Realizing I became a Greedy Life Coach
Last week I shared about My First Psychedelic Experience. If you missed it, I encourage you to start here.
Today I’ll get right into the experience and lessons learned. While these journeys are ineffable, I’m describing mine as Affirming, Beautiful, & Confronting. I’ll use these as pillars to explain more.
Heralded as most important to any psychedelic experience is set and setting. We were in our home, where we could be comfortable and safe. We have a cozy basement perfect for the ceremony.
Here's what it looked like.
My partner and I set up our space intentionally and had a clear structure.
We set up our altar with objects that were sacred and meaningful to us. We sat holding the mushrooms to our hearts and breathed in our intention. We said a few words to open the container, and my partner sang an Icaro to call in the Spirit of the mushroom.
Then, mangia! People say they don't taste good, but I thought they tasted like mushrooms. Ha!
We then sat for a 30-minute meditation, starting with loving-kindness and moving into silence.
After the bell rang, I still wasn’t feeling much.
We only took 1g. My friend said they were strong and that amount should be right on the edge where you still have control.
I went upstairs to use the bathroom, came back down, and still wasn’t feeling anything.
I then lay down, put on my eye mask, and, as I surrendered into the earth—lift off. There was an intensity of colors and energy coursing through my body. I felt centered, just noticing what was beginning to arise without reacting.
Although we only took a gram, it got us there. We were surprised and humbled at what ensued.
Affirming
(A teacher of mine encourages us to speak meaningful things in the present because it keeps the experience alive. So, although this happened in the “past.” I am going to write it in the present.)
As the intensity rises, I feel my spiritual practices have prepared me for the terrain. My meditation and breathwork experience allow me to surrender and be in witness consciousness.
It is affirming to find my center within the intensity and to understand that this is not bad but quite beautiful.
Although it feels like my body is dissolving, it’s not scary. I feel how much larger I am than my physical being. I feel the lightness of my spirit. When I bring my awareness into my heart, I feel like my body is air.
The room is collapsing into fractal patterns, reminding me of Alex Grey art.
I feared psychedelics would render me unconscious or unable to move, but it’s not the case. When I need to move, drink water, or go upstairs, it’s not difficult.
At one point, I go upstairs to use the bathroom. One thing people prepare you for is looking at yourself in the mirror. So as I get to the bathroom, I think, Hey, I’m here, Why not!
As I look at myself, my face turns black. I can’t determine if it is my face or another. I don’t try to make sense of it. I feel joy of being aware of such a thing without fear. It is merely, “Oh, look what my face is doing, interesting!”
Although the experience is new, it feels familiar. Breathwork prepared me for the terrain, but it is distinctively different. I am grateful to overcome this fear and find the centeredness to sit with the experience.
Beautiful
The music we chose for our ceremony is a 10-hour East Forest playlist. It's perfect. When I close my eyes, I can’t understand where anything is in the room. The music feels all around me, and I am a part of it. There is a more profound recognition of the essence of the music.
Beauty is easily transmitted. What speaks to the unconscious is instantly felt and recognized. As I come down the stairs to witness my partner lying amongst candlelight, I think of the scene in Titanic after Rose dies and walks down the Titanic stairs into the dining room to meet Jack again.
I burst into tears, connecting with what the scene evokes. Art is beauty. Psilocybin is helping recognize the beauty in everything—the essence under the surface.
Insights
Psychedelics mean “mind-manifesting.” Every thought I have becomes a mirror, and different situations in my life present themselves. It is clear that I do not see reality—I see me.
Everything in life is a mirror of my consciousness and subjective experience. I may get this intellectually, but now I’m experiencing it.
While I don’t feel emptiness, I can see the teaching it’s pointing to. It’s all me! My mind projects onto all things.
The ability to see my mirrors allows me to have a new perspective. It reminds me of the movie Minority Report. As Tom Cruise’s character works with the crime scene’s images, he can move them around to see the bigger picture. This is what the experience is like.
Confronting: A tough pill to swallow.
And then, I’m hit with a hard truth like a ton of bricks.
You know the saying, “What you do to others, you do to yourself.”
In my business, I see a recent encounter where I acted with cold, un-compassionate energy, only concerned with whether someone could afford to pay me.
Although when looking back, the response was sound, I knew the energy behind it. I feel as if I did it to myself.
