The life imaginary and notes on a mushroom trip

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I had a bit of a breakthrough this week as I was reflecting on why I am struggling lately to be present with my husband.

Perhaps this realization is tied to where my mind has been all summer - creating the online course for Break & Untangle.

I’ve been reviewing and teaching the 12 Mindset Methods that I wrote about in the book. And the more I reflect on them, the more I am realizing that it’s only 1 Mindset - the mindset of now.

• Chapter 2 is about internal dialogue - what are we saying to ourselves right now?
• Chapter 3 is about identity - how do we define ourselves right now?
• Chapter 8 is about productivity - I wrote that we should be “mindfully productive” - which means bringing to each and every moment of every day (the now) that which is necessary.
• Chapter 12 was about creating your legacy. I wrote that legacy is living with consequence. When is that consequence created? Each and every moment of your life. Right now.

The chapters are collapsing.

I think this is a good thing.

It makes life easier.

I’m reminded of this…

Notes on a Mushroom Trip

Back in January I did a hallucinogenic trip using psilocybin capsules.

One of the things I wrote in my journal post-trip was…

stop worrying about what’s on the other side of the equal sign, just be, right now

(there was also something in there about riding a dragon and crossing consciousness with my dog, but I’ll write about that another time)

In other words, just be present, and stop worrying about what happens next.

As I opened in this email - this is hard for me.

It’s hard because so much of our lives are spent in our imagination.

This became clear to me during that trip because time ceased to exist for me during those 5 hours. In fact, I knew the trip was over when I experienced time again.

When I lost my sense of time it made me realize how much of our life exist in our imagination.

Our past is memories - mostly unreliable - and as such mostly irrelevant - we imagine what happened based on the bits and pieces that stick with us. (I say that as a person who spent most of my life there - and it’s torture.)

And our future is all imagination - impossibly known.

Nonetheless, we try desperately to make the unknown known - from insurance policies and retirement accounts - to marriage and children.

I suppose these acts of trying to cement our future in certainty helps us manage the anxiety of the unforeseeable.

But there has to be a balance, right?

Last night Pasha, Bailey, and I got stuck in the elevator in our building.

The elevator dropped quickly for a split second and then stopped.

For 30 minutes we dangled in a metal box,15 floors above the ground.

And yeah - I thought more than once that it could all end right then and there.

And if it had, I thought, what would have been on either end of that equal sign?

Would I have been proud of what had existed on either side?

Ultimately, I think life is deceptively simple.

And yet we spend our days constructing countless ways to make it difficult and complex.

Join me this week - let’s be resolved to do our best to put less emphasis on the other end of the equal sign.

Let’s just be - each and every day - just be where we are - with who we are with.

Until next week,

Chad