Podcast Transcript: Flor Bollini on feminine shamanism and the importance of serving medicine with empathy and compassion

For further details of Flor & her projects:
florenciabollini.com
instagram.com/florbollini/
linkedin.com/in/florenciabollini

For further research on those and topics mentioned:
5-MeO-DMT
NANA
Freudian
Jungian
Ayahuasca
Ayurveda
Yopo
Burning Man
Octavio Rettig
IFA
Santeria
Dr. Martin Polanco
Krishnamurti

Transcript

Giancarlo: Hello. Hi, welcome to this new episode of the Mangu TV Podcast. Today, we have Flor Bollini, named the “Corporate Shaman” by Forbes Magazine. Flor has over a decade of experience as one of the pioneering practitioners of the plant medicine world. She has developed and introduced an expert system that has set the standard for the administration and integration of 5-MeO-DMT, the most potent psychoactive compound in the world. She is now building NANA, the world's first comprehensive integrative therapy solution for mental health and wellness. It's an expert system that combines technology, counseling, and lifestyle modification to scale and standardize the preparation, administration, and integration of any psychoactive medicine. That seems so interesting. Welcome. 

Flor: Thank you. 

Giancarlo: Flor and I met a long time at the London screening of Neurons to Nirvana, which year was that?

Flor: That was like 2010 -

Giancarlo: Something like that.

Flor: - maybe.

Giancarlo: 13 years ago. 

Flor: Well.

Giancarlo: Today, we're going to speak  for, as usual, for 45, 60 minutes. I'd love to cover four chapters of your life. Of course, I'm interested in your personal journey, how you got in contact with this compound, then I'd love to talk more specifically about 5-MeO, which you have been in practice with for a long time. And then I'd love to talk about your new venture, NANA and the difference with the standard medicalization of psychedelics that everybody's talking about these days. So, let's jump in with your personal journey. How did you discover this compound?

Flor: I'm Argentinian. My mom is a Freudian psychologist. I grew up very stimulated with no faith. I went straight into politics. At the age of 25, I needed to run for Member of Parliament to keep on growing in my career. But I didn't think that that's how I was going to give my contribution to the world. I packed my bags and then moved to Berlin. In Berlin, I changed my school of psychology, I went from Freudian to Jungian. 

Giancarlo: Well, how old were you when you went to Berlin?

Flor: 25. 

Giancarlo: Okay.

Flor: It was within the context of Jungian psychology, my therapist suggested, “Why didn't I try Ayahuasca?” After a couple of years of research, I finally did and it radically changed the course of my life. Not only did I understand that I was in my mind, it also put me in this passion and surge of an ancestral way of healing before the Western world. As I was doing my entrepreneurial things here and there to make a living, I started diving into Ayurveda. I moved to India, exploring not only meditation and yoga, but tantra, and also, Africanism, shamanism, all within the context of Western psychology. Intuitively, I started weaving these practices together around my personal experiences at this time mainly with ayahuasca. I started to see that all these practices intertwine really nicely together to integrate these experiences.

For many years, I was sitting with the medicine as much as I could and I started asking the medicine to show me my path, and what I was supposed to do with the energy I had? But I was so lucky, always landing like a cat, meeting everyone that was influential in every town I landed in. The medicine ayahuasca started encouraging me that I had to step up, to show my way, the feminine way, the empathic way, how I would like to serve. 

And for context, shamanism can be very misogynistic and masculine in its ways, working with heroic doses that most people cannot conduct, especially women. I procrastinated as much as I could. I didn't think this was my path. Fifteen years ago, it wasn't what it is today. People hardly even knew what ayahuasca was. Until in one of the ceremonies, she goes, "And now that an Argentinian politician with a background in chemistry became the Pope, Francis I, what excuse do you have not to do your work?"

Giancarlo: Nice.

Flor: That was their unbeatable argument for me to step up. Since 2013, when Jorge Bergoglio became Francis I, I opened my private practice, I stepped up to serve 5-MeO-DMT following the guidance of ayahuasca.

Giancarlo: So, tell our listeners, what is 5-MeO and how did you go from ayahuasca to 5-MeO?

Flor: I asked her, “What’s after you?” She goes like, “5-MeO-DMT.” The God molecule is the most potent psychoactive compound. It's within the tryptamine family. It's a cousin molecule of DMT, that is the active component of ayahuasca, it is four times stronger and it takes you to a very different place. 

Giancarlo: This is the poison of the toad.

Flor: It can be extracted from the poison of the toad. You can also find it from seeds from yopo. There are different ways you can get it. Also, from the plant world. But the one that I actually use as the source of the medicine was, yes, the toad.

