Ep 550: Evaluating Your Life with Psychedelics – A Guide to Personal Transformation with Matt Zemon

Aging brings up big questions—are you living the life you’re meant to? If you’re feeling stuck, seeking clarity, or on a mission to better understand yourself, psychedelics might offer a new perspective.

In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause chats with Matt Zemon, MSc, an educator, author, and leader in psychedelic wellness. Matt discovered psilocybin through friends, and it changed the course of his life. Now, he’s helping others navigate their own transformative experiences.

Together, they discuss the potential of psychedelics for mental health, personal growth, and self-discovery, along with practical advice for safe and intentional use.

🔗 Resources from This Show:
🌎 Matt Zemon’s Website: https://mattzemon.com/
📩 Questions? Ask Matt: matt@mattzemon.com
📚 Matt’s Books: https://mattzemon.com/matts-books/
📖 The Psilocybin Handbook for Women – Jennifer Chesak: https://www.jenniferchesak.com/the-psilocybin-handbook-for-women

👉 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review! Let’s keep the conversation going about psychedelics, aging, and unlocking your full potential. 💫

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Podcast Transcript

00:00 Introduction to Psychedelics and Their Impact
11:34 Navigating the Psychedelic Experience
18:12 Exploring DMT and 5-MeO DMT
25:11 Understanding Sourcing and Safety in Psychedelics
25:41 Navigating the Psychedelic Landscape
30:52 Understanding the Role of Psychedelics
36:02 Experiences with Different Psychedelics
39:30 The Unique Needs of Veterans
44:25 The Importance of Community in Healing
49:51 Midlife Reflections and Personal Growth
51:55 Resources for Further Exploration

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MATT (00:00)
What I have found is that if people come in with kind of a step-by-step process, maybe they do a heart opener on one ceremony with like an MDMA or an MDA, and then another ceremony of a mushroom, they’ve now practiced twice. And then if after those two ceremonies, or maybe two mushrooms or two, then they do a five MEO, the probability of having a really blissful, beautiful non-dual experience is very, very, very high.

JANNINE (00:30)
Welcome to the Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, and fit physiques for life. Hey, health junkies. On this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, I’m bringing in Matt Zieman to talk about psychedelics. Now, we’re not just talking about mushrooms this round. We’re actually going to go into DMT. We’re going to go into 5-MeO DMT, otherwise known as Bufo.

We’re gonna talk about a little bit of some of the more fringe, let’s say, psychedelics and how they impact the body, what the experience is when you take them, and different considerations to take when you’re thinking about these sorts of things. Now, I know I’ve had other folks on, but Matt is different in terms of he’s willing to talk about his experience of each and every one of these psychedelics and how he’s actually pairing them together. So Matt Zieman is a educator. He’s a…

author. He’s a leader in psychedelic wellness. He’s specializing on the impact of psychedelics on mental health. He’s an author of multiple books, including the most recently released Veterans Guide to Psychedelics. And so he’s got a lot of background here on learning and educating himself in psychedelics. He also has a master’s degree in psychology and neuroscience from King’s College in London.

And he’s really using his academic insights with a passion for safe and sacred psychedelic use. And what’s even more interesting is that how did he get into this? His friends had to convince him to go with them to try some psychedelics. He was not even interested in it. And lo and behold, he is today and it’s his life’s work. So let’s introduce you to Matt Zieman. Matt Zieman, welcome to the Health Facts Podcast.

MATT (02:24)
Janine, it is good to be here. Thanks for doing this today.

JANNINE (02:28)
Hey, no problem. There’s just so many questions I get on psychedelics, like I was mentioning before, that so, you know, the questions just keep coming and folks are just really inquisitive and having different perspectives, but also having different inputs been really helpful for me as a practitioner to understand psychedelics better, but also to be able to say, hey, here’s a great resource. Here’s another resource. Check these folks out, you know? So my pleasure, my pleasure.

MATT (02:57)
I that. mean, you speak to, I think it’s what 35 to 55 year old women is kind of your prime audience. And when we, it’s just such a different time of life to think about these tools. I mean, whether it’s okay, how am I going to deal with being a parent or a spouse or in my role at work? It’s very different than I’m 20 and I’m floating through college or having those types of experiences.

use of the tool is so different and the reasoning behind it is so different. And the desire to keep ourselves as risk reduced as possible is different. We’re more aware of that. There’s more at stake.

JANNINE (03:38)
Right, right. Yeah, we’re not thinking about like who’s gonna have some mushrooms at the party, right? Versus you know, how can I use this to to move myself forward? How can I use this to gain some insight? And this is what I really wanted to pick your brain on today is like how how are folks using this tool and what’s happening within a session? But before we go there, I always got to ask folks like okay. How did how did you find psychedelics or how did they find you? How’d this come about free?

