Connecting Earth, Meno(pause) Transition

Maya Shetreat, MD

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And I love that necklace. It’s just beautiful. Look at all the chakra colors there, right there. So maybe you can just start. I mean, I know I read your bio, but just tell the listeners a little bit about, you have such a varied and interesting perspective on medicine. You’re certainly not your everyday neurologist. So how did you go from neurology to what you’re involved with these days?

Maya Shetreat, MD

You know, I think that we live in this world that really wants to box us in and define us in various ways. And, you know, I started out long ago thinking maybe I would be a doctor, but then I was an English major. I became really interested in environmental studies. And then I got really interested in med school because I watched a Bill Moyer special, which maybe if we’re talking to people of menopausal age, then they will not feel like who the heck is that, which happens when I talk to millennials or gen Z, but I saw this special called healing and the mind. And they were talking to these doctors who were treating a little girl who had lupus and she was having kidney failure from her meds, but when they’d stop her meds, she’d flare in her lupus. So they started to give her castor oil with every dose of her meds. And then they stopped giving her meds eventually and just gave her castor oil. And her body responded as though she was still getting the medication, but with no kidney failure. And they said, this is called psycho neuro immunology. It’s a field of medicine. And I thought, great. 

That’s what I wanna do. I wanna do psycho neuro immunology. And I went, I wrote an essay about it and got accepted to medical school somehow. And we could say karma, maybe. And at that time, I really didn’t know how my interest in the environment, my interest in being an English major, you know, and reading and literature and writing, and my interest in medicine would kind of all intersect. And, you know, I’ve really learned ’cause I went through this whole training, right. Which is a very intensive and kind of brainwashing to some degree kind of experience. And we could say for good and for bad, right. And I came out the other side. So I had three children over the course of my training, my many, many years of training and towards the end, so my third child, my youngest got sick in the middle of my neurology fellowship. And he started to have breathing issues that seemed like asthma, but he was also having a kind of developmental plateau or even regression. He was sick, you know, he was really sick. And when you’re a resident or a fellow in your training, nobody is interested in your life, your kids, your health ironically. 

So yeah. So I, you know, and I didn’t really get a lot of help. People just said, oh, he’s a reactive kid. Oh, he seems fine. And ultimately I had to do my own deep dive and discovered he was allergic to soy, got him a lot better. Ended up kind of going deep into the whole idea of where food comes from, wrote my book, “The Dirt Cure around that time and suddenly realized, wow, all these different boxes are coming together, right? The English major and the environmental ’cause I was learning about GMOs and I was learning about pesticides and all of that and health. So to answer your question in a kind of long winded way, what I really try to trust that we can be in a lot of different boxes at the same time or in no box at all. And let those things sort of come together and that’s continued to happen for me since that time. Now my son that all started when he was a year old, he’s turning 17 in another month and is a healthy, thriving young man who is taller than anyone in my house. He’s over six feet tall and doing great. But you know, for me, I’ve continued to have big life transformations and kind of learn all these new parts of myself. And so, you know, I’m really passionate about embracing all these different parts because I think there are a lot of gifts in them.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, yes. An important lesson for everyone listening, ’cause we are so many different roles and so many different parts and it changes as we go through different life passages. So The Dirt Cure, love that title. Maybe you could just give the listeners a little overview of what that’s about and how that could relate to them.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. So really the book was written at the time. It was sort of about my journey with my son and I practiced as an adult and pediatric neurologist, but really saw as we all do, if we’re paying attention, right. You’re not just looking at that one system that you were trained in. For me, I’m looking at, you know, the whole person. So I would see a lot of mystery cases, people, kids, and adults who had been to, you know, all the different medical centers and you know, institutions and so on. And what I discovered really, I think, largely through my journey with my son, but it really expanded to my patients and then expanded to even more than that was this idea that there’s a foundation to health and the foundation is in dirt. And I use dirt in a very like multifaceted way and sort of tongue in cheek. 

