How Psychedelics Transformed Me Into A Better Person

I first encountered psychedelics in 2006. At that time, I was a much different person than I am today. Several issues had plagued my life for a long time, yet I remained unaware of them, caught up in the day-to-day dramas of life.

But things have changed a lot since then, and psychedelics played a significant role in that process.

In this blog post I will share some of the ways that psychedelics helped me become a better person. I hope that sharing my story will help reduce the stigma surrounding these special medicines and show that they are capable of helping with many different things.

Improving My Mental Health

One of the biggest ways that psychedelics helped me was by alleviating a variety of mental health issues that I used to experience on a daily basis. For pretty much my whole life I suffered from depression and anxiety. There were times when I was unable to do anything, paralyzed by fear and hopelessness. It was miserable, to say the least.

I didn’t have much patience and tended to get angry and fly off the handle over the dumbest things. I wouldn’t say that I had a short fuse, but I definitely didn’t have much control over my anger in the past. Working with psychedelics helped me develop more patience and less anger.

While psychedelics haven’t completely eliminated my dark thoughts, they did help me learn how to love and embrace them instead of trying to run from them.

Quitting Bad Habits and Creating Better Ones

Another major benefit that I’ve experienced from working with psychedelics has been stopping the bad habits that weren’t serving me and creating new ones that actually do.

I’ve intentionally used psychedelics to help me work through addictions (tobacco, alcohol, and food) and to stop interrupting other people while they’re speaking.

In place of those bad habits I have created new ones—a daily yoga and meditation practice, weekly journaling sessions, eating a healthy diet, and just taking care of myself better in general. Although I put in a ton of work to get to the place I am now, I have psychedelics to thank for helping me get here.

Increasing My Appreciation for Nature

When I was younger I was always perplexed by people who found joy in simple things like sunsets, flowers, and walks on the beach. As a nerdy kid who just wanted to stay inside and play video games, I just didn’t get it.

It took just one psilocybin mushroom trip to change all that forever.

An hour after eating some mushrooms I found myself absolutely fascinated with the natural environment I was in. I remember being completely entranced by the birds chirping in the trees nearby, bugs whizzing by me, and the clouds floating through the sky.

This recognition of the natural environment has continued to this day. Psychedelics helped me develop an appreciation for nature that was missing prior to my experience with them, and I am eternally grateful to them for that.

Finding Joy in Life

Let’s not forget one of the most important aspects of psychedelics, one that is rarely mentioned due to the effort to legitimize them for the mainstream public—they can be fun too! A lot of folks in the movement try to downplay the recreational side of psychedelics but I think this is a huge mistake.

Just because psychedelics can be enjoyable doesn’t discount their potential for healing, spirituality, or productivity.

The beginning of the word “recreation” is “recreate”, and I have found that recreating myself through my recreational psychedelic trips has been just as transformational for me as the experiences that were intentionally created for healing or spiritual purposes.

And Tons of Other Things

Psychedelics have helped me with so many other things too. Here are some of the ones that made a big impact on my life:

• Increased openness (especially with regard to spirituality)

• More tolerance and acceptance

• Enhanced creativity and ability to enter flow states

• Increased compassion for myself and others

• Understanding better how my actions affect others

• An ability to see the bigger picture

• Highlighting the people I should (and shouldn’t) keep in my life

• Better life satisfaction

• Improved social relationships

• Increased confidence

• Better at dealing with awkward or uncomfortable situations

• Showed me what’s possible (although I still had to do the work to achieve it)

• Helped me find my passions

• Assisted with setting goals

• Learning how to surrender

• Keep my mind young and playful

After spending the last 14 years working with psychedelics, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve become a much better person than I used to be. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude, and I’m proud to be part of the growing movement to show the mainstream public that they have the potential to be agents of positive change in a world that is desperately needing just that.

#ThankYouPlantMedicine

Image by johnhain, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Festival Report - 2015 All Good Music Festival and Camp Out

The "Welcome To All Good" signs at the venue. Original photo taken by David Wilder.

