The Healing Potential of Psychedelics

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel. I'm your host, author, coach and healer, Andy Grant. Please visit theandygrant.com to learn more about me. Real Men Feel reminds men that they are human beings and they have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men can benefit from. My guest today is Matt Zeman. Matt is the best selling author of three books about psychedelics, including the newly released The Veteran's Guide to Psychedelics. Matt holds a master's degree in Psychology and neuroscience from King's College in London. He combines academic insights with a passion for safe and sacred psychedelic use. Matt has seen first hand how psychedelics have helped people from different walks of life and his goal is to normalize the conversation and reduce stigma.

0:43 Matt shares how he first got into this line of work, what psychedelics did for him, and the importance of integration. Matt offers US one thing he wishes more men knew, stresses that psychedelics are a catalyst, not a cure, and I share my experiences with the psychedelics. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to Real and Feel Matt. And it is good to be here. How's your day going? It's it's spectacular. Psychedelic free yet spectacular. There we go, both those things can be true. Yeah, and I wanna, so I wanna share with you and listeners a bit of my experience with psychedelics. I've done magic mushrooms in the teens 1617 times throughout high school and college. Always just illicit leave for fun. No, no intention of healing or anything like that. I visited the Peruvian Amazon in 2006, which is where I first heard of ayahuasca, and the shaman let me hold the bottle of it but would not let us partake in it. But then I did have the chance to do ayahuasca, which I've done once in July of 2011, and I had a fantastic experience. The the shaman leading it said he had never seen anyone have a better first time experience.

1:52 So I was like, all right, that's all I need. Like go out on top. So what first got you interested in psychedelics? And I fell into this by accident. I had some friends invite me to a guided magic mushroom experience. And I was like, I don't think so. I don't do those kinds of things. I was in my mid, mid 40s. And they they said, yeah, you do do these things. This would be good for you. So something inside of me said yes. And in that very first experience, it just changed the way I look at the world. I reconnected with my mom. I could understand that my parents dying young wasn't my story. I just insight after insight after insight and realized how safe and loved I felt in that experience. And then how I didn't normally feel that level of safe and love love.

2:44 And that led me to wanting to learn more. So I went and traveled the world. I've done a bunch of worked with a lot of different types of practitioners and their and their use of psychedelics and I've studied, I got a master's in psychology and neuroscience focused on psychedelic medicine and it's been quite, quite the journey now. What's the difference between tripping and and healing? I love that question. What is it? So, so I think when I think when we're getting into kind of just common language when people talk about tripping, I think that is the, I think that is a way of, of shorthand of describing being in a non ordinary sense of sense of consciousness. So that can be tripping.

3:24 I'm at a concert and I'm taking some LSD and, and I'm tripping at the concert. Great. OK, that's a good use of the word. Or I guess you could say I'm in a ceremony or I'm in a clinical setting and I'm taking mushrooms as part of a clinical trial or, or, or, or MDMA as part of a clinical trial. And during that process I am tripping. So I don't, I don't think that is I don't think the word is that important. So it's the non ordinary state of consciousness is is what what matters. You're out there. Can you explain exactly how psychedelics can serve as tools for healing for mental health issues and challenges like anxiety, depression, PTSD?

4:05 Yeah, I love that especially, I mean especially for men. I think our culture, let me try it this way. Our culture tells us we have to provide and we, I know I spent a lot of, spent a lot of time and spend a lot of time thinking about how am I going to provide for my family. And that my number one job was to go out there and generate resources and bring those back to the home so the kids can have school and food and all that good stuff. And there wasn't really a lot of time for relationship. It was I'd get up, I'd go to work, come home, we'd have dinner, I might do some more work, we'd watch a show, we'd go to bed. It's kind of typical day. I think psychedelics can break that repetitive thinking pattern and can allow parts of the brain that don't normally communicate to communicate again. And when that happens, when you start breaking repetitive patterns, well, we can look at things and say, oh wow, I don't have to think about my relationship or my job or my myself the way I've been thinking about it. I can think about this other, other way and when that starts happening, I and, and I've seen many other people start to become, remember who we are and to remember how powerful we are and to remember how loved we are and to remember how supported we are and that that remembrance is, is really incredibly powerful.

