How Plant Medicine Can Heal Your Brains

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Everyone. Dr. Tom Moorcroft, back here with you for this episode of The Healing from Lyme Disease Summit. And today, I’m really pumped about our conversation. We’re joined by Maya Shetreat, who’s an MD, a great friend of mine, and someone who is a board certified pediatric neurologist who over the years we’ve talked at different panels and PANDAS conferences together. But what’s always so interesting is I think that, like when I back in medical school thought about it. I was like, I want to be a pediatric neurologist because I want to help kids. And then I was like, Well, if I want to help kids, maybe I should do something a little different because it was always so fine point, you know, like get some crazy weird diagnosis and put them on some meds. 

But the difference with Maya is, you know, she wrote a book called The Dirt Cure. She’s always talking about how to really just reinvigorate self-healing, which is why she’s the perfect fit for our summit here. And it’s just she’s one of the people who looks at how the body traditionally has worked. And it really empowers me, even as my as a person, an individual, to go back, to learn what I can learn about myself from Mother Earth, from the planet. And then she also has this amazing book coming out called The Master Plant Experience the Science, Safety and Sacred Ceremony of Psychedelics. And really has drove really deep into the field of the psyche, opening our minds to the healing potential within from looking back at really sacred medicinals that have been on the planet for probably longer than human beings. 

And really, one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation today with Dr. Maya is that this is so important. So many of you may be coming to the summit and like, you know, someone is sick, they get treated, they might get better. Right. That’s probably not most of us. We’re here people who have been stuck in a pattern of chronic illness and they want that new, you know, the new information that allows them to open the door to healing that may have otherwise been closed on them by the conventional medical system. So I could go on and on about Maya all day long, but I’d rather have her talk to you about herself. So. Dr. Maya Shetreat, thanks for joining us.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Thank you so much for having me.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Yeah, this is so exciting because we kind of were talking about the talk about we’re going to talk about, you know, how plant medicine can heal our brains and this is the part I find so interesting, because when I went to college, everybody was just kind of like either in the partying or you’re not in the partying. And if you’re in the partying, you’re using some, maybe some things that were green and grew or you’re drinking too much. And that’s not at all what we’re talking about. And there’s so much science about how the brain works and how all these things work together. So maybe you could just you know, I think it’s so interesting where people come from, how they get into this, and how does someone who’s a pediatric neurologist start to talk about sacred plants that can heal the human brain and the human heart?

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, I think maybe the first thing I’ll say is that for me, you know, I talk about master plants rather than talking about psychedelics. And master plants can include any plant that is. So it’s an indigenous term that refers to these teacher plants that alter us in ways that allow for us to access healing in a different way. And some master plants are something we all probably or most of us engage with or have engaged with. Coffee is one example of a master plant that alters. That’s right. And cacao, right. So if you love chocolate, you’ve engaged with master plant. So there’s an array of master plants. And then there are these. This other class. This particular class of master plants that have psychedelic effects. And some of them are, you know, psilocybin mushrooms that we call psilocybin or ayahuasca or San Pedro or iboga or many others. And I became interested. 

So I’m board certified in adult and child neurology. So I have the gamut. But I did focus a lot of my practice on children. And the reason I was so interested in treating children originally was because they have such plastic brains. And I thought, well, I want to work with these little people who have all this incredible potential for healing because their brains are in this very flexible time. We talk about plastic brains or plasticity. What it means is there’s a tremendous amount of potential for change, for new connections, for building new pathways. I thought, wow, this is incredible. This is what I want to do. 

And what I was taught actually in my even in my residency, in my fellowship. And I mean, it wasn’t recent, but it wasn’t that long ago either was that plasticity ends when we’re in childhood. And at a certain point time we can’t make new connections, we can’t regenerate new pathways, etc., etc.. Plus messages like, you know, I don’t know, you had 15, you had 18, whatever. Like, there’s no more of that. You know, everything’s downhill from here. And what I learned was actually, over the course of what we’ve all learned is that we have the capacity for plasticity. Well into adulthood, well into our whole lives, all the way until we die. We can create new pathways, new connections, and actually change narratives and stories and in doing so, change our health, change our experience of life. And I mean, I can get much more into plasticity and nerd out, but that was sort of slowly, slowly kind of, you know, started getting me exploring herbs and herbalism, and I became an herbalist and and it was actually an experience with my son who, when he was very little, got he actually had mold exposure. He was my little canary in the coal mine child. 

And he had a mold exposure. We had to move out of our apartment in New York City. They gutted it. We got rid of all of the furniture that was upholstered. They cleaned the place with toothbrushes, the whole gamut of things. And we moved back in. And two weeks later, he had his first seizure in the room that originally had the mold. But it happened gutted down to the studs. And I was like, what the heck? We were doing all the things, the diet. I was already experienced in doing a lot of my body, a lot of herbs, a lot of detox. And I was like holding my son. And I thought, Wow, this is definitely not physical. This is not anything I know how to help. This is a spiritual, energetic issue. 

