As Above, So Below

Your Biography and Biology are one in the same.

Read time: Approx 5 mins

Isn’t it fascinating how we compartmentalize ourselves? We go to therapy for the mind, to the doctor for the body, and to yoga when our soul feels “dusty.” We act like these three branches of “being” operate in silos. The mind, we’re told, is separate from the body. The body? Just a machine whose utility is purely based on performance and output. And the soul? Well, that’s something you check in with after you’ve exhausted every clinical solution... The problem with this mental cubicle farm is that it couldn’t be more divorced from reality…or biology.

What happens in the mind, happens in the body. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally.

And yet, our way of living…capitalism, growth, and consumerism (I think it's clear, by now, how I feel about this topic…) have hijacked even our pursuit of wellness…because feeling broken is profitable. “Healing” is a consumer journey curated through products, pills, and influencers. And this pre-packaged slogan of “freedom” is a sales pitch to further disconnect us from our bodies…pathology as personality, dependency as empowerment.

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Dr. Gabor Maté is one of the few clinicians who dares to say the quiet parts out loud. He puts it plainly… "The essence of trauma is disconnection from the self." And when you’re disconnected from yourself, the body doesn’t just wait around like an obedient sidekick. It reacts…rebels…screams. Autoimmune disorders, chronic fatigue, IBS, fibromyalgia, migraines, recurrent infections…The medical system really enjoys chalking these up to poor genes or bad luck…because then the control is in the hands of healthcare, not the patients themselves. These diagnoses have been quietly increasing in numbers for decades…but why? Maté, drawing on decades of clinical observation and research, insists that these so-called "mystery illnesses" are often the body’s way of physically expressing what the mind is too overburdened or repressed to process. And maybe our toxic manner of existing in this world is “finally becoming more apparent” through our DNA.

I know what you’re thinking…”pseudo-science alert! What’s this spiritual woo-woo bullsh*t, Dan?” But...it’s not. A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found a statistically significant correlation between adverse childhood experiences and higher rates of autoimmune disease in adulthood. Trauma did not simply vanish because these individuals weren’t ready to “deal with it.” It burrowed…it manifested. And if never confronted, it began morphing into symptoms that no lab panel can fully explain. Because…sometimes…we have to let go of the fact that we humans (and our AI appendages) don't have all the answers.

Emerging research in the field of epigenetics reveals a striking link between our cognitive patterns…such as stress, mindfulness, and emotional regulation…and epigenetic expression. Studies, including those conducted by Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel, show that chronic stress can alter the activity of genes involved in inflammation, immune function, and even cellular aging…primarily through mechanisms like DNA methylation and histone modification. For example, individuals who engage in regular mindfulness practices or cognitive-behavioral therapy exhibit changes in the expression of genes associated with stress responses, such as reduced activity in the NF-kB pathway, which governs inflammation. These findings are a reminder that our thoughts and mental habits can biologically embed themselves, shaping our health trajectory at the molecular level.

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Not so fast, though! Here comes the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, swooping in with SSRIs, benzos, and GLP-1 receptor agonists to hijack the process. Semaglutide and tirzepatide are abso-f**king-lutely phenomenal in how they work. And they do (I’ve gone into further detail in previous articles). People shed astronomical amounts of weight, rapidly. "No more hunger, no more shame," say the ads and endless celebrity endorsements. But…the soul quietly whispers, “What about the pain?"

Now let me be perfectly clear…I don’t think using GLPs is cheating. On the contrary. I’ve prescribed them. I still do. And I probably will continue to in certain cases. Obesity is not some lazy character flaw…it's a biologically, environmentally, and psychologically complex state that medicine has failed to address compassionately for decades. These medications offer relief…sometimes life-changing relief…for people who’ve been battling both systemic stigma and their own neurobiology. But with that power comes a need for reverence, discernment, and humility. My issue is not with the medication itself, rather it's with the story we wrap around it. That seductive little lie that all you need is a syringe and a few weeks of appetite suppression to finally be free. Appetite is far more of an experience than simply just ghrelin and GLP-1 signaling. It's memory…attachment…body shame…unworthiness…generational trauma around scarcity…grief wrapped in craving…craving for wholeness. Hunger is, quite often, the body’s last-ditch effort to self-regulate after living in a world that never allowed the space to feel safe. When we suppress that hunger pharmacologically, without even acknowledging the psychological scaffolding that created it, we risk silencing a messenger…but we are not healing the message. It's akin to the idea of “spiritually bypassing” in the psychedelic space…skipping the “hard parts” and claiming victory in the temporary window of dopamine highs.

