Dear Friends! As you know I have always looked for the root causes of everything to help you help yourself! I set up an amazing practice, trained tens of residents, taught hundreds of practitioners and the public in the US and Europe, was on TV, spoke at conferences, had a family, farmed, built gardens, raised kids, etc. pp. I did what I possibly could, never waking a minute. But after my own burnout in 2021 I went on a deep search for my own root causes for that and found that it all has to do with how we see the world and how we react to the world around us. That lead me to a much deeper understanding of the root causes even of nutritional and other chronic health problems, not to even talk about psychology.
I found that the activation of our nervous systems (subconscious stress), due to our individual upbringing, education, training, conditioning, trauma-filters or otherwise programmed reactions to inputs from the world (such as demands, conflicts, “feeling stuck”, treated unfair, feeling lost, victimized, helpless, hopeless, overworked, exhausted, unhappy, not content, not in peace, not enough, have to function, survival mode, have to be there for others, unloved, unworthy, not whole, etc. ) – all that creates reactions in our nervous systems and as a consequence in our physical bodies.
One could say: Our own Upbringing / Conditioning -> Reaction to environmental stimuli -> Psyche -> Nervous System -> Hormonal system -> Immune system -> Disease.
This is one of, if not the main underlying true cause of our wave of chronic diseases. Definitely for the 30% of the population that are considered Highly Sensitive.
The fact that some of us consume what we know we shouldn’t consume could be seen more of a symptom of the fact that we are consciously or subconsciously chronically stressed or unhappy due to work demands, driving, TV, news, politics, aggressive people and other effects of the “modern” western world.
An organism that is chronically stressed can not relax enough to rest and recover, not even at nights, when it is bombarded with Wi-fi signals. The immune system gets reduced or overactive, detoxifications and repair functions are impaired, unnatural processes happen in the body and over time it slowly becomes sick. The disease itself is really more a symptom of the chronic subconscious stress (and our reaction to it).
Imagine 2 people on a roller-coaster. One is having a blast and the other is vomiting. Their experience could not be more different, but it is the same situation for these two people with completely different predispositions and nervous systems and two very different perceptions of the situation and outcomes… In that sense a sensitive person can not compare themselves to a non-sensitive and should not be judged by them. It’s juts that us sensitive people get sick earlier or we realize and feel it earlier and the less sensitive may feel it when it is either too late or may never feel it (or acknowledge it) and simply drop or be surprised by a nasty diagnosis one day.
This is us in modern life:
We get sick! Some sooner, some later.
That’s just how it is, because it is the modern life that makes us sick.
So what can we do about it?
I have always promoted a return to nature, as much as possible and when I practiced that by myself after my burnout I became healthy again and regained my energy. But I also needed fun and social contacts, plus healthy love.
Not all of us can completely return to nature or change our situation in an easy way, but we should also not simply ignore the symptoms of disease, because if we ignore them it will just get worse and worse…
Our body needs TLC.
So what can we do?
We can work on our own reactivity to chronic stressors. We can change our perceptions of things. We can increase our mental flexibility and positive outlook.
How do we do that?
We have so many tools nowadays to increase our mental and emotional well-being, it’s amazing:
From classical emotional-focused therapy to EMDR, meditative techniques such as IST or positive NLP, some go on spiritual quests, then there are endless self help books, (holotropic) breathwork, extreme adventures like walking the desert, traveling alone and for the serious ones we have darkness retreats and – one our oldest (and newest) and best tools – psychedelics.
Why Psychedelics?
Most Psychedelics were used for tens of thousands of years by our ancestors before being banned in the 1970’s due to irresponsible use by the public and a war machine that did not want love and peace in the face of a strong enemy. They were used by traditional cultures (all around the world and including our own) for millennia (think alcohol, fly agaric mushrooms, Ergot fungus on wheat, old church windows, greek mysteries, burning bushes in the Bible, Psilocybin going on every continent, cannabis, etc.) and have been scientifically researched since about the 1950’s with some having amazing potential for therapy, mental health, stress reduction, reducing trauma and increasing well-being. Then after a 20-30 year break, research picked up again in the 1990’s and now we have a solid 50 years of scientific evidence and research on their effects on the brain with thousands of studies (over 35,000 entries on pubmed alone).