5:27 So I, I, I tell people all the time, it's like it's not a cure for anything. They are a catalyst. They're a catalyst for understanding, for awakening, for insight, for awareness, and then how that manifests in each individual's life depends on what they're, what they're working on, and where they are in their journey. OK, I'm, I'm really glad you said that, because sometimes the, the hype for psychedelics in as as treatment makes it seem like it's a magic bullet, like, oh, take these and you'll never be depressed again. And but you're, you know, again, it's a catalyst. It's a way into something that's been perhaps resistant to other treatments. Is that is that accurate? Yeah, it's a way into yourself as how I would describe it, It it doesn't so, so, so many things that we do in Western culture, if we take the antidepressants or anti anxiety medicine, it's it's really numbing the pain. And psychedelics don't, they don't numb it. They actually bring it closer to us where we can see it, we can understand it.

6:19 And then we can potentially make more meaning from whatever it is that that caused that, that hurt, that pain, that that that scar in US, the emotional scar. Yeah, it's it's incredible for doing that. And that biologically lighting up our brains. It's, it's like when we're kids, our our brains ran everywhere. And then at some point as we were developing, as our neural pathways got pruned, it's like someone picked us up off the playground and stuck us on a treadmill, but nobody told us. So now we're running on our treadmill, literally thinking the same way over and over and over. The psychedelics can put us back on that playground and, and our minds can run free. And that can be incredibly powerful for things like creativity, for problem solving and for how are we connected to everybody? How that childlike wonder that we used to have when we approached life, the the awe can come back. And then the practice is how do we keep that remembrance in everyday life when we're not using psychedelics when we come to these conversations, Andy, and how do we how do we bring that presence to, to everything?

7:28 Do you have a preferred psychedelic tool or substance or is it anything you can find will will work? I think I this is tricky. So if you're asking me personally, I I'd rather I like different molecules for different things. So I think some of the heart openers like MDA or Sassafras or MDMA are really powerful for, for, for wanting to feel love and to, to have just the heart crack open. So we're seeing a lot of work with that particular tool with with veterans, with first responders, with victims of sexual assault, with people who have forgotten that they're capable of receiving and giving love without the pain. So I think that tool is really pretty is is incredible. Just as a quick side note on that, they gave people with treatment resistant post traumatic stress disorder, 3 sessions of MDMA.

8:27 So picture veterans, first responders, victims of sexual assault where nothing has worked. They've tried every type of pharmacological solution. They've tried all to talk therapies. They gave them three sessions of MDMA with some coaching or therapy before and after and over 70% no longer qualified as having a PTSD diagnosis. So it's a pretty tremendous, tremendous tool. The other tool I like, I love psilocybin. The, the, the, the, the active ingredient, those magic mushrooms you were talking about a minute ago. I think in terms of feeling connected to everything, to remembering that I am nature. I'm not separate and apart from nature to remember that the the trees and the birds and the animals are all here supporting our lives. That's pretty.

9:13 It's pretty powerful medicine for that tool. And we're seeing incredible studies with psilocybin on things like end of life to stress where they've given it both at NYU, Johns Hopkins, University of California, San Francisco. They've given it to people with terminal cancer diagnosis and over 80% have a reduction in depression, anxiety and hopelessness. And then they've done follow up studies with those still alive 4 1/2 years later and it's like 70% are still feeling the effects of one dose. So that's a pretty powerful tool. I think 5 MEODMT is one that's not talked about that often. It's all otherwise known as Bufo. It's the venom of the Bufo ovarius toad. And in that one, it's really and what's called a non duality where you, there's no you, there's no time, there's no space, there's just kind of energy. And I think having that for me, that connection with, with just the vibration of the world is a a reminder of what could be beyond this physical body that I am, that I have it now. So I'd like that medicine for that. But there's, I mean, Ayahuasca's we have, I've been, I was in spent a lot of time this past year with veterans working with ayahuasca.

10:29 If I had a, a child with a, with an opioid challenge, I would I would be getting them to an ibogaine clinic. So just different, different medicines for different purposes. Yeah, my Ayawasa experience really brought out that non duality and I had heard, you know, we're we're we're operating on multiple, not platforms, multiple levels of existence, you know, multiple fields all the time. And why my Waska experience are like, Oh my God, I'm aware of being on like a dozen different levels of existence right now and that that was quite amazing. And as as and again, has stuck with me from that that single experience and. That was 2011, yeah. And even. 14 years, yeah, it's a long time.

