Embodiment & Trauma with Dr Mario Alam (EP#195)

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The wonderful Dr Mario Alam joins Mason on the show today to share a genuine and open hearted conversation centred on the nature of empathy and connectivity, and how these elements are innately wired into our universal humanity.

Mason and Mario traverse the somatic and cerebral landscapes as they explore how unresolved trauma at both the childhood and multigenerational level can interfere with our inherent capacity to confidently feel, rather than think our way through life.

Mario highlights what happens at a physiological level when the body and mind experience prolonged stress (emotional and physical) and the many tools and practices one can use to release tension in these areas and the being as a whole. 

Throughout this conversation we can feel the open tone of receptivity as Mason and Mario share this important dialogue, relaying the personal experiences that have influenced them individually on their journeys toward a life lived from an embodied state. 

We explore the therapeutic outcomes that are available through the appropriate application of various psychedelic mediums, including MDMA, psilocybin, DMT and iboga, especially in the treatment of addiction and other mental health conditions.

Mario and Mason cover an enormous amount of ground within the scope of holistic healthcare, carrying an overarching message that embodiment is key when working to restore harmony within the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual planes.

Emphasis is placed on the importance of honouring the intricacies of the mind/body connection and the integrative process that is so integral to healing, but often missing from more unilinear modalities of health. 

Two kindred spirits, on a mission in their own right, to alleviate unnecessary suffering and degeneration, uniting through a passionate exchange to vision a harmonious and vibrantly well future.

A truly enjoyable and inspiring listen.

"If we look at depression, it’s where the person is so overwhelmed with their emotional body that they escape into their mind to depress the emotional overwhelm. And so that depression is that of an unintegrated state of the mind that is not able to process all that overwhelm of emotional experience. ’Cause we live in a mental construct of society rather than the embodied feeling body.".

- Dr Mario Alam.

Dr Mario & Mason discuss:

• Empathy; how to utilise this gift and move it through the body.
• How trauma impairs our ability to trust the sensations of the feeling body.
• Using acupuncture and kinesiology to help children process their somatic experiences and emotions.
• How trauma impacts the body's physiology.
• The prolific application of steroidal medicine in the Western medical model.
• Using Taoist tonic herbs to regulate the body and nervous system.
• Micro dosing psilocybin and neuronal connectivity. 
• The power of Psychedelic assisted therapies in the treatment of mental health conditions.

Who is Dr Mario?

Dr Mario is a preventative healthcare practitioner, psychedelic and plant medicine specialist and founder of World Doctor, Embodying Psychedelia, Embodied Reset Retreats and the Embodied RESET Program.

Dr Mario advocates and embodies a ‘whole picture’ approach to health. He marries his professional skills in Western Medicine with wisdom and knowledge gained from personal interaction with spiritual elders, shamans and medical pioneers across the world. 

Dr Mario has travelled to over 50 countries gaining unique insights into the human condition. His signature program Embodied RESET is as a breakthrough program to prepare for and integrate psychedelic medicines and to effectively provide holistic solutions to the healing of trauma.

Based in Byron Bay, Australia, Dr Mario's Embodied Reset Retreats focus on integration therapies and embodiment to the teachings of the various Psychedelic medicines.

Mario is the founder of an emerging event known as Embodying Pyschedelia. A gathering that emerged out of the need for embodied practitioners and healers to be an essential part of the integration and embodiment process. Starting as a health practitioners 3-day gathering exploring how collaboration can create dynamic new programs for the integration of psychedelics without the use of medicine is about to expand into the public arena in 2024.

Well loved by his patients for his deep intuitive presence, Dr Mario has a passion for community, and the integration between science and spirituality.

Resource Guide

Guest Links
Dr Mario Website
Dr Mario Instagram

Mentioned In This Episode
Little Jewels Acupuncture Go Fund Me Page
Khalil Gibran Poem - Children

Related Podcasts
The Future Of Psychedelic Assisted Therapies with Tania De Jong (EP#189)
Love, Sex, and Psychedelics with Dr. Molly Maloof (EP#137) 

Check Out The Transcript Below:

 

Mason:

All right, brother. Thank you for coming into the herb palace.

Dr Mario Alam:

Oh, good to be here, bro. It's been a long time overdue.

Mason:

Yeah, it is. I think really it was only that time passing each other at Pilates, going in, coming, and you leaving Corey's going in over at Mint Pilates when I got to give you a hug. Yeah. I'd probably say one of the most famous names in all of Mullum and beyond.

Dr Mario Alam:

I feel blessed to be part of this community. I think when I first came into the area many years back, I was like, well, I was trying to find a place in Australia where people look after themselves, where it's a meeting of two worlds, where as a practitioner, as a doctor, you do the best you can to keep your patients well. And in Mullumbimby, it's a pretty special place where people meet you in that level. So in that space, it's a joy because I don't have to pull people's teeth to help them. They're wanting to help themselves.

Mason:

Because you're known as Dr Mario and you've had a general practice?

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah. So I work in the Mullum Medical Centre for the last seven years and I try to keep my patients healthy. Of my patients, I don't have patients who get heart disease or strokes or new onset of diabetes. And for the last seven years, I haven't really had patients developing cancer. So it's a pretty unique experience I feel as a doctor here being in Mullumbimby experiencing that kind of medicine. Not many doctors in Australia can probably say that same.

Mason:

Well, I don't even think they'd even be thinking about that because it'd be such a non-thing and it'd be like obviously very hard for a lot of doctors, they're still humans for their patients to come to them and say, "Oh, well, I've got cancer." They wouldn't hold any of the weight of that responsibility I'd imagine. They're not trained that way, which is, I'd say, very, very unique.

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah. Mullum's a special place.

Mason:

Yeah. Because I know a lot of people on your books and a lot of patients like that and families that go to you with that intention, it must be such a relief, I was going to say for the patients, but for you to find a place where you can practise in that manner.

