Alexandra Boehmer: Fernando, so happy we have you here today. And for listeners who don't know you, how do you introduce yourself?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Thank you, Alexa, the invitation. Well, I'm like a researcher of reality. You know, what I am trying to understand in this small space of life is to know what is real. So every time that I can find an opportunity to bring a piece of the puzzle of this comic exploration... I just use it and I try to bring a space of understanding of what is real and what is not real. And I mean mainly about talking about consciousness. What is consciousness? And how we can access to consciousness and how can we have an experience, more amplified experience and what is liberation? So for me, this path of life is about understanding who we are. and having a full experience of consciousness to find liberation. So this is very much what my path is about.
Alexandra Boehmer: So yeah, I was about to ask you what's your mission in one sentence, but I think you've wrapped it up quite well already. But maybe for listeners that don't really know what you mean with liberation, can you?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, very much. Well, I have been studying like Eastern traditions very much. For example, Buddhist traditions very much from the Vajrayana tradition has to do with darshan meditations, for example. And most of them, they have a common denominator. What is what is liberation? And I'm going to to explain a little bit about this. So we have different bodies. We have our physical body. It's super easy to understand what is the physical body. We have an energetic body that is the one that brings life into our physical body. Then we have an astral body. The astral body, for example, is the one that we use it when we go to sleep and is the one that is the dreaming body as well. For example, when all these stories about shamans, you know, that they convert themselves into animals, what they are doing is that they are using the astral body or the dream body that is the same one, just to do this work on translating to different areas and getting into your dreams. And this is also what is used for black magic. And then we have our soul and then we have our spirit. All these bodies, when we can have a conscious experience of all of them, into the central chakra that is the heart that is where we have our spiritual body is what is called liberation. For for it seems simple but for for doing this is it requires a lot of a lot of effort if you know what I mean. It's more about doing a lot of meditation, using in many cases planned medicine, and also it requires the grace of God. We are all spiritual beings. We can have different approaches to what is God. But whatever is our approach to God, for me there's a... There's a very important element that is the grace of God. The grace of God is the gift that we receive without asking it and allow us to have a deeper experience of this reality. And hopefully we can reach the liberation. So the liberation is the unified experience of all our bodies into a very deep experience of the here and now in which we can get out of this karma. karma structure or matrix, whatever it's called. So that's what is liberation. And in that
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: moment, sorry, in that moment you are out of karma. So that's why
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay. Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: you are liberated because we are attached to this karmic condition in space and time.
Alexandra Boehmer: Can you just maybe briefly say what you mean by karmic conditioning?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, the law of karma is the law of justice of the universe. It's cause and action. So everything that we do has an effect. And that effect has a ripple effect. So the karma is the different conditions that we create from our actions. And those actions can be actions of liberation or could be actions of attaching to this karmatic energy. So yes, the karma is the condition that is created towards our actions. So for example, if our life is supporting love and compassion, our, it will have like a karmic benefit in our life. If our life is exactly on the opposite side, we will have a negative impact in our life. Simple as that.
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay, makes sense. And when you talk about liberation, you explain it in a very, maybe a bit abstract. Can you maybe explain us, how does it really feel in the body if you reach that state?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, I haven't reached that. If not, will be having this conversation
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: in another room. But... What I have read, for example, is that when Buddha got liberated, he was able to see all his lives past, present, and future. He was able to detach from the law of karma. He was able to see everything at once. He was out of space. He was out of this time-space condition. So it's like having the wisdom of the universe.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So that's what I understand for liberation. It's like
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: just understanding who we are and from there, you know, all the interconnectivity of the phenomena that is
Alexandra Boehmer: Mm-hmm.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: everywhere.
Alexandra Boehmer: And was there a key turning point or changing point in your life that brought you on this path?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, yes, let me, well, I studied business administration, you know, and I was having this understanding that success is to have a, you know, to have just a big amount of money in the bank. And so all my efforts were going into that direction. And it happens that when I was about 30 years old, right now I'm 58, you know, I was having a investment fund and I did a a huge investment in a company and I lost all my money in about three months. was like a market condition in which the price of the steel start raising. I was having a stamping company. I was doing the satellite dishes for DirecTV and Sky. And the price of the steel just raised and tripled its price in about three or four weeks. So we lose all the contracts that we were having and we lost all our money. In that moment, my oldest daughter was five, my second daughter was two and my wife was pregnant. So I was having all these residual thoughts, you know, like how can be so stupid? And my sister that she was coming from India, she invited me to do a retreat of ayahuasca. And it was a one week retreat in which I was taking three three times in Ayahuasca and it started bringing meaning to my understanding of what was happening. And that was the beginning of the path, you I think that everybody has like a tipping point in which most of the times it's bad news. It can be a disease, it can be cancer, it can be like a loss. In my case, was that I lost everything that was giving me purpose in that moment. So
Alexandra Boehmer: Hmm.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: after a few months, I understood that what was happening to me was really a blessing because I was detached from my identity. I was detached from what was giving me purpose and I was detached of what was giving me value. So that moment was the tipping point in which I started to use like plant medicine. That was the beginning. And then I started doing more and more. I did more than 120 ayahuasca ceremonies. Then I found the Mushrooms. And I did, I don't know, maybe more than 300 macro doses. And I start, in that process, I start guiding a lot of people through that. And that's the common denominator. Someone that has a tipping point in their life that they want to see more about who they are. They want to understand. what's the real mission and purpose in this life. So that
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: was what's happened.
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay, thank you for sharing. And you told me before that you've trained more than 7,000 people around microdosing now and plant medicine as well. I mean, with your experience, that number is still quite high.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, I was having the number yesterday, 7,200 in about 44 countries. So
Alexandra Boehmer: Wow. Wow.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: what we did is that, well, I started studying neuroscience about 17 years ago because I wanted to understand what was happening in my brain with the plant medicine. So I started studying neuroscience by my own and applying that knowledge or understanding. through the plant medicine and my own experience. Seven years ago, I had the opportunity to open a research Institute of Neuroscience in which we start to study the psychedelic Mushrooms You know, the psychedelic Mushrooms are a big, it's like a big culture in Mexico. So we start to do our research, understanding. the 24 different types of mushrooms at a molecular level. So what we did is a breakdown on the molecules on these 24 different types of mushrooms not only on the psilocibin but in the 16 most important compounds in these 24 different types. And then finding the bindings or the healing effects towards the sub-receptors of the six most important neurotransmitters that we have. Those are the serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline, acetylcholine, GABA, and glutamate. So imagine it's like we were having like a brain mapping and a molecular mapping and then we start to match and to measure the healing effects toward the brain structure. And from there we start to protocols and we start to coach people. So we develop protocols for example for depression, for anxiety. My mother was my first patient. She took about 30 years of SSRIs, benzodiazepines. And what I saw is that, you know, she was not present. She was depressed. She was having more anxiety than before. I did the first protocol for her. I had the opportunity to go to Brazil to meet a very good friend of mine. he specialized mainly in psychedelic mushrooms. And he taught me a little bit about the microdosing and how was the measure and how can I do it. So I applied it to my mom and my surprise was that in 60 days she quit 30 years of SSRIs and benzodiazepines. So she was patient zero. And from there we have supported more than 1,700 people to get out of SSRIs and benzodiazepines.
