Andrea Beaman:
Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to see you. You light up my life. And I hope that I bring a little bit of light to your life as well. I know that many people are dissatisfied with a lot of the mainstream medical professionals right now, and it's totally understandable, but there are also many of amazing doctors that are practicing outside of the conventional box to bring health and healing to the masses. And my guest today does exactly that. So I want you to listen in on my conversation with Dr. Maya Shetreat, and I'll speak to you again at the end. Welcome to Andrea Beaman Speaks Out. This is where you get access to uncensored, holistic and alternative healing wisdom to support your body, mind, and spirit and help you live a happier and more vibrant life while you're living on planet Earth in a perfectly designed human body. And you get it all without any bull crap or nonsense. Let's dive into today's episode. Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Maya, how are you doing?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
I'm great. I'm happy because spring is here in New York City. And so I get to do all my foraging and herbalism.

Andrea Beaman:
Oh, very nice. I'm an herbalist too. I love I go into Central Park every day and I love seeing all the little sprouts, the garlic mustard coming up, the violet leaves it's there's medicine everywhere.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Yeah, absolutely. Today I am making strawberry knotweed pie. So I will be, yeah, I will be posting about it on Instagram and you can see how it comes out and I will share my recipe if it's good.

Andrea Beaman:
Oh my gosh. I'm sure it's gonna be delicious. Are you using Japanese knotweed with strawberries?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Yes.

Andrea Beaman:
Oh, you are fabulous.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Apparently Japanese knotweed is actually has a very similar taste in its stems around this time of year to rhubarb. So it has that tart, sour taste. And of course, Japanese knotweed is so medicinal. It's an invasive and a lot of people anyway, pull it up or try to get rid of it. So this is a way to use the stem. And then the root is used for invasive illnesses like Lyme, like COVID, like cancer. It can be a good herbal remedy that can help those kinds of invasive illnesses.

Andrea Beaman:
I love that. I used the knotweed when I was in my Lyme journey. It helped bring my brain back online.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Yeah, absolutely. And it actually is very rich in resveratrol among many other kinds of compounds. And we know a lot of us know about the resveratrol benefits from red wine and things like that, being good for the brain, a among other things. And so this is actually a very, a very rich potent source of resveratrol.

Andrea Beaman:
Oh, that's awesome. Now, you know, you speak about the brain and you're doing amazing work in the world and you actually began your practice as an integrative neurologist. And what inspired you to shift your practice toward more natural medicines?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, I wouldn't say I shifted, I would say I kind of came out the gate this way and I wasn't, I didn't really realize it though. So I first went to work in a mainstream multi-specialty practice and started their pediatric neurology section. And you can imagine as I started recommending things like echinacea, and at the time I wanna tell you omega3 fatty acids, vitamin D was a controversial supplement at that time.

Andrea Beaman:
Wow.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Probiotics. Oh my gosh. There was just so much pushback from these mainstream private practice doctors who were very well trained, very intelligent people, but they were horrified by things like giving someone to B complex, giving someone fish oil, giving someone vitamin D. Ironically, by the time it came to a point where it just, I knew it wasn't gonna be a healthy environment for me to do the work that I needed to do in the world. But after I left, some of my patients followed me and they still were in the practice with other specialists. And they said after I was gone, the gastroenterologist started prescribing probiotics. The pediatrician started prescribing omega 3s and vitamin D. And of course, vitamin D became very mainstream after that. But sometimes being the pioneer is not the simplest.

Andrea Beaman:
No, no, because you have to forge the path. It's like, you're breaking ground as a pioneer. And so the other people can follow in your path.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, and in medicine, medicine is very conservative. It doesn't always feel that way. Because it can be very invasive and aggressive also, but it can be very conservative. And doctors really believe in kind of the standard of practice. And they're always kind of looking to what the what's being, what's the mainstream approach basically within medicine. And so when you start bringing in new ideas, first of all, it can inspire fear. What is this person doing? Is it legitimate? I didn't learn about this in my training and nothing that happens after you leave your training is really legitimate for a lot of doctors. But in addition to that, it's very threatening. In the same way that a lot of people will say, well, they go to the doctor and try to tell them about what they've discovered in their own research. And they get shut down. That same kind of shutting down happens I think often for the same reason, and many people are like this, this isn't just doctors, but particularly with doctors, it's this feeling of like, I've done all this training, I've done all this work. I'm the expert in this don't interfere with that idea of myself. I don't wanna feel like I'm less than.