Giancarlo: I remember once you told me that you would go to the Sonoran desert looking for toads, scare them with a piece of glass, and then let them dry, and then scratch the piece of solidified venom, and then people would inhale that through a pipe.

Flor: Yes, you freebase it and its antimatter. It is basically the highest frequency of vibration that it doesn't exist on this plane and is only created for this short period of time when you freebase it. So, that smoke is like antimatter, the highest form of love that you inhale. And so, basically, you smoke yourself into enlightenment, you experience like the “big man” inside your head.

Giancarlo: Yes. 

Flor: It is the only compound that can fully dissolve the ego. 

Giancarlo: Yes. 

Flor: You experience the ego death in a full dose that is basically like checking out and becoming one with everything there is, experiencing singularity and then coming back into this play.

Giancarlo: Yeah. I can confirm. 

Flor: [laughs] 

Giancarlo: I had the big dose with some friends after several days that we were together. I felt really supported. I went full in and it was a typical mystical experience of… One of us said it’s like, “Touching the heart of God.”

Flor: Yeah.

Giancarlo: You feel this like heaven. The way you imagine heaven, this unbounded sense of love and compassion, and I couldn't speak for six hours after that. It was beautiful. Actually, in Ibiza a few days ago, the ex-wife of a friend had a very serious infection and ended up having a quadruple amputation on a septic shock. And now, she was there with a prosthetics on her feet and hands and she looks beautiful. She was telling us that she went to the light. She was already on the other side. It was all white and I thought she was describing a 5-MeO experience. And then the kids called her back, and she went back having goosebumps.

Flor: Wow.

Giancarlo: Okay. How did you find this molecule? When ayahuasca said, “Okay, now, your path is to serve this molecule,” how did you find it? 

Flor: I looked for five years.

Giancarlo: You looked for five years. 

Flor: I looked for five years within all the leads that I had. There was no commercialization of substance at the time. I could only find it in synthetic form, but I wanted the natural form. In one of my ayahuasca ceremonies, I was on my way to India and she told me, “Don't go to India. You're going to India following your mind. If you want to follow your heart, go to Mexico.” I was like, “What am I going to do in Mexico?” And so, I carried on with my plan to go to India, and I stopped in New York for a connection, and then I got stranded in New York because of the hurricane. In that time, I met this man, who I call “Hurricane” and he's like, “I'm going to Mexico. Why don't you come with me?” And so I thought: “Maybe this is a sign I should go to Mexico.”

When I followed him to Mexico, I finally met Jorge Garcia-Mendez. He is a Mexican healer. He doesn’t do it for a living. Basically, we fell in love and I moved there with him for a year. During that year, I basically observed how he was serving 5-MeO as a way of helping people not professionally, just out of sharing his gift. He used to heal with water as well and he had very normative protocols. I still had no real idea that this would have any application in my life, but I was just sharing life with him and seeing how a very sophisticated man could share this medicine with the people he loved. After spending a year with him there when we separated, I took him to Burning Man, and so from there on he retired from serving medicine and passed me the torch. He was like, “I did my fair share of sharing the medicine with everyone I love.” It takes a toll after a while. There is a big energy purge every time you serve, so, there are only so many times you can do in a way.

Since then, I actually contacted Octavio Rettig and invited him to Ibiza, who was at that time the main practitioner in the world or the loudest, let’s say, speaking at TED Talks and so forth. When I saw him in ceremony in Ibiza, in my community, I got sick, I literally puked.

Giancarlo: Because he was overdosing.

Flor: Overdosing people in a brutal way, in such a brutal way that I was totally shocked compared to what I've seen with Jorge, a sophisticated man, very empathic. And then seeing someone that had megalomaniacal characteristics, serving with no empathy with no compassion.

Giancarlo: Yeah. In defense, he was really focusing on last stage of the opioid addict, that might need the breakthrough dose.

Flor: Right. But it was a standard dose for everyone. I had friends that were not heroin addicts that were served that bomb without even measuring. If you're putting 50 milligrams or 100 milligrams in a pipe, blocking in the nose, really waking up with water. Things that were a shock for my energy system. After that experience of seeing 20 people go through that, I sat again, with ayahuasca. I said, “Okay, let's say that I hear you, that I can definitely do something better than that.” Then now, what? She said, “I’m a shaman.” And so, ayahuasca said to go to school, go and become a priestess of the most ancient divination system in the world, and learn how to be a professional curandera. So, she sent me to IFA, IFA Divination System from the Yoruba, Nigeria.

Giancarlo: You realize that you're describing this communication with the plant like you were talking with a person that gave you all this advice and then ended up being right. In Mexico, you find Jorge and then, yeah.

Flor: My business plans come from her. They're not mine. 

Giancarlo: Okay, tell us about IFA then. 

