The Viable Alternative

The other day, I was listening to an interview with NY Times Bestselling author, Tucker Max, in which he talked about his journey of healing and personal development.

For those of you who don’t know who he is, Tucker Max was on the NY Times Bestseller List numerous times for different books that he wrote including, “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” and “A**holes Finish First.” His books, that gave him a mix of fame and notoriety, were various stories of him partying, getting drunk, hooking up with girls and making an ass of himself and were categorized in the genre of fratire by publishers.

In his interview, when he was sharing with the podcast host his story of outgrowing the lifestyle he was famous for, his decision to retire from writing fratire, and his subsequent path of emotional healing, he mentioned how although he went through over 4 years of psychoanalysis, it never really healed him, though it did help him get in touch with his emotions, become more emotionally available and gave him a solid map of his emotional issues and trauma. He said what really helped him to truly heal was his foray into plant medicines under the supervision of a licensed therapist.

When I heard this last part, I was like “Wow, this sounds similar to my Path.”

In my own unique journey, I went through five years of body oriented therapy which combines talk therapy with body and breath work and core emotional release. I definitely credit it with making me much more emotionally aware and emotionally intelligent and helped me emotionally connect with others better. It also gave me a solid understanding of all those underlying emotions that drove my self sabotaging and self limiting behaviour. However, it fell short of actually healing me of all my trauma and this was why I eventually realized that it was time for me to move on to something else that can directly address these issues.

This was what led me to try psilocybin mushrooms this past April, the experience which I share here, and again this past Sunday (exactly 2 weeks ago, 10/18).

The Prelude

This time around, I was a bit more prepared. My tripping buddy, we’ll call her “A.,” and I had planned this several weeks in advance unlike the last time when I was invited the night before. I was also able to chip in with her and her other friend so we could get a bundle at a discount from which I was able to have my own stash instead of her giving me half of her stash like the last time. I also slept more the night before in preparation for my trip and had more time to choose an intention, although I really didn’t choose my intention, which was to remove the blocks to my success, until I was on my way to meet A. Finally, being that I got a stomach ache the last time I took shrooms, I decided this time not to eat before I took them.

We knew the weather was going to be nice that day so we decided to trip at Coney Island/Brighton Beach (since they’re both connected, I don’t know where one ends and the other begins) and meet thereabouts at about 1:30pm. By the time we met, she had already ingested her shrooms about an hour and a half earlier while hanging with a friend of hers that lived by the beach, while I hadn’t even begun yet so I decided it was time to take mine, which wound up being anywhere from 1.5 – 2g.

And with that, the journey started…

Let the Tripping Begin

After I ingested the shrooms, we headed to the beach and set up shop a several yards away from the water. I then said a prayer with her to ask God for Guidance and Protection. Probably for the first half hour, nothing really happened and I felt totally normal. Then, bit by bit, the world started to slow down, and though I was in familiar surroundings, I started to feel as if I was in a strange, unfamiliar world where I was alone and separate from everyone. This brought about intermittent periods where I felt alone, isolated and lonely, and though it was nothing too overwhelming, it made me question my place in this world.

I would venture to guess that this emotion is often running in the background of my life but since I’m disconnected from it because I unconsciously suppress it in one way or another, I don’t even know it’s there and am curious as to what effect this has had on my behaviour.

As the effects of the shrooms started being felt, so did my stomach pains. Feeling uncomfortable, I decided to lie down and try to either go to sleep or zone out to escape the discomfort. It felt the same way you do when you had too much to drink but without the world spinning around.

Meanwhile A., who was already well into her trip since she started an hour and a half before me, was in a state of bliss and as a giddy as a Flower Child frolicking around in their birthday suit in one of those Hippy Communes in the 60s. She was again talking incessantly but the vibe was different this time and so her voice wasn’t irritating to me or freaking me out.

To her credit, she was trying to get me to open up and engage instead of closing up and spinning out into my own world like I did my first trip, which, due to the discomfort with my stomach, was what I really wanted to do. Nonetheless, the feminine energy she was powerfully exuding actually did serve to keep me balanced and present.

In the meantime, those figures that were gross self caricatures of my insecurities that were initially tormenting me by mocking me that I eventually learned to laugh at during my last trip made their glorious appearance again along with the accompanying techno/house music. This time however, because I had already internalized the lesson that they taught me during my last trip of my insecurities having nothing to do with who I really am, they didn’t bother me at all and so it was a lot easier to ignore them and bring my focus somewhere else. When they did come to mind, I picked up exactly where I left off the last time by laughing hysterically when they made their appearance because, they indeed were funny and made me laugh at my “self” and their silliness.