But it’s really about being exposed to germs and microbes, eating fresh food from healthy soil and getting out into nature. And those things sound well, maybe a little counterintuitive now that we’ve been through the last few years and you know, maybe being exposed to germs and microbes doesn’t sound as appealing to people or it doesn’t sound appealing at all, but actually that’s really important for our health, our hormones, our brains, our mood, our, you know, cravings, everything you can imagine. And obviously the eating fresh food from healthy soil. It’s not just about the food you eat, but where it comes from and being in nature is actually one of the most profound and complex medicines that we can possibly experience on a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and ecological really level. So, you know, I go into all the science of it. I go into a lot of take homes and practices and yeah, that’s what the book is about.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love that. Yeah, nature is of the greatest cures and one of the greatest healers. And we forget that we are of nature and we are not separate, but we often separate ourselves staying in these artificial environments, behind our computers all day long. And I love The Dirt Cure, ’cause I think about when my kids were young and I also started out as a pediatrician and how I would prescribe, go play in the dirt, go build your immune system. And so do you think for the women listening that still pertains that they need to get out there and garden or roll around in the mud or something just to kind of be prolific in the microbiome and the bacteria they’re coming in contact with?

Maya Shetreat, MD

I mean, I don’t think that ever ends, no. The relationship with the natural world is ongoing and it’s lifelong and we need to have, you know, for mental sharpness, for better sleep, for happiness, for cortisol levels, for anti-cancer proteins, really like there are a lot of studies looking at, let’s say something like forest bathing, which is just immersing yourself in the beauty of the forest. There are a lot of ways you can do it. I lead people through lots of different kinds of experiences of that nature and really there’s tons of studies on the benefits and they’re not limited to, oh, if you’re five and under or 16 and under it’s actually a lot of the studies were done in healthy women volunteers and both subjectively and objectively all the measures that they looked at improved significantly. There’s no pharmaceutical, no supplement, no diet that you can do that can offer the things that let’s say, just immersing yourself in the forest or like sitting by the ocean or gardening, you know, can offer really our health and that’s in every body system.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm. So the medicine is all around us. I always say not all medicine comes in a pill bottle and I think that we get so focused on the supplements and the hormones, which I love and are important, but the real medicine is everything that surrounds us. And then those are just what we’re saying, they’re supplements, supplemental to being in tune with nature to getting dirty. So you…

Maya Shetreat, MD

I would even say that supplements are, you know, what’s around us is actually, you know, supplements in herbs and all those things that we are taking in pills mostly come from plants and soil, right? Antibiotics actually, for example, are derived from soil microbes.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm mm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

You know, minerals come from, you know, those are eternal. Minerals are like here, we don’t make new ones. They just keep, you know, we extract them, right. So if our soil is really rich and nourished, then food grown in that soil for example, is going to be really rich and nourished as well and have, you know, dense minerals that actually can change how we feel. And, you know, I grow a lot of medicinal herbs. I’m very lucky that although I live in New York City, I have green space, I grow a medicinal herb garden and food garden. I keep chicken, so I have, you know, access to my own plants. And so when I want, you know, when I cut myself or I get like a bee sting, like I go outside and pick plantain and chew it and make a spit poultice and slap it on the, you know, the sting and the pain is gone in a minute and move on, you know what I mean? 

So it’s like actually all these things that we think we need. And I mean, to some degree, maybe we do, it’s not to say that those are bad at all. I mean, you know, you can’t see on my desk, but I do have supplements here. But you know, I think also it’s just important to recognize like even when the pandemic kind of began and I thought, oh, what if we can’t get X, Y, Z? I was like, oh, I was walking through the woods. And I was like, well, there’s turkey tail. There’s reishi mushroom. You know, I see here, plantain, I see here, golden rod, I see here, jewel weed, all of, you know, I teach herbalism courses and I have a whole series and a really awesome, I think, intro to herbalism course that I just sort of drop everything that I can think of in it. And, you know, for me, it’s like so joyful to know that we have so much medicine and, you know, healing right at our fingertips, around us, right. So it doesn’t have to come in the pill bottles.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yes, exactly. And it’s, I think when we do the lifestyle choices and get our foundations set, then using all the beauty of nature and the herbs and everything around us really just makes for an ability to have full healing. I’m so passionate about shifting that thought process that we can heal just by taking an herb, but we don’t have to change our lifestyle or connect to nature or move our bodies or any of those things that it’s all holistic, that it’s all together. And so I, as a naturopathic physician, I love herbs. And so we haven’t talked a ton about herbs. I’d love if you would share for the listeners, maybe some of your favorite hormonal menopausal perimenopausal herbs, and also you mentioned mushrooms and just a little spiel on that as well.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one of my favorite herbs. is motherwort, I just love. She’s such a wonderful herb for women and for older women, which I think actually, I mean, I kind of, I just wanna say, because for me, I just think getting older is like the most wonderful thing. I mean, it has obviously pitfalls. Like I have aches and pains I didn’t have before and so on, but like to me, like becoming, you know, moving towards being an elder, not that at menopause people are elders, but I actually find that to be a very exciting thing. So when I talk about getting older, I just, I want people to know, as they’re hearing me talk about it, that I don’t have like baggage associated with it. And so I just like to catch myself, you know, and I think that, motherwort is incredible because it’s great for mood, it’s balancing of hormones, it’s balancing of mood. It can help with sleep. And I think, and she’s actually very gentle. She’s a very gentle herb. 