MATT (04:05)
It’s a wacky story. I had some friends hire a guide for a guided magic mushroom journey and they invited me and I said, no, I don’t do drugs. It’s not my thing. I appreciate it. And they said, no, you kind of want to do this. You do. It’s going to, you love to learn. You love to travel. You get to do all this inside of yourself. So something inside of me said, yes. I went in with really low expectations. And in that first journey,

completely changed the way I look at the world. I reconnected with my mom who had died when I was 22. She was just 49. I felt incredibly safe and loved and then realized, wait a minute, I don’t feel that level of safety and love in my everyday life. And I had all these insights and realized, I need to learn more about this.

So I ended up going back to school to get a master’s in psychology and neuroscience and started traveling the world, experiencing different psychedelics from indigenous leaders, Taitas and Shaman and maestros, and also MDs and PhDs. And that’s kind of led me into this place where I spend more time in the ceremonial space, but I work with medical professionals on how they can incorporate ceremonial best practices. And I work with ceremonial leaders on how they can incorporate medical best practices.

JANNINE (05:27)
Yeah, I mean, definitely there’s so much different in the medical use of psychedelics compared to ceremonial. And that’s definitely something we can chat about today too, because I have learned that there are some, well, just in terms of the patient interface kind of thing too, like what we’re thinking about going into a medical psychedelic situation versus going into a ceremony. And for a lot of people, think right now we’re opening up to it, but I ceremonies are still a little bit like.

Okay, what’s gonna happen in this kind of thing? You know, what am I truly getting myself into? before we go there though, I gotta ask, your friends didn’t want you to, your friends are trying to get you to go, you didn’t wanna go on this journey with them. Now what do they say about it?

MATT (06:10)
They just can’t, they’d laugh that I’m here, that all my life is wrapped around this world and how it kind of started by accident. I do want to go back into what you just said. Because I love this about like, okay, I’m not sure I’m getting into a ceremony and what’s there. What I have found in this journey is that the questions are the same. So whether we’re interested in a legal ketamine experience.

or we are following the decrim nature chapter in our area and we’re interested in of an underground coaching or therapist experience, or we’re going on a retreat to Jamaica or Costa Rica or Mexico, or we’re gonna participate in one of the psychedelic churches. The questions are the same. How are you going to keep me as risk-reduced as possible? And what does that mean in terms of source? Where did your medicine come from? What does that mean in terms of set?

What are you gonna do for my mindset? And how do you make sure I understand what’s exactly going to happen? And then what do do in terms of setting? And I’m sticking with legal ketamine. The same price at some legal ketamine providers believe it’s a biochemical experience. And that’s a philosophical choice. It’s legal, it’s a doctor’s, that’s their perspective. And other ketamine providers believe it’s a biochemical, psychosocial, spiritual process.

Also legal, also a philosophical choice. We as the consumer need to figure out, okay, if I’m buying this from so-and-so, what’s their philosophy and how are they gonna treat me based on that philosophy?

JANNINE (07:53)
Right. think that’s a huge thing to think about because yeah, as I call it flavors, there’s many flavors of naturopathic doctors too. know, going into seeing a naturopath, what are you going to get? Right. But doing your homework is what we want to be thinking about. We want to be thinking about what kind of expectations, you know, what are we looking for too? Because I think for some people, the, you know, clinical, I’m doing robot clinical, you know, kind of thing is more comfortable.

MATT (08:22)
You know, for some people, absolutely.

JANNINE (08:24)
Yeah, and for other people the shamanistic experience may be, you know, a little bit more comfortable. I guess my question to you is how do you help folks navigate that? Like, what’s your advice to folks when they’re like, okay, I, you know, I don’t know, maybe I want to shaman. I don’t know. I’ve never had that kind of experience. And I pretty much know what the medical field’s like. So.

MATT (08:49)
Now, where do I go?

JANNINE (08:50)
Yeah, what do I do? How does it work?

MATT (08:52)
such a personal decision. I mean, the first question is, are you willing to do something that is illegal or protected but not explicitly legal in your jurisdiction? And if you’re not, well, then your only option is ketamine or a clinical trial. Or you get on an airplane and you go somewhere where it is legal. If you are willing to do something that is either, again, protected by law and statute with the religious freedom,

experience or illegal with these underground providers, there’s a lot of other options for you. I think I’ll start here, which is I don’t believe that psychedelics are a cure for anything. They’re just a catalyst. So if we think of it as a catalyst, like I’m not going in to solve, I’m going in this to be aware, to have an insight, an awakening, an awareness. Well, then I can also understand that

It’s not just this moment in time that I’m worried about. I need to think about how am gonna prepare for this experience? How am I gonna have this experience? And then what am I gonna do on the other side to make sense of these insights, these awakenings, these awarenesses, and then hopefully convert those into real meaningful lasting change. So if we think of it as a longer continuum than just the journey itself, then we start thinking about, okay, well, what do I need for this whole journey? Okay, well.

upfront who’s doing my medical screening? Do I have any contraindications or any of these medicines I’m thinking about? Are they actually dangerous for me based on maybe what I’m taking prescriptions or supplements or my family history? Is the place I’m going going to help me have, are they really experienced and do they know what to do if something gets intense or gets scary or how do they keep me? Am I by myself? Am I with other people? What are the rules of engagement?