Dr Mario Alam:

Well, as an empath, it was quite an essential for me because I'm a feeling person. So that for a long time as a young kid I was quite sensitive, didn't really understand what that sensitivity was. But as an adult and having gone and travelled and explored different psychedelic medicines and explored different consciousness, explored different ways of being, it actually has opened up my sensitivity to awareness that we are all empathic beings at heart.

 

So when we come back into our body, we actually realise we are all connected at a deeper level. So between ourselves, between each other, between the natural world, but often the things that in our society or our humanities often contract us from actually reconnecting from that level of deep connectivity between each other. And so I realised a long time ago, I'm an empath.

 

So as an empath I feel my patients and because I feel my patients I realised after a while I couldn't keep staying in the system where I was just supporting the downward stream of medicine. I had to look at medicine from a new way. I had to look at it from a way where I'm helping my patients to lighten their load, to feel more alive, to feel more strength, to feel more clear in their body, because invariably when they come into my rooms I can feel them. And so I couldn't hold that weight of the density of a downstream way of thinking.

Mason:

Oh, it's such a pleasure to feel the vibe of it. And just imagine the room that you have there at your practise. 'Cause we were talking a little bit beforehand, I was mentioning we've discussed that feeling aspect when you're holding that space, whether a doctor or just offering anything, offering a space to a patient. We've talked a lot about it and especially around classical acupuncturists who are able to logically take in information but also feel where the Qi isn't transforming or Stephen Buhner talking about the heart perception and being able to almost empathetically feel where the blockages and the herb that jumps out. But it's been a while, to be honest, since I've sat with someone who's really embodying that. And whether it's a natural skill or a refined skill or a learned skill, I imagine it's quite natural for you.

Dr Mario Alam:

It's inherent to all of us, to be honest with you, Mason.

Mason:

Yeah, that's what I was going to talk about. Yeah.

Dr Mario Alam:

It's a natural state being, we're actually all meant to be connected. We are a big mycelium of connectivity of fibres that are all part of the one, if you want to say it, that great organism of life, whatever you want to call it, God or so source, but are like great organism of life that's all interconnected.

 

And so how do we reconnect as a humanity? 'Cause we need it more than ever before, where this time in our existence, where we're seeing the world being plumaged in ways that we need to start to reconnect and to look after our earth. But to do so, we have to look at how are we looking at our own ecosystem? How we're looking at our own ecosystem within ourself and those around us? And how to reconnect that back in so that in the reconnection to each other, then we can also reconnect back to the earth?

 

Because often people remain stuck in their own worlds by the very nature of trauma or disconnect or things that have taken them out of their body. And that disconnect that creates people to go back into their mind to cause disconnect from the body and that disconnect to the body disconnects people from the earth.

 

And so you look at the Native American tribes, for example, I remember when I sat with the... I went to South Dakota with the Lakota Nation and done the Sundance ceremony through there and it was amazing to witness their reconnection to the earth. 'Cause you look at the Native American tribes, they wear either bear feet or they wear moccasins. So the moccasins is the leather that keeps the connectivity between their body and the earth.

 

Now, they have a central space where they put a tree, which is called the tree of life, where in ceremony, they present a lot of their prayers and is that tree. Now, it's been dry for days before the ceremony starts. And when they go to the bush to pull the tree that they're going to use in the ceremony, before that, it was sunny blue skies, then all of a sudden at the moment they pull the tree out of the earth, all of a sudden rain comes in, thunder comes in, winds come through, and continues all the way until they put the tree into the centre of the space, at which point the rain stops and the winds stop and the rainbow comes out and eagle starts flying up above.

 

And so they have a really deep connection to the earth element, to embodiment of who they are. And for four days, they don't eat, they don't drink, they dance under the sun. They do sweat lodge in the morning, sweat lodge in the evening, and finish it off with a peyote ceremony to really ground their spirit back in. And so I've been blessed to have had some pretty profound experiences of embodiment along my time. And so it's hard once that's awakened within me to not to experience or to sit with that as well. Yeah.

Mason:

Yeah. There's so many things there. I really like the idea of... I've really been watching myself go into formulating the next question a couple of times and it's been a really enjoyable experience to drop down into the feeling and the exploration of that world, likewise, having many embodiment experiences. And that's it, you're tattooed and you're marked, even going through phases of, whether they're phases of whether it's high-load or high-level of responsibility that takes you into a different direction or area no matter what. There's that capacity still sits there. Once you've got it, it's there.

 

And I, going into the practise, again in terms of that, because it's such a skill, you can see how we've gone into institutional learning of medicine. And that's therefore what's been lost is either an individual being facilitated going through particular experiences, it leads to embodiment, therefore, that leads to their capacity to really land and embody the knowing that, "I can operate this way, I can feel I am connected to other people, I'm connected to the earth." And so I guess the renaissance is coming and the reintegration is here. And it's really quite exciting and contrasting.

Dr Mario Alam:

I'm excited with you, bro. Let's go. Let's go.

Mason:

Yeah, well let's go. And I think what's intimidating is the amount of personal responsibility there is and the amount of personal... Because it's such a unique experience and it's also comes the personal responsibility of having the boundary really set or knowing of yourself and being set in yourself. Because people who are empathetic without that refinement can become excessively empathetic and get dominated by other people's feelings. And I'm curious, as the practise that you have, it's a lot of space and you've got that as the foundation of your practise. I'm just curious as when you're in that space and what that, let's call it a skill, to make it practical and for people who are doctors or offering healers, however we want to take that word, it's a practitioners, what's that experience for you like or how do you feel the information coming in and getting processed?

Dr Mario Alam:

Yep. I find you got about, when you are meeting with somebody, you got a window period from which you experienced that perception coming through. So it's about 15 to 45 seconds is what I find is when you feel somebody, suddenly you feel in your body. So you got about a window period to see how you can move that energy through. You can either, if you can breathe into it to bring awareness into it because I can feel like, "I'm feeling something coming up in my chest or something coming back in the back of my neck." And if I feel those kind of things coming up in my body, then it was like, "Well, are they mine? Are they somebody else's?" And to move it through with the breath is one way. If it reduces down, I find that, okay, it's usually both people. If it goes away, then it's often the other person's, or if it remains the same, it's mine to deal with.

