Ian Hart interviewed Malin Uthaug for his book “Healing Hacks” which is all about natural healing techniques and hacks for recovery fast and performance max. He interviews healing hackers who give their most valuable techniques to stimulate the healing process in the body. You can learn more about it when you read the book – https://healinghacks.net/. Malin Uthaug is a Ph.D. candidate at Maastricht University and based out of Prague. She shares her experience how she got involved studying psychedelics and her personal experiences, interest and research with ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT. Malin is currently working on a research study examining the potential influence that the ritual and ceremony may have on the overall ayahuasca experience.

1. Where I’m at today is because of what I’ve been through before and so the past four to five years has been very tough and I’ve basically come to focus on healing a very traumatic experience that I had in Jordan a few years ago. And so I ended up here listening to talk about Ayahuasca and then I got in contact with one of my best friends and now in Colombia and she helped me a lot with that. And I had my first session with Ayahuasca and so that’s sort of like started everything. (Malin’s Ayahuasca journey |  1:11)

2. The wound is where the light enters you… (Rumi Quote | 3:16)

3. I spend too much time marinating myself and my own pity, you know? And just that, that was also the only thing that I knew. Yeah. And so finding another way was scary because it’s unknown to me and automatically like humans are scared of the dark because we don’t know what is in there. Not an unknown space. Yeah. And so similarly when you are embarking on this journey of healing is terrifying because you’re so like secure in that space. You are at this point, even though I might not be what’s best for you. And so trying to figure out like, okay, I’m going to go to a different place and it terrifies me. It takes a lot of courage to do that. And I’m really proud of anyone who is able to just embark on that journey and just trust that process. (PTSD and Ayahuasca | 3:42)

4. It’s a catalyst for opening up those memories. And the way it does that could be related to this, it can take you to this place perhaps, maybe not entirely. This dissociative state, which I think another medicine can do better. And I mean 5-meo-DMT. But I think it is, it is opening that, that door and you get to look into, okay, what is there. You know, and, and that is effective because you get to look at what you need to work on what’s the problem. And then having done that, for example, in a therapeutic session where you actively engaging in a conversation with the therapist about what is there could be helpful. But as of now, I do not know whether ayahuasca is the best medicine…(The mind and Ayahuasca | 5:49)

5. It relieves symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. It can increase mindfulness related capacities which are important. And like for example, awareness… Creativity and that is also very important because for example, a person with post traumatic stress disorder tends to just focus on their problem inside this box. And so what my colleague found is that during the influence of ayahuasca, your divergent thinking abilities are increased. So that is interesting because it allows you to start thinking outside of the box, away from that problem…  It’s different from convergent thinking. You can think of converted thinking as with math problems. Like there’s only one solution. And so someone with the pressure of post traumatic stresses or is just banging their head against a wall trying to solve that problem with only one way. And perhaps that way is what they learned in their past. Like, okay, their parents taught them one way to deal with shit that happened but it’s not working. And so then perhaps you get a new perspective from that ayahuasca trip. And you also have now this increased divergent thinking. And so you can look at things from a different angle and perhaps come up with a better way of tackling the problem. (Ayahuasca and Healing Purposes | 8:05)

6. I feel that five-meo might be better for that. But I would love to see a comparison of like type of what medicine would release most trauma. But still like there isn’t anything out there. I think it’s just like mainly both the effects that we see. And so I think they like that it can enhance your mindfulness related capacities is also important because when you gain awareness, you might be able to stop before let’s say an outburst or explosion because of the emotional overload. And so you gain more awareness as you approach that peek. And so you might be able to stop it because of your awareness here. Another thing is that of course it could elevate or like decrease depression, stress and anxiety symptoms, which is great. You know, and so when that is decreased, your awareness is enhanced. (Trauma and 5-meo | 10:29)

7. 5-meo is as a great medicine to use to bring you into a certain point of this, like the dissociative state. I think what I probably should have emphasized earlier is that they’re probably all doing that, the psychedelics, but some do it better and faster. And so I think with ayahuasca, because you have the, the ego might still be there. Yeah. You have the ability to steer the journey but 5-meo there is no way to resist and I think that’s the thing… And because it’s so fast, there is no way, like you can just like cling on to, to reality that easily. Right. And I think that’s why it’s better. But of course it’s finding that sweet spot, because too much 5-meo is just another traumatic event, it could lead to more dissociation. And so I think finding that sweet spot where you are not completely dissociated. So like… one foot here and one foot there and then work with the therapist and sort of like find a way to release… (5-meo and Healing | 14:39)