So I love motherwort. I like vitex or chasetree berry for like perimenopause, especially I do wanna say something about perimenopause if I could, which is, you know, when I was in my late thirties, I started to have, or mid thirties, I started to have irregular periods and someone started to try to tell me that I was in perimenopause and which could have been possible, but I was like, wow, that’s feels like a sudden sort of strange and maybe early time to start talking about perimenopause. And for me, I thought maybe there are some things I actually ended up changing my diet. And then my periods became very normal again. And now it’s been more than 10 years, you know, and to date, I still am not in perimenopause. So one thing I just wanna kind of put out there unsolicited by you is, you know, I’m certainly not the expert in perimenopause as you are, but I would just say like the whole topic of menopause, I think, you know, can become, and perimenopause in particular can become just like let’s write off women’s health concerns that are coming up and just chalk it up to perimenopause. And so I just kind of wanna throw that out there that, you know, I think it’s really important to kind of pay attention to all of the systems and not just let yourself kind of get written off, even though sometimes it may be that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I think that’s a great point because we have spoken a lot on the summit about how, ’cause often there can be perimenopausal issues and you’re not being told it’s perimenopausal and you’re left kind of just floating out there alone. But what you just brought up the flip side is also very true that sometimes you can seem like you’re perimenopausal, but once you are fed and nurtured and balanced that yes, the cycle can regulate and you can go on for years then without being perimenopausal or having. So I love that you brought that up because I think there’s always a flip side to everything. And often one thing gets spoken about more often than the other, so great, great point.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. I mean, I think both are so important and I love making sure that, you know, I think a lot of people wanna hear a very sort of simple like, oh, if this is happening, it’s this, but what I’ve really learned, you know, both in my medical work and in the other work that I do is that lots of things can be true at the same time and that like, we’re gonna be better served by asking questions and living in that nuance, you know? And so not making assumptions is a really important part of it, which means, yes, maybe there’s an explanation that is hormonally based and maybe there’s an explanation that’s other based and your hormones will just regulate. So, and herbs are so nice for that, right? I mean, I think I also love mugwort, which isn’t, I think as popular these days, but it’s actually a really important women’s herb that I really love and mugwort is really great for relaxing. It does balance hormones and mugwort is a really wonderful herb for dreaming.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Lucid dreaming, or just more vivid dreaming, not necessarily like melatonin, which can make you like have incredibly intense dreams, but can make help you remember your dreams and, you know, is considered to be a very spiritual herb actually. And I consider the cycles of a woman’s life and particularly menopause to be a very spiritual period. So I love mugwort for that time as well.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm. I love those herbs too. So I’d love to hear your views on how this is such a spiritual time and the transition. And I’m right there with you. As far as aging, I consider it an honor and a privilege and to become a crone and to have that wisdom is a really important stage of life that we could give more honoring and focus to in the Western world. We can learn a lot from the Indigenous. So I’d love to hear about your experience studying with the Indigenous tribes and what this point of life means to you in this transition. And also we haven’t really talked about dreams. So if there’s anything you wanna share with the listeners about listening to their dreams or what, ’cause I think dreams are such a powerful way that we speak to ourselves. So I’d love to hear everything.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, I do think one of the key issues that comes up for a lot of women, you know, particularly as we get older and certainly in periods of more hormonal shifts or disruption is that sleep is difficult. And so the first thing about dreaming is obviously knowing that you’re gonna get your sleep. You know, I don’t wanna get too much into like prescriptive herbs or anything like that, but you know, I do love things like Epsom salt. So ’cause I love oral magnesium for people who wanna take that, L-theanine is really nice. These are not herbs, so obviously L-theanine is just an amino acid. Actually doing sauna in the evening is an incredible way to actually get better sleep. And so I just, I mentioned these things and then I, of course love like passion flower and skullcap. I’m trying to think what is my third like big favorite actually, you know, one that I really like recently is believe it or not, catnip is really, really nice for sleep. And I have it in a blend with skullcap and passion flower for a sleepy herbal mix. So anyway, I just mentioned that because of course, if we wanna dream, we do have to sleep. And so it’s nice to have a little toolbox. I’m a big believer in having a toolbox, which hopefully you don’t need, but if you do, and you know, I think these big transitions are really liberating if we let them be. 