And I had no idea how to help him, even though I was involved in the integrative community, just like I didn’t know who to talk to. And it took me to Ecuador. It actually took me to learning with this fourth generation shaman who was a Ph.D. in ethno botany. And I started to learn about master plants not going down there to do my own ceremony or anything like that. I was just going to explore and it took me began a journey into this world.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Where I think it’s so interesting because he said a couple of things that just really well, one, I mean, when it’s your own son and it hits so at home, I mean, it’s so, you know, you’re wow, you know, so you certainly have the motivation. But you talk about life changing stories and then and then this other part of just like physical versus spiritual or energetic. And I’d love to dove into that a little bit because I think that so many people think that like their past is fixed, right? And it’s like, this happened to me. And I mean, I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, because it’s just to me, it’s such an important I mean, I just hear the story being told over and over and over again. And if we have access to maybe redefining a story, I just mean that the healing potential there seems to be massive.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, absolutely. So stories are stories. Well, I’m going to back up a little bit and talk for a minute about something called predictive coding. And when nerd out for a quick moment.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

So I’m going to cut you off for one sec because what’s really cool is every time Maya does this, it’s like the greatest, you know, like nerding out moment ever. Like, I’ve seen her do this in lectures and I’m just, like, mind blowing. So have a seat and hold on, because this is awesome.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Okay, that’s.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

The way you nerd out. And Maya.

Maya Shetreat, MD

So there is this system in the brain called the default mode network. And the default mode network is the part of the brain. It’s a constellation of areas of the brain that all work together. And it is most of it is suppressed when we are focusing on the outside world, you know, when we need to pay attention to things around us and it is active when we are focusing inward, right? When we have nothing to do, when we’re in default mode. Okay. That’s why default mode network. And so when we’re daydreaming and when we’re ruminating, right, depending on how anxious we’re feeling, that’s when the default mode network is active. And it’s kind of the ME network, it’s very connected to ego and our own stories of our self and of the world around us. And one of the things that it does is something called predictive coding. And predictive coding is basically, you know, imagine you walk into a room and you look around the room and you probably believe if you’re imagining this, that you’re noticing every detail in the room. But actually we don’t. Okay. 

Our brains are clever and good at helping us survive. And so we pick out a few details and then we fill everything else in every other detail from what’s happened to us in the past. So like I said, it’s a great survival skill because, you know, you have the lion waiting to pounce on you. You don’t have like 45 minutes to take in every single detail or whatever. So you say, oh, sharp teeth, you know, fierce expression, you know, big mane, whatever. And you run right? That’s what you need to do. So that’s kind of like great. 

Except if once you experience something scary, like a lion in the room, you might fill in the details into all future experiences that remind you of that remind your brain of that in some unconscious way even, and be like, Oh my God, I have to be terrified every time I walk into this room because, you know, there’s something that’s scary and you fill in this whole fight or flight response. So predictive coding is basically how we project the past onto the present all the time. And there’s a journey in this with master plans. But that’s a way that stories can keep us sick. Stories can keep us sad, stories can keep us stuck because we’re living the past. We want to use our experiences to inform the present, but we don’t want to be a slave to our experiences from the past. We want to be able to change our story right when, when ready, when needed. We want to use the present moment and gather new details. But sometimes our egos, right and the default mode network really get in the way of that. So, so engaging with story is a really important part of healing. And I mean that literally like telling stories reframe moving stories. When I’m with people and I’m doing spiritual guidance or any kind of work with them, we always will talk about, you know, they’ll say a story and I’ll say, Oh, look, I’m interested in the language that you used to describe X like what if we said it like this? How would that feel? Right? And sometimes that’s very healing, very shifting, very validating for them. But the other thing is that, you know, certain things, including master plants, breath work, can do this, other things can do this. 

Big experiences of awe and wonder, other things shut down our default mode network for a period of time. What that means is in those moments you can see all the details of the present moment. So psychedelics do that, Breathwork says sensory deprivation. Very serious meditators can do this. Near-death experiences can do this. I don’t necessarily recommend, but it’s happened. And even like extreme sports, right? There’s a whole array of things that actually help shut down the default mode network temporarily. And in those moments, we see all these new details that are of the present moment, and it helps us recalibrate those old stories that have kept us sick, sad, stuck, where we can actually build new stories and live into them because our bodies are listening to these stories. They’re there in some way in service to our stories. And that’s not to say, Oh, just change your story. And, you know, if only you could write it. It’s not this is the conundrum. This is the puzzle of being human. It’s not. We’re all in it, right? We all do this in our various ways. But it is a way that I’ve seen tremendous healing from all kinds of intractable conditions.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

So the thing I think about, I love the way you touch on it is like the a lot of us are like, hey, have that positive mindset, you know? And I even tell people like, hey, just take like the whole day and write down what you say about yourself the most. And really within 10 minutes, everybody’s already bored of it and done and very sad because it’s that repetitive of story. But I mean, it sounds like there are processes that allow you to access to rewriting story maybe a little bit more easily, shall I say. And you know, and within that kind of like what is the role of guide? Because I hear a lot about ceremony, I hear a lot about like guide. 

And there’s like, you know, we’ve got a lot of coaches these days and there’s a lot of coaches listening. And I think there’s a difference between a physician and a healer, right? And a physician who is a healer. And I think there’s a difference between a coach and a guide. But and that’s just me, not you, obviously. But what’s the role like? What are the better ways to access healing from story? And then, you know, are there situations that are better for doing so?

