Top 10 Lessons I’ve Learned From Psychedelics

I haven’t written or spoken in any kind of public way about my journey with plant medicines, also known as psychedelics, but now feels like a good time for me to start sharing. The stigma around these mysterious and often misunderstood medicines is lifting, as evidenced by their decriminalization in places like Oregon and Colorado where I live, and if you ask me, it’s about time. It seems like plant medicines and psychedelics are entering the mainstream consciousness right now in a way that has the potential to catalyze major growth, healing, and much-needed change for a significant amount of the population, and in a relatively short period of time. In short, it is the medicine we need right now. I have been working with several master plant-teachers for nearly 20 years, and the benefits I have received have been invaluable and life-altering to say the least. There is so much to say on this topic, but for now I will limit myself to sharing with you 10 major insights I’ve experienced working with these medicines. 

1.) It’s good to be uncomfortable.

Gosh, we hate being uncomfortable, don’t we? In modern life, we have really come to value comfort above almost all else. We have built our lives in such a way to maximize comfort in every possible area. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being comfortable. I love being comfortable. But is it healthy if we’re always and only comfortable? Psychedelics have taught me otherwise. 

Nothing will cause us to experience discomfort like a good psychedelic journey. There is discomfort in not-knowing what it will be like and not having any control over what will happen. There is discomfort when we brush up against our unhealed parts. And there is discomfort when we resist what is happening, or when we are confronted with those things we’ve been trying to avoid. But when we make room for the discomfort and have the courage to face our fears and surrender to the wisdom of the medicine, amazing things can happen. We can move through our fear. We can see things we have been avoiding, and we can learn how to heal. Through discomfort, we build strength, resiliency, and fortitude. On the other side of discomfort, we can experience a greater depth of acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, and unconditional love. 

Personally, I have come to enjoy regularly work with psychedelics for reasons like these. I don’t like being uncomfortable (who does?), but I appreciate the fruit that discomfort bears. Every single time I work with psychedelics I go through this, and every single time I am grateful for the experience, despite the protestations of my ego in the interim. It reliably facilitates phenomenal growth in my life, and all I have to accept is about six hours of moderate to intense discomfort.

2.) Everything is perfect exactly the way it is.

This is the kind of idea that flies right in the face of the ego, which has endless ideas about how things should be, precious few of which are “exactly how they are right now.” But psychedelics can open us up in such a way that allows us to relax into our natural state of being, which allows us to see with abundant clarity: Everything that has ever happened, is happening right now, and will ever happen, is perfect just the way it is. It certainly does not seem “perfect” to the ego or personality-self which has endless ideas about what’s wrong and what should be done to make it right. Even so, it is felt and known as perfect to our underlying essence.

Through the use of natural medicines, or organic technologies as I sometimes call them, we can practice accepting and trusting Life in its wisdom and perfection. This is much easier to do when, under the influence of the medicine, the ego has receded and we can see with extraordinary clarity that everything is as it needs to be. Spending time in this space can also plant the seeds that will grow into our “ordinary” lives and allow us to integrate and embody this perspective all of the time, not just while we’re in a sacred ceremony. These medicines can open our eyes to the inherent perfection of life, enabling us to see that it is an ongoing miracle, not something that needs to be improved or fixed.

3.) Life works better when we surrender.

The most common reason I hear as to why people don’t want to work with psychedelics is that they are afraid of losing control. This of course implies that they are in control to begin with. The question to ask here is, “Who is afraid of losing control? Is it your ego or your essence?” I would suggest it’s always ego. At an essence-level, there’s really no such thing as control. Our essence always works in concert with God/Spirit/Life Itself and knows how to go with the flow and make choices accordingly. Ego, on the other hand, is like a frightened child who feels alone and doesn’t know what to do. It mistrusts God/Spirit/Life at a fundamental level, especially in regards to its unknown qualities, and as a response it cultivates all sorts of fear-based beliefs, behaviors, and rituals in order to protect itself and feel safe. It desperately tries to create and maintain control.

Psychedelics have shown me that life is not meant to be controlled, nor is it possible to do so even if we wanted. It’s far too big for that. Life is happening, God is happening, the Universe is happening. Do we really think we can control that? We do much better when we align ourselves with it and go with the flow. These doesn’t mean to live passively, but rather to live without resistance to what is happening.

I fought hard in the early days of ceremony against giving up control and allowing the medicine in. My ego was stubborn and afraid, but my essence was committed to healing and awakening. I kept showing up, and over the course many years and many ceremonies I learned how to surrender. It is still an ongoing practice every time I sit with the medicine. But I’ve noticed it always feels so much better to work with and surrender to life rather than kick and fight against it.  

4.) Love is infinitely more powerful than fear.

