In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with JoQueta Handy on the topics of Ayahuasca and autism, Ayahuasca and gut health, overcoming sexual abuse with help of psychedelics and biofeedback.
Find more about JoQueta http://www.mybrilliantblends.com
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:01)
Hi guys and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by a very special guest, Joe Katta Handy. Joe Katta is a first of all, psychedelic executive coach, internationally recognized speaker, author, educator, natural integrative health practitioner. She’s a CEO and chief visionary of Brilliant Learning. She’s a co-founder of Handy Wellness Center.
where she practices with her husband Dr. James Handy. Joko Ara, welcome to the podcast. It’s a pleasure having you over.
JoQueta Handy (00:36)
Thank you so much, Sam. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Sam Believ (00:41)
Joketa, your expertise is very wide. There’s so many things we can talk about, but let’s start with autism. I know you’ve done a lot of work on autism. When I first started working with psychedelics, or especially when I went to drink ayahuasca with indigenous people in the jungle, I noticed that their children don’t seem to have that.
that ailment or you know, some might call it blessing or a curse, but they don’t seem to have autism that much. And they do give ayahuasca to their children. So the natural question that came to me, is there a way to use psychedelics, traditional psychedelics or ayahuasca to let’s say help with autism? What do you think about that?
JoQueta Handy (01:35)
I mean, that is so interesting what you’re bringing up. Honestly, I wasn’t aware of that link. I think that’s something that needs to be studied. In my background and my work with autism, and now working with psychedelics, it makes total sense to me. Wow, that’s really fascinating. You got my brain going.
You know, one thing in working with autism, we never use the word heal. Can we improve autism? Yes, 100%. And I have had the wonderful blessing of watching that personally with hundreds of children. Our brain is plastic. Our body has the ability to heal. So in the right environment.
with the right, I don’t want to say medicines, but with the right approaches, we can see incredible changes. So in looking, I guess, and kind of backing into what you were just sharing, I think that it would come from two sides. One of the doctors that I’ve followed throughout almost my whole career is Dr. Gupta.
And what he says is the genes load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger. And this is what he was specifically referring to with autism. So I think you have two variables that need to be further researched. One, if you have the parents of this children, preconception, drinking Ayahuasca,
then their gut integrity, their toxicity level is already going to be at a much lower level. The body only knows a state of health and so it sees the fetus as a viable organ. So it will dump toxins to that fetus and we have seen this in studies because we see children
with autism come into this world with very high levels of fungus and bacteria and virus and heavy metals. And that’s why we never say that autism can be healed because by the time it’s diagnosed, usually around the age of two, so much damage has been done to the microbiome, it can’t be healed, but it can be improved. So you’re starting with a predisposition
would be my feeling with these indigenous cultures in the parents. And then you’re also not loading the gun, um, in terms of the environment that these children are growing up in. Um, so if it worked, I mean, that would be the two variables that I would look at specifically to see if this is making a change in
the level of autism that is occurring or the fact that it’s not occurring.
Sam Believ (05:02)
I’ll be really honest, Joketa, I probably learned more about autism when I was preparing for this podcast than ever before because I listened to a few episodes you’ve been on. And it’s interesting how you say, you know, you can’t really heal autism, you can only improve it. And also like, do you really need to heal autism? Is it really a…
Is it really just an ailment or maybe something else? Because I believe you say autistic people are here to teach us. And this is really interesting. Can you tell our listeners the story of Weston?
JoQueta Handy (05:40)
Oh, I love to. I always get emotional when I talk about Weston. He was, he is my greatest teacher. So we first met when he was about five years old, and he’s now 28, 29 years old. And when he was introduced to me, he was nonverbal.
He had probably the worst nystagmus I had ever seen, which just means that he couldn’t hold his eyes still. They rapidly moved. He was wearing his clothes backwards. He had on no shoes. And he didn’t even have sounds that you can make out like a yes or no. They were more just very primitive sounds of almost grunting-like sounds.
Um, and he wouldn’t allow me to even get close to him in the treatment room. So I say the way that our relationship began was through tapping. Um, there’s a form of therapy that’s used with stroke patients of tapping out a rhythm, um, of words, and they can recognize the rhythm even if they can’t recognize the sounds of the letters.
And so I would tap and Weston would echo it. And we were in opposite corners of this quite large treatment room. And this went on for quite a bit of time. We weren’t making much progress. And I found out about a energy healer that was a biochemist that was very close to the proximity of where I practiced in Orange County, California.
And so I went to see him. He began working with Weston. Weston started responding to his treatment. And so we were all together one day in Dr. Jones’ office. Weston had this behavior of where he would just rapidly look at a magazine or book and then he would toss it aside. And sometimes it was right side up and sometimes it was upside down.