Maya Shetreat, MD

I mean, yeah. So the first thing I thought of when you were saying this about telling ourselves our stories is like, I will have my students that train with me, write love letters to themselves or lists of 100 things they love about themselves. Or we go into the mirror and do a bunch of things talking to ourselves. So, you know, it’s that there are powerful ways in to changing our stories. Definitely without the need of anything that alters us in any dramatic way. But I do always think that having a guide is incredibly important. And certainly I’m not sure if you were referring to a master plan for themselves in terms of engaging with those in any capacity. But I do definitely always recommend having guides for any kind of such experience, and that’s not a given. So that’s why I’m saying it. You know, assuming where you are, it’s accessible and legal, or at least decriminalized, right? Where there’s sort of permission around. 

You know, and I’m not only talking about big macro dosing experiences where it’s like the psychedelic X and the colors are tripping or anything like that. I think Microdosing is very potent and we can talk about that, especially for lyme actually. And quantum dosing, I think quantum dosing, you know, is a whole different way of engaging in a vibrational way with these teacher plants. So I’m not necessarily even saying, oh, like you need a guide for macro dose experience only I think guides just help us find our way because it’s hard to find your way out of your own old stories, just, you know, even to have someone kind of hold you accountable or to bounce things off of or, you know. 

So I do think that’s incredibly important and especially in an experience where you’re going to become very vulnerable, you absolutely must have a guide and someone who’s certified. We actually are opening applications for a training program for professionals who want that vocabulary and understanding of science, safety, sacred ceremony. Right. In terms of engaging with these kinds of plants. So so absolutely. You do want guides and you do want to make sure that your team, to your point of are doctors healers right or are right. And that whole issue which really is an issue, I don’t you know, and I want to just say, like, your doctor doesn’t have to be like, you know, la la la healer. They just have to have a healing presence for you. So if the if and that goes for all of us, it’s like they don’t have to be super holistic. 

They don’t have to. It’s just if you feel if you’re and this is documented, right, and we look at the placebo effect and the nocebo, which is the opposite effect, we know that the relationship you have with your team is probably the most important medicine you can get antibiotics, herbs, all that stuff aside, all of the different possible therapies. And I’m not saying those aren’t incredibly important when they’re used correctly. And this goes for, you know, you said ceremony, right? This goes for sacred plants as well. To me, the ceremony is the medicine. So it’s the container that really is the most healing. Like our bodies and our minds and our hearts are incredible. They are intelligent and they want to heal. This is a true thing. I know, for people who are chronically ill. And I’ve seen some of the very sickest adults and kids from around the world over my years of practice, the bodies and brains and hearts do want to heal, but it’s just like finding the container that allows that to happen.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

You know, it’s so funny, as I tried to formulate a question that was like even coherent, I really felt like I couldn’t. But you just really touched on exactly what I was trying to get to because I was kind of like, it’s not always about just like, you know, going to do your MDMA trip, which is, you know, different than plants, but and getting all psychedelic and having somebody land you and then having integration for there’s a time and a place. But to me it’s like when I always try to say, create a self-healing ritual and stuff. 

And then when I hear you talk about ceremony, I, you know, like, literally, like, I mean, I know we’ll talk about quantum dosing, but like I talk to people, whether they’re drinking water, eating their food or putting something in there. But we’re going to bed earlier and not turning the TV on or turning it off because so many people get pill fatigue and treatment fatigue. I’m like, you’re so worthy. You’re your body and your mind and your heart want to heal. So just give yourself credit for actually like make every moment that you’re doing something for yourself as sacred. And it just like, I don’t know, I just was so inspired from previous conversations and lectures I’ve seen where it’s like, I think we, I think there’s so much more sacred in our lives than we give. Give ourselves credit for.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. Mm. Yeah. I mean this is a really big mission of mine you are looking at, you know, I sent you my, my sort of a recently created bio. I had to write for my book and you know what I, what I realized is a lot of our illness is about loneliness. And when I say loneliness, I mean many things because you don’t have to be alone. To be lonely can be surrounded by people. We can be surrounded by a community and we can still feel lonely. And that loneliness can be through the stories we have, through the suffering we’re feeling, through a sense of disconnection, right? I mean, there’s all kinds of ways that we might feel lonely and we know that loneliness is actually as, you know, harmful as cigaret smoking like smoking almost a pack a day. That’s the risk. You know, I love how studies are done. 

I mean, they’re so so they have to be so dramatic. But listen, it’s real, this feeling of loneliness. And I think so many people feel it that are not even alone, let alone write the rest of people who are maybe lost their communities or feel right, like this whole last few years has been so difficult.  So, you know, to your point, my omission is how do we find our way out of that to feel connected and to feel a sense of aliveness? And for me, that’s really about understanding that everything is alive, right? That, you know, plants are alive, trees are alive. You know, water is alive. The rocks, all of these things are in this dynamic, intelligent system that is just as intelligent and powerful as our own bodies. And we’re in relationship with this incredible life system that we get to be a part of and be supported by and we engage with. And because we’ve been conditioned by our education and our society to not see the world as alive, that, I think, is fundamentally where we feel a sense of loneliness and disconnection, which actually translates even into our microbiome and even into our brain. Do you know that when they look at the neurons of people who are depressed, they are less connected, connections die off. That’s part of what depression. Depression literally are neurons are lonely, you know, in our brains. This is how we are all kind of mirroring inside, outside this sense of disconnection. So to your point of everything is sacred. There are so many things in our lives that are sacred. It’s understanding how fully and deeply we’re connected to everything around us. 