So what are psychedelics, why is everybody suddenly talking about them, are they safe and what do they do?
Classical Psychedelics, such as Psilocybin, DMT and LSD can be quite aggressive in high doses, but can also be very helpful in helping us see our lives or what happened to us from a new perspective, some even use them to explore the ultimate reality of the world.
The end goal is always to let go of the emotional charge / reactivity related to a traumatic / negative experience that holds us back or burdens us. But trauma can also be passed down through families, generations or societies.
These medicines can help us find a way out of a situation that feels deadlocked or hopeless. Maybe we were a victim of a crime or felt abandoned as a child or we feel that someone is treating us unfairly and our brains can get stuck in victim mode, revolving around the same thoughts day after day, week after week for years or decades. Without resolution our self-maintaining systems (ego) can hold on to them until death and be unnecessarily stressed and burdened by them.
It’s time to let go what does not serve us! Why hold on to something that makes you sick or unhappy? Who is helped by that?
Psychedelics can break that cycle and show us a different perspective. A perspective that we can experience while being conscious and awake, like in a movie we see about ourselves and experience ourselves in there, as if it really happened to us in a directly felt way. They help our brain to reconfigure the memory and perspective of a situation. associate a new memory with it, maybe see it as less bad, negative or unchangeable or even as something that helped us become who we are. release the old and negative and embrace the new and positive. All this happens more or less automatic in a high dose session and with support from a therapist or coach in a low dose session…
Psychedelics also have physical effects, for example Psilocybin can increase the connection between brain lobes and make us “smarter”, increasing neuroplasticity at the same time, which is the new growth of new synapses (nerve connections) and nerve cells. New nerve cells? Yes, new nerve cells, you read that right. And that means that we can regenerate our brains!
These are the effects of classical psychedelics, but they can also come with a few potentially negative aspects, f.e. visions and “hallucinations” which can be hard for sensitive people when taken in high doses but are usually more tolerable in lower to medium doses for sensitive people and almost non-existent in mini and micro-doses.
The states of Oregon, Colorado and New Mexico, many Central and South American, some African and Asian and some European countries, as well as Australia currently allow the use of different types of classical psychedelics or traditional medicines as they are sometimes called (usually Psilocybin, Mescaline and DMT / Ayahuasca) for therapeutic use. And almost all psychedelics are allowed to be examined responsibly in scientific studies in most countries. But that does not mean that they are automatically good for everybody. Highly sensitive people have to be very careful with the stronger versions of these medicines.
For classical Psychedelics in high doses there is a caveat: one has to be able to withstand or see / face uncomfortable things. Sessions are usually done with a licensed therapist or trained facilitator and require a lot of “integration” afterwards, i.e. one should never just go and do one of these without a good support system!
Are there safer ways?
Yes, there is a class of psychedelics called “Empathogens”. This is my favorite class… Empathogens include MDMA, Psilocybin in low doses, Ketamine in low doses, Mescaline in low doses, Kanna and others and are usually much safer and more comfortable for sensitive and highly sensitive people.