And so Weston had a magazine and he was doing this behavior, rapidly flipping through it and out of the corner of his eye, kind of giving us this evil eye look of just kind of disgust. And Dr. Jones was just observing him and he said, wouldn’t it be interesting if Weston could read? And I said, yeah, no, he can’t read. He had actually just, when Dr. Jones said this, like I think two weeks before, been kicked out of his second private school kindergarten.
Catholic school and he would many times like become very disruptive in a classroom of overturning tables, pushing chairs over, being in a Catholic school. He was supposed to wear a uniform, wear shoes, didn’t want to do that. He wanted to wear his same pair of blue shorts and his same navy sweatshirt backwards and no shoes. So this conformity did not go well.
And I said, no, he’s just been kicked out of his second kindergarten. He, he can’t recognize letters. Um, he doesn’t recognize the sound of letters. He can’t write. That’s impossible. Dr. Jones just kind of appeased me very graciously and said, okay, but wouldn’t it be interesting? So it was about two weeks later and West and I were in our opposite corners in the treatment room. And I was.
I was just at kind of my wits end. I didn’t know what to do with this child. And I felt very guilty that I felt like I was taking his parents’ money and just not being helpful. And so I heard Dr. Jones’ voice. And Weston had just, he had a book that he had tossed aside and I picked it up and it was on clouds. And I think it was written on like probably a first or second grade level.
And I just read the first couple of pages and I had a piece of notebook paper in the room and I just tore off a piece of notebook paper and I wrote one sentence as a question. I don’t even remember what the question was. And then I took another piece of notebook paper, tore it in half and I wrote two answers. And I held it up as far as my arm could reach to Weston because again, he still wouldn’t let me get close to him and we’d been working together for about two years now.
And he kind of looked at it like this out of the corner of his eye. And I held up the two answers. And again, he looked at it, um, at the corner of his eye and he swiped at the answer and it was right. So I repeated it. And on the second time he pointed, I had never seen him actually point at something. And.
With that, he picked up the book and he started shoving it into my stomach and he started beating on the floor. And I couldn’t write the next, I couldn’t read the page and write the answer, write the question, write the answer fast enough. And this went on through the whole book. Every answer was right. And I couldn’t go out and tell his mom because I thought that I was crazy.
I’m like, how is this possible? And so for about two weeks, Weston and I tested this out. I would see him about two to three times a week, and we would have this back and forth, and he didn’t miss. And so I finally told his mom, I’m like, I think Weston can read. And I was just waiting for her to be like, you insane person. And she just smiled at me, and she said, OK, now what? And I said, I have no idea. I don’t know.
And so I said, I need to start teaching him. So she stepped in and started homeschooling him. Um, she, he was able to learn Spanish, which was her native language in two days. And he was able to learn Japanese, which was his grandmother’s native language in two weeks. And it just was this, you know, spiral, uh, to where his mom was like, I.
I, he’s, you know, surpassed me. I don’t know how else to teach him. And all along I was working with the school district. I was working with his last private school to see, you know, would they help? Would they test him? And I was told, um, my license should be revoked. How could I mislead a parent in this way? Um, I was completely crazy. But finally.
the public school did test him and he was about nine years old at the time and he tested out at a 12th grade level and so at that time then they finally brought him kind of under an umbrella of a home school situation and began providing materials to his mom and Weston works with people all over the world now. He
a language called heart talk. And it’s actually communicating telepathically. And he said, we all have the ability to do it if we just open our heart. And what a beautiful way to communicate. So to this day, Weston still doesn’t, he still, he does not speak as we speak. He still wears his clothes backwards and no shoes.
Sam Believ (13:29)
Yeah, my goosebumps.
JoQueta Handy (13:41)
and is surrounded by animals, which he loves. His parents moved to an area where he could have that. Mama, I don’t know what all he has. And he is just a beautiful soul. And he taught me, I mean, I was never the same from that day of being taught, don’t look at the outside. Don’t listen to the diagnosis. It’s what’s on the inside.
And every child is a brilliant learner when we recognize their talents and their strengths.
Sam Believ (14:20)
That’s a fascinating story and gives me a question, you know, if obviously he was able to learn languages so quickly that he obviously possesses some genius level, you know, capacity in some fields and, you know, some autistic children and grownups also they show amazing ability for maths and like genius level capability. So the question then becomes.
if we should try and sort of fix them and simplify it and just make them be like us, meaning like the way we communicate, or just try and figure out the communication issue, which is, you know, as Weston created this language, meaning like not trying to change them, but try to understand them and maybe, as you say, we can then learn from them and, you know, get maybe even as a society, get like a big, big…
big boost in our progress, but you mentioned something about autism being a problem of toxicity in a mother’s body, then this toxicity gets moved to the fetus. So you talk a lot about microbiome and the gut. When…
We only recently, I think in the Western world, started to look so much into the God and trying to study it. Correct me if I’m wrong, like within last 20, 30 years. But in indigenous culture, for example, the indigenous culture we work with, they focus on God primarily, meaning if you’re ever sick, one of the first things they ever prescribe is a purgative, is something that purges your intestines. Ayahuasca itself is also a purgative.