Andrea Beaman:
I believe that that's a big part of the misstep with modern medicine is the amount of ego that is there. This is the way, and this is the way that I learned in medical school. And this is what the pharmaceutical industry is, cuz they're feeding the med schools. And I feel like, like you have an earth based terrain. You're dealing with earth stuff. And it's more like, I'm not gonna say magical, although I'm gonna say magical. It's magical and intuitive. There's a deeper connection to the other humans, as opposed to, this is the way. I'm the highway you follow me. Have you found in your practice, there's a lot, that's intuition based?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
I think there's a lot of science underlying the kind of things that I talk about. In fact, I know there's a lot of science and there's also a sense of being willing to be openminded, which is not everybody's cup of tea. I mean that's true in among all professions. And then there is that sense of intuition and inner knowing and what's beyond the linear. I mean, I think in medicine and in general, but speaking to medicine in particular, we're very linear. We're very concrete. We're very, we need to see it with our own eyes. We need to prove it. You know, there's a real a sense of excluding the idea that as doctors or scientists, intuition plays a really important role. I mean, yes, you can prove things and that's important, but to know the kind of, to get the first epiphany of what to do or to think about a new idea that could help a person that's been through, already seen a lot of other people, a lot of other doctors and they still need help. That requires a sense of intuition for one thing. Beyond that too, I think it's really stepping outside of the idea that everything has to be linear and concrete and that if we haven't proved it yet, it can't be true.

Andrea Beaman:
So you spoke about vitamin D. And vitamin D I mean it was controversial and then it was widely accepted or more accepted. And now it's controversial once again. What the heck is going on?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
It's a little more controversial for many reasons now, but the reason it's controversial for me is that we've kind of associated vitamin D with the value of the sun. So we say, yeah, like I'm going outside to get my vitamin D. Okay, sure. You're gonna get your vitamin D when you're out in the sun. But at the same time, the sun actually has a huge spectrum of light. And I would think of all the different spectrums being like getting every vitamin, you know, that you can think of. And mineral that can think of. That's what being out in the sun can offer. So I think that that was a big part of taking vitamin D supplements was like, I don't need to go outside anymore. I'm just gonna take vitamin D and not have to worry about that.

Andrea Beaman:
Yeah. I think that that's the Western mentality. Pop a pill and you fix this. Pop a pill for that. And pop, oh I got a headache, take a pill. And like that's our mentality, that's what we've been indoctrinated into, unfortunately. It's a mindset that will keep people trapped. Like even in the health and wellness world, I see people that are trapped all the time. They got a whole box of supplements that they're taking every day and they're like, I still don't feel good. I'm still not well,

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Right. It's very true. And I think it's because, and this is why I practice Terrain Medicine. This approach, which isn't just medicine for doctors to practice. It's a way of seeing health. And for me, it's really about relationship. Like health and wellness is about relationship. It's about being in a good relationship with yourself, being in good relations with those around you, being in good relations with the land. And that means how you're eating. It means getting into nature. It means being in relationship with germs and microbes. It means really being in contact and thinking about where the food you're eating comes from and all of these things, rather than this sort of isolated approach, which is like a pill for the ill.