 

So in the experience of my patients, I often bring awareness to presence first and foremost. And there's an invitation, "Well, how are things going in your heart?" Or I kind of use that information to then process through the consultation, things that help to guide to give the answer of bring resolution to that feeling inherently for that person. So I may give them advice around, "Have you thought about doing some stretches to your back or some yoga or maybe explore some breath work?" I kind of added into the armour of things that I offer them on the end of the consultation, and with the awareness about that, which I feel in my body. And I find that that awareness, it brings into fulfilment of that feeling. So it's not locked into my body, but it's kind of passed onto them as a wisdom for them to go forward on their journey.

 

And after each consultation, I'll try to just reset the systems. I just breathe, oh, I shake it out of my body. You've got sprays that I use to clear the space around the room. I'm pretty lucky I've got a room with lots of light coming through, and I've got plants in my room that create a good vibe in there as well. And I've also, over the years, developed a practise where people come to see me ready to look after themselves. So if a person is coming in looking for a quick fix solution or, "Oh, give me medications to fix me up," and they're not willing to take responsibility, I tell them to go see another doctor. I'm not their doctor. I don't take on patients who are not responsible for their own health 'cause it's too much for my system to take on also.

 

So if somebody meets me in the interim of, "Let's work together to get the best out of our health. Let's go, we can do amazing things at that point in time." But also, you have to catch somebody in an early phase of things, so that if a person who's an empath who's experiencing, who's seeing a lot of patients, often they'll attract people who they've got a lot of problem or a lot of density. And it's not to say that these people can't be helped or you're not the person that help them, but you have to be mindful how much you take on. Because if you choose to take on a person who's got a lot of work to be done and you're taking on, you may actually develop disease yourself.

 

Because if you haven't yet mastered your capacity to be able to integrate that information in your body and to process it, or have ways to clear it at the end of the day or have ways to move it through, and maybe at some degree you're empathically taking that on and that will create some level of charge, will impact relationships around you or impact how you feel on your mind, how you feel on your body. And that can lead to problems if unattended to.

 

But having a regular practise, whether it be going for a swim in the ocean at the end of the day or having a shower, or we can put your hands in salt, or you can use some sprays, or you do a good yoga practise, or go for a run, or do an acupuncture session, or get a hug. There are many different ways of moving that energy and understanding the perception and the realisation that energy exists.

 

And if we look at the sages that have come before us, the Christ, the Buddha, they're always depicted with a field of energy that surrounds them. And so I look at these role models in our humanity as guidance to, well, what are we actually moving towards? We're moving towards activating a state of embodied higher level of consciousness. But we look at, say the example of the Buddha. Now, Buddha, he was born of a privileged society. He was a prince. He grew up with the Vedic ways, with wisdom keepers, with the Vedic astrologers. He was taught archery, he was groomed to be a king.

 

The early years an aesthetic came and they, like a spiritual leader, and he said to them, "If your son was to experience pain or suffering, then he would choose a path of the aesthetic to walk a spiritual path." And so his father, the king, wanted his son to be born to be a warrior king. And so he didn't want his son to be exposed to any trauma or any pain or suffering. So what he did, he took all the old people and all the people who were suffering, he moved them from the kingdom to a place far away so his son would grow up without these experiences.

 

And so it was that his son grew up into this amazing prince. But what it is also, he didn't grow up with trauma. Trauma was always processed if that was to occur. And so he got married, he had a child. And then when he left the kingdom one day he experienced somebody, and said in the stories, experienced somebody that was dying. And experienced the pain and suffering of that moment, that it became so overwhelming within his system that he couldn't go back to his life again and started to hit the road and to walk the path to determine how to transform this pain and suffering that he was experiencing.

 

And so yeah, most of us have experienced trauma in our early childhood. We don't have the same upbringing as Buddha would've experienced, where it would've been a lot easier to attain that level of awareness or consciousness. But for most of us, we're still transforming those traumas from early childhood.

Mason:

Let's go in, I'd love to talk about that. 'Cause what I was sensing to keep on following the thread of is what you were talking about and having a practise and having the capacity especially, 'cause when you go into feeling the responsibility comes from, especially in sensing what's theirs, what's mine, what's neutral, so on and so forth so you don't carry it through life and create disease in yourself, which I think is something, not that it's taken lightly, it's probably just that civilization has exploded such, to such an extent we haven't quite caught up. We used to have teacher and student and now we're trying to catch up for what's a community-based approach so we can all have be reflected back when we're in integrity and holding that place of healing for people. And when we actually don't have the capacity and we need a little bit of extra support, then it's not appropriate for us to be empathetically going in and sensing that because we don't have a practise or capacity to stay clean ourselves.

Dr Mario Alam:

Well, it's also we've lost our capacity, not we've lost it, but we've disengaged from our capacity to speak on those terms. We are taught to think rather than to feel. We've had the last 2000 years of more patriarchal systems where we've been more taught to be in our minds than to be in our bodies. And over the years and the centuries, the healers or the witches or many of the people that were bringing the awareness to the embodiment, the feeling to that aspect of the unseen were either demoted or prosecuted or burned. So that we're coming at a time when we are integrating these paths that have been long forgotten and actually realising, how do we come back into the awareness of that subtle body?

 

And you've got some amazing teachers that are coming through at the moment in the world, Bessel Van Der Kolk is coming through. And Gabor Mate is one of the world leaders in terms of trauma. And the likes of Peter Levine, who's all written some amazing books about the somatic nature of our embodiment and how trauma is often held in that... Because if you look at, even at as adults, we come into our mind about our communication, but we don't know, we're still learning, "How do we engage in this feeling body?"

 

And that's often the problem because from childhood, because from childhood you look at how does trauma develop? A child when they experience an emotion of anger or sadness, say little kid has experienced somebody took a toy from them. The kid gets angry and gets into a response of overwhelmed by an emotion. Now, that kid may go away and go to a corner somewhere and just sit and rebel into that emotion and that becomes internalised for that child.