JoQueta Handy (15:53)
threat.
Sam Believ (16:13)
So do you reckon that maybe they figured it out earlier and they focus on this way of detoxing? What are your thoughts about, you know, gut, purgative plants, autism? I know it’s a very confusing question, but I believe you can piece it together.
JoQueta Handy (16:33)
Absolutely. Well, if we just take autism first, again, you’re right. I always say they’re here to be our teachers and they have taught us we have had to study the gut microbiome the most because of autistic children and trying to understand looking at the genome and the DNA structure and how that affects everything.
If we look at autism, what have they taught us? Well, they’ve taught us that our food, the toxicity in our food, they were one of the first, at least for us here in the United States, that looked at gluten as not being good for us and the toxicity, again, going back to the U.S. in our dairy products.
And what we see in autism is the reaction because of high toxicity levels. And when I’m talking about toxicity, I’m talking about parasites, fungal, bacteria, virus, heavy metals. And so that is what causes the destruction of the microbes that make up the microbiome. And
That also is what causes them to be very reactive to certain foods, medication, vaccinations, the environment itself. And the stronger what we’ve learned about the microbiome is it is our immune system and it is our second brain. So when we…
again, in backing into this, why could ayahuasca be helpful? I think just looking at psychedelics in general, I believe it was James Fadiman, who was the first in his research in the 50s and 60s, who said, we know without a doubt that psychedelics improve the gut, we just don’t know the mechanism in which it does that. And I think one of the first studies that I,
that I’ve personally read was done in the 1980s on ayahuasca and they found that it was anti-parasitic. So in drinking ayahuasca and reducing the parasite level, is that going to help heal the microbiome? Is that going to drive the immune system? Is that going to enhance brain chemistry? Yes. And then more recently…
In studies they have found that ayahuasca is antibacterial and antifungal. So again, as we move out the negative and allow more room for the positive and then that good bacteria begins to grow and thrive, serotonin, 95% of serotonin is made in the gut.
even though it’s a brain hormone. So what’s gonna happen with brain chemistry? Brain chemistry is therefore gonna be better supported. So I think it is a fascinating connection. And I can go on and speak about specifically in Ayahuasca, or again, if we go back to toxicity, one other thing that we wanna look at is leaky gut.
I think a lot of people should know what that is. It’s been a pretty popular term. Just to give kind of a very genetic or generic definition of leaky gut, the way I always explain it to my patients is the intestine is smooth connective tissue. And so it stretches way more than it was ever meant to. And so if you think of a rubber band, if you take a rubber band and you pull it back and forth and back and forth,
it’s eventually going to develop little holes in that rubber, right? And so what happens is that same thing happens in the microbiome. We get what’s called microperforations in that tissue. And then that just helps or makes the person more vulnerable to allergies, to the body causing a histamine effect. So it can be, you know,
smog, pollution coming in from the environment. It can even be down to a spice, a fleck of pepper, the cellulose off of celery or off of an orange. None of those things are bad, but the texture of the food can be more likely to get stuck in those little microperforations. The body says, oh, this is a foreign object. You’re in danger.
And it goes into then the fight or fight response, a cortisol response or a histamine response to swell, to wall it off. And so then that’s where that tissue begins to become inflamed. And from that, we develop cytokines. And so ayahuasca has been directly proven to reverse this process of leaky gut. So…
It’s not only a purgative. Um, so like if somebody says, you know, the new year, I’m going to do a cleanse. Okay. Wonderful. Yes. It’s important to clean house, but it’s also very important to close the windows and doors to heal those micro-properations in the tissue. And ayahuasca has been specifically seen to close those women windows and doors. So.
to me that’s where we really get to true healing. So why can people say, you know, I sat in ceremony with ayahuasca and I, this ailment that I had in my gut, and I’ve even heard witness to people with cancers, has healed and it’s not coming back because that tissue has been healed. And that’s not to make light of, you know, moving forward. Yes, you can’t go back to your same.
ways of eating and lifestyles. It does require diet and lifestyle change, but ayahuasca is helping us move hugely forward in the gut, not only as a purgative from anti-parasitic bacterial and fungal, but also in healing the tissue.
Sam Believ (23:37)
It’s great how you’re able to explain all of that because this is something I experienced and felt myself but couldn’t find the right words to describe. I originally came to Ayahuasca for healing because I was depressed, which now, you know, what you just explained with God being a second brain and serotonin production is obviously linked to the God as well. So I came to Ayahuasca because I was depressed and I was looking for mental release.