11:12 Yeah, and the. Can you still see it in your head? Can you still go back? There, if I, yeah, if I close my eyes, if I, yeah, if I like I, I can feel like the vine coming through me and that's how it first came into me and yeah, now I can. Still. Some of the visuals were like one plane of existence was it looked like Avatar, just super beyond 3D and, you know, beyond colors. And at one point I was in my like a Hall of Fame. Every pet I had ever owned or come across, like every animal was on this other plane. And yeah, it was just amazing. And my psilocybin experiences were always I just laughed. I just laughed and laughed and I tended to be a depressed, pessimistic kid. So that's why I loved mushrooms.

11:58 Like if yeah, I could easily if if they were really available, I would have done them a lot more probably. But and then you talk about the connecting with all the nature by happenstance or coincidence or guidance. Most of my mushroom use was camping, going outside and and don't and looking at the stars all night and and you know, forgetting about all. Friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was never, never alone. It was always with a group of friends doing it all together. And yeah. So that community that, that oneness, it was all there even when I just thought I was, you know, messing around, didn't have some high intention behind it. So. Yeah, I love that you're saying that, Andy, 'cause I I think that is something that that's often misconstrued, that there's almost a psychedelic exceptionalism that OK, if you don't, if you don't come into this and you have every, everything exactly right and the exactly right intention that you've done something wrong. And that is not true.

12:54 There are so many different ways that people meet these medicines and start forming a relationship. So you started forming a relationship as a as a teenager with this, with this medicine and that was the way you accessed it. And it was beautiful and it was appropriate at the time. And now at this stage in life, wanting kind of best practices 'cause you're at just a different phase. Well, now we can talk about, OK, well source set and setting, how do we really watch those three things so that you have the best probability of a of a positive outcome from this experience? Right, I assume, correct me if I'm wrong, that you're not advocating go buy some psychedelics, take them loan at home and see what happens It it's so so tell me about the therapeutic use.

13:41 Yeah. So, so I'm, I'm not advocating for that. I don't think that is the best and I don't think that's the, that is the way to do this with the best probability of, of, of a good outcome. I think that there are three ways though, that people access psychedelics in America. So some do like, some believe in a, a medical model. So right now the only option on a medical model is either to go to a ketamine clinic or or by ketamine somehow from a, from a medical provider or to get in the clinical trial for psilocybin, MDMALSD, ayahuasca, DMT. That's really it in the States.

14:21 But for some people, they want to have a diagnosis, they want to work with a clinician, they want to have kind of here is my scores before and here are my scores after, OK. They want a scientific approach. That's beautiful. Go for it. And we, I hope that MDMA is a tool in the medical professional toolbox in the next few years. I hope psilocybin is a tool for them. The second way people access these, these medicines are religious. There's somewhere between 200 and 1000 psychedelic churches in America. I don't. My guess is 5600, but that's that's for that. Those are for the most part people who are practicing using these tools as they've been used for thousands of years. It's people who believe I don't need a diagnosis to want to explore my consciousness.

15:04 I don't need a diagnosis to want to be closer to source. However that is I define it. And these tools are pretty reliable tools for those types of experiences. So without making medical claims, these spiritual groups offer ceremonial psychedelics. And I think that's, that's beautiful and important and it's a, it's a, a religious freedom perspective and it's something that we need to, I, I pay no attention to this before this world. And then we have like decriminalization. We have these groups, all of the chapters all over the country. And I think Massachusetts just actually worked with almost had a couple different things. But decrim, the idea behind decrim nature starts with no adult to tell another adult that they can't put nature in their body.

15:50 OK, I get that it's very libertarian, but it also goes a step further. And they say it's not fair that those of us who have resources, who have money can access all these psychedelics and all these tools and all this healing. And those that don't have money aren't allowed to grow for free mushrooms in their in their closet or consume for very little money these things. So I think it is an important path and I think it's one that we're seeing city after city decriminalizing psychedelics for a reason and that then fairness is a big piece of that. But yeah, if I had my if you were my brother asking me how should I start this process?