The 2015 All Good Music Festival and Camp Out took place from July 9-11 at Berry Hill Farm in Summit Point, West Virginia. Headliners included Primus, moe., Cake, Thievery Corporation, Lotus, SOJA, and STS9. The full artist lineup for this year's festival can be found here.

Lineup and Performances

All Good Festival always offers a superb mix of genres, featuring jam bands, funk, rock, bluegrass, jazz, hip hop, and electronic—there's something for nearly everyone to enjoy. As usual, I was more-than-thrilled with the lineup this year. There were plenty of my favorite acts from previous All Good Festivals that I have attended: Yonder Mountain String Band, Dark Star Orchestra, Primus, STS9, Lotus, moe., SOJA, Lettuce, John Butler Trio, The Bridge, etc. There were some bands that I had seen before, but not at All Good: TAUK, Turkuaz, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, and Keller Williams. And there were a few bands that I had never seen before that I was really looking forward to: Twiddle, The Motet, Antibalas, Thievery Corporation, Joe Russo's Almost Dead, Cake, BoomBox, and Big Something.

Out of all the bands that I had the privilege to see, I thought Primus put on the most entertaining show, really captivating the crowd with some hilarious anecdotes and outrageous antics from bassist Les Claypool, in-your-face rock 'n roll, and psychedelic visuals (complete with two larger-than-life amanita muscaria mushrooms that framed the stage). Claypool told a story about a woman who shot her television while her children were watching Primus videos and how Nancy Grace from Fox News found fault in not the woman's act, but in Primus for coming up with a song named "My Name is Mud". Naturally, the band launched into the song immediately after the story—to worshipful applause from the audience.

Other highlights included Big Something, Turkuaz, The Motet, Antibalas, and Dark Star Orchestra. I wish I could say that I saw all the bands that I wanted to see, but as usual, it wasn't feasible to make it to all of them during the course of the weekend.

Location

This was my fifth consecutive All Good Festival, my first being back in 2010 at Marvin's Mountaintop in Masontown, West Virginia. The festival took a hiatus last year in an effort to find a more permanent location, after spending two years (2012-2013) at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio. A lot of folks didn't care for the Legend Valley location, which most likely led to All Good's decision to take the year off and move back to West Virginia. Many attendees I spoke to preferred Marvin's Mountaintop over any other location the festival has experimented with, but most were generally favorable about the new location in Summit Point.

Berry Hill Farm is flatter than Marvin's Mountaintop, and much smaller than both of the aforementioned festival grounds. There was not an actively-trafficked road to cross on the walk from the campgrounds to the venue, which was an oft-cited complaint I heard from festival attendees that followed All Good to Legend Valley, but crossing the road to get to the venue didn't bother me. Overall, I found the festival grounds at Berry Hill Farm to be nice. It is small enough to be cozy and run into the same people over and over again, but not so tiny that it became cramped with the roughly 12,000 people in attendance. 

Vendors

There were some solid vendors selling clothing, artwork, memorabilia, musical instruments, and food. Although all I purchased was an official festival t-shirt, there were some pretty impressive items for sale. I considered purchasing a hand drum, but was shocked at the price and decided against it. My campsite group brought a ton of food, but we were lucky to find a local vegan tent that had a scrumptious falafel pita sandwich with tempeh bacon, which we enjoyed several times throughout the weekend.

Weather

Aside from a brief, yet violent, rainstorm on the first day of the festival (which occurred shortly after—and not while—we set up our campsite, thank goodness!), the weather was pretty reasonable this year. It was hot, but it wasn't so unbearable that you couldn't make it from the campsite to the venue if you had the proper motivation. The fact that the walk from campsite to venue wasn't very long helped!

Overall Conclusion

I had a pretty good time at this year's All Good Festival. It wasn't my favorite year (that would be 2012), but that wasn't the festival's fault—it was mostly due to to how my group approached the festival this year and some uncontrollable events that occurred. I feel like I spent more time at the campsite than usual, mainly to stay out of the heat or just to rest. If I had to do it all over again, I'd make myself go out to the venue more often, even if all I could do was lie down and listen to the music by myself. I'm not sure if I'll go back again next year, but I'm not ruling it out. I would definitely recommend All Good Festival to anyone who is interested in listening to a lot of great music and hanging out with interesting people. Since attending All Good Festival 2010 (which was my first music festival), it has been a big part of my life and I am grateful for the opportunity to have gone to the ones that I did. Thanks to the festival organizers for putting on yet another solid event this year, and maybe I will see you back at the farm next year!