At the same time, around the same period of time, I was obsessed with diets. I tried all kinds of diets from vegan to carnivore to elimination diets, fasting, because something was wrong with my gut. I would have bloating and because of too much antibiotics, because of this virus, I got long story short. When I started working with Daywaska,
Obviously my mental health improved, but I also noticed down the line months later I just noticed because it’s easy to notice something happening, but it’s not easy to notice something Stop happening. I just noticed that my gut was no longer Bothering me so you know in that process of my obsession with the diets I learned everything about
fungus and candida and I was thinking I had the candida and I did kind of tests. I actually self-diagnosed myself with H. pylori. Then I went to the clinic, I conferred my test, I self-treated myself, healed that part. So basically Ayahuasca healed my gut and even now I noticed that
JoQueta Handy (24:59)
Mmm.
Sam Believ (25:13)
Whenever my God gets a little funky I drink ayahuasca and it goes away So the question is which part of that healing comes from? From the mental aspect of it because you know when you get stressed your God compresses, so it’s a both way direction both omnidirectional
communication, right? When you’re stressed you get diarrhea sometimes or when you get diarrhea for too long then you’re stressed. It’s like it goes both ways. So which part comes from the mental healing from ayahuasca and which part comes purely from the purging and just removing all those bad bacteria and bad fungi. As you said, now they’ve also proven that ayahuasca can be antifungal and antibacterial.
So yeah, there is no real question. I just want to keep talking about the subject. Maybe there’s something else.
JoQueta Handy (26:08)
I mean,
I think you said it so well. It is a gut brain connection, or it’s also called a gut brain axis, meaning that it works together. One of the first doctors that I studied under in natural medicine, he said to us, toxic people have toxic ways.
And when he first said that to me, I didn’t really understand. And I thought I was like, that’s so mean, like to say somebody has toxic ways. But what he was trying to say was when our gut is filled with toxicity, just as you mentioned, it directly affects our brain chemistry. We are electrical chemical beings. And so we can only react from.
what’s going on inside of us. And so the choices we make, how anger, you know, how fat, how quick are we to anger, fear, all of those things can go back to the gut integrity, the liver, the kidneys, the intestine. And most of all, with the microbiome being our immune system, if you don’t feel good,
then you don’t have a lot of vitality in the way that you move through life. And so just in removing toxicity, I was just working with a 68 year old alcoholic patient. And she wanted to begin working in medicine. And I said, we’ve got to do some cleanup here. And not only was
she drinking 32 ounces of vodka a day. But she was also using Red Bull. That’s what she was mixing the vodka with. So I guess, you know, she’s quite not sure how much Red Bull was going in, but many ounces a day. And she was pretty much living on like Insure shakes. So corn syrup.
of preservatives and additives. And then there were some other things that were going on in her diet. She had very little whole foods. It was a lot of foods, of processed foods. And I said, let’s start with this. Let’s just clean up the gut first. And you’re going to get so much more benefit from the medicine then. And I think, again, what have…
shamans taught us with ayahuasca. What do they say to do? A dieta. And you start with removing things from your diet before even going into ayahuasca. And so just by, we didn’t even talk about the alcohol. I said let’s just take out the
and let’s get rid of the insure shakes and let’s replace that with you know a whole food whatever that is eggs you know a grain something and i just gave her this prescription so that’s all we’re gonna do and we’re gonna come back in a month and we’re gonna see where you are and when i spoke with her a month later she was like
I don’t know what’s happening, but this is working. She was like, now I want to give up alcohol. I feel differently. I’m hiking four miles a day instead of sitting on the couch. I wake up and I don’t dread waking up. I’m happy that I’m awake and that I’m alive. All I had done was take out a couple of major toxins in her diet.
and replace it with whole foods. Not to say that was the cure in any way, but it gave us a huge step forward. And she’s on antidepressants and things like that. So now we’re able to begin to introduce some more of those healing things. And I have no doubt that we’re gonna get rid of the 32 ounces of vodka also.
Sam Believ (30:48)
Yeah, it’s a great story. We also have lots of success stories with people with alcoholism specifically. And also surprisingly sometimes as a side effect, somebody comes to just work on something else and then magically alcoholism goes away because where the psychedelics come in is that sometimes people drink or have a bad habit because they’re sort of running away from some specific discomfort or pain.
and when they can address it or a trauma and get rid of it, then all of a sudden the desire goes away. But what you described with this patient, I mean, body also learns to start using alcohol as its primary fuel source and then it just wants more alcohol for that as well. So it’s a very difficult habit to shake and yes, starting with the diet is a great idea. I want to ask you…
If you have noticed, so the connection between mental health and the gut, right? A lot of people talk about longevity or diets. And it’s always very physical, right? Like eat this thing or do this thing, but not much of it is about mental health. And I’ve noticed in some cases, for example, when I was really obsessing with the diets.
one day you fail on your diet and you eat a piece of cake and you beat yourself so much then I think the mental beating is almost stronger than the negative effect you would get from the actual cake. So how do people, you know, if let’s say somebody wants to do that, how do they balance that mental aspect with that, with the physical one? Or like where do you see is the importance? What should be the priority?
