I can say with 100% certainty that psychedelics have helped me achieve a level of happiness I never thought was possible when I was growing up. This shift didn’t happen overnight. It’s been a long process and it’s also not over, but here is just one of the ways psychedelics have helped me become happier overall.

The Problem with Psychedelic Content

One of the biggest gaps I see with a lot of the content surrounding psychedelics is that the people putting it out don’t seem relatable. It seems like it comes from people who have the luxury to sit around with their thoughts all day and travel freely and meditate and do yoga and talk about their feelings and probably consider themselves a “free spirit.” They might not even actually be like this, but it’s all they portray. I guess I would consider these people modern-day hippies. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone like this. In fact, I can personally relate to them very well. But if you’ve never experienced anything like that, it seems like what they talk about is a load of bullshit. It’s not bullshit because it’s not true, but it just doesn’t feel relatable

I think my writing will appeal more to the ordinary individual. I’m talking about the people who have been taught that you need to grow up, graduate high school, get a college degree, get a job, make money, buy a house, have a family, and eventually retire. This is exactly how I was raised, and I don’t believe I’m an outlier. While I was growing up, I believed that if I followed that formula I would be successful. I also believed that once I became successful, I would be happy. The only problem is that success means a million different things to a million different people.

How do you Teach Happiness?

I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly happy child, but I now believe that’s only because I was simply never taught to chase after that. Even if I was taught to chase after that, my parents’ definition of happy was a little misguided. I grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood in LA County with 2 divorced parents who both loved me very much. I never had to worry about whether there was going to be food on my table or a roof over my head or how I was going to get to school or baseball practice. Trust me when I say I’m very aware that I had it good and I understand there’s people that would kill to have it even a fraction as good as I did. 

That being said, my parents never seemed particularly happy either. Based on the little information they’ve told me about their own childhoods, both of them seem like they were largely responsible for raising themselves. I can empathize with the fact that it’s difficult to navigate all of the emotions you feel while growing up if you don’t have someone there to talk about it with. Without having any outlets to express their own emotions, I believe it caused them to bottle up what they were feeling and manifested itself as anger. Even after I saw them fighting or if they were clearly mad or angry about something else, they always tried to make it seem like everything was always okay. Long story short, I could see right through it.

Seeing my parents bottle up their emotions caused me to repeat the same cycle. I never had a great outlet, so I internalized my feelings and this caused me to feel depressed.

I also want to be very clear here, my parents are both amazing people and all of my good qualities I attribute to them as well. Whenever I start talking about my emotional journey it’s easy to get caught up with all of the trauma that I’ve experienced that I don’t mention the good things too. There was also a lot of good. 

Back to my main point though, it’s hard to teach happiness if you, yourself, don’t seem happy. In order to then achieve happiness, you need to make a conscious shift to that as a goal, which is a choice. The older you get, the harder it is to make that shift. This is where psychedelics come into the mix.

The Psychedelic Shift

I used to think that in order to be “successful,” I needed to have a lot of money. Most people that I personally know probably agree with this definition of success as well. This makes sense given the huge influence that capitalism has on people like me who grow up in the United States. 

Through the use of psychedelics, I was able to break my previous mindset centered around what I thought success was and start thinking more for myself. This meant thinking without the influence of my parents or anyone that helped shape my mind while I was growing up. As annoying as it sounds for someone who didn’t grow up thinking this, happiness really is just a mindset. 

Psychedelics helped me dig deeper into why I thought money would equate to happiness. This made me question why I felt I couldn’t be happy without money. I didn’t have a good answer for myself at this point lol…it’s funny to me because when I look back on it, it seems silly to me that I ever felt this way. Whenever I took psychedelics and felt an overwhelming feeling of happiness, I tried to figure out how I could make that feeling last after my trip was over. I realized I was happy at that exact moment in time. I didn’t care about the past and I wasn’t worrying about the future.

I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times too, but happiness isn’t a destination. It’s always evolving based on your current circumstances and desires. This concept was initially hard for me to grasp, but it is completely okay if what makes you happy changes over time. Not only is it okay, but it’s actually normal. If you’re taught something and never question that or change your perspective as you gain new information, that’s unhealthy in my opinion. 

Psychedelics themselves also aren’t going to magically provide you with a shift in perspective like that, but they act as a key to unlock them. You still need to put in work to decide what works for you and what doesn’t. This requires a lot of introspective work, which is something psychedelics helped me get better at as well. I also don’t recommend you just take a bunch of psychedelics and go nuts. Look into psychedelic assisted therapy and make sure you have the right set and setting.

A New Outlook

The things that make me happy right now are genuine connections with the people closest to me and freedom to do cool shit. I’ll still need money to access certain opportunities, so it’s not like money isn’t still an important factor in my life. I very much still want to be rich one day. However, being rich for the sake of being rich won’t make me happy. 

Happiness and love are also very closely related to me. The more love I give and receive, the happier I am. I still have a lot to talk about with my family, but I’m looking forward to working towards making my connections with them closer. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I know that being close with them is something I’ve always desired, but just never knew how to do. I still don’t know exactly how to do it now, but I’m no longer scared to try….and the act of trying makes me happy. At this current moment in time, I consider myself the happiest I’ve ever been, and my life is going to continue to get better as long as I keep happiness and love at the core of my values.

If you have any thoughts or opinions or can relate to this in any way, please let me know in the comments or reach out to me directly. Thanks for reading 🙂