 

Now, if a child has surroundings around him that allow him to experience that emotion and to speak about it and to integrate it, then that child will allow that emotion to thaw out. Whereas if it's not allowed to thaw and to be processed, then that becomes internalised and that internalisation causes a disconnect for that child. And that disconnect from that child causes them to start to create patterns of not feeling safe to be themself in their minds.

 

And that space of coming into the mind, then you start seeing the pattern each time they experience the same experience of anger, for example, then they'll go into their mind and construct around their mind to try to find ways to feel safe, but not inherently actually dropping into their body to help them to process that emotion. So we develop this as adults that we find our safety becomes in our mind rather than in our body to actually find the processing. To really come back into our body, we have to process that emotion, not only from the adult point of view, but all the way through that ripple of that emotion all the way to the pebble from where it started.

Mason:

So there's a few connection points. The fact you started off Siddhartha, I don't know why I've been been talking about Siddhartha the book a few times, in few of the podcasts recently. So I love that you told that story leading up to that point where the story kicks off and that nature of completely sheltering. And I'm thinking about where I'm at with parenting and learning.

 

And I'll say, yeah, sure, I think I have an innate capacity for empathy. But yeah, learning a lot about parenting at the moment and trusting the child. And so seeing in that story with the Buddha, the father not trusting the son to be able to go through those processes or not... And yet the slippery slope that we have as parents, which we're all due to cock up in some way. We are, I'm sure I'm doing it a bit right now, of facilitating that the trauma's going to be there and if it can't be there at all, you're going to see there's going to be a disconnect as well. If the trauma is happening without the trust of the body to be able to go through and embody, then we're not going to be able to move past that trauma. We'll be internalised and so on and so forth.

Dr Mario Alam:

You could also explore kinesiology with kids as well, which is great. There's also acupuncture to get the flow moving through. There's exercise-

Mason:

There's a GoFundMe at the moment for-

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah.

Mason:

Did you hear about that?

Dr Mario Alam:

That's our dear friend Candace.

Mason:

Candace. That's right.

Dr Mario Alam:

Candace is an amazing being who's doing some great work with kids to help support the community kids with acupuncture and child minded experiences to help them to process and to find the answers so that we can start that healing process from young with the kids to keep them in their body.

Mason:

Yeah. Little Jewels Acupuncture. I'm going to send this message straight away to the for podcast notes. But yeah, sorry, go on. In terms of how amazing it is that we live in this time where we can even have awareness of kinesiology, osteopathy, like the acupuncture for children, just Chinese medicine application to children.

Dr Mario Alam:

Absolutely. It also Mullum's a pretty unique place to experience these kind of things, I'll be honest with you, Mason. Yeah. But hopefully the ripple effect of what's been birthed here in Mullumbimby maybe will have its impact on the rest of Australia as well.

Mason:

Well, I think the most amazing thing at the time is these centres, and I'm one of the things I can see both sides of it, is something I think we see in some parts of say, not necessarily the Mullum community, but the progressive community, especially around health and development, is we're like, "Well, we're going to put a stop to the patterns that our parents had in place."

 

And I quite often think I have my empathy for my parents in terms of not having access to an iPhone that can just go and look up or go and just order a book on child embryology and get some insight about what's going on. That they were completely just reliant on the information that has been fed to them from institutions and been cut off themselves, and intuitively kicking along to create even a platform from where they were, to then get us to the position where there's a wave of their children or there's a few generations that are going and exploring this information. That's one thing I'm really always quite filled with awe of how our parents were able to offer that for that possibility for us.

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah. Yep. And each generations wants their next offspring to move forward. And there's a great poem by Kahlil Gibran, which talks about children, that your children are not your children, they're children of life longing to develop itself along these lines. And they may come through you, but they're not off you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for their thoughts dwell in the house of tomorrow, where you may not visit, not even in your wildest dreams. But you are the bow in their archer's hands and your children are like the arrows in the bow, that as the archer pulls arrows arrow back to go forth, let that to go with as much force and a much love moving forward in the future. And just as the archer loves the arrow that goes far, also loves the bow that is stable.

 

And so I think as parents, we have to remain stable and emotionally connected to ourselves and do the best that we can knowing that it's often multi-generational trauma that can exist. And that disconnect takes up probably five generations for the impact of those patternings to come out of their programming. But we are at a time in our history now where we have all the available resources to create a change in one generation. That's the work that I'm working on.

Mason:

I'd love to talk about that. Because you've got your finger on the pulse in terms of seeing what the linchpins are for a lot of your patients. I don't know if that's why you've landed within trauma and intergenerational trauma.

Dr Mario Alam:

It's one of the things. I see traumas, because if we look at trauma in itself, is creates stress. And that stressed response is caught up in the part of the brain in the hindbrain, the mid-brain, in a place called the amygdala, which regulates emotions and also regulates the area around our primitive experiences around the breath, around heart rate and how we function at the primitive function. So that these primitive responses, this flight flight response that's stored in this primitive brain is, if we look at stress, stress will cause the heart rate to go up but also cause a breath to increase.

 

And so if we look at the breath increasing, the wavelengths of breath in our body, when we take slow deep breaths, we drop into our body a lot deeper. And so when we have stress, it makes our breath go up faster. And so we disengage from our body and we go up into our mind more so. Not to say that we can't embody it all with a rapid heart rate. If a person's in their flight-flight response, they're in their fullness of their, "I can do this." Yeah. No, that's a great response. That's a healthy response. But if a person doesn't have a connection to their embodiment and they're disconnecting through flight-fight response through stress environment or emotional dysregulation, then that becomes a pattern of going up into the mind, rather than allowing their body to regulate that primitive response.