And it’s like every like I’m four years old when I go outside, everything I’m like in a state of often wonder, you know, I hear a hawk. I like you and see me go booking outside right now, if I heard a hawk, you know, because even though I live in New York City, live in a little green part, I keep chickens. I have all my medicinal plants outside. And I hear hawks, I hear owls, I hear coyote. I this is like for me, you know, the everything is sacred. And and and absolutely I mean, you know, I was just doing an interview with someone the other day who was talking about going to the bathroom, literally, like urinating. She’s like, I now treat that as a sacred moment because she’s like, I spent so much time in my life not listening to my own body. Urges. And you know, how many of us, especially doctors, can relate to that? I mean, she’s a doctor, you know, she said, I just go and I say, I am going to enjoy this experience of listening to my body and letting my body do this. Act like everything can be sacred. Everything can be sacred.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Yeah, I mean, exactly. I’m just saying, as you’re saying that it’s like that’s it’s one of these things I think that it’s like you were saying it’s trained out of us. I remember like and part of I think the story for me personally and I think others that I’ve spoken to you can relate to is when like I grew up, I remember walking on the ground and feeling earthworms under the ground, not like stepping on an earthworm, but literally feeling them moving under the dirt. And I remember holding a tree and being able to feel the sap move and I also have this distinct memory of people telling me, I’m crazy. We can’t talk like that. And you have to, you know, that’s not the way to walk around yet. Then we spend the second part of our lives or the early quarter or whatever part of your life it is. Trying to come back to this connectedness. And I think it’s this societally part of it’s societally trained disconnection and sterility that really leads to a lot of our chronic illness because we’re separate from an inside our heart, knows that we’re truly connected.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Right. Right. Well, and we’re in electric, right. There’s all this data now about the electrical connection that we’re in, like insects have all these electrical communications, mycelium, right. Like that are connecting the fungi underground, are talking to each other in language is an actual language that they in the studies that I’ve read, likened to humans, similar to human communication, mycelium, are communicating. Right. I mean, and it makes perfect sense to those of us who write. I used to I remember driving past lots with my mom when I was a little girl and feeling and feeling the grief of the trees that had been clear cut when they would be ready to build a house. And I would be like choked up as like a seven year old driving by. And I was like, you know, really like feeling and hearing these the loss of these trees. And, you know, what? Like, how do you talk about that in this world? I mean, we’re all like in this web of connection, which I kind of there’s an invisible world around us that’s measurable, right? There’s some ways we can measure it and some ways we cannot yet, and some ways we never will be able to. And all of that is a very beautiful part of life that we are only now, I think diving back into because there was a time when we really understood that science is a language that describes mystery. And there are many other languages that describe mystery. And then science became the only language allowed to describe mystery. 

It’s a great language, but it’s got its limitations. And there are many that, you know, I don’t know if we should go into right now, but, you know, mystery is beautiful. Mystery is ceremony. Mystery is I consider mystery a fundamental need just as food and water and fresh air and sleep. We need mystery and we need ecstatic experiences. And by that, I don’t mean getting high or anything like that. Just, you know, dance and song and celebration, you know, and ceremony. Because what is ceremony really, just so I can be clear, is not about it’s not about psychedelics or anything like that can be it’s a good container for things and it’s a container for transformation. I mean, what we know about ceremony is you go in one way, you don’t know what’s going to happen during it and you come out a whole nother way. That ceremony.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

It’s so good because to me it, you know, I just look at it and we just do these things and we forget just like how powerful it is. And ceremony to me, the word that comes to mind right away, because it was funny, because I was like, What did I want to say about ceremony? So I just said the word in my head again, but literally the first word to come out is intention, you know, and I think the second word is openness to those new possibilities, because what you’re saying is you go in and clearly most people I know go in a ceremony. It’s a ceremonial intention. But we have to be. But we’re but we’re not going in trying to determine what the outcome is. 

And I think the mystery is what’s challenging for a lot of people in lyme and mold is like I think a lot of us are afraid to ask why I have it because, you know, I don’t think it’s always just because shit luck or you. And I definitely don’t think it’s like there’s anything wrong with you. It’s like, right. And so and one of the things I want to point out that also is fire kits and ticks communicate the exact same way that humans do and just the way you did the plants. Now, the research on that is very early, but we know about the chemical communicate and the language, but we know that, you know, people have had post-treatment Lyme disease. At least one person has been able to infect the sterile tick. And so I love the word ecosystem. And because I actually got sick teaching because this is like so funny how all these things parallel Maya is I was teaching, I went to a school for natural resources and landscape ecology and I was like talking to all the adults and like, how do I get them to love the planet and take action to save it? So it’s there for seven and 27 generation and it was like, we just want to talk research and then go outside and say, I started teaching kids because I figured if we could get the kids stoked, they’re going to take their national passion before we squished it all and open up to changing the world. And lo and behold, they get Lyman Derbyshire. And then I’m like, That’s kind of an interesting connection. But I always was talking about our inner relationship with the ecology and the landscape. And so then as a doctor, I’ve seen everybody looking outside of themselves for healing, and I always wanted to bring them back into their inner ecosystem. And one of the transformations I have had as we’re getting towards the end of all the recordings for our summit here, is that we’ve all started to really dove into that piece. 

