patent this? How can I make Ayahuasca without the vomiting or psilocybin but no tripping, right? But just the plasticity. And actually at a recent conference I went to, one of the big researchers on plasticity said I'm worried we're creating some very addictive drugs in these designer drug environments because we think opening those windows of plasticity is always good. But just as master plants are neither good nor bad, they're powerful, right? It's all in the relationship. Similarly, being in that state of plasticity, neither good nor bad, it is powerful. How do we come, what kind of environment are we creating? And I do think, although we know for a fact that a lot of different psychedelics interrupt, they pattern interrupt, these ridges that we tend to follow that can interrupt things like addiction. There are people who go back again and again and again with psychedelics thinking this is the only way I'm going to get that transmission. This is the only way I'm going to find truth, or this is the only way I'm going to feel that way. Because we can do that with anything, right? Without the right support, without the right integration, as you say.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:52:12]:
The real purpose here is honoring, appreciation, being in that place of aliveness, being in that place of connection. And that's where, like, The Dirt Cure, my book The Dirt Cure and my book The Master Plant Experience are really all about how do we shift out of us versus them and into me and we, which is everything that indigenous science shows. Everything that quantum science shows is we are not disinterested observers. Right. In the scientific experiment way, we are all active participants in everything. Everything is connected to everything. We are all in relationship all the time. And that is really I think the purpose of master plants now is to help us see that.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:53:04]:
But then we have to take the action in our lives to live that way.
Erin Holt [00:53:08]:
Yeah, I think it's the action that really cements it in as permanent sort really helps us to affect the actual change. And I also appreciate you saying that about the N equals one. I think we've been sort of we're kind of in a place now where we invalidate people's lived experience if it conflicts with our own beliefs. And I don't think that's a very good place to be, especially in health and wellness. Sadly, I think in the quest for evidence based, science backed research, sometimes we miss opportunities for healing. Yeah, I think that can be a shame. So this was a beautiful conversation. I am keeping my eye on the time.
Erin Holt [00:53:52]:
I see that we're at the hour mark. I don't want to chew up too much of more of your time, but this was wonderful. There was definitely moments where I could feel into the energy of what you were saying, and it just felt so especially with the quantum dosing of the plants. I guess my last question for you would be, is there any if somebody had kind of like a visceral reaction to what you were saying in a good way, we could have bad visceral reactions, but kind of I just felt very calm and grounded, like, oh, I'm hearing something like, that's really important. What would be the path to kind of entering into that relationship with these plants?
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:54:35]:
Yeah, I think the first thing to do and to your point about how you felt resistant to the call and then you felt ready, I think first of all, there's no shoulds. You absolutely must listen to that call. So if you're hearing this and you're like, this isn't for me, that's completely fine. One day it might be and maybe it never will be, and that's also fine. But I would say start by picking up a book or doing a little research or even looking at pictures. Literally start with that quantum energy where you're just starting to interact with the energy of the plants and see what it feels like, and then you can come. I have a lot of free resources on my website, so people can go look at drmaya.com, they can look at quantum drops, they can look at my book. My book is like, open it to any page and you'll be know, you'll be able to find something there.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:55:34]:
But there are a lot of ways to engage without ever even really having to ingest or get on that plane and fly to Peru or whatever it is and just trust the process a little bit. Be reverent, right? Take it slowly and you'll hear the call.
Erin Holt [00:55:58]:
If you come with that attitude, I love that. And we will be sure to link up to all of your resources, your website, your books, in the show notes. And I just am still laughing to myself about how you said your book is not dry toast, because talking to you and being in conversation with you, I'm like, there's nothing dry about you, you're rich.
Erin Holt [00:56:19]:
You know what I mean? It's like there's like a richness to you. I feel like I could reach out and touch the texture of you, which is like the exact opposite of dry toast. So I think this was an awesome conversation. I super appreciate your time.
Dr. Maya Shetreat [00:56:33]:
Well, thank you so much. And that was the nicest compliment I've gotten in a long time.
Erin Holt [00:56:42]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