Mason:

Just talking about the amygdala, I haven't actually thought about this for quite a few years. I've been doing some work on that evolutionary core idea and purpose for when the business started, just so I can define the muse a little bit more and the pattern and the personality of it. And you just took me back talking about the amygdala there to one of the moments that I felt affirmed that I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to stick with the herbs as being the primary kind of pattern trait or personality trait of the core essence to execute on its purpose." And it was because I was reading this book about the HPA access and how when there's dysregulation between hypothalamus pituitary and the adrenals that it used, you see that the amygdala can especially start projecting, essentially. And going into that fear cycle and taking us from embodiment, which can just simply through regulating that axis.

 

I'm not a physiology or generally an endocrine kind of focused person, but I remember reading it and then my friend, who it was Indigenous medicine man, was with me at the time, I was walking with him at the time, and I was talking about this because I was talking a lot to him about the direction, how resistant I was to going into a commodity, essentially a product. And he was like, "Oh, that's that HPA amygdala thing. Yeah. That's what we work on in Walkabout because that amygdala is that projector of all those thoughts and all the war and all that trauma. And we go walking until we get back into that regulation with ourselves and with nature. And at that point, we integrate it." And I was like, "Right. I'm going to stick with the adaptogens." But I hadn't thought about that particular sense until you just brought it up there. Yeah.

Dr Mario Alam:

Because I wondered why I would be walking for 10 days, 20 days sometimes. It's makes sense, it makes sense.

Mason:

What he said was the only way is to, when you go, well, the only way they had it that at that time is because the brain is so, the mind's so connected to the story and that it needs to survive and needs to hold onto this story and this trauma in order to survive, which I think we all know that, the psychology of that. And he was saying, when you look at the waves and you look at the trees long enough, your brain still thinks that they're interesting things that you need to look at. But because of the repetition, nature starts plucking out those thoughts because you actually don't need to remember the methodical wave of the ocean or the tree. And that symbiotically pulls it out and kind of tricks or puts your system at ease and allows it to let it go. And it takes as long as it takes.

Dr Mario Alam:

How do you find the herbs are working in terms of adaptation of that hypothalamus pituitary axis as well?

Mason:

The nice thing about the herbs is they just get to sit in such a complimentary place. And sometimes they're absolutely phenomenal and you see it's a particular linchpin at a particular time that it gives someone access to be able to engage with a trauma on a deeper level, or maybe just to be able to not continue down a path of inevitable exhaustion and getting a little bit more... And other times, it's just how they can just help a smidge when someone's already deep in a process. And that's probably the most rewarding part of the herbs.

Dr Mario Alam:

Especially with stuff around the adrenals as well. 'Cause if you look at our body as waves, if we look at the slow deep waves that are lower part of our body, we talk about say the base, around the base and sacral, the base is usually around the adrenals area, so the flight-flight response. But often it's around the above the kidneys and it's the area that we least give amount of awareness to 'cause we live in often what's ahead of us rather than necessarily what's behind us, which is in our lower back.

 

And so the disconnect from the body also creates that loop of not feeling safe because we haven't been able to regulate that mind body connection. And so the dysregulation that occurs then creates this hyperactivity of the adrenals, which creates more stress, and that stress creates more pressure on the amygdala and therefore creates more problems in different ways. So that's why I really like the herbs in terms of supporting the adaptogenic herbs that support the adrenals to allow us to actually help to regulate so that we have more resources to be able to continue to find our way back home again.

 

Because if we get depleted, if we look at especially the adrenals, we produce as many different types of hormones, including steroids. But when there's prolonged stress that occurs, that prolonged stress which is combined between the mind, the body, but also to say the amygdala and the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal access, that prolonged stress leads to cortisol production, and that prolonged cortisol production eventually gets depleted if there's an ongoing stress. Now, we look at in disease in modern practise, when a person goes to see a respiratory physician for their asthma, what is the respiration give them?

Mason:

Yeah, well like a ventilator or-

Dr Mario Alam:

Or steroids.

Mason:

Steroids. Oh yeah, of course, they're their favourite.

Dr Mario Alam:

And so the same thing if you go to see a dermatologist and you have a skin condition like dermatitis or eczema, what does a dermatologist give them?

Mason:

Yeah, steroidal creams?

Dr Mario Alam:

Steroidal creams. And same thing when somebody goes to a gastroenterologist with inflammatory bowel disease, what do they give them? Steroids.

Mason:

Steroids.

Dr Mario Alam:

And so it's this inherent-

Mason:

Like a silver bullet.

Dr Mario Alam:

Well, it's ultimately it's being able to act and to support the adrenals in our own body to keep nourishing the adrenals. But the problem with the disconnect that occurs is that disconnect continues that stress cycle. And this is what I'm really passionate about, how do we come back into our body? Which is for that reason I run programmes called Reset, that embodied reset brings people back into their body utilising trauma processes that transform all the trauma, all the way through to childhood or past lives or generation, utilising breath work to open up the container and detoxifications to pour toxins out of the body that have being caught up with those traumas, combined with body work to move the trauma out of the fascia that may have been caught up in that stress response.

Mason:

Which is transformational, that body work, when there's adhesions through the fascia.

Dr Mario Alam:

Absolutely.

Mason:

Oh, my goodness.

Dr Mario Alam:

It's all connected in that. And that's the thing, that's why the mycelium of connectivity all are connected. And so we're trying to understand, how do all these things come into place into connections. And so also the body work to move the fascia through, you got the acupuncture to get the flow moving through the whole system. And then ice bath to activate the adrenals to awaken the energetics of that person so they can vibe to come back into their body.

Mason:

Yeah, you were asking how I've been finding the herbs. One of my favourite thing about working with the herbs, Jing the ones for adrenals, is that it's just like a lifestyle. That's what's the Taoist, there wasn't a big woo-ha, other than they would move. The reason the Taoist sacred mountains are the sacred mountains is because that's where there was springwater, wild tea, and then a large amount of wild herbs. That's why they moved there because they were-

Dr Mario Alam:

Spring of Life.