And as soon as like there’s this critical mass of people presenting here that talked about that, and then all of a sudden they went back out to our interconnectedness, to all again. And that’s why this is just such a powerful conversation for me, because it’s like literally what you just walked us through has been my experience of recording for this summit, and this is the lesson that we’ve all wanted to teach you on. Share with you is that connectedness to everything. So that we’re not lonely and that no one’s ever even talked about trauma and poly big go fight or flight. And I know in the show, in the notes that we were sending back and forth, you said something our cell danger. Everybody’s talked about it. But what about keeping it really simple? We’re connected to everything and we’ve been taught not to be who we are.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, yeah, a few thoughts. I mean, one is. Yeah, it’s difficult to be in mystery. Right. That’s because the other word for mystery can feel like uncertainty. Right. And there is letting go of the process. And sometimes the more we try to control something, actually, the worse it goes. That’s an interesting phenomenon that can happen. It’s happened to me in my personal life, in my health, etc.. So that’s just in one thing, right? Surrender is a really important part of healing and that and ceremony, right? And mystery, which is having a sense of trust. And that’s not always easy for any number of reasons, whether you’re chronically ill, whether you’ve had a really difficult life experiences. There’s the gamut, right. 

And very often those things, you know, go hand in hand as well. But the beauty of surrender, which means letting go of getting from point A to point B, but just figure, you know, kind of putting yourself in the hands of mystery for some period of time or in some way means you don’t have to solve it all by yourself. So that’s nice. That’s a benefit, right? It’s not always easy, but that is part of the part of the narrative. I also wanted to mention, right, because something you said inspire kids and bacteria and things like that, do talk to one another. But in fact, you know, I just did a presentation on the mighty biome, right. The microbes and my mitochondria are in conversation. And of course, we now pretty strongly believe in site and science. This was, of course, very controversial when Lynn Margulis first brought it up that mitochondria and microbes Sparky’s, in fact, came from the same ancestor. You know, and this is obviously billions of, you know, this like not in recent time but they actually, we think may communicate mitochondria are mitochondria in our cells and microbes through something called quorum sensing, which is actually how bacteria talk to bacteria. And mitochondria are like, oh, hey, I remember that language, right? Like so it is very interesting that we have this level of interconnection and yet, you know, it can go so sideways for some of us at times. So that’s, I think, a really a really big one. And I think, gosh, I’m not sure I remember what your question was. But yeah, I mean, I think the whole piece of the interconnectedness is really where our answers are. Oh, I know. Because we were talking about the cell danger response. Right. You were saying danger and trauma and poly vagal. So here’s what I’ve come to as a neurologist that all healing of the nervous system really begins with the heart. And that is I think, you know, where I always go is it’s not about like regulating our nervous.

It’s like not about more control, right? It’s actually about feeling our emotions and being using the heart as a sensing organ. Right? A perceiving organ, which we know from, you know, the Heart Math Institute, that our hearts are more than just like pumps, you know, pumping stuff. They have these electromagnetic fields they perceive, they project a field that reflects how we’re feeling. We have combined fields with trees and with the earth and with each other, with animals like we’re in this whole ocean of this electromagnetic field and our hearts actually know things before our brains know them. If you have an EKG measuring heart activity and an EEG measuring brain activity, your heart responds to a stimulus before your brain, like your heart has intelligence. So, so really. Like we could start with feeling and perceiving and sensing and not like thinking and controlling and, you know, holding on really tight. Like sometimes that’s where and that’s why I consider song to be medicine. I consider meditation to be medicine and I consider dance to be medicine. I consider stories to be medicine, which I know you do too, because it gets you out of here, you know? I mean, we’ve got nice brains. I’m not knocking it. I’m a neurologist. But like, you know, I think this is where it’s at in terms of, you know, when we talk about the gut brain, I’m like, well, what about the heart brain? Right.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Everybody? The gut brain axis. I’m like, what about the other organ with its own autonomic nervous system that actually trumps both of them. It’s called the gut should be the heart with the brain and the gut. But, you know, and it’s funny because even when I try to say it, I’m like the that the gut brain heart axis, I’m like, no, it’s actually the heart and put the other to whatever order you want. I’m so glad you said that. You know, and it’s interesting, too. It’s just like I know that like all of the different things we talk about here, like, you know, talk about safe and sound and all these other ways and this limbic retraining. I’m like, the first step is you’ve just highlighted so much for us. It’s just get into feeling and perceiving with your heart. And I think that people get afraid to open up their heart because they don’t want to be harmed. I’m like, Well, even if your heart is closed, you’re still getting harmed. So you might as well you have this chance. I mean, you know, Isaac Elias, who you know quite well too, is talking about how the heart’s the only thing that takes whatever you give to it, processes it with the energetic connection to the universe and cleans, you know, and through its action, cleans the blood ultimately, but then it redistributes it. But the first thing it nourishes is itself, and then it takes care of everything else. And so that’s what I love about what you are, all the things you were just saying. I mean, it just I could just all day, like, this is like church for me, you know, because it’s like the neuroscience, it’s the real healing. It’s the reason that we’re sick in the way we can access healing it. And I don’t think I hear you saying you don’t, you know, like you said, you don’t. It’s not that you don’t use medicine. Herbs are beautiful brains of figured out how to interact with the environment and bring these into our thing. 