As my stomach pain lessened, I got up to walk around to enjoy the ambiance that included the nuances of colour that adorned the environment and would return back to where we set up shop and lie down when my stomach started hurting once more.

During one particular instance, when I was lying on my stomach to alleviate my stomach discomfort, I started to notice the beautiful patterns in the sand in conjunction with the different coloured pebbles and stones that were embedded within the sand. It was so interesting because the patterns looked so intentional that I thought to myself, how can this whole existence be by accident? God’s intention seems wrapped in everything including something seemingly insignificant as the grains of sand at a beach and the pebbles wrapped within them.

Time passes. At one point, I’m back again lying on my stomach because of the discomfort while talking to A, or more like A. doing all the talking with me trying to listen, and all of a sudden, my body stiffens as if wanting to vomit something out, and I start to energetically vomit out what felt like some deep, dark emotional energy. My body started to writhe up and down a little and I was making these deep, guttural noises from my mouth as I expelled this energy.

It lasted about 30 seconds, but after it was done, I felt as if something left me.

I had experienced this before during my years of spiritual cleansing that gave me my mind back, so I wasn’t at all surprised or freaked out, however I was a bit worried that A. would be freaked out, but she was surprisingly cool. She remarked, “Dude, that was intense. You really let go of some dark energy. I felt it. You got some deep stuff in your blood line.”

My response was something to the effect of, “Honey, you have NO idea.”

After that episode, we resume to our hanging out and chatting after briefly discussing what had just happened. As time passed, A. said she was starting to get cold and hungry and so we decided to pack it up and head out to a nearby park, which upon reaching, we find a bench to sit on to enjoy the ambiance.

It was here that my trip started to take a turn.

My body is now more consistently feeling like it wanted to expel more things and I am simultaneously trying to keep control because we are in public. At one point, I couldn’t hold it back anymore and so while sitting on the bench, I bend forward, cover my face with my coat, and start silently crying while trying to allow my body to fully purge itself of the energy it wanted to release.

This lasted for about a minute and then things went back to normal. Then, maybe after at least ten minutes, another urge to purge came about and I did the same thing as before – bending over and covering my face with my jacket while crying silently but uncontrollably. However, this time around, I can hear A. saying, “Don’t worry, he’s okay,” which I was to only assume that people were attempting to approach us to see what was wrong.

We chilled at the park a little bit more until A. decided that she was now really hungry and so we went to a nearby spot under the elevated platform of the D and Q lines near the Brighton Beach Train station. While A. went into order her food, as I sat I could feel that the urges for my body to energetically purge started to become stronger and more frequent. I now had to hide my face in my coat more and more while trying to keep composure so people wouldn’t think I was some crazy person as my body not only wanted to cry but also scream and yell.

This continued as A. came back and started to eat her food. We were now both telling some passersby who would stop to see if I was okay that I was fine, with me trying to put as big and genuine of a smile as possible for added effect.

In the meantime, after eating what looked like half of the food she bought, A. decided that she was now full, and after she has the server pack up her leftovers, we headed back to the boardwalk to enjoy the sun, the sights and the sounds.

As we make our way back to the boardwalk, the energy in my body is feeling more and more intense and the urge to purge is becoming a lot more difficult to temper. I start looking along the way for an alcove or some other secluded or semi-secluded place where I can purge without making a public spectacle of myself and the worst case scenario me being dragged off to a psych ward. Finally, right by the boardwalk, I see what looked to me like a building that would allow me some partial shelter to purge a little more.

As I start to energetically purge as if I am vomiting, A. warns me gently and firmly, “Ike, I know it’s hard, but I need you to get it together because we are in public and people are going to start to stare.”

Now feeling self conscious, I gather my composure and continue walking until we hit the boardwalk and find a bench.

We hang out more and continue to talk while watching the people around us on the boardwalk that has now gotten a lot more populated compared to earlier on. I’m not feeling as lonely and isolated as I did earlier and the urge to energetically puke has now ebbed and I am feeling calm, reserved, centered and grounded.

As time progresses, A. decides that she wants to go home and calls a ride to come pick her up. Her ride says that they can be there in an hour so I decide that I’ll wait with her until her ride arrived.

However, things start to shift once more and I all of a sudden start to feel a STORM brewing within me that I had to let out. Think about when you have to go to the bathroom and you have to get the hell out of wherever you are and find the nearest bathroom.

It was at this point I instinctively knew that I could no longer stick around and had to leave A. and now begin my own “Hero’s Journey.”