So for me so far, you know, as I’ve gotten older and I’m not saying that, you know, liberation isn’t always easy and it isn’t always fun to go through the process of right, because it means releasing things. So it means we have to let go of or release these parts of ourselves or live, you know, parts of our lives or relationships or identities that maybe we were very attached to. And you know, whether sometimes it’s intentional that we’re releasing these things and sometimes it’s does not feel like it’s our choice, you know, and I can say this from personal experience, you know, I like, I ended up moving out of my, you know, 20 year marriage, you know, in my forties, which was not expected, and it was kind of initiated by me. And it was me really understanding that like sort of peeling back the layers of the onion. Like I wasn’t, I didn’t feel like I was permitted to stay in that identity anymore. So, you know, I say that not because I necessarily encourage people to like leave their marriage or anything like that, but because there’s a lot of big leaps that we have to navigate, if we’re going to stay authentic and true to ourselves as we move into sort of this phase of life and which is kind of, we could either kind of get scared about it or we can get excited about it. 

And so to your point about dreams, I actually feel that dreams are yes the way we talk to ourselves, but I also have experienced in one of the things that I teach in my trainings. We actually have a whole module on dreams is, you know, it can be also a way that our ancestors can talk to us or we can get really spiritual guidance that may or may not be coming, you know, from us in the, you know, in this way. But you know, that it’s a way to tune in and tap into kind of a bigger consciousness or a bigger knowing or a, you know, bigger version of ourselves even. So I really encourage, especially during big transitional times to keep like a dream journal or just any journal, something next to your bed, if you can, and you can have the pen there or whatever, and just scribble a few lines, as soon as you open your eyes, if there’s something you remember, and sometimes there can be incredible guidance ’cause those things can just disappear many times, you know? Yeah. Some people remember every dream and so on, but sometimes you remember it just for like the first three seconds you’re awake

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm mm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

And there can be a lot of, you know, real nuggets of gold that come from your sleep time or like your dream work, I would call it. So I love that, I think it’s, I’m kind of passionate actually about how to learn to listen in these subtle ways, these nuanced ways that I think for a lot of us in, in this culture that we live in, this modern culture, you know, that intuitive knowing or that tuning in, to what’s subtle or invisible is not really given a lot of respect or weight. But in fact, the more people in my experience and in the people who train with me or who I coach, the more they tune into that, the more the richer their lives are and the more they can really see their path during these transitional times, you know, and come to themselves in a more authentic way. And that liberation is actually, you know, it’s sort of the, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say the F word here, but like kind of the gives zero, the give zero Fs. I do, if anyone follows me on Instagram will know that I do drop F bombs. And I actually think that’s a really important part of liberation is to be able to kind of language things in big and sometimes really strong ways, you know, instead of being like the nice, the good, the right, like embodying that particular identity, that’s so expected of so many women.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm. Yeah. I think there’s a lot of rabbit holes we can go down from what you said for sure. And I do think that we well kudos to you for bravely stepping out of a relationship that wasn’t serving you anymore. And I think that we can be tied to our identities. And it’s important to kind of always be checking in because as we allow ourselves to grow and change often, it is kind of hard to look at and say, wow, this is not serving me anymore. And being okay with that, ultimately we share our journeys with other souls, but ultimately it’s our journey. We show up when we’re born and we’re there to take the last exhale and we have a lot of co-stars along the way, but ultimately it’s our journey of life and what we’re experiencing. And I think reminding everyone, as you did about the subtle and the quiet is that’s where the profound experiences of life occur. I always say, if you listen, silence will speak loudly to you and can really guide your journey. And for women listening the dream piece, so you can have a dream and write it down, and then what do you recommend they do? Because they could Google and see what that means, or do you like them to meditate with it? Or how do you like women to kind of get the nuggets out of their dreams if they’re new to this?