The shame doesn’t simply “go away” with the weight. Because shame was never stored in the stomach…it was tucked deep in the nervous system, tied to stories of neglect, abandonment, abuse, perfectionism, and chronic self-erasure. Once the weight is gone…then? This is the question no one seems to be able to answer…medicine loves to play the game of “f**k around and find out later…at which time we can package another drug to compensate for the side effects.” Patients are often left with a psychic void they never expected…one that no dose can fill.

These medications, while useful, must be contextualized. They are a tool, not a cure. They're a bridge towards change, but they are not the destination. If we continue to treat them as quick-fixes, we will, again, reinforce the very systems that thrive off chronic dependency…more pills, external validation above all else, market-driven metrics dictating our worth…Perhaps, worse…we distance ourselves further from our own internal cues and authentic selves. These very signals, if honored, could have led to sustainable healing in the first place…

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Here we go with the drugs, again…

Remember when psychedelics were a threat to the establishment? When “far out” spiritual seekers risked prison time just to explore inner truth with the help of psilocybin or LSD? Today, clinics charge thousands for "ketamine-assisted psychotherapy." Mushroom retreats in South America advertise "safe trips" under medical supervision, flanked by shoddy Instagram aesthetics and Spotify playlists. It’s all very f**king tidy... Very marketable. Scalable. Unfortunately, healing doesn’t happen in a 90-minute session with a DSM diagnosis and billing code…Psychedelics were never meant to be consumer tools. They are a portal to expanded consciousness…wild, unruly, sacred, and deeply individual to the person working with them…a connection to oneself and universal oneness…something heavily lacking in today’s world. And yet, here we are. Again. Healing, once a rite of passage towards enlightenment, is becoming just another revenue system, latched onto the heels of diagnostic dependency labels. Depression, PTSD, anxiety, OCD…YOU are the problem. And if YOU are the problem, well the market will always find a way to sell you the cure…

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MKUltra…the CIA’s Dirty Little Secret

If you’re wondering why I don’t fully trust the scientific community, pharmaceutical industry, or government’s motives behind the psychedelic rebirth, here’s why…The same government now funding psychedelic research once experimented with LSD to “break people’s minds.” Seriously...MKUltra was the CIA's covert program, founded in the early 1950’s. It was responsible for unethically (and without informed consent) dosing unwitting civilians, prisoners, and even their own employees “to see what would happen.” It was a grotesque experiment in mind control, aimed at one-upping Cold War-era enemies in the game of hostage interrogation.

Testimonies from survivors and declassified documents reveal nightmarish scenarios...People like Frank Olson, an Army biochemist who was unknowingly dosed with LSD, later “fell to his death” from a hotel window under suspicious circumstances…which later revealed “probable foul play.” I wonder what information he may have been holding? Sounds very Epstein-like…Others were kept in dark isolation, drugged for months on end…their sense of identity methodically dismantled. In Canadian offshoots, like the experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute (under Dr. Ewen Cameron), patients were subjected to "de-patterning.” …being wiped clean psychologically through a repeated series of electroshock, sensory deprivation, and massive doses of hallucinogens…in hopes of “reprogramming” the human mind. Possibly most sadistic was Operation Midnight Climax. I know what you're thinking…70’s porno flick? Almost. This was a covert CIA program under the broader MK-Ultra project in the 1950s and 60s, where government-paid sex workers lured men to safe houses in San Francisco and New York. Unbeknownst to them, these men were secretly dosed with LSD and observed behind one-way mirrors, all in an effort to study mind control and behavioral manipulation using psychedelics. What in the actual f**k…

Sadly, these weren’t fringe events. Government-sanctioned MKUltra-era horrors, facilitated by high-prestige hospitals, universities, and military bases, were conducted at institutions like Standford, George Washington University, Princeton, Columbia, and even UW-Madison. The trauma inflicted didn’t just vanish, despite the CIA’s later attempt to shred and rid their tracks of all documented evidence of the program in the early 70’s. It fractured lives, broke families, and left a legacy of distrust that still lingers.