Alexandra Boehmer: Wow.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So that was a huge win for everybody, you because It really changed not the life of the patient or the client, but also the life of the family structure. And then we start like studying a little bit more about the mushrooms and we open different protocols. We start supporting people with addictions, addictions to cannabis, addictions to alcohol, very much to cocaine as well. Then we have protocols for ADHD, post-traumatic stress disorder. We have supported as well people with Alzheimer, Parkinson, dementia. We have been supporting also athletes, more than 200 athletes. And it's funny, a lot of healthy people in the way, because the microdosing is not only for people that have a specific condition, it's also for healthy people because what it's doing is a regeneration in the brain structure. So we have a lot of housewives, for example, more than 400 housewives. We have artists, we have entrepreneurs. So the idea precisely with this coaching is to understand people as a whole. That's why I start telling you what is liberation at this for me. And it's what we're doing with the microdosing is that the mushrooms are operating in all the levels and all the frequencies of our different physical bodies. So it's working in our, not only in regulating our neurotransmitters and resetting our brain structure, but it's also working in our emotional states, working in our energetic body. And hopefully, when we do it with meditation and with integration, we can reach higher levels of consciousness and we can connect ourselves to our soul and with our spirit. So in that same way, the mushrooms are operating in these different levels, in our physical body, in our mind body, in our energetic fields, in our soul and in our spirit.
Alexandra Boehmer: I love that you derived all your protocols as well from the research you have actually done with the mushrooms. mean, I'm seeing or observing on social media many perspectives on microdosing from many different sites, a lot of them studied very well and that you basically found out that you can now have protocols for different types of illnesses or different types of not only illnesses but mental status. people are in or needs they have basically. I think it's quite advanced. Maybe you can share a little bit about how you came to there. I know that there are more than 150 species that contain psilocybin mushrooms. You picked 24 and how did you pick those and how did you get to the protocols you have now?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, know, Mexico is one of the countries that has the most types of species of psilocybin. So what we did precisely is to do a, recollect as many as we could, you know, from Mexico. And then, you know, there are some things that science cannot understand, cannot explain. So what we did is to go beyond. also vision science and said, okay, what's function of the mushroom in nature? So with this understanding that I was telling you that we said, okay, if the mushroom are taking the different frequencies of the sun, why don't we measure the frequency in which the different types of mushrooms are growing? So that's what we did. So imagine that the mushrooms that were growing during the night. are connected with the light of the moon. Obviously, it's the indirect light of the sun. But those mushrooms are feminine. They have like these feminine qualities. They are more introspective. They could be used, for example, for going very much into inner processes. It allows us to go very deep into the understanding of our behavioral patterns. It allows us as well to to have the process of creativity. If you think from an entrepreneurship point of view is what brings extra strategy. If you think from an artist point of view is the creativity. If you think from an athlete's point of view, for example, we have golfers that are, you know, that they are using introspective motions to be much more concentrated and have a better performance in sports. The more we move into the spectrum of the day, the more masculine energy we get. And we can find that those mushrooms are masculine and it's energy of action, it's energy of connecting, it's energy of manifesting, of performing. So the idea is that with the mushroom that we study is to understand this classification and to suggest to the users in the moment that we use the coaching is to tell them what would be the best approach for their own protocol. So that's very much. So we are using science as much as we can, but also we're using
Alexandra Boehmer: Mm-hmm.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: common sense. And that common sense is connected with nature. So it's like a bridge between both.
Alexandra Boehmer: And how do you maybe track when people are on your protocol? Do you see any changes in people's habits? Sleep, food, stress?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, well, let me explain you a little bit about what we have found in these seven years. there's a common denominator. We divided this understanding on the protocols in 100 days. So what we have seen and measured is that when we use 100 days, we have a complete reset in the brain structure and we can gain the maximum amount of regeneration as we can. So we divided the protocol in three phases. The first phase is what we call regulation. The second phase is regeneration. and the third phase is integration. Let me explain. So the first part that is regulation has to do very much with the physical body. The intention in phase number one is to regulate the serotonin and the dopamine. The other four neurotransmitters are linked to the performance of the serotonin and the dopamine. So if we can regulate serotonin and dopamine, then the other four can start to auto-calibrate by themselves. So this is a very important key because our brain is designed to auto calibrate. You you can produce your own serotonin and calibrate your brain. So how do we produce our own serotonin? And the answer is very simple. It's by doing all the activities that we love, that we're passionate about. And how do we regulate the dopamine? By doing all the activities. that brings excitement to our life. So this is the magic. It's like life is pushing you all the time to do what you love and what brings excitement to your life in order to be happy because serotonin and dopamine, when they are balanced, the serotonin is what brings joy of life, is what brings meaning and purpose. And the dopamine brings the motivation and the personal power to achieve your dreams. So imagine with the serotonin, you are able to dream big. in a joyful way to have meaning and purpose and with the dopamine you have the power of manifestation. So if we can auto calibrate, what is the enemy of the subroutoning and the dopamine? Because there's something that is imbalancing. And the answer is the stress. Well, obviously the drugs, but if we pull out the drugs, the main issue is the stress. And here we have two types of stress. We have a conscious stress and unconscious stress. The conscious stress is a checklist that we can all do. in our daily stressful activities. But more important is the unconscious stress because the unconscious stress is coming from unsolved trauma, trauma that has not been integrated. So here's a very important tipping point in the protocol. This is why I'm explaining. So phase number one is about regulation, regulating the serotonin and the dopamine. The serotonin is regulated because when you take a microdosing, on psilocybin, the psilocybin mimics the molecule of serotonin and the serotonin binds immediately like a twin brother and you start to calibrate the serotonin since the very first intake. And indirectly, you regulate your dopamine because you start, when you increase your serotonin, you are pushing up your dopamine. And the same thing happens On the contrary, you start losing your serotonin, you start losing your dopamine. And also we recommend, for example, our clients that for increasing our dopamine in a natural way, you can take two things, two natural things. You can take mucuna prurins, that is a bean, or you can take a cow powder. And these two are drivers of dopamine. What does driver of dopamine means? That it makes your brain to produce its own dopamine. So. That way you become less dependent or less vulnerable to dopamine agents. So in this first phase, this is what we call regulation. Something important is that the serotonin regulates more than 80 % of our physical functions. So what does the serotonin regulate? Regulates our sleep pattern and the quality of our rest. The serotonin during the night unblocks in melatonin. During the day unblocks in energy. It regulates our hormone system, temperature to body, sensitivity to pain. Together with the dopamine regulates the appetite and the reward system. So when we start regulating serotonin and dopamine, we start calibrating more than 90 % of our physical body.