JoQueta Handy (32:40)
Great question. Well, first of all, I think you have to deal with each person individually. Again, we go back to autism, what have they taught us? You can have 10 children in a room with autism and you have 10 different children. So we need to look at each individual case. So if I have a patient in front of me, let’s say,
Perfect example is a 47 year old male that was in my office yesterday with severe gut pain. He actually thought he had a heart condition. So he’d had all a full cardiac workup because he would just get this gripping pain in the left side of his chest, like where he couldn’t move. And heart pounding.
Um, when he would try and exercise or even just at rest at night. And then, um, he was on about four different, um, Proton inhibitors or, or what’s used for reflux. And nothing was helping. And this has been going on for two years. And he came to me and it just said, you know,
I’m at Witsen. They’ve scoped me everything. They’ve looked at all of these things. So what we started with was just looking at his diet, his case, and beginning to repair and, you know, what can we take away? But this was a chronic case. So what we needed to do is…
get the inflammation down because that’s what was causing the most pain. Like he was having pain in his arm, pain in his knees, and you know, he was, he was an athletic guy. And so in doing that, I said, we need to take out the five inflamers, like right now. And five inflamers for everyone are red meat, white sugar, dairy, alcohol, and caffeine.
And so I wouldn’t do that with necessarily every single person. For another person we might say, well, let’s add in more specifically with the patient with alcoholism. If I would have done that with her, she would have been like, that’s it, I’m done. So you have to address it based on where the person is. But for this person, for this 47-year-old man, we needed to get him out of pain as fast as possible.
So by removing those inflamers, we’re going to see that gut be less reactive. I think I might, I think I got off topic. You redirect me with your question.
Sam Believ (35:37)
It’s okay, I think anything we talk about will be useful, but going back on topic, let’s get back to ayahuasca and psychedelics. I know you work with ayahuasca yourself and other psychedelics as well, and you are a psychedelic coach as well. So my question to you is, in your own experience in work with psychedelics, ayahuasca or others,
How did it affect your life? And what would you tell, let’s say, your younger self maybe some advice regarding that topic?
JoQueta Handy (36:17)
Well, you know, I say with psychedelics in general, it’s the healing journey I didn’t know I needed. I started on this journey in 2020 to help my caseload because I had seen a huge decline with the pandemic, specifically with my teenage population trying to commit suicide, being diagnosed with medication-resistant depression, a huge surge in insomnia.
the use of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. So I was doing it for them. And as I began in the journey and exploring, learning more about psychedelics, I always – the brain is a huge passion, obsession of mine and learning about brain chemistry. And so I had followed the Johns Hopkins research for about
four years on specifically psilocybin and healing depression, anxiety, addiction. And so it was just every medicine that I sat with was a healing journey. And I actually shared this with my patients just in a very transparent way. When I started, I sent out a newsletter and said, this is what I’m doing here and this is why I’m doing it.
And I’m gonna blog about each one of my experiences. I understand this isn’t for everyone and if you if you don’t want to be a part of it, that’s fine. But if you do, you know, here’s an email list and just you can just put your name on it and I’ll be happy to share. And it was hugely transformative on many, many levels. Specifically with Ayahuasca.
you know, the medicine mirrors you. And the first night that I sat with ayahuasca was horrible. It was every negative thought I think that I’ve ever had or ever even knew about. And when I shared it with the facilitator the next morning, she was like, yeah, well, the medicine mirrors you. I’m like, okay, well that’s.
that’s not helpful, you know, so I guess I’m just this negative black ball walking around. And I had a, I was there with one of the people that were participating was the VP of the Chopra Event Center. And we were sitting on the deck that morning and she looked down at my foot and she said, does that say a para graha? Do you have a para graha tattooed on your foot? And I’m like, yes, I do.
told her this whole story about how my kids wanted me to get, I have five kids and they came to me and said, mom, let’s get a matching tattoo. And I was like, no, I don’t wanna do that. But I thought it was kind of cool that they wanted to get a tattoo with their mother. So I’m like, okay, I’m like, well, this is the only thing that I would ever ink onto my body. They’re like, fine, we’ll do it. So all of us have a par graha tattooed on the inside of our left foot.
So I tell her this story and my friend that was with me, she was like, I want to get that tattooed on my foot. She was like, what does it mean? And I said, well, it means I go through life with an open heart and an open mind. And Amanda very graciously said, are you sure about that? And I’m like, well, that’s what the book said. And so she starts talking about yoga and the different arms of yoga and it went over my head really fast.
