Tree of Life, which aids veterans and first responders in overcoming PTSD, addiction, and depression through ketamine and psychedelic therapies. The transformative effects these treatments can have, sharing anecdotes of significant mental health improvements. The importance of proper preparation, setting, and mindset for these therapies, advocating for clinical settings for safety. Also shares personal experiences with these treatments, underscoring their potential for profound mental and physical healing.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:49 – The best option, the best weapon, the best tool

02:02 – The psychedelic work with mental therapy

03:25 – IIf you need to take things with you

04:33 – The journey that I am on in order to make myself better

05:41 – The argument for PTSD for an addiction

07:17 – The fasting part of what I’m doing because of the mental peace

09:57 – The worst decision I made

11:18 – The argument on whose fault it was was up in the air

13:05 – The reasons I like cannabis

15:08 -The gateway to God or however you want to talk about it

16:42 – The same thing with ayahuasca

17:53 – The physical and the nutrition stuff

18:46 – The best way to to help people is to talk about it

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:03] And they were. Answer some questions. Get started. So, obviously, the reason we’re doing all the stuff that we’re doing, through the show is to support my charity, Tree of Life, to help, that that specific charity set up for mental health for veterans and first responders. It’s a charity that helps us to use ketamine and psychedelics to break PTSD, addiction, and depression. And it does it really, really well. Now. I do want to preface that it doesn’t work for everybody. The research shows about 85% of the time it does fantastic stuff, which means 15% of the time it’s not going to work very well or at all. So keep that in mind. It’s not a panacea. It doesn’t work for everything, for everyone. However, it is the best option, the best weapon, the best tool. We have to push back against depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD. I have seen it. Work with people and do literally unbelievable, amazing things. People have called me afterwards and they’ve said, you know, after like the second or third session. So within the first week and they’re like, oh, my anger is gone. Like, I was angry about everything all the time. I was always living under this pressure of just, you know, intense just right. And it’s gone. Just woke up and poof, gone. Like almost to the point where, like, I don’t know how to live my life now without this anger.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:30] The anger was what made me do everything. Now I got to figure out what to do, and it’s fine. I talk to those people like, oh, have you tried the opposite? Have you tried doing the things that make you feel joy and love, leading to that peace? And so that’s the type of thing it does actually. It will change your life to the point where you’re like, I was driven by anger and hatred and just viciousness, and now that’s gone. And so you have to like, actually learn how to function afterwards, which is why it’s always great to have somebody to talk to. So, you know, pairing the psychedelic work with mental therapy, with talk therapy, with psychotherapy, whichever one of those makes sense to you. They’re all the same thing. Is really, really important. If all you can afford, if all you can do is go and do the meds, then do it like. That’s fantastic. You know, read some stuff on it, you know, ask some questions, get some of that stuff done. But that’s that’s the bare, bare, their bottom. And I would tell you that that’s actually a little bit dangerous. You know, if your choices are, you know, if you’re at that point where you’re like, I know what my guns tastes like, then just do it like, you know, you’re not going to go too much further down from that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:40] I have never read anything where it push somebody over the edge and have forced them to commit suicide. But the way you’re supposed to do it is you set with till they’re set your settings and your intentions. And so the way you do it is you get your mind right, you get your mind ready. So one of the one of the exercises we do is, you know, again, remember, we’re working on the mind. This is entirely all up in here. And so we’ve got to get your mind ready for it. And so the the set is the setting is a place where you’re comfortable. So you want to be able to either go to a clinic that is very comfortable to you. You’re in a comfortable setting or a peaceful relaxed. You feel safe. You feel comfortable. If you need to take things with you, a blanket, you know, your special headset. You know, a friend to sit in the waiting room, you know, or you’ll be in the room with you. Or a therapist to be on the phone with you, or, like, those are all totally okay. Because, again, it’s about you, your process, your mind.