Have you ever just sat down and thought about who you are and why you are the way that you are?
Deep personal self-reflection is oftentimes overlooked and underappreciated because most are caught up in the everyday lives of others around them.
One of the most humbling feelings that a human can experience is letting go of their ego and just being - being in the present moment, appreciating everything that surrounds you, and making an effort to look deep into yourself and discover the connection you have to your environment.
Now, I know that sounded like some grade A hippie shit, but I can promise you that just being able to live in the present and be accepting of who you are will begin to change the way that you look at yourself and the things around you.
I have had many self-actualizing experiences in my life and it started after I tried psilocybin for the first time...
The first time I ever took magic mushrooms, I had just moved to Las Vegas back in 2018. I was living in my apartment alone with my dog, Geno and I decided to try mushrooms alone.
Trying mushrooms alone for the first time is not something that I typically recommend but I didn't know anybody at the time because I was a new face in a new city.
My first experience was extremely enlightening - I laughed, I felt sensations that I have never felt before, and I was able to take things in and look at them from a different perspective.
One thing that I will say about mushrooms is that they are incredibly introspective - depending on your environment, you will sometimes get lost in your own thoughts because you are realizing things about yourself, re-living things that have happened to you in the past, and looking at things from an entirely different perspective.
You notice things about the world that have always been there but have never truly been aware of in your conscious everyday life.
When you look deep into your own soul in this frame of mind, your ego is completely stripped away from you in real time and all you are left with is yourself.
You begin to think about the things that have happened to you and their impact on how they make you think and feel.
You realize who your true self is in that moment and it is one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it.
You can't unsee re-living things that happened to you as a young child. You consciously forget about things that happened to you so many years ago because your brain is fixated on everything going on around you here and now.
One thing I find extremely interesting about the human brain is that it works like a computer hard drive - it saves everything you have ever experienced in your lifetime in a file and stores it into some portion of the your brain.
Everything you have ever seen, touched, tasted, heard, smelled, or experienced lives inside your brain somewhere.
When you experiment with psychadelic compounds such as psilocybin, these compounds have the ability to access these files and allow you to re-live things you have experienced what may seem like a lifetime ago and have no conscious recollection of.
So, when I say "introspective", this is what I mean - mushrooms have the ability to strip away your conscious ego and allow you to look at your life and the things that make you who you are.
Many times, being in this state-of-mind will re-hash past traumas and memories you have consciously blocked out of your mind.
This is the part that many people have trouble with - re-living past traumas.
The reason why I believe it is a good thing for people to be able to re-live bad things that have happened to them is that it now makes them aware of the thing they consciously try to forget about but still lives in the subconscious part of the mind.
If you remember how trauma works on the brain, trauma creates an emotional response that lives in the subconscious part of the mind that makes up 90% of your everyday brain function.
Thoughts and feelings that live in the subconscious part of the mind effect real time behaviors.
Many times, people will question why bad things always happen to them but they are completely unaware of their own subconscious.
People may be aware of the bad things that have happened to them in their past, but they are unaware of the effects of the subconscious mind.
Mastering your subconscious is a major step into achieving self-mastery.
Being able to fully understand the depths of your mind and soul and why you are the way that you are is the only way you will ever be able to truly fix your frame of mind.
Having the ability to strip your ego away, live in the present moment, and just feel will change the way you view yourself and begin to open yourself up to becoming accepting of things of genuine substance.
Self-reflection is a difficult thing to do - it requires one to let go of their ego, look deep inside themselves, and have uncomfortable conversations with themselves.
Most take the path of least resistance because let's be honest, it is easy to play the victim.
It is easy to point the finger at someone or something else as to why your life isn't the way you wished it was. This is merely a reflection of one's ego controlling their thoughts and emotions in real time.
Self-reflection takes time and it takes work.
It is genuinely hard to blame yourself as to why you don't have the things you want in your life, but taking full accountability is the only way you will then be able to continue moving forward and be able to accept the things that you need.
I have always believed that we are our own creators of the world that we live in.
While there are some things in the world we have no control over, we will always be able to control how things make us feel.
It has taken me many years and a lot of time alone to be able to truly grasp this concept.
Understanding the true purpose of having an ego has helped me be able to remove myself from things that serve me no purpose, and continue to focus on the things that truly make me who I am.
If letting go of the ego can help me, I am more than confident it can help you as well...