The COVID 19 Journey is a Psychedelic Experience

The Corona virus is waking people up in much the same way as psychedelics.

Our world and our lives are being shaken at a mass scale that most have not witnessed in our lifetimes. While I am far from immune to what’s happening all around me, it often feels quite familiar. In particular, it feels as though the work I’ve done with psychedelics over the past decade has been preparing me for much of this.

One of the benefits of intentional psychedelic use I’ve experienced is the breaking down of rigid ways of looking at the world and ourselves. When taken responsibly with intention and properly integrated, these experiences can often help to accelerate personal growth and expansion.

Psychedelics almost always show us something new, a perspective we had not yet considered. This can come via intense visuals or a little whisper in our ear. The result is typically the same, our consciousness is expanded and our view of the world and “reality” has shifted.

For me, the expansion I’ve experienced with psychedelics has been so profound that I’ve dedicated my life to it. As a successful tech entrepreneur, I saw the powerful impact that psychedelics, and in particular, the ancient plant medicine ayahuasca could have on our world. This led to the creation of a series of retreats with global business leaders and change-makers called 1heart Journeys.

From hosting nearly 200 leaders on these Journeys, I’ve witnessed many reoccurring themes of breakthroughs as well as the powerful life transformations that have followed. Below are just a handful of the themes I see most closely paralleled as a result of COVID 19.

1| Increased Comfort With Uncertainty — in times like these, we are being forced to confront uncertainty on a daily basis in nearly all aspects of our lives. The stability and predictability of our work, finances, relationships, mental and physical health are all being put to the test.

While this may be met with a lot of discomfort initially, the reality is the security we seek is often an illusion anyway. Our mission is to learn to let go of how we expect things to go, learn to accept, welcome and be grateful for the way things actually are. COVID is forcing many to develop a new relationship with uncertainty. One that will only aid them and our society to deal with the challenges ahead.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” — Helen Keller

2 | Reality is Subjective, Multi-Dimensional, and Ever-Changing — prior to my experiences with psychedelics, I had a pretty fixed view on reality. I believed that the way I looked at the world and what I believed to be true to be accurate and correct. This idea is quite laughable to me now as I’ve experienced, witnessed and learned so much of other realities over the past handful of years. I see the fluidity of “reality” and the ways in which we shape our own each and every day.

COVID has created many alternate realities that most of us rarely considered. The idea of not being able to leave our homes, of sports, music, and community events not existing, of companies losing 100% of their business overnight were not really in our sphere of consciousness. Spending all day and night with our partners and children wasn’t something we could really envision. And all the conspiracy theories around 5G, vaccines, human tracking, economic manipulation are being brought further into the light as additional versions of reality for us to consider.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. — Albert Einstein

3 | We Are ALL Connected — I don’t know of any message more obvious and universally experienced from psychedelics as this one. As these medicines help dissolve our ego and take us out of our physical bodies, we are able to viscerally experience and know oneness. Separation is perhaps the strongest and most persistent illusion we experience.

COVID has literally show us how connected we all are. Each of our health and behaviors affects the greater whole. We are also experiencing how much our lives are intertwined when we are separated from others. We are fortunate to be experiencing the many ways humans are coming together (even if virtually) in support and not opposition of one another.

But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything. — Alan Watts

4 | Surrender is THE WAY — This has been the most transformational message I’ve received clearly on my personal journey. I spent my life trying to plan, control, and fight my way to the success that I achieved. Only later did I realize that I didn’t even want what I was fighting much of my life for. This is not how we are meant to live. There is a natural flow and current to life and to tap into that, we must let go and surrender to what is so we can see what can be.

COVID has thrown a wrench in nearly every human’s plans. Businesses like mine face major setbacks, weddings, and life events are canceled, movement and travel halted and financial survival deeply tested. Our instinct is to panic, to fight, or give up completely. Surrender is none of those. Surrender is to accept what is so we can be clearly guided to what’s next. And if I’ve learned anything from my experiences, it is that there is always a next; it is rarely what we expected and it always offers an opportunity for growth, expansion, and greater fulfillment.

Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life — and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you. — Eckhart Tolle

5 | Love is THE ANSWER — Sometimes cliches are true and in this case, this cliche is THE truth. Psychedelic experiences will often put us up against some of our greatest fears. The result for me and most from facing these fears head-on is not greater fear but less. The opposite of fear is love. As we move through our fears, we realize they are mere creations of our ego minds to create separation. We begin to realize that they only serve to block the love that is always there for us and is all we truly are made of.

COVID has certainly ignited a lot of fear around the world. As we confront these fears, we realize we are still here, still standing and that perhaps there are better stories we can tell ourselves. COVID has also brought so many people together, even as we are physically distanced. Families are experiencing the love of just being together, friends are reconnecting and communities are finding new ways to support each other. Love is the only answer that will get us through this or any situation. It is the only force that can create a world that we all want to live in.

Where there is love, there is life. — Mahatma Gandhi

Like my experiences with sacred plant medicines and psychedelics, there are always powerful lessons if we are open and willing to look. And each lesson and breakthrough brings with it the ability to create growth and expansion in our lives. It is what we do with what we learn and experience that determines the quality of our lives.

Through COVID, many are being offered an accelerated path to expansion, much like psychedelics can provide. I already see so many ways this is playing out in the lives of those around me and all over the world. It’s my hope and belief that we are at the beginning of a great period of expanded consciousness. The lessons are there, we now get to choose what to do with them. Choose wisely.

Read more about my personal journey from a successful startup founder to joyfully Lost on Purpose. Follow me to be the first to see my stories.