Flor: So, while IFA is like the Harry Potter school-

Giancarlo: [laughs] 

Flor: - it is where all religions come from, is proclaimed by the UNESCO as an intangible heritage of humankind. Basically it is a study of craft, high craft. Interesting thing is that they don't take substances. They offer substances. They work with energy matrices of deities, how do you hold space, right? How you work with ancestors, with the forces in nature?” So, it became a fascinating journey.

Giancarlo: So, where is the head office? Where did you go? [chuckles] 

Flor: Initially, the thing is through the slaves, it went to Africa, Cuba, and Brazil mainly and then Catholicism got a hand on it and created Santeria and ordered the formations after it. As a woman, you cannot be initiated as a priestess after Catholicism put a hand in it, so I had to go to the roots. The IFA foundation of North America was the only place in this continent that would initiate you as a priestess. So, that's where I started. But then I merged to work with actual African people and it's been a journey. It's been almost nine years that I'm fully initiated as a high priestess into Africanism.

Giancarlo: In those years, you left DMT on the side?

Flor: No, no, no, always in parallel.

Giancarlo: In parallel. 

Flor: I started training as an African priestess, doing the initiations, I did four of them. There is a lot of study materials of metaphysics really, you know, how you source the energy matrix, how you open - when you open ceremony, how you can call these forces to come and take place, how do you work with the wind, the fire, the ocean, yemanja..  You see the natural forces as deities. At the same time, I started very shy, slowly, slowly serving how I would like to be served. Knowing how scary these experiences can be, my approach was more: I will introduce you to the compound with a very small dose of 5 milligrams and based on that first dose you decide how much further you want to go.

Giancarlo: And when. 

Flor: Ah-huh. And then we can repeat the same process if you have enough courage to go into the third dose, all within the same session. You ease yourself into rather than being punched in the face. The most professional doctor at that time, Dr. Martin Polanco, who was working with heroin addicts and Navy Seals in the only legal clinic in the world working with 5-MeO and iboga combined, came, tried my technique, and he's like, “Wow, in this way, we get way farther, with less medicine, and without any risk of posttraumatic stress disorder.” He made this technique be applied in his clinic.

Since then, we started collaborating together. He was focusing on Navy Seals that are the most complex cases because they tend to have all conditions, traumatic brain injury, depression, anxiety, addiction, overmedicated, and so forth. I went to work with big entrepreneurs. We both came to the same conclusion of what it actually takes to radically transform someone's life between three and six months. In essence, the solution that we run underground for over a decade, where you see the patterns that repeat itself. We are not so different from one another. There are five different ways that we tend to go, at some point, such as your heart gets broken, normally, before we are six or five. 

Giancarlo: Before?

Flor: Yeah, when you're a kid. Remember, what is the first painful memory that you have?

Giancarlo: When maybe your parents get distracted and you take it personally?

Flor: Yeah, or in my case, I remember, I was in first grade.  The mean teacher and I remember like, “Huh.” Feeling this feeling of like, “Why?” We all have that first crack. And then our personality builds around to protect us from that and we keep on collecting wounds in the heart. Depending on our coping mechanisms, we end up with a mental disorder, with chronic pain, or with some crutches in our attempt to thrive, if that makes sense. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, Krishnamurti called it “the constellation of trauma.” It is just not the one. The one creates the blueprint to then put yourself in a position to do it again and again and again. [laughs] 

Flor: Exactly, exactly. And so, what we've seen is that weaving lifestyle practices, so, your nutrition, your movement, your touch, your sexuality with counseling that is different to psychotherapy is holding someone's heart and empowering that person to transform their lives, paired with personalized medicine, tailor-made supplementation, where the psychoactive supplement is only 20% of the equation. It's only like the cherry on the cake that gives you that first dissociative experience of, “I am not my mind” and then the subsequent doses give you the courage, the booster of doing the hardest work of changing your lifestyle.

Giancarlo: Yeah. This is very important for our listeners. There is so much hype around the medicine, the compound, I meet so many chemists that have synthesized a new compound. This is, of course, is important, but like Flor says, “It might be 20%.” It's like, people invent a new bistoury and it can be the best bistoury in the world. But if the surgeon doesn't know how to use it, then it's not going to allow the rewiring of the brain that it takes a long time and it's very deep.

Flor: Yeah, exactly. There is no magic pill and psychedelics are not it. 

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: You have to put the work in. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. 

Flor: When ketamine became legal under FDA, we saw an opportunity to replace the dissociative experience we were given with 5-MeO, with ketamine.

Giancarlo: But so, now, we're going into your professional career. I mean, the more startup, the more - 

Flor: Or the ground.