Mason:

Spring of Life. Tea, you need the tea, their ultimate Shen tonic and or schisandra or reishi or ginseng or whatever it was because it was just, they're too good not to use. But it's such a pleasure to work with them because they're not the process themselves. Otherwise, people can go on megadoses of particular herbs and go through some pretty transformational things, but that's always self-led. But it fits into a process that you are talking about there, which is very specific and working on something that's very deep-seated, which is the thing that if allowed to continue to manifest without being able to be integrated or sensed will lead to degeneration, whether it's physical or spiritual.

 

And that's the pleasure because the herbs can be applied just the way, it's like, well, you're going to need to be sleeping at this time and you're probably going to want to be off substance, their basic lifestyle things, and the herbs fit in there. And so they just go out and do their work very subtly and get to support. That's been really, that's the beautiful thing. And hearing, I get really excited about those processes and from getting the pleasure of... That level of intentional process, that's what probably gets, I love the herbs, that's what gets me the most excited, that they're contributing to those kinds of things.

 

Because to be honest, the first thought they ever had, that was the inception of SuperFeast, it was me feeling it, but maybe the words weren't quite the thing that I was feeling, but it was like, I want to dramatically lower or contribute to the elimination of unnecessary degenerative disease. And that was the spawn of going, all right, then the herbs were help. And it's, I'm going along, I'm like, "I don't know how this is possible through herbs," because you're very literal in the beginning of business and you're naive. And then as I've grown, I'm like, "Ah, it's just that the mycelial webbing that I get to be... Yep, it's probably the same intention and muse I'm feeling that many other people are feeling." That's why there's this huge mission for everyone to facilitate these practises and for us to have an awakening of elders teaching us these kinds of things at the moment and-

Dr Mario Alam:

I [inaudible 00:38:36] that.

Mason:

Yeah.

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mason:

And you're doing a talk. I'd love to hear more about your process, but I know you're doing a talk tomorrow.

Dr Mario Alam:

I am. But I just wanted to speak bit some of about the mushrooms as well. You look at the Jing, is going to help support your adrenals. So it's going to help to nourish the energy packs of the system there as well. 'Cause if the energy packs get depleted, then our mental function doesn't work as well. And so we don't sleep as well, we highly more stressed. So we have to always keep on nourishing those adrenals and nourishing that energy pack. And I really like the lion's mane in terms of re-connectivity and connectivity of the neural fibres in the brain as well, which is interesting now with the inception, the introduction of Australia being the first country in the world to legalise psychedelics in the world.

Mason:

It's wild. Right?

Dr Mario Alam:

I know. It's about 10, 40 years behind the States where it's now we're leading the world with recognising these medicines as a medicine to be utilised and to be worked with. We've still got a long way for its full potential of what they're going to be providing for our humanity. But you look at say basic example of say the microdosing of psilocybin with lion's mane. In terms of neural connectivity, with children, one of the things that also contributes to disconnection is if there's neurotoxins that are seeded into the system that causes some level of neurotoxicity, and that neurotoxicity will shut down some of the neural fibres. That also reduces the capacity for an individual to be empathic.

 

And so these things such as psilocybin and lion's mane are going to start to reconnect those neural fibres. There's something called Stamets Stack, which is combination of psilocybin with the lion's mane and niacin, which is B3, which is allowing the blood flow to increase into the brain to allow these synergistic experiences to occur.

 

And so as we get those, neural fibres reconnecting into the brain and they're shown that a brain on say psilocybin is similar to that of a child or it shows the neural connectivity firing all the way through. So how do we keep these neural connections alive so that we can prevent things like dementia or prevent the degradation of our neural connectivity, which gives us a lot more connected not only in our mental constructs but also in our embodied constructs? Because as above, so below.

 

And so as we reconnect, we allow our fibres of reconnection both to ourselves in the embodied state, but also to each other and to the world. So we've got a pretty interesting time ahead of us. And yeah, I'm doing some talks about it with Mind Medicine coming up as well. Tomorrow I'm doing a talk at the community centre in Byron Bay as well.

Mason:

Just hearing you talk there, Because a lot of the time it's exploratory at the moment and there's a lot of people doing different things and doing different processes and a lot of different doctors awakening and to this now and so-

Dr Mario Alam:

Great time.

Mason:

Oh my gosh.

Dr Mario Alam:

I'm so excited for what's coming. Really is so long overdue, too.

Mason:

In terms of vision and sensing where it's going and the progression, I'm curious of any visions that you have in particular or anything you sense will be coming together in terms of what you imagine we're going to be able to create, whether it's in the next century or whatever?

Dr Mario Alam:42:07):

That's a big question, Mason. Look at what's happened even in the last 10 years and to conceptualise where we'll be in 50 years' time, I think no one would ever really know. It's impossible almost because the state of change that's existing at the moment is so rapid. And with the inception of things like psychedelics and AI technology that's coming through at the moment, I think we're going to see a lot of changes happening.

 

But if we were to speak to say the psychedelics and the impact of psychedelics are going to have on our humanity, there's already a lot of groups throughout the world, including some in Europe which are talking about the conscious evolution that occurs through the psychedelics and the introduction of psychedelics. Because if we look at the first ones that have been legalised in Australia, we've got MDA and psilocybin. So as it July 1st in Australia, the psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA for PTSD or anxiety and psilocybin for severe depression.

 

And we can go the ins and outs of what each of those do and how they work in the system. But if we look at on a more global level where this is all going to go, there's a lot of other medicines out there like ayahuasca and peyote, and San Pedro. And the one I'm really interested also, which is the DMT 5-MeO-DMT, which I think is a profound one of reconnection back to source connection, that dissolving of the duality of existence. And how do we connect back into that non-dual constructs of our humanity, which has often been shut down through other pay track or systems or religions or societal, cultural imprintings? Whereas when we reconnect back to that of who we are, we are an infinite connection to the source energy. We are a connection to God, we are infinite to the great organism of life.