Alexandra Boehmer: I was just wondering because you said that basically one of the biggest stress factors that we have is unprocessed trauma, in my words. And during your protocols, you have this in three phases, I understand. But how do you approach the unprocessed trauma being such a big stress factor?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes. Okay. So, this is where the second phase started. The second phase is what we call regeneration. And for me, this is the most important part. The regeneration happens through a phenomenon that is called neuroplasticity. The neuroplasticity is happening all the time in our brain since the day we were born until the day we die. But the quality of the neuroplasticity start to decay. for several reasons. One is aging. After we become 30 years old, this capability of regeneration start to drop between 10 and 12 % every 10 years. Secondly, Abuse of substances, hard drugs, cannabis is a dissociative drug, alcohol. All of them, break the interconnectivity. Third, the stress. I will explain in a few minutes. The cortisol. do not allow the regeneration properly, accidents or sports of contact like boxing, for example. And lastly, the trauma. And this is where the stress is coming. So what is anxiety? What is depression? How is it generated in the brain? And how does our trauma affects our mental health? So we have a third neurotransmitter that is called noradrenaline. The noradrenaline is a neurotransmitter that activates when we feel or believe that we are at risk. So the serotonin and your noradrenaline should be at the same level. are all the time like auto-calibrating. If we have a lot of trauma in the brain, what happens is that when we are kids, you know, the defense mechanism of the brain towards the traumas to break on purpose, the interconnectivity where the memories of the trauma are located. So they go to the unconscious mind. That's why we only recall a fraction of what is trauma. Okay, so even though the trauma goes to the unconscious mind, it is active. The activation of trauma, for example, imagine that we grew up with an alcoholic father, okay, with a lot of violence when we were kids. So our brains start to create a dissociation to cope to reality. And this dissociation,
Alexandra Boehmer: So we basically forget.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: yes, exactly, on purpose. We are blocking by breaking. So it creates brain damage, okay? And it goes to the unconscious mind. So this trauma is active. So for example, I was telling you, if you grew up with a violent father and you are watching a movie of violence, you know, in... Not even in a similar home, but like you can relate it. You can be related to it. You immediately put yourself in a defense mode and you have a peak in the neuroadrenaline and we can overreact. Sometimes we overreact in our life, we don't know why. And what is happening is that our unconscious mind is active because it's revealing trauma. So this trauma brings a peak in the neuroadrenaline. The node adrenaline works exactly in the opposite direction as the serotonin. Why? Because if you are in a defense mode, the information that you are bringing to your body and to your mind is that you are at risk. If you are at risk, you don't have any need to eat, to sleep, or to reproduce. Who cares? You are running for your life. This is precisely what the serotonin regulates. Your sexual drive, your appetite, and your sleep. So your brain... is sacrificing your serotonin for surviving. So the gap between your serotonin and your non-adrenaline is your mental health. If you have a small gap, you can notice it with irritability and mood swings. If you're not conscious about it and you do not calibrate, then it raises the bar and the gap, it's like larger. And you can find yourself with anxiety, chronic anxiety, depression, chronic depression. So if we do not have the capability to reduce the node adrenaline to its standard position, and we keep it for more than two weeks or three weeks, this is what is called PTSD. Post-traumatic stress is stress. So that's why I was telling you that we have conscious stress and unconscious stress. So this is coming mainly from... I were unconscious man. So the more pressure we put in the serotonin, because we have not integrated our trauma, is what takes us to anxiety and depression. So here the microdosing plays a very important role, because when you start taking microdosing, you start to regulate and to reduce the gap between the serotonin and your dopamine, and you can put your brain out of anxiety and depression. And that moment, you start having mental clarity and mind clarity. So in this phase that is called regeneration, what is happening is that there's a protein that is called BDNF that is the one that fosters the neuroplasticity in the brain. So we start having a huge production of BDNF in the brain and we start to heal the broken pathways from trauma. And that's a window of opportunity for healing because it is very difficult to heal what we cannot see. because it's in the unconscious mind. So when you start doing microdosing and you start to heal the broken pathways, these repressed memories and repressed emotions will start to go out. And that's a window of opportunity for healing and integrating trauma. So in phase three, that is what we call integration, is because we have so much interconnectivity in the brain that we are able to have access to the unconscious mind. So if we have a... like a good therapist that can guide us to this process in connecting with the unconscious mind, then we can go to the root of the problem.
Alexandra Boehmer: and basically feel what has not been felt in the moment, right?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Exactly, because we are repressing all the time. And all those emotions have been repressed, and the memories have been repressed. We don't have access. So this is why, for me, the microdosing is a process of freedom, because more than 90 % of our decision-making comes from the unconscious mind. So our life is an expression of our ignorance. So the more that we can integrate the unconscious mind to the consciousness, our decision-making comes from a place of understanding consciousness, light, and free will. So we are less conditioned in that sense.
Alexandra Boehmer: Thank you so much. Sophie and I literally started the podcast on, I mean, it's a podcast on longevity, but we started it to open the debate about the mental aspects actually around longevity. And because we found that most of debate is so focused on the body, on sleep, on nutrition, on exercise, tracking biomarkers and optimizing everything, which actually also can cause stress in itself. what's often overlooked is stress is coming from different sources and you just explained it very well that unprocessed emotion is a big source for stress that is very unconscious for most people. So I would love to hear your opinion on the longevity conversation in general maybe.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, of course. Well, I was thinking about that since the first moment that you told me what's longevity for me. Longevity is to have what is the reason of living longer. For me, it's about the quality of life, of course. And this quality of life allowed us to have more time for liberation. So let me go a little bit deeper on this. For me, living a life with purpose is to live a life with presence. Because all the time we are in the past or in the future. And this presence that we can gain or we can find very much when we do meditation, for example, or when we do plant medicine, we lose it because we are attached to the past or to the future. And there's an area of the brain that is called default mode network. The default mode network is default because it's automatic. So it's our automatic response to life. It's where we have all our perception of reality. It's where we have all our perception of past, present, and future. And it's where we develop the ego. So the more rigidity we have in the default mode network, the more attached we are to our ego. For example, when we do, if we do a high doses of ayahuasca or LSD or in type of psychedelic including nortrums, what happened is that the default mode network disappears. and it's like it breaks. That's the dissolution of the ego. and it come backs in a completely new configuration. This is why when we do a macro dosing, we are never the same because the dissolution of the ego happens and then it come backs in a completely different understanding of reality. So what I mean with this is that in longevity, what I see it as the main issue is to have the proper conditions. to be able to integrate our physical body with a healthy body. And we can integrate it with a healthy mind. And we can integrate it with an energetic field. And then we can be conscious about our own existence of who we really are. And this is where we open a window of gratefulness. And when we open a window of gratefulness, we are connected with God. And when we're connected with God, we open our heart for loving and compassion. So for me, longevity is the opportunity to have a healthy base that is our physical body and our mind to be potentially more loving and compassionate. Because if we are not healthy in our physical body, if we have a disease, then our priority is not liberation, it's just to heal and to survive.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: And we put our body in a survival mechanism, then we have a peak in the neuroadrenaline, the neuroadrenaline reduces the serotonin, we cannot connect with life, cannot connect with meaning, with purpose, we enter into anxiety, depression, and that's the cycle.
Alexandra Boehmer: also because in longevity, think most or a lot of people are trying to just outrun death or aging in itself. And when we talk for the first time, you shared your perspective on death. And I think that was very interesting and also how it might affect actually us dying on the planet, even how we look at death. So I would like for you to maybe share a little bit about You even said that the lack of acceptance of death is at the root for a lot of our neuroses. So maybe you
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Exactly.