And then afterwards, do I have a therapist or a coach or a spiritual community or something to help me unpack it? Or do they provide those services? And once we start thinking of these kind of buckets, we can then start saying, okay, well, I can buy this from this provider and I need to get this from this other provider. Great, it doesn’t all have to be from the same person or group, but just knowing that we have those things in place. And I go into.

And the Veterans Guide to Psychedelics, I go into great detail on this. The Beginner’s Guide to Psychedelics, which is coming out soon, goes into great detail on this. But really thinking of it as a continuum or as more than just the experience itself is an important step for people.

JANNINE (11:34)
Yeah, you know, I think that’s a great point. I know we’ve tried to highlight it in every single one of the the talks we’ve had on on psychedelics, but in particular, one of the things that I’ve come up with with some of my my clients is they’re like, hey, you know, some of these folks who are providing total services, this is really expensive. I can’t really afford, know, the you know, some programs I’m sure you’ve heard are tens of thousands of dollars. And for some people, that’s a lot. And

MATT (12:03)
a lot of people it’s a lot.

JANNINE (12:04)
Yeah. Yeah. And so it goes, how do we, you you’re talking about find someone that can do this, find someone that can do that, and then find someone that can kind of do the integration part of things after everything’s over. there like, and especially for veterans, because, know, PTSD, obviously, this is one of the big things that I’ve seen be, you know, quite beneficial, you know, it’ll be quite beneficial for PTSD. Do

Do you find that there’s any like lists like yourself included of resources, folks that can help folks kind of piecemeal it together in a budget that they can work with?

MATT (12:46)
I wish the answer was clearer. There are resources out there that exist where you can find, like if you do a search for psychedelic integrators or integration, MAPS has a list on their website, MAPS, M-A-P-S.org. You can find those pieces. But because so much of this is underground, it’s a lot of buyer beware. And that’s, it just is what it is. So a lot of times I’ll talk to people about, well in your city,

Is there a psychedelic society? If there is, they probably have events. If they do, go to some of those events and just start talking to people where you can look them in the eye and you can say like, well, what have you experienced and with who and how was it? And see if it feels like, okay, this person seems reasonable. This seems like a person I can relate to. And they’re talking about this experience. And then please don’t be shy in talking with the service providers.

What makes you qualified to do what you do? How long have you been doing it? Where do you source your medicine from? What are some things, how do you keep me again safe? How do you, or risk reduced? Ask the questions and if, then just see how the answers feel. It’s not so much that there’s a right or a wrong answer. How does it feel for you? Yeah.

JANNINE (13:57)
Great.

But for a lot of people, think at least what I hear from a lot of women is I don’t know how to trust my gut feeling anymore. don’t trust my intuition anymore. so, know, they’ll either say I’ve made a lot of mistakes before and misjudged things. And so having the one on one meeting, think that’s, you know, we can all judge that a little bit in terms of does that person seem like they know what they’re talking about versus not versus just reading something.

you know, someone’s bio or whatnot on the internet. And obviously I know that there’s not a lot of folks that have their bios on the internet if they are a provider of some of the psychedelics. Now that was the thing I was gonna ask. You’re saying sourcing. And what would you say about sourcing when it comes down to risk reduced sourcing?

the questions that you’ve asked people or you know to ask or whatnot in that case because that does seem to be the one thing that For a lot of people finding registered psychologists psychiatrists, you know all that we can figure that out we can find the integration but the in-between of like okay, if we’re gonna we’re gonna source from somewhere and say we’re in an area that doesn’t have a Society or it’s the they meet too far away. They meet in the city week

MATT (15:32)
Yeah, I totally get that. Yeah, it’s hard on rural areas. Obviously, easiest, not the easiest, the safest is to grow yourself. If you’re able to dedicate a closet, some space and learn how to grow mushrooms, that’s an easy path, but not for everybody. There are sources out there that will test.

drugs. You can buy either strips and different things like dance safe has a program. There’s a couple anonymous sources that you can send in a sample of whatever you purchased and they will test it and put a code and say, okay, this you said you bought MDMA and what it is is MDMA great or it’s fentanyl and it’s this that and the other thing. yeah, it’s the when I guess the if you if you’re not doing it yourself, then

Test it would be the next piece of advice I would have. Find one of these, either test it yourself or send it into one of these services and have it tested before consuming it would be highly recommended. And then guess the third is if the provider does this regularly and this is all they do, that’s probably a safer source than someone who does this every once in a while.

they don’t know where they’re buying it from. So just something else to be aware of. And of course with ketamine, if you’re doing it in the medical, if you’re doing anything in a medical or clinical trial, sourcing is not an issue because it’s pharmaceutical grade.

JANNINE (17:11)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I definitely think it’s more the mushroom side of things that can be interesting MDMA DMT, you know, depending on where people are going with with different versions of things to

MATT (17:27)
Well, things like mushrooms are not really typically laced. They can be, but not typically. But when you’re buying a synthetic substance, an MDMA, DMT, a 5-MeO, yeah, it’s much trickier and something to be careful of.