 

And so dissolving that dual constructs allow us to realise we are all connected because we are all part of the one. And so I'm excited for that dissolvement of trauma that will start to occur with MDMA. Because something like MDMA is going to help to down-regulate the amygdala response that's caught up in the somatic awareness in the body. And so it helps to floodgate the brain centres with lots of serotonin that allows the emotional memories to arise. It allows them to be processed a lot more actively, rather than contracting through the experience, they're able to expand through the experience and allow them to literally shake the trauma out of their body. And so that's going to allow the empathic connection of the individual to expand out moreso.

 

But I don't know necessarily that the people that are creating these, that are supporting these medicines know fully that awakening's coming through the embodiment, that was through the aspect of awakening our empathic nature. We're going to start to reconnect much more deeply to each other. And the psilocybin I find is really interesting because there's the macro dosing that's being utilised for getting people out of the depression.

 

Because if we look at depression, it's where the person is so overwhelmed with their emotional body that they escape into their mind to depress the emotional overwhelm. And so that depression is that of an unintegrated state of the mind that is not able to process all that overwhelm of emotional experience. 'Cause we live in a mental construct of society rather than the embodied feeling body.

 

And so when something like psilocybin comes in, allows that opening to occur, then a person starts to reconnect their fibres back into their body. And the inception of say micro dosing that's coming through as well, will start allowing that slow connectivity to start occurring again. And that allows us to open up those pathways of connectivity at a deeper level between ourselves and each other, and then ultimately the world in that.

 

So I see good things for the world in the introduction of these medicines that are coming through. Some are coming through legal means and are still quite highly regulated and highly restricted. But as we see the benefits coming through and the science also supporting it, we going to see a lot more acceptance, a lot more normality of it in our society. And we'll see more of them hopefully be accepted. There's a lot of sensors around the world that are already utilising these medicines. Say for example, iboga for severe addictions is incredible 'cause it helps to dissolve the ego for days upon days, so that allows a person to dissolve that connection to their egoic mind connection to the trauma.

 

We talked about 5-MeO-DMT. I know some people who are working on giving, which is, it's often normally a smoked medicine, but it's looking at giving a sublingual micro dosing supplement. So it slowly allows the individual to reconnect back to that non-dual state of their existence. And what will come with that will be an abundance of creativity, an abundance of new consciousness, an abundance of new ways of healing. The health system will revolutionise itself because we have a much more efficient way of dealing with the most complex system, that being our mind.

Mason:

Well, yeah. What I was deep in there with you then sensing, I think for me sometimes the intimidating thing around that is the thought that we're needing to access new levels of consciousness. And you've talked constantly about reconnection, and it got me really feeling about the concept of harmony within all traditional medicines or within the Tao and how they will often talk about the access of the infinite love or additional consciousness, comes through a deepening of the richness of how we perceive and create harmony.

 

And so it's just around taking the concept. We think of harmony going, "Oh, you're balanced." And there's no potential to go, well, what if we take that harmony, the possibility for harmony within your body and turn it into something that's 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D, and it's already there and you feel it already been there. And you can feel within the organs that greater connect.

 

It's like an adventure to get the Liver having a conversation with the Kidneys and the way that the Kidneys communicate and regulate the marrow and the brain. And then the potential for harmony, you go out of balance and it becomes this intricate dance that you bring in these medicines, which it's the only thing I've been able to see. The population has exploded so quick, an industry has exploded so quick, and AI is exploding it so quick, it's the only, well, one of the only tools. There's why there's such a focus.

 

And sure, there's a lot of it being decentralised and a lot of it been used in ways that are just like, I don't know, there's always going to be that on the fringes. But in terms of being used in clinic or very responsibly within the community and increasing our IQ of how to use work with these medicines, you can just feel, it's one of the only things that's going to be able to catch us up to that level of disconnect from everything that's been going on. It's very exciting. I just can't believe the fact that we have that possibility.

Dr Mario Alam:

That doorstep come July 1st and it's just the start. Because people think it's a silver bullet, but it's not also a silver bullet, but it's a powerful support system for transformational change. But the work still needs to be done. We still have to come back and embody that wisdom, which is why I'm also really passionate about, I did a gathering about a month ago called Embodying Psychedelia, where I brought together the amazing practitioners that teaching about embodiment and somatics and created a three-day experience where people can awaken that energetic space and awaken that wisdom of what the psychedelics look into awaken in our humanity.

 

And it was profound, 'cause people I still get messages from today, people saying, "Mario, we are the pearls of wisdom of what happened. That weekend is still dropping in today. Because it gave us a permission to be more than just physical. We were energetically all aligning and working and existing in those three days together in a profound way."

 

I had one bill of practitioner's, presenters that was holding a workshop space and he had one of the women in his workshop faint. And when she woke up again, she was able to see everybody's field of energy, their auric fields, which is what the sages, the Buddha and the Christ always depicted with that field of energy that surrounds them.

 

And she was able to also see how the presenter, practitioner was able to disarm the collective ego of the collective and individual to allow them to open up into that field of energy. And so this aspect of the unseen will start to awaken to that aspect of the unseen as we start to bring the wisdom of the psychedelics and what they're awakening in our embodiment of our spirit.

Mason:

And I guess what's really exciting about these medicines being used within an institution is that the invisible will start being, I feel talked about for what it is, which is objective. There's objective reality there. We can all get a sense of the same thing. Maybe we need to get some of our own mind or stuff out of the way before we can feel something purely for what it is. But nonetheless, it's like on the verge of that being even, not that we need it scientifically, it is scientifically acknowledged that we're there. Yeah. Amazing.

Dr Mario Alam:

That's incredible.

Mason:

It is incredible. You'd have a website with all your events and offerings?

Dr Mario Alam:

I do. So my website's worlddoctor.com.

Mason:

Cool name.

Dr Mario Alam:

So I'm here on a global mission. So what I do with World Doctor, I create programmes where I make that process of coming back into the body easy. And I do practitioner trainings where I teach practitioners how to hold that programme and how to collaborate together. 'Cause I'm really interested in how we can... The collaboration model that exists to create new forms of consciousness in the collective.