Grateful Dead's Final "Fare The Well" Tour

Image by Kevin Schraer, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

My favorite band, the Grateful Dead, is in the middle of saying goodbye to its fans with a final five-night "Fare Thee Well" tour that is taking place in Santa Clara, CA and Chicago, IL. I wanted to share my personal story about how the band has affected me over the years as well as provide some information about the tour for anyone interested in attending a show or live streaming the tour.

From what I can remember, I was first introduced to the Grateful Dead in 2000 when my mother gave me the "What A Long Strange Trip It's Been: The Best of the Grateful Dead" compilation. I may have heard some Grateful Dead tunes before receiving that album, but that was the first Dead album that I listened to all the way through, multiple times. Although I enjoyed the album at the time, it wasn't until I went off to university that I really immersed myself in the music and the culture.

According to Deadhead standards, I am a quite a latecomer to the scene—many fans have been going to Dead shows for decades! I went to my first big outdoor venue show in 2008, where Phil Lesh and Friends and Allman Brothers Band put on an amazing performance at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre in Raleigh, NC. I was completely enamored  with the music and vibes of the crowd, and ended up seeing many more reincarnations of the Dead over the years—The Dead, Furthur, Bob Weir and Bruce Hornsby featuring Branford Marsalis, Mickey Hart Band, Bill Kreutzmann's Lockstep Allstars, etc. I've also seen some of the Grateful Dead tribute bands like Dark Star Orchestra, Cosmic Charlie, and Keller Williams' Grateful Grass.

There's something indescribable about the music and the people that attend Grateful Dead shows—the Deadheads—but when I first saw Phil Lesh and Friends play live, I knew that I was a Deadhead at heart. When I'm at a show or a festival, I feel like I am at "home" with my closest family and friends. Although I didn't have the opportunity to see Grateful Dead play live with Jerry Garcia, I have cherished the moments when I have seen the remaining members of the band play live.

Over 15 years, more than tie dye t-shirts, meeting hundreds of fellow Deadheads, listening to countless hours, and several unforgettable experiences later, I am still a Deadhead. In fact, I consider myself to be more of a Deadhead every day. It has become such a big part of my life that I still dedicate several hours a week to listening to recordings of old Grateful Dead shows on podcasts like Dead Show of the Month and Deadpod.

The Grateful Dead brought us 50 years of music, thousands of shows and original songs, and a sense of community among the counter-culture. If you are interested in live streaming or attending the "Fare The Well" tour, I encourage you to check out Dead50.net. The Santa Clara shows happened last weekend, and they were both amazing. The final three shows are happening in Chicago this weekend (July 3rd, 4th, and 5th), and I hope you'll join the rest of the worldwide community in checking them out.

I need to end this post with a big "Thank you!" to the members of the Grateful Dead and the fellow Deadheads in the community that have been so kind to me and my friends. Although this tour marks the official end of the band, the music will carry on for a long time to come.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me,
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me—what a long, strange trip it's been.

"Truckin'" by the Grateful Dead

How Meditation Has Helped Me

Image by Kah Wal Sin, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

I was first introduced to meditation by my mother, who has maintained a 15-minute a day meditation habit for almost forty years. Her brother, my namesake, encouraged her to begin a meditation practice to reduce stress and increase focus. She learned the transcendental meditation technique and has noticed a range of positive effects from her practice.

When I was younger, meditation seemed to be a waste of time. Why sit for extended periods of time not doing anything? It wasn't until college that I became interested in meditation. I'm not sure exactly what led me to it, although I imagine it was a combination of my personal experiences and books I was reading at the time.

I don't recall the first several times that I attempted to meditate, but I do remember inspiring friends and family to meditate with me occasionally. My main sources of information at that time about meditation stemmed from podcasts, books, and YouTube videos.