This feeling is opening up pandora’s box on something slowly taking hold of my consciousness—greed.
I realize how greed is steadily dripping into my veins and getting in the way of my service and gifts. My heart breaks, I am shrieking in pain.
This one is difficult to admit because it involves you.
Not you individually, but the whole you represent as my newsletter/audience.
As the pain continues, I see how I am resenting my newsletter. While you might be new to this letter, my resentment started in 2021.
Bizz gurus say if you give, give, give, then people will buy when you have something to sell.
So I gave, showed up each week, shared, and offered my heart—AND there was so much joy in giving. As I talk about in the trap. It WAS fulfilling in itself.
Yet, I fell into the trap. When I had a paid offering, I thought people would happily buy. It didn’t work out that way.
Nothing I offered ever got the response I hoped for. Every time I had something to sell, I was disappointed.
It soured me, which is why I took some time off writing to you in the summer. Why give when I get nothing in return? (That’s Bullshit, Lou!!!!)
So I thought, well, I need more numbers! There is a 1-5 percentage of how many people buy who open an email.
Just like that, you became a number to be exploited rather than a human to be valued.
I’M SO SORRY.
You’re not an object.
You’re not a number.
You’re not something to be manipulated.
You are a human.
You don’t owe me anything.
I am here to serve you, not the other way around.
The connections and friends I’ve made from your replies are invaluable and deeply meaningful.
I am taking the opportunity to share with you for granted.
I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s true.
I feel ashamed. I feel humbled.
In the ceremony, I’m sitting with the pain of how I could treat others so coldly. I can feel greed’s toxin in my Soul and the delusion it’s causing.
In seeking "more", I’m missing what's right in front of me. I’m not appreciating all that I have; the clients I work with, the life I live, and you, who allow me to share meaningful things.
As I sit with the pain, I see how much “more for the sake of more” is poisoning me.
“Better comes not from more, but in deepening our experience of what’s already there.”- Lynne Twist
I never set out to make millions—I set out to impact millions. I intended to make a difference and a living doing so. To live beautifully so that my life could be an inspiration to others.
As I share in How Much Money I Made in 2021, I “Made it” when I made 36k doing this work.
I lost sight of that and began worshipping the God of money. I got lost in the coaching industry dogma of higher monthly revenues as a sign of success rather than impact, fulfillment, and connection.
I care deeply about money as a resource. However, I’m thinking about it too much. It’s getting in the way of my mission rather than serving and growing it.
I see the changes I want to make. It’s confronting, but I’m grateful.
I move through the experience and continue ruminating. Like a thought loop that keeps going, it’s hard to shake. I try letting it go.
I start engaging with my partner. The rest of our ceremony is talking, laughing, feeling the love and connection for and with each other.
The effects start to wane. After beginning at 4pm we close out the ceremony at 11:45pm, eat soup, and are outside to hear the roar of New Years trickle through the neighborhood.
An affirming, beautiful, and confronting day it is.
(Coming back to speaking from this present day)
I have more to share about this insight around money and how I’m navigating it.
I’m sorry I saw you as an object. I hope you can forgive me.
I am uncertain of the consequences of admitting that I resented my audience to my audience. It's a funky energy. Of course, I have things to sell, and I don't wanna guilt you into pity sign-ups. Nor do I want you to say F this guy!
I can't control your response. The reason I share is that I share what’s real. That’s a value I hope you live in the world.
While painful, the effect of this experience is profound. My heart feels more open to this work than ever. My values feel affirmed. I know why I’m doing what I’m doing again.
I’m looking at money, not in, "how much I can make" but rather, "what feels full and aligned with my vision?"
How About You
To veer off, confessional…
I’m sure I’m not alone in losing sight of what’s important or letting money get in the way of service. So I ask, where are you out of alignment?
Where are you treating people as an object and not a human?
Where are you in a cycle of more that is taking you away from your values?
In Closing
For those newer or unfamiliar with psychedelics, I hope you can see how valuable this experience is for me. It showed me a blind spot I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Confronting our shadows is crucial. So while I’m sure life would have shown me some other way, this experience allowed me to see it head on, and thus course correct.
As a result, my heart feels more open than it has in years.
Please take this as my experience and not any recommendations or encouragement.
Thanks for being here.
(Already feeling the vulnerability hangover.)