Microdosing My Way Through the Holiday Season
Whenever I go home to see family, I microdose - and I’m proud of it! The holiday season can bring up a lot of different emotions for everyone. While this is a beautiful time to connect with those who you naturally share so much love with, this is also a time where many of us have to confront old patterns and habits that just may not have been super healthy! A lot of emotional triggers come up for me when I see my family. Of course, I love them dearly and am so thankful for everything they’ve done for me to this day. And while I am so incredibly grateful for the difficult lessons I had to learn through their actions, it can be difficult for me to remember gratitude in times of stress (ironically, considering tomorrow is Thanksgiving). Microdosing psilocybin mushrooms has really helped me navigate through difficult emotions during these times of stress.
The holiday season is a time where a lot comes up. Some travel home to be with their families. Some of us stay home and host our families. Some of us don’t have healthy relationships with our families and, therefore, maybe spend time with close friends! And some of us decide to spend the holiday season alone, which can be difficult to do when we are surrounded by advertisements of happy groups of people commercialized everywhere we look.
The truth is that no matter what path towards experiencing the holiday season we choose, this is a difficult time for everyone in different ways. It feels funny to say because this time of year is so associated with connection to others, but this feels like the PERFECT time to go inward for me! When I say go inward, I don’t mean that I want to isolate myself in a room on Christmas Eve and take 5 grams of mushrooms with a blindfold. What I mean is that I am choosing to listen to the emotional triggers that take place on Christmas Eve, ask myself what it is I need when I feel “threatened” in some way, and honor that while being surrounded by others. And this is a difficult task. Personally, I would be much more comfortable sitting alone in my room exploring a psychedelic space with a blindfold than embracing my psychological triggers in front of my family and friends! Yet, embracing these psychological triggers is what will help me grow and love which is all we should be doing here on this giant rock. 🌎 Growth through emotional triggers is terrifying. Which is exactly why I microdose during these times.
When I am microdosing mushrooms, I feel that I am able to navigate through difficult times and emotions with ease. My mind doesn’t latch on to depressive behaviors and thought patterns the way it does when I am not microdosing. Instead of being consumed by my emotions like I usually am, I feel that I am just a vessel in which emotions are passing through and experiencing me. By disassociating myself from the emotions that I feel, I am able to be present and experience the love I am truly always surrounded by.
Notably, not latching on to old thought patterns and behaviors that do not serve me becomes even more difficult when I am visiting family. We all grew up in specific family dynamics that shaped our relationships moving forward. When we choose a path to healing (as so many of us psychedelic medicine users do), we begin to re-examine these first relationships with family members and how they have shaped us. We often take time to address how we respond to certain situations and change these responses moving forward to continue personal growth! This typically changes the family dynamics when we come back home and causes us to sit in a psychological spot that our minds and bodies are unfamiliar with. So, our mind and body responses are easily triggered into the old patterns just because that is what they know and were comfortable with for the majority of our lives! However, it is through these uncomfortable moments that we are able to re-wire new responses in our brain to replace the old, harmful ones.
Clearly, “staying strong” is not the easy choice here. Yet, with microdoses of plant medicine to help us through this challenge, it can be a reasonable choice. On a personal level, I like to think of the mushrooms as a superfood (which they totally are) that have the ability to help strengthen our brains! We are totally and absolutely capable of making it through difficult times ourselves, but the microdoses help open up neurological pathways for us to do so safely. :)
Of course, I’m not saying that everybody needs to microdose during the holiday season. Yet, as always, I do think we could all benefit from going inwards and paying attention to how our bodies and minds respond to what is happening around us. Try this simple exercise that you can even bring to the Thanksgiving table with you:
Bring awareness to yourself.
Ask yourself what it is that you are feeling right now.
Ask yourself what you need at this moment.
Honor it.
And through all of this, honor yourself. You show up to life everyday to do this work which is not easy. I’m extremely proud of you for being here and I hope you are too. Take this love with you into the holiday season and share it.