Alexandra Boehmer: can elaborate on that.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, of course. There's a book that is called The Denial of Death. This book is amazing because it unifies all the visions of therapy in a common denominator that is that we are all denying our death. And from denying our death, it comes all our neurosis because, you know, our small self want to survive. And that's when we start to to overachieve or lose track in what we really are. So for me, life is the training for death. And death is the window of opportunity for liberation. That's the most important moment. Because if you can keep yourself focused in that precise moment and you don't lose track, then you can find your liberation. So for me, death is a gift. It's a gift. And our life is the training for taking the most out of that gift. And the more present we can be in our daily life, the more prepared we are for dying. And the plant medicine, for example, If you had the opportunity to take ayahuasca sometime, they call it the vein of death because I don't know what that is, but probably it will be like very similar to that. And it's time to prepare you not to be afraid of dying. And for me, for me is that obviously it's easy to say that it is a gift until you are there. But if you can prepare yourself, at least you can detach from this physical body in a more easy way and find a new adventure.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah, most probably most people in the Western world wouldn't say death is a gift or don't look at it that way. So how do you think that the relationship that most people in the Western world have with death, I think it's probably fear based or avoiding or we're excluding it even from our conversations or we're not looking at it. Most people are not dying at home anymore. Most people are dying in hospitals or and it's not really talked about. How do you think that this How we treat death is shaping the way we also look at health and medicine.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: That's a very good question. When you think that death is the end, then you're putting all your resources to avoiding death. If you think that death is just the beginning, then you prepare yourself completely different to facing that moment. And death comes, I mean, you can do whatever you want to have longevity. But for me, our life has a karmic imprint that it's already there. So it doesn't matter what you do. If you have to die when you are 40 years old, you're going to die when you're 40. If your line of life is until you are 30 or 60 or 90, it's already written, at least from my personal point of view. So that's why it's more about the quality of life that you can have. and the peace of mind that you can have and the presence that you may have in living the moment, the here and now. So it's more what you think there is, that there is after dying, what can make you anxious or can allow you to detach from this physical body.
Alexandra Boehmer: I also am pointed about this a lot when my little brother died when he was 22 years old. And I think that was
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: And that's it.
Alexandra Boehmer: one of my biggest insights that I got that actually helped me on my journey to come to acceptance of his death was to accept that every soul has a plan and I'm not the one to change it or to control it. And that actually helped me a lot to accept just what happened and to come to peace with it.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: exactly what I think about life. There's a mantra that says, this is perfect, that is perfect. From the perfect emerges the perfect. If you quit the perfect from the perfect, remains the perfect. And this has to do with acceptance, that everything is divine. Everything is the guru. So when we can accept life as it is, we can flow. We can flow. that allowed us to be more free as well and allowed us to be more present and allowed us to be more happy and to accept life as it is. And the plant medicine is an amazing tool because what do not allow us to be in the present moment is our neurosis. And in our neurosis is in the default mode network. And if we can make the default mode network much more flexible, we are detached from our ego. And that way... we can be more compassionate because we are less egocentric and we can connect with the emotions and the feelings of other people. So yeah, that's why I, for me, the plant medicine is a process that accelerates our connection with joy, with who we really are.
Alexandra Boehmer: yeah. I would like to unpack another idea of yours. You said when we first talked
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Thank you.
Alexandra Boehmer: as well that why do we actually have to live 80 years instead of 180 years? And you said, I recall that you think it's like a program of the mind that we're set to basically, but I would love to get more of how you think about that or how you came to that idea.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, yes, imagine that we can transport ourselves 200 years from now. And you see that everybody is living 200 years of them. No, 200 years. So then you will have a program that everybody will be living between 180 and 200 years. If you go probably 1,000 years from now, people will be living 250. So your new program will be that if you go backwards, you will see that people were living 50 years maximum. That's why the elders in the traditions were 52. Right now, like it's easy to cross the 52. So those are programs. So right now we have a program in our mind that the expectancy of life is between 75 and 85. We're putting this information in our brain that when we are 85, we are almost dying. So. That's exactly, and this is a program of everything. Everything is created to program us. Religions are programming us, social status, education. Everything is bringing programs to our brain.
Alexandra Boehmer: So basically the biggest tip that you can get everyone interested in having a long life is to get rid of the program.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, it's not that easy, know, liberating from a program requires a lot of effort and understanding. It's complicated and it's also in our physical body, you know, the programming is in our physical body So yes one is one part one part is to have a healthy life But more but more than that is to have a life of joy No, who care? If they tell you what do you prefer to live 110 years? With a life without like this meaning or purpose or live 60 years at your maximum standard of joy, I would prefer 60, myself.
Alexandra Boehmer: Me too.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So it's more about the presence that you can give. You know, the presence is a superpower. The presence that you can give to someone is the best gift that you can give. So if we are thinking about, just longevity, we are thinking about the future. We are not living the present moment. So it's more like coming back and coming back to this moment. Because we cannot control life. We're going to die when we are going to die. very to have like quality in the here and now and presence in the here and now and joy in the here and now. And that's how I perceive life after many errors that I have committed.
Alexandra Boehmer: you
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So, right now for me success is being the owner of my time, doing what I love and having quality time. with my wife, with my kids, with my family. And having enough money because money is important, we live in this realm just for traveling a little bit and to live life that can bring me enough freedom for doing what I love.
Alexandra Boehmer: So we now talked a lot about plant medicine before we are slowly coming to an end. But for someone who's already exploring microdosing or plant medicine or is interested in it, what do you think are the most important questions that someone should ask to stay responsible on that path?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: well, start from microdosing to macrodosing. Let me explain you why. Doing a macro dose is like running a marathon. Doing micro dosing is like preparing for the marathon. It's like running two kilometers every day for the marathon. What happened when you start doing micro dosing is that you start to foster the neural structure. So in the moment that you are ready for the macro dosing, you can hold the energy of the plant medicine easily and you can understand better. What are the messages that are bringing from the different fields? So start from micro, then you can go to mini doses, then you can go to medium doses, and then you can do macrodosing. I don't recommend to do macrodosing directly because we have a lot of what is what we call like emotional garbage. So if you do microdosing, you will release the like this emotional garbage in the first four to six weeks. And when you do the macro, you don't have to deal with that in that moment. It's like you are standing in another position. So the plant medicine is almost for everybody in small doses, in micro doses. It's not for everybody in macro dosing, you know, because... We have different brain structures. And many people, for example, ayahuasca can fragment more and have a... an imprint and have a misfunction in the brain structure and how would we perceive reality and we will require a lot of integration to go back. So ayahuasca is not for everybody. I have never tried it before, but I think it is like a super strong medicine. But in microdosing, for example, the Mushrooms are amazingly helpful. Just to, it's very important to know the origin of the medicine that you are taking, where it's coming from, and the dose that you are taking.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah, very important, that's true. So Fernando where can people find you and learn more about your work as well, what you're offering?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: thank you. Well, the Institute is called Bhavani Bhavani in Sanskrit means the moment of recognition that we are all one. That is what the plant medicine is giving you. know, there's a moment in which you say, wow, we're all connected. What happened to me is happening to you in another level. So I am taking care of you and my process is your process. And that's what Bhavani means. So I don't know if you can share my email in your page and I will be happy to support anyone that is willing to have more information about that.
Alexandra Boehmer: we will share your email and also the website for Bhavani in the show notes. And I will also link the book that you mentioned, The Denial of Death. I highly recommend as
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: the system.
Alexandra Boehmer: well to read it. It's a beautiful book to understand a little bit more about death in itself or life in itself, actually.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Bad life.
Alexandra Boehmer: So, Fernando, thank you so much for opening that dimension of longevity for us. I think it was a very special view on longevity. And normally my co-host Sophie is asking the last question, but since she's not here, I have the honor to just ask you the
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Please.
Alexandra Boehmer: final question. How does it feel for you to be at your peak?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: What do you mean by pig?
Alexandra Boehmer: I mean, that's very different for everyone, I would assume, what peak means, but peak meaning in your best state possible.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: My best state possible is when I am in the here and now. Because when we are in the here and now is when we become creators of our own life and we are not operating from neurosis. So being in the here and now is what really allows us to be human beings. actions are not conditioned from our small self. So that's what is for me the Hirana.
Alexandra Boehmer: Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you so much for today's conversation, Fernando. It was a pleasure.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Thank you very much, Alexa, and looking forward to see you again. Thank you. Bye bye.