And she was like, here, like, let me go get this manual for you. And she was like, here’s what it means. And as I began reading it, it was me a hundred percent about, you know, my cup always being half empty and about not feeling complete and even the examples were, were me and so the next night in Ayahuasca, I started with gratitude and just thinking.
being thankful for the 12 people that were sharing this space with me. And that went into family and friends, to the universe, to the cosmos. And as soon as I got there, it was just this jetway. And I recognized the spirit, but I didn’t know who it was. And I said, you know, what should I call you? And she said, you can call me Mother Ayahuasca.
You’re gonna walk with me now. And it was, sorry, it was the most beautiful experience of her listening for me exactly the way I needed to conduct myself as a doctor. And the way that I needed to start each morning by asking who needs to be healed, not from a physical standpoint, but going back to Weston, a heart talk standpoint.
and how we can work on an energetic field so much broader, so much bigger than we can ever work on this physical field. And that experience forever changed the way that I approach my patients, the modalities, the tools that I bring into my practice, and the way that I do practice.
So I feel that this medicine is such a transformative healing, truly body, mind, and spirit.
Sam Believ (42:15)
It’s a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing and it’s admirable that you, you know, you still are able to analyze the way you are being a doctor and changing maybe the way you treat the patients. And speaking about you being a doctor, it’s also, you know, these days, unfortunately, still a risk to be in the medical profession or to work with people and openly admit that you’re…
you’re doing psychedelics or you’re working with plant medicines because you know, I don’t know, it’s a probably biggest mistake we ever made as a society but DMT and psilocybin is still illegal you know, if you take them to the airport you go to the prison which is crazy I myself am a big optimist on the topic I really hope that within the next 10 years we’ll go from
what the hell is ayahuasca to when’s the last time you did ayahuasca, kind of like with meditation. But from your perspective or from where you are right now and obviously still working with people, do you observe that shift? Is it happening or am I being optimistic unreasonably?
JoQueta Handy (43:34)
Not at all. You know, I think, that’s the best way to say this, I think there is a group of people, a very specific group that are being called forward to be a part of this transformation, to deliver this message, to be the part of change. And how can something,
that expands our heart.
our understanding of a visceral feeling of unconditional love, not just a knowledge being told, you know, oh yes, God is love, you are made in the image of God, but truly feeling that at a soul level and understanding it, I call it coming home. You know, how, how can that be something that
the government says you can’t take this, you can’t be a part of this, this isn’t yours to have. I don’t think that that’s anybody’s to be able to put that rule. And so we are being called forward to share and to experience and to love.
Sam Believ (45:00)
Yeah, this is one of the reasons this, I have started this podcast is to hopefully educate people slowly but surely to change the societal paradigm to accepting medicines as medicines and not calling them drugs anymore. You rightly so said that, you know, the government shouldn’t allow us to…
prohibit us to not take those medicines and especially in your case Joe Cata you are What would it be a quarter indigenous? Is that correct? Is it Cherokee?
JoQueta Handy (45:39)
Yes. Cherokee, Native American Indian. Yes.
Sam Believ (45:42)
That’s so cool. We work with the indigenous tradition here in Colombia. And you know, in the past, all the indigenous people of the world, including Europeans as well, had some sort of psychedelic tradition. Amanita Moscaria in North America, they had peyote, San Pedro. We always had something to sort of…
increase the signal, you know, connect us better to the cosmos. So we, I guess, as Europeans, or descending from that culture, kind of lost our ways with it. And luckily, the indigenous people of America has preserved their tradition and allowed us to enter it as well now. So I believe we live in very exciting times where they finally shared that secret with us because, you know, the story is that…
When the Spaniards came to South America and they were looting and pillaging and looking for gold, what the indigenous people were hiding in the jungle was those medicines because this was the real treasure for them. They didn’t care about gold that much and they hid it from us for, you know…
What is it? Hungrys of years now and all of a sudden 20, 30 years ago they started leaving their caves and their mountains and their jungles and going to cities and sharing the medicine because they’ve received the calling that the world is sick and we need it. Where am I going with this? So as a partially an indigenous person and a…
Do you feel any extra connection to those plant medicines? Have you worked with the cacti? And what do you think about the resurrection of those traditions?
JoQueta Handy (47:34)
think it’s so important. I didn’t appreciate it when I was younger, but I grew up on a cattle ranch in a very rural part of Oklahoma. And with my grandmother being Native American, my grandfather being an immigrant from Europe, we were always taught
to honor the land. And we were always taught to honor the culture of Native American. And it wasn’t until I began working with these medicines that I was reminded that coming home, standing in the pasture.
of that Cabell Ranch and it being the most beautiful place ever. The sun coming down on the dew of the grass and just the stillness, you know, looking at nothing and seeing everything. And from that memory, remembering the teachings of my grandmother and my grandfather. And I think that just brought
so much more of a presence to the medicine and honoring the medicine. I have sat with San Pedro. Grandfather is an amazing teacher. And as we move into here in the United States legalization, I think it’s even more important to have a remembering where this came from, what are the teachings.
so that we truly understand the power of the healing. Just as we’ve talked about in these few moments on how ayahuasca heals, how it heals our gut and from that healing strengthens our immune system and the ability of what that means and moving us forward as we see so much illness, sickness and disease right now. These plants are here to help us, they always have been. And when we come
to them with gratitude and intention, that healing power just multiplies 100%.