I then abruptly take my bag, tell her I had to go, and bid her “Adieu,” and hightail it out of there.

My Solo Hero’s Journey

At first, I didn’t really know where I was going to go. I just walked. I just wanted to be in a quiet, isolated place to allow myself to purge without any distractions. I see the entrance to a train station as I’m walking and think maybe I can go to my parents house and go chill in the basement there, but I realize that the train I needed didn’t stop at that station so I just kept on walking.

As I continued to walk, my next thought was that I could walk to my parent’s house which, even though it was several miles away on foot, I could make and the length would give me the time to sort everything out.

Deciding on this plan, I walk to Ocean Parkway right at it’s beginning and start to walk in the direction of my parents’ house, but then instinctively I felt led to cross into the middle of Ocean Parkway where there are tree lined islands with a foot and a bicycle path and benches to sit on that run the whole length of the parkway.

I walk down several blocks along these islands until I find what to me was a nice spot where I felt comfortable enough to park my behind. Though there were people passing by, it wasn’t remotely as crowded as the boardwalk so I felt some sense of privacy and isolation.

Within a few seconds up sitting down on the bench, I explode and the waterworks come out with me once again bent over on my knees not only to hide my face but to muffle the sound so as not to attract any unwanted attention.

The cry was a very DEEP, ugly cry that came from the innermost depths of my being. It was the cry that you cry over the loss of a loved one or a heart wrenching break up of a relationship. I hadn’t cried this way in YEARS since I was a kid. My body was shaking violently and I was just wailing and sobbing and I could feel the release of all this deep suppressed pain the same way air gets released from a valve.

What came to mind when I was crying was the shame attached to these caricatures that appeared in my first trip and again during this trip. These caricatures were composed of all the unkind things that were said to me over the years and the damaging things I in turn said to myself in response to what was said to me so there was a long suppressed pain associated with them that needed to be released.

Though I experienced some release of this pain during my first trip, it was absolutely NOTHING compared to this.

After several minutes, the crying stopped and I sat up to reflect on what just happened, but before I could get anywhere, another huge wave came and another big, ugly cry came that was just as intense as the first. Then another one came and another, and another one came back to back.

They were so intense that snot was flying out of my nose. However, each one left me feeling a little lighter.

When I got a “break” and sat up, I noticed some people passing by looking to see what was wrong, but to be honest, I didn’t give a damn who saw me. I realized that many people who were passing by probably could use an ugly cry or two in their own lives so who I couldn’t care less what they might have been thinking.

As I sat there, what came to surface in my conscious mind was my fear of success. One of my fears of success was that when it came, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I had tried to bring this feeling up during my regular life in order so I can face it by feeling it through, but I wasn’t able to tap into it. On shrooms, the full feeling of fear popped up such that as I was fully able to feel it.

This brought several rounds of deep, deep hysterical crying that brought to mind how deeply ingrained and intense my fear of success was. When this “series” of cries ended, after witnessing the magnitude of energy that were behind these cries, I reflected upon at all the possible ways I had must’ve sabotaged my success over the years just to avoid feeling these intense emotions and the extent to which they controlled my unconscious behaviour.

After this bout of crying, there was now a longer pause and my body settled a bit. I decided to go into my coat pocket and pull out my earphones so I can listen to this tune on my phone called “Jerusalema” by Master KG that I first heard at a party I went to when I visited Boston this past September. It is a South African song and from the first time I heard it I fell in love with it because it was so uplifting and inspiring to me although I didn’t understand the words because they were in a different language. In fact, I honestly believe that one of the reasons God sent me to visit Boston was so I could hear this exact song. I figured this would be the perfect time to listen to it as an act of self care and self nurturing.

However, when I pulled out the earphones, I saw that one of the ear buds were clearly broken off the wire. This triggered something deep in me and I burst into a deep crying once more. As I surrendered to the cry, I noticed that the cry was from so deep within my subconscious mine that I was gurgling like an infant. My mind went back to the fact that as a child, I never took any type of loss like a broken toy, or some other personal possession very well. I must’ve tapped into that sadness. What was also interesting was that every time I tried to take the ear phones out, the deep crying would start once more.

This went on for quite some time.

After another break, I sat up, looked around and saw that I was sitting alone, on a park bench, with the sky rapidly turning dark and felt terribly alone and lonely. Having gotten through my thick skull over the years that emotions are to be felt not suppressed, I welcomed the emotion of loneliness and allowed myself to fully feel it.