Alexandra Boehmer: Me too, bye.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Thank you, Alexa, the invitation. Well, I'm like a researcher of reality. You know, what I am trying to understand in this small space of life is to know what is real. So every time that I can find an opportunity to bring a piece of the puzzle of this comic exploration... I just use it and I try to bring a space of understanding of what is real and what is not real. And I mean mainly about talking about consciousness. What is consciousness? And how we can access to consciousness and how can we have an experience, more amplified experience and what is liberation? So for me, this path of life is about understanding who we are. and having a full experience of consciousness to find liberation. So this is very much what my path is about.
Alexandra Boehmer: So yeah, I was about to ask you what's your mission in one sentence, but I think you've wrapped it up quite well already. But maybe for listeners that don't really know what you mean with liberation, can you?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, very much. Well, I have been studying like Eastern traditions very much. For example, Buddhist traditions very much from the Vajrayana tradition has to do with darshan meditations, for example. And most of them, they have a common denominator. What is what is liberation? And I'm going to to explain a little bit about this. So we have different bodies. We have our physical body. It's super easy to understand what is the physical body. We have an energetic body that is the one that brings life into our physical body. Then we have an astral body. The astral body, for example, is the one that we use it when we go to sleep and is the one that is the dreaming body as well. For example, when all these stories about shamans, you know, that they convert themselves into animals, what they are doing is that they are using the astral body or the dream body that is the same one, just to do this work on translating to different areas and getting into your dreams. And this is also what is used for black magic. And then we have our soul and then we have our spirit. All these bodies, when we can have a conscious experience of all of them, into the central chakra that is the heart that is where we have our spiritual body is what is called liberation. For for it seems simple but for for doing this is it requires a lot of a lot of effort if you know what I mean. It's more about doing a lot of meditation, using in many cases planned medicine, and also it requires the grace of God. We are all spiritual beings. We can have different approaches to what is God. But whatever is our approach to God, for me there's a... There's a very important element that is the grace of God. The grace of God is the gift that we receive without asking it and allow us to have a deeper experience of this reality. And hopefully we can reach the liberation. So the liberation is the unified experience of all our bodies into a very deep experience of the here and now in which we can get out of this karma. karma structure or matrix, whatever it's called. So that's what is liberation. And in that
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: moment, sorry, in that moment you are out of karma. So that's why
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay. Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: you are liberated because we are attached to this karmic condition in space and time.
Alexandra Boehmer: Can you just maybe briefly say what you mean by karmic conditioning?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, the law of karma is the law of justice of the universe. It's cause and action. So everything that we do has an effect. And that effect has a ripple effect. So the karma is the different conditions that we create from our actions. And those actions can be actions of liberation or could be actions of attaching to this karmatic energy. So yes, the karma is the condition that is created towards our actions. So for example, if our life is supporting love and compassion, our, it will have like a karmic benefit in our life. If our life is exactly on the opposite side, we will have a negative impact in our life. Simple as that.
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay, makes sense. And when you talk about liberation, you explain it in a very, maybe a bit abstract. Can you maybe explain us, how does it really feel in the body if you reach that state?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, I haven't reached that. If not, will be having this conversation
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: in another room. But... What I have read, for example, is that when Buddha got liberated, he was able to see all his lives past, present, and future. He was able to detach from the law of karma. He was able to see everything at once. He was out of space. He was out of this time-space condition. So it's like having the wisdom of the universe.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So that's what I understand for liberation. It's like
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: just understanding who we are and from there, you know, all the interconnectivity of the phenomena that is
Alexandra Boehmer: Mm-hmm.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: everywhere.
Alexandra Boehmer: And was there a key turning point or changing point in your life that brought you on this path?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, yes, let me, well, I studied business administration, you know, and I was having this understanding that success is to have a, you know, to have just a big amount of money in the bank. And so all my efforts were going into that direction. And it happens that when I was about 30 years old, right now I'm 58, you know, I was having a investment fund and I did a a huge investment in a company and I lost all my money in about three months. was like a market condition in which the price of the steel start raising. I was having a stamping company. I was doing the satellite dishes for DirecTV and Sky. And the price of the steel just raised and tripled its price in about three or four weeks. So we lose all the contracts that we were having and we lost all our money. In that moment, my oldest daughter was five, my second daughter was two and my wife was pregnant. So I was having all these residual thoughts, you know, like how can be so stupid? And my sister that she was coming from India, she invited me to do a retreat of ayahuasca. And it was a one week retreat in which I was taking three three times in Ayahuasca and it started bringing meaning to my understanding of what was happening. And that was the beginning of the path, you I think that everybody has like a tipping point in which most of the times it's bad news. It can be a disease, it can be cancer, it can be like a loss. In my case, was that I lost everything that was giving me purpose in that moment. So
Alexandra Boehmer: Hmm.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: after a few months, I understood that what was happening to me was really a blessing because I was detached from my identity. I was detached from what was giving me purpose and I was detached of what was giving me value. So that moment was the tipping point in which I started to use like plant medicine. That was the beginning. And then I started doing more and more. I did more than 120 ayahuasca ceremonies. Then I found the Mushrooms. And I did, I don't know, maybe more than 300 macro doses. And I start, in that process, I start guiding a lot of people through that. And that's the common denominator. Someone that has a tipping point in their life that they want to see more about who they are. They want to understand. what's the real mission and purpose in this life. So that
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: was what's happened.
Alexandra Boehmer: Okay, thank you for sharing. And you told me before that you've trained more than 7,000 people around microdosing now and plant medicine as well. I mean, with your experience, that number is still quite high.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, I was having the number yesterday, 7,200 in about 44 countries. So
Alexandra Boehmer: Wow. Wow.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: what we did is that, well, I started studying neuroscience about 17 years ago because I wanted to understand what was happening in my brain with the plant medicine. So I started studying neuroscience by my own and applying that knowledge or understanding. through the plant medicine and my own experience. Seven years ago, I had the opportunity to open a research Institute of Neuroscience in which we start to study the psychedelic Mushrooms You know, the psychedelic Mushrooms are a big, it's like a big culture in Mexico. So we start to do our research, understanding. the 24 different types of mushrooms at a molecular level. So what we did is a breakdown on the molecules on these 24 different types of mushrooms not only on the psilocibin but in the 16 most important compounds in these 24 different types. And then finding the bindings or the healing effects towards the sub-receptors of the six most important neurotransmitters that we have. Those are the serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline, acetylcholine, GABA, and glutamate. So imagine it's like we were having like a brain mapping and a molecular mapping and then we start to match and to measure the healing effects toward the brain structure. And from there we start to protocols and we start to coach people. So we develop protocols for example for depression, for anxiety. My mother was my first patient. She took about 30 years of SSRIs, benzodiazepines. And what I saw is that, you know, she was not present. She was depressed. She was having more anxiety than before. I did the first protocol for her. I had the opportunity to go to Brazil to meet a very good friend of mine. he specialized mainly in psychedelic mushrooms. And he taught me a little bit about the microdosing and how was the measure and how can I do it. So I applied it to my mom and my surprise was that in 60 days she quit 30 years of SSRIs and benzodiazepines. So she was patient zero. And from there we have supported more than 1,700 people to get out of SSRIs and benzodiazepines.