On several occasions now, I have experienced the incredible power of love in psychedelic ceremonies. It is hard to talk about because of how cliche it can sound when reduced to words. “Oh my gosh, love conquers all, you guys!” I know, I know, ridiculous. But there is a chasm between the concept of love and the direct experience of unconditional love. I personally don’t recall receiving that kind of love in my human relationships, but let me tell you, it may be the most powerful force in the universe. Receiving that kind of love from Spirit, through the medicine, has more than once reduced me to a quivering mess of tears, joy, and gratitude for the sheer gift of being alive. It has also taught me how to love in this way. I haven’t mastered it, but I can practice it now. I understand what it means to love and be loved. 

Love, in its truest form, is an energy that holds everything together and permeates all of existence and non-existence. We literally can’t be alive without it. It is the ocean in which we all swim. John Lennon sang “All you need is love” but I would counter, “All there is is love.” Needing it implies we could ever be without it. We may not always be aware of the presence of love, but it is the underlying reality. Fear, by contrast, is merely a shadow. It has no reality. I know that fear can feel very real when we experience it, but it seems to derive all of its power from our inability or unwillingness to confront it. We avoid it, deny it, dismiss it, and resist it. That’s the funny thing about fear. When we confront it, it falls apart. When the light of love shines in the darkness of fear, poof! It’s gone. It doesn’t stand a chance. What recourse does a dark room have when you turn on a light? There is no struggle, there’s only illumination. Fear’s got nothing on love.

5.) No one is coming to save us. 

This can be a tough pill to swallow, because a lot of people desperately want someone or something to intervene and save us from the myriad crises our world is facing. I’m not just talking about Christians who may be anxiously and expectantly awaiting the Second Coming. I’m also talking about people who think an economic or climate collapse could initiate the change that will save us. I’m talking about people who think that tech-billionaires will save us. Or if only we would elect the right politicians, they’d save us. Perhaps benevolent extraterrestrials will intercede and save us. You get the picture. 

Behind all of this is the belief that we are not willing, capable, or responsible to save ourselves. We have claimed denial, laziness, and powerlessness in their place, and they are working against us in a big way. We are like children in this respect who want mom and dad to clean up our messes for us and protect us from any difficulty or uncomfortable situations. But we all have to do our own work, and this starts with taking complete responsibility for ourselves. There is no other way around it. There is no outside savior. As the saying goes, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” 

Psychedelics are masterful teachers in this respect, encouraging us to courageously explore that within us which needs attention and healing. They also help us to find the latent power that lies within us, which in turn guides us to take full responsibility for ourselves. We’ve got plenty of help and support in each other, in our guides and teachers, in the unseen realms through our spirit guides and allies, and of course through Spirit itself. We don’t need to be lone-wolf heroes. That’s just more ego-nonsense. But no one is coming to save us, because no one needs to come and save us. We’ve got this.

6.) My opinions don’t matter.

Here we have another affront to the personality-self who tends to cherish its opinions, and loves weighing in on every last topic. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having opinions. The trouble arises when we become identified with our opinions. Being identified with our opinions means that we derive our sense of self, our identity, from our mental positions. It’s when we think we are what we think. This is a very narrow, not to mention erroneous, way to see ourselves. Who we are in truth has nothing to do with what we think, not even a little. We are so much bigger than that. Thoughts and opinions come and go, but what is it that remains? What is it in us that never changes? It is our awareness, which is timeless and boundless. It has no inherently fixed positions. It is free.

Psychedelics can act as a lubricant, loosening and softening some of those tightly held opinions. We may still hold them, just not so tightly. Sometimes these medicines can show us very directly how absurd we are to cling in the ways we do. They do this with love, sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, if that’s what we need. They teach us to rest in our awareness, unidentified with the activity of the mind, letting it all come and go. In short, they connect us to our true, free essence. Opinions still arise in the mind but there is no “self” which grabs at them and identifies with them. It sounds simple, and in a way it is, but it’s amazing how much the ego-mind loves to be right and argue with others who it thinks are wrong. Most of us have spent a lifetime doing this, so it can be a real practice to change our ways. Plant medicines can be wonderful allies for this work.

7.) I am not the story of my life.

This was one of the lessons I received in my first ayahuasca ceremony, and boy was it illuminating. Like so many psychedelic insights, it’s hard to put into words, but I’ll do my best. I can’t say how, or why, but through the power and grace of the medicine, I felt a deep knowing that my “life story” was a complete fiction. It became clear as day to me that the narrative of my life, as I have told it and recounted it to myself, as well as how others have told and recounted it to me, both consciously and unconsciously, is not who I am. This led me to the next obvious question, “Then who am I?”

