#22: Change Your Mind with Maxime Maanders

LIFEWISE SHOW #22
CHANGING YOUR MIND WITH MAXIME MAANDERS
TRANSCRIPTON

Speaker 1: Tania Cotton, LifeWise Show Host
Welcome to the LifeWise Show where we explore the things in life that make you feel truly alive.
Today I'm with Maxime Maanders, a psychologist and plant medicine specialist based in the Netherlands, yet very much a world explorer. Maxime knows first hand the significance of those pivotal moments in a young person's life, understanding that it only takes a few decisions or a few encounters to alter one's path. Maxime's life serves as a testament to this journey. At the age of 13, he made a few poor decisions that led him down a dark path. He began abusing drugs, dropped out of school, and from there things spiraled down further. He severed ties with his family and friends, and by the age of 15 had lost the will to live. Today, Maxime works as a clinical psychologist who combines his clinical experience in the Netherlands top tier psychiatric hospitals with his expertise as a plant medicine specialist.
(00:01:20):
He also runs his own practice where other healthcare providers refer patients when they face challenges they cannot overcome. By merging the old with the new, the spiritual and the clinical, Maxime became the first in Europe to have psilocybin therapy fully covered by Dutch healthcare for youth. He has successfully treated some of the most severe inpatient youth cases. In this podcast, Maxime shares how he transformed a life of desperation and despair into a journey of deep discovery, one that has led him to a holistic perspective on human healing. His approach brings together ancient wisdom and evidence-based psychology offering an integrative understanding of what it truly takes for us to heal. Welcome Maxime.
Speaker 2: Maxime Maanders, LifeWise Show Guest (00:02:15):
Thank you, Tania. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:02:18):
So I'd love to begin our conversation just by setting a little context, because when I first met you, when you first welcomed me to the Netherlands and you brought me to the psychiatric hospital where you were working, you described how when you first came, there used to be a barbed wire fence around the hospital, or maybe it was before you even worked here? But I'd like to ask you how that psychologically, what that message brings to other people and even the patients on the inside. Because for me, that makes it seem like a prison and it kind of perpetuates the stigma I feel that lies around mental health, the fear of the people on the inside and the stigma of mental health. Yet really, I want this conversation to amplify the fact that there is no them and us - people with mental health problems and anxieties on the inside of these hospitals seeking help whilst the rest of us are living anxiety free on the outside.
Speaker 2 (00:03:33):
So yeah, that brings a great perspective indeed. And funny enough, we're at this moment, in this place where we're having the podcast at an ancient building of the mental hospital. And if you look around, you clearly see that it was really self-sustaining. Like everything had to be provided from the inside so that there is as little as possible connection with the other world, like the society, so to say. So the barbwire fence was definitely before I came here. So actually, today we see a beautiful example how each of the worlds are merging to each other because it's still a psychiatric hospital but you see also there's a lot of buildings, new buildings, which is providing a home for families. You see children playing next to the places where the inpatients are working, for example. So actually, it's a very different picture of the scenery here than it was like 50 years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:04:40):
And some of the buildings were then sold off and made into luxury apartments. So there are local residents living literally right next to the buildings where there are patients. And what really touched me and what I found so wonderful is what you began to do on a Wednesday night. And before I put any words on that, I'd like you to tell me about how you broke down that ‘them and us’ and made everybody come into the same room.
Speaker 2 (00:05:51):
So, a colleague of mine who was an inpatient but eventually was discharged and then got the opportunity to work at the place where he was an impatient himself. So that was really a very powerful signal to break the sigma, which was still very much there. A lot of people now, colleagues were thinking a little bit ill of him. He would not manage to cope with the stress or the workload, but one of his missions on this workplace was to bring the difference between patients and colleagues to a closer understanding of each other. So we came up with this idea to create an open space, a free space. Actually the main mission was to create a place, an environment where you can feel safe in whatever state of being you are at that moment and where you have a free of speech. So a little bit like a democracy. And we are really sitting in a round circle and there's patients coming, colleagues, but also neighbours or family members. And it's not introduced who's who. So we don't have to say our names or what status we are, it's just a place where we can share stories with each other without having to think about the stigma before we can speak.
Speaker 1 (00:07:27):
And one of those people who came to one of those Wednesday evening open circles was one of the local residents because the local residents also had to get comfortable and break down any stigma or misunderstanding that perhaps was in their mind. One of these people was Frits. And actually Frits has been on our last podcast, so it's quite nice to bring him into this conversation. And in fact, we are sitting in his house, which is a house that really borders where all the other buildings are that are part of the mental hospital. Tell me about you meeting Frits and about that meeting and how he felt. Did he share with you how that touched him? And then how you have really become friends and worked closely together?
Speaker 2 (00:08:21):
Yeah, sure. So our first encounter with Frits, so he's one of the locals who live here.
Speaker 2 (00:08:58):
So Frits's house, where we are at right now is actually the men's pavilion. So men's and women were separated. So this is actually an old psychiatric hospital that has been renovated. And the first time we met on this evening, this Wednesday evening, then it was very special, actually a very straight instant connection. And we also saw straight away like the familiarity with, he's from the military workforce from the Netherlands, and the familiarity with the military and the healthcare where there are stigmas, there is hierarchy and there are big gaps to really truly be able to listen to each other and to see each other. And so we were having this connection and also this understanding that we were on the same mission in a very different environment. And that really brought us together and to work together eventually. And so we created a BaseQamp, this project, which is Frits's, how do you say this?
Speaker 1 (00:10:22):
That he really founded BaseQamp.
Speaker 2 (00:10:24):
Yeah, he founded BaseQamp. So he always says, it was not me who founded it, but it was like the spirits or the universe who's given me this opportunity to create baseQamp. And it was his answer to the gap between the military workforce. So we've worked together on this project for four years now, which is great.
Speaker 1 (00:10:51):
So, for those of you who haven't listened to our previous podcast, you can hear Frits's military journey, which has been a tough one and it'll really put this in context. And he shares also how he felt when he came into that circle and how much it touched him. So I recommend that previous podcast to all our listeners now. So yes, tell us a little bit about BaseQamp from your perspective. We have heard a little bit from Frits, but I'd really, for those who haven't heard the previous podcast, for you to describe to them what BaseQamp is and what does the word BaseQamp mean?
Speaker 2 (00:11:44):
So yeah, the word BaseQamp come really from the military, but also from the outdoor sports. It's a place where in an environment where it's safe, for example, if you are on a mission or if you're on an expedition, you make up a Base Camp. So you've created a place, a safe space where you can feel safe while outside it's potentially unsafe. And that's actually what Baseqamp is about. So we create these three-day retreats where we create a space for people to discover themselves in all safety. So it's really about holding the space for one another to really get the courage and make a deep dive inside. So it's really an adventure in and through yourself, is what we always say. That's what BaseQamp is about.