Giancarlo: Just to finish the chapter on, because when I met you, you were known to be the DMT shaman as that would serve this compound in a progressive way, in a gentle way, in a more feminine way. There was a moment when you decided to go to the next level, and see how you could maybe look for investors, and standardize this practice that you saw was working in something more scalable and as a bigger entity.

Flor: Yeah. Trevor Neilson became my business mentor. 

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: Trevor is an American businessman and philanthropist. He put together some of the biggest philanthropy campaigns with the biggest celebrities in the world. When he met me, he said, “I believe these medicines are going to go mainstream, if I were you, I would go Biotech and I want you to start thinking how you're going to scale what you learned underground for this past decade.” So, I went to Israel, I started doing due diligence in biotech, I realized that biotech does not try the drugs they had legalized.  And so, this does not really apply for these types of compounds. These are different animals. As you say, the surgeon needs to know how to serve these medicines. So, there's what I saw the opportunity of what I could contribute to this place that is the companion technology to psychedelic biopharma and that is the inception of NANA.

Giancarlo: Interesting. But while you say the bio-pharma was not testing the medicine, they were just legalizing it.

Flor: They tested, but they don't have personal experiences with it. The reason why clinical trials currently are having such a negative, a high volume of patients having negative experiences is because there is no one to say, there is no know-how of how to serve the medicine in a way that the person can have a positive experience.

Giancarlo: But that's what makes the difference between good bio-pharma and a good trial - MAPS with MDMA has had very successful two trials and now is going for the third one.

COMPASS is doing very a successful trial with the - 

Flor: Well, but so, if you see the results, so, for instance, to serve MDMA is not as complex as serving 5-MeO-DMT. 

Giancarlo: That’s true. 

Flor: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: It's more predictable. 

Flor: And also, as a patient for you to let go on 5-MeO on a hero dose up your nose is hard. Does that make sense? The same way that you have with COMPASS like to give you a hero dose of mushrooms with no real preparation in a clinical setting, in a room that is sterile cold surrounded by computers. It can be your worst nightmare.

Giancarlo: But the result has been positive overall.

Flor: Because these medicines are so powerful that even served in the worst possible way, they will still show positive outcomes.

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: Now, 5-MeO rewires the brain. But from 40% to 66% of the patients are rewiring negatively and that is due to the overdose that they are given, because it's important to assess the person as a whole. Not only biologically and psychologically, but also emotionally and spiritually. Have you ever had a mystical experience, do you believe in God, do you have some form of trauma, sexual trauma? All these things are important to determine, what is the dose? 

Giancarlo: Yes. But don't we think we should-- I don't want our listeners to get confused because basically, what we're talking about is that in order to integrate this compound in mainstream medicine, in order to turn a compound into medicine, there are three phases: phase one, phase two, phase three. It starts with efficacy, and safety, and then a large group phase three. What you're saying that, once these medicines pass the trials, and they get approved, and then the psychedelics psychotherapists can buy them and prescribe them to the client, then that's when the real work starts. Because this medicine, they reduce the blood supply in the default mode network, they reduce your egoic armor, and they give the opportunity to the therapist to help you rewire your brain, but it's not guaranteed.

Flor: Yes. You're describing the biological aspects. But to put it more plainly - these medicines create the mystical experience that is at the root of most mental disorders, “Why am I here, what is this life about? Who am I?” It's important to administer that mystical experience, understanding then the person has to integrate these into their everyday -

Giancarlo: Life, yes.

Flor: - so, to blast you into a heroic dose to fully check out. Maybe that is something that can happen in the course of some years. There is no need to eat the whole cake the first time all in, because then how do you make sense that there was no God, then there is a God, and you are a God within five minutes.

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: Yeah?

Giancarlo: For sure, for sure. 

Flor: The resistance of the mind to such a breakthrough if you are not ready to receive that experience, that is when the brain rewires negatively and you have one of the most problematic and scary experiences of your life.

Giancarlo: Yeah. But COMPASS, for example, who's the $2 billion valuation in NASDAQ, etc., in their protocol, I think the dose is like 2 grams of psilocybin, 2 grams of mushroom. You consider that heroic dose?

Flor: No.

Giancarlo: I think the heroic dose is the five, six, seven grams.

Flor: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: In what all these psychedelic companies are offering in the protocol is one and a half plus a booster of one, something like that.

Flor: Yeah, the thing with mushrooms is, the highest dose of psilocybin given in clinical settings is less effective to create the mystical experience than the smallest dose of 5-MeO given in clinical setting. And also, mushrooms - psilocybin takes eight hours to create a less potent mystical experience that 5-MeO in 20 minutes.

Giancarlo: I see.

Flor: From many different places, it’s like to sit for someone for eight hours is not really very cost effective, and for the patient to go through such a journey has much more complexity and requires a lot more care. From that perspective, that's why 5-MeO is the most effective to create the mystical experience that is the common denominator across all compounds of why they create the healing.