I knew that this loneliness was connected to my feeling of being in a big, bad world where no one cares for or loves me and I am unable to fend for myself. It is often triggered when I am confronted with feelings of success and another reason why I have tended to sabotage myself.

So, I felt the emotion through and interestingly, it did not trigger any intense crying. By allowing myself to fully feel it, it basically came and went without any fanfare.

I was left saying to myself, “Is this it? Is this the feeling I’ve been avoiding so feverishly because I was so afraid to feel it? This wasn’t as scary as I unconsciously made it out to be.”

Though this experience wasn’t as intense as the other ones, it was still quite profound for a couple of reasons. First, in my years of therapy, I learned that healing comes from learning to be there for your wounded inner child by being the parent that it needed. I realized that I was being the parent to my wounded child by being there for myself while I was feeling the uncomfortable emotions of loneliness.

This made me feel loved but the love came from within not from without. I reflected upon the fact that this feeling of self love I felt was what people all around the world go to GREAT lengths to get from other people, not realizing that the solution to their helter skelter search for love lies within their own selves that I was giving myself now.

Second, since I saw that I was able to feel through this emotion without it killing me, it gave me a sense of self confidence that all the other emotions that I either suppressed or let control me because I didn’t know to handle them or believed were too formidable for me to face can now be overcome by me welcoming and feeling through them.

Now that I was basking in self love from caring and nurturing myself, my mind went to God to seek his Peace, Comfort and Assurance, but instead of receiving these things, those caricatures popped back up in my head along with a tremendous sense of guilt, shame and an overall reluctance to trust God.

With this came more tears, though not as intense as before, and after that release I truly felt connected to God and had this strong sense that everything in my life was working out for me. I also felt like I was in total alignment.

At this point in time, at least two hours had passed with me on that bench and the sky was now pitch black. I checked in with my body and it seemed that everything that needed to be let out during this trip was let out and the shrooms had done their work. Even when I went to take my broken earphones out of my jacket pocket, it didn’t trigger any more deep sorrow.

I now realized it was now time to take up my bag and walk. Paradoxically, although I felt emotionally drained from all that had been let out, I actually felt energized and uplifted, and decided to take the approximately 3.5 mile walk I initially set out to take but instead of going to my parent’s house, I planned to get on the nearest train from there and take my arse home.

I had a lot to process and although I knew it would take weeks to get a good grasp of all that I had experienced, I figured that a long walk would be a good start.

In the meantime, aside from marveling about all that I released, I was thoroughly curious about what changes would take place in my life to reflect these releases.

My Final Thoughts

The following couple of days after my trip, I had a pounding headache,, similar to what I had when I went through an immense spiritual cleansing back in 2009 that changed my life. I felt spiritually raw as if I had just been through a major spiritual surgery where I was wearing bandages over the places I had been operated on that were still sore. I also definitely felt purged and lighter.

I also got a major answer dealing with the intention I initially set for the trip that for the interest of space, I won’t share here, but it was major and it had to do with my success blocks.

Two weeks after my second trip, as I sit here writing about my experiences, I must say that I definitely still do feel that I left something behind that day in the name of pain and trauma energy. I feel more connected to myself, confident and less burdened. Also, in the midst of uncertainty I am dealing with in specific areas of my life, I feel this quiet assurance telling me, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be all right, just trust.”

I also feel an increased sense of self esteem because being that self esteem is strengthened by fostering a stronger connection to your authentic self, one of the ways to do that is to consistently step out of your comfort zone. Just like how a common shared challenging experience between two individuals can help strengthen the bond between those people because they have to depend on trust one another, stepping out of your comfort zone helps you to depend on you and learn about you.

Being by myself on that bench releasing for over two hours where all I had was myself was an incredible bonding experience with myself that I will always cherish.

I am also amazed at how much of a role deep, deep crying plays in the healing of trauma. This trip was like at least two years of therapy and the depths I reached with it in one afternoon would’ve taken years to reach with regular therapy, if reaching those depths were even possible with it.

Speaking of therapy, I find it interesting that although I had stopped doing body oriented therapy because I felt I had reached a ceiling with it, the tools I gained from it were what equipped me with the emotional intelligence to be able to handle myself during this trip.

Anyway, from my personal experience, I definitely recommend shrooms as a tool for healing. However, I advise that if you do choose to use it for those purposes and you’ve dealt with a significant amount of trauma in your life, I suggest you don’t do what I did which was to trip with a friend. Instead, I suggest you seek a therapist or professional who assists or supervises with the taking of psilocybin or mushrooms so you can have someone to guide and ground you.

As for me, I’m looking forward to my next trip. I already know what I want to get out of it.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love