Alexandra Boehmer: Wow.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So that was a huge win for everybody, you because It really changed not the life of the patient or the client, but also the life of the family structure. And then we start like studying a little bit more about the mushrooms and we open different protocols. We start supporting people with addictions, addictions to cannabis, addictions to alcohol, very much to cocaine as well. Then we have protocols for ADHD, post-traumatic stress disorder. We have supported as well people with Alzheimer, Parkinson, dementia. We have been supporting also athletes, more than 200 athletes. And it's funny, a lot of healthy people in the way, because the microdosing is not only for people that have a specific condition, it's also for healthy people because what it's doing is a regeneration in the brain structure. So we have a lot of housewives, for example, more than 400 housewives. We have artists, we have entrepreneurs. So the idea precisely with this coaching is to understand people as a whole. That's why I start telling you what is liberation at this for me. And it's what we're doing with the microdosing is that the mushrooms are operating in all the levels and all the frequencies of our different physical bodies. So it's working in our, not only in regulating our neurotransmitters and resetting our brain structure, but it's also working in our emotional states, working in our energetic body. And hopefully, when we do it with meditation and with integration, we can reach higher levels of consciousness and we can connect ourselves to our soul and with our spirit. So in that same way, the mushrooms are operating in these different levels, in our physical body, in our mind body, in our energetic fields, in our soul and in our spirit.
Alexandra Boehmer: I love that you derived all your protocols as well from the research you have actually done with the mushrooms. mean, I'm seeing or observing on social media many perspectives on microdosing from many different sites, a lot of them studied very well and that you basically found out that you can now have protocols for different types of illnesses or different types of not only illnesses but mental status. people are in or needs they have basically. I think it's quite advanced. Maybe you can share a little bit about how you came to there. I know that there are more than 150 species that contain psilocybin mushrooms. You picked 24 and how did you pick those and how did you get to the protocols you have now?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, know, Mexico is one of the countries that has the most types of species of psilocybin. So what we did precisely is to do a, recollect as many as we could, you know, from Mexico. And then, you know, there are some things that science cannot understand, cannot explain. So what we did is to go beyond. also vision science and said, okay, what's function of the mushroom in nature? So with this understanding that I was telling you that we said, okay, if the mushroom are taking the different frequencies of the sun, why don't we measure the frequency in which the different types of mushrooms are growing? So that's what we did. So imagine that the mushrooms that were growing during the night. are connected with the light of the moon. Obviously, it's the indirect light of the sun. But those mushrooms are feminine. They have like these feminine qualities. They are more introspective. They could be used, for example, for going very much into inner processes. It allows us to go very deep into the understanding of our behavioral patterns. It allows us as well to to have the process of creativity. If you think from an entrepreneurship point of view is what brings extra strategy. If you think from an artist point of view is the creativity. If you think from an athlete's point of view, for example, we have golfers that are, you know, that they are using introspective motions to be much more concentrated and have a better performance in sports. The more we move into the spectrum of the day, the more masculine energy we get. And we can find that those mushrooms are masculine and it's energy of action, it's energy of connecting, it's energy of manifesting, of performing. So the idea is that with the mushroom that we study is to understand this classification and to suggest to the users in the moment that we use the coaching is to tell them what would be the best approach for their own protocol. So that's very much. So we are using science as much as we can, but also we're using
Alexandra Boehmer: Mm-hmm.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: common sense. And that common sense is connected with nature. So it's like a bridge between both.
Alexandra Boehmer: And how do you maybe track when people are on your protocol? Do you see any changes in people's habits? Sleep, food, stress?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, well, let me explain you a little bit about what we have found in these seven years. there's a common denominator. We divided this understanding on the protocols in 100 days. So what we have seen and measured is that when we use 100 days, we have a complete reset in the brain structure and we can gain the maximum amount of regeneration as we can. So we divided the protocol in three phases. The first phase is what we call regulation. The second phase is regeneration. and the third phase is integration. Let me explain. So the first part that is regulation has to do very much with the physical body. The intention in phase number one is to regulate the serotonin and the dopamine. The other four neurotransmitters are linked to the performance of the serotonin and the dopamine. So if we can regulate serotonin and dopamine, then the other four can start to auto-calibrate by themselves. So this is a very important key because our brain is designed to auto calibrate. You you can produce your own serotonin and calibrate your brain. So how do we produce our own serotonin? And the answer is very simple. It's by doing all the activities that we love, that we're passionate about. And how do we regulate the dopamine? By doing all the activities. that brings excitement to our life. So this is the magic. It's like life is pushing you all the time to do what you love and what brings excitement to your life in order to be happy because serotonin and dopamine, when they are balanced, the serotonin is what brings joy of life, is what brings meaning and purpose. And the dopamine brings the motivation and the personal power to achieve your dreams. So imagine with the serotonin, you are able to dream big. in a joyful way to have meaning and purpose and with the dopamine you have the power of manifestation. So if we can auto calibrate, what is the enemy of the subroutoning and the dopamine? Because there's something that is imbalancing. And the answer is the stress. Well, obviously the drugs, but if we pull out the drugs, the main issue is the stress. And here we have two types of stress. We have a conscious stress and unconscious stress. The conscious stress is a checklist that we can all do. in our daily stressful activities. But more important is the unconscious stress because the unconscious stress is coming from unsolved trauma, trauma that has not been integrated. So here's a very important tipping point in the protocol. This is why I'm explaining. So phase number one is about regulation, regulating the serotonin and the dopamine. The serotonin is regulated because when you take a microdosing, on psilocybin, the psilocybin mimics the molecule of serotonin and the serotonin binds immediately like a twin brother and you start to calibrate the serotonin since the very first intake. And indirectly, you regulate your dopamine because you start, when you increase your serotonin, you are pushing up your dopamine. And the same thing happens On the contrary, you start losing your serotonin, you start losing your dopamine. And also we recommend, for example, our clients that for increasing our dopamine in a natural way, you can take two things, two natural things. You can take mucuna prurins, that is a bean, or you can take a cow powder. And these two are drivers of dopamine. What does driver of dopamine means? That it makes your brain to produce its own dopamine. So. That way you become less dependent or less vulnerable to dopamine agents. So in this first phase, this is what we call regulation. Something important is that the serotonin regulates more than 80 % of our physical functions. So what does the serotonin regulate? Regulates our sleep pattern and the quality of our rest. The serotonin during the night unblocks in melatonin. During the day unblocks in energy. It regulates our hormone system, temperature to body, sensitivity to pain. Together with the dopamine regulates the appetite and the reward system. So when we start regulating serotonin and dopamine, we start calibrating more than 90 % of our physical body.