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:44] We’re going to make you comfortable. We got to get you ready for this. Not the way somebody else did it, not the way somebody else thought they should do it. You. This is all that you you got to figure out what makes you comfortable, makes you happy. Get that. Get that setting around you. And then you need to get your mindset a little bit differently. You gotta get to the point where you’re you’re like, all right, look. I don’t know where this this journey is going to go. It might be sunshine and rainbows and it might be demons, and it might be really, really dark and hard. However, regardless of what my mind shows me, regardless of what I go through, it is going to make me better. Because that’s that’s the mindset you have to go in with is that this journey will make me better, regardless of the 30 minutes, hour or two hours that I’m on the journey. At the end, I will be better and I am accepting the journey that I am on in order to make myself better. So that’s that’s the big piece. You gotta get your mind ready for anything that’s about to encounter, and then you have to open up with the intentions.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:44] My intention is to is to get through the issues I have. My intentions is for, you know, the universe to allow the information to come in our God, how we want to put it, to come in and heal me. I need to be ready to expand the way I think. I need to be able to focus on where I’m going, and I need to allow the journey to take me on the journey. This is in no way like if you guys have heard any back. Rogan talks about this a lot that you don’t get to like. You don’t get to drive this track like you’re on a track and you’re just you’re along for the ride. So just buckle up and have a good time and just recognize that you’re no longer in control. You are handing your control over to the universal intelligence to God again, however you want to put it. That’s how it goes. So those are the things. Now, is this a everybody should do it all the time now. Like this is, this is are four specific things. I, you know, you could make the argument for PTSD for an addiction. You don’t need to do this 100 times if you want to make the argument that. Because they’re mind expanding, because it’s helping you kind of direct your life and focus your life and focus your mind on things. Then, yeah, I think it’s fantastic. Like, if I can find the time I want to do.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:59] There’s a process we do with, ketamine, demanding DMT. I’d like to do that one more time before I go to Europe. If I can fit it in my schedule. If not for sure, do it when I get back. Because I will tell you that I’m need substantially more clear, more functional, and just better overall after I’ve done it. Just like it’s it’s hard to explain and take a long time to kind of talk through it. But like a lot of the things have decided that to turn that things up to 11, to just lean hard into the things I know how to do have happened in things I’ve decided after I’ve done the psychedelics, and. The amount of. I am now sure the path I’m supposed to walk I have now. I’ve now removed all of the doubts and all of the I don’t know and all of the I don’t know if I should do it this hard. All of those things have been kind of washed away and it’s like, nope, nope, this is this is the path you’re actually supposed to be on. Turn it to 11. That’s how it’s supposed to go. So it’s been fantastic as far as just, say, mental work. As far as the, you know, the next step. So, but again, I’m really into that. Like, I like the fasting part of what I’m doing because of the mental peace. I like the sacrifice, the dedication. Like all these things are big for me. So again, my intentions in my set, my setting are very, very, very top notch and really ready to go. So the main piece is really important.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:33] So when we’re talking about how do I get the most out of your psychedelic work? Work with a team who knows what they’re doing. So I do this work with people, and then I have people who we work with who are phenomenal at this, who have studied, who have understood that the, the, the research of the rituals, understand the process, understand plant medicine, and have done this a bunch of times. They understand and been with people where they’ve done it. So they have tons and tons of experience. What can happen, what might happen, all those things. One of the other things that, you know, we don’t talk about a whole lot because I keep trying to push you all to the clinical setting of ketamine. And one of the reasons I’ll tell you not to do this at home, one of the things when we’re really trying to get like that top notch clinical piece is what’ll end up happening, is we give so much ketamine that what ends up happening is it can start to affect your heart and your blood pressure. It can make your blood pressure go up of making nauseous. You can do all sorts of things. And so when we do it in a clinical setting, we’re monitoring those the entire time. So you get your I.V. or you have your I am injection. How it is you’re working through the academy, you’re working through the DMT or the process, and your heart rate starts to come up and your blood pressure starts to come up. That can give you a little bit of medication to push it back down so it’s still safe. And the other thing is, is that and I don’t know how else to say this, it’s going to sound like I’m making.