Andrea Beaman:
Yeah. That's a great way to look at it. A pill for the ill. So you also incorporate deeper, emotional and spiritual work into your practice. So what does that look like? Like for the average person, what does that look like?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, so I'll tell you a brief story about how I kinda came to that part of my work, which was through my son. And it's the same son who inspired my book, The Dirt Cure. Later, he actually got sick again when we had mold in our apartment. And we had to move out, we gutted the whole area where there was mold. We got rid of all our upholstery. We got rid of all of the mattresses, cleaned everything. I mean, we had people with toothbrushes, literally cleaning, the frames of the door, like nothing was left. It was tested. We came back two weeks later, he had a seizure. His first and thankfully only seizure in the same bathroom that was the epicenter of the mold. But the mold was gone. There was no mold there and it had been gutted down to the studs. So I remember that moment. I mean, he was a little, little guy now. He's like a big healthy teenager. He's the tallest person in the family. But I remember holding his little body at that time. And I just knew in that moment that, we were doing all the things. In fact I was the pediatric neurologist, the only integrative clinical pediatric neurologist in the world, really practicing in this way that probably people would've sent him to me. Right. I was seeing people from all over the world and I felt like I know what I'm doing. I got the food, the mind body, the herbalism, you know, all the things. In that moment. I knew that there was something more about his energy body or his spiritual wellbeing that was being affected in this space. And I just knew with all my heart and soul that I did not yet have the tools to help him and that I had to discover them. I had to go on the journey to find them. I mean, don't get in the way of the mama bear. So and that really took me on a journey into thinking about what kind of vocabulary do we really have around emotional wellbeing and energetic wellbeing and spiritual wellbeing in health? Because it's very clear to me. And it became very clear to me, even in my practice that people are holding a lot of things inside of themselves. And, it took me on this whole journey to working with indigenous healers, learning with Curanderos and Curanderas. And studying with African healers and actually going back into my own lineage. My family is from Morocco and I'm Amazigh. And so I had these opportunities to look into all of these traditional ways of knowing. And of course, physical, emotional, spiritual is very much honored in those cultures, but not so much in Western culture.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
And so I wanted to create a vocabulary because people who hold grief in their bodies can actually manifest real physical illness. It's not like, oh, this is in your head. It's not that kind of thing. It's actually real physical illness. And in Ayurvedic medicine and Chinese medicine, there's actually a whole correlation. They have a whole chart of the organ system, the emotion, the time of day, the season all connected so that we can see, oh, like if you have a lot of liver stress, you might be really ragey. You might be really angry a lot. If you have a lot of lung issues, which is what my son had, you might have grief. And so there's a way of going deeper, really looking at those things and asking those questions and also making it okay to ask those questions and to be feeling those feelings.

Andrea Beaman:
I think that somewhere along the way, and I forget where I read this, but somewhere along the way of the medicine, so to speak it, I think it was 14th century or 15th century. The church said, we'll take the spirit. And the rise of the Western medicine said, okay, we'll take the body. And they separated these two, but the truth is you can never separate them. Body, mind, and spirit. I mean, doctors like you that are intuitive, you have the knowhow or the mama bear energy. That I have to go deeper into this. I think that that is the wave of healthcare of the future. That it's not compartmentalized, that we have to start to look at the whole human on multiple levels rather than just a physical blood test and a cell that looks like this well,

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Absolutely. I mean, I teach about, actually in my certification, I teach about the witch hunts. The European witch hunts, which is exactly that period, what of what you're describing. And it was a very complex time. There's a lot that happened then was really the birth of modern science. All based in the torture of supposed witches, but also nature. This idea of we're going to torture nature to get the secrets out of her. That was like Daycard and Bacon. And actually many of the people like I read in college as being like the great minds of history. But it did create this setting of exactly what you said, this real separation from nature. This real separation from rhythms of the earth, these separations from body, mind, spirit, all of those things that you're talking about.

Andrea Beaman:
For the people that don't know, how does reconnecting back to the earth support the human being on their journey?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, this is actually, I can answer it simply, but obviously it's a very, very, very complex answer. I mean, just first understanding that we have all these cycles in our body, we are connected to the earth, no matter what. So this isn't something you can be disconnected from. But the ways that we approach it and embrace it can influence our health in really profound ways. And an example that I'll use that I think is just a simple, good example is something called forest bathing, which is based in a Japanese practice. That's just a part of their culture called shinrin-yoku. And what it is is it's immersing yourself in the beauty of the forest on a regular basis. And I remember actually talking to a person from Japan when I first learned about it and got so excited. And I said, oh yes, yes, this. And they looked at me like I was so foolish. And I was like, yeah, like, why are you talking about it? Like it's special. It's just a thing we do. Like so basic. It's immersing yourself in the forest. Well, because it's so common there, the doctors have measured the kinds of benefits that people have. And so I'll just kind of knock off a few of them. People have better executive function, they have better memory. They have better focus and attention. They sleep better. They feel subjectively happier. They feel less stressed. Their cortisol levels, stress hormones are lower. Their anti-cancer proteins are increased. Their natural killer cells, which is their nonspecific immunity are increased. So just this experience of immersing yourself in the forest. And we could talk about all the reasons why walking in the forest or being in the forest in a peaceful way, could promote all those things. But just by doing that, you can fight cancer. You can lower your stress levels. You'll sleep at right. I mean, what do we have? What do we have? What treatment do we have that can offer that wide array of benefits? And plus walking in the forest is actually a wonderful experience. So it's a really a win-win.