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, so I’ll just say, you know, to your point, that being tuned into silence, being tuned into dreams, being tuned in, you know, I teach a lot about ritual and ceremony and I guide people through those experiences. I even offer free ones to my community. And, you know, a lot of what that’s about is spaciousness that really, I don’t think many people have in our society as it is right now. Certainly women do not because there’s so much that, so many women are taking on, have taken on and don’t say no to and understanding about how important boundaries can be. And, you know, that’s part of like the fun part of getting older, is maybe recognizing that actually you can set boundaries, you can create a certain amount of spaciousness for yourself. And all of those different things are about being in that spaciousness because that’s where messages come through. 

And so to your point of Googling like a dream, for instance, so I would just say, people are welcome to do that, but in reality, the messages are really unique and individual and for you. And so for example, let’s say you dream about like a raven flying into your home or something. Well, that could mean something very different to one person, right. To one person that could be, that’s a message from, you know, my mother who loved ravens and she passed, right It could be like that sort of thing. And for another person, it could be I’m trapped. I need to escape, right? Like it’s really individual and unique. And so really has to do with your own lens. And so I would say like what to do is maybe nothing to begin with, right. Information and actually trust, right? This is where tapping into the divine feminine. The sacred feminine is really important. It’s not that it, the divine feminine is passive, but it can be a much more receptive energy and sort of in that like moment before creation begins, right? So it’s sort of like being in that void in a way and allowing it’s uncomfortable, I think, especially ’cause we’re do, do, do. 

Again in our society is much more masculine energy, but being able to receive is like, okay, I trust that this dream’s gonna unfold. Maybe I’m gonna do a little ritual now. I’m gonna go outside. I’m gonna meditate or I’m gonna, you know, make a little offering or I’m gonna, you know, ask for more guidance and sit with that and understand that these things can unfold. The key really is in my experience because I don’t want people to think that, you know, when I say, oh, I was, you know, like I had this big life transition and it was like liberating or something. I mean, I can say that now many years later, but in the moment it was terrible and it was scary and it was sad and it was, you know, I felt like I was being pulled, kicking and screaming, even though I was the one doing it, right. So it was a, so I just wanna say about that like, it’s really, I, but the one thing I felt during that time was that I was tapped into my guidance.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm mm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

So if you’re tapped into that, whether it’s through dreams, whether it’s through meditation, whether it’s through ceremony that you do, whether it’s through moon circles or whatever it may be, whether it’s through even some people are, you know, kind of tapping into plant medicines or psychedelics to be able to start to access those parts of themselves and maybe like move past trauma and those kinds of narratives that have kept them in a certain, maybe stuck place. So all of those things are really just for you to be able to find your guidance and trust and be in that place of trust. Knowing that even if you have to make difficult decisions or big changes or little changes that feel uncomfortable, that you’re able to be present for that. Because as you said before, I absolutely believe that, you know, we do have these soul contracts that we make with people maybe it’s even before we get here, right. Maybe it’s over many lifetimes if people, even that idea. But you know, I do think that those so contracts don’t always need to last, or they don’t always last for an entire lifetime. And we see that, we see that with friends, we see that with people we lose in our lives in all different kinds of ways. And sometimes there can be completion, you know, and it can actually be a success even though it’s an ending.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, absolutely. Absolutely, even in cures and medicine, sometimes an ending can be a success if that’s where we’re at with the journey of the soul. And so I just wanna go back ’cause I think for those of you listening, to what Dr. Maya just spoke about is really such at the heart of healing and it’s that word spaciousness. And because I think we’re so programmed to have an issue and want a solution. And now, I mean, I’m sure we’re similar age. And so when I went through medical school a long, long time ago in the, what was it, the late nineties, there was no internet. And so we didn’t have cell phones. Now, if we don’t know the answer to something, let me Google it, let me Google it. 

We can always get the answer and allowing yourself as you’re talking about that spaciousness to let the wisdom come to you from other avenues and to be okay in sitting in the unknown is such an important piece of healing, of being a woman of going through your hormonal journey. And I don’t think we speak to that enough, the importance just like we give gold stars or at least we have in the older narrative of being productive of, oh my God, you got so much accomplished and now and spaciousness. And I know for me and for my patients, I’m always prescribing white space, whether it be a day with nothing on it or depending upon where you’re at and what your responsibilities are, even an hour or 15 minutes in the morning. But to me, that’s where that exhale of not having to do, and just allowing yourself to be, is such a gift and such good medicine. So I’m so glad you brought that up. I really hope everyone listening really embraces what you’re talking about. It’s so powerful.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. You know, I will just share if I can, a practice that I started. So during the pandemic, I found myself waking up sometimes very early in the morning. And sometimes it would be as early as like 5:00 am. And I felt at first very, you know, upset and frustrated and, you know, I wanted to not be up at that time. I wanted to wake up later. I wanted more sleep and I really felt a lot of resistance around it. How can I sleep later? And then at certain point in time, I just surrendered to that rhythm that I was in. And so I tried to go to bed earlier for one thing so that I would actually get a reasonable amount of sleep. And then I would wake up at five or 05:30 or whenever I woke up and I would go into my office as my office is in my home. And I would just give myself basically until 9:00 am. And this is a luxury that not everybody has because some people have to get to work earlier. Some people have babies waking up at that, you know, whatever it might be. But in my case, I said, okay, I have from now until 9:00 am, I can do whatever I want. I’m not gonna work. I’m not gonna do, you know. And sometimes I cheated on that, but mostly I didn’t. 

