It’s Supposed To Hurt… | JourneyŌM Guides Series

It’s Supposed To Hurt…

…at least some of the time. I’ve allowed this to partially sink in, against my will, kicking and screaming, over the past 10 years as my personal work with psychedelics has deepened. I am me and there is no cure. Further, the experience of being me seems to have been specifically designed to generate humility in it’s occupant. It’s not how I would have it, but that likely explains why I am not the designer.

In light of this truth-grenade, the question I’ve been asking has, by necessity, evolved from “How can I create lasting change?” to “How can I stay present to what is, to who is- without resisting, punishing, shaming or escaping? How can I not change? How can I increase my capacity for being this particular human instead? How can I stay but do it with a little less shame or self-rejection and a bit more awareness, grace, courage, patience and humor?” The shift is nuanced but profound: Don’t make me a better person, just make me better at being a person. It’s paradoxical, of course, like everything in life: by not working so hard to change, I open myself to a strange form of grace that evolves not from seeking but from staying present. From the present moment I can pay attention to what is actually happening instead of ruminating on a future or past that does not exist. From the present, I have access to agency, the ability to make choices, which can actually lead to…change. This magical yet perfectly sensible process is activated when we commit to ourselves. It is less about working or striving as it is about the quality of attention we employ. All that’s required is having a grown-up on board, at least as a part-time employee.

Child Or Adult?

Am I relating to my experience as a child would or as an adult? In one state, I am immobilized, a victim. The world, my emotions, my circumstances are happening to me, being done to me. I lack agency, awareness, clarity and am overwhelmed. In the other, I notice my thoughts and emotions as they arise. Often, they are not welcome but I’m aware rather than being blindsided. I try to keep a little bit of distance, just enough to notice that I’m having an experience rather than being the experience. If I speak to myself, (which I do, incessantly, like a ventriloquist to his dummy) I try to be encouraging the way a parent or coach who sees great potential in me would. I may attempt to employ every trick in the book to find relief. Almost always, I’m given some bandwidth to decide how I will proceed or not proceed. I also try to keep in mind that my state of being will certainly change. “This sucks”, I say to myself, because this is how I’ve been conditioned to respond to states that I believe to be undesirable. That’s the human part. It’s supposed to hurt, some of the time. It’s a clause in the contract that has already been signed, that I must agree or not agree to live with. In exchange, I may have coffee and love and ice cream and connection and laughter and swimming. My prayer goes like this: “Please help me to get a little better at being a human, let me stay with myself no matter what.” After all, I really have no choice. I am me and that is by design, on purpose, preordained.

Stay

One of the fundamental lessons psychedelics have taught me is this: I must, by necessity (because there is no other viable option), deepen into who I am now. I must build capacity for the good, the bad and the unexceptional so that, eventually, I may coexist with this guy without flinching every time I catch him leering at me in the mirror but rather with acceptance, fondness and even…love. This is the starting place. It is necessary to tend to this relationship first, because I am a microcosm- of you and he and she and all of creation and the empathy I cultivate in myself will surely radiate outward. If there is “work” to be done, for my money, this is it. If I’m going to change, it will happen from a place of agency, awareness, acceptance and love. It will be an expansion, not a rejection- an increase in capacity rather than a letting-go-of. A deepening into rather than a transcending. I am me, it’s a niche that has never and will never be filled again. I may as well do my best to honor that for the blink-of-an-eye that I get to be here.

~ Brian, JourneyŌM guide