JANNINE (17:47)
Absolutely. Let’s talk about DMT, 5-MeO, like all the synthetics with folks because I’ve talked about mushrooms quite a bit. We’ve talked about ketamine, but I haven’t talked about DMT much in 5-MeO. So if you could give us, I’ve never used them myself. I don’t know enough. Sorry, dog. Dog.

MATT (18:09)
Dog coming. worries. Dog coming to visit.

JANNINE (18:12)
but yeah, I don’t know enough about those. So I would love to, to learn more. And I’m sure the folks listening are like, okay, what are these things?

MATT (18:22)
So let’s start with DMT. when many of your audiences probably heard of ayahuasca, and when you take ayahuasca, the active ingredient that they are boiling this tea down into, the active ingredient is DMT. And when you consume that, you’re having a five, six, seven hour journey. And the DMT is kind of what takes you deep and gives you these insights and awakenings and awarenesses. An alternative way to consume DMT is to inhale it.

And with that method, we’re talking about a 10 to 20 minute psychedelic experience. It’s probably 10 seconds from when you inhale to when you’re in this other world. And in my experience, DMT is highly visual. It’s colorful. It’s somatic. People talk about machine elves, or they talk about, I have these kind of like hummingbird things that feed me in my DMT experiences.

Yeah, they can be just, they’re beautiful, beautiful experiences. That is different. so put that in bucket number one. When we talk about 5-MeO DMT, the only thing those two things have in common is the DMT. But 5-MeO is, it is typically the venom of the Bufo alvarius toad. But there’s also a synthetic version known as Bufo.

Again, you’re inhaling it about 10 seconds from the time you inhale to the time you are deep into this world. 5-MeO is called a non-duality experience. So what does that mean? In every other medicine, ayahuasca, Ibogaine, ketamine, psilocybin, there’s a subject and an object. It might not be you as you know it, but there is a you, time and a place that you’re in this world. With 5-MeO, there’s none of that.

there’s just kind of energy. For many people, it’s just a light in this feeling, the sensation of just being one with the universe. call it’s colloquially referred to as the God molecule. I know for me, that particular medicine truly feels like, okay, this is what life without a body could feel like. That this is how we all could be.

Absolutely interconnected. So it’s, it’s again, super, super powerful medicine. What, what I think is interesting, there are people, there are places like you can go into Tulum and you can go to these places and just go and drop it and do five MEO. And when that happens, people choose that, there’s a range of reaction from sitting in bliss to screaming and to

moving like moving dramatically. What I have found is that if people come in with kind of a step by step process, maybe they do a heart opener on one ceremony with like an MDMA or an MDA, and then another ceremony of a mushroom, they’ve now practiced twice. And then if after those two ceremonies, or maybe two mushrooms or two, then they do a five MEO, the probability of having a really blissful, beautiful,

non-dual experience is very, very, high. But you can also do that through just taking it seriously and doing a lot of meditation and, well, prayer before a five-MEO experience. But it is definitely intense, and it’s short, but it doesn’t feel short at the time.

JANNINE (22:11)
Wow. Like how short early is it? Like how? Like 10 to 20 minutes and that’s it. So it’s kind of like icing on the cake if you’re doing a series of things. Now, my question is, would you do it in the same day that you like? Would you do these separately or would you folks stack them? I use a bio hacking term, tagging in terms like peptides or something. Do you stack them?

MATT (22:14)
10 to 20 minutes.

So I have, I have done like a two day sequence or on one day we’ve done Sassafras or MDA on day two, we’ve done psilocybin in the afternoon or in the morning into the afternoon and then done Bufo in the evening. And I think that’s a very nice sequence. There is a whole world of people who stack their medications or their psychedelics. I think this

5MAO just deserves in my experience, it just needs some reverence, some space. So I’m not a fan of combining it with something else kind of as part of this one journey, I think it needs to be a quick, I finished the psilocybin ceremony and now moving into this other ceremony, I’m taking this very seriously for my own, just for my own. That’s my practice. I’m not saying anyone else has to do it that way. That’s kind of my practice with that particular.

Medicine.

JANNINE (23:36)
Sure. Now, you had mentioned synthetics on 5-Emeo and then there are other folks that kind of market themselves as using plant medicine, Bufo. Do they act like, can you actually get that?

MATT (23:49)
You can, yeah, you can actually get, it’s not planned. It’s truly the venom of the toad. there are people who, and again, all we can do is ask questions. Where do you harvest this from? How do you harvest it? There are people who are called quote ethical harvesters where they have a certain territory. They only do one gland. They love their toads. And then there’s others that are out there and they’re running and just grabbing them and milking them and doing.

not doing it nicely. And then there is a synthetic Bufo that is much more easily accessible. They work very, very, and as far as I can see, they work very similarly, but there will be people in the ceremonial space who said, it’s not the same as the natural. And I don’t know, that’s again, personal decision, but yeah, there is a natural and a synthetic version of Bufo.