Sam Believ (50:06)
Yeah, the world needs it and we need a lot of medicine and a lot of support. And it would be sad if we lose the tradition in the process and it’s important to ground ourselves in that tradition. So you know, let’s say ayahuasca without the shamanism and indigenous tradition is like a tree without the roots. It will probably die and fall on somebody. We need that.
but also there are new modalities coming up in the work with psychedelics or mimic work with psychedelics. And that’s a good segue into my next question. What is biofeedback and how are you able, I see you smile because you like to talk about it. How are you able to mimic psychedelic use with biofeedback without actually consuming psychedelics?
JoQueta Handy (50:54)
Very much.
Yeah, thank you for asking that question. Well, first, quantum biofeedback, just to give a short brief summary of what it is. It’s working with frequency, okay? So we talked about we are just chemical electrical beings. Everything holds a frequency, whether it’s a positive frequency or a negative frequency. And we respond to that. A basic way to think about it is, let’s say you’re in a great mood
you walk into a room with people who are not in a great mood, you immediately feel that. However, however you interpret it, you’re kind of like, Whoa, what just happened here? There’s been a shift. So we’re constantly surrounded by frequency, whether we’re aware of it or not. And that exchange.
In quantum physics, we’re talking about that there is no time and space. Einstein was the first one who discovered it. And he said, it’s a spooky science because how can these two cells that aren’t even near each other, maybe they’re on opposite sides of the world. How can they be interacting? NASA was able to capture this on film about three years ago.
and they labeled it Einstein’s spooky science proven. So that’s the modality that I’m working with in quantum biofeedback. It’s just been captured in a software system. So within those frequencies, there is a huge library of frequencies that are housed in the software, so to speak. There’s about 17,000 frequencies.
And it’s supplements, medications, just about anything. And some of those frequencies are plant medicines. So in working with autism, we know that many times autistic children react to what’s in the food more than the food itself. Again, those preservatives, those additives.
Also because of the damage to the microbiome, they naturally have a low level of serotonin, especially on the severe end of autism. So they don’t all do well. It’s not about, oh, let’s cure autism by giving them a bunch of psilocybin. No, actually that doesn’t work well in many cases. So…
I started working with quantum biofeedback and digitally dosing. And what I found, the one that seemed to have the greatest impact was the frequency of ketamine. And I actually haven’t tried ayahuasca. I need to do that. I’ve tried psilocybin, LSD, and I have tried Bufo, DMT. So.
derivative of ayahuasca. And when we say digital dose, all we mean is that we’re doing an interface between the frequency, we call it the cellular blueprint of the individual, and the frequency of ketamine. And this was proven in 2008 in the Beijing Olympics using the device that I use today.
and the Chinese Olympic team, they weren’t supposed to show up that year at all. And they digitally, when they measured the men’s, they were digitally dosing testosterone and oxytocin. When they measured the men’s testosterone level, it was 1,000% higher than normal, and the females were 300 times higher than normal. Not that is healthy in any way.
But they meddled across the board. And so they could prove that, what do we do? We take on frequency. Can we impose a certain frequency? Yes, look at EMFs. Can we impose certain frequencies on the body and the body receive that and be able to use it? Yes. So I was just following that line of treatment, that research.
but using it around plant medicine and specifically using it with this population simply because it wasn’t something that they could naturally receive. And many times in autism, because they are so in tuned with frequency, they’re able to receive it better than the physical form of the medicine.
Sam Believ (56:12)
Yeah, that’s really fascinating. This is some new technologies and how they find a way to do it. Regarding the energies or the frequencies, or in a common culture, you would say vibes. You’re vibing with somebody or not. The easiest way for me to describe it.
is when we, at Lawara here, we have three retreats every month where people come for a week and then the group leaves and another group comes. And when we get a group from about that level of energy to about this level of energy through the week of four ceremonies of ayahuasca, word circles, and a lot of other work, they…
leave and by the time they’re leaving, it feels like everyone is floating and everyone is happy and the energy is over the roof and you just you can’t you don’t want these people to leave and then the new group comes and it feels like you just left the warm bath and you’ve been splashed by cold water because it’s just people and so professionally you would not be able to see the difference. I mean there’s still some smiles and some communication but energetically
nothing is harder for me than this first initial word circle where we get to know each other and because everyone is just so heavy but somehow through work with ayahuasca they get lighter and then once again they leave and another group’s come in so that’s uh that’s one of the most difficult parts of my work and this is how i can explain it the best like it feels really painful to go from
from somebody warm and like good energies to the other way around. Speaking about painful, I want to touch, last topic I want to touch upon, I know you have been an abuse victim and you were able to overcome it also with help of psychedelics. Could you tell our listeners a bit about that?
