My Mushroom Teacher
Prior to March 2019, I was fucking miserable. AND, I had no clue. I knew my life felt “off’, but I could never really explain why. I knew there was a different experience of life waiting for me. I knew the way I felt in the morning wasn’t normal. I knew the racing, panic-stricken thoughts just before bed weren’t normal. I heard the internal whispers saying I was meant for so much more and echoing I wasn’t as happy as I desired to be. I kept showing up in places I didn’t want to be, hanging with people that didn’t fill me up, partaking in drugs and drinks that made me feel like shit, working 14-hour days at a career that drained my soul, and continued to look myself in the mirror and lie to my reflection. I kept this lifestyle, destructive behaviors, and deprecating thoughts going as if I was accomplishing some feat of strength. “Hey, everyone! Look at how well I can suffer!” Every day I repeated the same line to anyone interested in hearing it.
“I’m good”
The automatous lie we tell every stranger when met with their robotenous question, “how are you?”
The problem I had, and I cautiously assume most of us have, is I simply wasn’t aware. Again, I knew my life felt off, but I had become so proficient at gaslighting myself. Ignorance really had become bliss, if you can imagine bliss chillin’ on the border of an existential crisis. I compared myself to others as justification for why I wasn’t as happy as I wanted to be. People have it way worse, ya know? I should just be grateful for what I am. YES, AND WE ALL DESERVE TO BE AS HAPPY AS WE FUCKING WANT TO BE. Gratitude is the doorway, but not an excuse to stay in the misery you’re self-creating.
Psychedelics changed my life. I’ll write this sentence 378,398 times before I die based on how often I use it, how many articles I write a week, and assuming I live until I’m 100. I checked the math. Srsly, tho. Psychedelics changed my life (2x in one paragraph? Crushing it). Psychedelics changes my life (lol) because they brought me back to my Truth. Our Truth is Universal within our consciosuness, meaning it’s ever present and all existing. When life gets messy a sort of haze comes over me. When I’m sad, depressed, anxious, grief-stricken, angry, confused, lost, purposeless, lonely, heart-broken, stressed, or barely-hanging-the-fuck-on, a dense fog comes engulfs my presence. Not dense enough to suffocate, just dense enough to limit the understanding of existence. When I started intentionally using psychedelics, the fog was lifted. Entheogenic medicines brought me back to the Truth that was always there, but lost in the cloudiness of my own bullshit.
The journey of re-discovering my truth started in the summer of 2019, and went something like this…
I was living in San Diego at the time in an apartment in Little Italy, near downtown. It was a warm summer night, on Friday, sometime in July. The story of my first microdose on the beach happened a few months prior in March. I was about 3 months into my microdosing practice, having completely stopped taking my Adderall and no longer buying Xanax or Valium from my 'friends'. My life was on a positive trajectory, feeling more happiness and gratitude than I was used to experiencing. Even so, I felt trapped. I kept seeing glimpses into a life free of numbness, addiction, and distraction. I began exiting the scenes I frequented, where drunken and meaningless conversations dominated my free time and weekends. I was in a kind of void space. I knew the people I surrounded myself with weren't in alignment with who I wanted to be, but I didn't know who the fuck I was. The liminal space between no longer resonating with who I was, and not knowing how to get to where I wanted to be, felt torturous. There was a loneliness that had set over me, prompting discovery of how much I couldn't stand being in my own company. There was an uncomfortable silence in my own presence, shying away from any interaction with my thoughts and emotions. I remember thinking, "do I even like myself?" I still get chills remembering the torment of being trapped in my own mind.
Earlier that week I was having a vulnerable conversation with a friend, opening up about my mental and emotional state. I explained how microdosing had already changed so much for me, but in reality it also made me so aware of the misery I was in; and had been ignorantly ignoring. His response changed the direction of my life.
"Here. I'm giving you 2-grams of mushrooms. Stay at home on Friday and eat these. Lay on the couch, put some music on, cover your eyes, and have a nice journey."
Friday came and I did just that. I chopped up some fruit to have a snack ready if I needed it, texted a buddy to be on standby if I needed some support, lit some candles, and started prepping my mushroom tea. I used a $15 coffee grinder I bought at Target earlier that day to powderize the mushrooms, then added them to a cup of nearly-boiling water and topped it off with half a lemon squeeze. The apartment I lived in had a view of the ocean; the north side of San Diego Bay, just in front of Waterfront Park. While my tea was steeping, I caught the last of the sunset from my balcony.
Finishing my tea, I headed back inside and began to settle in for the impending ride. I laid on the couch browsing through my music to find whose tunes would accompany me in my journey, eventually landing on Rufus Du Sol radio. With years and well over a hundred psychedelic journeys later, I would not recommend Rufus Du Sol radio lol.
The journey lasted about 4.5 hours before I was "out" of the experience. No matter how many times I have tried, it’s been nearly impossible to describe the potency and gravitas these consciousness expanding ventures are. I could describe to you how I cried for the first time in years - like, REALLY cried. Through those tears settled a release of grief, sadness, and anger I didn't know existed beneath the surface. I was so detached from my capacity to process emotions, it was shocking how incredible I felt after the release. I could tell you about the unreal levels of gratitude felt for people in my life, writing texts to nearly a dozen friends expressing my love. I could describe visions of meditating with and speaking directly to my Soul, opening up a path of self-love I hadn't realized was missing. I could tell you how I danced and danced and danced with childlike joy. I could tell you many more of these little tidbits and it still wouldn't do it justice.
The psychedelic experience is ineffable. Human language feels inadequate - even stupid - when describing these explorations of consciousness. Even in attempts I laugh inside, knowing nothing will come close to the paradigm altering profundity I feel.
Every. Single. Time.
Even so, it’s undeniable how my life has changed. I am better at human-ing. Not in a hierarchical sense, like I’m better at this than you are. Rather, I am able to navigate this wild experience in an evolved way. I am more grounded, centered, and aligned in who I am. I am less stressed and more excitable. I breeze past the woes of anxiety that used to cripple me into the clenches of isolation and disparaging thought loops. I interact with depressive thoughts like they’re a guru, guiding me towards the parts of myself hiding in the shadows. I walk with a sense of awe; something I used to think was lost with my childhood. My heart has opened and I feel a depth of love I never knew possible. I’m more creative and feel like I’m watching art pour through me without any conscious inclination of how.
Most importantly, God is available to me again, and I never thought I’d type those words.