Andrea Beaman:
I always tell my husband and all my clients and students that I could not live in this city if I don't walk in Central Park on a daily basis. So underneath my feet, subways, electrical energy. Going back and forth all over the place. It's not a natural environment. To have the whole, this section of the earth, or like cities in general covered in asphalt. Just thick slabs of asphalt. And then these jutting skyscrapers out of the earth. I think it disrupts the flow of the natural environment, but it's important for us to get back into the natural environment, even if it's just a city park somewhere, to help us feel more grounded and balanced. And at peace, it's funny, I'll walk down the street and I hear the honks and all the horns beeping and it doesn't phase me at all. Cause my nervous system is really chilled out. And it's, it's a combination of all the stuff that I do. The walks in the park, the meditation, the eating well. I think that if more people spent time in the parks and in nature, it would help their nervous system. It would help them really start to relax a little bit.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Absolutely. And I think I wouldn't say it's just a city park. I mean, remember that nature is alive and many people believe is conscious. So when you go and build that relationship, it is a relationship and there's a give and a take. You show up and nature shows up for you. And that can be a tree growing outside of wherever, whatever building you live in. It can be a little patch of grass somewhere where you sit on your butt and just have your lunch or take a call you need to take. It can be going and being in the park, it can be foraging. It can be any of those things. It can be listening to birds. It can be looking up at the clouds. I mean, we all have access to these things. It's certainly true that some people have more privilege and more access and some people have less. Some communities that don't have access to parks in the same way. And that is an issue. But all things considered. We do all have some access to parks and it's really important to prioritize those little moments. I think even the little moments matter because you're building a relationship and creating this intimacy with the natural world. And that is like, you take one step to them. They take one step to you.

Andrea Beaman:
Yeah. That's great. And it's, I like that you talked about cloud gazing. I remember growing up as a kid in Queens, Queens, New York. And we used to lay on the grass in the park and literally just look up at the clouds. Just look up at the clouds and we'd form shapes and all these we'd express our creativity. Oh, that one looks like a hippopotamus. It was a special time. And it was a relaxed time. It was fun play time. And I think that that human beings forgot how to play somewhere along the line. We forgot to play on this planet. That is so gorgeous and beautiful.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
I don't think I've forgotten how to play. I think it was really programmed out of us. I mean, I don't think it's unintentional in a kind of whatever capitalist sort of society where kind of based in puritanism that we think, you know, work, work, work, work work is the best thing and achievement and more and more, more. And for me, one of the practices, a simple practice is exactly what you said, daydreaming, cloud gazing, star baking. Like I love looking at stars and looking at the moon. It's just like, it's amazing. It's just taking those moments though. And valuing that as much as knocking things off your to-do list or like doing all the to-dos that you have in your life. So I do think it's so and playfulness is, I'm glad you said that because I always teach people about sacred play. That play is as sacred as any other practice that we value and we have to really, again, prioritize playfulness.