Pretty soon after I began, I had developed a consistent meditation practice of at least 10 minutes per day. Every once and a while I would meditate for 30 minutes to an hour. Back then I liked to light incense and listen to ambient or relaxing music (Brian Eno, Sigur Rós, STS9, Indian ragas, etc.) during my practice. 

My meditation practice deepened further post-college, when I delved into books specifically about meditation and mindfulness. I recall reading Meditation for Dummies, which was actually very helpful for me and introduced many concepts that I still use today. I learned about various meditation techniques such as counting the breath, mantras, visualization, and compassion meditations. Each technique has a different focus and yields a different result.

I realized that after several years of a daily meditation practice, I felt calmer, more focused, more patient, and happier from day to day. It became one of the major focal points in my life, and I coupled that with a foray into yoga as well. 

A few years ago my meditation practice dropped off a bit. I was still meditating a couple times a week, but it was no longer a daily practice. Reflecting on that period of time, I understand why it is common to hear that it is better to meditate 10 minutes each day than 70 minutes one day of the week. The benefits of meditation come from a regular practice, not the aggregate time that is put in each week or month. I wasn't seeing the same benefits that I had while sticking to my daily meditation practice. My patience decreased, I became less-focused, I became more anxious, and I my average level of happiness took a dive.

I made a re-commitment to meditation this past New Years Eve, and have been meditating every day since then, even if it is only two minutes per day. Most days I meditate for 10 minutes, but the important thing to me is that I have reestablished the daily practice once again. Even after only four months, I have noticed a definite improvement in my well-being.

I usually count my breaths or recite mantras during my meditations, but lately I have been experimenting with several iPhone apps for meditation. During the most consistent period of my meditation practice, I spent a couple years with the Insight Timer app on my iPad, but eventually stopped using it. I have been using Samsara for nearly a year now, which is a simple timing app that invites a bell to sound at the beginning and end of a meditation session, with an optional interval bell as well. I really enjoy using Samsara because of its simple features and intuitive user interface. Within the past few weeks I have been experimenting with the guided meditation apps Calm and Headspace, which include guided meditations for different situations or goals. These two apps require a paid subscription, and I haven't decided which one I prefer or if I will continue to use them at all after the free trial periods end.

I will continue this discussion about meditation in future posts, with advice on why and how to get started with your own meditation practice, what to do when difficult material enters your mind, posts featuring various meditation techniques, meditation book reviews, and many more posts I haven't thought of yet. I am by no means an advanced meditator, but I believe firmly in the power of a daily meditation practice to transform your life for the better. I hope you enjoyed my story and will consider trying to meditate soon—I promise that if you make it a daily habit you will notice positive changes in your well-being and the way you interact with others. Namaste.

My Dreadlocks Journey

Image by [sjugge], courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

I have fielded a wide variety of questions since I started growing my dreadlocks in December 2012. The inquiries from family, friends, and complete strangers have seeded the desire to share the story of my dreadlocks journey here. 

During the first couple decades of my life, I didn't give much consideration for how my hairstyle could be an external expression of my personality and spirit. I experimented with several common hairstyles - bowl cuts throughout elementary and middle school, and preppy spikes and buzz cuts during high school and college. I even shaved my head with a friend of mine in college, simply to have the experience of being fully bald for a few weeks. Coming to the realization that voluntary baldness is just not my style was not at all difficult for me.

After suffering through all of those hair faux pas I decided to start growing out my hair a few years after graduating from college, with the faintest idea about growing dreadlocks. Three years into this experiment netted me 23 inches of straight blond hair, which became a fun part of my personality but my intention for growing dreadlocks did not go away - if anything it became stronger.

I studied the process of growing dreadlocks for about a year before deciding I had enough information to feel confident with beginning the process. Dread Head HQ was my main source of information, and proved invaluable for me during the initial stages of my dread journey. (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Dread Head HQ in any way shape or form, although I continue to be a satisfied customer!) There are also plenty of websites and YouTube videos that are helpful for learning more about growing dreadlocks.