JANNINE (24:44)
Okay, because yeah, and that’s where the other thing that I got hung up on too with folks is like, you’ll see them advertising themselves as plant medicine healer, but isn’t plant medicine, I wanted to bring that to light because it’s coming from a frog, as you mentioned. And so I think for a lot of people, that’s confusing too. When you see something described as that, because I think a lot of people aren’t realizing

until they start reading and they’re like, wait, it says that’s. Yeah, it’s not it’s an animal, not a, you know, plant. And so I’m sure they’re probably meaning well in terms of mixing other things there, too. But it’s something I just wanted to bring to light because it gets confusing in in that space. Now, you know, back to as we talked about working with women in particular, women trying to explore like, OK, I’m, you know, going through midlife here.

MATT (25:14)
what’s going on here?

JANNINE (25:40)
I called a midlife awakening not a crisis, but we’re trying to figure out like who we are, what does this fall for, we’re looking for answers. When you’re describing the different types of psychedelics, I think for a lot of people it might be like, I don’t even know where to begin. Like what kind of experience do I want here? So perhaps you could kind of give us a little bit of the, let’s call it a guide.

for folks to know like, when would I really want MDMA compared to Ketamine compared to, know, yeah. You know, DMT like, yeah, like there’s so many options. Like, where do you go? What do do?

MATT (26:23)
Yeah. And again, I wish it was simple, but let me do my best here. Let me see what I can do. So I think I’m gonna start with a lot of our, actually I’m gonna go back in our conversation and you said that you have a lot of your audience who says, I don’t trust my voice, my inner wisdom anymore. don’t know. I’ve made a bunch of bad decisions. And I think I would say that this process is part of the reclaiming your voice process.

that you’ve made the decision, you made the best decision you knew how to do with the awareness that you had at that moment in time. And now we’re looking, you’re looking for what am I gonna do to explore next? Where am I going? And you’re listening and you’re thinking and different things are coming across your awareness. So then I’d say, okay, well, are you or are you not on a medication?

So if you are taking an antidepressant as an example, and you’re not willing to get off of that antidepressant at this moment in time, so that’s gonna rule out ayahuasca, it’s gonna rule out MDMA, but it’s not gonna rule out for most people psilocybin, and it’s not gonna rule out ketamine. So that might be for a lot of people, okay, well, I’ve been on this for 10, 20 years.

I’m not ready to get off of it. All right. Let’s start then with what you can do while being on that medicine. if you’re not on a, on that, then it becomes much more truly a personal decision. I feel called to go to the jungle because I want to go down and do a whole thing. Okay, great. So maybe you’re looking at an ayahuasca trip in Peru or Columbia, or, or you want to take a mushroom journey in Mexico or Jamaica.

Great, I wanna do something that’s legal in the United States and I’m willing to fly to Oregon to do that. Amazing, so there’s a psilocybin option for you there. I really want a doctor with me who’s gonna say, okay, today I diagnose you with blank at this level and then we’re gonna go do some of this stuff and then we’re gonna re-diagnose you at the end and see where you are. Great, so maybe ketamine is a better bet for you because you want that experience.

I think it’s what, I guess the encouragement is what do you, what do you just feel? like, oh, that sounds better to me. Whatever that is, there’s no wrong as long as you’re having, as long as you have picked someone who’s gonna check you or medical to make sure there’s not a contraindication, you can’t mess this up. So pick whatever feels right for you for now, knowing I can try something else later.

JANNINE (29:18)
Makes sense, makes sense. And I think, you know, that’s the thing too, we’re, pardon me, we’re in a society of, you know, we want the magic pill. We’re still there. And I think a lot of people are waking up and realizing that that isn’t what’s, you know, real. But I think a lot of people are like, I don’t want to mess it up. And I want the quickest answer to the, you know, what am I gonna, you know, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life or whatever it may be.

And so, you know, we’re kind of dancing a little bit in that realm, unfortunately, but it does make sense to, you know, kind of explore all your options and do your homework.

MATT (29:57)
Yeah, then let’s go back to that psychedelics aren’t a cure for anything. Let’s go back to that. So I think we grow up and we’re told that, you need to take this antidepressant because there’s something wrong with you. And this is going to help fix that. And really what we’ve now know is that it numbs symptoms, but it also comes with a price tag. And that price tag can be sexual dysfunction. It can be weight gain. It could be lethargy. can be…

Just not feeling the full range of life. It can be a lot of different things. It’s not free And for most people for many many people and that’s if it even works with psychedelics If we start with the premise, it’s not a cure. It’s not gonna hide the pain. It’s not gonna bring back people You’ve lost it’s not going to change the past It’s actually gonna bring it close right up so you can see it and you can feel it and you can discover it

and then you can understand it and process and change the stories that you tell yourself about that and find more meaning in the present and in the future. And that’s a wildly different expectation than what our expectation is of our pharmaceutical industry.

JANNINE (31:10)
Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely completely, completely different. Now, I guess my question next would be going along the lines of your experiences because now you’re, you know, I haven’t had anyone share their experiences with each type of psychedelic and what individually you’ve experienced because we know that you are you and everyone’s experience is different.