16:33 Let's say, you know, if you're paying attention to source, where did your medicine come from? You're set and you're setting. Regardless of whether it's a medical, a spiritual and underground therapist, a retreat to Jamaica or Costa Rica or Peru or the Netherlands, you still have to ask the exact same questions to find the place that's right for you. So I, I guess I thought states that had decriminalized meant there was a thriving industry of, of clinics and support for doing this so that it just, it's just, you no longer get arrested for having it. That's that's the extent of it. So separate into two things, we have two states that have actually legalized. So we have the state of Oregon, which had gone through a process of ballot initiative and they actually have legal psychedelic treatment centers where people can adults can go and have treatment. Colorado's right behind them.

17:23 Ballot initiative. They're going to have that soon. Many other cities have decriminalized, which means it's just not, it's the lowest priority for law enforcement. Detroit, Ann Arbor, I think a couple cities in Massachusetts, yeah, there's a bunch of them. So it's, it's not, there's no industry. It's still that's part of the, the part of the challenge I see is that when we are not talking as adults about this, when we're not having a, a true marketplace that we can look at and talk about, these things are pushed underground. When these are pushed underground, there are possibilities of profit motive leading to contamination and other things that doesn't keep us as safe as, as we as I would want to be.

18:05 So I'm, I'm definitely a fan of like, how do we get these into a public marketplace with open communications between medical professionals, spiritual leaders and consumers like us? And in a therapeutic environment is, is the, is the notion to be micro dosing just taking the bare minimum substance to have an experience or is it take whatever you feel like? It's a little bit of both. I think most and mostly in the therapeutic environment, people are doing larger doses. I mean that they're going in to do this with a a professional and having a professional there while doing a a larger dose is something that is a best practice micro dosing because we're when you're micro dosing, we're talking about a tenth to a 20th of a dose. So it's either sub perceptual.

18:50 You really can't even feel it. Certainly it's sub intoxicating if it's a micro dose. So the need to have to be with someone on a micro dose is is not really there. It's it's macro dose when you want somebody or or two people in the room with you to make sure that you're safe. So you've written three books on the subject. The most recent is The Veterans Guide to Psychedelics. What made what inspired you to focus on veterans? I had, I had come up with a preparation and integration journal and I'd given it away to it to a number of people, including some veterans. And one of the veterans was at a retreat in a center in Oregon where the CEO of this project called Heroic Hearts Project was there and saw the journal.

19:36 And he ended up calling me up and saying, hey, can we do a, a bigger version of this for veterans where we'll incorporate stories and we'll have, we'll have best practices so they can make an informed decision of whether they even want to participate in, in our programs or not. So we spent about a year talking to people in his organization, a guy named Jared Reinhardt as their, their head of integration, spent some time with him, spent some time with some veterans in in preparation integration and actually doing ayahuasca ceremonies. It is a is such, again, such a powerful tool for that population where in many cases they've they've come from distressed childhoods. They've had really hard upbringings that led them in the first place to join the military.

20:21 And then on top of that, then they they're, they're. Traumas in many cases were compounded by the things that they were doing and, and, and how it was delivered to them in that military experience. And ayahuasca is a is a powerful tool. But that book the the Veterans Guide to Psychedelics goes not just it doesn't just talk about ayahuasca, it talks about all the different psychedelics that are being used. So people who are working again, veterans working with with ketamine providers or psilocybin ceremonies or ayahuasca, this book works for any of those settings. When you talk about taking some sort of ancient healing rituals and bring it into a modern setting, is there any concern that we don't have that strong spiritual foundation of that ancient society to get the best from our from our efforts? It's it's a huge concern, Andy.

21:15 So, so, so yeah, I mean, when when people take when, when someone who's from Peru and from a from an indigenous culture takes ayahuasca and they finish the ayahuasca experience, they're in this community that understands just differently and is very is supportive in a different way than we are up here in in Western society. So we have that we've come up with this term called integration and integration is what do we as North American, as Westerners do following psychedelics to 1st unpack what the hell did we see? And maybe we don't have a spiritual background which on how to organize our thoughts or think about these things. So having someone unpack this with is is super helpful.