Two of the major concepts that I implemented from Dread Head HQ were the importance of identifying a personal reason for growing dreadlocks and committing to growing them for at least a year before chopping them off in frustration. Figuring out the reason for growing dreadlocks gives someone on this path a foundation to hold onto when things get rough, and committing to a full year will get the majority of dreadlock initiates through the awkward phase.

The reasons for growing my dreadlocks stemmed from several changes that I made at that time in an effort to become a healthier and happier person. These improvements included eating more nutritionally-dense plant-based foods, running and exercising regularly, focusing on meditation and yoga, maintaining a healthier weight, becoming a better listener and friend, and getting a better handle on my finances. In a nutshell, my main reason for growing dreadlocks was to give myself a visual reminder to stay dedicated to my personal growth and continue to focus on self development.

As the years have gone by, my dreadlocks have taken on additional meaning for me, including signifying where I am on my spiritual path and giving me more confidence in my physical appearance. The aspect of "looking cool" has never been important to me, although I will admit that I feel more like myself with dreadlocks than I ever did in the past.

Committing to one year of growing dreadlocks was not a huge challenge for me. I had experimented with several self-guided 30-day challenges prior to growing dreadlocks, so I felt confident in committing to a full year. Little did I know how much work I would put into them and how different they would turn out from the image I had in mind, but one lesson that growing dreadlocks taught me was to surrender to the process itself. Dreadlocks are not the type of hairstyle that you put in one day and have the next — they must be earned!

When the time came to backcomb my straight hair into baby dreadlocks, I invited a group of friends to my house for a Dread Party so they could help me get started. Describing the event as a rough start would be an understatement — my friends were only able to backcomb about a quarter of my sectioned hair before they left for the day. I spent the next week staying up every night backcombing my own dreads and getting more assistance from two of the friends from the Dread Party. I decided to cut my hair length in half during this process to save time and frustration, which left me with only about 12 inches of hair. After at least 100 additional hours, I completed the backcombing process and started the beginning stages of maintenance.

Without getting into the minutiae of early dreadlock maintenance, I will summarize by saying that I spent roughly 10 hours a week palm-rolling, waxing, rubberbanding, washing and drying, salt-spraying, and re-backcombing stubborn dreadlocks with loose tips. During the first three months of my dread journey, I made an impulse decision to trim some of the dreadlocks with loose tips that were not accepting the backcombing process. That decision has left me with a head of dreads with various lengths, although I now regard it as something that makes my dreadlocks unique.

Ten months passed, my dreadlocks were still not locked, and they did not look anything like I originally hoped for. I made the decision to visit a local dreadlock repairman who untangled the webbed mess of roots to establish dreadlocks that were separate from each other rather than the one huge beaver tail dreadlock that they were gradually becoming. This was the moment when things started to turn around for the better — my roots were secure, but my tips were still loose.

I ended up pulling the loose tips into their respective dreadlocks at the 15-month mark, which made my dreadlocks very short and awkward, but I was much happier with them. People even stopped asking me if my dreads were falling apart, which I always thought was a rude question but I tried to not let it get to me.

In fact, the questions I was asked during the first 15 months were engaging at best and frustrating at worst. I knew that having dreadlocks would cause complete strangers to talk to me, but I wasn't prepared for blatant criticism from people who didn't even know me. There were several times when snooty folks told me they looked terrible or that I needed to get them fixed. I never considered chopping them off, since I had put several hundred hours of work into them and I knew that they would eventually be something I was proud of. Negative feedback has dwindled down to almost zero at this point, which certainly feels like something I have earned.

After two years of growing dreadlocks, I love them more than ever and each day gets better than the last. It is awesome to look at them nowadays and recognize the hard work, belief, and tenacity that they hold. They have served as an excellent visual reminder for me to stay committed to myself and continue on my spiritual path. I wish I could say that I recommend dreadlocks for everyone, but I recognize that most people don't have the courage or ability to look unkempt for a year or more. I hope that you have enjoyed this tale of mine and that it gives you a deeper understanding of the work that it takes to grow an impressive head of dreads.