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: That makes sense?

Giancarlo: Yeah, completely. That's very well said. If you add the mystical experience it can also incorporate the sense of belonging, the sense of community -

Flor: Yes.

Giancarlo: - that's where I think the healing really starts. I think there's been so much research that really showed that depression and anxiety most of the times come from a lack of connection, which come from a lack of community.

Flor: Yes. 

Giancarlo: That sense of belonging, that unified experience can be the beginning of healing for sure.

Flor: And that is also why our Series A with NANA once we establish the platform,we are designing the prototype center of how to give group ceremonies with natural settings. Because this medicine has to be done in groups. For instance, ketamine, that is the first legal compound. It does require the same settings of group ceremony like ayahuasca. 

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: You see people reaching for a hand in their intramuscular experiences. You need the power of the group for integration. To hear the story and the experience of the person next to you is really sometimes helpful to understanding your own experience. 

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: They are trying to make it fit within psychology. These medicines -

Giancarlo: Which is one on one.

Flor: - don't fit. Within psychology, just to start, because most psychologists don't even, how are they going to deal with a psychospiritual integration when most therapists don't even believe in God. And so, if you don't have personal experiences with these medicines, you cannot help anyone integrate anything.

Giancarlo: Yeah, we need to educate a new generation of psychedelic psychotherapists.

Flor: Yes, and also to understand that you don't need to have a degree as a psychotherapist, or psychologist, or psychiatrist, in order to be able to help someone transform their life. Then you can be a coach or a mentor. The first thing is to have personal experiences with these medicines, personal experience with lifestyle practices. This is where NANA comes as the world's first protocol in this space addressing the individual as a whole and weaving lifestyle practices, body, mind, heart, and spirit. You start revealing your lifestyle base in the pain that you have in your heart. 

Let's say, if you've been sexually abused, the periphery of practices around sexualities, healing sexual trauma, sexual expression is going to be higher than if you have an eating disorder or if you have an addiction. That makes sense?

Giancarlo: Of. Course.

Flor: And also, understanding that underneath the addiction or the mental disorders, there's normally a trauma. Three out of five people that I work with, they have a sexual trauma or a sexual addiction. Also, sexual medicine should be considered a field in itself in order to deliver curative therapies when it comes to mental health.

Giancarlo: Because right now, the psychedelic therapist doesn't necessarily have a specialization.

Flor: No and there's also not even training really for a psychedelic therapist. 

Giancarlo: On a university level, no?

Flor: And also, to administer ketamine, let's say that is currently what is out of the gate. Compared to administering 5-MeO-DMT, we are talking about 100x in complexity, right? 

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: That is what our biotech play is focusing on is like, “How can we harness the knowledge of the underground in real life experience with thousands of patients and then, through innovative delivery mechanisms, through a secret formula?” Simplify the complexity for medical professionals to administer this experience and also to simplify the complexity for a patient to be able to let go and to have a positive rewiring experience. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, this is so interesting.

Flor: You don't want to learn in the clinical trial. When I spoke with the chief scientist officer of COMPASS, he told me, “We have big black holes when it comes to preparation and integration. We don't know if we put people back on SSRIs after we give them mushrooms.”

Giancarlo: Yeah. 

Flor: And so, it is of fundamental importance to be well prepared to assess the person, to understand what type of dose they can start with. It has to be personalized medicine. It cannot be--

Giancarlo: and Flor: -standardized 

Flor: -unless it is a standardized hero dose. That makes sense? 

Giancarlo: Mm-hmm.

Flor: And also, to understand the basic principles of set, which means the set in your mind, setting the environment you are at, dosing, progressive dosing. And also, navigation. How do you use your breath, what happens when fear or scary situations come? Give them a basic shamanic one-on-one course because you are going into this journey, the insights are revealed to you how to set the intention, so the medicine can show you what is holding you back. That's why also the role of the therapists or whomever is doing the role of integration is more about asking questions, rather than analyzing you and telling you what is wrong with you. And also, who is prescribing you, maybe a hero dose that is going to be an overdose, then he is not the person that has to integrate to from that overdose. So, this is one of the things that NANA is aiming to cover.

Giancarlo: Yeah. How, with educational modalities--? 

Flor: It is an online solution. It is an online platform that will interface for medical professionals, for individuals, breaking down as a roadmap the process from assessment, personalization, preparation, administration, and integration for any psychoactive medicine. 

Giancarlo: Amazing, amazing.

Flor: Standardizing as much of the content as possible through the user experience like the hero's journey, you start going through the process itself to realize that you are going to self-realize, at the speed and at the depth that you feel comfortable with. That makes sense?