8. You need a lot of dose testing, safety measure, and effectiveness, you know, and so I don’t think there is such a dose, like one size fits all or like one dose fits all. I think it all depends on a lot of different factors. And you also have this and send them your liver that is responsible for drug metabolism. And so that is different from for people to people. And so some person might have a slow metabolism. And so other might be faster. So there’s a lot of things into play and of course like it’s not only bad enzyme or like, and so also psychologically like how much resistance is in there, how much readiness for change or willingness to change is there. There’s a lot of these things as well and it’s hard to make, to pinpoint exactly. So we need more research for that as well. (Ayahuasca | 18:20)

9. It’s very tricky and I, I think that either way the treatment needs to be very carefully done a matter of who the person is but there are of course more dangerous with or like more contraindications with people like that how schizophrenia and so on… I guess mostly that and perhaps other forms of trauma. Like there’s a lot of contraindications in that too and it’s very tricky because like those are the people that also need it the most. But I guess that contraindication of previous trauma, it’s just something that has been coming up lately when working with or like attending these ceremonies with the underground facilitators because there is no clinical background there and so the screening might not be done correctly and might add more additional trauma to the person because there is no, like I said, no clinical background if they don’t know how to handle trauma. They might just make you worse. And so that’s why I felt like somebody who’s traumatize shouldn’t be going to these facilitators because it might just get worse. (Ayahuasca and Schizophrenia | 23:45)

10. It’s a very interesting time because more and more things are happening, and more and more people are jumping on, on this topic and that is good but there is also some things that we need to be wary about. Like for me, it’s important that things don’t get, like these medicines do not get only approved for a certain amount of people that it becomes available for many, you know, and so then it’s not going to cost a shit ton of money. Right. And stuff like that. And so I hope that this whole thing of legalization could be done in a nice, and correct way where there is no ego involved where there’s no people trying to get profit out of that because there’s enough of that already with all the underground facilitators with the underground retreats. And so I would like to see a shift from that, but that requires awareness from not only the consumers but also the researchers. Like what do I contribute to with my work… And so I hope that we’re able to do this in a good way and I hope eventually these medicines could become available for treatments. (Ayahuasca and 5-meo | 31:17)

11. The thing that many people have, like it’s become so mainstream and that’s really upsetting because it’s, it’s not fun stuff. And you see people are chasing it, chasing this ego, the solution. That is like that’s what people are craving now. And so it shouldn’t be about that ego the solution because it doesn’t fix things. It’s interesting to see that people who chase that just end up increasing their ego even further. And so it just does the opposite of what I feel that it should be doing to make you humble and more present and aware and all of that. But when you turn into egocentric bastard, then that’s not really helpful… (Ayahuasca and Ego | 32:45)

12. Both ayahuasca and 5-meo, there needs to be, an intention. Like why are you doing this? It should be the first question. So like, say now the person is not in for it for the fun, but is actually committed to the healing. Right. And that’s it. That’s great. Sure. Next step is finding somebody who could help you for this process. Right. And so then finding a facilitator competent enough to help you with that is also crucial to have a successful start of the healing. Yeah. You know, and so it’s important to like into okay. What background does this person have? What are they doing? How did they get into this? and how are the sessions run? You know, like all of these things are, there’s like a huge checklist of what facilitators do you pick and it’s very hard to navigate that because, you might also feel that, okay, this person sounds good and great and it fits for me, but then later on you realize it’s a bad choice. So there’s a lot of that too. And I think there are many checklists online that are like listing all of these questions that are important to look into. But say, you know, found the facilitator and as a good match, then you have your experience, what now. Integration is probably more important than the experience itself and basically and so I think that you’ve had the experience and you probably learned some from it. In my opinion. I love writing stuff down, like trying to get a perspective. But it’s important that you have support around you because the facilitator might not be around, you know, he might be traveling or she might be traveling. And so you need to have a supporting network and maybe even a therapist available who ideally should have a little bit of knowledge about altered states of consciousness, even dissociation, whatever the problem is that you are trying to heal should be some background in that and also altered states of consciousness and then find a way to work on what you learned through that therapy. And just integrate things into your life. Start doing things differently than might not have been productive before. So apply it to your life. And I think from then on like that, that’s, that’s a great, those are great things to think about. (Ayahuasca and 5-meo | 35:35)

Ian Hart is a Body-Mind Transformation expert, the creator of EarthFIT Training Systems, co-creator of BACK PAIN RELIEF4LIFE, HEALING HACKS author, and founder of BEAUFORTPERSONALTRAINING.COM and MYBACKPAINCOACH.COM. Ian and his team help people get into optimal shape in the safest, fastest and most effective way possible, using cutting edge science.