But the first place we should start is at home and then move out. And so one of the things that I think is so cool about the work you’re doing is and we’ve sort of touched on it a little bit, but I really wanted to just give you a, you know, the chance to really dove into this is quantum healing. And we’ve talked a lot about plants. And I think that a lot of people were talking about plant medicine for healing thing we’re talking about psychedelics. Right and you’ve clearly talked about all kinds of things from the macro dose psychedelic experience with the guide to the micro doses that you may barely even notice that they lead to shifts, especially and probably definitively needing to have a guide with you. 

Because I just remember Mary Morrissey always said to me when I did some training with her, it’s like you can’t see the picture from within the frame. It’s so hard, like, you know the right answers, but it’s really hard to be your own doctor or your own guide. So that’s why we have communities like this. But one of the things you talk about is using the master plants and quantum healing. And I think this is one of the most unique approaches to use utilizing the intelligent and healing nature of plants and touching on their sacredness. And also like having experienced this in fact, I right before we even started, I mean, I’ve got mine right here, but what is it? I mean, this stuff is like every one of my family, including my daughter. As soon as I came back where I saw you present on these and you shared used them and had, you know, their own experience of what is this and what’s going on here, because this is so unique Maya. I mean, I actually want to know someday where it all came from. I’m pretty sure I get it, but.

Maya Shetreat, MD

It came from the plants, so first, you know, so I grow master plants. Yes, that’s legal. It’s legal. Everything I do with them. But I grow and I walk a fine. I grow who’s over ten years old. I grow San Pedro cacti. I work with these plants just tending them. I don’t consume them. I tend them. And that’s part of my relationship because I do consider these to be teachers and masters and I and they teach me as I take care of them. And so this was really an idea that was transmitted to me from them is the best I can really explain it. I mean, we could get more into it, but you know, really when I was studying in indigenous communities from elders, they actually they don’t believe you need to ingest the plant in order to experience the healing of the plant. They actually even sing songs called Icarus or like medicine songs. You can think of them that are transmitted from the plants and that is considered as strong as ingesting the plants. So they’re not about the compound. They’re oh, you know, we have like the 5ht to a receptor and the Sarah, you know, they’re, they’re like this is the plant spirit or kind of the energy or the mother of the plant that transmits vibrational medicine through the voice. Right. So, the plants really for me just showed the way to how we can infuse their medicine into drops that do not have alcohol are made from structured springwatch sure that comes directly from the spring. It’s not even shipped from far away. And organic glycol and charged basically in ceremony, made in ceremony in the presence of the plant but without plant matter and made with my medicine songs that were transmitted to me in ceremony with an altar, gemstones, etc. and even where it’s bottled. I was very lucky to meet an amazing scientist who has his own facility and he said, Oh, you’re going to want an altar, right? He’s like, I’m a master carpenter. 

I’ll build a table. And it’s the permanent altar table in the bottling area with an altar that I sent him and he put there, sent me pictures, puts the water there to charge. We have prisms with rainbows in the room. He’s like, so down. He actually plays the medicine songs while it’s being bottled. So every step from beginning to end is made in ceremony. And what of course, because I’m a doctor and, you know, excuse my language, but I do have like a real bullshit detector, you know, I was like, I mean, okay, I know that this was guided information, but is it real? Is it really real? And I started to work with it for a long time with myself and then with my students and clients at retreats and things like that. And it was so transformative. It was so potent, but not like because it caused people to trip. 

But it was just because it opened, you know, what I call sensory gating. So that like they were able to perceive more and experience plasticity, but without it being like some big shocking disregulated experience. Because for some people, even if they wanted to do psychedelics, even if they were everywhere and it was legal and it was easy to access, and there were guides, it would be too much for them or they would have right. If you’re sober or if you’re pregnant or if you’re a child or if you are on a lot of meds, or if you are super sensitive. Right. Which is well, me, I’m sensitive. And my whole practice was, you know, I would say these are people who are a bird sneeze three miles away. Right. So not everybody’s like ready to run out and have a big experience. And some people just don’t want to. And this is a way to engage with the healing of these plants in a way that is transformative, but also right and powerful, but also gentle.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting because I think that sensory gating is such an interesting idea because that’s kind of been my experience. It’s just like, wow. Mm hmm. And you just there’s just that thing that you need, you know, where there’s this little bit of shift in your perception. And this is what the quantum piece says. You know, it’s not you know, I think it’s so funny. I remember like a meditation retreat that went on where I’m like, all these people are crying out and they’re having these psycho experiences and people are telling me about all these visions. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s not how it is for me. It’s just like, but the thing is, maybe it’s just my mindset and my lens because I know there’s research on that, but it’s like kind of one of the pieces. It’s just like, I’m just connected to everything and nothing all at once. And I’m like, that was so liberating. And I’m like, I don’t need to, like, you know, have this physically exhausting experience. I don’t need to be up all night. I mean, you know, we did start at 4 a.m.. So, I mean, we were taking advantage of our natural melatonin. But I mean, but, you know, you’re like it’s it’s very interesting how different people need different treatments and a lot of and then I’m always like, I really recommend people work with people like yourself and other people who are who are experts in this area and are guides because I know a lot of my friends and and then also just acquaintances who think they need something. 