And so I would, sometimes I would go on like my rowing machine. Sometimes I would go outside and just like, watch the sun come up. Sometimes I paint and I have a practice I do called make bad art because I don’t really know how to paint, but I have lots of paints now. And so I just paint and sometimes I actually make things that I think are really good, and a lot of things like, I don’t necessarily think are that good, but that’s not why I make them. That’s the idea of make bad art. I’m just sitting with paint, letting whatever wants to come out, come out, sometimes like I’ll sit and build an alter. Sometimes I dance now. So I just have these, I have this time. And that is actually, that has become my spaciousness. So that now if I happen to wake up later, which often I do as I’ve moved through whatever that phase was, if I wake up at 07:30 or at eight, I actually feel kind of disappointed because I’ve lost some of that. You know, I’m not gonna get to partake of as much spaciousness as I might have if I woke up at let’s say six. So I think it’s just, you know, a lot of this is really about surrendering to what’s presenting itself and learning how to not fight it like being discerning, right. There are things that we do have to really resist in our lives, but then determining when actually resistance is not the most fruitful.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Right. And maybe reframing things so that we don’t feel that sense of like victim hood, even though we could, because there’s lots of reasons that we can all be in that role. And we’ve been maybe in that role, maybe really, really good reasons, but to be able to reframe so that we can move through that and feel more agency through surrender is I think really, really valuable. And so for me, that’s been really important to have that spaciousness. It makes me a much happier and nicer, if I can say that, a person, you know, in my life.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm, I wanna join the make bad art club. That sounds fun.

Maya Shetreat, MD

It is, it is fun.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I had my kindergarten teacher told me I was a horrible artist. Why someone would say that to a five year old, but it’s been something that I kind of recognized later on. Wow, I guess I believed her and really started to own that. So I’d like to make some bad art and be okay with it and maybe make some good art too. And it just reminds you of how often the stories we tell ourselves are not our stories and spaciousness can allow us some time to kind of unravel all of that. So I love that. So psychedelics, we haven’t really talked about that. I’d love to hear, I know you’re heavily involved with teaching and leading in that, and maybe you could just give us a quick psychedelic assisted medicine and journeys 1 0 1, just for the ladies listening who maybe have never even heard of this and are saying, are you gonna make me drop acid? Or what are you talking about?

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, I’ll just tell people on my website, which is Dr.maya.com, super easy. There’s a lot of free resources on this topic. And for me, it’s real, I became involved in teaching about this because on the one hand, I don’t think we should be criminalizing ancient, natural remedies, especially because there’s a lot of evidence that there’s potentially tremendous benefit for certain people. And probably people have seen the cover of the New York Times. And, you know, there’s been a lot of scientific articles, a lot of big media articles showing how much benefit. And so this is becoming decriminalized things like psilocybin mushrooms and even things like MDMA and, you know, ketamine is legal, although it’s not neither of those MDMA and ketamine are not technically psychedelics the way psilocybin or even, LSD or ICA Oaxaca or San Pedro or these other kinds of medicines that have been around really other than LSD since a long time, right? Since the beginning time we think.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm mm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

