My first vacation with my family after opening up about my alcoholism and becoming part of the AA community was not what I expected. It wasn’t full of love. In fact, it was the complete opposite. I had dreamt up scenarios of how proud my mother would be of me, how my brothers and sisters would congratulate me on such an accomplishment, the small town of Duck in the Outer Banks where we vacation would have a ticker tape parade celebrating my return, my dad would see what I did and be inspired to do the same.
None of that happened.
No one even mentioned it. Not a word. Some of them actually looked at me like there was something wrong with me or that I had a considerable overreaction to what I considered abuse. So, as alcoholics do, my resentments started to grow. As the week wore on I became increasingly upset with how little time my mom was spending with me. After all, she had been wishing and praying her children would stop drinking for as long as I can remember but she seemed more interested in my nieces and nephews that had accompanied us this year. In fact, a little disinterested in me if I’m being honest. Mind you, I do not see my mom more than 2 or 3 times a year. This was uncharacteristic. I used to be her favorite I thought!
I got home and the wheels of discontent continued to spiral. I started finding other reasons to resent my mom. She hadn’t called in two weeks since I had got back. I call her, straight to voicemail. I’d text, short texts were sent my way. What the hell had I done to her. Why doesn’t she love me. You can see how the spiral got deeper and deeper.
I couldn’t shake this feeling and even after addressing it with her I still felt unsatisfied. So, I decided to break out the psychedelic tool kit and get hyper focused on the real why behind all of these feelings.
The Intention Setting…
Now as psychonauts go I am but a novice. I did know clearly however what my intention would be. It was to understand and deal with what my part was in this new found distant relationship I had with my mom. I wanted to know what I did and I thought who else would be better to consult than the supremely intelligent psilocybin toadstools.
On the day of the journey I took a considerable dose many would call a “hero dose”. I wanted to get way out there and stretch the limits of my consciousness. You may think this to be a trivial reason to use psychedelics and typically I would agree with you. This thing was one hell of an onion though going back to childhood. It wasn’t just this vacation. The top layer was the vacation, there are layers and layers below that encapsulating our relationship that really needed to be pulled back and examined if I were to make peace with the top layer of skin currently infecting my every thought.
The Experience – The Cliff Notes
I am writing a full report of the experience and integration of that experience in a separate post. We’ll just hit the highlights here so I can get to the moral of the story.
The first two hours were just grinding thoughts, nothing clear, just millions of thoughts and visuals, and as they settled I began to focus on my mom, myself, my sobriety, ultimately, the situation. What was it that was bothering me so bad….AND THEN BAM. It had nothing to do with my mom. Had nothing to do with how she was acting. Had nothing to do with whether it was intentional or not.
It was me and my expectations.
I went on that vacation with the expectation of specific outcomes and instead of fully enjoying the trip I suffered each day awaiting an outcome I had dreamt up, no one else knew about, and wasn’t going to come true.
The second lesson was a pretty hard look inward. I realized I am selfish and require a lot of social validation. I need that in order to feel good about myself. Just think about that. I’m 40 years old and jealous of a 3 month old, 3yo, and 5yo because they’re stealing my mom’s time from me. When you write it down it’s pretty ridiculous. That’s what was shown to me. I could see it. I could see it in a brand new perspective. I wasn’t ashamed of it, I just looked at it and said, got it. That’s your problem, that’s what needs to get fixed.
My mom has her first grandchildren going with her on our first family vacation together. Can you imagine her excitement? Can you imagine how awesome that is for her? I was so focused on me that I overlooked the bigger picture. Through many years of love and affection our family was growing and I was a part of that. We are all part of it and should celebrate the miracle of what my mom was so in tune with.
Love The Insights
I realized in such an objective manner that the problem was with me and until I changed how I saw the situation I’d hold onto this resentment, even if incorrectly. The path to growth is seeing it for what it is, looking internally at where growth is needed, and start working towards that. The first step is true recognition and brutal honesty over what it is in you that you want to change. Only then will the work be effective. That’s what psychedelics do when taken responsibly, with appropriate preparation and integration. They bench my ego and show me it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, it’s something to understand deeply, stare it in the face, and be OK with it. That’s the first step towards true change.
I realized I can’t and won’t be happy with others until I truly learn to love myself. If I put expectations on social validation to feel content I am in for a long life of disappointment and pain. I realized in one 6 hour session that love is everywhere you look when you look for it. The opposite is also true. The only person you need to truly know, understand and love is yourself and all others fall into place.
Love all of you, not just the good stuff. We all have faults, patterns, and destructive models built over many many years we can’t just shut off like a switch. Once you understand truly that you are flexible, you can change, and get committed to the work; you are on the righteous path. It’s a painful and deeply emotional road of which I’ve just started out but I can tell you my three takeaways from that journey:
- Change myself and I can change my world.
- Love is everywhere and everything. Reach out for it and you will be reciprocated.
- Failure is inevitable. Get up again. Look at failures objectively and get to the lesson much faster.
Could I come to these conclusions without the use of psychedelics? Of course I could. I don’t believe it would have been as impactful or meaningful as it was during that journey. I wouldn’t be able to turn my ego off and look at my shit with objective, kind eyes. The medicine helped me learn to love myself more and love everyone around me.
Comments are closed.