Giancarlo: Yeah. And according to the armor that you have built, and according to the access to your subconscious, and according to your understanding, because the subconscious doesn't really speak English. When the subconscious starts emerging as sensation, feelings, and shape, and color, you almost need a translator to do this deep in work. So, NANA works with a team of teachers and therapists that have experience with this compound and it's like an educational tool.

Flor: Yeah. Basically, with the best in class of the underground and the overground, because we've been very few. Since the beginning, we know who we are. Basically, we extracted all these processes. We developed an analog with the first round of money that we raised for NANA and we created the whole process analog. We incorporated feedback. Actually, it scaled way more beautifully than I thought. And so, what is a big change in the current approach is that you are empowering the person to become an active agent of your transformation. You are your shaman, you heal yourself. We are here to support you. In meantime, you do the work. 

The online process is underpinned by a community of people supporting each other, the peer-to-peer support and the subsequent doses is not a one time fixl. No, you keep them going into having a second experience or a third experience. Every time you need another breath of air. When life has started becoming hard again, that this medicine has,  natural ones have a lasting effect more than ketamine. Ketamine is more short term. Within a week, you start feeling the symptoms again with natural compounds. It's more like 30 to 45 days.

The protocol we propose is a progressive dose in technique in which maybe after a week or two weeks, you go again for another experience a bit deeper if you feel like. So, it's peeling the layers of an onion, but that's who you are.

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: That makes sense?

Giancarlo: Yeah, totally. I always say that famous quote by Alan Watts that says, “Psychedelics, you do once or twice because when you get the message then you hang up the phone” is a little bit misleading. Because we're not we're not like computers, where you download an app and then you have it. Rewiring of your neurocircuitry takes time. During the effect and few days after, you have a glimpse of what it means to be whole and feeling whole. But then, like a snow globe, the neurocircuitry tends to go back to the same configuration that you had for 30, 40 years, which was your egoic armor. 

What you're proposing makes total sense to me that it's a process. And then the integration is key, but also the application in your daily life, how this experience translates in the way you parent, you love, enjoy your spare time. You need to keep on rewiring your brain in your daily life. The way you eat, really the way you live.

Flor: And that window of opportunity, that neuroplasticity helps create new patterns. That's where we focus in integration is not only having someone helping you process the most difficult aspect of the journey, but it's basically a table of contents, where you start to see which lifestyle practices can I start slowly, slowly integrating into my lifestyle as a part of that integration? The medicine then becomes the booster that gives you that push, that boldness to do the hardest of work. But the interesting thing is that then you want to exercise, you want to meditate, then simplifying, “Well, these are the supplements, you can start weaving.” These are maybe like the curation of the best in class of all the lifestyle practices around each aspect of the self.

Then people, they are always nervous before these experiences. They research a lot. What we did is to simplify the complexity of how to live a woke life. It doesn't take them decades like it has taken us. Then with this table of resources, they can slowly, slowly start weaving into their life. And then you see that once you started doing the supplementation, and maybe eating healthier, and then you're starting now with the meditation, and so, then when you go to your second dose, then that may be already in, and then you can start weaving something else like movement. That's why we call it transformative medicine, because then you achieve your dreams, then you need to dream new dreams, and that is a very interesting thing of having worked for so long with these medicines and see the people that you work with where they've gotten, how they have radically transformed their life, how they are thriving becoming leaders in their community, when before they couldn't even wake up from bed.

It's interesting to see that you not only don’t qualify anymore from their condition with the same protocol that keep optimizing itself as you go into this transformative journey. You basically align with what you came here to do, yeah? I think that that is at the core of most of the depression that happened today is like, “Why am I here, what I'm supposed to do with my life?” These medicines really give you the insight of what is your unique contribution to the world. I think that that is one of the most valuable things that we have.

Giancarlo: Yeah, absolutely. Can you say that you are basically offering psychedelic coaching? There is business coaching or life coaching, it's more like a holistic support around how to transform your life in parallel with this psychedelic psychotherapeutic session?

Flor: Yeah, for both, because it's also understanding that as a medical professional, you have to have this personal journey for yourself. And then unless you do, you shouldn't be doing this work, which is something mandatory that is not regulated. FDA hasn’t regulated anything on set or setting or dosing. Well, no, with ketamine, you already have one. It is out of the gate. The standard dose or the Yale protocol is six intramuscular doses in two weeks. That is a lot. I couldn't even process one and I have over 300 ceremonies, so imagine someone with no background.

Then they give you talk therapy. Talk therapyi is also not enough to integrate a substance with the potential of abuse that ketamine has. There's going to be a massive epidemic of addiction with ketamine. Companies are prescribing ketamine like it’s candy online and then go on to talk therapy with a therapist that is burnt out. In average, they charge $200 per hour. It doesn't even get close to the level of care that is required for these medicines to be effective, and non-addictive, and non-traumatic.