Andrea Beaman:
What do you think about what's going on in the world right now on a large scale?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
I mean, I could answer that a lot of ways, but I will choose to answer it in a particular way. When we are catapulted out of our normal routine, the ancient mystics believed that that was actually a gift. That it was called an initiation. And it was a way that you could look at what you considered normal and could determine if it was really what you wanted or needed or was right for you anymore. So this period has been fascinating to me because it's really forced us to look at that question and really regard it and to think about how we spend our time and how we want to spend our time. And how we wanna value the time we have while we're here. I mean, I think there's been a lot of, obviously a lot of chaos, a lot of polarity, a lot of, things that I hope we're going to work through as a society but it has been kind of a stepping back. For some people I see that they've gotten really into baking and cooking and things like that. For me, it ended up being a very busy time. I was 10 times busier than I usually was, which was strange. Kind of the opposite. But I do think it's really important to have those kinds of experiences. This was a collective one. We all have those experiences. Of getting sick or losing someone we love or changing a job or things that do force us out of our normal. This was something we got as a society. So it felt pretty explosive, pretty big, but also I think very important.

Andrea Beaman:
Yeah, I agree. And I also like what you said about something catapulting us out of our normal experience. So that brings me to my next question for you. I saw on your website that you support psychedelics. And I'm a big fan as well. I mean as a teenager, I did them without conscious intention. And it was a totally different experience. But as an adult, when I was 38, 15 years ago, I went to Brazil and tried Ayahuasca. I was, stuck in my own space, trapped. And I learned so much. I went into the forest, I studied with the shamans. I had a Ayahuasca experience that really, I talked to a tree. I had good conversations with a tree. It was a fascinating, fascinating experience. And it catapulted me out of my stuck state. And it brought me to a new sense of clarity and understanding. In your support of the psychedelics, is it for the, the health of the brain? I mean, what's your experience with them?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, I'll say this. So for me, the kinds of plant medicines that I teach about, and I actually have a whole course on them. To me, they are plant medicines. They're teachers. They're plant teachers. As are many plants, not just psychedelics, but it really has to do again with coming in good relationship, being and, you know, and I don't think it's for everybody. So that's something that I would say is if someone feels a particular call, then I think that might be something to explore. I don't think it's something every single person should do. I know there are people who say that. However, there's really incredible, incredible science for people who have the right makeup in that moment. When it's the right moment for a particular person where it actually changes the brain for a period of time creates new connections that were not happening before. Shuts down parts of our defenses that allow some of the things that we've compartmentalized or couldn't access before to be revealed. People refer to it sometimes 10 years of therapy in five hours. If you can imagine that not everybody has an experience that's a whole lot of fun. If you're having that kind of experience, it's not always gonna be, I talked to a tree and had a great conversation. It can be pretty intense and pretty deep. And so for me, it is very much something sacred. And it is something you have to prepare for and debrief after and integrate. So I actually coach people through those experiences. People who are microdosing, people who are doing more intensive experiences, I actually coach them through the entire process because we put a lot of stock into experiences that feel like they have fireworks and thunderbolts and lightning, but actually in many ways the most important part is the preparation and the integration. Because these medicines are incredible in their way, but they just open the window or the door, and then we have to decide how we're gonna integrate it and change our lives. And have the courage to do that.

Andrea Beaman:
Yeah. So that's very interesting. I have a friend who was doing Ayahuasca almost weekly and I didn't understand why she was doing it so often. And the conclusion that I came to was because she has not been able to apply or integrate the information she was doing it here in New York City. In like somebody's apartment. And when I did it, it was in with shaman's. I had a relationship with the plant. It was before and after we talked in these talking circles, it was a completely different experience. I think that what you're doing is, is amazing work. So you're, you're the guide, you're the guide for somebody having this experience and going through the experience and what is the experience and how do I integrate it. And because we could all go out and get high, so to spea., But what do you do? What do you do with the information? How do you apply it to your life so that it, it makes a difference? Cause we're drawn to something for a reason. And then we need to apply it. So I like that you're doing that. I'm gonna send some people your way, sister.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, and I should also say just since we're talking about it, that there's a lot of decriminalization going on. Because in some places it's been what we call decriminalized, which means not necessarily legal, but lowest priority, as far as people being subject to prosecution or something like that. But that's not true everywhere. Anyone who's considering doing this has to be aware of those kinds of rules and laws. And they also have to be aware of, again, as you say, the kinds of guides they're working with and the kinds of groups or places they're traveling to, or any of those kinds of things. And for me, I will say this, there are a lot of ways to have that kind of transformation. I am a definitely in support of this being decriminalized for the people who could benefit from it. But there's many, many, many ways to have relationships with these plants and other kinds of plants and experiences that can open things up. Breathwork, is one of them as an example. Sensory deprivation, like there's a lot of ways to do it. And if you have a good guide, you can still have those kinds of transformations without necessarily always doing the psychedelic experience. So there's a lot of options and I think we really need to explore what makes the most sense for any one person at that time.