Alexandra Boehmer: I was just wondering because you said that basically one of the biggest stress factors that we have is unprocessed trauma, in my words. And during your protocols, you have this in three phases, I understand. But how do you approach the unprocessed trauma being such a big stress factor?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes. Okay. So, this is where the second phase started. The second phase is what we call regeneration. And for me, this is the most important part. The regeneration happens through a phenomenon that is called neuroplasticity. The neuroplasticity is happening all the time in our brain since the day we were born until the day we die. But the quality of the neuroplasticity start to decay. for several reasons. One is aging. After we become 30 years old, this capability of regeneration start to drop between 10 and 12 % every 10 years. Secondly, Abuse of substances, hard drugs, cannabis is a dissociative drug, alcohol. All of them, break the interconnectivity. Third, the stress. I will explain in a few minutes. The cortisol. do not allow the regeneration properly, accidents or sports of contact like boxing, for example. And lastly, the trauma. And this is where the stress is coming. So what is anxiety? What is depression? How is it generated in the brain? And how does our trauma affects our mental health? So we have a third neurotransmitter that is called noradrenaline. The noradrenaline is a neurotransmitter that activates when we feel or believe that we are at risk. So the serotonin and your noradrenaline should be at the same level. are all the time like auto-calibrating. If we have a lot of trauma in the brain, what happens is that when we are kids, you know, the defense mechanism of the brain towards the traumas to break on purpose, the interconnectivity where the memories of the trauma are located. So they go to the unconscious mind. That's why we only recall a fraction of what is trauma. Okay, so even though the trauma goes to the unconscious mind, it is active. The activation of trauma, for example, imagine that we grew up with an alcoholic father, okay, with a lot of violence when we were kids. So our brains start to create a dissociation to cope to reality. And this dissociation,
Alexandra Boehmer: So we basically forget.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: yes, exactly, on purpose. We are blocking by breaking. So it creates brain damage, okay? And it goes to the unconscious mind. So this trauma is active. So for example, I was telling you, if you grew up with a violent father and you are watching a movie of violence, you know, in... Not even in a similar home, but like you can relate it. You can be related to it. You immediately put yourself in a defense mode and you have a peak in the neuroadrenaline and we can overreact. Sometimes we overreact in our life, we don't know why. And what is happening is that our unconscious mind is active because it's revealing trauma. So this trauma brings a peak in the neuroadrenaline. The node adrenaline works exactly in the opposite direction as the serotonin. Why? Because if you are in a defense mode, the information that you are bringing to your body and to your mind is that you are at risk. If you are at risk, you don't have any need to eat, to sleep, or to reproduce. Who cares? You are running for your life. This is precisely what the serotonin regulates. Your sexual drive, your appetite, and your sleep. So your brain... is sacrificing your serotonin for surviving. So the gap between your serotonin and your non-adrenaline is your mental health. If you have a small gap, you can notice it with irritability and mood swings. If you're not conscious about it and you do not calibrate, then it raises the bar and the gap, it's like larger. And you can find yourself with anxiety, chronic anxiety, depression, chronic depression. So if we do not have the capability to reduce the node adrenaline to its standard position, and we keep it for more than two weeks or three weeks, this is what is called PTSD. Post-traumatic stress is stress. So that's why I was telling you that we have conscious stress and unconscious stress. So this is coming mainly from... I were unconscious man. So the more pressure we put in the serotonin, because we have not integrated our trauma, is what takes us to anxiety and depression. So here the microdosing plays a very important role, because when you start taking microdosing, you start to regulate and to reduce the gap between the serotonin and your dopamine, and you can put your brain out of anxiety and depression. And that moment, you start having mental clarity and mind clarity. So in this phase that is called regeneration, what is happening is that there's a protein that is called BDNF that is the one that fosters the neuroplasticity in the brain. So we start having a huge production of BDNF in the brain and we start to heal the broken pathways from trauma. And that's a window of opportunity for healing because it is very difficult to heal what we cannot see. because it's in the unconscious mind. So when you start doing microdosing and you start to heal the broken pathways, these repressed memories and repressed emotions will start to go out. And that's a window of opportunity for healing and integrating trauma. So in phase three, that is what we call integration, is because we have so much interconnectivity in the brain that we are able to have access to the unconscious mind. So if we have a... like a good therapist that can guide us to this process in connecting with the unconscious mind, then we can go to the root of the problem.
Alexandra Boehmer: and basically feel what has not been felt in the moment, right?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Exactly, because we are repressing all the time. And all those emotions have been repressed, and the memories have been repressed. We don't have access. So this is why, for me, the microdosing is a process of freedom, because more than 90 % of our decision-making comes from the unconscious mind. So our life is an expression of our ignorance. So the more that we can integrate the unconscious mind to the consciousness, our decision-making comes from a place of understanding consciousness, light, and free will. So we are less conditioned in that sense.
Alexandra Boehmer: Thank you so much. Sophie and I literally started the podcast on, I mean, it's a podcast on longevity, but we started it to open the debate about the mental aspects actually around longevity. And because we found that most of debate is so focused on the body, on sleep, on nutrition, on exercise, tracking biomarkers and optimizing everything, which actually also can cause stress in itself. what's often overlooked is stress is coming from different sources and you just explained it very well that unprocessed emotion is a big source for stress that is very unconscious for most people. So I would love to hear your opinion on the longevity conversation in general maybe.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, of course. Well, I was thinking about that since the first moment that you told me what's longevity for me. Longevity is to have what is the reason of living longer. For me, it's about the quality of life, of course. And this quality of life allowed us to have more time for liberation. So let me go a little bit deeper on this. For me, living a life with purpose is to live a life with presence. Because all the time we are in the past or in the future. And this presence that we can gain or we can find very much when we do meditation, for example, or when we do plant medicine, we lose it because we are attached to the past or to the future. And there's an area of the brain that is called default mode network. The default mode network is default because it's automatic. So it's our automatic response to life. It's where we have all our perception of reality. It's where we have all our perception of past, present, and future. And it's where we develop the ego. So the more rigidity we have in the default mode network, the more attached we are to our ego. For example, when we do, if we do a high doses of ayahuasca or LSD or in type of psychedelic including nortrums, what happened is that the default mode network disappears. and it's like it breaks. That's the dissolution of the ego. and it come backs in a completely new configuration. This is why when we do a macro dosing, we are never the same because the dissolution of the ego happens and then it come backs in a completely different understanding of reality. So what I mean with this is that in longevity, what I see it as the main issue is to have the proper conditions. to be able to integrate our physical body with a healthy body. And we can integrate it with a healthy mind. And we can integrate it with an energetic field. And then we can be conscious about our own existence of who we really are. And this is where we open a window of gratefulness. And when we open a window of gratefulness, we are connected with God. And when we're connected with God, we open our heart for loving and compassion. So for me, longevity is the opportunity to have a healthy base that is our physical body and our mind to be potentially more loving and compassionate. Because if we are not healthy in our physical body, if we have a disease, then our priority is not liberation, it's just to heal and to survive.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: And we put our body in a survival mechanism, then we have a peak in the neuroadrenaline, the neuroadrenaline reduces the serotonin, we cannot connect with life, cannot connect with meaning, with purpose, we enter into anxiety, depression, and that's the cycle.
Alexandra Boehmer: also because in longevity, think most or a lot of people are trying to just outrun death or aging in itself. And when we talk for the first time, you shared your perspective on death. And I think that was very interesting and also how it might affect actually us dying on the planet, even how we look at death. So I would like for you to maybe share a little bit about You even said that the lack of acceptance of death is at the root for a lot of our neuroses. So maybe you
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Exactly.
Alexandra Boehmer: can elaborate on that.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Yes, of course. There's a book that is called The Denial of Death. This book is amazing because it unifies all the visions of therapy in a common denominator that is that we are all denying our death. And from denying our death, it comes all our neurosis because, you know, our small self want to survive. And that's when we start to to overachieve or lose track in what we really are. So for me, life is the training for death. And death is the window of opportunity for liberation. That's the most important moment. Because if you can keep yourself focused in that precise moment and you don't lose track, then you can find your liberation. So for me, death is a gift. It's a gift. And our life is the training for taking the most out of that gift. And the more present we can be in our daily life, the more prepared we are for dying. And the plant medicine, for example, If you had the opportunity to take ayahuasca sometime, they call it the vein of death because I don't know what that is, but probably it will be like very similar to that. And it's time to prepare you not to be afraid of dying. And for me, for me is that obviously it's easy to say that it is a gift until you are there. But if you can prepare yourself, at least you can detach from this physical body in a more easy way and find a new adventure.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah, most probably most people in the Western world wouldn't say death is a gift or don't look at it that way. So how do you think that the relationship that most people in the Western world have with death, I think it's probably fear based or avoiding or we're excluding it even from our conversations or we're not looking at it. Most people are not dying at home anymore. Most people are dying in hospitals or and it's not really talked about. How do you think that this How we treat death is shaping the way we also look at health and medicine.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: That's a very good question. When you think that death is the end, then you're putting all your resources to avoiding death. If you think that death is just the beginning, then you prepare yourself completely different to facing that moment. And death comes, I mean, you can do whatever you want to have longevity. But for me, our life has a karmic imprint that it's already there. So it doesn't matter what you do. If you have to die when you are 40 years old, you're going to die when you're 40. If your line of life is until you are 30 or 60 or 90, it's already written, at least from my personal point of view. So that's why it's more about the quality of life that you can have. and the peace of mind that you can have and the presence that you may have in living the moment, the here and now. So it's more what you think there is, that there is after dying, what can make you anxious or can allow you to detach from this physical body.