21:59 But then also it's strongly having some type of community to move into is something that's strongly recommended. So whether that's a, it's a yoga community or in there or, or there's, there's a, there's a group called Lagari, which is Christians and psychedelics. There's a group called Shepha, which is Jews and psychedelics. It doesn't make a difference. But having a community around you to support you is, is, is hugely beneficial as we move into how do we do this as a practice? How do we bring our presence and our awareness into everyday conversations? And how do we start living the life that we remembered were capable of when we were on the medicine?

22:41 You you've said I don't believe everyone should take psychedelics, but I do believe that psychedelics are for everyone. So could you expand on perhaps who shouldn't take them? Like, yeah. I love that. Yeah, there's definitely, I mean, I, I so the book the the, the my first book was called Psychedelics for Everyone. And that was a a controversial title and, and it was not meant that everyone's taking psychedelics, but the there are certain people who have either family history or are taking a prescription or a supplement that might be a contraindication with a psychedelic that they need to be careful. So I tell people a couple things. First, take responsibility for your own medical screening. So go to either Spirit pharmacist.com or Doctor Emily Kulpa KUL pa.com and pay the couple $100 to have them look at your screening and say, OK, if you're thinking about this substance versus that substance, you might have to do this or that.

23:37 So as an example, if you're on an antidepressant, you can take ketamine and you probably can take psilocybin and have a full effect, but not everybody, most people. But you really can't take ayahuasca, you really can't take MDMA. So it's that type of contraindication that the medical screenings are looking for. If you are schizophrenic and you don't have a a firm grasp of this consensus reality that we are living in, that's probably not a good idea to to move into a psychedelic and non ordinary state of consciousness. If you are young 18/19/2025 and your parents or your brother's sister are schizophrenic, it's probably not a good time to be experimenting with this type of this type of tool.

24:27 But if you're 50 and your mom's schizophrenic and you've never had any indication that you you have propensity towards schizophrenia, it's, it's much less risky to do it then. So I, I tell people all the time, look, psychedelics safe is not the right word. They are relatively risk reduced compared to a lot of medicines that we look at and take everyday. We have over 400 people a year who die from acetaminophen overdoses in our country. I think there's only been three known cases of people who've ever died from psilocybin. So it's not that they are safe. It's at the risk is reduced. But you should really know what the risks are. There are people, not very many, who have persistent hallucinations after psychedelics. There are people who have some level of incapacity for a while, and again, it's not a large percentage, but it's worth talking about and making sure that, OK, I'm at a point where I'm willing to take that risk.

25:30 In your travels and studies, have you come across holotropic breathwork? Of course. Yeah, a huge fan of that. Have you? Yeah, I've done that probably a dozen times. Yeah. What do you think? And I love it. And what, what, what especially I love and marvel at is that you you don't need another substance. Like it's just your own breathing. And I like the first time I did it, I was like, well, if this was taught in high schools, drug use would just plummet. And it's like, oh, for free. I can, you know, have this because my first experience with breath work was really a stereotypical acid trip. Like I thought I was smelling colors and, you know, tasting physical objects and just showing through the universe, having the time of my life. And then during this I would I kept cycling from like so high and life is amazing.

26:12 And then I remember that I tried to end my life and I would plummet and be sobbing and but it was the first step to my really own healing and seeing that my surviving multiple attempts, suicide attempts was me surviving attempted murder. And so I really like had this morning experience and when it all ended, I, I wrote letters of apology to my mom, to my dad and to myself for the pain I'd put people through. It was just, it gave me a whole new perspective on it. But yeah, it like I didn't want it to end. I, I, I went for almost 3 hours. I was in the ballroom with people. Didn't, I was at, it was my first personal growth event at all. It was a week long meditation retreat. One night we did this breath work, which I never heard of, loved the music, loved the, the sitting with people.

26:54 I just loved everything about it. And then since then, I've had the opportunity to breathe twice with yeah, he, he spooned my wife at one point. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, it's very cool. He has been I mean he was such a leader in LSD research and then to really pioneer the Tropic breath work, bring it to the masses and his so so many good things. But sticking with us from and I I think I, I think I, I don't think I know I underestimated breath work. I was like, OK, I've done now all these different psychedelics. I'm sure that breath work is not going to be able to send me into that level of a of a non ordinary state. And I was just wrong.