Andrea Beaman:
Yeah. And I love that you said that there's a lot of options. Because there are a lot of options except they haven't been accepted by the mainstream. So this is where the work that you're doing in the world is really important because you're putting it out there. For the people here, try this, try that. Don't be afraid to try something else, except besides all the stuff that you've been forced fed by let's call 'em the powers that be. The people in charge. The guys or the gals, the money. Follow the money. If you were to give someone one step or first step for a transformation for their self, what would you suggest that people do?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
That's a big question. Here's what I would say. I mean, this is part of why I created my certification course and the Terrain Institute. And I do all these kinds of ceremonies for free actually. And trainings is so that people can find the right route for them. I really do try to offer it in all of the things that I put forth because I think different things work and resonate for different people, but the foundational point goes back to being in relationship. And I think being in good relationship with yourself is really the beginning. And if you have that intention and you set that intention and you start to actually listen to yourself, that means listening to voices in your body and in your mind and in your heart that might not be saying things that bring you along the mainstream path. Or that will please everybody else, or that, are exactly what you thought or planned. But really starting to listen to your inner voice, which is the primary number one thing that I teach people and train people in. Then that's how you are going to be able to move forward because you have this really important feeling in your body. And because your intuition is activated, what kinds of things are calling to you? And you start to trust that. And that's the most important thing because the universe or however your guides, or however you wanna talk about it, they're always giving you cosmic breadcrumbs. They're always right there in front of you. So when you start to recognize them and trust them, which is really trusting yourself first. Then you're gonna start to know this is calling me like people who are running to go to Peru or Brazil or Ecuador or wherever to do certain medicines and think that's gonna be the answer for them. Sometimes that's true. And sometimes it's like, oh, I heard about this. I'm just gonna go do it. Maybe that will help me, but maybe they didn't have to do that whole thing. Maybe they didn't have to go that whole route. Maybe there's something right here, right in front of them right now that could change everything. So for me, I think that's the most foundational piece is to start to really trust yourself and start feeling in your body and your mind and your heart, what your yeses are, recognize those synchronicities and those cosmic breadcrumbs.

Andrea Beaman:
I love that. So the cosmic breadcrumb trail, where can people find that little trail to get to you?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
By listening to this podcast? No. So they can come to my website which is just Dr. Maya, DRMAYA.com. And all of the things that I offer are there. If they come onto my email list, I do free ceremonies. I'm actually, I'm doing one around mother's day on re mothering. So we do these ceremonies. We have thousands of people coming together. It's really beautiful, really potent. And then Instagram is another place I'm always in my stories and posting there. And I'm about to start like a new thing on herbs. So we'll see how that goes. And those are probably the two best places to find me.

Andrea Beaman:
Well, I hope that people follow the breadcrumbs because they're delicious and I wanna thank you for your time and your energy and everything that you're doing in the world. I think that you are one of the doctors that people need to follow these days. Especially your breadcrumb trail to find who they are. I think that's a huge, huge opportunity for people to live a better life on the planet. So thank you for your time and your energy, Dr. Maya.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:
Well, thank you. And the appreciation is entirely mutual.

Andrea Beaman:
So what did you think of Dr. Maya? She's great, right? Hopefully the path that she has forged and is continuing to forge will be followed by many other medical professionals. I personally believe that could make the world a happier and a healthier place. At least that's what the tree told me. Thank you for spending time with me and Dr. Maya. I hope you found our conversation interesting and helpful. I'll see you next time. Bye everybody. Big, thanks and a whole lot of love for tuning in today. All we have in life is time, and I am honored that you spent your time with me. If you are inspired and wanna learn more head on over to www.andreabeaman.com and sign up to receive updates about reclaiming your health and your happiness in the most delicious and easy ways.