You know, and in my, I have a whole program on it and I go into like, you know, the Oracle at Delphi, or like why, you know, cows are sacred and Hinduism, like a lot of these things actually are probably centered around psychedelic met plants and other medicines that said, you know, I do think that there is a lot of tremendous potential, based on scientific studies even, for major depression, for PTSD, for OCD, for addiction, and even very severe addictions, like, you know, difficult to treat or even hopeless seeming addiction psychedelics can create real improvement, eating disorders. And even now looking at things like dementia and Alzheimer’s, cluster headaches, migraines, trigeminal, neuralgia, all kinds of chronic pain. There’s just more and more and more and more literature. I go into that in a lot of depth in the programs I teach. And so to understand that this might be, you know, a medicine for what we call diseases of civilization is it’s a really incredible possibility, an opportunity, with that said, I don’t think this is for everyone. You know, people will come to me and say, oh, world leaders should all be taking, you know, psilocybin mushrooms, like, you know, breaking news, like probably many of them have, many millionaires and billionaires, and, you know, the whole Silicon, the whole of Silicon Valley has probably either, you know, gone to Ayahuasca ceremonies or taken psilocybin or microdose or all kinds of things. And actually it doesn’t necessarily make them nicer, better

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Or wonderful or enlightened people per se. And these medicines don’t do that. You know, all of these studies are paired with preparation, support during, integration afterwards. And that even goes from micro dosing. Micro dosing is a sub psychedelic experience. Meaning you can take a very tiny amount of, let’s say something like a psilocybin mushroom in a very measured, tiny amount where you have no journey experience. So you can do your life, you can drive your car, you can do job, but you’re having these shifts. And so just, I guess the last thing I would say in terms of the neuroscience, like why does this work so effectively for many people, is that it actually disrupts something, it takes offline something called the default mode network, which is a constellation of parts of the brain that all work together. And they’re part of what we’d call the “me” network, right? So it’s kind of who you perceive yourself to be. 

So like, some people will talk about that as like ego related as well. But this default mode network is very responsible for something called predictive coding. So we think when we go into any new situation that we are seeing everything, every detail, right? And that’s how we know this is what’s happening here. In fact, actually we only pick out a few details and everything else we fill in with things that have happened from the past, what we know from past experience. So we, through this default mode network are constantly filling in the present with narratives from the past, which is great for survival, ’cause you don’t wanna have to be like, oh, shiny sharp things, you know, dripping teeth, big lions, you know, you don’t wanna suddenly realize, oh, this scary thing is here and I’m not gonna survive if I don’t run. But sometimes we might think there’s, let’s say the lion in the room when really there isn’t the lion in the room. 

And then we are acting as if there’s something terrible or scary happening when maybe there isn’t, because we’re projecting old stories onto the present day. So turning off that default mode network in ways, small through micro dosing or larger through macro dosing in a supported environment, allows us to see through those old narratives, like what you were talking about, about the stories around art, right? That you have filled in this whole narrative around a particular gift you have, or don’t have that, you know, maybe could be reframed. Maybe it isn’t true at all. And you keep saying, oh, well, I’m not good at that. And I have so many people that I coach in micro dosing. And in other ways that say I’m not creative or I’m not a good dancer or I’m not a good artist or I can’t do right. And so part of what these medicines can do, and at transitional times of life, sometimes we really are more open, more fertile for sort of spiritual awakenings or releasing, right. As we’ve discussed some of these stories. So it’s an opportunity potentially to shed those parts of our identity or those old stories that might be interfering with how we can move forward in a bigger and better and more authentic way.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm. Yeah. I think it’s a powerful tool. I always say menopause is the sacred second act, ’cause I think there’s a third act after it where we just chill on the porch. But I think that if we have this, if we are blocked and how we’re thinking about aging, because I didn’t go back to it. But the other thing you had said about acknowledging that your transition, leaving your marriage was challenging and that it’s easy for us to, you know, it’s easy for me to say, oh, it’s the sacred second act and you could be sitting there saying, well, I don’t feel very sacred. I don’t feel very excited about this act. And I too have done a lot of deep work, not always comfortable to get to this point of acceptance and excitement about this. And so for all of you listening, I just wanted you, I’m not saying everyone go out and dose, but that I wanted you to have to know that this exists. And we have a great resource. I’m kind of coming personally later to the table in the whole psychedelic medicine realm because I grew up chasing the grateful dead and doing plenty of dosing on my own, but not in a sacred ceremonial way and you know, indulging in addictions. 