27:40 I was absolutely floored so much so that I remember one point on the on the breath work thinking how do I stop? Like how do I get off this train? Yeah, it's a serious, serious alternative or, or compliment for people who who are like, OK, I don't want to try XYZ psychedelic, but I am willing to try breath work first or, or as a compliment. Great. And just like you can hurt yourself like it again, nothing is safe. There's risk to breath work, there's risk to meditation, there's risk to psychedelics, there's risk, there's risk to driving in the car. So we have to choose what level of risk we're willing to take.

28:21 So is is there anything that makes you point someone to breathwork or to psychedelics or to just experiment with both, see what works best for you? What? What do you what do you think there? It's I try not to give specific directions to anybody about what they should or should not do. What I tried to is answer their questions of So if someone says, look, I've been, I have been sober for a long time. My recovery is super important to me. I'm not sure I really want to take any substance whatsoever. Is there anything I can do? Absolutely. Have you thought about breath work? So that's that's kind of an easy direction there. But people say I'm not willing to do anything illegal period. OK, well, ketamine or breath work are kind of your two options when I meet people like I want to feel it's got to be hard and intense.

29:12 OK, but you might like ayahuasca might be the one you're looking for. So I try it's, it just really depends on who, who is asking the question and what their background is and what are they worried about. And then I guess I also believe, and I'm curious if you feel this way that these medicines you kind of know, like if you're actually, what if you've been listening to this podcast for 30 minutes and you're still listening, you know, you won't you're, you're listening for a reason. What is it? What are you looking for? What permission do you feel like you need to receive to go do whatever it is you're thinking about doing?

29:52 And I feel like each each of these, like at some point I really keep hearing mushrooms. Maybe I should go try some mushrooms. OK, great, go do that. Keep hearing about ayahuasca. Great, go try that. Are there any specific areas of psychedelic research that you're most excited about? Like what? What do you see on the horizon? To your point earlier, there's so much media hype. What do you believe it's like? Oh, the psychos are the next big cure for this, that and the other thing. But what I didn't realize is when we think about how do repetitive thinking patterns manifest in our lives? Well, for some people it manifests as depression, where I get into catastrophizing these things. I get into these loops of how bad my life is and I can't see past that.

30:38 OK, great. Others, it's anxiety I'm just constantly worried about. I'm afraid of of the way I interact with the world. For some people that might mean I eat too much. For others it might mean sex or porn. For others it might mean gambling. For others it might mean workaholism. For others, it might mean an an eating disorder. So when we think about breaking repetitive thinking patterns, I can now understand how why they're saying, well, psychedelics might be the next best thing for, for quitting smoking. OK, 'cause I didn't think of it before as it's a manifestation of a repetitive thinking pattern that if we could break it, we might be able to stop that cycle.

31:22 I guess I if personally, I love the end of life work being done with psychedelics, both for the people dying and for the people witnessing the death. That we as families can have conversations that need to be had before somebody transitions or dies. That we can all understand that we are spiritual creatures having a human experience. So I love that there's a phase two trial happening up in Baltimore right now with where they're giving MDMA not just to the person with cancer, but to one loved one. But we've been doing that in the ceremonial space for a long time. So I love that that's catching up. I love the work with, with treatment resistant PTSD because it's so easy for everyone to understand, especially when it comes to veterans and sexual assault and 1st responders. Oh yeah, we owe them something and nothing's working. Sorry.

32:12 When, when for those that where it doesn't work, we need to give them another option. OK, I can understand this. So I think if I had to pick two areas, those would be the two I'm most excited about. And I mean, I don't know, there's also, I mean, there's a new study of psychedelics and autism. How cool is that? When we think about the repetitive thinking patterns of autism and being able to whether it's feeling emotion or whether it's understanding how to read a room or whether it's slow down and process differently, it's it's beautiful work. To to get back to integration. If if someone has a first experience with psychedelics and they feel some sort of benefit, something changes, they they have new realizations and insights, Is there a most common path?