Speaker 1 (00:12:35):
So let's turn this conversation now, Maxime, into your journey, which I've always found deeply touching, knowing you as the professional you are and someone actually who really makes people feel safe. And I can say that from the heart. And yes, and just you have the ability just to accept people and to allow people to feel really just whole as they are. And so it's a very special capacity you have. And you've been described as others who are twice your age as being wise beyond your years. I can say that as I know many people who know you, we have a few of us who work together now. Yet I think that wisdom comes from your journey.
So I'd like to wind the clock back now to when at 15 you had lost the will to live, and what was it inside of you that enabled you to turn things around?
Speaker 2 (00:17:45):
So there was actually a very clear moment. I remember very vivid. There was a moment where, so I really felt that I didn't want to live anymore. And at the age of 15, of course you have to tell your parents this decision that you're about to make. So there was in my room at the side of my bed where my parents were, they saw that I was not happy, I was not in a good place. And then I told them that I made this decision to well stop living. And I saw for the first time the amount of sadness in their eyes and the hurt and the pain. And that really was the pivotal moment for me. I saw the pain.
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I could not make a decision that would give so much pain to someone else. So for me, there was a very strong moment where I said, okay, I'm not going to do it because I cannot get it over my heart to give them that much pain. But I also saw in that moment in their eyes that they cared about me, but they would not be able to help me. So they would not be any help from their side. So I made the decision like, okay, I made this decision, but it's going to be me who's going to be helping me. So the helping is really, and the work is going to be me who has to do it, nobody else can do it for me. Now I know that very clearly, but that was the decision I had to make.
Speaker 1 (00:19:19):
But could you really do it just all on your own? Could you tell us a little bit about the moment when you realised actually when we've gone down the slippery slope, we don't need to do it on our own. And yes, can you really, was there a moment when you felt there's a way I can do it where I can actually ask for help?
Speaker 2 (00:19:58):
Yeah, there were a couple of moments. The quote that I like to use is, ‘You don't have to do it alone, but you have to do it yourself’. For me, that's a very big difference because the decisions that are really through your own decisions that you have to make. So for me, in that moment, I knew exactly what had to be done. Quitting the cannabis was one, the friends that I was using with was no option anymore. So there were a couple of options or decisions I had to make. I didn't have to do it alone. That's true. I was very lucky that there was a group of friends which I had good contact with but were not using any drugs. So for me it was not choosing between loneliness and substance abuse. So there was a safe group of people where I could belong to without the using of any substance. And then this whole psychology was just one quest to get answers about how do you transform your life to something better, a place that was better.
Speaker 1 (00:21:17):
So talk us through your journey from being a school dropout to getting a master's degree in psychology.
Speaker 2 (00:21:30):
I will give you the short version. So actually I was not a school dropout almost. So it was very on
the edge, I was really on the edge. So I had this talk with the teachers and stuff like that. And so in that decision, I knew also the grades had to be better, but the grading system in the Netherlands is once you are in school in a certain level, then you have to climb the ladder. So that was quite a long way to go. But it's always interesting how universe works, how energy works. There was always a teacher that I didn't expect on a moment where he is saying, you don't belong here. And in a good sense. So he was saying, you have to do your best or you have to go this way. It's like different people point to me, different directions telling me what to do when I didn't know. And it was just every time in the right moment to make the next step.
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So eventually I went to apply. At first I did a commercial study that was definitely not my thing, but it was going in the footsteps of my father because I didn't know what to do yet. But then I found out, okay, psychology is more my thing. So I started enrolled in applied psychology, and from there on it was getting better. I was getting answers for the questions that I was struggling with. And then I decided at one point when I went to the university that I wanted to give this knowledge also to others because I know that if I had this knowledge before, it would've been a lot better and a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (00:23:28):
Are you able to share what some of those questions were?
Speaker 2 (00:23:38):
Yeah, so one of the questions that really I was struggling with was emotions and feeling. So for me it was really something that was shut off. And at one point I joined a meditation group also to get more acquainted with that. And they were telling us to do an exercise where we had to open our heart, let love go through it, and then let it go through our feet and then give it back to the earth. And that was just Chinese for me! There were so many different words in that one sentence that I didn't understood. So that was definitely one of the things which I didn't know how to cope with. And one of the journeys that I was on.
Speaker 1 (00:24:31):
And you have shared something with me previously that I found very striking - that perhaps a real turning point for you is when you took a psychological assessment for fun, talk us through that. That was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:24:50):
It was not fun for me. So that was quite close to that moment that I talked about the meditation group. So you have this course, the psychological assessment or diagnostic course where you are looking at questionnaires and learning how they work and how to interpret them. So they give us an opportunity at the beginning of the course to make a couple of tests ourselves. So like an IQ test and a personality test because then we are still unbiased, we don't know how to test work or where it's for. And a good friend of mine and I were sitting in class and for fun we thought, okay, let's do a couple of these tests. And one of the tests that we picked out which sounded really fun was like the test for psychopathy. And we made this test. We were not above the threshold, but we were coming quite close.
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And that actually scared me a lot because I was like, okay, I cannot identify with that, but surely my answers are really in line with it. So I look back into the answers and there was nothing about hurting people or enjoying that stuff, but on the emotional bluntness and the not feeling, there was a lot of familiarity with it. So that was one of the eye openers, like okay, something has to be done. Meditation was not strong enough to break through that barrier, and I had no idea that I had one, but I definitely know now that I built one in quite a strong one.
Speaker 1 (00:26:37):
So just to make sure I'm understanding what that meant for you when you did that test, that really what it showed you is that you were completely shut off from your emotions.
Speaker 2 (00:26:51):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:26:56):
So that was quite then a wake-up call for you then because I think so many of us don't realise, and it might not be all our emotions that are shut off, it might be just an emotion, several emotions or perhaps we only know two emotions. For example, happiness and anger. What have you got to say about that from what you have experienced working with others now?
Speaker 2 (00:27:29):
I would definitely say that with the test, I shocked myself, but I was functioning quite well at the university in the academic field. The more analytical you are, the more credible you are, the more in your head you are, the better grades, the better the accomplishments or the applause. So it's really something that you can thrive on while not feeling anything. And about the other question about the emotions and other people and other people. So it is something that you see a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:28:06):
And the real crux of the problem is that it's easy to get through life without being in touch with your emotions, without feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:28:22):
Oh, for sure. Yeah. And it's very scary to go to that place where you feel, especially if you're not familiar with it or haven't learned it from your parents. So it's something that takes real courage to go on the journey. And for me it was the psychedelics that really did it, which really made this connection. And it's very interesting because, and that's also where the ancient wisdom is coming from for us western society, this all sounds very new, but for many indigenous cultures it's really something old and something they were struggling with as well. Like the Indians from North America, I really like the quote they are saying, ‘The longest way men travels is from head to heart’. And the Buddhists have a saying as well that's a little bit similar. It's like, ‘The hardest way men travels is from head to heart’. So it's something that is really familiar, but somehow because we are not talking about it or don't know that we have it, we feel very alienated from that knowledge and really experience it as if we are the only one who are in this situation.
