Within a half hour I felt the slightest flicker of light. Like I was holding a flashlight in my right hand. It was on low beam. The flashlight would dim and I’d tap it on my left hand and it would glow a little. “I can do this. I can face the dark.” I told myself.
My mind said “Maybe my pupils are dilating just a little bit. Letting a dash more light enter my eyes.” I’m sure my first microdose was more than micro. Probably more like a heaping 1/4 tsp of ground up dehydrated mushrooms. A ‘traditional microdose’ is more like a slight 1/8th tsp.
It was early October, 2017. I was scrolling Facebook and post after post were stories of my girlfriends being sexually violated. The more I scrolled the more helpless and hopeless I felt. First I thought “Hey get over it. If you’re female, you’re gonna be violated.” Then I heard a whisper- “Hey. This isn’t right. I need to stand up for sisterhood.” Another voice echoed. “I’ve never told anyone about my sexual assaults, not even my therapists over all these decades. I am not over it.” It was the first day the Me Too hit Facebook.
Later that evening my partner came home – I was still sitting at the dining room table scrolling Facebook. I barely responded when he entered the room. Depression was winning, pulling me down the dark stairwell of my inner basement.
My partner says “Why not try microdosing. I’ve read it helps with depression.”
Several days later while sipping on my microdose tea (heaping 1/8th tsp of Mushrooms ground up-closer to 1/10th a gram) added to my Chai Tea , I pondered how I felt waking up. Hmmm. I noticed my mind quieter. I wasn’t hearing the constant barking in my head “Hey, feel that cellulite on your outer thighs? Gotta lose weight, tighten up!” My inner exhaust system stink-bombing my head space. This absence had presence. I felt a calmness within a breath space of me. Something unfamiliar, yet familiar. Like a dream I’m almost remembering. I could see my life with perspective. I saw an empty stage. A limelight illuminating center stage. A microphone.
For years my therapist would say “Carola, I want you to know what subtle feels like. Like right now my palm is lightly touching your knee. I’m not slapping, squeezing, or pounding. I’m just gently resting my hand on your knee. This is contact. This is connecting.”
A shaman in San Antonio Texas said to me “Carola, if you want to meet the wild in the woods, you have to sit still and become the wild.”
Seducing the subtle first began as tracking openings. I can smell my neighbor’s perfume when I’m inside my office when she stands outside her front door. Tracking Openings.
With the absence of a barrage of self barking and growling, my self-talk became more audible. An underlying message was “I don’t belong here.”
Facing instead of fighting softened me. Softened my walls. Softened my fascia. In every sense of the word-I started melting. What I thought was a sharp image, was not really a self reflection. My self reflection of a soft body matched who I was becoming. Soft, round and supple is a female body. A resilient body that responds not resists. The harsh messaging-seeing myself as obese and all the judgements inflating that, as well as feeling unloved, unwanted, neglected and discarded, revealed itself-as distortion. Tracking openings, I heard the message as an inner misogynist. It was not me talking to me. Before microdosing, those messages felt like an inner echo. After I began micodosing, I could hear these same messages- a skin- apart from me. Hearing the message outside my breath and heartbeat.
Now I call it breathing room. Room to breathe. Pause. Catch my breath. Notice the sound of my heartbeat and breath. Now that I’m not crawling out of my skin. Now that my presence holds me, I can let go and breathe. Now holds me. I can let go and respond. I’m at the right place. Right time. Doing the right thing.
Science shows us that psychedelics help us build new neural pathways. Are you still microdosing? When do you stop? I’m not done building new neural pathways. I’m not done discovering and exploring what it is to be a human evolving. Since I’m not changing who I am, or changing the world, I becoming more of who I am. I’m not done yet.
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