 

And so as these practitioners come together to bring in breath work and yoga and body work and detoxification and ice bath or different teachings, different learnings, combined with the programme they've developed called Reset, which as I've mentioned before, is that systematic approach to transforming trauma in the mind, body connection. And so allows that dissolvement of the density that's held in the physical body. 'Cause when we dissolve these things that are contracting us naturally, we expand back out into the fullness of who we are.

 

And so I'm excited for individuals that come through these programmes. 'Cause I have people who've come through who have done programmes across the world and they've done psychedelics and they've done retreats and have done gatherings and say, "Mario, we wouldn't have come through this programme. It's been by far that the most profound healing we've experienced."

 

And all I simply do is bring a person to awaken through their mind, body connection to become the observer of their embodiment, rather than to do it through the constructs of the mind or looking at the body. Because often, people go see a psychologist, but a psychologist often will look at things cognitively, a body, worker will look at things through the body constructs.

 

But there needs to be a true integration of the two and a understanding of the mind body, but also the empathic nature to then drop into the observer within that to witness all that interchange and that weaving as you're looking out into nature. The breath of the winds with the leaves rustling, they're all in union. And how do we bring into that union of children to reconnect back to our flow of our embodiment?

 

And so with World Doctor, I've got a mission to help as many people as I can to awaken that embodiment of their soul through their body and bringing, also embodying psychedelia to creating experiences for people to come together as a collective to, how do we awaken that collective consciousness and how do we create new ways and new pathways of that wisdom, of that psychedelic realm? Long-term I'd like to create changes in the healthcare system. And one of my personal missions is to also open up Lebanese-Israeli borders as well. And that's a long-term vision down the track for more ancestral and my sole purpose.

Mason:

I feel you on that. And why not?

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, still, once we reconnect back to ourselves, we understand our sole purpose. It's just their calling for us, but just we have to clear these cultural and societal constructs that have been these shells protecting our most important asset, that being our soul.

Mason:

Well, the embodiment, I guess comes with the awareness of the interconnectedness or even just the capacity for collaboration, or a synergistic way of working. And if you're brave enough or connect enough, I feel, to acknowledge that there's a purpose that feels so vast and so grand, you started in the beginning and maybe in the beginning it feels like, "Oh my gosh, this is all on me and this is too much for one person." And then very quickly, you feel the threads go out and you talk about it enough and you start finding all the other threads that connect and it's like, "Ah. Right. That's right. That's not all of me."

Dr Mario Alam:

Well said. Well said. That's true. We've definitely gone through that one, too.

Mason:

Yeah, it's wild. It's always nice to have something that you can be like, "Yeah, and this is mine. This is me." And keep it sustainable within reason of what is actually used. And that's where the vision comes. That's where I like asking people, "Where does your vision run?" It spurs me on in terms of maybe it's mine or maybe it's not, but maybe parts of what I would like to accomplish in life cross over with what you're doing in terms of infiltrating the medical system. I'm like, "Yeah, hell yeah." Whether it is collaboration or working together or not, it's just always, you got to connect as much as possible and feel that weight. And then there's people within the medical system that I thinking the same thing.

Dr Mario Alam:

Absolutely.

Mason:

And well, you are within it. On the border.

Dr Mario Alam:

Working within the system, for sure. For change.

Mason:

But yeah, it's exciting, because once you come out of the vision conversation, you go back into the realities of what's going on in the world and you need the thread to be able to raise all the boats up so we [inaudible 00:57:59] there.

Dr Mario Alam:

Yeah. And it's so much more enjoyable when we're doing together. We are meant to be doing these things together. When we do something alone, it's easy to be challenged, to be attacked, to be taken down. Whereas when we work in collaboration, which is ultimately the great organism of life that comes together, then great change can occur. But I'm excited about when it comes through the, it's like it's a embodiment of it. And that's a time we're stepping into, we're stepping into now, I think a 20,000-year cycle of the Aquarian age. So we're only seeing now the precipice of great change in the world.

Mason:

And I think you were just talking about the embodiment and people who have gone around the world and done all kinds of healings and plant medicines and all that. One thing I have realised, well, yeah, whether you've gotten so lost in the physical or in the psychological, or even going to plant medicines and going into such, it's a big, blow your head off cathartic experiences. And a lot of the time really hoping that they land and can integrate, first, when you go through a process. And I would agree, processes, I'm really fascinated by what you're offering and teaching other practitioners because even though it's not the easiest thing to facilitate or it takes a certain amount of refined skill, it really is that simple, that embodiment-

Dr Mario Alam:

It is that simple. Yeah, yeah.

Mason:

... Is going to take all of those traumas and all the plant medicine insights and the years of meditation insight and help that highway of communication be present. Because I think the most intimidating thing is it's not a fix. It's not like, "There you go, done," as you said. It's, then you got to go on into life and you got to continue. You got to continue with your practise, you got to continue embodying. And that's the intimidating part, I think.

Dr Mario Alam:

Carry water, carry sticks. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Mason:

And you get your enlightenment while you're chopping wood and carry water. And then it's like, "All right, off. Well, let's keep on going." I love it. Yeah, encourage everyone to go to your website. And imagine you've got a newsletter and all those kinds of things?

Dr Mario Alam:

Working on these things. As you'd imagine, there's a lot of work involved with the setting things up, but I'm like step by step. I'm enjoying my journey along the way. My most important thing is actually spending my time with my daughter. She's my incredible teacher. And so the work with World Doctor is birthing itself through organically. And so for me, it's an organic process and organic experience that I go through.

 

And we've got social media and we're going to start newsletters and all these things will come in time as well. But in the meantime, just remain present through the whole journey and enjoy the journey, 'cause we live this life and the best gift we can give is to give our children the best opportunities to go forward as well. Do our part. And by being true to ourselves and being true to our purpose, we giving our children the permission to do the same also.

Mason:

Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on.

Dr Mario Alam:

Thank you for the conversation, for the invitation today. Really appreciate it.

Mason:

Yeah, really appreciate it as well. Well, cheers to big visions.