Speaker 1 (00:29:36):
I feel that what you've just said is actually at the very heart of this conversation because there are so many people there who really, they're either unaware that they're not connected to their heart or if they are aware and they're already an explorer or they want to be an explorer, but they just don’t know where to begin. So let us begin with what you introduced us to - that psychedelics helped you. Do you remember that first experience where you were and what it was like for you? How long ago was that?
Speaker 2 (00:30:16):
So that was around nine years ago and the first one was not a major breakthrough because I was in this very academic mindset and for me meditation was already out of my comfort zone. So psychedelics was really something difficult to acknowledge. There was something that was of meaning. And there was this book from Sam Harris, he's quite a famous neurologist who's talking about the benefits of meditation, but on a very academic way, it's quite boring now to read. But then back in the day, it was really for me something that I could understand the language I spoke and brought some respect as well to the meditation. And then he talked about his journey with meditation and how the steps were little, and then he introduced in his book, his journey on psychedelics and what he did for him. So there was a respected person also from the academic point of view who did this experience and had a significant effect. For me, there was something interesting, there was the seed that was planted, and in the Netherlands we have this a grey zone of opportunity where psilocybin in truffles is legal. There's not many places in the world where it's legally available. So that gave an opportunity to experiment with psychedelics and truffles or psilocybin is like a classic psychedelic, so it's a tryptamine and he was using psilocybin or mescaline. But anyways, a classic psychedelic as well.
(00:32:09):
And this friend of mine who I was talking about earlier, so we were both grad students and we were doing this very, in an experimental way, very academic. So we were sitting next to each other in a room. First I took a dose, very low dose, like a micro dose, not one would say, then I would tell him what I was experiencing, he would make notes and then we switch turns and from there on we build up the dose. Little by little
Speaker 1 (00:32:51):
We'll come back to psychedelics at some point, but I think it's good to look at it in context of so that we don't just make it seem like the only avenue - that we really share that it's part of a whole variety of tools that are available. So I'd kind of like to have a look at where you began. I mean you did a lot of work on yourself, so you had a lot of what we can call self-administered therapy. You were learning about yourself, you were learning to treat patients, but it's clear that you were seeing almost yourself as a patient. And I think that's very powerful that again, that ‘no them and us’. It's like, yes, I want to understand this in myself so I can help others, is always what I felt from you. So that self-administered therapy, but also did you try group therapy?
Speaker 2 (00:34:07):
So yeah, I did a lot of group therapy, but more in the learning therapies. So when you are trained in a new therapy, then you will have to experience the therapy yourself of course, and you'll practice on each other. So I am also a trained group therapist, so I did the training for that. And there's a lot of group learning therapy involved. And for me, a quote that really strikes me is that ‘some traumas you don't heal alone’. So you can look at yourself in the mirror as much as you want, but some things are just something that is given by others. And a big one is relationships. So I think it's Peter Levine or Gabor Maté, one of those two who said that ‘the trauma that starts in relationships, heals also in relationships’. And that's where group therapy is definitely a very powerful tool for.
Speaker 1 (00:35:23):
That's really interesting. I'm very glad you've spoken that out loud and I'm loving the quotes you're sharing with us as well, Maxime. So yes, so really it was your journey and training to help others where you were working on yourself at the same time in that environment. Was it not hard to share your deep emotions or fears in group therapy? I would imagine you could feel quite exposed when there's more than one person there, and there are people that you would feel comfortable sharing with or not. How did that play out in your training?
Speaker 2 (00:36:13):
So when I was in training, I was not totally connected to all my feelings yet because I had a bigger issue because also connected to this will to live, I had to find something to live for. And that was actually not me. That was, I was not the reason that I made the decision. It was somebody else like the pain for my parents, but then I made the decision to transform it into something positive. So it was really being of service to others was my decision why I wanted to stay alive. So it was not actually myself. So that was a big part of the whole journey. The learning therapy was always like, how can I learn and develop myself so that I can be the most of service to others.
Speaker 1 (00:37:09):
And do you think that the conventional healthcare system is alone able to serve the needs of people or do you feel there are gaps and is that why you have explored so many other avenues and in particular, ancient wisdom?
Speaker 2 (00:37:30):
I would even say that healthcare is the worst place to get healed. I always say the best therapists are your friends and family, and if you can be open with them, that's much more powerful and that's also much more real. And at the end there's also always a little voice in your head when you're in front of a therapist and the therapeutic relationship is really important. But there is always this back door where you're, this person just likes me because he gets paid for it or he's not in a real conversation with me because if we were just friends, he would abandon me. So there's always this back door where you can discount yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:38:18):
So yeah, so really conventional healthcare alone is limited and in fact, perhaps really not the first best place to begin. But then it raises the question of how many people really have trusted family and friends and the importance of connection and that when we don't have the connection, how it leaves us so vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (00:38:50):
And that's really one of the big problems that we are facing with each other. And you talked a little bit about the ancient wisdom. Indeed that's a big inspiration for me because they were living in a way that we rarely see. And one of the things they say about getting ill, for example, is really beautiful as well, is that when you are in the tribe or in the village and you get ill, and it doesn't matter if it's a mental illness or a physical illness, they don't talk about those difference. They always say like you're imbalance or you're out of balance. So when you're in this tribe and you're out of balance, they come to you and they thank you because you get out of balance. It shows that there is an imbalance also in the tribe and you are just the one showing it. So they have a lot of respect for the illness. And so that's really something that we don't see at the moment.
Speaker 1 (00:39:55):
That's so interesting that the illness itself becomes the teacher and that not just for that one person but for the whole community. And that's largely what we have lost in modern society. So really when you were training then, a question that comes to mind is that, okay, so if patients can't recover this way in this traditional way, conventional healthcare, then how? So it seems that that was your quest. So what about within the health system as well? Because patients, I know my patients are often my greatest teachers, have your patients ever raised questions and made you think of critical questions to ask yourself in terms of what the healthcare system needs? For example, ‘how can people who are not in touch with themselves expect to help patients get in touch with their true self?’

Speaker 2 (00:41:04):
So that's actually a quote indeed that was shared with one of these nights at the Wednesday nights where we come together as a group. And that's really striking how can somebody who doesn't understand himself can help me? And that's what we're missing in the healthcare system. Everybody is trying their best and they're really with the best intentions, but they don't know either. So we're a little bit lost and trying to help each other, but the effects are just very marginal because we're in trouble ourselves as well sometimes. And that for me was a big lesson to be really, how to put this, I don't know the English word. So a little bit reserved.
Speaker 1 (00:42:03):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:42:05):
Yeah. Okay. So this quote that this patient told me that really struck me and made me understand that I should be really reserved with my advices to other people because I now think it's a good idea maybe, but I don't have a clue as well. I'm just looking and searching as well. So my advice may not be the best advice, so I'm really reserved with that.