Alexandra Boehmer: I also am pointed about this a lot when my little brother died when he was 22 years old. And I think that was
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: And that's it.
Alexandra Boehmer: one of my biggest insights that I got that actually helped me on my journey to come to acceptance of his death was to accept that every soul has a plan and I'm not the one to change it or to control it. And that actually helped me a lot to accept just what happened and to come to peace with it.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: exactly what I think about life. There's a mantra that says, this is perfect, that is perfect. From the perfect emerges the perfect. If you quit the perfect from the perfect, remains the perfect. And this has to do with acceptance, that everything is divine. Everything is the guru. So when we can accept life as it is, we can flow. We can flow. that allowed us to be more free as well and allowed us to be more present and allowed us to be more happy and to accept life as it is. And the plant medicine is an amazing tool because what do not allow us to be in the present moment is our neurosis. And in our neurosis is in the default mode network. And if we can make the default mode network much more flexible, we are detached from our ego. And that way... we can be more compassionate because we are less egocentric and we can connect with the emotions and the feelings of other people. So yeah, that's why I, for me, the plant medicine is a process that accelerates our connection with joy, with who we really are.
Alexandra Boehmer: yeah. I would like to unpack another idea of yours. You said when we first talked
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Thank you.
Alexandra Boehmer: as well that why do we actually have to live 80 years instead of 180 years? And you said, I recall that you think it's like a program of the mind that we're set to basically, but I would love to get more of how you think about that or how you came to that idea.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, yes, imagine that we can transport ourselves 200 years from now. And you see that everybody is living 200 years of them. No, 200 years. So then you will have a program that everybody will be living between 180 and 200 years. If you go probably 1,000 years from now, people will be living 250. So your new program will be that if you go backwards, you will see that people were living 50 years maximum. That's why the elders in the traditions were 52. Right now, like it's easy to cross the 52. So those are programs. So right now we have a program in our mind that the expectancy of life is between 75 and 85. We're putting this information in our brain that when we are 85, we are almost dying. So. That's exactly, and this is a program of everything. Everything is created to program us. Religions are programming us, social status, education. Everything is bringing programs to our brain.
Alexandra Boehmer: So basically the biggest tip that you can get everyone interested in having a long life is to get rid of the program.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Well, it's not that easy, know, liberating from a program requires a lot of effort and understanding. It's complicated and it's also in our physical body, you know, the programming is in our physical body So yes one is one part one part is to have a healthy life But more but more than that is to have a life of joy No, who care? If they tell you what do you prefer to live 110 years? With a life without like this meaning or purpose or live 60 years at your maximum standard of joy, I would prefer 60, myself.
Alexandra Boehmer: Me too.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So it's more about the presence that you can give. You know, the presence is a superpower. The presence that you can give to someone is the best gift that you can give. So if we are thinking about, just longevity, we are thinking about the future. We are not living the present moment. So it's more like coming back and coming back to this moment. Because we cannot control life. We're going to die when we are going to die. very to have like quality in the here and now and presence in the here and now and joy in the here and now. And that's how I perceive life after many errors that I have committed.
Alexandra Boehmer: you
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: So, right now for me success is being the owner of my time, doing what I love and having quality time. with my wife, with my kids, with my family. And having enough money because money is important, we live in this realm just for traveling a little bit and to live life that can bring me enough freedom for doing what I love.
Alexandra Boehmer: So we now talked a lot about plant medicine before we are slowly coming to an end. But for someone who's already exploring microdosing or plant medicine or is interested in it, what do you think are the most important questions that someone should ask to stay responsible on that path?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: well, start from microdosing to macrodosing. Let me explain you why. Doing a macro dose is like running a marathon. Doing micro dosing is like preparing for the marathon. It's like running two kilometers every day for the marathon. What happened when you start doing micro dosing is that you start to foster the neural structure. So in the moment that you are ready for the macro dosing, you can hold the energy of the plant medicine easily and you can understand better. What are the messages that are bringing from the different fields? So start from micro, then you can go to mini doses, then you can go to medium doses, and then you can do macrodosing. I don't recommend to do macrodosing directly because we have a lot of what is what we call like emotional garbage. So if you do microdosing, you will release the like this emotional garbage in the first four to six weeks. And when you do the macro, you don't have to deal with that in that moment. It's like you are standing in another position. So the plant medicine is almost for everybody in small doses, in micro doses. It's not for everybody in macro dosing, you know, because... We have different brain structures. And many people, for example, ayahuasca can fragment more and have a... an imprint and have a misfunction in the brain structure and how would we perceive reality and we will require a lot of integration to go back. So ayahuasca is not for everybody. I have never tried it before, but I think it is like a super strong medicine. But in microdosing, for example, the Mushrooms are amazingly helpful. Just to, it's very important to know the origin of the medicine that you are taking, where it's coming from, and the dose that you are taking.
Alexandra Boehmer: Yeah, very important, that's true. So Fernando where can people find you and learn more about your work as well, what you're offering?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: thank you. Well, the Institute is called Bhavani Bhavani in Sanskrit means the moment of recognition that we are all one. That is what the plant medicine is giving you. know, there's a moment in which you say, wow, we're all connected. What happened to me is happening to you in another level. So I am taking care of you and my process is your process. And that's what Bhavani means. So I don't know if you can share my email in your page and I will be happy to support anyone that is willing to have more information about that.
Alexandra Boehmer: we will share your email and also the website for Bhavani in the show notes. And I will also link the book that you mentioned, The Denial of Death. I highly recommend as
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: the system.
Alexandra Boehmer: well to read it. It's a beautiful book to understand a little bit more about death in itself or life in itself, actually.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Bad life.
Alexandra Boehmer: So, Fernando, thank you so much for opening that dimension of longevity for us. I think it was a very special view on longevity. And normally my co-host Sophie is asking the last question, but since she's not here, I have the honor to just ask you the
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Please.
Alexandra Boehmer: final question. How does it feel for you to be at your peak?
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: What do you mean by pig?
Alexandra Boehmer: I mean, that's very different for everyone, I would assume, what peak means, but peak meaning in your best state possible.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: My best state possible is when I am in the here and now. Because when we are in the here and now is when we become creators of our own life and we are not operating from neurosis. So being in the here and now is what really allows us to be human beings. actions are not conditioned from our small self. So that's what is for me the Hirana.
Alexandra Boehmer: Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you so much for today's conversation, Fernando. It was a pleasure.
FERNANDO GONZALEZ: Thank you very much, Alexa, and looking forward to see you again. Thank you. Bye bye.
Alexandra Boehmer: Me too, bye.