I would love to hear kind of the characteristics that you notice differently in your experiences in each one of them.

MATT (31:43)
And I’ll just try to bucket them into some basic categories. So let’s talk about the heart openers first. So a heart opener, if you see that being advertised, heart opening ceremony, people are typically talking about a ceremony or sorry, a heart opening therapy if it’s underground. It’s either MDMA, which we might’ve known as ecstasy or younger, or it’s MDA, which is otherwise known as Sassafras. But these are,

known for reducing shame, blame and guilt. They are known for, well, when I take those, feel love, incredible love for myself and for others. My self judgment is down. My judgment of others is down. So I think that’s incredibly, and research is showing, I’m gonna stick here with veterans for a moment, that

for these veterans that had treatment resistant and post-traumatic stress disorder, not just veterans, it’s really that whole category. So can be victims of sexual assault, it can be first responders, but people where none of the pharmacological or talk therapies have worked with three sessions with MDMA and therapy before and after, over 70 % don’t have that diagnosis anymore. So it’s really, really effective for…

for dealing with past trauma. If you’re not on any other psychiatric medications and again, in the right hands of the right provider, it can be incredibly, incredibly powerful. I love that feeling. I see a lot in relationship work with this medicine. a lot of couples make it an annual tradition to use a heart opener together with oftentimes with a facilitator or therapist in the room.

Because when we remove shame, blame, and guilt, I can say, Jenny and I love you so much. And when you do this, I feel this way and I don’t like that. And instead of becoming defensive, we can hear it in a different way from our spouse or our partner and say, my goodness, I didn’t understand that. And certainly I don’t want you to feel that way. And I now understand in my body how that makes you feel and I can do differently moving forward.

So it’s really, really incredible. And it was used in couples therapy for decades before it was made illegal in 86 or 87. So that’s the heart openers. So I think they’re powerful. think they’re beautiful. When I think about psilocybin, when I think about LSD, I really think about the interconnectedness of all things. Those medicines to me remind me that I’m not separate and apart from nature. I am nature.

And when I look at the trees and the sky and the ground and I feel connected in a way that’s different, I feel supported. It reminds me like, my gosh, just standing up and feeling my weight on this ground. Wow, look how much I’m supported by this planet that I am a active part of that I might look like a different wave than you, but the same ocean.

I love how those medicines kind of go for me. It unravels story after story after story and brings me down to like this little teeny love ball in the middle. And then, and I can see like, these, this pursuit of credentials or this job or this relationship, stories, stories, stories, stories. Not that I don’t need to have stories, but at least I can identify them as this isn’t, I don’t need to feel or think about this the way I’ve been feeling or thinking about it.

Think of another way. So I think those medicines are really powerful for that. And again, psilocybin, if you’re on an antidepressant, like 75 % of the population can be on an antidepressant and still take the mushrooms. So that’s pretty incredible. Ketamine, technically it’s not a psychedelic. you said you’ve covered this. It’s a disassociative anesthetic, but it works in similar manners. We’re talking about like a 40 to 60 minute journey.

JANNINE (35:49)
Yeah.

MATT (36:02)
so it’s shorter. Some say it’s not as a lasting as some of these others in terms of like how it viscerally makes you feel. But for many people, it’s incredibly powerful and it works on a, on a different part of our, our, our biology than, than some of these other medicines. So we’re kind of glutamate side versus serotonin.

And I guess from, have found ketamine to be just kind of like, here’s a, here’s a scene for me to look at. now here’s another scene for me to look at. Here’s a third scene. So I haven’t found it quite as interconnected or quite as hard opening, but others have had amazing success on ketamine. ayahuasca is probably the next, oftentimes talked about.

Medicine for me, this is a so when I was down the summer with a group of veterans in Peru That’s what we were using as we were working shipibo healers working with ayahuasca It’s I think it’s closer to psilocybin but more physically intense. There’s typically a purging component Which sounds awful as I’m saying it and when you’re doing it there are typically messages associated with the purging so it becomes this beautiful release

But I know it’s hard to even imagine I know I I went in my first time so god this sounds awful. What am I doing? But it’s it’s it’s it’s really really beautiful But it is physically harder. So if you’re not used to Your body laying on a mat on a wood floor for six hours if that doesn’t sound good if you don’t if you really don’t like the idea of purging especially with others in the room Even if everybody’s doing it

Yeah, it’s not for everybody. It’s not for everyone, but again, we’ve seen a mate

providers in the world for that. And then when we get into like DMT and 5MEO, I guess I think of those as like, those aren’t typically entry ways. Like start with any of these other things first. And again, do what you need to do for you. But if you’re asking my advice, I would say start with these others first and then maybe work your way towards it, the DMT or 5MEO based on what you’re called to do and what opens up for you.

JANNINE (38:32)
Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense to kind of look at what you’re called to do. Because yeah, for me, the purging aspect of ayahuasca, no, thank you. No, thank you. I don’t like that idea. But the other stuff is very interesting. And yeah, I’m, you know, speaking as someone who has not tried any of it other than just microdosing with psilocybin. And that’s it. So I don’t have any.