Speaker 1 (00:42:40):
Yeah, so it's like you are careful not to say that you have all the answers. And actually by what you've just said, you are actually telling us all, which I feel myself, that we are all explorers and that we all need different guides. And I feel that with your experience that you who have really been an explorer and with what you've experienced on your travels around the world, looking at alternative and spiritual healing methods, that that's given you more and more abilities as a guide. And yet all these guides, they have different levels of what they can offer, and we need to know that. So on your travels around the world, can you share some of the guides you've met and some of the experiences you've had that enabled you to tap into ancient wisdom that you felt really got far more to the heart of what we all need to feel and know?
Speaker 2 (00:43:59):
Yeah, so the first thing that comes to mind is the journey to Peru, where I was just very curious to the Amazon Rainforest and to see how the people live there. I've heard so many stories. So I was like, I had this wish to see it myself, and not with any intention to get any teachings, but just to get inspired and observe while we still can. But well, it got on my journey to get this opportunity to have an ayahuasca ceremony with an indigenous tribe there and the way they communicate. And so actually before we had this experience, I was with a guide, like a trained nature guide, and he was also from that community. And the first thing that struck me was that he was very quiet and he was just being this present awareness and he didn't waste any words. And I was observing him and also being in Amazon, observing, of course the animals and the nature there.
(00:45:24):
And then it struck me that being an extrovert is really a deadly act actually in the Amazon because otherwise there's two options. If you're extrovert or yelling or screaming or talking a lot, something that wants to eat you is coming towards you or something that you want to eat is going away from you. And that's such a paradigm of a paradox because in western society in the Netherlands, everybody wants to be an extrovert. And if you're an introvert, you're not so cool or you're not really respected. So it was really like the world was upside down and it made so much sense. So their nature is really their teacher, and it was becoming my teacher as well, and we didn't need any words for that. And an important part was that I was looking for myself. I always was looking for a teacher, like a father figure who would tell me how life works and tell me what to do.
(00:46:29):
I never found it, of course, because it's an archetype I was looking for that didn't really exist. But then I found it in nature and there was really in Amazon where that first discovery was made that it's actually all the lessons already there. It's just you have to observe and look into nature and then you will find the answers. And then we got this opportunity to have this ayahuasca ceremony with this indigenous tribe, and it was me and my girlfriend and this guide, and there was no way to communicate because they had their own language. It's like every tribe there has his own language. They don't know Spanish or English. So it was just with energy that we had to communicate. And we were given this bowl of ayahuasca to drink. And then there was another guy showing up, and then there was another girl showing up and we were thinking they have never seen tourists before maybe or so they would be very curious like what's going on or what's happening?
(00:47:33):
But they were receiving a cup of ayahuasca as well. And then another one came. So the whole village gathered around to do this ayahuasca with us. And even the children would get a little bit of ayahuasca and even the baby of not even 1-year-old would get a little spoon of ayahuasca. And that made so much sense actually. And if you look at that with their western mind, you'd think it's absurd, but it's really like there was four generations there doing this sacred, taking a sacred medicine and being in harmony with each other. And that was really powerful to experience. And that also made sense that these words that we know very well, for example, shame or trauma or depression, they don't have that word. It doesn't exist in their language.
Speaker 1 (00:48:38):
Wow, that's quite a profound statement. It makes me think of when the Dalai Lama was asking questions at a meeting from an interpreter, what do you mean people hate themselves? And he said, we don't have this, this expression. What do you mean? They hate themselves? And we hear the story and how interesting it is that we can live in different ways that yes, that the trauma is such as shame and these kinds of things, and being an enemy to ourselves actually doesn't exist. We work in community and we heal in community and that we've done that from the moment we were born. And even when we're in the mother's womb, as we know, that environment also absorbs many things.
Speaker 2 (00:49:43):
And that's the beauty about it, that it was not even the psychedelics who did the work, it's what insights that came from this different worldview that there were different realities or different truths. So that made me think about mine as well and see it through different perception.
Speaker 1 (00:50:51):
Do you just work with philocybin or do you work with different psychedelics? Do you do that just in a private space or do you do this in groups?
Speaker 2 (00:52:29):
So the main psychedelic I work with is psilocybin because of the legal status it has in the Netherlands. I would love to work with MDMA as well. I know how powerful that is as well. But we're not in that situation yet because we got indeed a lot of karma to resolve from the war on drugs, like a lot of stigma around psychedelics and how harmful they are thought to be and neglecting a little bit of the amazing potential they have for healing purposes. And when you work with psychedelics like the classical ones, I've worked with ketamine as well for a while - that was not really my cup of tea. It's a dissociative, they’re another class of psychedelics. So it is really something powerful and can help a lot of people to get a break from the depression or the downward spiral because you get dissociated from your emotions, from your feelings, from your thoughts.
(00:53:35):
So you have some space that you realise that you don't have to identify with them. But I'm on a different journey because I'm really trying to dive into these emotions, these feelings, and these thoughts to really get as close as possible. So for me, ketamine is not my journey to work with, but psilocybin is. And when you start to work with the classical psychedelics, they always call that ‘the art of letting go’. So it's really letting go of control or letting go of everything that you thought was real or letting go of your ego. And that's for the client, the patient that's going through it. But it's definitely true also for the therapist who's guiding the therapeutic session. So that was also letting go of these disorders or the DSM that we work with where everything is very well classified and reported, but it doesn't says anything about the cause of it.
(00:54:44):
And so I much rather believe the paradigm of the native communities where they said your in balance or out of balance, it doesn't really matter if it's mental or physical or whatsoever. And western science is catching up with that as well. We're seeing now, I also work in a hospital in Amsterdam where we do medical research for psilocybin. And it's really interesting that we see the same results. So for medical condition, we see the same results as for a mental condition. And we know also that there's a lot of neuro pathways that are shared. For example, pain and depression. They almost share the same neuro pathways. So that makes you think how different is a mental or medical physical illness actually, and do we need different medicine for that or just one holistic medicine? And are we actually a holistic being? And one of the big things that psilocybin does, and also this is something from the native communities, every plant medicine there has a spirit connected.
(00:55:59):
So for example, cacao, the chocolate that we know has a spirit as well, and it's called the grandmother because it's very warm and loving. And I think that's also the reason why we give each other chocolate on the 14th of February. So it's really something heartwarming, just like a grandmother can do. Psilocybin, they call it ‘el nino’, so the holy children, and they see that science is catching up with that as well because we see if we put someone on a brain scanner when they're under the influence of psilocybin, we see that the brain gets very neuroplastic and the ability to learn is much higher. And we see that actually with children as well. So they're also in a very neuroplastic state, very highly suggestible, but also able to learn new things much quicker and also let things go also more easily. And for me, it makes this very funny perception where sometimes I look at children and I'm looking at, they could be under their influence of psilocybin and I wouldn't be able to tell. They would be crying, laughing, being angry, and that everything in one minute.