32:59 Do is there a prescribed number of usages or is it just journaling and integration, being in a community that can share the experience? Like what? What helps the benefits keep going? So a couple things here. I mean, biologically when we take a psychedelic, we enter into a state of neuroplasticity that lasts for about 30 days. So in that time period, our brain is more malleable, we're able to learn faster. So like in in the Veteran's Guide to Psychedelics, in my Beyond the Trip journal, we include a 30 day gratitude journal where people can help train their mind on the positive in a state when your mind is has a biological boost to help kind of reframe things. There are exercises each week in those journals where it asks a series of questions and a series of prompts that helps us. Let's let's think about the past. Let's let's pay attention to the new sensations we're feeling. Let's dream a little bit about the future and how do we align our actions in work and in family and in personal with whatever those insights were.

34:04 And then it becomes very personal for for some people on ketamine as an example, again, legal, psychedelic, legal, close enough to psychedelic. Many places are going to have them do like 6 doses in four weeks or a lot of doses and then they're going to spread them out. And then maybe you do you do them every few months or every few weeks after that. When it comes to psilocybin, Iowa is another example. Maybe it's once in a life or once in a year, but for others it's once a quarter. So it's really becomes personal on how you want to interact with that medicine and to and where you want to, how you want to use it to help and whatever it is that you're trying to achieve.

34:46 I'll. Never forget my my guide in Peru growing up in that society said at age 13, they all had to take their ayahuasca. And he didn't look forward to it, didn't like it. Can't believe Americans are coming down trying to do this thing. So it was really interesting to get that that, you know, other perspective. But you know, I think I've heard of people combining weeks of Ayawaska use and the next day breath work and keep alternating. Can you? Can there be too much? Of course, yeah, there can definitely be too much. I'm ketamine there. Ketamine, when not in a medical setting, has had many people get addicted. So that's something that you have to be very, very careful of. Most psychedelics, ayahuasca, psilocybin and LSD are really non addictive, anti addictive.

35:34 The body, your body just doesn't really allow yourself to get addicted. But ketamine is something to be careful of. I think with anything as humans, we have the, the biological addiction, we have the behavioral component. And one of the questions that we talk a lot about for people who are coming back multiple times is OK, are you, are you processing? Are you just chasing the thrill or are you doing whatever work that, that you want to do? And again, it's not up to me to tell you what you're doing or, or to make a judgement on it. Just to ask the question. I think when I think it's super effective and I'll use ayahuasca with the, with the veterans as an example, a typical protocol is you go down for five nights and you'll do ayahuasca for three of them.

36:19 That's pretty normal. With many of the ceremonies that I participate in, it's it's two or three nights in a row or two or three days in a row of whatever sacrament they're serving. I think that's for the most part pretty helpful because it takes the pressure off. I think a lot of people, especially because some of these places are so expensive. A lot of people come in, it's like, oh, I've got to have this great big experience. It's got to be everything. It's got to be in the first time. It's got to be great. It's a lot of pressure. If you have 3, it's like maybe the first one's going to be great. Maybe it's not. It's OK, let's try again. So I think having two or three for for people are coming into this new to the practice that's that would be a recommendation if if as a starting point. Yeah, no, that's a good point.

37:06 I hadn't thought of the performance anxiety and expectations of yeah, I've traveled all this way, flying too many countries, spending $1000. I better have the magical experience. And yeah, you don't want to. You don't want to force or fake it or anything like that. Yeah, or even I went to Oregon and spent $3000. I mean, it's, it can be expensive, which is also where the churches are typically not, not anywhere near the pricing of the treatment centers. The treatment centers aren't as expensive as the retreats. It's it there's, they're different tiers. And I say that and if I hear these clinics and these underground treatment centers charging $10,000. So there's a wide variety in cost. Besides psychedelics or possibly in addition to them, is there anything you've come across in in your experience, your studies, seeing people that that you would would recommend as as something to to try to explore? I think, Andy, a lot of the stuff that you do are the things that I'd recommend.

38:02 I mean, we, we are for any of us who use psychedelics, it's even if it's once a month, it's still there's 30 days of non psychedelics for every day of psychedelic. And most people it's maybe once a quarter, once a year, once a life. So what do you do in all those other days? And I think for me, psychedelics opened me up to what these other things could be. It opened me up to the possibility of meditation, of breath work, of of awareness practices, of journaling in a way that was a deeper type of journal. So I recommend getting out in nature, not spending every moment doing doing this. It it helps change our priorities. And how do we think about those priorities? So all of those awareness practices, those mindfulness practices are really helpful.