Any experience whatsoever. So it’s great to have folks like you on to help explain now Another thing you have is three great resources in terms of your books And this is something that you know, the veterans guide intrigues me because I don’t know of anyone specifically talking about veterans and and where there are intricate needs because I know i’ve had in previous podcast research on on the ptsd, but no one’s really

talked about anything else. So can you shed a little light with your book and what you found in your research and whatnot? Like what are some of the special needs that a veteran would have, say if someone’s listening and a husband or they are a veteran or someone. Yeah.

MATT (39:46)
or military spouse or what

here’s what I was surprised about and I spent about a year working with this group called heroic hearts project. So they take veterans and military spouses and they send them primarily to central and South America, but also now to Oregon where they can access legal psychedelics. I think the first thing that I was surprised about is how many of these people had childhood trauma that actually

my opinion is what led them to the military in the first place. They were escaping. And then the military was just compounded these traumas and added to it. So, then depending on what type of military career, so anyone who’s in a specialized unit, Rangers, special forces, they’re not raising their hand for help for.

till the end of their career, 19 years in, 20 years in. So a lot has stacked up. So they have a lot to unpack and to work on and really have not been given the space to do it. So what we tried to do in this book, in the Veterans Guide to Psychedelics, is first say, you’re not alone. Coming back from, whether you were in combat or not, coming back with PTSD,

traumatic brain injuries, depression, anxiety is not unusual. Being married to someone, this is a family challenge. So if you’re experiencing PTSD, depression, anxiety, just being married to someone who had these different experiences, that’s not unusual. And then we try to go into great detail by talking about each of these different types of medicines, and then also each of the different types of ways you can experience it. So one thing we haven’t talked about for instance is

A lot of people think, okay, I want to do this and I’m used to this one-on-one model that we do in Western society. Okay, great. In my experience and in traditional indigenous experience, most of it’s done in community. So that, but that’s weird. Like what’s it like to be with a group of 20 people in the room, all of us taking a psychedelic at the same time. Isn’t that loud and isn’t there crying and laughing and noises and yes, yes. And.

JANNINE (41:54)
Mm-hmm.

MATT (42:11)
What I have found is that shared energy. If at one moment maybe I’m quiet and you’re weeping and that person’s laughing, my energy might move around the room and then come back. But part of it is also reinforcing this idea that I am not alone and that my sorrow is your sorrow and your sorrow is my sorrow and my healing is your healing and your healing is my healing. And that is also different than our obsession with I need you to pay attention to me and I need you to treat me.

and it’s all about me. And when we do this in community, that energy spreads out. So I’ve seen beautiful ceremonies and private sessions where it’s two facilitators in one person. And that one person being treated, if they move their thumb, focuses on them. It’s a lot of energy. I like these group experiences. Yeah, and if you were my sister asking, what would you do, an individual or group? I’d say group every time.

with a few exceptions. If you are actively suicidal, you’re in the throes of addiction. If you are in a major depressive, like a nine or 10 scale, no, group community work isn’t the right place for you. But for most people, this is the practice. It’s getting out of our own heads and out of our own ways and getting into community that this is just one tool and one step on that path.

to being part of something greater than ourselves. So all of that’s covered in this book. And then the book talks about when you go and look to, again, ketamine, underground therapist, retreat, ceremony, ask these questions, bring these things. It’s got packing lists, it has dietas, has what supplements do you use? All of that’s in that book. then when the…

experience is over and we have this neuroplastic period we’ve entered, which you’ve covered on your show before, just how do we take best advantage of that? And that’s where gratitude journals and just journaling and community can again reinforce that biological boost towards the positive that we’ve given ourselves.

JANNINE (44:25)
Makes sense. One of the overarching themes I’ve heard from everybody is the connection back to each other. And like you’re mentioning, community. And of course, I can see in certain situations where, it’s better to do one-on-one. As an American, I will say, we’re very used to the one-on-one kind of thing. And maybe we’re not brought up in community. COVID didn’t help that.

And I think now people are more disconnected than ever. So I am finding that, you know, even myself like going like, ooh, a group, I don’t know. You know, it is interesting, but at the same time, every single person I’ve talked to has seen something in their journey of connection. And that’s something I don’t know about.

To be honest, I like the idea of everyone connecting. I like the idea of people learning to love each other better. And it is definitely one thing I think we need to work on as a society. But at the same time, I feel like there’s an inner knowing that you have that folks who haven’t tried any psychedelics have not seen and something that there is there. Am I seeing something with all you guys?

MATT (45:47)
I love that. Can I go back to that first journey for me? In a million years, I wouldn’t have done the group and I probably wouldn’t have done the medicine. And it was only because I was told like, this is how you do it. And it was from someone I really trusted that I did it. And in part of that process, I realized like, my gosh, look at my life. I get up, I go to work, I come home, we have some dinner.