Speaker 1 (00:57:19):
I am interested in what you say, you just hinted at the spirit, the spirit of the medicine, and you mentioned Peter Levine and something he said that it's not a matter of erasing or reliving the trauma, but about coming to the part of ourselves that is deeply spiritual. And I hear a lot of people talk about, who've been through these journeys, about connecting with the spirit. And I think for those of us who haven't been on these deep journeys, it's hard for us to understand that if we've not had a deep spiritual connection with ourselves or something greater. Can you talk to us of spirituality, in the spirit, what it means to you?
Speaker 2 (00:58:21):
Well, actually it's something that almost everybody is familiar with, but we don't know it. And I would say the best example of a very deep psychedelic state where you are connected with spirit or feeling that you're in a different altered state of conscious is actually falling in love. And falling in love is something that you will feel that is on a very holistic way, that you don't feel tired anymore. You have a lot of energy, you cannot think straight anymore. Everything changes. And it can be like in a split of a second.
Speaker 1 (00:58:59):
Thank you. So I feel something else that brings us energy and makes us feel, not falling in love, but in a way it's a different way. It's this creativity. So when you brought me to the hospital that had the barbed wire fence around it, where you worked just until September, you also took me into the forest to an amphitheatre, a beautiful amphitheatre that used to be in its own safe space and unfortunately now has an apartment block built next to it that's overlooking it and has become disused. And I have a deep belief inside of me that lack of self-expression leads to depression. And the importance of creativity and self-expression that can take many forms is a real key to people finding and expressing who they really are. Can you talk to us about that and perhaps what used to go on in that amphitheatre and why does it no longer? And what for you is the importance of creativity and having a creative outlet in the context of mental health? That's a big question. I know it's a lot of questions in one. Take it wherever you wish
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Yes. So the amphitheatre was really a place where people would share the creative output. It could be singing songs together, doing a theatre play. And there is still some of those things left in the hospital, but the reason why it's being neglected is because of we neglect the therapeutic benefits it has. And I think that's a mistake because it's really powerful to get into connection with your own creativity because that is source at the end. So really,
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
So yes, you just said ‘that is source’, and I hear this from those who've done a lot of work, especially with traditional ancient wisdom that they say, ‘connecting with source’. What is source?
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
It's indeed quite difficult to explain. So I would recommend everybody to get an understanding about it, to read the ‘Course in Miracles’, which is a great book because it really puts it so clearly. And the story of the book is really amazing because it's a psychologist who wrote the book and it's a very spiritual book, but the psychologist, she didn't know what she was going to write until she has written it. And it took her seven years to get here with another professor in psychology. And it started with just a voice in her head telling her to write something down. And she was getting a little bit of a panic attack because she works as a psychologist. She was like, I'm getting a psychosis or something, I need to get locked up soon, or medicine. So she was very confused and very distressed, and she went to her, a very brave thing to do, to her manager who was also a professor in psychology and telling her like, Hey, can I share something with you?
(01:02:49):
And he said, of course, in full confidence. And then she shared it, she was hearing a voice and what should I do? And this manager said, okay, calm down. Let's see what the voice wants to write down. And that was actually the journey that they were on for seven years. That was eventually the book of course in Miracles. And that really shows us that creativity and being brave enough to follow the creation or the source or whatsoever. And the definition they use for source is ‘to see behind the illusion of the ego’ and that the ego is actually the thing that keeps us separate, feeling that we are separate from nature or separate from each other, but at the end we are all one. And that's really true on a science basis as well. I mean, you are made of the same material as a star or a planet or me. So it's really on a fundamental level, it's true.
Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Thank you, Maxime. That's really a beautiful way of describing it, and thank you for guiding us to that book. I'll make sure that that's in the podcast notes. It's a big book. But yes, it sounds like an amazing read. Everybody I know who is reading it is highly recommending it, but it's got to be something that yes, you are ready for and you really, yes, this is part of the exploring. And I think a book I'd like to highlight that's taught me a lot about the importance of creativity and two people who've really most recently brought that to light and done a huge amount of research are Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen. They've written a book called ‘Your Brain on Art’, and they've looked at all the research of many different ways that we can express ourselves, whether it's through music or acting or painting or many, many different ways.
(01:05:15):
And it's quite an extraordinary book from Ivy Ross who must be in her seventies now and worked as a designer, one of the key designers for Google. And in parallel with that, she has definitely been an explorer interested in architecture, but then going to the pyramids and looking at design and how shapes affect many different things like energy and how we feel, and to drumming. Her story was, I think as a child she learned to play the drums, and to play the drums to drown out the noise of her parents arguing and then realising that she felt it was so calming. I mean, later in life she really explored the effect of sound on our bodies because our bodies are like 70% water. And she was part of creating this dome where there were microphones suspended above these, I think there were steel drums with water in them and different sounds create different patterns and different designs.
(01:06:28):
And I've seen short videos of this, but I mean, this is something I find deeply fascinating and actually deeply fascinating in the context of what you do. You have actually guided me on a Psilocybin experience, and I have never in my life done taken any drugs or I've actually even never drunk that much alcohol. And to have this experience was through a real curiosity of really wanting to get to know myself better. But understanding, yes, I think we can understand so much about ourselves by allowing ourselves to open up. And whilst many drugs or most drugs suppress you, what I found deeply fascinating about psychedelics is this kind of mind open capacity they have and not the mind shutting down capacity. And certainly my experience with you as a guide was one, the extreme care and attention that you took in choosing the music. And I had no idea how important that was going to be.
(01:07:52):
And particularly for me, I mean, I have definitely, since being guided in that journey with you, I have now a whole different relationship with music and being deaf in one ear and with 50% loss also in my other ear, which is supposed to be my good ear. I've always had this thing is that I can't hear. Actually, I realise I have great hearing, I hear it in my body and I hear it in my heart. And it was such a lesson to me, and I'm so aware of it now, and I really wasn't aware of it before. And so first of all, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Thank you. And can you share with us your journey with music and the importance of music as part of that psychedelic feeling journey and opening up journey?
Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
So yeah, music is really something profound. I was playing as a drummer as well in a band. So for me, music has always been a way to express and also to get, it was a deeper knowing that music and psychedelics was important. There was also a study that have been done, which was really pointing in the direction as well, where they did the study with people and their experience of music, and they really found out that there was a before and after of experiencing music. And what we know about psychedelics and how they work in the brain makes a lot of sense because one of the things that you'll experience as a classic hallucination is a synthesia. And synthesia is where sensations, different sensations - so the smell, the sight, the hearing is getting intertwined with each other. And that's really what these tryptamines do, they are playing as an antagonist for the serotonin-2, A receptor in the brain, which is really in their cortex functioning as a messenger.