And so when I first learned about this as medicine, I was so like, yeah, I’ve been there, done that. And I’ve been helping people heal for over 20 years without using it. And I had a story that I was filling in and opening my mind and learning that, oh, this can actually be used to treat addictions. And that my story is just, it’s an old story. And so now I’ve been really opening my mind to this as possibilities for helping patients or for using it as ritual transitions. And so, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you here talking about it, to open the conversation, just, you know, this is really about learning. There’s so many different opportunities for healing and this is a very viable one. And like you said, there’s lots of studies that can back it up. And so it’s really turning around the perception of what these hallucinogens and plant medicines can offer to us. There’s a lot of gifts in there.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is an interesting time, where either there are people who did partake of a lot of these kinds of medicines, maybe not in a supported or particularly ceremonial way, or there’s a lot of other people who have maybe this framing around these medicines as these are drugs, these are, you know, unsafe, unhealthy, you know, et cetera. And I think in both of those stories, there’s truth and there’s also something maybe to rethink or reimagine in those narratives. And to be honest, I’ll just say, I think even for the people who are very into this in a sacred ceremonial way, there can be stories that need to be reframed, right. 

I think there are some people who are like, I wanna go do this every weekend, you know, and that is it’s own, I think potential reframing that maybe, you know, I’m not gonna tell everybody what’s best for them, but you know, it’s really important, I guess I would say in this and in everything, this is just one example to continue, as you said, not to try to Google the answer, but instead to sit with the questions and keep challenging yourself and asking yourself, or going into that spaciousness and saying which I don’t mean medicine induced, spaciousness, I just mean wherever, right? Your own spaciousness, whatever that feels like, whatever that looks like, to ask those questions and say, do I really, should I really do this? Like from my standpoint, people will reach out and say, do you think I should go drink Ayahuasca or do you think I should go? And, I generally feel, I mean, I could look at like medical issues and say, well, you know, this might not be a great idea right now or something along those lines, but from the standpoint of like, should someone do it? I’m like, if you feel called, then that’s a thread that you will wanna kind of engage with. Does it mean you’re going to do that right now? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s, I think the key right, is there a call? And how is that call playing out?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hm, yes, and how you, like you said, I mean, you could be addicted to organic broccoli. It’s really the energy of how you do things, who you are when you’re doing things. And so, yeah. Maybe wanting to do a ceremony every week can be trying to avoid something else that’s going on. And so we really need to look at these things. I always think, you know, the what you’re doing is easy, but it’s the why and the how that are really the important questions to answer. So, oh, I could just talk to you all day, but our time is closing up. Any last little golden nuggets you’d just like to share with everyone listening. And of course, for those who wanna continue the conversation with you, like I do, where can we find you?

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. I think just in closing, I would say just in these times, which are very transitional times collectively, and then, you know, for those of us going through transitional times individually, and certainly like in our bodies at the same time, I think it’s really important to prioritize joy and pleasure and just moments of delight, where you can find them, even if it’s going outside and looking at the sunset or, you know, smelling flower, you know, or buying yourself, flowers, whatever, just finding those moments to make your life feel like a celebration, I think is one of the most important things that you can do because transition and shifts and change, and even loss of parts of yourself or your life. Those are things that happen. And the key for me is how do you, right. Going to your idea of the how, right, but the, how do you navigate it and having those tools and those gifts that you’re willing to give to yourself and the grace that’s I think really key. 

So that would be my takeaway, my final takeaway. And, again, not saying it’s always easy, but it’s worth it. It really is like each person listening, you are worth it. So to find information about what I do and what I have available, just my website is really the best place. And it’s Dr.Maya D R M A Y A.com. And I have a whole page of free resources, including a psychedelics 1 0 1, including a medicinal mushrooms, including on foraging, on ritual, on plant brushing, a lot of different things on grounding. So all of that is free. And I have programs as well on psychedelics the science on the sacred and micro dosing and Q and A, and all of that herbalism courses. And of course my certifications. So soul coach certification that, you know, people have calls in a group with me and we learn all about ritual and ceremony and how to become a leader in that way in your community.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, beautiful. What a wonderful array and wealth of knowledge you are. And I love that you ended with celebration. It made me think about just a simple languaging shift I used in my own life. That’s like, instead of saying, I have to, even like, I have to go for my hike today. I wanna get my, instead of saying, I have to sing, I get to, and it’s just like, wow, I’m alive. And I get to do all these cool things and it just changes the energy right away. And so yes, celebration, celebrating you, and you being here and all the women listening and just all the work you’re doing to help make the world a better place. I, so appreciate that. So thank you for being here. Thank you, everyone for listening to, there were a lot of nuggets thrown throughout here. And so I know I say it a lot, but this would be a great one to listen to again and again, because as we change and we transition, we hear things differently as well. So I appreciate everyone and thank you for being here and we’ll be back again with another talk until then stay well and be blessed.