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:54] I’m saying mean things and it is what it is. If you’re going to do this at home, don’t do it in a freaking hot tub. Ketamine. Ketamine primary job is an anesthetic to knock you out for surgery. Not like I’m going to get a little sleepy. Like I’m going to cut you. I’m going to cut holes in you, and you’re not going to feel it. That’s how out you are. So don’t take ketamine when you’re a hot tub. Sure half of you don’t know what I’m talking about. The other half to. I’m not trying to make fun of the man, but I’m just saying don’t take drugs that are supposed to knock you out if you’re going to drown. I’m doing a bath tub. Do it again. Set. Setting. Intention. That’s the big thing. And to be honest with you, I mean, everybody has their own thing. I do, yeah. Like, I don’t understand how anybody would want to academy for fun. Like, when I did it to the point where it was functional for me. I went home and thought, I like when I left that office, I thought I made a horrible mistake because I was throwing. I was literally throwing up. I hadn’t eaten all day and I’m still throwing up like orange bile. It was horrible. I felt miserable, like I’d had the flu. Like I was like this in my head. I was like, this is the worst decision I made. Like, I was really, really glad I did it because then I could go back and tell people how horrible it was. And then I got home, and that’s when I realized, I don’t know if I’ve told this story. So, we’re going to go along because it’s sort of awkward and talk.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:10] So after I started treating Covid, when we were treatment people, me, a lot of hospitals, people are coming in really, really sick. Pulse ox is in the high 70s, low 80s, and we’re fixing all of them. And so, you know, we never lost anybody. And we fixed me like 30 minutes because Covid wasn’t that hard. People. The hospitals were just choosing to kill people. But what would happen is I kept giving. And so it messed up my heart. And so for like a year, when I would lay down every single night, I could feel my heart beating like a drum. I just boom, boom, boom boom. Way harder than it supposed to. Like, yeah. Oh, I can feel my heart beating. It was like it wasn’t ever like that. It was like there’s something obviously wrong with my heart that is way too hard for, like, a year. And I had echocardiograms, I had seats, I had all sorts of stuff. I had, like, nobody can figure out what’s going on. On top of that, my heart rate had been has been in the 90s, like my resting heart rate has been in the 90s since chiropractic college at least. We’re trying to trace it back to a car wreck that I had in college where, one of the other people in the car wreck, almost died. And, the argument on whose fault it was was up in the air. So I took a lot of that on as though I did that it was my fault. And so and one of the, one of the firefighters said something that I overheard that was I shouldn’t have heard about the whole thing. And so anyway, so when I got tested, we’re doing neurologic testing in Colorado College in clinical virology.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:40] And, my, my call of, interviewing my one of my mentors, test my pulse ox. And it was like my heart rate was 90. And he was like, are you high? And I was like, no. Why? He was like, because you’re, he’s like, your heart rate’s 90. He’s like, it shouldn’t be. And I was like, oh, okay. So that was when I was 22. Okay. So fast forward to when I’m 43. So 20 something years, right? That, at least by her age and in the 90s. So now I go back to this day where I feel like I’ve made a horrible say, I’m throwing up. I feel like I got the flu. So I go and I’m like, I gotta sleep this up. I go sleep it off. So I go in and I lay down. It was funny because I lay down on my bed and then I went. I remember looking at my chest thumping like there was something there. It was the first time I couldn’t feel my heart beating like like like it was supposed to. Like when you lay down, you should not feel your heartbeat. And I laid down, I was like, oh, damn. Like I can’t feel my heart now. I’m like, well, that’s cool. So I go to sleep, wake up the next morning, feel pretty good. Come in, check my pulse ox. First time I saw my heart rate in the 60s since at least our practical. So at least 20 years. So what? That what happens is that the reason that your heart rate goes to the highest because of sympathetic overload. So I’ve been in sympathetic shock for at least 20 years, which is a very like it’s funny because when you go through what I was talking, one of my friends, she’s a therapist and, I was running through the reasons I like cannabis, and she just got this big smile on her face because I was like, my heart rate high. My brain races like it helps calm me down. Like something I have to bring down to, like, normal, normal level has to relax and breathe. And, you know, and she’s just that’s why I was like, fine, I have PTSD, whatever.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:23] But that was the thing. That’s where I was like, oh, okay, I do I did have a degree of this, and that one ketamine treatment. Fix my heartbeat. Fix my heart rate. Boom. And that was spectacular. I can’t really tell you if it did a lot for me. Mentally. I really think the DMT was what the was was really what kicked the the mental place up and over. I like psilocybin. We’ve done psilocybin a couple of times. I am also, very resistant to psychedelics. So. For instance, my anesthesiology team when we were working on it. After they did my BMT, I told them I was going to psilocybin, and he was like, you should do eight grams. And I was like, what? That seems that that’s like, way more than anybody else’s. And he was like, that’s what you need. So apparently I have not done eight grams yet. But apparently that’s what it would take to to get the disassociation. We’ll