Giancarlo: I see. Yeah. I never really for some reason in my head, I always thought as ketamine as a different kind of compound, which was more about dealing with the symptoms than addressing the cause. I always thought that you have to do for a total number of years. I never really thought that you would need a certain training for a ketamine therapist. But you're right. I think it's similar in the sense that you need to hold the space to integrate the states. Otherwise, there is the risk of addiction and going from peak experience to peak experience.

Flor: Ketamine is a shortcut. It is not a quantum leap. The good thing that it has is that it doesn't give you the vertigo. It is not as scary as other psychoactives can be. Because artificially, it shuts your default network, your monkey mind, your egoic mind, and takes you to that place of dissociative experience without having to have the courage that it takes to get there with the natural ones. The downside, I mean, the other positive side to it is that it's very clear it gives you the insights of what's holding you back. It is actually way more clear than ayahuasca that can be more confusing.

But on the downside is that it’s too good to be true. You want to be on it all day. There are no real side effects. The following day your mind feels way more calmer, you can actually feel the neuroplasticity. But so, unless you're using this substance to give you that [gasps] first breath of air after so long and then you can use this opportunity, this window of opportunity to start weaving lifestyle practices that then will sustain your transformation. You're going to fall on your face with an addiction. That's why it’s Schedule 3. So, it's a medium for something. It is not the end in itself. I think that the failure of Western medicine is trying to find a prescription drug that will solve our issues. It just doesn't work that way.

Giancarlo: Because the Western health system is too reductionist with this linear, with this approach of finding a linear solution to pathology. The process to legalization of a certain compounds has to go through the standard model of one specific condition, like the PTSD or the depression. This is because the way the Western system is designed to get approved just for a specific condition, where what we're seeing needs to be addressed for anxiety and depression is a more holistic approach to a sense of belonging to a community, a sense of -

Flor: Purpose in life.

Giancarlo: - purpose.

Flor: Or anxieties, fear. And also, sometimes, they're adaptive disorders to the reality we live in today. But there is no pill that is going to take your depression away if you are not living your destiny, if you are not living your purpose. I think that the reason why there are only increasing epidemics when it comes to mental health, there is not one condition that is successfully treated is because - [crosstalk] 

Giancarlo: Because it's too reductionist, like the SSRI.

Flor: They don't understand how the mind works. 

Giancarlo: Yes.

Flor: The mind is not at the same level, and the liver, and all the rest of the organs, it can’t be compartmentalized.

Giancarlo: But also, the autoimmune system, they don't know how it works. Western medicine still hasn't got a clue, with cancer - 

Flor: Autoimmune and comorbid to mental health, we will see that there is a domino effect when these medicines are well served. That's why I call it transformative medicine. A new field of medicine has to emerge in order for these medicines to deliver cures. The Western medicine approach is not designed to do so.

Giancarlo: Yeah. 

Flor: You have to introduce the heart, you have to assess the person as a whole. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. The mind, body, spirit.

Flor: The mind, body, spirit.

Giancarlo: Yeah, absolutely. This was very interesting. Thank you so much. So, are you looking for investors still?

Flor: Yes. We are now raising our seed round with NANA and we are also now raising our first seed round as well. With NANA, we raise a pre-seed and now, we're raising a seed. With the rewired therapeutics, we are starting to raise our first round of funding to do trials on mice first, and then animals, and then second phase would be for humans.

Giancarlo: Amazing. And you're also looking for therapists to train? Not yet?

Flor: No. Initially, NANA is content only. It's a membership subscription with double interface for individuals and medical professionals. We want to standardize it as the first protocol in this space where everyone can plug and play. 

Giancarlo: Yeah.

Flor: Either if you're a practitioner, or clinician, or a clinic, or if you're an individual, you can use our assessment, our preparation, and integration regardless of where you're doing your amazing experience.

Giancarlo: All this has been redesigned. 

Flor: Yes.

Giancarlo: I see. Fantastic.

Flor: Now, we're raising the money of the seed to translate all the experience into digital. We did analog first, and with the money of the seed round, we translate it all into digital for the platform. And then the subsequent round, the A that is to create the first prototype clinic, like the flagship that we will franchise that model, so, then you have the licensing of the platform and the franchise of the center.

Giancarlo: Beautiful. Thank you very much. This is very important work -

Flor: Thank you.