I do a little more work. We maybe watch the show. That’s it. There’s not a lot of time for friends. That little window in between work and show is a little bit of time with the kids, but it’s a very lonely existence. And I was doing well. But doing well meant tethered to the phone, answering emails at night.

that constantly moving the goalpost over what success was because I didn’t really know what success meant to me. I was just doing what I was told to do, go produce and provide. I see a lot of women coming to our ceremonies. And you talked about a pretty large gap, 35 to 55, 35 to 60 with your audience. I mean, it’s everything from, oh my gosh, I now have a kid who is at an age when something happened to me.

And that’s bringing up a bunch of things. that’s interesting. I’m at a, I’ve been married long enough or in a relationship long enough where I know, these things aren’t working for me. Or these things are. I’m at a point in my career or I’m

choose a path that wasn’t the right path? Did I take this path because my parents wanted me to take this path? Am I stuck in this job because I have to provide for somebody else? Do I want to be here? And then as we get into the older range, it’s, my gosh, my parents are dealing with elder care and deterioration and is this my responsibility and what do I do and how much do I do? Or

My kids have just left for college and do I wanna be here? Or I do wanna be here, but how do I shape this? So we have all these things that are very, very common and very universal, but feel very individual that again, turning down shame, blame and guilt, turning up interconnectedness and then removing stories to look inside, an amazing time to do those things.

And whether you choose, whether you feel, I wanna do this as a group or individual, that’s really a second day, like, okay, great, you’ll make that choice and it’s gonna be fine. I’m just saying if it was my experience for me, been group has been better than individual with few exceptions.

JANNINE (48:52)
I mean, it’s just such a time in life with and I think, you know, men go through this just as much as women. It’s just not as publicized. The andropause is very similar to the the parameter. And yeah, it’s definitely like what, know, OK, here I am. You know, maybe it’s midlife. Right. And where do I go from here? And like, how do I want to have fun? And how do I want to feel like I like it wasn’t all, you know, it was worth it. Right. It wasn’t all for just.

making the metrics right and and jumping the hoops in life. So I think that’s where I do find psychedelics purposeful for a lot of folks to just really explore themselves a little bit better and help us to unlock some of the stuff that maybe we’ve been pushing away. I do believe that for a lot of women some of our menopausal, perimenopausal symptoms come from not dealing with things, not dealing with

what’s underlying, let’s call it that way. So.

MATT (49:56)
I think that’s fair and there’s so much responsibility on women. mean, at least in my household, most of the responsibility with the kids fell on my wife, even though she was working. Most of the responsibilities on the house fell on my wife, even though she was working. Yeah, her, there’s just, there’s a lot, there’s a lot. And this is selfish time.

When you choose to go down this path, it’s not just I’m taking a day to go do this experience or taking a week to go do a retreat week in Jamaica. Yeah, I’m choosing to look at these things that I haven’t allowed myself the time to look at in decades. And that may mean a whole bunch of processing for an extended period of time. So it’s.

It is incredibly selfish in the best possible way. And when, I mean, especially if you’re still listening to this podcast 50 minutes in, it’s time to be selfish. What else? it’s, there’s that quote, it’s later than you think. This is it. This is our, for this incarnation, this is it. So if not now when,

and why not take this time.

JANNINE (51:27)
Makes sense, makes sense. And of course you have some books to get folks interested. have, of course you guys have listened to this podcast. We better get Matt to give us the details on honest three books. We talked about the veterans guide to psychedelics, but beyond the trip and psychedelics for everyone. Let’s give folks all the details on you, how they can interact with you, how they can find your books and how they can kind of continue their journey, whichever way they choose to.

MATT (51:55)
That’s amazing. So Matt Zeman, Z-E-M-O-N.com is my site. There’s a free guide to microdosing. There are some videos and all the different things in the books, both the three that are out, plus there’s a coaching book coming out and there’s a beginner’s guide to psychedelics coming out. Amazon has all the books. Audible has psychedelics for everyone.

And then I’m, I am active on LinkedIn and Instagram. And if you, if you’re listening, you have a question, I will absolutely respond. Just, just reach out and, let me know how I can help. And I’m not trying to sell you anything. There’s no, I don’t have a program that you can buy. I don’t have any coaching services. I’m just trying to provide information to help, to help people make the best decision that they can. And because that’s part of my healing is, is, is sharing what I’m learning as, as, as we’re going. So we’re, all in this together.

JANNINE (52:49)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. It’s good stuff. I like the the three books I think they all can work really well from a lot of folks, especially those who are veterans I don’t I haven’t seen anything dedicated to veterans specifically so awesome stuff guys I will have all the links at dr. J Carlson D calm and if you’re watching on YouTube, they’re right below so Matt Thank you so much for coming on. I sincerely appreciate it great information today

MATT (53:15)
Thanks so much for having me and I appreciate you bringing this to your audience.

JANNINE (53:19)
Hey fellow health junkie, thanks for listening to the Health Fix Podcast. If you enjoyed tuning in, please help support me to get the word out about the podcast, subscribe, rate and review and just get that word out. Thanks again for listening.