see. I have not, like I said, done that. We might do that later, but I will definitely be under care if we ever do that. I’ll have other monitors on me and the whole deal. But it is I as far as mental work as far as, getting clarity. I can’t like there’s nothing I’ve ever done, in the mental work space that I think has done anything any five, 7% of what the DMD has done. It’s quite spectacular. There’s a reason they call it the god the god molecule or the god drug, or, you know, the gateway to God or however you want to talk about it, because, I will tell you that when I did it, and I didn’t get a huge response from it. Again, I require a lot more, but I’m fine. I’m fine. And then I can open my eyes and I’m sitting in front of a window, and it’s been the same size the whole time. But when I open my eyes in the DMV, it looks bigger and substantially brighter to try styling a little thing, but I had this unbelievable sense of complete and utter peace.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:15:35] Like, I can’t even fully describe it to you, but it was just like every problem in the world was going all of them. And everything’s finally, finally good. It’s it would be. And I could 100% are saying like someone would would instantly mistake that for him because. You think you can understand what that feels like? You can’t. Because, like it was, it was something I couldn’t even imagine beforehand. But like, everything was gone. Every problem, every single thing, every only the only good was left. And it was unbelievable. And it’s funny, cause I’m sick of sitting there staring at this, like, picture window. And you can see the light coming through the clouds like the heaven pictures. And you’re just like, oh my God, this is this is unreal. This is, this is next level. Amazing. And so it only lasts about 30s. But again, when I did this, I was with an yes theology team. I had I had monitors all over me. I have therapists sitting next to me, talking to me the entire time about the process, monitoring what I’m saying, monitoring what we’re doing so that we can talk about it afterwards. Like this is very, very, very, very clinical. You can do the same thing with ayahuasca, with a, with a shaman, and you get great results as well. The problem is, is that you’re also going to most likely because you can’t regulate the dose as well. You’re going to lose things orally and rectally. So it can get pretty messy. But I’m going to do that one as well, because again, when we go through and I tell people to do these things, I want to be like, I’ve done this. I have personal experience. I’m not telling you to do something I’m not willing to do. That’s why I started doing the ketamine to begin with this.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:17:13] Because after I did a little research, I wanted to be able to tell people, look, I’m not going to ask you to do something that I was unwilling to do, so I did it first. Here’s my experience. You should go try it out. That’s why I did it. And, very, very happy that I did. So, rest this week, we will talk about some more mental health secretary, about sorcerer, and we’ll talk about, some coaching stuff. Mentor stuff. We’ll talk about all the things that go into, you know, finding your purpose and how important that is for mental health. There’s a lot of stuff that we do that I do, that’s based off my Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The reason we talk so much about the biochemical, the biomechanical stuff, the the weightlifting exercise, the physical and the nutrition stuff is that you cannot do the spiritual or psychological until you satisfy the rest of your needs. If you’re still worried about eating tonight, like, you’re like, oh, I can’t I don’t know where the food’s coming from or, you know, my rent’s late. I’m going to get kicked out of my house and you’ve got it. You really have to kind of set, flick and satisfy those needs first. For most people, not everybody, before you can really start working on the spiritual and physical. But there’s a lot to that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:18:19] We still do. So we’re going to talk about that this week because this is Mental Health Month. We’ve got some podcast coming up. We’ve got some other stuff coming up. But guys remember anything buying supplements you buy from Pillars of Wellness. Com all of that money goes to the charity Tree of Life Dot health so that we can start helping people out. Veterans and first responders. If you guys want to donate at a Tree of Life Dot health, donate on that one. Any questions you guys have dropping in the comments? That’s our chat about, remember the best way to to help people is to talk about it. So if you have a friend, if you if you have that you whatever, drop those questions. Drop those comments down below because you might talk about something that you’ve had an issue with. And we can help you, you know, find answers to it. And there’s 5 or 6 other people who just didn’t have the courage to say anything. They can read about that comment and they can get help from that. So if you ask questions, if you put stuff down there, you could be saving other people’s lives. So if you guys have if you guys keep some of the cards, I want you to my friend ask questions for other people, drop in the comments, email us questions at Chalmers Wellness account and we’ll get you guys going. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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