As a sidebar…some have speculated that LSD was deliberately seeded into ’60s civil-rights and anti-war circles to distract, or pacify, organizers pushing back against U.S. power abroad and at home. It’s true the CIA toyed with LSD under MK-Ultra, hoping for control; in practice, the drug mostly did the opposite, amplifying skepticism and anti-authoritarian talk. Once psychedelics bled from labs into rallies and dorm rooms, the crackdown followed… in 1970 the Nixon administration and Congress placed LSD (and friends) in Schedule I, and enforcement ramped up fast. Timothy Leary sits uncomfortably at the center of this knot. Through the Harvard psilocybin work and his “turn on, tune in, drop out” evangelism, he helped carry psychedelics from research settings into movement culture, making the scene both more electric and (some argue) easier for authorities to caricature and police. The evidence for a deliberate plot is messy, but the timing is hard to ignore. Free thinkers, as history keeps teaching, rarely align with government initiatives.

Why bring this up? Because context matters. Because the system doesn’t change…history demonstrates this over and over and over again…and, much like the impending fascist takeover of our country, we seem to forget that this has historically occurred a number of times…in the same manner. But history only lives on in the way we wish to remember it…control strategically rebrands. It seeps into all aspects of our being. The same structures that once wished to control consciousness, later punished it, and now profit from it. And if you think they’re suddenly benevolent because they added a lab coat and an FDA label, you’re not paying attention.

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Providers, nurses, and “essential” clinical workers truly want what’s best for their patients…I am one of them. But the system…the system doesn’t want you well. It wants you functional. Just functional enough to work, to buy, to scroll, and to suffer quietly without asking questions. Because, as soon as we surpass the functional capacity, the entire system of dominoes will, inevitably, collapse. Let the Roman Empire be the historical foreshadowing of what's likely to come, without drastic change…Chronic illness is good for business. Depression is a subscription model, based on lifelong medication regimens and decades of talk therapy. Anxiety is ad revenue, propagated by news hype and constant economic chaos. The average person now spends 4.8 hours a day on their phone, not including laptops. Our “connectivity” sounds a hell of a lot like captivity. We soothe our loneliness, trauma, and evening disconnect with hours of mind-numbing Netflix…"can’t wait to see if Jake and Deanna pick each other in the pods tonight! Eek!” The dopamine hits are lab-crafted to algorithmically keep us anxious, distracted, docile, and trapped in dependency.

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If we want to move the dial, we have to start by acknowledging the betrayal of a system that, for generations, has encouraged us to ignore our intuition…replacing community with productivity, medicating our grief, and pathologizing emotional sensitivity.

And then we feel…and for the love of God…we slow the f**k down. Exist without doing. Go for a walk and listen to the birds…I'm equally guilty of listening to my fair share of podcasts on walks, but sometimes it's important to let the brain reign free to simply wander…or wonder. Let the body speak. Yes, that might mean therapy. It might mean breathwork. It might mean sitting in a field and screaming your f**king lungs out. Healing is not linear. It’s definitely not clinical. It’s not something you can schedule between meetings for “efficiency’s sake.”

What happens in the mind happens in the body. And what happens in the body is often a story the mind is too scared to tell.

So listen to the physiological “nudges.” Not to the doctors who prescribe a medication without ever asking about your socioeconomic landscape…or your childhood. Not to the influencers selling you a $300 nervous system reset or bullsh*t e-course. Not to your chiropractor, who turned adjusting your spine into a subscription model…laced with nonsensical lab tests and tinctures. Listen to the tremble in your gut. The tightness in your throat. The fatigue that no supplement or melatonin cocktail can touch.

Your body remembers everything. And it’s not trying to sabotage you. It’s trying to save you from your ego.

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