(01:10:10):
So messaging between the different brain areas. And now there's a lot of communication available between the different brain areas, which normally would not communicate that much with each other. So you're really allowing or being able to experience music, for example, which normally you would hear with the ear, but to feel it with all the sensations that you have. And that creates such a different experience where you don't hear the music, you just feel it, you and you can become the music even, which is so profound because we see that music is really a way of communicating emotions to each other. And I always like to say that the conscious mind is using language as a way to communicate, but the subconscious mind is only using feelings. And you can feel when somebody's playing music that it's not the conscious mind who is playing, but it's the subconscious mind who's playing. And you can receive that directly also through the subconscious mind and feel that music and psychedelics or psilocybin is enhancing that ability to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Yes, I find this really fascinating, this whole effect that music has on water and how much we are made up of water, but just how our sensorial system is able to take on sound and interpret it, and it's how it's so not, we just think we listen through our ears and we so don't just listen with our ears. And I also feel that about when we listen to people speak, when we're present in our bodies, we become much more aware, like at the pitch pace, pause, power, and inflexion of the music, of the speech and the feeling and the intention behind the words as opposed to the words spoken. So you can feel actually what that person is saying that's way beyond the words being spoken.
Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Yeah.The HeartMath Institute is an interesting organisation who does some study about that, where they are looking at how the heart behaves when people are saying things to each other in a certain meditation and they really see a difference when somebody is telling something from more the place of the heart with the emotions that are truly meant, then it's more from out the head. And I think the study even showed that you don't even have to speak out those words out loud. You can just sent those words to each other and it will be felt by the other in the heart.
Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
So many interesting things to look into, and it links very nicely with what I'm going to call somatic experiencing, although I'm stealing that again from Dr. Peter Levine, just how yes, we experience music and words and the true meaning of things with our bodies beyond the words, but also how with our bodies, the way we embody trauma is really important and that so many of us just don't realise that. So then that really is based a lot on Peter Levine's work, but also Bessel Van Der Kolk’s who wrote a book, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’. Can you talk to us about our bodies and how we take trauma into our bodies and hold it there, and why that's important for us to understand? Is there any way you can help us sort of relate to this side of difficult experiences and trauma?
Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
So yeah, there are different pathways to understand how this works. One of the important ones, which I learned through a classical therapeutic therapiey like EMDR, is you learn how the brain stores information. And the definition of trauma I really like is that ‘trauma is a pathway in the brain that is stored that doesn't work in your benefit’. So it doesn't say anything about what the trauma should be. And that's also true if you look into the DSM, you won't find any explanation like, oh, this plane crash is a trauma, or this abuse is a trauma. It won't say anything about it. And that's very good because it's an experience and for one person, it can be traumatic and for the other it doesn't. And to understand why and for whom that is, is really to look at the brain and how that pathway is stored, how is that information stored?
(01:15:44):
And we see that the hippocampus and the amygdala are two main parts that are involved in when we talk about trauma because they are trying to help us survive in this potential hostile environment where we got this trauma in the first place and they will have a couple of tricks to help us survive. And that, first of all, we should not forget this experience because we made it alive. So we must have done something good. So it will be the amygdala, which is our central alarm station, which will say like, ‘Hey, there's a fire going on’. So it will alert us to that there is something that we need to take into account in the hippocampus where these informations are stored. So to make sure that we don't forget it does a little trick and it make sure it doesn't store it in the rest of the area.
(01:16:45):
If I'm going to ask you what did you eat two days ago in the afternoon, it's going to be difficult to remember and maybe also too slow for you to, if you got in the same situation again to survive it. So we'll use emotions to store the information so it's readily available. So when I ask you about this traumatic experience, then you will know it straight away as if it was yesterday. So that's one trick they do. The other thing they do is to make you not forget is to bring it back up. So when you are triggered, you see something that is familiar to that event, it will be playing off again even if the brain knows from, it's not the same situation, but it will just to be sure that you don't forget. So that's really how trauma is stored more in the brain. And of course the whole body is responding to that as well because trauma is actually a whole story about the nervous system. And there is also plant medicines that help regulating the nervous system.
Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
So the triggers, I mean I like the how Gabor Maté describes trauma as ‘Trauma is not what happens to you, but trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you’. So I find it interesting that people can have different types of trauma and maybe perhaps we should say what trauma is because people talk about big T and little t?
Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
So yeah, the big T and the little t, those are things they say when it's trauma or when we are talking about PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome) and PTSD is when there's multiple symptoms coming up so that you don't sleep well, you don't trust anyone anymore, you are having nightmares. All these things with if you had a trauma experience or traumatic experience, you don't necessarily have those symptoms. So, it's maybe a little bit less severe. I don't know if that's the right word because it's always severe. But just to bring it into perspective. And what I also like about Gabor Maté talking about trauma is that the freedom of getting rid of the trauma or the healing from the trauma is the stimulus and the response in between there is a gap and the bigger that gap is, the less immediate the traumatic response is to the stimuli or the trigger. And the more freedom can be felt so that you don't identify with the trauma or the trigger, you can just stay with the experience or the thing that is felt because it's just the hippocampus that is triggering these emotions to help you so you don't have to react. Of course, that's very difficult when you get triggered just you want to react. But staying with that in that space, that's really where the freedom is of trauma and the healing.
Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
So I think triggers are interesting. So triggers, are they emotional triggers that provoke us to make a very sort of reactive response rather than to stay in that gap and become response
-able?
Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
Yeah, there are actually cues of little hints of informations with the brain can grasp to see what's going on because our brain doesn't have any clue what's going on. It has to trust on our sensory input. And so these triggers can also be in the body and that's what really Bessel Van Der Kolk, his work is on. So a very practical example is if you look at the breath, if you breathe in, you can feel the lungs are filling up, the belly is filling up. If it's a slow steady breath and it's the diaphragm who's doing a lot of work in that situation. If you're a bit stressed it will be more a shallow breath. It's more the chest that will do the work. But if you have been stressed for a long time or you've had, if you got scared, the first thing you do is you hold your breath and you really are setting attention to the core. So your diaphragm is actually getting more tense. And if that happens though, it's stored in the muscle, that's what Peter Levine is always talking about that it's stored in a muscle. The trauma, that's what it means. So the diaphragm is actually more tense, so the whole body or the whole breath is not able to relax as profoundly as it was before. So it's really working on that muscle, giving it the signal to relax, which helps you to get out of this traumatic response.
Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
And I noticed something with Peter Levine, not only does he get people to really feel in the body where triggers and reactive responses are taking place and get people aware of that and working with that, he also works a lot with words of affirmation. And he often brings these out at the end of his therapies and gets people to say things, which I mean you and I, we've been to see, we were very fortunate to see Peter Levine, Bessel Van Der Kolk and Gabor Maté together last year in Kripalu in Massachusetts for five days where we observed Peter Levine working with people. And I found it fascinating the fact that you can say words and that those words are really, your body listens to those words. I mean, can you tell us a little bit more about this? So it matters how we talk to ourselves even in everyday life?
Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
Yeah, so that's the same thing that we were talking about the water and the energy that the words have, and that the water is Emoto's work. And there were many studies done that duplicated this with, I think they did it with rice bowls and they let people say ugly things to these rice bowls and beautiful things to the other rice bowls. They let people say beautiful things and then the rice bowls, they react very differently. Or even with plants, like plants that were sealed off, one plant that got all the ugly words die very quickly and the other one flourishes. So that's really what we do to ourselves as well. And it's unbelievable if we look how many people are saying the most ugly things to themselves all of the time, if you would say that to another person, it would be a crime actually. So it's really heartbreaking that people are doing those things to themselves and it's not strange that your body is responding to that and it has an effect on your health and general wellbeing.
Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
Yeah, that's really, really interesting. And I think there are many, many people who'd find it very strange to use positive affirmation and words like that. They just feel very self-conscious and silly and yet they are so powerful and the researchers there and the greatest teachers like Peter Levine are, that's just part of his every day work. And it's so simple. Isn't it incredible that some of the most simple things we can do, even just the learning how to talk kindly to ourselves can be so powerful and to stop saying such ugly things to ourselves. And first of all, being aware that we're even doing that!
Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
It's simple but it's not easy.
Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
And so just coming back briefly to the gap between, because it seems like creating that gap between the trigger and response or the insult and the response. So is that part of what you try and achieve when you're working therapeutically with people is to try and enable them to create that gap for themselves where they are response-able and can really see it for what it is rather than have that kind of fear or threat response?
Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
Yeah, so that's actually where I see that the psychedelic is doing a great job because we see that this synchronises the brain. So it really is not possible for the brain to get into that story, like that direct response. So it's creating a gap or a space automatically because the brain doesn't know which pathway to take because of all the communication and neuroplasticity that's going on. So it's really an opportunity that you see there, where this gap is way bigger than it was before. So there's so much space and time because of psychedelic journey like that last for three to four hours to reflect and to see things differently and to realise that even if you're triggered, because that happens by your own emotions or thoughts of course as well, that it is not who you are and there is so much space to feel that freedom of that you are in control or that you can decide which story you're going to follow it up with.
Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
And so many of us get stuck in a story without knowing it because we believe our story. And has that got to be one of the cornerstones of recognising the story? Is that also perhaps a cornerstone of your work and finding different ways in or is there a way that you find particularly powerful in getting people to hear that it's a story and then question it?
Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
Yes, so recognising the story is something that I think we inherited a little bit of Freud and his theories that it is very important just if I know where it's coming from, then I know the solution. And sadly, that's just only half of the truth. Maybe not even. The good thing is that we don't need to know the story or where it's coming from or heal it. It just needs to be felt. So the other quote that I really like is that ‘connect to everything but do not attach to anything’. And that's really also about our stories and it's scary to detatch from the stories because we believe that that is who we are or that defines us, but that's also not true.
(01:28:30):
I think it's really, we are such dynamic creatures. Even if you look on a biological level, you and I sitting here in one second, already three millions of our cells are dying. So after this podcast we are for I don't know how many percent we are like a new or different person and we are changing all the time. Also our personalities or experiences are shaping us and we find that difficult to tell ourself that is true because it's already such a complex world that we're living in that it makes it even more chaotic and we tend to believe the story that we're very static beings much more because that gives us a false sense of security.
Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
I am really fascinated also about how we all try so hard to avoid any kind of suffering and we think we should be able to lead a life that is just happy with no suffering. And yet I feel that there is a value in suffering that we can tap into, or pain that we've experienced. Would you feel that the pain and suffering you've experienced in the past is really part of your strength?
Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
I really like the quote of the Dalai Lama where he is saying, ‘I don’t know, maybe it was the Buddha actually but they're saying ‘pain is something that comes with life and the suffering is optional’. So there is a very big difference in pain and suffering for me. And for the question about pain, yeah, definitely the pain was my biggest teacher and helped me to grow - the suffering that was optional. That was my own decision to stay longer in that pain than necessary because the pain was showing me the lesson, what needed to be learned and not the suffering. The suffering was actually coming from me not wanting to be learning that lesson from the pain.
Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
That's so valuable. Yes, I really connect with that quote. That's a very, very important distinction to make. So your vision for mental health, I mean it's hard because life is so complex, but if you'd had a magic wand and you had a vision for where mental health could be, what could be available to people, do you have a keystone that you would like to be there or top three things that you think should be a focus that is being ignored? So for me, one would be that creative outlets should be an absolutely invested part of the mental health system. Are there any that you would like to add to that?
Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
So definitely two things that come to mind. One thing that I always say jokingly, what would be very great for our own mental health is that with New Year's Eve, if we instead of the champagne and we bring a toast, we just all took a little bit of MDMA, then the whole world would be very different. So just replacing that single event on one day, that would be a major shift. If I had the magic wand, that would be nice. That would be just a way to celebrate the New Year's and start from love. The other thing for mental health specifically would be to let go of the responsibility that we think we have about or the responsibility to help other people because of course it's a great intention to be helping people, but it's not something we can do. You can only help yourself and we can be guides that can be your sparring partner or to give you an advice which maybe you can do this or you can do that. And we are just trying to do the impossible. We are taking the responsibility over someone else's health and then we blame ourself and the other if we're not in a success. So the mental health is really creating an impasse for himself. So I think that's really important that we let go of that responsibility over other people's health because it's not our burden to carry and it doesn't mean that we don't care, but it's something that's just not possible to do.
Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
So at this point in your professional journey, where are you now? What are your aspirations now for you to offer people to help them be able to find ways to allow them to heal themselves? I know that you are working with Frits, with BaseQamp. What are some of the other things that you're doing? I think you have your own practice as well? Just give us a little insight into what you do and then we will put on the podcast notes how people can contact you if they wish.
Speaker 2 (01:34:25):
So let me think about this one for a second. So let's answer the last question first. Getting into contact with me is very difficult because I don't have any marketing tools that I'm using so that I don't own a website or I don't own any Instagram or social media. And I've been on the path or on a decision crossroad where I was thinking should I get something like that because people are asking for it. And every time I'm on that crossway and I made the decision not to do it because I really believe that the power of mouth is the most powerful one of all because that's about trust and that's just such a nice way to start working is that somebody who you trust and who I trust is recommending each other to each other. We have a great start and if we use marketing then it will be already a little bit diluted. So the only way to get in contact with me is to find somebody who you trust, who I know or I trust, and then we can be in business. What was the other question? Are the other things that I do or aspire?
(01:35:56):
It's quite difficult to explain because getting less and less but more direct or how can I put this? It's really being as open as possible to hear the story of the other or the experience, what somebody wants in life at that moment without me putting my story in there. So really trying to experience and feel what's happening in the moment and trying to let it unfold in the moment. And that most of the time I don't know what I'm going to do or don't know what the patient is going to say or wants to tell me, but we always work something out because that's the agreement of therapy. There's a famous Dutch psychiatrist who puts it very nicely, like therapy is just an agreement with the patient and a therapist that we both don't know, but we'll try our best to find something meaningful in it.
Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
Nice. Yes, that's beautiful. Now we've talked about sacred plant medicine, yet what I've experienced walking with you in the mountains is that we can go on a walk and we can come back with so many different plants and herbs and then Maxime creates an incredible salad. He'll make the most incredible pesto that I've ever tried and he has even written booklets on these plants. So your interest in nature and in plants goes far beyond just looking at psychedelics and in fact your interest in mushrooms go way beyond just the interest in psychedelic mushrooms. How did this begin and yes, what is that inside you that is so curious?
Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
So that's actually a good point and a good aspiration. So for myself in the future, because I am still sitting way too much in an office, I want to be outside way more any aspiration or the inspiration for nature and these plants, medicines or just plants that are the medicine and the food. And that's really actually started with the psychedelic experience. I could not believe it that something that grows in nature has this profound of an effect on you. And I'm talking about the truffles, I could just not believe it that nature is so powerful in giving us what we need that it could not be the only thing. So there must be different medicines, even if it's not psychedelic or it not so profound in the state of conscious that you get in, it must do a lot to the body. So that was when I started to look into these different mushrooms and different foods, different plants.
(01:39:26):
And it's also what everybody in the ancient time was telling as well. I think he says, ‘let food be that medicine and medicine be that food’. And it's also something in Chinese medicine. So it's really something that is, it's the basics and it's so important, but we don't spend a lot of time for it. And it's very, it's so easy, it's so delicious, it's so much fun to go outside with each other and to hunt for mushrooms or to look for edible plants and you learn a lot from each other and with each other. So it's really like a very creating force, a creative force. And it feels that you are connected with nature and are also nature instead of that we are human species and this is nature. No, we are one.
Speaker 1 (01:40:23):
And I think that's a good point you make as well, that actually gathering different types of food and then making food is really creative exercise and one that you are very good at as well.
Speaker 2
So one more comment about the food part because you were asking me where's this coming from, this aspiration for food? And I think that really has to do with my French side of the family. So my mother is French and my grandma who is really the head of the family where she cooks big meals for the whole family and my mother has five other sisters. So it was a big family and the children and small children and you see really saw outside of the dinner table, there was a lot of arguments and there was a lot of chaos. But when we were together because of the food that brought us together, there was such harmony when we were at the dinner tables and it really showed me that how strong this food can connect each other again with each other. And we also, this is shown by science and that's why I love science and the other wisdoms because it's the same thing. It's not something different, it's just two different perspectives telling the same story. And we see that what happens with the serotonin and the tonin in the brain, and we do it in our societies as well, if you have a business meeting, you do that during dinners, you have business dinners and because the chances of success and the chances that you are going to trust each other are just higher. It's not something that we consciously think about, but it's something we just are, it's in our DNA to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
Yes, that makes perfect sense. And actually I relate very well as I'm sure with your story of your French grandmother because I too have a French grandmother who was an amazing cook and it really was her cooking and that attention, that cooking with love and bringing us all together that really kept the family together. And we do know this, but we just don't recognise how important that is.
So Maxime, is there anything you would like to say to people out there who feel the despair and desperation you once felt as a child?
Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
I think the main message is to listen to your feelings and don't doubt those feelings because the feelings that you're feeling, they are right and it's very easy to dismiss them or to say or let others tell them that it's not true. But your feelings are always right and they will guide you if you have the courage to follow the feelings. And it's not always what we want, but it's what we need to get into better shapes.
Speaker 1 (01:44:34):
And taking that just a little step further, we feel things in different places in our bodies. And I don’t know if it's internal family systems or who says, ‘where do you feel that?’ So if you feel it in your chest or you feel it in your heart or you feel it in your gut or are you are just feeling it in your head? So, is there a difference where we feel that? Should we listen to our gut? Is there such thing as intuition listening to our heart? Do we know when it's kind of really inside us, we know what's right, or sometimes we just override things with our head. Do we need to take care with that?
Speaker 2 (01:45:14):
So yeah, there's this interesting study from Heart Math, which I've looked at the heart to see if it's just not an ordinary pump, but also something more. And they did a study with a foetus in the belly, in the womb still of the mother. And they saw that at one point the heart is beating, it's starting to beat. I don't know the exact week when it's starting, but when you look at the embryo then the brain is not yet developed. So that raised the question, what is racing or beating the heart? And the heart is actually beating itself. And they looked at the heart more thoroughly and they saw that the heart has 40,000 neuron cells just the same that we have in the brain. So it has its mini own brain in the heart and it communicates almost excessively from the heart to the brain.
(01:46:18):
And there is not so much communication from the brain to the heart. So that really puts in hypothesis from like, is this where intuition is coming from? And we have it in all the languages around the world. It's always talking about the heart where the intuition is or the feeling is or the love is, but now it's shining a light. Maybe this is where it's truly health and how it works. So I would definitely agree with listen to the heart where it's felt and it's different. Also the differentiation between a feeling or an intuition and an emotion is also something different because the intuition or the feeling from the heart in this example is really something that is very stable. It's a soft voice, but it's a very constant voice. It will not change that much. And an emotion can be very dynamic and also explosive. You can feel it very thoroughly and very excessively, but then it can be also going 90 degrees difference or 180 degrees. So intuition doesn't do that. It's really more stable but softer as well. So it's sometimes more difficult to listen to that voice and it's easily to override by emotions or your thoughts or inner critics.
Speaker 1 (01:47:45):
That's really helpful. And I've never heard anyone be able to differentiate that word in that way. So thank you. So there's a couple of questions that we always ask everybody at the end of a podcast. I have to say that you've definitely embedded so many rich quotes that I feel have really helped me understand so much of our conversation today and really deepen my understanding of those points, yet do you have a favourite quote and also a favourite film that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (01:48:33):
I have two favourite quotes. One I already mentioned and that's ‘connect to everything, but don't attach to anything’. And the other quote that I really like is ‘Don't Worship the Gate, but go inside the inner temple’. And they're not from my favourite movie unfortunately, but my favourite movie is Dune from Frank Herbert who wrote a book about it. And the reason why it's my favourite movie is because it's really combining a couple of passions, like my passion for sci-fi and the creative flow that's in there. And also my passion for psychedelics or psilocybin in this case because the whole Dune universe and the whole story that has been told is also following this archetypical hero's journey of Carl Jung, which has a lot of archetypes. So it's from a psychological perspective, it's really interesting, but there's all these Easter eggs hidden in it where it's actually showing that it's about psilocybin the whole story. And it's been asked to Frank Herbert when he was already later in his life and when he already wrote the book, if that was true, that it was a link with psilocybin and he confessed that he wrote the whole story while being inspired by psilocybin sessions. And once you know that in the back of your head and you look at the movie, it's a total different experience and you will see the parallel where, well, these two worlds are colliding
Speaker 1 (01:50:25):
Maxime, I cannot thank you enough for you've shared so much with us and I just really hope that everyone else who listens to this, as I feel myself now, that this curiosity inside of us and this courage to explore and to know ourselves better will grow more and more each day and that that journey will be rich and exciting, yet not free of ups and downs, and that we look at those ups and downs as something that can transform our weaknesses into strengths and our courage into wisdom. Thank you so very much.