The answer to this question has been unfolding in my life for many years now, both in and out of ceremony. I could say, “I am spirit”, “I am awareness”, “I am love”, or “I am nothing” and those would all be true. This has more recently led me into the deeper waters of non-dualism, where I have discovered that there is no “me” at all. There is only awareness. Through this lens, “I am” does not refer to the self, it refers to All There Is. This is a shared I AM-ness that we are all a part of. This requires a sort of mental recalibration, because we typically conflate “I am” with “me”, and that is the source of basically all of our confusion.

There is only I AM, there is no me. There is only Spirit, there is only Awareness, there is only Unity. However we attempt to say it, that is all there is. So how can we craft a story out of that? We can’t. It’s everything, and nothing.

8.) There is nothing that cannot be healed.

If we look at the world around us, we can find many seemingly justifiable reasons to despair. I’m not going to list them here, you know what they are. We might also feel reasons to despair about our own lives. Maybe we feel like there is something deeply broken within us. Maybe there’s some trauma we think we’ll never heal from. But one major lesson that psychedelics have taught me is that there is absolutely nothing that cannot be healed. 

We don’t know how it will look, or on what timeline it will happen, but if we are willing and sincere in our desire to heal, life itself will respond and meet us in ways that support our healing. We will find the right book, the right friend, the right teacher, or the right therapist. We’ll have the right conversation, the right insight, the right day at the beach, and it will all weave together in a way that will support our greater return to balance and wholeness. We’ll take the right actions every step of the way. Life is always working to create and maintain balance, and in many ways, healing is nothing more than bringing back into balance that which is imbalanced.

It is likely that the biggest obstacle in our healing is the belief that we cannot. The mind would often have us believe that we are up against impossible odds, that we are too far gone, that our wounds are insurmountable. The first step in healing is opening up to the idea, “What if that’s not true? What if this can be healed?” The next step is to become willing and to intend for it to happen. Then we must open up to receive it. Lastly, we claim it as ours. Healing is our birthright, and please don’t let anyone tell you differently. 

9.) Death is the ultimate trip.

Another gift I received more than once from ayahuasca was the experience of dying. I went through a very convincing and thorough death process. I left my body, but there was no fear around it. Some part of me knew that I wasn’t really dying, that I would come back, but there was a clear recognition that “this is what dying feels like.” It was intense. But you know what? I survived it every time. I mean this half-jokingly, but part of the realization that came from this was that we do survive death. Yes, the body ceases to be the vehicle for our expression, but our essence, our awareness, our soul, our I AM-ness, whatever term you like, goes on. It is the part of us that was never born and will never die. This realization is also “I am not the body,” something we know and say in spiritual circles, but do we really believe it? Do we know it? 

Since having these insights, I have started to think of death, which can sound scary and final, as simply another birth. Just as we were born into this world, upon “death” we are born into the next world. My form will change, but I will never change. It’s a big transition to be sure, but really, it is no cause for fear. In fact, there is good reason to believe it will be an amazing journey. We know that upon death the brain releases DMT, which is the active ingredient in ayahuasca. So journeying with ayahuasca, which incidentally is known as “the vine of the dead,” is a wonderful way to prepare for our eventual and inevitable passage through death. I hope when it’s my time, I can cross the threshold of death similar to the way Steve Jobs did when he passed away. His last words were reportedly, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

10.) There is only Spirit.

I’ve already mentioned this in some of the other insights, but really it deserves it’s own place on this list. To me it is the grand realization. Call it by whatever name you will, but there is nothing that is not Spirit. All of life is sacred, it’s all holy, and it’s all divine. Even the person you hate the most. Even those people over there doing those bad things. There is nothing that is not God. We may act in a way that denies God, and this is what we would call “evil,” but that does nothing to change our true nature, and the nature of All Being. There is nothing that can be outside of the light and the love of Spirit. If we knew this, really knew this, the world would change overnight.

This is the truth that the human race is learning right now, and it will revolutionize the planet once enough of us get it. Not everyone will, at least not all in one generation or in one lifetime, but I feel it deep in my bones that we will reach a tipping point that is fast approaching. 

When enough of us understand and embody this truth, we will no longer fight wars, steal from each other, lie to each other, plunder and destroy the Earth, or commit any other atrocity we see in the news now on a daily basis. If there is only Spirit, there is nothing “other” left to attack. There is no evil or darkness that needs to be banished. There is only the need to shine the light of awareness on all things in truth and love. Can you imagine that? What would that world look like?

I’m not saying this will all happen through psychedelics, but it does seem to me that their resurgence now into the mainstream is not accidental. They seem primed to play a significant role in the healing and awakening of the human species. I for one am here for it.

What have been your big lessons from psychedelics? I’d love to hear from you.