Giancarlo: - because we're really just at the beginning and who knows what's going to happen when - MDMA is going to be the first. Ketamine is really out of the gate. I haven't really looked so much into it, but according to what you're saying, they're not doing great, there's a risk of addiction. Then the next one is MDMA and that I think MAPS is training the MDMA. It's very specific for PTSD linked to this incredible increase in empathy and then after that the following one probably will be psilocybin. And so, we'll see how this plays out. We'll see how therapists will be able to integrate that in their practice. Someone was saying that the transpersonal psychologist would be the best place -

Flor: By far.

Giancarlo: -to use this compound. Anyhow, thank you so much. This is very important. If someone wants to invest with you, how do they find you?

Flor: They can write to [email protected].

Giancarlo: Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. Don't worry.

Flor: My Instagram is @florbollini. My website is www.florbollini.com.

Giancarlo: Fantastico. The last comment, what would you recommend if some people want to use this compound underground because they're widely available, what recommendation do you have for people?

Flor: In AA, what actually makes it so effective is the community, is the support of the community, is as you say that belong in the opposite of addiction is human connection is not abstinence.

Giancarlo: Well said.

Flor: I think it's really important to understand that we can hold space for each other. Part of the non-ablaze female empowerment, what we observe is that a woman naturally knows what to do. The maternal instinct kicks in, and so you naturally do progressive dose, you naturally don't put sexuality out of place, you know what to do with fear. I really encourage every woman to step up and take back this power that was taken from us. Regardless of your profession, you can hold space for your community, you can open the doors of your home. NANA protocol gives you the music, the setting so you can host. And then using progressive dosing of whatever compound you choose to serve, people can explore slowly, slowly in their own time and then you can hold that space. So, there's always time to keep on adding. There is no way to then take it back.

What I would say is, always, if you can, sit with a woman. If you're a woman, trust that you have a companion software that comes with the womb. That's why we carry babies. These experiences are the closest to dying and being born. So, naturally, yeah, the space that we hold, I've tested over and over again. Everything I’ve taught myself, empowered by ayahuasca, any woman can teach themselves, yeah? If you see now, there's also more increasing number of women stepping up and doing extraordinary work. And of course, men as well. But 9 out of 10 men don't get it that quick and 9 out of 10 women get it right away. So, I think that these two things are important to have in mind to have a female power leading this space and also to go in progressive dosing only as you feel comfortable. No need to scare the ego in a roller coaster. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, but then I can't help comment on that because one of my heroes is Stan Grof, he is the grandfather of psychedelic psychotherapy. Recently, two years ago in an interview with Tim Ferriss, he was actually saying that he really believed that you need to get to a certain dose for the breakthrough for that moment where you can go behind your ego and you see the potential of change.

Flor: Yeah.

Giancarlo: He was saying that 50 micrograms of LSD is nothing. People should go back to the 300 micrograms to really have that shift that then would allow change.

Flor: Right. But it's important to understand where the person is at, because if you're administering this to a person that has a chronic depression for a couple of decades, your whole life is upside down. You go and you give that person a hero breakthrough dose and you probably break them in a way that then you never bring them back. Two things. When you're giving a progressive dose, you also get to a hero dose, but you get there progressively if that makes sense. It’s like getting on a cold plunge. If you jump like a bomb, you're going to get out right away. But if you put first your feet, and you breathe, and then you get your knees and you breathe, and then slowly, slowly you go in, you will stay way longer and not freak out. This is the same. 

It's important first to assess where the person is at. Based on that, what is their time in order to get to that breakthrough Everest, let's say? If you never climb a mountain, you are not going to go barefoot to climb Everest for the first time. That would be a hero dose of 5-MeO right away. To understand that also, it can shatter someone's life because most of the things that we believe about life, when you have these experiences, you have to recapitulate. You have to re-understand. And so, it's important also to understand that the ego comes fighting back, because it's just lost power and doesn't know how to incorporate this understanding. So, it's extremely important to understand that not everyone can conduct a hero dose and that actually most people don't. 40% to 66% are rewiring negatively, that's a huge number. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. 

Flor: And then when you are there in that condition that you are left, it is very complex to bring you back. It is actually the progressive micro dose of the same compound that hurts you, that will bring you back. Unless, the only reason we know this is because I was catching all the overdoses of five and bringing them back in an exploratory way. But this is all things that the overground has no tools in. That make sense? 

Giancarlo: Absolutely.

Flor: Or, knowledge as in today. 

Giancarlo: Absolutely.

Flor: What I would say is always slowly, slowly. 

Giancarlo: Slowly, slowly.

Flor: There is time. You will get to that hero dose when you feel you're ready, you would know. Trust your belly.

Giancarlo: Thank you very much. I'll reach out to you in a year from now and we’ll have another chat on the status of the psychedelic legalization.

Flor: [laughs] I love it.

Giancarlo: Thank you, Flor.Flor: My pleasure. Thank you so much.