38:52 Being in community is really helpful. And, and certainly all those things can be done without ever touching a psychedelic as well. You had mentioned Heroic Heart early. I want to give you a chance to expand on that and how your book is tied to them. Yeah, so Heroic Hearts Project is one of the the larger veteran organizations that send veterans down to Central and South America and Oregon where they can access legal psychedelics. It's an amazing organization. They send hundreds and hundreds of of veterans down every year. So this book, the the Veterans Guide to Psychedelics, 100% of the proceeds go to them. Because if you're if you are a veteran and you go to the Heroic Hearts Project website and you sign up for a program and you can't, you're going to you're going to get a scholarship to go on these programs. Now, if you can afford it yourself, they're going to ask that you kind of give the money to a someone else so that they can go.

39:44 But they do an amazing job. They give the veterans 3 sessions in advance of group therapy, 3 sessions of individual coaching, three, they take them down to the to the, to the ceremony with whether it's the Shipibo or some other group, and then three sessions a group and individual afterwards. So it's a lot of support and they're just, they're just incredible. Mission Within is another organization that's doing good work in this space, and Vets is 1/3 and there's a bunch of these groups that are stepping up. And stepping in right now where the V as kind of falling short. And it's not that they're well-intentioned. They they are. They just haven't gotten to here yet. But yeah, I love heroic hearts project. Jesse Gould is the Ceceo.

40:26 They do amazing, amazing work. They just and if if you're interested in them, you type in heroic Hearts project 60 minutes. There's just a big special this past Sunday on 60 minutes on them. Cool. Since this is real, men feel I always ask this one question. What is one thing you wish more men knew? I'd love that question. I, I think, I think that we live in an abundant world. And what I mean by that, Andy, is I grew up being told that there's not enough. I've got to take what's mine. I've got to work hard, I've got to provide. And that led to competition and in high school and college and afterwards, it led to behaviors that were, that were more selfish. It led to behaviors that kept me distant from myself and from my family and, and from my friends.

41:21 And realizing that for me realizing, Oh my gosh, what we've lived the best time ever to be alive. There's so much support out there. There's plenty out there for everybody. We can feed the world, we can house the world. These, these problems that we that are told to us by our culture, by our news, just not true. And, and there's plenty, plenty of things to work on in the world as well. But I, I can live and and have an abundant attitude towards life. And by doing that, I can have deeper, deeper relationships and feel more everyday. And that feeling peace Andy is something I just didn't have time for and I can't.

42:05 I look back now, I'm like, what was I thinking? Cause what is life without feeling? Amen. Cool. So, Matt, what's the best way for people to keep in touch with you, find out everything you're up to and learn more about books, programs, everything? Yeah, anyone who's looking for the books, Amazon is the best place and and type in psychedelics or Matt Zemon. You'll get a bunch of different books. Matt zemon.com ZEMON, there's a free guide to micro dosing. You can reach out to me there. Lots of little videos and things on things that are happening are all on madzeman.com. And then if you're looking for a speaker or any of that, that's a great place to do it. If you're buying books in bulk because you're a therapist, you're a coach, you are one of these retreat centers that's I mean that's the best way that these books are sold by 100 at a time to these groups. And then LinkedIn and Instagram, I'm active, I'm on there all the time.

42:56 And if it's another great place to reach out and and I'll respond. Awesome, thanks for joining us, Matt. Thanks everyone for listening and tuning in today. I'm sure, like me, you've gotten a new perspective on things, maybe opened your horizons, even though take anything you've opened your horizons in mind a bit. Please visit Real Man Field at org. See the blog post for this episode. Have all the various links to the resources discussed and the group's mentioned as well. Wherever you're discovering Rim and Feel, please subscribe, follow, like, share this episode with somebody, post a review or comment. If you are not living your life to the fullest, I invite you to book a free Clarity call with me. We'll explore what you want, what's in your way, and what you can do about it. Visit theandygrant.com/talk and until next time, be good to yourself.