Empathogens work differently. They do not usually contain visions, but decrease feelings of fear, fright and disconnection / isolation while at the same time increasing feelings of love, happiness, contentment and connection. Both to one-self, others, the world and in general. MDMA f.e. allows us to experience a feeling of all-encompassing unconditional love. something many of us search for all our lives…
Empathogens can be really beautiful. They can show us the full potential of love that resides in ourselves. They have been described as “experiencing the love of God”, or “how life should be”, maybe even “how it was meant to be before “the fall”. An empathogenic session feels how life could feel like in an ideal world and can be one of the most beautiful experiences a human could ever make. Something that gives hope for the future. Something that might help us heal our hearts and maybe create a better world one day. A world without wars and abusive (traumatized and traumatizing) people. Something everybody should experience at least once in their lifetime. In addition to that, empathogens like MDMA are amazing in refreshing, renewing and healing relationships. Relationships to ourselves, our partners, parents, children, siblings, loved ones, people who hurt or damaged us, relationship that have grown stale, even relationships to our own inner parts, memories and stories.
Empathogens like MDMA reduce the activity of the Amygdala (the trauma center in the brain), so that for the duration of a session, normally even horrible memories of trauma, social anxiety, chronic fear-based stress and other negative emotions lose their emotional charge and can be safely looked at from a perspective of unconditional love and without any fear or anything that court hurt you. In an MDMA session you feel absolutely safe, if the container is held responsibly.
This helps the brain to reprocess these memories in a healthy way until at the end of one or more sessions often the negative memories remain only as simple memories without the associated feelings of fear, pain, avoidance, trauma and overwhelm.
These are all ways in which we can change our perspective of things, our perception of things and our reaction to things, while at the same time expanding our faculties. We realize that WE are in charge of our happiness and that there IS a way to become happy and let go of whatever it was that traumatized us, held us back or made us scared, feel treated unfairly, trapped and had us stuck in negative loops for so long.
That way we can become truly free and truly happy.
Let that sink in for a moment…
Becoming truly free and truly happy.
Did you ever think that was possible?
After all we as individual and as humanity have been through?
And what are the physical consequences of that?
Imagine feeling safe and happy in the world, full of love and enjoying life, YOUR life to the fullest…
You will suddenly see: Lower blood pressure, better immune function, less cancer, less addictions, better diet, less food intolerances, less chronic disease, less infections, better mood, more energy, joy and happiness and before we know it we become part of a better world.
One that starts to work on the future and making things better instead of lingering in the past and regretting things and feeling worthless, unloveable, unsafe or victimized…
That is what I would like to share with you.
With a “Certificate of Psychedelic Therapy and Research” (CPTR) from the renowned California Institute for Integrative Studies (CIIS), one of the best evidence-based training courses in the country (and world) and after studying and experiencing other transformative techniques for years, and meditation for decades, we can now offer you macrodosing, mini-dosing, and medium dosing psycholytic, psychedelic and other therapies, coaching, facilitation and integration (where legal), depending on your individual needs to help you overcome your own subconscious limits in the most efficient (and often beautiful) way we know.
Many early adopters have already been helped in ways they could have never imagined and we are expecting a wave of deregulation of psychedelic medicines in the course of the next year(s) due to their amazing psychological benefits and healing potential, backed up by thousands of scientific studies.
We at Functional Wellness have always been extra careful and sensitive about things like this, so you can trust that we would never recommend anything blindly or not taking precautions and making sure that whatever we recommend is the best possible solution for you. Mentally and Spiritually. Safe.
Talk to us if you are interested in beginning your journey to resolving your issues on the deepest possible level.
This Journey might not always be easy and you might be anxious, apprehensive or scared in the beginning, not knowing what to expect, etc., but with the loving support of a handful of hand selected caring experts and with time and personal growth, you will make it through and emerge as the happiest version of yourself on the other side…
It’s so worth it…
And because not all psychedelics can be done at home or in a clinical setting, we love referring to our friends at www.fantasticjourneys.com where you can explore psychedelic, meditative, nature immersion, deep relaxation, darkness and other beautiful retreats around the world, mostly in Costa Rica for now, but also on request in Oregon, the Catskills (NY), Florida, Europe (Germany, Denmark, England, Spain and Portugal), Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia or other places. Our colleagues there come to you if you can not come to them.
Join us and turn your life into a fantastic journey…
🙂
With much love…
Jan