And that’s a lot of times utilize this thing or their party center and not going back to their heart. And so that’s really where you’re where you’re trying to figure out of any of these plans or these other experiences, what is it? And actually, I just thought of this literally right this moment I the weekend after we recently hung out and you shared the quantum drop. You know, I took them with me to and I was doing a doing a couple of lectures and, you know, I’d used them a little bit and it’s really just doing my breathwork and seeing how things were different. And then every morning like, because, like, you know, they, they, of course, they put the not morning person lecturing first. I was like, I turn, I started turning on my evening music in the morning. And then I started dancing like before, during and after my shower. 

And I love dancing, but it’s like I don’t usually think about doing it in the morning. I’m like, Oh, I got away from my coffee and it was like, Coffee’s brewing. I don’t need I haven’t had it. I’m just like, dance. And I’m like, Oh yeah. And it was like, so liberating. And I felt and, you know, me, I mean, I’ll talk like this all day long, so I’m okay on stage, just like you. It’s like because we’re sharing our passion with others. But it was a different connection to the audience and the message I felt just really came out and I don’t know why I started dancing in the morning and now I kind of have a sense, right? It’s really interesting because sometimes we don’t make the connection. And then a lot of what I try to have people do is not necessarily try to make connections and let them come to you.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s an incredible story. I’m going to get that as a testimonial. So afterwards, I totally.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Real.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Just. Yeah, no, it’s incredible. I love that you shared that because that’s actually the way these work. Right. As opposed to what I call like, you know, the the fireworks and, you know, cannonballs effect is we get to have these moments like this, which are these like epiphany moments where we’re like, wait a minute, I just like met this incredible person that’s like I feel part of my soul family. Like, where did they show up from? Or I just had this incredible download like, gosh, like, I can’t believe it. And then someone will be like, Oh yeah, like I’ve been taking the quantum drops and like, I’ve had all these shifts and it’s sort of, you know, it’s not like you get to have this big sledgehammer or experience and then attribute everything to that. But like it’s subtle and it unfolds. And part of it is not just having that sensory gating open where you can perceive healing opportunities and other opportunities that might not be available to you because you can’t see them. You literally can’t perceive them, even if they’re right there. But it’s also you’re in relationship with a master, with a master teacher, with an ancient teacher. So you are going to be guided with their help, right? That’s like the beauty. 

And actually, I’ll say one of the ways that I really started to understand that this quantum relationship begins, how it begins and I watched it begin, was people would reach out to me because they had questions about microdosing or questions about going to a ceremony or that kind of thing. And they’d say, You know, can I ask you questions? I’m interested. And what I noticed in these coaching experiences I would do with them would be their lives would already start changing in these really big ways and healing would already be happening all they had done was just thought about it, right? And that’s because it’s a relationship. It’s not the relationship is the medicine ingesting. It can be one way to do the relationship. Quantum dosing can be one way. Growing the plant and tending it can be one way. Looking at pictures of the plants can be a way you start to engage in all of these ways of being in relationship with the plants is how you start to experience the healing. So the minute if you’re like hearing this conversation and you’re like, Oh, I’m so interested, the relationship has begun, right?

Maya Shetreat, MD

It’s like you’re already in a healing relationship with a master teacher.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Wow. That’s like, I mean, you know, and it’s so funny because, like, you know, I’m goofy, you know, it’s so funny that I would just, like, grab the little bottle of the children and, like, you know, and I was just like, I was so excited for the conversation, but I had literally not even thought of that. I’ve talked to other people about since that time, dancing in the morning and everything, but it is it’s just like as soon as you start thinking about it, it is. And that’s why I’m always like, be careful or well, big aware, probably a much better term to use of the relationships you’re in. And that’s where like labeling ourselves, maybe we want to change our language. And I’m a big proponent, just like as we were talking about rewriting our story, you can actually rewind and just restate what you just said. You know, I’m just like, you know, become aware. Don’t be, you know, it’s like it’s a completely different thing. I don’t even remember what other word I just use a second ago because I rewrote it into one that I prefer. And so it’s like when we’re looking at our healing journey and what’s worked or not worked on sort of a physical sort of medical objective plain, you know, just be aware and don’t be so mad about Lyme. I mean, Lyme has been around for at least 13 million years and other similar infections have been around for over 100 million years. They predate us by a whole bunch, just like all these plants do. There’s wisdom and I find it one of the it’s so funny I haven’t thought of this in a really long time either is one of the things I think that Lyme is so good at infecting people chronically is because it doesn’t fight with the present moment. It doesn’t fight the reality of the situation. If you’re trying to kill it, it chills out. If not, it takes advantage of things. And I’m not saying that we should just leave it in our bodies by any stretch, but we can learn so much by the wisdom of these organisms that have been around for a while. And just imagine if you had a relationship with Lyme where you’re like, You’re awesome. I learned a lot. I don’t want you in me anymore. Please leave and you know you’re on your way out. But I also respect you for the knowledge that you carry. And also, you can leave my body, please. You know, it’s just a different approach.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, I think. I think, you know, and I don’t know if I should be dropping something potentially controversial at kind of near the end of our conversation.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

But know. Right.