JoQueta Handy (58:14)
Absolutely. That actually came through in working with MDMA, which has been shown to be very helpful with PTSD. It was one of those huge situations of where a healing that I didn’t know that I needed. It was a memory of being sexually assaulted.
by a neighbor, next door neighbor, that I had grown up with when I was 16 years old. And it was a memory that I had suppressed so deeply, so much that I didn’t realize that it was real when it came through in the MDMA. And as I’ve read more accounts of people working with MDMA, I guess it happens quite a bit. And
It was, um, when I went to family members afterwards and said, you know, am I crazy? Did this actually happen? And I said, yes, it did. It allowed me, you know, at first I was just like, wait, what? And why wasn’t this talked about? Um, why wasn’t I sent to counseling? But it also explained so much of.
the insecurities that I had around relationship, around touch, especially touch from men.
And so in just that realization, it was such a healing of just being able to, to lay that down. And at the same time, instead of resentment, um, toward my parents, especially my father, I was able to see, you know, they, they were doing everything that they, they knew to do. They were doing their best.
at that time and I was able to see the pain that it had caused both of them, but especially my dad in not being able to protect me. And so it was almost like life stopped and said, let’s look at this moment and now let’s fast forward. And an understanding came from so many of his behaviors and reactions.
that I had always seen as he doesn’t, you know, why doesn’t he love me? Why do I make him so angry? And so that love and that healing just kind of all happened at once. And in moving forward in the healing of that relationship, you know, now as he’s 85 almost, I think that it’s, it’s so important. And I think so many times in relationships
How much time we waste of not talking about the white elephant in the room, not talking at all, right? I hear friends and colleagues all the time saying, I’m estranged from my mother, I’m estranged from my father because of an argument that happened.
Life’s too short for that. And most of all, that’s anger and resentment that we carry inside. And when we say, you know, anger kills, it truly does. Where does that sit? That sits in the liver. The liver is our door of disease state. And so in being able to go have that journey, but from a very loving place, hugely healing.
Sam Believ (1:02:16)
Yeah, it happens a lot here at the retreat that people come and they discover a trauma that’s been hidden by layers and layers of protections the brain have built around them. And it’s one of the most common fears people have when coming to an ayahuasca retreat. They’re afraid they’re going to discover something they don’t want to discover. I would say if there is something that needs to be discovered, the better, the sooner the better because…
This is sitting there and draining your energy every day. And as you said, those emotions and subconscious fears or maybe it affects your relationship and everything. It’s good. It’s kind of like you have a festering wound that is painful to touch, but all you need is a bit more pain and cut it open and clean it out and let it properly heal.
So yeah, don’t be afraid guys, if you think you have something, there is a chance you might have it, so come and address it. We… a very recent story about 8 months ago, we had a German girl who remembered during the ceremony, first time ever, that she was abused by her grandfather. And she came back to the retreat with her whole family, because apparently other members of the family were also abused. And there was this whole big trauma that they…
managed to heal together as a family and it was a very beautiful thing to observe. So I know you like to do things with your children like doing a tattoo together. So maybe an idea for the next activity come to the retreat together. Joe Kera, we’re getting close. We overcame an hour, which is a good, it was a good conversation. I’m sure we can keep talking for an hour more.
JoQueta Handy (1:03:50)
Thanks for watching!
Oh.
Sam Believ (1:04:07)
But I know the life carries on. So, Giochetta, it was a pleasure having you over. Where can people find more about you?
JoQueta Handy (1:04:17)
Sure. One of the best places is our website on adaptogens. It’s called MyBr You can reach out to me personally at jhandy at MyBr My husband and I, as you mentioned, we have a wellness practice in Newport Beach, California.
So if you happen to be in the Orange County, Southern California area, please reach out. And that’s just at handy wellness.com or drhandy.com, either one of those. And if you want to read more about my personal journey, as I mentioned the blog and in working with the different medicines.
That’s on our workshop link of the number 3 COS, which stands for connection, community, and co-elevation. So, any of those places, and I’d be happy to speak with you.
Sam Believ (1:05:31)
I found Joe Ketta on Instagram. So you can it’s not that common name. So Joe Ketta, thank you. Thank you so much. Guys, you’ve been listening to ayahuascapodcast.com as always with you the host Sam Believ, the founder of Lawyra retreat. If you want to visit one of our retreats, go to lawyra.com. If you’re watching a video, it’s right on my t-shirt. If not, it is L-A-W-A-Y-R-A.
JoQueta Handy (1:05:35)
That’s true too.
Sam Believ (1:06:00)
and I will hear and I will see you in the next episode.