Maya Shetreat, MD

You know, he’s like, oh, you know, I’ve treated I’ve had Lyme, I’ve treated a lot of Lyme for probably a lot longer than most neurologists because, you know, they didn’t think Lyme was passing. You know, they treated for like whatever, ten days and that was it. So that’s how I was trained. But my belief is Lyme can be part of our microbiome probably and in a really right in a really not in not in not even not an out of control levels. But I don’t really think any of it 100% leaves our body. I think there’s some amount that’s probably part of our inherent community of microbes. We know we have viruses. We know we have parasites. We know we have all kinds of microbes. And they’re very diverse. It’s not to say we just let Lyme take over. No, absolutely not. But I love Ray because I think we are in a very us versus them mentality when it comes to particularly when it comes to what we think of as infections. 

And again, it doesn’t mean we just say, oh, you know, overtake me. You know, it’s that’s not the point. But it’s also like when we’re fighting, right? Because it’s our own selves, right? It’s sort of like the war on mentality is what I call it. And I write about it in my book actually, because, you know, when you talk about like maybe we can like send love in that direction and it doesn’t again, it doesn’t mean like walk all over me. It just means like, I know you’re a part of me. I know you’re here for a reason. I would like for the lesson to be learned so we can go back into write relationship where you’re not causing me the harm that I’m currently experiencing and we can be in balance, whatever that means. And, and really like instead of that feeling of like, I hate this, right? Like, right, I always think and I mean, excuse my language when people are like, fuck cancer, I get it. But it’s like that attitude, that energy that is like separate us from us, I think actually drives that loneliness, that separation, that disconnectedness that I think is very much at the root of illness of all kinds rights, stuckness, sickness, sadness, like so, so, so part of it is can we kind of get into that place? And by the way, you know, I know that Steven Buechner, who’s a big, you know, had a whole bunch of books on The Herbs of Lyme and so on. And many people find found his work very helpful. You know, he passed away recently, but he was a very big proponent of the idea of of sending love, right. And being like, hey, you little intelligent creatures, like, wow, you’ve done an amazing job of being successful in what you’re doing, but can we change it up.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Like in a more balanced relationship? Yeah, yeah.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I don’t think it can hurt. Like, what would happen if I’ll tell you one last story, which is not about Lyme, but it’s relevant to this topic. I teach my students how to actually, you know, we talk about plant consciousness and how, you know, the plants brains are really underground. And if you think of plants, right, they’re upside down. Actually, their neural networks are their root systems and that we can communicate with them. And one of my students had a Passionflower plant and it had and it had never made fruit. And so after doing one of our exercises, she said, you know, I tried something. I went to my passion flower plant and I said, beautiful, beautiful passion, flower plant. 

You make such beautiful flowers, but you’ve never given me fruit. Would you please, please give me fruit? And a few weeks, months. I don’t know how long it took. It wasn’t that long later she came on a call and said she flowers making fruit for the first time in years and years I got fruit and it was soon after she asked. And it just, you know, I have so many stories I could share like that. But I think, like, that’s the energy. I think that it’s worth experimenting and being playful, right? Just with like, what if I took a different approach? What if I brought a different energy or told a different story or asked in a different way what that stuck for me? Or that’s causing me suffering? What might shift like because play and experimenting is is actually right like we learn so much more quickly and we change so much more effectively when we do it through play.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

You know, it’s so interesting and so perfect because like usually I just want to, I’ll say one thing. It’s like everything you just said about line, like, I totally agree because a lot of people feel like it can’t even get out of our body. It’s not about that. It’s about that balanced relationship. And, you know, when and I’m just not even get everybody who watches this knows I need to re summarize everything cause I really want to hit home with, like, the sledge hammer. Like, this is such a good point. You said it so perfectly. I got nothing that is literally like my heart speaking and hearing you and like it is so important. This is the message that we made this summit for is it is about healing and like and healing does not include the word fighting. And so I Maya, I’m just so honored and blessed to have you as part of this summit. And I would love for you to I mean, I know that you’ve got the dirt cure that’s been out. And then the new book is R is just come out when the summit is airing. So that’s the master plan experience at the Science, Safety and Sacred Ceremony of psychedelics. So but if others, I’m sure there’s going to be like pretty much everybody watching this and everybody they share it with is going to be like, I need to reach out and learn more about Dr. Maya Shetreat. Where can they connect with you and learn more about the work you’re doing?

Maya Shetreat, MD

The best place to go is drmaya.com and I have a ton of free resources and practices that are just videos and my books there. The Quantum Drops. Are there a lot of other just free materials? So and I love hearing from people, so feel free to reach out.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Great. Well, thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. What an honor. So fun.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, this is always so much fun. Thank you so much for having me time.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Yeah. And everyone, thanks for joining us for this episode of The Healing from Lyme Disease Summit. I hope that we gave you this opportunity both in this conversation and all the conversations of the summit, to see illness and health from a different perspective, open your heart so that you can really receive like the true meaning of healing and go on your own unique journey to that next level, whatever that means in your life. And so from all of us here at the team, just want to send lots of love to you. We greatly appreciate you joining us. And until next time, Dr. Tom Moorcroft, we’ll see you soon.